Eschaton 1 – The Other End of Time

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dan

A while later-he had no idea quite how long it had been- Dannerman blinked and opened his eyes. The other four were stirring around him, and they all looked bewildered. They were in the Clipper, though Dannerman didn't remember going there. He had a recollection of his gun being in his hand, though he wasn't sure why. He glanced hastily around, in case it was floating in the nearby air. It wasn't. He observed General Delasquez looking around in the same befuddled way, and, beyond him, Jimmy Lin, looking perturbed as he rubbed the side of his head. "What the hell happened?" he asked.

Rosaleen Artzybachova said shakily, "I think I must have had a touch of micro-G vertigo."

It looked to Dannerman as though they all had. Everyone seemed dazed, and Pat was weeping softly. "All for nothing," she whimpered. "Hell."

Jimmy Lin said pensively, "Bad enough there wasn't any of that alien technology; even Starlab's own equipment is ruined."

"Ruined," Rosaleen Artzybachova echoed. She sounded more than dazed, Dannerman thought; in fact, really ill. It was her age, most likely, he decided. But she kept on doggedly with the litany of loss: "Electronics fused, power supply ruined-there must've been a plasma arc. A big one. There's nothing left worth salvaging. Might as well start back. We can't do any good here."

Dannerman was scratching the back of his neck-as, for some reason, so were the others-as he was peering into the pilots' screen at Starlab's hull. He pointed at the bulge that had no business being there. "I really thought that was going to be something interesting," he said.

"Just some kind of sticky space glop, I guess," Jimmy Lin said. "All right, get strapped in. We're ready to undock."

Despondently, the five of them took their places, ready for the long return flight to Earth…