The Graveyard of Space

could see a million million milesbut it was darker than anything on Earth. It was almost anextra-dimensional effect. It made the third dimension on earth, thedimension of depth, seem hopelessly flat.

  "Ralph!"

  "Go ahead, kid," he said. It was their first radio contact in almosthalf an hour.

  "Oh, Ralph. It's a Gormann. An eighty-five. I think. Right in front ofme. Ralph, if its scopes are good--oh, Ralph."

  "I'm coming," he said. "Go ahead inside. I'll pick up your beam and bealong." He could feel his heart thumping wildly. Five hours now. Theydid not have much time. This ship--this Gormann eighty-five which Dianehad found--might be their last chance. Because it would certainly takehim all of three hours to transfer the radarscope, using the rocketsfrom one of their spacesuits, to their own ship.

  He rocketed along now, following her directional beam, and listened asshe said: "I'm cutting through the porthole now, Ralph. I--"

  Her voice stopped suddenly. It did not drift off gradually. It merelyceased, without warning, without reason. "Diane!" he called. "Diane, canyou hear me?"

  * * * * *

  He tracked the beam in desperate silence. Wrecks flashed by, tumblingslowly in their web of mutual gravitation. Some were molten silver ifthe wan sunlight caught them. Some were black, but every rivet, everyseam was distinct. The impossible clarity of blackest space....

  "Ralph?" Her voice came suddenly.

  "Yes, Diane. Yes. What is it?"

  "What a curious thing. I stopped blasting at the port hole. I'm notgoing in that way. The airlock, Ralph."

  "What about the airlock?"

  "It opened up on me. It swung out into space, all of a sudden. I'm goingin, Ralph."

  Fear, unexpected, inexplicable, gripped him. "Don't," he said. "Wait forme."

  "That's silly, Ralph. We barely have time. I'm going in now, Ralph.There. I'm closing the outer door. I wonder if the pressure will buildup for me. If it doesn't, I'll blast the outer door with my rockets andget out of here.... Ralph! The light's blinking. The pressures building.The inner door is beginning to open, Ralph. I'm going inside now."

  He was still tracking the beam. He thought he was close now, a hundredmiles perhaps. A hundred miles by suit rocket was merely a few secondsbut somehow the fear was still with him. It was that skeleton, hethought. That skeleton had unnerved him.

  "Ralph. It's here, Ralph. A radarscope just like ours. Oh, Ralph, it'sin perfect shape."

  "I'm coming," he said. A big old Bartson Cruiser tumbled by end overend, a thousand tonner, the largest ship he had seen in here so far. Atsome of the portholes as he flashed by he could see faces, dead facesstaring into space forever.

  Then Diane's voice suddenly: "Is that you, Ralph?"

  "I'm still about fifty miles out," he said automatically, and then coldfear, real fear, gripped him. _Is that you, Ralph?_

  "Ralph, is that--oh, Ralph. Ralph--" she screamed, and was silent.

  "Diane! Diane, answer me."

  Silence. She had seen someone--something. Alive? It hardly seemedpossible. He tried to notch his rocket controls further toward fullpower, but they were straining already--

  The dead ships flashed by, scores of them, hundreds, with dead men anddead dreams inside, waiting through eternity, in no hurry to give uptheir corpses and corpses of dreams.

  He heard Diane again then, a single agonized scream. Then there wassilence, absolute silence.

  Time seemed frozen, frozen like the faces of the dead men inside theships, suspended, unmoving, not dropping into the well of the past. Theships crawled by now, crawled. And from a long way off he saw theGormann eighty-five. He knew it was the right ship because the outerairlock door had swung open again. It hung there in space, the lockgaping--

  But it was a long way off.

  He hardly seemed to be approaching it at all. Every few seconds hecalled Diane's name, but there was no answer. No answer. Time crawledwith the fear icy now, as cold as death, in the pit of his stomach, withthe fear making his heart pound rapidly, with the fear making itimpossible for him to think. Fear--for Diane. I love you, Di, hethought. I love you. I never stopped loving you. We were wrong. We werecrazy wrong. It was like a sargasso, inside of us, an emptiness whichneeded filling--but we were wrong. Diane--

  * * * * *

  He reached the Gormann and plunged inside the airlock, swinging theouter door shut behind him. He waited. Would the pressure build upagain, as it had built up for Diane? He did not know. He could onlywait--

  A red light blinked over his head, on and off, on and off as pressurewas built. Then it stopped.

  Fifteen pounds of pressure in the airlock, which meant that the innerdoor should open. He ran forward, rammed his shoulder against it,tumbled through. He entered a narrow companionway and clomped awkwardlytoward the front of the ship, where the radarscope would be located.

  He passed a skeleton in the companionway, like the one he had seen inanother ship. For the same reason, he thought. He had time to thinkthat. And then he saw them.

  Diane. On the floor, her spacesuit off her now, a great bruise,blue-ugly bruise across her temple. Unconscious.

  And the thing which hovered over her.

  At first he did not know what it was, but he leaped at it. It turned,snarling. There was air in the ship and he wondered about that. He didnot have time to wonder. The thing was like some monstrous, misshapencreature, a man--yes, but a man to give you nightmares. Bent andmisshapen, gnarled, twisted like the roots of an ancient tree, with awild growth of beard, white beard, heavy across the chest, with bentlimbs powerfully muscled and a gaunt face, like a death's head. And theeyes--the eyes were wild, staring vacantly, almost glazed as in death.The eyes stared at him and through him and then he closed with thisthing which had felled Diane.

  It had incredible strength. The strength of the insane. It drove Ralphback across the cabin and Ralph, encumbered by his spacesuit, could onlyfight awkwardly. It drove him back and it found something on the floor,the metal leg of what once had been a chair, and slammed it down acrossthe faceplate of Ralph's spacesuit.

  Ralph staggered, fell to his knees. He had absorbed the blow on thecrown of his skull through the helmet of the suit, and it dazed him. Thething struck again, and Ralph felt himself falling....

  Somehow, he climbed to his feet again. The thing was back over Diane'sstill form again, looking at her, its eyes staring and vacant. Spittledrooled from the lips--

  Then Ralph was wrestling with it again. The thing was almost protean. Itall but seemed to change its shape and writhe from Ralph's grasp as theystruggled across the cabin, but this time there was no weapon for it tograb and use with stunning force.

  Half-crazed himself now, Ralph got his fingers gauntleted in rubberizedmetal, about the sinewy throat under the tattered beard. His fingersclosed there and the wild eyes went big and he held it that way a longtime, then finally thrust it away from him.

  The thing fell but sprang to its feet. It looked at Ralph and the mouthopened and closed, but he heard no sound. The teeth were yellow andblack, broken, like fangs.

  Then the thing turned and ran.

  Ralph followed it as far as the airlock. The inner door was slammedbetween them. A light blinked over the door.

  Ralph ran to a port hole and watched.

  The thing which once had been a man floated out into space, turning,spinning slowly. The gnarled twisted body expanded outward, became fatand swollen, balloon-like. It came quite close to the porthole, thuddingagainst the ship's hull, the face--dead now--like a melon.

  Then, after he was sick for a moment there beside the airlock, he wentback for Diane.

  * * * * *

  They were back aboard the Gormann '87 now, their own ship. Ralph hadrevived Diane and brought her back--along with the other Gormann'sradarscope--to their battered tub. The bruise on her temple was badlydiscolored and she was still weak, but she would be all right.

 
"But what was it?" Diane asked. She had hardly seen her attacker.

  "A man," Ralph said. "God knows how long that ship was in here. Years,maybe. Years, alone in space, here in the sargasso, with dead men anddead ships for company. He used up all the food. His shipmates died.Maybe he killed them. He needed more food--"

  "Oh, no. You don't mean--"

  Ralph nodded. "He became a cannibal. Maybe he had a spacesuit and raidedsome of the other ships too. It doesn't matter. He's dead now."

  "He must have been insane like that for years, waiting here, neverseeing another living thing...."

  "Don't talk about it," Ralph said, then smiled. "Ship's ready to go,Diane."

  "Yes," she said.

  He looked at her. "Mars?"

  She didn't