Cosmic Castaway

By CARL JACOBI

Within a year Earth would be a vassal world, with the Sirian invaders triumphant. Only Standish, Earth's Defense Engineer, could halt that last victorious onslaught—and he was helpless, the lone survivor of a prison ship wrecked in uncharted space.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Standish came back to consciousness, a dull pain surging in his head and a feeling of nausea in his midsection. The room about him was strange: grey arelium walls, a single light burning above the iron cot, and a low vibration that trembled the floor beneath his feet.

For a time he lay there, fighting off a cloud of dizziness. Then he groped unsteadily to his feet. As he did, the vibration ceased, and far off he fancied he heard voices pitched in alarm. A bell clanged hollowly several times.

He recognized those sounds now, as his thoughts struggled to bridge the gap in his brain and the memory of past events came rushing to him.

He was on a Sirian prison ship!

The silence grew upon him, and he stood there uncertainly, listening. Something was wrong. There was no familiar drone of atomic motors, and there should be....

When the shock came, he was hurled completely across the room to the far bulkhead. Yet it wasn't a severe shock. It was as if the ship faltered suddenly and heeled over on her side.

Above him, Standish saw induction and exhaust pipes, coated with sulphur dioxide frost, writhe and twist like so many serpents. The explosion that followed was deafening. The floor buckled upward under the pressure. The door to the cabin was torn from its hinges, and a sheet of flame and a column of smoke gushed inward.

In an instant, Standish understood. The prison ship, well on its voyage from Earth, had entered the danger zone, that part of space swarming with planetoids and miniature planets. A sleepy pilot had failed to make the proper gravitational allowances. They had struck!

The ship was almost over on her beam ends now. It righted slowly, and Standish fought his way into the outer passageway, every muscle tensed for instant action.

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