Excerpt from The Lady is Blue
Dr. Lucy Stannis has asked the alien, Sa Kamizan Veedak, about his voyage to her planet.
“How was your
long voyage?”
“It was
terrible!” he said with an unusual trace of emotion.
“Tell me,” she
said quietly.
He took a long
drink before replying. “For many years
we wondered if other planets existed with more habitable climates. Our astronomers located several planets
around distant suns. We planned a
spaceship to search those planets. Our
planet, Vkani, was desolate and overpopulated, and at first we were perceived
as heroes. Later, the resources of the
whole planet were drained to build our spaceships. Three ships were completed with great
difficulty. We were exiled into
them. Thus, our voyage began
inauspiciously. We hoped it would end
better.
Many, many
tedious days followed as we located the stars with planets and eliminated them
one by one as uninhabitable. Most of the
time, we were in deep sleep between the stars.
Each time the waking grew more painful.
On the journey we lost two ships.”
“Two!” Lucy
exclaimed in surprise. “How did that
happen?”
“The first
case was mysterious. One ship had
separated from our small fleet to examine a promising solar system. They began to return, having found nothing
useful, when communications ceased unexpectedly. The watchers on duty roused me. We searched for the ship and found it
drifting in a huge cloud of yellow dust.
I sent someone to check inside the ship.
He entered. We lost contact, and
he did not reappear. A second volunteer
was sent out with the same result. The
yellow dust began to drift towards our ship.
I volunteered to go myself, but was overruled. My people were afraid. They forced me to abandon the other
ship. I do not know what happened to the
people on that ship.” While he was
talking, he had gouged deep tracks in the wood of his chair with his long
clawed fingers.
Lucy sensed
his tension and she shuddered. “It was
right to leave that ship. It was the
Yellow Death. I have heard descriptions
of it before. The rumor is that no one
has ever escaped once the yellow fog surrounds a ship. No one knows what it really is.” She grimaced.
“I think I will have nightmares about the yellow fog tonight.”
“I have them
often,” he muttered. He continued in a
slightly uneven voice. “The second ship
was hit by a stray asteroid and so badly damaged we had to transfer the
survivors to our remaining ship. We were
overcrowded and moral was low. The
epidemic illness started. The doctors
took medical supplies and isolated the sick.
Many people died. My ship was
half-crippled in a cosmic storm. Finally, we discovered a green planet with near
ideal climate. Unfortunately, it was
inhabited by strange humanoids with naked skin.” He bared his teeth at her.
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