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Read Ebook: Top-of-the-World Stories for Boys and Girls Translated from the Scandinavian Languages by Krohn Julius Contributor Nyblom Helena Contributor Topelius Zacharias Contributor Young Florence Liley Illustrator Poulsson Emilie Translator Poulsson Laura E Laura Elizabeth Translator
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Ebook has 69 lines and 2553 words, and 2 pages
"Sometime tonight."
"Okay," Ingomar said. "Thanks. I'll stay inside."
"It's not so easy as that. You must blast off and put your ship in orbit for the night."
"Why? Do you know how much fuel it takes to get into orbit? I have none to spare."
Pisces II scratched in the sand with his claws, thinking. Then he said, "Only one alternative exists. If you remain, the storm will wreck your ship. Take us aboard now, and blast off for your home planet. To stay here means death."
Ingomar snorted and turned back toward his ship. He thought, "Take them aboard my ship? Not in a million years." He saw their plan, now. They wanted to get into his ship. Then, by some means he could not now foresee, they would take the ship away from him.
He was so shaken by this conclusion that he quickly retreated to safety, closing the airlock. The birds stayed outside. They were arguing between themselves. He could tell by the gesticulations they made with their heads. Once Pisces I attacked Pisces II viciously, raking him mercilessly with sharp talons. Pisces II fought back ferociously. They rolled over and over in the sand. Ingomar threw a switch that gave him communication outside the ship, and yelled at them.
They stopped fighting at once. He said, "Have you two lost your minds?"
Pisces II laughed. "Now how could one lose his mind? It goes with him everywhere."
"All right," Ingomar said. "I meant, have you become insane?"
"Of course not," Pisces I said. "We are peaceful entities. We intentionally developed this argument to break the monotony of life here."
"Is it so bad as that?"
"It is terrible. Will you take us aboard?"
Ingomar did not answer, but switched the communicator off and busied himself with recording his observations. He took advantage of their continued presence and took photographs.
Finally, after several hours, they leapt into the air and flew away toward the distant mountains. Ingomar was sorry to see them leave, and more than once checked his instruments for signs of a coming storm in case they were right. But nothing outside had changed.
After they had left he opened the ship and stepped outside, taking readings with instruments to record the character of the planet. He trudged through the eternally drifting sand, looking for some sign of life. No plants, insects, animals anywhere. Only the fine, mobile sand, occasionally an outcropping of rock not yet eroded away. And the heat! Ingomar was forced to turn the controls of his environment suit almost all the way up to keep comfortable. Then, when the sun receded behind the ghostly barren mountains, the cold came creeping in. Ingomar turned his controls in the other direction, while walking back to his ship. He was afraid he would not keep the cold outside.
The landscape, with the sun's absence, was dark and fearful. Shadows moved in the wind, shadows of drifting sand that took on the shapes of monsters lurking in the darkness. Ingomar was not one to frighten easily, but the night took on such ominous sighs and moans and movements that his imagination began to magnify them beyond recognition. When he finally saw the ship loom up before him he ran, stumbling toward it. He fumbled in the darkness for the control knob to open the lock and found it at last. He leapt inside, accompanied by a cold blast of wind and sand, and stood there panting, hearing his heart pound in his ears.
The night was long and lonely. He was too far from civilization for his radio equipment to bring the comfort of familiar sounds. He tried to read, but found concentration impossible. He thought of the birds, wondering where they were now, how they kept from freezing to death at night. He rewrote his notes, adding remembered facts and impressions. Finally he decided sleep was the most painless way of spending the night, and swallowed a small capsule designed to induce total sleep for at least six hours.
He awoke the next morning standing on hi
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