Rocket from Infinity by Lester del Rey Page B

Father believed in Homer, so I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt—until there weren’t any doubts left.”
    â€œI want to thank you again for saving my life.”
    â€œSomehow I knew from the moment we set down that they would kill you before they’d let you go. So I was ready.”
    The car nosed carefully in and out among the grumbling, grinding boulders. At times, thunderous crashes were heard in the distance but none of them were close enough to send chain-reaction crashes into the area where the monocar pushed timidly forward among the great rock monsters.
    There was another period of silence. Then Pete became aware of small sounds and turned to look. Jane was crying ever so quietly, her face in her hands.
    Pete was frightened. He was out of his depth in coping with emotional females—and this new softness in Jane. It robbed him of the only weapon he’d ever had against her—a countering hostility.
    â€œHere now! None of that,” he said, a defensive gruffness in his voice. “You’ve been great. This is no time to crack up.”
    â€œI’m not cracking up. It’s just that…”
    â€œI know. You’ve had a terrific emotional shock. After years of trying hard to believe in Homer you’ve had to face things as they are. It’s not easy to take.”
    â€œI guess that’s how it is,” Jane sniffled.
    â€œBut you’ve got to admit that it’s better to know the truth.”
    â€œI hope so, because there are no doubts left now.”
    â€œJust be thankful he isn’t a relative. That way, family loyalty doesn’t enter into it.”
    â€œI think I’m crying for my father. He was so sweet. He was like Mother. He believed in everybody.”
    â€œHe must have been a great guy.”
    â€œHe —look out!”
    Pete’s glance had been momentarily on Jane. He saw her eyes widen in terror as she looked upward. “Look out! There it is again!”
    Pete jerked his head around and saw a great, dark shadow bearing swiftly down upon them.

CHAPTER NINE
    PHANTOM SHIP—KILLER SHIP
    Jane’s mood and manner changed magically. In an instant, her eyes were glowing and she was an image of razor-sharp alertness.
    â€œThere it is! There it is! You thought I was crazy! Now what have you got to say?”
    She was clutching his arm and Pete shook her off. “Let go of me! That thing’s trying to crush us.”
    That impression was inescapable. It was definitely a huge spaceship of some sort. At first glance it looked to possess a grotesque, lopsided nose of fantastic proportions. Then Pete saw that the protuberance wasn’t a nose at all. It was an asteroid against which the ship was lodged—fusion of some sort following a crash, he surmised.
    But he had little time to ponder this weird phenomenon because the vast elongated bulk of the ship was smashing directly down upon the monocar. Without time to select a path, Pete jetted the car into a sharp forty-five-degree horizontal turn and slithered out from under the monster with the hull scarcely three feet away.
    The maneuver could have driven him head-on into an asteroid, but he found the way clear. He jetted to the edge of a cluster well beyond range of the flailing hull and eased to a halt. Turning the car and setting his speed at drift, silently they looked back at the thing that had almost killed them.
    â€œIt’s—it’s impossible!” Pete babbled “What kind of a ship is it? How did it get in here?”
    â€œThe getting here isn’t too hard to figure out,” Jane said. “It drifted in—pushed its way through because it’s bigger than anything it encountered.”
    â€œBut what pilot in his right mind would permit such a thing?”
    â€œIt doesn’t look to me as though there’s anyone alive inside. It’s just drifting.”
    â€œThen where did they go?”
    â€œHow would I