The Old Man of the Stars by John Burke Page B

there was an impact that smashed Matthew forward against the control panel. The enclosed world of the ship was filled with a great explosion of noise, a splintering and a scream of shattered engines.
    And then silence.
    * * * *
    He awoke to pain. His head and his right shoulders throbbed with deep agony. He felt sick inside, as though his stomach had been pounded viciously.
    Light struck at his eyes and he turned his head. At once it was pain again, so swift that he almost fell again into unconsciousness. Very slowly he opened his eyes, carefully not moving his head.
    Eve said: “You’re all right. You’re going to be all right.”
    He was lying on a smooth stretch of grass, through which a faint wind whispered fretfully. Above him the sky seemed monstrous, a great curve over this expanse of flat land.
    â€œDon’t try to sit up.”
    â€œThe others?” he asked weakly. “Everybody else—what happened to them?”
    â€œNobody killed,” she said soothingly. “A few broken legs and arms. But it could have been worse. Much worse. We drove into the mud at the side of a ditch—we went in a long way. There was nobody in the nose of the ship, so things weren’t too bad.”
    â€œAnd the ship?”
    He knew the answer without being told. The ship had come off lightly, but it was certainly damaged: and how, on a forsaken world, could that damage ever be repaired?
    Bellhouse loomed above him, looking down with a twisted yet affectionate smile. He said: “Well, Matthew, we made it. We’re here. This is the end of the trip.”
    â€œThe end? Yes,” said Matthew dully, “this is the end.”
    It was some time before he was steady enough to walk any distance. Bellhouse supervised the unloading of stores, ready for a long stay.
    â€œSomehow,” he said to Matthew a few days later, “I don’t think we’ll be making any more journeys.”
    They sat in the musty-smelling living room of an old farmhouse. There were holes in the roof, but this ancient building had stood up to the ravages of time better than most of the modem edifices they had seen. The main building and its outhouses served as a temporary headquarters.
    Behind the house was the gentle slope of a hill, at the top of which was another deserted house that could easily be taken over and repaired. Before them was the stretch of coastal plain that ended in a ridge of sand dunes. A warm breeze blew persistently off the sea, rustling without ceasing in the reeds and tall grasses that rose from the dykes and streams that made a complicated pattern over the plain. Here and there, along a ridge that stood above the level expanse, ran old forgotten roads, some of them no doubt dating back to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
    Matthew said: “It certainly looks as though we won’t be able to take off for a long time. To repair that ship here will be even more difficult than it was to get it into shape on Elysium.”
    â€œWe’ve got to make the best of things,” said Bellhouse coolly. “Here we are on Earth, and that’s that.”
    They watched Eve walking towards the farmhouse. She had been strolling across the fields, weaving her way in and out of the network of ditches, and bending over the wild flowers that sprang up from the banks. The eyes of the two men followed her, although they went on talking abstractedly.
    Matthew said: “I suppose there’s a great deal of resentment? I mean, now that they’ve seen what Earth is like, most of them will want to get back to Platonia, and it’s my fault that they can’t do it.”
    Bellhouse shook his head thoughtfully. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t believe it’s like that at all. They’re all interested. I don’t know what there is about the place but...well, now that we’re here, we’ve got a sort of feeling that it’s an important place. Our