Stewart tried to scream himself awake but couldn't. He only flailed helplessly in the void while monstrous wings thrashed space into a frenzy, producing great currents that set the stars themselves to eddying and swirling.
They dived at him, but before their talons could sink into his flesh he awoke trembling and cold in his twisted, moist clothes.
For a long while he merely lay there trying to wash his mind of the horror. But the steady whine of the subspace drive reminded him that the Photon was streaking in the direction of the Hyades. That it would end its headlong plunge in the Aldebaran system, only halfway there, brought no relief from his baseless, unreasonable fear.
When he returned to the control compartment, the ship was back in normal space and within Aldebaran Four-B's gravitational field.
He joined Carol Cummings in the forward section, hooking his arm through a view-port strap and mooring himself against null gravity.
"You suppose we're home free?" she asked uncertainly.
Her normally effusive smile, he noticed, had moderated considerably. "If McAllister doesn't louse up his landing."
"I take it he's not very efficient."
"Pure and simple understatement. Last time out he missed an entire continent. It was a case for Search and Rescue."
Carol pressed forward and soft light from Aldebaran Four, off the port bow, warmed her sculpturesque features with primrose high lights. "I should imagine he would have been cashiered."