Kindt's voice trailed off into silence. At one end of the storeroom were several barrels, empty, their contents of wine having apparently been used by the passengers of the Cosmic on the trip out. And from behind these barrels a faint, strange babbling sound came, as of a mad delirious thing, haunted by fear. For just a second the voice rose, shrill, eerie, then ceased abruptly as though choked to silence. Listening, Haller felt the hair at the back of his neck stiffen. Then he leaped forward, tugged the barrels aside. Deep in the shadows was a small door. Muscles standing out in ridges, Haller ripped it open.
The space thus revealed was a small airlock, perhaps four feet square, through which refuse was expelled. In its chamber two indistinct forms were huddled. One was a girl, and the other a gray-bearded man, his hand over his companion's mouth. As the door opened, the man plunged forward, his face contorted in desperation, in frenzy, as if he had determined to go down fighting. Catching sight of the spaceman, however, a look of stunned disbelief crossed his countenance, his arms dropped to his sides.
"Earthmen!" he croaked. "Earthmen!" Then something seemed to snap within him and he began to sob like a weary child.
Haller paid scant heed to the man. Pale as a ghost, he stared at the girl. Emaciated, she seemed feverish, but in spite of her changed appearance, there was no mistaking that bronze hair, blue eyes, and slender form. Haller felt as though he had swallowed a lump of lead.
"Fay!" he whispered. "Fay!"
The girl swayed to her feet, gazed at him a moment, then gave a queer high laugh.
"But it's a dream," she said slowly. "I know it's another dream. Because Steve is on Jupiter where there're houses, people." Abruptly the girl's voice broke; her knees buckled and she collapsed in a heap on the store-hold floor.
Haller picked the girl up, turned to Barger.
"Got to get her to the Lodestar," he snapped. "Needs food and water. Here, you," rather abruptly he shook the bearded man, "what's this all about?"