Signal Red

by Henry Guth

SIGNAL RED

By HENRY GUTH

They tried to stop him. Earth Flight 21 was a
suicide run, a coffin ship, they told him.
Uranian death lay athwart the space lanes. But
Shano already knew this was his last ride.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

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Mercurian night settled black and thick over the Q City Spaceport. Tentative fingers of light flicked and probed the sky, and winked out.

"Here she comes," somebody in the line ahead said.

Shano coughed, his whole skeletal body jerking. Arthritic joints sent flashes of pain along his limbs. Here she comes, he thought, feeling neither glad nor sad.

He coughed and slipped polarized goggles over his eyes.

The spaceport emerged bathed in infra red. Hangars, cradles, freighter catapults and long runways stood out in sharp, diamond-clear detail. High up, beyond the cone of illumination, a detached triple row of bright specks—portholes of the liner Stardust—sank slowly down.