“You were available and you can help Kordov. Lui didn’t make it.”
Lui Skort-that young medico who had been so enthusiastic about Lars’ drug! He bad been that third man.
“What- what happened?”
“We can’t tell now. All of this-the ship, her course, the freeze boxes were constructed on hope alone. We had no way of testing anything properly. The ship awakened Kordov and me. But Lui—”
“How long have we been cruising in deep space?”
“At least three hundred years-maybe more. Time in space may be different from planet time. That is one of the points scientists have argued about. We have no accurate way of telling.”
“Was it only Lui’s box that failed?”
Kimber’s face was grim now as it had been on that night they fought their way back to the Cleft.
“Until we land and start to rouse the whole company we can not tell. The freeze boxes must not be opened until their occupants are ready for revival. And the ship is too small to do that before landing—”
Coffins! Coffins were what they resembled, and coffins they might he for the whole inert cargo the star ship carried! Perhaps the three of them were the only survivors.