"We've got to find cover," George said quickly. "If they're watching the ship with telescopes we'll stand out like fireflies in a dark room!"
Cautiously sliding their feet across the hull, Gloria and Emmett followed the pilot. Presently he pointed to a spot where a large section of the hull had been twisted back upon itself, forming a deep pocket. "This should be good enough," he said.
They followed his example as he knelt and crawled through the small opening. To Emmett it was like crawling into a sardine can. The space was barely large enough to accommodate the three of them, and through the spacesuit's tough fabric, he could feel faint, shifting pressures that indicated he was leaning against someone's back and sitting on someone's legs. They shuffled about in the total darkness until they reached a fairly comfortable position and then crouched in silence until light flashed all about them.
"Look!" Gloria whispered. Emmett stared through a narrow gash in the metal near his head and saw a group of Agronians approaching the ship. The starlight, glittering on their strange spacesuits, transformed them into weird apparitions.
Emmett closed his eyes and breathed a silent prayer. When he opened them again he could see only the unwinking stars and the enemy ship, which was still hovering nearby like a huge glaring eye.
"They're inside the ship analyzing our navigational instruments," George said as if he could somehow see through the solid metal. "They're a very thorough race. They probably know far more about us than we know about them."
"What are we going to do?" Gloria asked. "We can't just sit here until breathing becomes a torment—"
"What can we do? There's no place to go!" Emmett's heart had begun a furious pounding. His plight reminded him of how, in a recurrent nightmare, he had often found himself standing frozen before an oncoming truck, his legs immobile as he waited for death. He had always awakened with his heart beating furiously and his body bathed in a cold sweat, his mind filled with a sickening fear.
And now it was as if the nightmare had become a reality. He was waiting for death not in the form of a truck, but in the regular swish of air that tickled his ears as his oxygen supply was purified and replenished. Eventually the sound would change its timbre as the purifying agents became less efficient. The faint sound was not as impressive as the sight of a truck. But he knew that in a short time it would be just as deadly. And, as in the nightmare, he was powerless ...