They did! Roberto had gone around the ship carefully questioning his men. No matter how delicately he inquired, whenever he touched upon what they might have seen on the E-screen the fear would come into their eyes. Some spoke directly of heavenly creatures, others embarrassedly admitted such impressions and a few averted their eyes and denied such thoughts. But the words of them all were edged with terror and awe.
Roberto and his shaken crew were slowly regaining confidence. They had made a jump into the White Space and remained there for some hours before being frightened back into the Black by a vague alarm. Nothing more than a quivering needle and a lighter patch on an E-screen; but they had remained hidden in Black for many hours and now they were ready to make another jump.
Roberto pressed the jump bar, throwing them into White Space ... and the golden fury struck!!!! A-ROORRR-UH!!! A ROORRR-UH!!! The board blazed red. There were screams on the intercom. There was heat and savage bucking with a crashing and screeching tear of ultra-steel. The E-screens flared with a terrible molten dancing of golden fire. Roberto punched in the Omega beams in a shell pattern, cut them and snapped on the force shield in full crackling Power. It flared greenly against the golden furies. The reactive thrust slammed hard against the hull and the ship went hurtling end over end. Roberto slapped the jump bar but the ship remained trapped in the White Space. Blue energy licked along the heaving bulkheads and decks. There were more cries and an odor of scorched flesh, and the corpse of his first officer went spinning limply through the control cabin. Something wrenched loose and crunched heavily on Roberto's leg before bouncing away. Too much red! Roberto cried within, looking from his crimsoning leg to the carmine lights of the board. He pounded his fists on the unresponsive jump bar. "Mama," he whispered in agony, and suddenly something connected, and the tortured ship tumbled shudderingly into Black Space.
Mrs. Sanchez sat in the twilight with the darkened house at her back and unmovingly faced the mountains. She heard the jet whine of the taxi helicopter but could not see it because it landed in front of the house. She listened as the whine faded. And in the silence she heard an odd step that she could not recognize.
"Mama."
The voice was different. There was no longer a smile under it. But it was Roberto's.
She did not answer, but as she stood the noise of her chair brought him limping toward her. She started to move to him but he stopped abruptly and she suddenly felt a new bitter distance between them that mere steps could never cross. In the dusk she stared at his twisted leg.
"Roberto," she whispered sadly.
"Call me Jacob," he said harshly. "I have wrestled with angels." He thrust out his crippled leg. "... and behold a man wrestled with him till morning. And when he saw that he could not overcome him he touched the sinew of his thigh and forthwith it shrank!"