"You Captain ... you're defending 'im? Why you had a greater stake in this than we, and he's spoiled it for you!"
"Yep," Dennis nodded. "But I'm still keeping my senses clear. No feuds on my ship. Get it!" The last two words cut like a scimitar.
Dallas nodded and lowered his eyes. Scotty shifted his cud and spat a thin stream of juice over the iridescent ground. One by one they re-entered the cruiser.
Absorbedly Randall added finishing flourishes to the plate of beryloid he had just finished welding. With the heavy atomic welder in his hands, he paused to inspect the job. Inwardly he wished that Scotty and Dallas would hurry with that final plate. He could just barely hear them pounding it into shape, within the cruiser. Unconsciously he shivered.
Outside the cruiser, it was cold, and breathing was laborious, for despite the gravity, the atmosphere was thin, diffused. Besides, this shadowy world of dark crags and palely creeping sunlight had an uncanny feel, as if it were evil. For the hundredth time he twisted around and surveyed the rocky terrain behind him. Determinedly he squared his shoulders and jutted out his chin. It was bad enough to have muffed a chance to add glory to the I.S.P., not to speak of having the rest of the crew think him demented. Still the feeling of being watched persisted. Randall cursed his imagination, and over-wrought nerves that made him feel what palpably didn't exist. He closed his young eyes for a second and strove to steady his nerves.
He breathed deeply of the tenuous atmosphere and exhaled slowly; then he opened his eyes, feeling more calm and turned to make one final survey, and stood rooted to the ground as if petrified.
From a dark crevice in the jagged wall behind the I.S.P. Spacer, something seemed to glide effortlessly into the open. About twenty feet from Randall it paused and remained stationary, hovering above the rocky surface. It was perfectly spherical, fully three feet in diameter, and had George Randall not been hysterical with dread, he would have seen that it was exquisitely beautiful, a softly shining, transparent globe that pulsed rhythmically with lambent fires. A wavering, lavender corona, like an aura, surrounded it as it began to spin slowly.
From nerveless hands the atomic welder dropped to the ground, as a wave of surging panic engulfed Randall. With an eerie, half-strangled scream he clawed for the atom-blast at his hip. He had a brief impression that the globe was sentiently alive, and that something that felt like tendrils of fire probed his brain. His hair stood on end as the icy fear deepened to the verge of madness.
"Scotty! Dallas!" He shouted, and then realized he couldn't be heard above the pounding within the cruiser. He aimed at the globe and squeezed the trigger. The tremendous energy released by the atom-blast flung the globe back, by blasting the surrounding air in furious waves, but regaining its equilibrium the globe began to zoom forward again, undamaged!