Randall waited no longer, he raced for the open hatch of the cruiser with the speed of horror. He scrambled madly, almost dived into the opening and had the presence of mind to pull the lever that slammed the door shut behind him. He lay there panting, completely unnerved by the experience.
Dishevelled and horror-stricken was the way Scotty and Dallas found him, when on hearing the hatch clang shut, they rushed in to investigate.
"What happened, an attack? Koerber's men?" Scotty queried.
"Speak up, Randall!" Dallas shook him briefly. "What was it? You look as if you'd seen a ghost!"
"There's something out there.... I don't know what it is, but it's alive. It almost got me!" He shuddered.
"Something alive on this barren world? Unless it was one of Koerber's men, you've been seeing ghosts again, kid!" Scotty said not unkindly. He was well aware of spacemen's mirage, the affliction that sometimes drove newcomers mad.
"It was real," Randall persisted. "And it was alive ... a glowing globe of energy that hung just above me, a few feet away. I blasted at it with my gun, and it just spun, then came forward."
He rose from the floor and moved over to the starboard port to look outside. Scotty and Dallas stood beside him. They gazed curiously in every direction, as far as they could see.
"Don't see a thing," Dallas said stolidly. "Come on, son! I'll fix you a sedative," he said contemptuously.