turned pale green, and grown large yellow fangs.
Only the Spanish garden in the common room was free of themonstrosities. Here, the combined conscious minds of the ten crewmembers were still strong enough to banish the rampaginghallucinations.
The ten of them sat around the fountain, which seemed a shade lesssparkling.
There were even rainclouds in the sky.
"I don't like it," said Bram Daker. "It's getting completely out ofcontrol."
"So we just have to stay in the garden, that's all," said Brunei. "Thefood's all here, and so is the Omnidrene. And _they_ can't come here."
"Not yet," said Marsha.
They all shuddered.
"What went wrong?" asked Ingrid.
"Nothing," said Donner. "They didn't know what would happen when theysent us out, so we can't say they were _wrong_."
"Very comforting," croaked Lazar. "But can someone tell me why wecan't control _them_ any more?"
"Who knows?" said Brunei. "At least we can keep them out of here.That's--"
There was a snuffling at the wall. The head of something like aTyrannosaurus Rex peered over the wall at them.
"Ugh!" said Lin Pey. "I think that's a new one."
The dragon's head appeared alongside the Tyrannosaur's.
"Well, at least _there's_ a familiar face," tittered Linda.
"Very funny."
Marsha screamed. The huge black snake thrust its head through aportal.
And the flap of leathery wings could be heard. And the smell ofsulphur.
"Come on! Come on!" shouted Brunei. "Let's get these things out ofhere!"
After five minutes of intense group concentration, the last of thehorrors was banished.
"It was a lot harder this time," said Daker.
"There were more of them," said Donner.
"They're getting stronger and bolder."
"Maybe some day they'll break through, and...." Lin Pey let thesentence hang. Everyone supplied his own ending.
"Don't be ridiculous!" snapped Brunei. "They're not real. _They can'tkill us!_"
"Maybe we should stop taking the Omnidrene?" suggested Vera, withoutvery much conviction.
"At _this_ point?" said Brunei. He shuddered. "If the gardendisappeared, and we had nothing but the bare ship for the next fifteenand a half years, and we _knew_ it, and at the same time knew that wehad the Omnidrene to bring it back.... How long do you think we'd holdoff?"
"You're right," said Vera.
"We just have to stick it out," said Brunei. "Just remember: _Theycan't kill us. They aren't real._"
"Yes," the crew whispered in a tiny, frail voice, "they aren'treal...."
* * * * *
_Seven months out_:
The garden was covered with a gloomy gray cloud layer. Even the"weather" was getting harder and harder to control.
The crew of starship Number Thirteen huddled around the fountain,staring into the water, trying desperately to ignore the snufflings,flappings, wheezes and growls coming from outside the walls. Butoccasionally, a scaly head would raise itself above the wall, or apterodactyl or bat would flap overhead, and there would be violentshudders.
"I still think we should stop taking the Omnidrene," said VeraGalindez.
"If we stopped taking it," asked Brunei, "which would disappear first,_them_ ... _or the garden?_"
Vera grimaced. "But we've got to do something," she said. "We can'teven make them disappear at all, any more. And it's becoming a fulltime job just to keep them outside the walls."
"And sooner or later," interjected Lazar, "we're _not_ going to bestrong enough to keep them out...."
"_Brr!_"
"The snake! The snake!" screamed Marsha. "It's coming in again!"
The huge black head was already through a portal.
"Stop the snake, everyone!" yelled Brunei. Eyes were riveted on theugly serpent, in intense concentration.
After five minutes, it was obviously a stalemate. The snake had notbeen able to advance, nor could the humans force it to retreat.
Then smoke began to rise behind the far wall.
"The dragon's burning down the wall!" shrieked Lazar. "Stop him!"
They concentrated on the dragon. The smoke disappeared.
But the snake began to advance again.
"They're too strong!" moaned Brunei. "We can't hold them back."
They stopped the snake for a few moments, but the smoke began tobillow again.
"They're gonna break through!" screamed Donner. "We can't stop 'em!"
"What are we gonna do?"
"Help!"
Creakings, cracklings, groanings, as the walls began to crack andblister and shake.
Suddenly Bram Daker stood up, his dark eyes aflame.
"Only one thing's strong enough!" he bellowed. "Earth! _Earth!_ EARTH!Think of Earth! All of you! We're back on Earth. Visualize it, make itreal, and the monsters'll have to disappear."
"But _where_ on Earth?" said Vera, bewildered.
"The Spaceport!" shouted Brunei. "The Spaceport! We all remember theSpaceport."
"We're back on Earth! The Spaceport!"
"Earth!"
"_Earth!_"
"EARTH! EARTH!"
The garden was beginning to flicker. It became red, orange, yellow,green, blue, violet, invisible; then back again through the spectrumthe other way--violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, invisible.
Back and forth, like a pendulum through the spectrum....
Oliver Brunei's head hurt unbearably, he could see the pain on theother faces, but he allowed only one thought to fill hisbeing--_Earth! The Spaceport! EARTH!_
More and more, faster and faster, the garden flickered, and now it wasthe old common room again, and _that_ was flickering.
Light was flickering, mind was flickering, time, too, seemed toflicker....
_Only Earth!_ thought Brunei. Earth doesn't flicker, the Spaceportdoesn't flicker.
Earth! EARTH!
Now all the flickerings, of color, time, mind and dimensions, werecoalescing into one gigantic vortex, that was a thing neither of time,nor space, nor mind, but all three somehow fused into one....
They're screaming! Brunei thought. Listen to the horrible screams!Suddenly he noticed that he, too, was screaming.
The vortex was growing, swirling, undulating, and it, too, began toflicker....
There was an unbearable, impossible pain, and....
* * * * *
The sight of starship Number Thirteen suddenly appearing out ofnowhere, and sitting itself calmly down in the middle of the Spaceportwas somewhat disconcerting to the Spaceport officials. Especiallysince at the very moment it appeared, and even afterward, theycontinued to have visual and laser contact with its image, over threelight-months from Earth.
However, the Solar Government itself was much more pragmatic. Oneinstant, starship Thirteen had been light-months from Earth, the nextit was sitting in the Spaceport. Therefore, starship Thirteen hadexceeded the speed of light somehow. Therefore, it was possible toexceed the speed of light, and a thorough examination of the ship andits contents would show _how_.
Therefore.... You idiots, throw a security cordon around that ship!
In such matters, the long-conditioned reflexes of the Solar Governmentworked marvelously. Before the air-waves had cooled, two hundredheavily armed soldiers had surrounded the ship.
Two hours later, the Solar co-ordinator was on the scene, with tenOrders of Sol to present to the returning heroes, and a largewell-armored vehicle to convey them to laboratories, where they wouldbe gone over with the proverbial fine-tooth comb.
An honor guard of two hundred men standing at attention made a pathwayfrom the ship's main hatch to the armored carrier, in front of whichstood the Solar Co-ordinator, with his ten medals.
They opened the hatch.
One, two, five, seven, ten dazed and bewildered "heroes" staggeredpast the honor guard, to face the Co-ordinator
.
He opened his mouth to begin his welcoming speech, and start the fiveyears of questioning and experiments which would eventually kill fiveof the crew and give Man the secret of faster-than-light drive.
But instead of speaking, he screamed.
So did two hundred heavily armed soldiers.
Because, out of starship Thirteen's main hatch sauntered a twelve-footgreen dragon, followed by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a pterodactyl, avampire bat with a five-foot wingspan, an old-fashioned red,spade-tailed demon, and finally, big as a horse's, the pop-eyed headof an enormous black