Read The Island of Hope for Free Online

object’s bearings.
    "This is a spacesuit emergency transmitter," he said in disappointment.
    "Find him," Nomad barked while rolling his seat toward the control panel.
    "This has to be a corpse. You know these automatics."
    "Hugh, I want you to find him."
    "Well, as you wish. Just a moment. But after that, we'll go there and patch up that ship for our own use, okay?"
    Messages flashed on the chartroom monitors,
     
    Searching...
    Coordinates of the object...
    Zooming in the square...
    Object detected.
     
    An image appeared on the main 3-D monitor.
    A destroyed gun turret floated through space, rotating slowly. Its armor deformed by fire, its laser mountings twisted and crumpled. Behind the remnants of the large support skids that had served at one time to put the turret forward out of the body of the cruiser to outer space, a human body in a battle spacesuit trailed in its wake. The green lights of the emergency beacons on his shoulders and pressure helmet kept flashing;
    "The signal is green" Hugh exclaimed in surprise. "Should we go and check?"
    Nomad nodded gloomily, turning to the panel controlling the low-powered ionic jets. He really couldn't understand why he had the feeling of an approaching disaster…
     
    * * *
     
    He was awoken by music.
    It was hardly believable. Andrei's mind was still overtaken by traumatic memories, but through the continuous spinning of stars and frenzied flashes of vacuum guns, he was perceiving some other reality: a muffled music, quiet voices and the nauseating odor of antiseptic.
    He half-opened his eyes.
    Semi-darkness. The odor of disinfectant became more pungent. A dim light was penetrating a polarized wall.
    Two vaguely delineated shadows were moving behind the wall.
    Abrupt movement. A man's silhouette stopped dead in a strained pose. He raised a long rod that he was holding in his hand. Almost simultaneously, Andrei heard a sharp snap resembling the impact of two ivory balls, then a soft deadened strike and a high-pitched buzzer.
    Andrei sat up. The piece of fabric covering him slid down. All this had to be an illusion. His mind suggested an obvious explanation: he had died and his body was drifting in the eternal cold of space, but his dying brain had woven for him this strange, illusory world. These shadows…
    The floor was cool. He staggered across the room and opened the door a little.
    There was a strong smell of cigarette smoke.
    A bright light made him squeeze his eyes shut. When he reopened them, it became quite clear to him that he either had gone mad or had indeed died.
    An ordinary billiard-table covered with green cloth was placed in the middle of an octagonal room. At the far-off end of the table, leaning on a cue, stood a speaking likeness of an old space dog from a child's dreams: gray drooping moustache, hair cut close to evenly bronzed skin, and a leather vest concealing the man's bulging muscles.
    "Well, to be sure... Watch your step, man," someone chuckled behind Andrei's back.
    A thousand ideas whirled through Andrei's mind. 'These men were not ghosts.
    They were real!
    He'd been rescued!'
     
    He felt cold. It all made sense. Lowering his eyes and realizing he was stark naked, he burst out laughing, hoarsely and light-heartedly. Leaning against a plastic doorway, he sank to the floor, suddenly weak and shaking with sobs.
    For some moments they looked at Andrei, dumbfounded. Nomad smiled slightly, then chuckled, joined by Ernie.
    "You're too much, guys," he groaned, suppressing laughter, while getting a brand-new flight uniform out. "Here, take it." He held out the package to Andrei and waved his hand in the direction of the other door. "The shower's over there, at the end of the corridor. Sure you can find it?"
    Andrei nodded.
    "Go ahead, then. We'll strike up an acquaintance at dinner."
     
    * * *
     
    A running robot dexterously moved in the dark warped corridors of the dead spaceships. It was simple and functional. The electronic memory of the machine