SIGNAL RED

Mercurian night settled black and thick over the Q City Spaceport.Tentative fingers of light flicked and probed the sky, and winked out.

"Here she comes," somebody in the line ahead said.

Shano coughed, his whole skeletal body jerking. Arthritic joints sentflashes of pain along his limbs. Here she comes, he thought, feelingneither glad nor sad.

He coughed and slipped polarized goggles over his eyes.

The spaceport emerged bathed in infra red. Hangars, cradles, freightercatapults and long runways stood out in sharp, diamond-clear detail.High up, beyond the cone of illumination, a detached triple row ofbright specks—portholes of the liner Stardust—sank slowly down.

There was no eagerness in him. Only a tiredness. A relief. Relief froma lifetime of beating around the planets. A life of digging, lifting,lugging and pounding. Like a work-worn Martian camel, he was going hometo die.

As though on oiled pistons the ship sank into the light, its longshark-like hull glowing soft and silvery, and settled with a featherysnuggle into the cradle's ribs.

The passenger line quivered as a loud-speaker boomed:

"Stardust, now arrived at Cradle Six! Stardust, Cradle Six! Allpassengers for Venus and Earth prepare to board in ten minutes."

Shano coughed, and wiped phlegm from his thin lips, his hand followingaround the bony contours of his face, feeling the hollows and the beardstubble and loose skin of his neck. He coughed and thought of thevanium mines of Pluto, and his gum-clogged lungs. A vague, pressingdesire for home overwhelmed him. It had been so long.

"Attention! Attention, Stardust passengers! The signal is red. Thesignal is red. Refunds now being made. Refunds now. Take-off in fiveminutes."

The man ahead swore and flicked up an arm. "Red," he groaned. "By theinfinite galaxies, this is the last straw!" He charged away, knockingShano aside as he passed.

Red signal. In bewildered anxiety Shano lifted the goggles from hiseyes and stared into the sudden blackness. The red signal. Danger outthere. Passengers advised to ground themselves, or travel at their ownrisk.

He felt the passengers bump and fumble past him, grumbling vexatiously.

A hot dread assailed him, and he coughed, plucking at his chest.Plucking at an urgency there.

Dropping the goggles to his rheumy eyes, he saw that the passenger linehad dissolved. He moved, shuffling, to the gate, thrust his ticket intothe scanner slot, and pushed through the turnstile when it clicked.

"Flight twenty-one, now arriving from Venus," the loud-speaker saidmonotonously. Shano glanced briefly upward and saw the gleaming bellyof twenty-one sinking into the spaceport cone of light.

He clawed his way up the gangway and thrust out his ticket to thelieutenant standing alone at the air lock. The lieutenant, a sullen,chunky man with a queer nick in his jawbone, refused the ticket."Haven't you heard, mister? Red signal. Go on back."

Shano coughed, and peered through the lenses of his goggles. "Please,"he said. "Want to go home. I've a right." The nicked jaw stirred faintmemories within his glazed mind.

The lieutenant punched his ticket. "It's your funeral, old man."

The loud-speaker blared. "Stardust, taking off in thirty seconds. Thesigna