Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 201: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

pretty well in there, but they were different. You know, you climb in a Jap plane, or a German plane, or a Russian plane, things are different but a wheel is a wheel, a handle is a handle, and a dial has pointers on it and figures, even if they're different figures. This thing, everything is different. You take that tie- down cable by the hatch; it’s a tie-down cable all right, you can see that; but It’s not laid like a rope, and it’s not braided either, it’s got scales. Now who ever heard of a steel cable with scales like a snake?” “You might be right about it being extraterrestrial,” Goodrich said. “Myself, I’ve had that feeling too, ever since we first spotted it.” He hesitated. “The trouble is, it still doesn't figure. If it came from another planet, why bring it all that way, and then leave it?” “Maybe they just finished with it,” McKay said. “Maybe they finished whatever work they needed it for, an observation post, say; and just figured it was easier to leave it than to take it back. Or maybe they died. We don’t know, that thing might have been here just like that for a couple thousand years, there’s nothing here, no weather or anything, to change it.” “| suppose so,” Goodrich said. “The thing is, though, we have to try and find out.” He glanced at his watch. “We'll have to wait till we get around and contact Control on it, and report. Way it looks to me, though, we'll have to look it over better, we can’t just leave it like this.” Brown shook his head. “I don’t Know,” he said. “I don’t Know if | can take any more in that pressure suit.” “Well, with a little rest we should be good for another ten minutes or so. You can stay here and take it easy, there’s a flashlight in the survival kit, I'll take that and take a quick look around myself.” “| hate to chicken out on you, captain,” Brown said. “| just don’t think | could do much good, I’ve just about shot CORniclooo SS CO