Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

ladder of his backbone again. The words from the speaker were soothing, but the message was one to chill the blood. For one thing, the voice lied. It sooke of communication with the Delilah's base. That was lie number one. It said there was no reason to be disturbed. That was lie number two and on up to infinity. Liners did not cut their overdrives in mid-voyage. If and when an overdrive went off—and was lied about—everybody on board the ship was_ dead. Automatically. But unfortunately they didn’t act dead. Brent waited, feeling sick inside. Then he got up stiffly from his bunk. He put on his clothes. There was no port in his cabin, of course. In overdrive there is nothing to be seen anyhow except out the bow, control-room ports. Overdrive is travel at the speed of light multiplied many times—the multiplier depending on the type of drive. For almost two centuries humanity had nothing faster than interplanetary drive, and was confined to its home solar system in consequence, because from Sol to its nearest neighbor was four and a half light-years, which would have taken centuries to travel. On overdrive, nowadays, a freighter makes it in a week and a crack liner in a fraction of that time. But they do it in overdrive. Overdrive! If the overdrive goes, the trip is finished. Period. Brent parted his hair carefully before he went out of his cabin. It was quite absurd. He was thinking. The overdrive’s blown. I’ve got to look after that girl. |t was a curious thing to drink, because he was of the Profession; and besides, she had never spoken to him. He knew that her name was Kit Harlow and that she was wonderfully pleasing to look at. But there had been a reason for not trying to make her acquaintance. Some very strange things had happened. A planet named Derik had been discovered, most unexpectedly, to have all its cities filled with skeletons and all its treasures looted. Another planet named Tren Ill was found to have all its citizens rotting in the streets of its looted cities. CORniclooo SS (SO)