Destiny Doll by Clifford D. Simak Read Free Book Online

why anyone would want to live in a place like this was more than I could figure.
    Actually, of course, I expected nothing. There was nothing in this sweep of desert upon which a man could build much hope. But when I neared the top of the dune—near enough so that I could see over the top of it—I spotted something on the crest of the dune beyond.
    A birdcage sort of contraption was half buried in the crest, with its metallic ribs shimmering in the moon and starlight, like the ribcage of some great prehistoric beast that had been trapped atop the dune, bawling out its fright until death had finally quieted it.
    I slipped the rifle off my shoulder and held it ready. The sliding sand carried me slowly down the dune, whispering as it slid. When I had slid so far that I could no longer see over the crest of the dune, I set off at an angle to the left and began to climb again, crouching to keep my head down. Twenty feet from the top I got down and crawled flat against the sand. When my eyes came over the crest and I could see the birdcage once again, I froze, digging in my toes to keep from sliding back.
    Below the cage, I saw, was a scar of disturbed sand and even as I watched, new blobs of sand broke loose beneath the, cage and went trickling down the slope. It had not been long ago, I was sure, that the cage had impacted on the dune crest—the sand disturbed by its landing had not as yet reached a state of equilibrium and the scar was fresh.
    Impacted seemed a strange word, and yet reason told me that it must have impacted, for it was most unlikely that anyone had placed it there. A ship of some sort, perhaps, although a strange sort of ship, not enclosed, but fashioned only of a frame. And if, as I thought, it were indeed a ship, it must have carried life and the life it carried was either dead within it or somewhere nearby.
    I glanced slowly up and down the length of the dune and there, far to the right of where the birdcage lay, was a faint furrow, a sort of toboggan slide, plunging from the crest downward into the shadow that lay between the dunes. I strained to penetrate the shadows, but could make out nothing. I'd have to get closer to that toboggan slide.
    I backed off down the dune and went spidering across it, angling to the right this time. I moved as cautiously as I could to keep down the sound of the sliding sand that broke free and went hissing down the dune face as I moved. There might be something over on the other side of that dune, listening for any sign of life.
    When I thrust the upper part of my head over the dune crest, I still was short of the toboggan slide, but much closer to it and from the hollow between the dunes came a sliding, scraping sound. Straining my ears, it seemed to me that I caught some motion in the trough, but could not be sure. The Sound of sliding and of scraping stopped and then began again and once more there was a hint of movement. I slid my rifle forward so that in an instant I could aim it down into the trough.
    I waited.
    The slithering sound stopped, then started once again and something moved down there (I was sure of it this time) and something moaned. All sound came to an end.
     There was no use of waiting any longer.
     "Hello down there!" I called.
     There was no answer.
    "Hello," I called again.
    It could be, I realized, that I was dealing with something so far removed from my own sector of the galaxy that the space patois familiar to that sector was not used by it and that we would have no communications bridge.
    And then a quavering, hooting voice answered. At first it was just a noise, then, as I wrestled with the noise, I knew it to be a word, a single hooted question.
    "Friend?" had been the word, "Friend," I answered.
    "In need am I of friend," the hooting voice said. "Please to advance in safety. I do not carry weapon."
     "I do," I said, a little grimly.
    "Of it, there is no need," said the thing down in the shadows. "I am trapped and helpless."
    "That is your