r this, but I didn't
dare expect it."

"What?"

"Look around. What do you see?"

"Nothing but an empty room. It's shaped like half an orange, and it has
a lot of funny instruments and dials on the walls, and a video screen
overhead. But that's all. Why--what's so unusual about it? It looks just
like someone had left it."

"That's the point. There's nothing essential that's missing. They didn't
cannibalize the instruments--and they didn't come back."

"Why not?"

"Maybe because that curse you mentioned a few minutes ago was real."

Copper drew back. "But you said it wouldn't hurt us--"

"Not now. The heat's practically gone, but when whoever flew this crate
came here, the whole shell could have been as hot as a Samarian summer."

"But couldn't they have come back when it cooled?"

"Not with this kind of heat. The hull was probably too radioactive to
approach from the outside. And radioactivity cools off slowly. It might
take several lifetimes for its level to become low enough to approach if
there was no decontamination equipment available."

"I suppose that's why the early ones thought the Egg was cursed."

Kennon nodded. "Now let's check--oh! oh! what's this?" He pointed to a
metal-backed book lying on the control panel.

"It looks like a book," Copper said.

"I'm hoping it's the book."

"The book?"

"Yes--the ship's log. It's possible. And if it is, we may have all the
evidence we need--Copper!--Don't touch it!"

"Why not?"

"Because its position has to be recorded first. Wait until we get the
camera and recorders set up."

* * *

Gingerly Kennon opened the ancient book. The sheets inside were
brittle--crumbling with age--but he could make out the title U.N.S.S.
Wanderer with the date of launching and a lower line which read "Ship's
Log." Kennon was thankful for his medical training. The four years
of Classical English that he had despised so much were essential now.
Stumbling over unfamiliar words and phrases, he moved slowly through
the log tracing the old ship's history from pleasure craft to short-haul
freight tractor to obsolescence in a space dump orbiting around a world
called Heaven.

There was a gap of nearly ten years indicated by a blank page before the
entries resumed.

"Ah--this is it!" Kennon said.

"What is it?" Copper said curiously. "I can't read the writing."

"Of course you can't. It's in English--a language that became
obsolete during the Interregnum. I had to learn