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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Subspace Survivors, by E. E. Smith
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Subspace Survivors
+
+
+Author: E. E. Smith
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 30, 2007  [eBook #21647]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUBSPACE SURVIVORS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, L. N. Yaddanapudi, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 21647-h.htm or 21647-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/4/21647/21647-h/21647-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/4/21647/21647-h.zip)
+
+
+      +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+      | Transcriber's Notes and Errata                               |
+      |                                                              |
+      | This e-text was produced from Astounding Science Fact and    |
+      | Fiction, July 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any   |
+      | evidence that the U. S. copyright on this publication was    |
+      | renewed.                                                     |
+      |                                                              |
+      | A few typographical errors have been marked in the text with |
+      | a nearby footnote.                                           |
+      |                                                              |
+      | There was one instance each of 'hyperspace' and              |
+      | 'hyper-space'. There was one instance of 'hook-up' and one   |
+      | of 'hookups'. These hyphenations were not changed.           |
+      +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+SUBSPACE SURVIVORS
+
+by
+
+EDWARD E. SMITH, Ph. D.
+
+Illustrated by van Dongen
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+  | _There has always been, and will always be, the problem of   |
+  | surviving the experience that any trained expert can handle  |
+  | ... when there hasn't been any first survivor to be an       |
+  | expert! When no one has ever gotten back to explain what     |
+  | happened...._                                                |
+  +--------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+I.
+
+"All passengers, will you[1] pay attention, please?" All the
+high-fidelity speakers of the starship _Procyon_ spoke as one, in the
+skillfully-modulated voice of the trained announcer. "This is the fourth
+and last cautionary announcement. Any who are not seated will seat
+themselves at once. Prepare for take-off acceleration of one and
+one-half gravities; that is, everyone will weigh one-half again as much
+as his normal Earth weight for about fifteen minutes. We lift in twenty
+seconds; I will count down the final five seconds.... Five ... Four ...
+Three ... Two ... One ... Lift!"
+
+    [1] Transcriber's Note: The original read "will pay attention,
+    please?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The immense vessel rose from her berth; slowly at first, but with
+ever-increasing velocity; and in the main lounge, where many of the
+passengers had gathered to watch the dwindling Earth, no one moved for
+the first five minutes. Then a girl stood up.
+
+She was not a startlingly beautiful girl; no more so than can be seen
+fairly often, of a summer afternoon, on Seaside Beach. Her hair was an
+artificial yellow. Her eyes were a deep, cool blue. Her skin, what could
+be seen of it--she was wearing breeches and a long-sleeved shirt--was
+lightly tanned. She was only about five-feet-three, and her build was
+not spectacular. However, every ounce of her one hundred fifteen pounds
+was exactly where it should have been.
+
+First she stood tentatively, flexing her knees and testing her weight.
+Then, stepping boldly out into a clear space, she began to do a
+high-kicking acrobatic dance; and went on doing it as effortlessly and
+as rhythmically as though she were on an Earthly stage.
+
+"You mustn't _do_ that, Miss!" A stewardess came bustling up. Or,
+rather, not exactly bustling. Very few people, and almost no
+stewardesses, either actually bustle in or really enjoy one point five
+gees. "You really _must_ resume your seat, Miss. I must insist.... Oh,
+you're Miss Warner...."
+
+She paused.
+
+"That's right, Barbara Warner. Cabin two eight one."
+
+"But really, Miss Warner, it's regulations, and if you should fall...."
+
+"Foosh to regulations, and _pfui_ on 'em. I won't fall. I've been
+wondering, every time out, if I could do a thing, and now I'm going to
+find out."
+
+Jackknifing double, she put both forearms flat on the carpet and lifted
+both legs into the vertical. Then, silver slippers pointing motionlessly
+ceilingward, she got up onto her hands and walked twice around a vacant
+chair. She then performed a series of flips that would have done credit
+to a professional acrobat; the finale of which left her sitting calmly
+in the previously empty seat.
+
+"See?" she informed the flabbergasted stewardess. "I _could_ do it, and
+I didn't...."
+
+Her voice was drowned out in a yell of approval as everybody who could
+clap their hands did so with enthusiasm. "More!" "Keep it up, gal!" "Do
+it again!"
+
+"Oh, I didn't do that to show off!" Barbara Warner flushed hotly as she
+met the eyes of the nearby spectators. "Honestly I didn't--I just _had_
+to know if I could." Then, as the applause did not die down, she fairly
+scampered out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For one hour before the _Procyon's_ departure from Earth and for three
+hours afterward, First Officer Carlyle Deston, Chief Electronicist, sat
+attentively at his board. He was five feet eight inches tall and weighed
+one hundred sixty-two pounds net. Just a little guy, as spacemen go.
+Although narrow-waisted and, for his heft, broad-shouldered, he was
+built for speed and maneuverability, not to haul freight.
+
+Watching a hundred lights and half that many instruments, listening to
+two phone circuits, one with each ear, and hands moving from switches to
+rheostats to buttons and levers, he was completely informed as to the
+instant-by-instant status of everything in his department.
+
+Although attentive, he was not tense, even during the countdown. The
+only change was that at the word "Two" his right forefinger came to rest
+upon a red button and his eyes doubled their rate of scan. If anything
+in his department had gone wrong, the _Procyon_'s departure would have
+been delayed.
+
+And again, well out beyond the orbit of the moon, just before the
+starship's mighty Chaytor engines hurled her out of space as we know it
+into that unknowable something that is hyperspace, he poised a finger.
+But Immergence, too, was normal; all the green lights except one went
+out, needles dropped to zero, both phones went dead, all signals
+stopped. He plugged a jack into a socket below the one remaining green
+light and spoke:
+
+"Procyon One to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio Test
+One. How do you read me, Control Six?"
+
+"Control Six to Procyon One. I read you ten and zero. How do you read
+me, Procyon One?"
+
+"Ten and zero. Out." Deston flipped a toggle and the solitary green
+light went out.
+
+Perfect signal and zero noise. That was that. From now until
+Emergence--unless something happened--he might as well be a passenger.
+Everything was automatic, unless and until some robot or computer yelled
+for help. Deston leaned back in his bucket seat and lighted a cigarette.
+He didn't need to scan the board constantly now; any trouble signal
+would jump right out at him.
+
+Promptly at Dee plus Three Zero Zero--three hours, no minutes, no
+seconds after departure--his relief appeared.
+
+"All black, Babe?" the newcomer asked.
+
+"As the pit, Eddie. Take over." Eddie did so. "You've picked out your
+girl friend for the trip, I suppose?"
+
+"Not yet. I got sidetracked watching Bobby Warner. She was doing
+handstands and handwalks and forward and back flips in the lounge--under
+one point five gees yet. _Wow!_ And after that all the other women
+looked like a dime's worth of catmeat. She doesn't stand out too much
+until she starts to move, but then--Oh, _brother_!" Eddie rolled his
+eyes, made motions with his hands, and whistled expressively. "Talk
+about poetry in motion! Just walking across a stage, she'd bring down
+the house and stop the show cold in its tracks."
+
+"O. K., O. K., don't blow a fuse," Deston said, resignedly. "I know.
+You'll love her undyingly; all this trip, maybe. So bring her up, next
+watch, and I'll give her a gold badge. As usual."
+
+"You ... how _dumb_ can you get?" Eddie demanded. "D'you think I'd even
+_try_ to play footsie with _Barbara Warner_?"
+
+"You'd play footsie with the Archangel Michael's sister if she'd let
+you; and she probably would. So who's Barbara Warner?"
+
+Eddie Thompson gazed at his superior pityingly. "I know you're ten nines
+per cent monk, Babe, but I _did_ think you pulled your nose out of the
+megacycles often enough to learn a _few_ of the facts of life. Did you
+ever hear of Warner Oil?"
+
+"I think so." Deston thought for a moment. "Found a big new field,
+didn't they? In South America somewhere?"
+
+"Just the biggest on Earth, is all. And not only on Earth. He operates
+in all the systems for a hundred parsecs around, and he never sinks a
+dry hole. Every well he drills is a gusher that blows the rig clear up
+into the stratosphere. Everybody wonders how he does it. My guess is
+that his wife's an oil-witch, which is why he lugs his whole family
+along wherever he goes. Why else would he?"
+
+"Maybe he loves her. It happens, you know."
+
+"Huh?" Eddie snorted. "After twenty years of her? Comet-gas! Anyway,
+would _you_ have the sublime gall to make passes at Warner Oil's
+heiress, with more millions in her own sock than you've got dimes?"
+
+"I don't make passes."
+
+"That's right, you don't. Only at books and tapes, even on ground
+leaves; more fool you. Well, then, would you _marry_ anybody like that?"
+
+"Certainly, if I loved...." Deston paused, thought a moment, then went
+on: "Maybe I wouldn't, either. She'd make me dress for dinner. She'd
+probably have a live waiter; maybe even a butler. So I guess I wouldn't,
+at that."
+
+"You nor me neither, brother. But _what_ a dish! What a lovely,
+luscious, toothsome _dish_!" Eddie mourned.
+
+"You'll be raving about another one tomorrow," Deston said, unfeelingly,
+as he turned away.
+
+"I don't know; but even if I do, _she_ won't be anything like _her_,"
+Eddie said, to the closing door.
+
+And Deston, outside the door, grinned sardonically to himself. Before
+his next watch, Eddie would bring up one of the prettiest girls aboard
+for a gold badge; the token that would let her--under approved escort,
+of course--go through the Top.
+
+He himself never went down to the Middle, which was passenger territory.
+There was nothing there he wanted. He was too busy, had too many
+worthwhile things to do, to waste time that way ... but the hunch was
+getting stronger and stronger all the time. For the first time in all
+his three years of deep-space service he felt an overpowering urge to go
+down into the very middle of the Middle; to the starship's main lounge.
+
+He knew that his hunches were infallible. At cards, dice, or wheels he
+had always had hunches and he had always won. That was why he had
+stopped gambling, years before, before anybody found out. He was that
+kind of a man.
+
+Apart from the matter of unearned increment, however, he always followed
+his hunches; but this one he did not like at all. He had been resisting
+it for hours, because he had never visited the lounge and did not want
+to visit it now. But _something_ down there was pulling like a tractor,
+so he went. He didn't go to his cabin; didn't even take off his
+side-arm. He didn't even think of it; the .41 automatic at his hip was
+as much a part of his uniform as his pants.
+
+Entering the lounge, he did not have to look around. She was playing
+bridge, and as eyes met eyes and she rose to her feet a shock-wave swept
+through him that made him feel as though his every hair was standing
+straight on end.
+
+"Excuse me, please," she said to the other three at her table. "I must
+go now." She tossed her cards down onto the table and walked straight
+toward him; eyes still holding eyes.
+
+He backed hastily out into the corridor, and as the door closed behind
+her they went naturally and wordlessly into each other's arms. Lips met
+lips in a kiss that lasted for a long, long time. It was not a
+passionate embrace--passion would come later--it was as though each of
+them, after endless years of bootless, fruitless longing, had come
+finally home.
+
+"Come with me, dear, where we can talk," she said, finally; eying with
+disfavor the half-dozen highly interested spectators.
+
+And a couple of minutes later, in cabin two hundred eighty-one, Deston
+said: "So _this_ is why I had to come down into passenger territory. You
+came aboard at exactly zero seven forty-three."
+
+"Uh-uh." She shook her yellow head. "A few minutes before that. That was
+when I read your name in the list of officers on the board. First
+Officer, Carlyle Deston. I got a tingle that went from the tips of my
+toes up and out through the very ends of my hair. Nothing like when we
+actually saw each other, of course. We both knew the truth, then. It's
+wonderful that you're so strongly psychic, too."
+
+"I don't know about that," he said, thoughtfully. "All my training has
+been based on the axiomatic fact that the map is _not_ the territory.
+Psionics, as I understand it, holds that the map is--practically--the
+territory, but can't prove it. So I simply don't know _what_ to believe.
+On one hand, I have had real hunches all my life. On the other, the
+signal doesn't carry much information. More like hearing a siren when
+you're driving along a street. You know you have to pull over and stop,
+but that's all you know. It could be police, fire ambulance--_anything_.
+Anybody with any psionic ability at all ought to do a lot better than
+that, I should think."
+
+"Not necessarily. You've been fighting it. Ninety-nine per cent of your
+mind doesn't _want_ to believe it; is dead set against it. So it has to
+force its way through whillions and skillions of ohms of resistance, so
+only the most powerful stimuli--'maximum signal' in your jargon,
+perhaps?--can get through to you at all." Suddenly she giggled like a
+schoolgirl. "You're either psychic or the biggest wolf in the known
+universe, and I know you aren't a wolf. If you hadn't been as psychic as
+I am, you'd've jumped clear out into subspace when a perfectly strange
+girl attacked you."
+
+"How do you know so much about me?"
+
+"I made it a point to. One of the juniors told me you're the only virgin
+officer in all space."
+
+"That was Eddie Thompson."
+
+"Uh-huh." She nodded brightly.
+
+"Well, is that bad?"
+
+"Anything else but. That is, he thought it was terrible--outrageous--a
+betrayal of the whole officer caste--but to me it makes everything just
+absolutely perfect."
+
+"Me, too. How soon can we get married?"
+
+"I'd say right now, except...." She caught her lower lip between her
+teeth and thought. "No, no 'except'. Right now, or as soon as you can.
+You can't, without resigning, can you? They'd fire you?"
+
+"Don't worry about that," he grinned. "My record is good enough, I
+think, to get a good ground job. Even if they fire me for not waiting
+until we ground, there's lots of jobs. I can support you, sweetheart."
+
+"Oh, I know you can. I wasn't thinking of _that_. You wouldn't _like_ a
+ground job."
+
+"What difference does that make?" he asked, in honest surprise. "A man
+grows up. I couldn't have you with me in space, and I'd like that a lot
+less. No, I'm done with space, as of now. But what was that 'except'
+business?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I thought at first I'd tell my parents first--they're both aboard--but
+I decided not to. She'd scream bloody murder and he'd roar like a lion
+and none of it would make me change my mind, so we'll get married
+first."
+
+He looked at her questioningly; she shrugged and went on: "We aren't
+what you'd call a happy family. She's been trying to make me marry an
+old goat of a prince and I finally told her to go roll her hoop--to get
+a divorce and marry the foul old beast herself. And to consolidate two
+empires, he's been wanting me to marry a multi-billionaire--who is also
+a louse and a crumb and a heel. Last week he _insisted_ on it and I blew
+up like an atomic bomb. I told him if I got married a thousand times I'd
+pick every one of my husbands myself, without the least bit of help from
+either him or her. I'd keep on finding oil and stuff for him, I said,
+but that was all...."
+
+"_Oil_!" Deston exclaimed, involuntarily, as everything fell into place
+in his mind. The way she walked; poetry in motion ... the oil-witch ...
+two empires ... more millions than he had dimes.... "Oh, you're Barbara
+Warner, then."
+
+"Why, of course; but my friends call me 'Bobby'. Didn't you--but of
+course you didn't--you never read passenger lists. If you did, you'd've
+got a tingle, too."
+
+"I got plenty of tingle without reading, believe me. However, I never
+expected to----"
+
+"Don't say it, dear!" She got up and took both his hands in hers. "I
+know how you feel. I don't like to let you ruin your career, either, but
+_nothing_ can separate us, now that we've found each other. So I'll tell
+you this." Her eyes looked steadily into his. "If it bothers you the
+least bit, later on, I'll give every dollar I own to some foundation or
+other, I swear it."
+
+He laughed shamefacedly as he took her in his arms. "Since that's the
+way _you_ look at it, it won't bother me a bit."
+
+"Uh-huh, you _do_ mean it." She snuggled her head down into the curve of
+his neck. "I can tell."
+
+"I know you can, sweetheart." Then he had another thought, and with
+strong, deft fingers he explored the muscles of her arms and back. "But
+those acrobatics in plus gee--and you're trained down as hard and fine
+as I am, and it's my business to be--how come?"
+
+"I majored in Physical Education and I love it. And I'm a Newmartian,
+you know, so I teach a few courses----"
+
+"Newmartian? I've heard--but you aren't a colonial; you're as Terran as
+I am."
+
+"By blood, yes; but I was born on Newmars. Our actual and legal
+residence has always been there. The tax situation, you know."
+
+"I don't know, no. Taxes don't bother me much. But go ahead. You teach a
+few courses. In?"
+
+"Oh, bars, trapeze, ground-and-lofty tumbling, acrobatics, aerialistics,
+high-wire, muscle-control, judo--all that kind of thing."
+
+"Ouch! So if you ever happen to accidentally get mad at me you'll tie me
+right up into a pretzel?"
+
+"I doubt it; very seriously. I've tossed lots of two-hundred-pounders
+around, of course, but they were _not_ space officers." She laughed
+unaffectedly as she tested his musculature much more professionally and
+much more thoroughly than he had tested hers. "Definitely I couldn't. A
+good big man can always take a good little one, you know."
+
+"But I'm not big; I'm just a little squirt. You've probably heard what
+they call me?"
+
+"Yes, and I'm going to call you 'Babe', too, and mean it the same way
+they do. Besides, who wants a man a foot taller than she is and twice as
+big? You're just _exactly_ the right size!"
+
+"That's spreading the good old oil, Bobby, but I'll never tangle with
+you if I can help it. Buzz-saws are small, too, and sticks of dynamite.
+Shall we go hunt up the parson--or should it be a priest? Or a rabbi?"
+
+"Even _that_ doesn't make a particle of difference to you."
+
+"Of course not. How could it?"
+
+"A parson, please." Then, with a bright, quick grin: "We _have_ got a
+lot to learn about each other, haven't we?"
+
+"Some details, of course, but nothing of any importance and we'll have
+plenty of time to learn them."
+
+"And we'll love every second of it. You'll live down here in the Middle
+with me, won't you, all the time you aren't actually on duty?"
+
+"I can't imagine doing anything else," and the two set out, arms around
+each other, to find a minister. And as they strolled along:
+
+"Of course you won't actually _need_ a job, ever, or my money, either.
+You never even thought of dowsing, did you?"
+
+"Dowsing? Oh, that witch stuff. Of course not."
+
+"Listen, darling. All the time I've been touching you I've been learning
+about you. And you've been learning about me."
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"No buts, buster. You have really tremendous powers, and they _aren't_
+latent, either. All you have to do is quit fighting them and _use_ them.
+You're ever so much stronger and fuller than I am. All I can do at
+dowsing is find water, oil, coal, and gas. I'm no good at all on
+metals--I couldn't feel gold if I were perched right on the roof of Fort
+Knox; I couldn't feel radium if it were frying me to a crisp. But I'm
+_positive_ that you can tune yourself to anything you want to find."
+
+He didn't believe it, and the argument went on until they reached the
+"Reverend's" quarters. Then, of course, it was dropped automatically;
+and the next five days were deliciously, deliriously, ecstatically happy
+days for them both.
+
+
+II.
+
+At the time of this chronicle the status of interstellar flight was very
+similar to that of intercontinental jet-plane flight in the
+nineteen-sixties. Starships were designed by humanity's best brains;
+carried every safety device those brains could devise. They were
+maintained and serviced by ultra-skilled, ultra-trained, ultra-able
+crews; they were operated by the _creme-de-la-creme_ of manhood. Only a
+man with an extremely capable mind in an extremely capable body could
+become an officer of a subspacer.
+
+Statistically, starships were the safest means of transportation ever
+used by man; so safe that Very Important Persons used them regularly,
+unthinkingly, and as a matter of course. Statistically, the starships'
+fatality rate per million passenger-light-years was a small fraction of
+that of the automobiles' per million passenger-miles. Insurance
+companies offered odds of tens of thousands to one that any given
+star-traveler would return unharmed from any given star-trip he cared to
+make.
+
+Nevertheless, accidents happened. A chillingly large number of lives
+had, as a total, been lost; and no catastrophe had ever been even
+partially explained. No message of distress or call for help had ever
+been received. No single survivor had ever been found; nor any piece of
+wreckage.
+
+And on the Great Wheel of Fate the _Procyon_'s number came up.
+
+In the middle of the night Carlyle Deston came instantaneously
+awake--feeling with his every muscle and with his every square inch of
+skin; listening with all the force he could put into his auditory
+nerves; while deep down in his mind a huge, terribly silent voice
+continued to yell: "DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!"
+
+In a very small fraction of a second Carlyle Deston moved--and fast.
+Seizing Barbara by an arm, he leaped out of bed with her.
+
+"We're abandoning ship--get into this suit--quick!"
+
+"But what ... but I've _got_ to dress!"
+
+"No time! Snap it up!" He practically hurled her into her suit; clamped
+her helmet tight. Then he leaped into his own. "Skipper!" he snapped
+into the suit's microphone. "Deston. Emergency! Abandon ship!"
+
+The alarm bells clanged once; the big red lights flashed once; the
+sirens barely started to growl, then quit. The whole vast fabric of the
+ship trembled and shuddered and shook as though it were being mauled by
+a thousand impossibly gigantic hammers. Deston did not know and never
+did find out whether it was his captain or an automatic that touched off
+the alarm. Whichever it was, the disaster happened so fast that
+practically no warning at all was given. And out in the corridor:
+
+"Come on, girl--sprint!" He put his arm under hers and urged her along.
+
+She did her best, but in comparison with his trained performance her
+best wasn't good. "I've never been checked out on sprinting in
+spacesuits!" she gasped. "Let go of me and go on ahead. I'll follow----"
+
+Everything went out. Lights, gravity, air-circulation--everything.
+
+"You haven't been checked out on free fall, either. Hang onto this
+tool-hanger here on my belt and we'll travel."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Where to?" she asked, hurtling through the air much faster than she had
+ever gone on foot.
+
+"Baby Two--that is, Lifecraft Number Two--my crash assignment. Good
+thing I was down here in the Middle; I'd never have made it from up Top.
+Next corridor left, I think." Then, as the light of his headlamp showed
+numbers on the wall: "Yes. Square left. I'll swing you."
+
+He swung her and they shot to the end of the passage. He kicked a lever
+and the lifecraft's port swung open--to reveal a blaze of light and a
+startled, gray-haired man.
+
+"What happened.... What hap ...?" the man began.
+
+"Wrecked. We've had it. We're abandoning ship. Get into that cubby over
+there, shut the door tight behind you, and _stay there_!"
+
+"But can't I do something to help?"
+
+"Without a suit and not knowing how to use one? You'd get burned to a
+cinder. Get in there--and _jump_!"
+
+The oldster jumped and Deston turned to his wife. "Stay here at the
+port, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What does
+your telltale read? That gauge there--your radiation meter. It reads
+twenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roust
+out some passengers and toss 'em to you--you toss 'em along in there.
+Can do?"
+
+She was white and trembling; she was very evidently on the verge of
+being violently sick; but she was far from being out of control. "Can
+do, sir."
+
+"Good girl, sweetheart. Hang on one minute more and we'll have gravity
+and you'll be O. K."
+
+The first five doors he tried were locked; and, since they were made of
+armor plate, there was nothing he could do about them except give each
+one a resounding kick with a heavy steel boot. The sixth was unlocked,
+but the passengers--a man and a woman--were very evidently and very
+gruesomely dead.
+
+So was everyone else he could find until he came to a room in which a
+man in a spacesuit was floundering helplessly in the air. He glanced at
+his telltale. Thirty-two. High in the red, almost against the pin.
+
+"Bobby! What do you read?"
+
+"Twenty-six."
+
+"Good. I've found only one, but we're running out of time. I'm coming
+in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the lifecraft he closed the port and slammed on full drive away from
+the ship. Then, wheeling, he shucked Barbara out of her suit like an ear
+of corn and shed his own. He picked up a fire-extinguisher-like affair
+and jerked open the door of a room a little larger than a clothes
+closet. "Jump in here!" He slammed the door shut. "Now strip, quick!" He
+picked the canister up and twisted four valves.
+
+Before he could get the gun into working position she was out of her
+pajamas--the fact that she had been wondering visibly what it was all
+about had done nothing whatever to cut down her speed. A flood of thick,
+creamy foam almost hid her from sight and Deston began to talk--quietly.
+
+"Thanks, sweetheart, for not slowing us down by arguing and wanting
+explanations. This stuff is DEKON--short for Decontaminant, Complete;
+Compound, Adsorbent, and Chelating, Type DCQ-429.' Used soon enough, it
+takes care of radiation. Rub it in good, all over you--like this." He
+set the foam-gun down on the floor and went vigorously to work. "Yes,
+hair, too. Every square millimeter of skin and mucous membrane. Yes,
+into your eyes. It stings 'em a little, but that's a lot better than
+going blind. And your mouth. Swallow six good big mouthfuls--it's
+tasteless and goes down easy.
+
+"Now the soles of your feet--O. K. The last will hurt plenty, but we've
+_got_ to get some of it into your lungs and we can't do it the hospital
+way. So when I slap a gob of it over your mouth and nose inhale hard and
+deep. Just once is all anybody can do, but that's enough. And don't
+fight. Any ordinary woman I could handle, but I can't handle you fast
+enough. So if you don't inhale deep I'll have to knock you cold.
+Otherwise you die of lung cancer. Will do?"
+
+"Will do, sweetheart. Good and deep. No fight," and she emptied her
+lungs.
+
+He slapped it on. She inhaled, good and deep; and went into convulsive
+paroxysms of coughing. He held her in his arms until the worst of it was
+over; but she was still coughing hard when she pulled herself away from
+him.
+
+"But ... how ... about ... you?" She could just barely talk; her voice
+was distorted, almost inaudible. "Let ... me ... help ... you ...
+quick!"
+
+"No need, darling. Two other men out there. The old man probably won't
+need it--I think I got him into the safe quick enough--the other guy and
+I will help each other. So lie down there on the bunk and take it easy
+until I come back here and help you get the gunkum off. So-long for half
+an hour, pet."
+
+Forty-five minutes later, while all four were still cleaning up the
+messes of foam, something began to buzz sharply. Deston stepped over to
+the board and flipped a switch. The communicator came on. Since
+everything aboard a starship is designed to fail safe, they were, of
+course, in normal space. On the visiplates hundreds of stars blazed in
+vari-colored points of hard, bright light.
+
+"Baby Two acknowledging," Deston said. "First Officer Deston and three
+passengers. Deconned to zero. Report, please."
+
+"Baby Three. Second Officer Jones and four passengers. Deconned to----"
+
+"Thank God, Herc!" Formality vanished. "With _you_ to astrogate us, we
+may have a chance. But how'd you make it? I'd've sworn a flying saucer
+couldn't've got down from the Top in the time we had."
+
+"Same thing right back at you, Babe. I didn't have to come down. We were
+in Baby Three when it happened." Full vision was on; a big,
+square-jawed, lean, tanned face looked out at them from the screen.
+
+"Huh? How come? And who's 'we'?"
+
+"My wife and I." Second Officer Theodore "Hercules" Jones was somewhat
+embarrassed. "I got married, too, day before yesterday. After the way
+the old man chewed you out, though, I knew he'd slap irons on me
+without saying a word, so we kept it dark and hid out in Baby Three.
+These three are all we could find before our meters went high red. I
+deconned Bun, then----"
+
+"Bun?" Barbara broke in. "Bernice Burns? How _wonderful_!"
+
+"Formerly Bernice Burns." The face of a platinum-blonde beauty appeared
+on the screen beside Jones'. "And _am_ I glad to see _you_, Barbara,
+even if I did just meet you yesterday! I didn't know whether I'd ever
+see another girl's face or not!"
+
+"Let's cut the chat," Deston said then. "Herc, give me course, blast,
+and time for rendezvous ... hey! My watch stopped!"
+
+"So did mine," Jones said. "So just hold one gravity on eighteen dash
+forty-seven dash two seventy-one and I'll correct you as necessary."
+
+After setting course, and still thinking of his watch, Deston said; "But
+it's nonmagnetic. It never stopped before."
+
+The gray-haired man spoke. "It was never in such a field before. You
+see, those two observations of fact invalidate twenty-four of the
+thirty-eight best theories of hyper-space. But tell me--am I correct in
+saying that none of you were in direct contact with the metal of the
+ship when it happened?"
+
+"We avoid it in case of trouble. You? Name and job?" Deston jerked his
+head at the younger stranger.
+
+"I know _that_ much. Henry Newman. Crew-chief, normal space jobs,
+unlimited."
+
+"Your passengers, Herc?"
+
+"Vincent Lopresto, financier, and his two bodyguards. They were sleeping
+in their suits, on air-mattresses. Grounders. Don't like subspace--or
+space, either."
+
+"Just so." The gray-haired man nodded, almost happily. "We survivors,
+then, absorbed the charge gradually----"
+
+"But what the----" Deston began.
+
+"One moment, please, young man. You perhaps saw some of the bodies. What
+were they like?"
+
+"They looked ... well, not exactly as though they had exploded, but----"
+he paused.
+
+"Precisely." Gray-Hair beamed. "That eliminates all the others except
+three--Morton's, Sebring's, and Rothstein's."
+
+"You're a specialist in subspace, then?"
+
+"Oh, no, I'm not a specialist at all. I'm a dabbler, really. A
+specialist, you know, is one who learns more and more about less and
+less until he knows everything about nothing at all. I'm just the
+opposite. I'm learning less and less about more and more; hoping in time
+to know nothing at all about everything."
+
+"In other words, a Fellow of the College. I'm glad you're aboard, sir."
+
+"Oh, a Theoretician?" Barbara's face lit up and she held out her hand.
+"With dozens of doctorates in everything from Astronomy to Zoology?
+I've never met ... I'm _ever_ so glad to meet you, Doctor----?"
+
+"Adams. Andrew Adams. But I have only eight at the moment. Earned
+degrees, that is."
+
+"But what were you doing in this lifecraft? No, let me guess. You were
+X-ray-eying it and fine-toothing it for improvements made since your
+last trip, and storing the details away in your eidetic memory."
+
+"Not eidetic, by any means. Merely very good."
+
+"And how many metric tons of apparatus have you got in the hold?" Deston
+asked.
+
+"Less than six. Just what I _must_ have in order to----"
+
+"Babe!" Jones' voice cut in. "Course change. Stay on alpha eighteen.
+Shift beta to forty-four and gamma to two sixty-five."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Rendezvous was made. Both lifecraft hung motionless relative to the
+_Procyon_'s hulk. No other lifecraft had escaped. A conference was held.
+
+Weeks of work would be necessary before Deston and Jones could learn
+even approximately what the damage to the _Procyon_ had been.
+Decontamination was automatic, of course, but there would be literally
+hundreds of hot spots, each of which would have to be sought out and
+neutralized by hand. The passengers' effects would have to be listed and
+stored in the proper cabins. Each body would have to be given velocity
+away from the ship. And so on. Every survivor would have to work, and
+work hard.
+
+The two girls wanted to be together. The two officers almost _had_ to be
+together, to discuss matters at unhampered length and to make decisions.
+Each was, of course, almost as well versed in engineering as he was in
+his own specialty. All ships' officers from First to Fifth had to be.
+And, as long as they lived or until the _Procyon_ made port, all
+responsibility rested: First, upon First Officer Deston; and second,
+upon Second Officer Jones. Therefore Theodore and Bernice Jones came
+aboard Lifecraft Two, and Deston asked Newman to flit across to
+Lifecraft Three.
+
+"Not me; I like the scenery here better." Newman's eyes raked Bernice's
+five-feet-eight of scantily-clad sheer beauty from ankles to coiffure.
+"If you're too crowded--I know a lifecraft carries only fifty people--go
+yourself."
+
+"As a crew-chief, you know the law." Deston spoke quietly--too quietly,
+as the other man should have known. "I am in command."
+
+"You ain't in command of _me_, pretty boy!" Newman sneered. "You can
+play God when you're on sked, with a ship-full of trained dogs to bite
+for you, but out here where nobody has ever come back from I make my own
+law--with _this_!" He patted his side pocket.
+
+"Draw it, then!" Deston's voice now had all the top-deck rasp of his
+rank. "Or crawl!"
+
+The First Officer had not moved; his right hand still hung quietly at
+his side. Newman glanced at the girls, both of whom were frozen; at
+Jones, who smiled at him pityingly; at Adams, who was merely interested.
+"I ... my ... yours is right where you can get at it," he faltered.
+
+"You should have thought of that sooner. But, this once, I won't move a
+finger until your hand is in your pocket."
+
+"Just wing him, Babe," Jones said then. "He looks strong enough, except
+for his head. We can use him to shovel out the gunkum and clean up."
+
+"Uh-uh. I'll have to kill him sometime, and the sooner the better.
+Square between the eyes. Do you want a hundred limit at ten bucks a
+millimeter on how far the hole is off dead center?"
+
+The two girls gasped; stared at each other and at the two officers in
+horror; but Jones said calmly, without losing any part of his smile: "I
+don't want a dime's worth of that. I've lost too much money that way
+already." At which outrageous statement both girls knew what was going
+on and smiled in relief.
+
+And Newman misinterpreted those smiles completely; especially Bernice's.
+The words came hard, but he managed to say then. "I crawl."
+
+"Crawl, what?"
+
+"I crawl, sir. You'll want my gun----"
+
+"Keep it. There's a lot more difference than _that_ between us. How
+close can you count seconds?"
+
+"Plus or minus five per cent, sir."
+
+"Close enough. Your first job will be to build some kind of a
+brute-force, belt-or-gear thing to act as a clock. You will really work.
+Any more insubordination or any malingering at all and I'll put you into
+a lifecraft and launch you into space, where you can make your own laws
+and be monarch of all you survey. Dismissed! Now--flit!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Newman flitted--fast--and Barbara, turning to her husband, opened her
+mouth to speak and shut it. No, he would have killed the man; he would
+have _had_ to. He still might have to. Wherefore she said instead:
+"Why'd you let him keep his pistol? The ... the _slime_! And after you
+actually saved his life, too!"
+
+"With some people what's past doesn't count. The other was just a
+gesture. Psychology. It'll slow him down, I think. Besides, he'd have
+another one as soon as we get back into the _Procyon_."
+
+"But you can lock up _all_ their guns, can't you?" Bernice asked.
+
+"I'm afraid not. How about the other three, Herc?"
+
+"With thanks to you, Barbara, for the word; slime. If Lopresto is a
+financier, I'm an angel, with wings and halo complete. Gangsters;
+hoodlums; racketeers; you'd have to open every can of concentrate aboard
+to find all their spare artillery."
+
+"Check. The first thing to do is----"
+
+"One word first," Bernice put in. "I want to thank you, First Off--no,
+not First Officer, but I could hardly----"
+
+"Sure you can. I'm 'Babe' to us all, and you're 'Bun'. As to the other,
+forget it. You and I, Herc, will go over and----"
+
+"And I," Adams put in, definitely. "I must photograph everything, before
+it is touched; therefore I must be the first on board. I must do some
+autopsies and also----"
+
+"Of course. You're right," Deston said. "And if I haven't said it
+before, I'm tremendously glad to have a Big Brain along ... oh, excuse
+that crack, please, Dr. Adams. It slipped out on me."
+
+Adams laughed. "In context, I regard that as the highest compliment I
+have ever received. To you youngsters my advanced age of fifty-two
+represents senility. Nevertheless, you men need not 'Doctor' me. Either
+'Adams' or 'Andy' will do very nicely. As for you two young women----"
+
+"I'm going to call you 'Uncle Andy'," Barbara said, with a grin. "Now,
+Uncle Andy, you being a Big Brain--the term being used in its most
+complimentary sense--and the way you talked, one of your eight
+doctorates is in medicine."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Are you any good at obstetrics?"
+
+"In the present instance I am perfectly safe in saying----"
+
+"Wait a minute!" Deston snapped. "Bobby, you are _not_----"
+
+"I am too! That is, I don't suppose I _am_ yet, since we were married
+only last Tuesday, but if he's competent--and I'm _sure_ he is--I'm
+certainly _going_ to! If we get back to Earth I _want_ to, and if we
+don't, both Bun and I have _got_ to. Castaways' Code, you know. So how
+about it, Uncle Andy?"
+
+"I know what you two girls are," Adams said, quietly. "I know what you
+two men must of necessity be. Therefore I can say without reservation
+that none of you need feel any apprehension whatever."
+
+Deston was about to say something, but Barbara forestalled him. "Well,
+we can _think_ about it, anyway, and talk it over. But for right now, I
+think it's high time we all got some sleep. Don't you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was; and they did; and after they had slept and had eaten "breakfast"
+the three men wafted themselves across a couple of hundred yards of
+space to the crippled starship. Powerful floodlights were rigged.
+
+"What ... a ... mess." Deston's voice was low and wondering. "The whole
+Top looks as though she'd crash-landed and spun out for eight miles. But
+the Middle and Tail look untouched."
+
+Inside, however, devastation had gone deep into the Middle. Bulkheads,
+walls, floors, structural members; were torn, sheared, twisted into
+weirdly-distorted shapes impossible to understand or explain. And, much
+worse, were the _absences_; for in dozens of volumes, of as many sizes
+and of shapes incompatible with any three-dimensional geometry, every
+solid thing had vanished--without leaving any clue whatever as to where
+or how it had gone.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+After three long days of hard work, Adams was satisfied. He had taken
+pictures as fast as both officers could process the film; he had covered
+many miles of tape with words only half of which either spaceman could
+understand. Then, finally, he said:
+
+"Well, that covers the preliminary observations as well as I know how to
+do it. Thank you, boys, for your forbearance and your help. Now, if
+you'll help me find my stuff and bring some of it--a computer and so
+on--up to the lounge?" They did so; the "and so on" proving to be a
+bewildering miscellany indeed. "Thank you immensely, gentlemen; now I
+won't bother you any more."
+
+"You've learned a lot, Doc, and we haven't learned much of anything."
+Deston grinned ruefully. "That makes you the director. You'll have to
+tell us, in general terms, what to do."
+
+"Oh? I can offer a few suggestions. It is virtually certain: One, that
+no subspace equipment will function. Two, that all normal-space
+equipment, except for some items you know about, will function normally.
+Three, that we can't do anything about subspace without landing on a
+planet. Four, that such landing will require extreme--I might almost say
+fantastic--precautions."
+
+Although both officers thought that they understood Item Four, neither
+of them had any inkling as to what Adams really meant. They did
+understand thoroughly, however, Items One, Two, and Three.
+
+"Hell's jets!" Deston exclaimed. "Do you mean we'll have to blast
+_normal_ to a system?"
+
+"It isn't as bad as you think, Babe," Jones said. "Stars are much
+thicker here--we're in the center somewhere--than around Sol. The
+probability is point nine plus that any emergence would put us less than
+point four light-years away from a star. A couple of them show disks. I
+haven't measured any yet; have you, Doc?"
+
+"Yes. Point two two, approximately, to the closest."
+
+"So what?" Deston demanded. "What's the chance of it having an
+Earth-type planet?"
+
+"Any solid planet will do," Adams said. "Just so it has plenty of mass."
+
+"That's still quite a trip." Deston was coming around. "Especially since
+we can't use more than one point----"
+
+"One point _zero_ gravities," Jones put in.
+
+"Over the long pull--and the women--you're right," Deston agreed, and
+took out his slide rule. "Let's see ... one gravity, plus and minus ...
+velocity ... time ... it'll take about eleven months?"
+
+"Just about," Jones agreed, and Adams nodded.
+
+"Well, if that's what the cards say, there's no use yowling about it,"
+and all nine survivors went to work.
+
+Deston, besides working, directed the activities of all the others
+except Adams; who worked harder and longer than did anyone else. He
+barely took time out to eat and to sleep. Nor did either Deston or Jones
+ask him what he was doing. Both knew that it would take five years of
+advanced study before either of them could understand the simplest
+material on the doctor's tapes.
+
+
+III.
+
+The tremendous engines of the _Procyon_ were again putting out their
+wonted torrents of power. The starship, now a mere spaceship, was on
+course at one gravity. The lifecraft were in their slots, but the five
+and the four still lived in them rather than in the vast and oppressive
+emptiness that the ship itself now was. And socially, outside of working
+hours, the two groups did not mix.
+
+Clean-up was going nicely, at the union rate of six hours on and
+eighteen hours off. Deston could have set any hours he pleased, but he
+didn't. There was plenty of time. Eleven months in deep space is a
+fearfully, a tremendously long time.
+
+"Morning," "afternoon," "evening," and "night" were, of course, purely
+conventional terms. The twenty-four-hour "day" measured off by the
+brute-force machine that was their masterclock carried no guarantee,
+expressed or implied, as to either accuracy or uniformity.
+
+One evening, then, four hard-faced men sat at two small tables in the
+main room of Lifecraft Three. Two of them, Ferdy Blaine and Moose
+Mordan, were playing cards for small stakes. Ferdy was of medium size;
+compact rather than slender; built of rawhide and spring steel. Lithe
+and poised, he was the epitome of leashed and controlled action. Moose
+was six-feet-four and weighed a good two-forty--stolid, massive, solid.
+Ferdy and Moose; a tiger and an elephant; both owned _in fee simple_ by
+Vincent Lopresto.
+
+The two at the other table had been planning for days. They had had many
+vitriolic arguments, but neither had made any motion toward his weapon.
+
+"Play it my way and we've got it made, I tell you!" Newman pounded the
+table with his fist. "Seventy _million_ if it's a cent! Heavier grease
+than your lousy spig Syndicate ever even _heard_ of! I'm as good an
+astrogator as Jones is, and a damn sight better engineer. In electronics
+I maybe ain't got the theory Pretty Boy has, but at building and
+repairing the stuff I've forgot more than he ever will know. At
+_practical_ stuff, and that's all we give a whoop about, I lay over
+both them sissies like a Lunar dome."
+
+"Oh, yeah?" Lopresto sneered. "How come you aren't ticketed for
+subspace, then?"
+
+"For hell's sake, act your age!" Newman snorted in disgust. Eyes locked
+and held, but nothing happened. "D'ya think I'm dumb? Or that them
+subspace Boy Scouts can be fixed? Or I don't know where the heavy grease
+is at? Or I can't make the approach? Why ain't _you_ in subspace?"
+
+"I see." Lopresto forced his anger down. "But I've got to be _sure_ we
+can get back without 'em."
+
+"You can be _damn_ sure. I got to get back myself, don't I? But get one
+thing down solid. _I_ get the big peroxide blonde."
+
+"You can have her. Too big. I like the little yellowhead a lot better."
+
+Newman sneered into the hard-held face so close to his and said: "And
+don't think for a second _you_ can make me crawl, you small-time,
+chiseling punk. Rub _me_ out after we kill them off and you get nowhere.
+You're dead. Chew on that a while, and you'll know who's boss."
+
+After just the right amount of holding back and objecting, Lopresto
+agreed. "You win, Newman, the way the cards lay. Have you ever planned
+this kind of an operation or do you want me to?"
+
+"You do it, Vince," Newman said, grandly. He had at least one of the
+qualities of a leader. "Besides, you already have, ain't you?"
+
+"Of course. Ferdy will take Deston----"
+
+"No he won't! He's _mine_, the louse!"
+
+"If you're _that_ dumb, all bets are off. What are you using for a
+brain? Can't you see the guy's chain lightning on ball bearings?"
+
+"But we're going to surprise 'em, ain't we?"
+
+"Sure, but even Ferdy would just as soon not give _him_ an even break.
+_You_ wouldn't stand the chance of a snowflake in hell, and if you've
+got the brains of a louse you know it."
+
+"O. K., we'll let Ferdy have him. Me and you will match draws to see
+who----"
+
+"I can draw twice to your once, but I suppose I'll have to prove it to
+you. I'll take Jones; you will gun the professor; Moose will grab the
+dames, one under each arm, and keep 'em out of the way until the
+shooting's over. The only thing is, when? The sooner the better.
+Tomorrow?"
+
+"Not quite, Vince. Let 'em finish figuring course, time, distance, all
+that stuff. They can do it a lot faster and some better than I can. I'll
+tell you when."
+
+"O. K., and I'll give the signal. When I yell 'NOW' we give 'em the
+business."
+
+Newman went to his cabin and the muscle called Moose spoke thoughtfully.
+That is, as nearly thoughtfully as his mental equipment would allow.
+
+"I don't like that ape, boss. Before you gun him, let me work him over
+just a little bit, huh?"
+
+"It'll be quite a while yet, but that's a promise, Moose. As soon as his
+job's done he'll wish he'd never been born. Until then, we'll let him
+think he's Top Dog. Let him rave. But Ferdy, any time he's behind me or
+out of sight, watch him like a hawk. Shoot him through the right elbow
+if he makes one sour move."
+
+"I get you, boss."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A couple of evenings later, in Lifecraft Two, Barbara said: "You're
+worried, Babe, and everything's going so smoothly. Why?"
+
+"Too smoothly altogether. That's why. Newman ought to be doing a slow
+burn and goldbricking all he dares; instead of which he's happy as a
+clam and working like a nailer ... and I wouldn't trust Vincent Lopresto
+or Ferdinand Blaine as far as I can throw a brick chimney by its smoke.
+This whole situation stinks. There's going to be shooting for sure."
+
+"But they couldn't do _anything_ without you two!" Bernice exclaimed.
+"It'd be suicide ... and with no motive ... _could_ they, Ted,
+possibly?"
+
+Jones' dark face did not lighten. "They could, and I'm very much afraid
+they intend to. As a crew-chief, Newman is a jack-leg engineer and a
+very good practical 'troncist; and if he's what I _think_ he is----" He
+paused.
+
+"Could be," Deston said, doubtfully. "In with a mob of normal-space
+pirate-smugglers. I'll buy that, but there wouldn't be enough plunder
+to----"
+
+"Just a sec. So he's a pretty good rule-of-thumb astrogator, too, and
+we're computing every element of the flight. As for motive--salvage.
+With either of us alive, none. With both of us dead, can you guess
+within ten million bucks of how much they'll collect?"
+
+"_Blockhead_!" Deston slapped himself on the forehead. "I never even
+_thought_ of that angle. That nails it down solid."
+
+"With the added attraction," Jones went on, coldly and steadily, "of
+having two extremely desirable female women for eleven months before
+killing them, too."
+
+Both girls shrank visibly, and Deston said: "Check. I thought that was
+the main feature, but it didn't add up. This does. Now, how will they
+figure the battle? Both of us at once, of----"
+
+"Why?" Barbara asked. "I'd think they'd waylay you, one at a time."
+
+"Uh-uh. The survivor would lock the ship in null-G and it'd be like
+shooting fish in a barrel. Since we're almost never together on duty ...
+and it won't come until after we've finished the computations ...
+they'll think up a good reason for _everybody_ to be together, and that
+itself will be the tip-off. Ferdy will probably draw on me----"
+
+"And he'll kill you," Jones said, flatly. "So I think I'll blow his
+brains out tomorrow morning on sight."
+
+"And get killed yourself? No ... much better to use their own trap----"
+
+"We _can't_! Fast as you are, you aren't in _his_ class. He's a
+professional--probably one of the fastest guns in space."
+
+"Yes, but ... I've got a ... I mean I think I can----"
+
+Bernice, grinning openly now, stopped Deston's floundering. "It's high
+time you fellows told each other the truth. Bobby and I let our back
+hair down long ago--we were both tremendously surprised to know that
+both you boys are just as strongly psychic as we are. Perhaps even more
+so."
+
+"Oh ... so _you_ get hunches, too?" Jones demanded. "So you'll have
+plenty of warning?"
+
+"All my life. The old alarm clock has never failed me yet. But the girls
+can't start packing pistols now."
+
+"I wouldn't know how to shoot one if I did," Bernice laughed. "I'll
+throw things I'm very good at that."
+
+"Huh?" Jones asked. He didn't know his new wife very well, either. "What
+can _you_ throw straight enough to do any good?"
+
+"Anything I can reach," she replied, confidently. "Baseballs, medicine
+balls, cannon balls, rocks, bricks, darts, discus, hammer,
+javelin--what-have-you. In a for-real battle I'd prefer ... chairs, I
+think. Flying chairs are really hard to cope with. Knives are too ...
+uh-uh, I'd much rather have you fellows do the actual executing. I'll
+start wearing a couple of knives in leg-sheaths, but I won't throw 'em
+or use 'em unless I absolutely have to. So who will I knock out with the
+first chair?"
+
+"I'll answer that," Barbara said, quietly. "If it's Blaine against Babe,
+it'll be Lopresto against Herc. So you'll throw your chairs or whatever
+at that unspeakable oaf Newman."
+
+"I'd rather brain him than anyone else I know, but that would leave that
+gigantic gorilla to ... why, he'd ... listen, you'll simply _have_ to go
+armed."
+
+"I always do." Barbara held out her hands. "Since they don't want to
+shoot us two--yet--these are all the weapons I'll need."
+
+"Against a man-mountain like that? You're _that_ good? Really?"
+
+"Especially against a man-mountain like that. I'm that good. Really,"
+and both Joneses began to realize what Deston already knew--just how
+deadly those harmless-seeming weapons could be.
+
+Barbara went on: "We should have a signal, in case one of us gets
+warning first. Something that wouldn't mean anything to them ...
+musical, say ... Brahms. That's it. The very instant any one of us feels
+their intent to signal their attack he yells 'BRAHMS!' and we _all_ beat
+them to the punch. O. K.?"
+
+It was O. K., and the four--Adams was still hard at work in the
+lounge--went to bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And three days later, within an hour after the last flight-datum had
+been "put in the tank," the four intended victims allowed themselves to
+be inveigled into the lounge. Everything was peaceful; everyone was full
+of friendship and brotherly love. But suddenly "BRAHMS!" rang out, with
+four voices in absolute unison; followed a moment later by Lopresto's
+stentorian "NOW!"
+
+It was a very good thing that Deston had had ample warning, for he was
+indeed competing out of his class. As it was, his bullet crashed through
+Blaine's head, while the gunman's went harmlessly into the carpet. The
+other pistol duel wasn't even close! Lopresto's hand barely touched his
+gun.
+
+Bernice, even while shrieking the battle-cry, leaped to her feet, hurled
+her chair, and reached for another; but one chair was enough. That
+fiercely but accurately-sped missile knocked the half-drawn pistol from
+Newman's hand and sent his body crashing to the floor, where Deston's
+second bullet made it certain that he would not recover consciousness.
+
+Barbara's hand-to-hand engagement took about one second longer. Moose
+Mordan was big and strong; and, for such a big man, was fairly fast
+physically. If he had had time to get his muscles ready, he might have
+had a chance. His thought processes, however, were lamentably slow; and
+Barbara Warner Deston was almost as fast physically as she was mentally.
+Thus she reached him before he even began to realize that this
+pint-sized girl actually intended to hit him; and thus it was that his
+belly-muscles were still completely relaxed when her small but extremely
+hard left fist sank half-forearm-deep into his solar plexus.
+
+With an agonized "_WHOOSH_!" he began to double up, but she scarcely
+allowed him to bend. Her right hand, fingers tightly bunched, was
+already boring savagely into a selected spot at the base of his neck.
+Then, left hand at his throat and right hand pulling hard at his belt,
+she put the totalized and concentrated power of her whole body behind
+the knee she drove into his groin.
+
+That ended it. The big man could very well have been dying on his feet.
+To make sure, however--or to keep the girl from knowing that she had
+killed a man?--Deston and Jones each put a bullet through the falling
+head before it struck the rug.
+
+Both girls flung themselves, sobbing, into their husband's arms.
+
+The whole battle had lasted only a few seconds. Adams, although he had
+seen almost everything, had been concentrating so deeply that it took
+those few seconds for him actually to realize what was going on. He got
+up, felt[2] of Newman's head, then looked casually at the three other
+bodies.
+
+    [2] Transcriber's note: As in original.
+
+"Oh, I _killed_ him, Carl!" Barbara sobbed, convulsively. "And the worst
+of it is, I really _meant_ to! I _never_ did anything like that before
+in my whole life!"
+
+"You didn't kill him, Barbara," Adams said.
+
+"Huh?" She raised her head from Deston's shoulder; the contrast between
+her streaming eyes and the relief dawning over her whole face was almost
+funny. "Why, I did the foulest things possible, and as hard as I
+possibly could. I'm _sure_ I killed him."
+
+"By no means, my dear. Judo techniques, however skillfully and
+powerfully applied, do not and can not kill instantly. Bullets through
+the brain do. I will photograph the cadavers, of course, and perform the
+customary post-mortem examinations for the record; but I know already
+what the findings will be. These four men died instantly of gunshot
+wounds."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the four gangsters gone, life aboardship settled down quickly into
+a routine. That routine, however, was in no sense dull. The officers had
+plenty to do; operating the whole ship and rebuilding the mechanisms
+that were operating on jury rigging or on straight "bread-board"
+hookups. And in their "spare" time they enjoyed themselves tremendously
+in becoming better and better acquainted with their wives. For Bernice
+and Jones, like Barbara and Deston, had for each other an infinite
+number of endless vistas of personality; the exploration of which was
+sheerest delight.
+
+The girls--each of whom became joyously pregnant as soon as she
+could--kept house and helped their husbands whenever need or opportunity
+arose. Their biggest chore, however, was to see to it that Adams got
+sleep, food, and exercise. For, if left to his own devices, he would
+never have exercised at all, would have grabbed a bite now and then, and
+would have slept only when he could no longer stay awake.
+
+"Uncle Andy, why don't you _use_ that Big Brain of yours?" Barbara
+snapped at him one day. "For a man that's actually as smart as you are,
+I swear you've got the least sense of anybody I know!"
+
+"But it's necessary, my dear child," Adams explained, unmoved. "This
+material is new. There are many extremely difficult problems involved,
+and I have less than a year to work on them. Less than _one year_; and
+it is a task for a team of specialists and all the resources of a
+research center."
+
+To the officers, however, Adams went into more detail. "Considering the
+enormous amounts of supplies carried; the scope, quantity, and quality
+of the safety devices employed; it is improbable that we are the first
+survivors of a subspace catastrophe to set course for a planet."
+
+After some argument, the officers agreed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"While I cannot as yet detect it, classify it, or evaluate it, we are
+carrying an extremely heavy charge of an unknown nature; the residuum of
+a field of force which is possibly more or less analogous to the
+electromagnetic field. This residuum either is or is not dischargeable
+to an object of planetary mass; and I'm virtually certain that it is.
+The discharge may be anything from an imperceptible flow up to one of
+such violence as to volatilize the craft carrying it. From the facts:
+One, that in the absence of that field the subspace radio will function
+normally; and Two, that no subspace-radio messages have ever been
+received from survivors; the conclusion seems inescapable that the
+discharge of this unknown field is in fact of extreme violence."
+
+"Good God!" Deston exclaimed. "Oh ... _that_ was what you meant by
+'fantastic precautions,' back there?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"But what can we _do_ about it?"
+
+"I don't know. I ... simply ... do ... not ... know." Adams lost himself
+in thought for over a minute. "This is all _so_ new ... I know _so_
+little ... and am working with such _pitifully_ inadequate
+instrumentation--However, we have months of time yet, and if I am unable
+to arrive at a conclusion before arrival--I don't mean a rigorous
+analysis, of course, but merely a stop-gap, empirical, pragmatic
+solution--we will simply remain in orbit around that sun until I do."
+
+
+IV.
+
+The _Procyon_ bored on through space, at one unchanging gravity of
+acceleration. It may not seem, at first glance, that one gravity would
+result in any very high velocity; but when it is maintained steadily for
+days and weeks and months, it builds up to a very respectable speed. Nor
+was there any question of power, for the _Procyon_'s atomics did not
+drive the ship, but merely energized the "Chaytors"--the Chaytor Effect
+engines that tapped the energy of the expanding universe itself.
+
+Thus, in less than six months, the _Procyon_ had attained a velocity
+almost half that of light. At the estimated mid-point of the flight the
+spaceship, still at one gravity of drive, was turned end-for-end; so
+that for the ensuing five-and-a-fraction months she would be slowing
+down.
+
+A few weeks after the turnover, Adams seemed to have more time. At
+least, he devoted more time to the expectant mothers, even to the point
+of supervising Deston and Jones in the construction of a weirdly-wired
+device by means of which he studied and photographed the unborn child
+each woman bore. He said nothing, however, until Barbara made him talk.
+
+"Listen, you egregious clam," she said, firmly, "I know darn well I've
+been pregnant for at _least_ seven months, and I ought to be twice this
+big. Our clock isn't _that_ far off; Carl said that by wave lengths or
+something it's only about three per cent fast. And you've been
+pussyfooting and hem-hawing around all this time. Now, Uncle Andy, I
+want the _truth_. _Are_ we in for a lot of trouble?"
+
+"Trouble? Of course not. _Certainly_ not. No trouble at all, my dear.
+Why, you've seen the pictures--here, look at them again ... see?
+Absolutely normal fetus--yours, too, Bernice. _Perfect_! No
+malformations of any kind."
+
+"Yes, but for what _age_?" Bernice asked, pointedly. "Four months, say?
+I see, I was exposed to a course in embryology myself, once."
+
+"But _that's_ the interesting part of it!" Adams enthused. "Fascinating!
+And, indubitably, supremely important. In fact, it may point out the key
+datum underlying the solution of our entire problem. If this zeta field
+is causing this seemingly peculiar biological effect, that gives us a
+tremendously powerful new tool, for certain time vectors in the
+generalized matrix become parameters. Thus, certain determinants,
+notably the all-important delta-prime-sub-mu, become manipulable by ...
+but you aren't _listening_!"
+
+"I'm listening, pops, but nothing is coming through. But thanks much,
+anyway. I feel a lot better, knowing I'm not going to give birth to a
+monster. Or _are_ you sure, really?"
+
+"Of _course_ I'm sure!" Adams snapped, testily, and Barbara led Deston
+aside.
+
+"Have you got the _slightest_ idea of what he was talking about?" she
+asked.
+
+"Just the slightest, if any. Either that time is relative--no, that's so
+elementary he wouldn't mention it. Maybe he's figured out a _variable_
+time of some kind or other. Anyway, you girls' slowness in producing has
+given the old boy a big lift, and I'm mighty glad of it."
+
+"But aren't you _worried_, sweetheart? Not even the least little bit?"
+
+"Of course not," and Deston very evidently meant just that.
+
+"I am. I can't help but be. Why aren't you?"
+
+"Because Doc isn't, and he knows his stuff, believe me. He can't lie any
+better than a three-year-old, and he's _sure_ that all four of you are
+just as safe as though you were in God's lefthand hip pocket."
+
+"Oh--that's right. I never thought of it that way. So I _don't_ have
+anything to worry about, do I?" She lifted her lips to be kissed; and
+the kiss was long and sweet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Time flew past until, one day a couple of weeks short of arrival, Adams
+rushed up to Deston and Jones. "I have it!" he shouted, and began to
+spout a torrent of higher--very _much_ higher--mathematics.
+
+"Hold it, Doc!" Deston held up an expostulatory hand. "I read you zero
+and ten. Can't you delouse your signal? Whittle the stuff down to our
+size?"
+
+"W-e-l-l-," the scientist looked hurt, but did consent to forego the
+high math. "The discharge _is_ catastrophic; in energy equivalent
+something of the order of magnitude of ten thousand discharges of
+lightning. And, unfortunately, I do _not_ know what it is. It is
+virtually certain, however, that we will be able to dissipate it in
+successive decrements by the use of long, thin leads extending downward
+toward a high point of the planet."
+
+"Wire, you mean? What kind?"
+
+"The material is not important except in that it should have sufficient
+tensile strength to support as many miles as possible of its own
+length."
+
+"We've got dozens of coils of hook-up wire," Deston said, "but not too
+many _miles_ and it's soft stuff."
+
+"_Graham_ wire!" Jones snapped his finger.
+
+"Of course," Deston agreed. "Hundreds of miles of it. Float the senser
+down on a Hotchkiss----"
+
+"Tear-out." Jones objected.
+
+"Bailey it--spidered out to twenty or so big, flat feet. That'll take
+metal, but we can cannibal the whole Middle without weakening the
+structure."
+
+"Sure ... surges--backlash. Remote it."
+
+"Check. Remote everything to Baby Two, and----"
+
+"Would you mind delousing _your_ signal?" Adams asked, caustically.
+
+"'Scuse, please, Doc. A guy does talk better in his own lingo, doesn't
+he? Well, Graham wire is one-point-three-millimeter-diameter,
+ultra-high-tensile steel wire. Used for re-wrapping the Grahams, you
+know."
+
+"No, I don't know. What are Grahams?"
+
+"Why, they're the intermediates between the Chaytors ... O. K., O. K.,
+they're something like bottles, that have to stand terrifically high
+pressures."
+
+"That's what I want to know. Such wire will do very nicely. Note now
+that our bodies must be grounded very thoroughly to the metal of the
+ship."
+
+"You're so right. We'll wrap the girls in silver-mesh underwear up to
+the eyeballs, and run leads as big as my wrist to the frame."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The approach was made, and the fourth planet out from that strange sun
+was selected as a ground. That planet was not at all like Earth. It had
+very little water, very little atmosphere, and very little vegetation.
+It was twice as massive as Earth; its surface was rugged and jagged; one
+of its stupendous mountain ranges had sharp peaks more than forty
+thousand feet high.
+
+"There's one thing more we must do," Adams said. "I have barely
+begun to study this zeta field, and this one may very well be
+unique--irreplaceable. We must, therefore, launch all the
+lifecraft--except Number Two, of course--into separate orbits around
+this sun, so that a properly-staffed and properly-equipped expedition
+can study it."
+
+"Your proper expedition might get its pants burned off, too."
+
+"There is always that possibility; but I will insist on being assigned
+to the project. This information, young man, is _necessary_."
+
+"O. K., Doc," and it was done; and in a few days the _Procyon_ hung
+motionless, a good five hundred miles high, directly above the highest,
+sharpest mountain peak they had been able to find.
+
+The Bailey boom, with its spider-web-like network of grounding cables
+and with a large pulley at its end, extended two hundred feet straight
+out from the side of the ship. A twenty-five-mile coil of Graham wire
+was mounted on the remote-controlled Hotchkiss reel. The end of the wire
+was run out over the pulley; a fifteen-pound weight, to act both as a
+"senser" and to keep the wire from fouling, was attached; and a few
+hundred feet of wire were run out.
+
+Then, in Lifecraft Two--as far away from the "business district" as they
+could get--the human bodies were grounded and Deston started the reel.
+The wire ran out--and ran--and ran--and ran. The full twenty-five miles
+were paid out, and still nothing happened. Then, very slowly, Deston let
+the big ship move straight downward. Until, finally, it happened.
+
+There was a blast beside which the most terrific flash of lightning ever
+seen on Earth would have seemed like a firecracker. In what was almost a
+vacuum though she was, the whole immense mass of the _Procyon_ was
+hurled upward like the cork out of a champagne bottle. And as for what
+it _felt_ like--since the five who experienced it could never describe
+it, even to each other, it is obviously indescribable by or to anyone
+else. As Bernice said long afterward, when she was being pressed by a
+newsman: "Just tell 'em it was the living end," and that is as good a
+description as any.
+
+The girls were unwrapped from their silver-mesh cocoons and, after a
+minute or so of semihysterics, were as good as new. Then Deston stared
+into the 'scope and gulped. Without saying a word he waved a hand and
+the others looked. It seemed as though the entire tip of the mountain
+was gone; had become a seething, flaming volcano on a world that had
+known no volcanism[3] for hundreds of thousands of years.
+
+    [3] Transcriber's note: The original read 'vulcanism'.
+
+"And what," said Deston finally, "do you suppose happened to the other
+side of the ship?"
+
+The boom, of course, was gone. So were all twenty of the grounding
+cables which, each the size of a man's arm, had fanned out in all
+directions to anchorages welded solidly to the vessel's skin and frame.
+The anchorages, too, were gone; and tons upon tons of high-alloy steel
+plating and structural members for many feet around where each anchorage
+had been. Steel had run like water; had been blown away in gusts of
+vapor.
+
+"Shall I try the radio now, Doc?" Deston asked.
+
+"By no means. This first blast would, of course, be the worst, but there
+will be several more, of decreasing violence."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were. The second, while it volatilized the boom and its grounding
+network, merely fused portions of the anchorages. The third took only
+the boom itself; the fourth took only the dangling miles of wire. At the
+sixth trial nothing--apparently--happened; whereupon the wire was drawn
+in and a two-hundred-pound mass of steel was lowered until it was in
+firm and quiescent contact with the solid rock of the planet.
+
+"Now you may try your radio," Adams said.
+
+Deston flipped a switch and spoke, quietly but clearly, into a
+microphone. "_Procyon One_ to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine.
+Subspace Radio Test Ninety-Five--I think. How do you read me, Control
+Six?"
+
+The reply was highly unorthodox. It was a wild yell, followed by words
+not directed at Deston at all. "Captain Reamer! Captain French! Captain
+Holloway! ANYBODY! It's the _Procyon_! The _PROCYON_, that was lost a
+year ago! Unless some fool is playing a dumb joke."
+
+"It's no joke--I hope." Another voice, crisp and authoritative, came in;
+growing louder as its source approached the distant pickup. "Or somebody
+will rot in jail for a hundred years."
+
+"_Procyon One_ to Control Six," Deston said again. His voice was not
+quite steady this time; both girls were crying openly and joyfully. "How
+do you read me, Frenchy old horse?"
+
+"It _is Procyon One_--the Runt himself--Hi, Babe!" the new voice roared,
+then quieted to normal volume. "I read you eight and one. Survivors?"
+
+"Five. Second Officer Jones, our wives, and Dr. Andrew Adams, a Fellow
+of the College of Advanced Study. He's solely responsible for our being
+here, so----"
+
+"Skip that for now. In a lifecraft? No, after this long, it must be the
+ship. Not navigable, of course?"
+
+"Not in subspace, and only so-so in normal. The Chaytors are O. K., but
+the whole Top is spun out and the rest of her won't hold air--air, hell!
+She won't hold shipping crates! All the Wesleys are shot, and all the
+Q-converters. Half the Grahams are leaking like sieves, and----"
+
+"Skip that, too. Just a sec--I'll cut in the downstairs recorder. Now
+start in at your last check and tell us what's happened since."
+
+"It's a long story."
+
+"Unwind it, Runt, I don't give a damn how long it is. Not a
+full-detailed report, just hit the high spots--but don't leave out
+anything really important."
+
+"Wow!" Jones remarked, audibly. "Wottaman Frenchy! Like the ex-urbanite
+said to the gardener: 'I don't want you to work hard--just take big
+shovelfulls and lots of 'em per minute'."
+
+"That's enough out of you, Herc my boy. You'll be next. Go ahead, Babe."
+
+Deston went ahead, and spoke almost steadily for thirty minutes. He did
+not mention the gangsters; nor any personal matters. Otherwise, his
+report was accurate and complete. He had no idea that everything he
+said was going out on an Earth-wide hookup; or that many other planets,
+monitoring constantly all subspace channels, were hooking on. When he
+was finally released Captain French said, with a chuckle:
+
+"Off the air for a minute. You've no idea what an uproar this has
+stirred up already. They let them have all your stuff, but we aren't
+putting out a thing until some Brass gets out there and gets the real
+story----"
+
+"That _is_ the real story, damn it!"
+
+"Oh, sure, and a very nice job, too, for an extemporaneous effort--if it
+was. Semantics says, though, that in a couple of spots it smells like
+slightly rancid cheese, and ... no-no, keep still! Too many planets
+listening in--_verbum sap_. Anyway, THE PRESS smells something, too, and
+they're screaming their lungs out, especially the sob-sisters. Now,
+Herc, on the air, you're orbiting the fourth planet of a sun. What sun?
+Where?"
+
+"I don't know. Unlisted. We're in completely unexplored territory.
+Standard reference angles are as follows"--and Jones read off a long
+list of observations, not only of the brightest stars of the galaxy, but
+also of the standard reference points, such as S-Doradus, lying outside
+it. "When you get that stuff all plotted, you'll find a hell of a big
+confusion; but I _hope_ there aren't enough stars in it but what you can
+find us sometime."
+
+"Off the air--for good, I hope. Don't make me laugh, Buster, Your
+probable center will spear it. If there's ever more than one star in any
+confusion _you_ set up, I'll eat all the extras. But there's a dozen Big
+Brains here, gnawing their nails off up to the wrist to talk to Adams
+all the rest of the night, so put him on and let's get back to sleep,
+huh? They're cutting this mike now."
+
+"Just a minute!" Deston snapped. "What's your time?"
+
+"Three, fourteen, thirty-seven. So go back to bed, you night-prowling
+owl."
+
+"Of what day, month, and year?" Deston insisted.
+
+"Friday, Sep----" French's voice was replaced by a much older one; very
+evidently that of a Fellow of the College.
+
+After listening for a moment to the newcomer and Adams, Barbara took
+Deston by the arm and led him away. "Just a little bit of _that_
+gibberish is a bountiful sufficiency, husband mine. So I think we'd
+better take Captain French's advice, don't you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Since there was only one star in Jones' "Confusion" (by the book,
+"Volume of Uncertainty") finding the _Procyon_ was no problem at all.
+High Brass came in quantity and the entire story--except for one bit of
+biology--was told. Two huge subspace-going machine shops also came, and
+a thousand mechanics, who worked on the crippled liner for almost three
+weeks.
+
+Then the _Procyon_ started back for Earth under her own subspace drive,
+under the command of Captain Theodore Jones. His first, last, and only
+subspace command, of course, since he was now a married man. Deston had
+wanted to resign while still a First Officer, but his superiors would
+not accept his resignation until his promotion "for outstanding
+services" came through. Thus, Ex-Captain Carlyle Deston and his wife
+were dead-heading, not quite back to Earth, but to the transfer-point
+for the planet Newmars.
+
+"Theodore Warner Deston is going to be born on Newmars, where he should
+be," Barbara had said, and Deston had agreed.
+
+"But suppose she's Theodora?" Bernice had twitted her.
+
+"Uh-uh," Barbara had said, calmly. "I just _know_ he's Theodore."
+
+"Uh-huh, I know." Bernice had nodded her spectacular head. "And we
+wanted a girl, so she is. Barbara Bernice Jones, her name is. A living
+doll."
+
+Although both pregnancies were well advanced, neither was very near full
+term. Thus it was clear that both periods of gestation were going to be
+well over a year in length; but none of the five persons who knew it so
+much as mentioned the fact. To Adams it was only one tiny datum in an
+incredibly huge and complex mathematical structure. The parents did not
+want to be pilloried as crackpots, as publicity-seeking liars, or as
+being unable to count; and they knew that nobody would believe them if
+they told the truth; even--or especially?--no medical doctor. The more
+any doctor knew about gynecology and obstetrics, in fact, the less he
+would believe any such story as theirs.
+
+Of what use is it to pit such puny and trivial things as _facts_ against
+rock-ribbed, iron-bound, entrenched AUTHORITY?
+
+The five, however, _knew_; and Deston and Jones had several long and
+highly unsatisfactory discussions; at first with Adams, and later
+between themselves. At the end of the last such discussion, a couple of
+hours out from the transfer point, Jones lit a cigarette savagely and
+rasped:
+
+"Wherever you start or whatever your angle of approach, he _always_
+boils it down to this: 'Subjective time is measured by the number of
+learning events experienced.' I ask you, Babe, what does that mean? If
+anything?"
+
+"It sounds like it ought to mean _something_, but I'll be damned if I
+know what." Deston gazed thoughtfully at the incandescent tip of his
+friend's cigarette. "However, if it makes the old boy happy and gives
+the College a toehold on subspace, what do _we_ care?"
+
+
+
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