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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/21647-h.zip b/21647-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e20a476 --- /dev/null +++ b/21647-h.zip diff --git a/21647-h/21647-h.htm b/21647-h/21647-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..096b570 --- /dev/null +++ b/21647-h/21647-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2153 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Subspace Survivors, by E. E. Smith</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em; text-indent: 1.5em;} + h1,h2 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + h2+p {text-indent:0;} + hr {width: 45%; margin: 2em auto 2em auto; clear: both;} + body{margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + .bbox {border: solid 1px; padding:0.5em; background-color: #F0F8FF;} + .bbox1 {border: solid 1px; padding:0.5em;} + + .tn {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%; margin-top:0;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin: 1em 0 1em 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + ins.corr {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 80%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Subspace Survivors, by E. E. Smith</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Subspace Survivors</p> +<p>Author: E. E. Smith</p> +<p>Release Date: May 30, 2007 [eBook #21647]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUBSPACE SURVIVORS***</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<h3>E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, L. N. Yaddanapudi,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="bbox1"> +<p class="tn">Transcriber's Note and Errata</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The original page numbers from the magazine have been retained.</p> + +<p>Illustrations have been moved to the appropriate places in the text.</p> + +<p>A few typographical errors have been marked in the text. If the mouse +hovers over the marked text, the explanation will appear.</p> + +<p>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.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> +<h1>SUBSPACE SURVIVORS<br /> +<span style="font-size:70%;">By EDWARD E. SMITH, Ph. D.</span><br /> +<span style="font-size:60%;">Illustrated by van Dongen</span></h1> +<p> </p> + +<div class="bbox"><p style="text-indent:0;"><i>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></p></div> +<p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>I.</h2> + +<p>"All passengers, <ins class="corr" title="Transcriber's Note: The +original read 'will pay attention, please?'">will you pay attention, +please?</ins>" All the high-fidelity speakers of the starship <i>Procyon</i> 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!"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 164px;"> +<img src="images/illus_106.png" width="164" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The immense vessel rose from her berth; slowly at first, but with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't <i>do</i> 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 <i>must</i> resume your seat, Miss. I must insist.... Oh, +you're Miss Warner...."</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"That's right, Barbara Warner. Cabin two eight one."</p> + +<p>"But really, Miss Warner, it's regulations, and if you should fall...."</p> + +<p>"Foosh to regulations, and <i>pfui</i> on 'em. I won't fall. I've been +wondering, every time out, if I could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> do a thing, and now I'm going to +find out."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"See?" she informed the flabbergasted stewardess. "I <i>could</i> do it, and +I didn't...."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>had</i> +to know if I could." Then, as the applause did not die down, she fairly +scampered out of the room.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>For one hour before the <i>Procyon's</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Procyon</i>'s departure would have +been delayed.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Procyon One to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio Test +One. How do you read me, Control Six?"</p> + +<p>"Control Six to Procyon One. I read you ten and zero. How do you read +me, Procyon One?"</p> + +<p>"Ten and zero. Out." Deston flipped a toggle and the solitary green +light went out.</p> + +<p>Perfect signal and zero noise. That was that. From now until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Promptly at Dee plus Three Zero Zero—three hours, no minutes, no +seconds after departure—his relief appeared.</p> + +<p>"All black, Babe?" the newcomer asked.</p> + +<p>"As the pit, Eddie. Take over." Eddie did so. "You've picked out your +girl friend for the trip, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"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. <i>Wow!</i> 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, <i>brother</i>!" 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You ... how <i>dumb</i> can you get?" Eddie demanded. "D'you think I'd even +<i>try</i> to play footsie with <i>Barbara Warner</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You'd play footsie with the Archangel Michael's sister if she'd let +you; and she probably would. So who's Barbara Warner?"</p> + +<p>Eddie Thompson gazed at his superior pityingly. "I know you're ten nines +per cent monk, Babe, but I <i>did</i> think you pulled your nose out of the +megacycles often enough to learn a <i>few</i> of the facts of life. Did you +ever hear of Warner Oil?"</p> + +<p>"I think so." Deston thought for a moment. "Found a big new field, +didn't they? In South America somewhere?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe he loves her. It happens, you know."</p> + +<p>"Huh?" Eddie snorted. "After twenty years of her? Comet-gas! Anyway, +would <i>you</i> have the sublime gall to make passes at Warner Oil's +heiress, with more millions in her own sock than you've got dimes?"</p> + +<p>"I don't make passes."</p> + +<p>"That's right, you don't. Only at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> books and tapes, even on ground +leaves; more fool you. Well, then, would you <i>marry</i> anybody like that?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You nor me neither, brother. But <i>what</i> a dish! What a lovely, +luscious, toothsome <i>dish</i>!" Eddie mourned.</p> + +<p>"You'll be raving about another one tomorrow," Deston said, unfeelingly, +as he turned away.</p> + +<p>"I don't know; but even if I do, <i>she</i> won't be anything like <i>her</i>," +Eddie said, to the closing door.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>something</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> fruitless longing, had come +finally home.</p> + +<p>"Come with me, dear, where we can talk," she said, finally; eying with +disfavor the half-dozen highly interested spectators.</p> + +<p>And a couple of minutes later, in cabin two hundred eighty-one, Deston +said: "So <i>this</i> is why I had to come down into passenger territory. You +came aboard at exactly zero seven forty-three."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," he said, thoughtfully. "All my training has +been based on the axiomatic fact that the map is <i>not</i> 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 <i>what</i> 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—<i>anything</i>. +Anybody with any psionic ability at all ought to do a lot better than +that, I should think."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily. You've been fighting it. Ninety-nine per cent of your +mind doesn't <i>want</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"How do you know so much about me?"</p> + +<p>"I made it a point to. One of the juniors told me you're the only virgin +officer in all space."</p> + +<p>"That was Eddie Thompson."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh." She nodded brightly.</p> + +<p>"Well, is that bad?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Me, too. How soon can we get married?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry about that," he grinned. "My record is good enough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know you can. I wasn't thinking of <i>that</i>. You wouldn't <i>like</i> a +ground job."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>insisted</i> 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...."</p> + +<p>"<i>Oil</i>!" 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I got plenty of tingle without reading, believe me. However, I never +expected to——"</p> + +<p>"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 +<i>nothing</i> 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."</p> + +<p>He laughed shamefacedly as he took her in his arms. "Since that's the +way <i>you</i> look at it, it won't bother me a bit."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh, you <i>do</i> mean it." She snuggled her head down into the curve of +his neck. "I can tell."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I majored in Physical Education and I love it. And I'm a Newmartian,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +you know, so I teach a few courses——"</p> + +<p>"Newmartian? I've heard—but you aren't a colonial; you're as Terran as +I am."</p> + +<p>"By blood, yes; but I was born on Newmars. Our actual and legal +residence has always been there. The tax situation, you know."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, no. Taxes don't bother me much. But go ahead. You teach a +few courses. In?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bars, trapeze, ground-and-lofty tumbling, acrobatics, aerialistics, +high-wire, muscle-control, judo—all that kind of thing."</p> + +<p>"Ouch! So if you ever happen to accidentally get mad at me you'll tie me +right up into a pretzel?"</p> + +<p>"I doubt it; very seriously. I've tossed lots of two-hundred-pounders +around, of course, but they were <i>not</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not big; I'm just a little squirt. You've probably heard what +they call me?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>exactly</i> the right size!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Even <i>that</i> doesn't make a particle of difference to you."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. How could it?"</p> + +<p>"A parson, please." Then, with a bright, quick grin: "We <i>have</i> got a +lot to learn about each other, haven't we?"</p> + +<p>"Some details, of course, but nothing of any importance and we'll have +plenty of time to learn them."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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:</p> + +<p>"Of course you won't actually <i>need</i> a job, ever, or my money, either. +You never even thought of dowsing, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Dowsing? Oh, that witch stuff. Of course not."</p> + +<p>"Listen, darling. All the time I've been touching you I've been learning +about you. And you've been learning about me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but——"</p> + +<p>"No buts, buster. You have really tremendous powers, and they <i>aren't</i> +latent, either. All you have to do is quit fighting them and <i>use</i> 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> frying me to a crisp. But I'm +<i>positive</i> that you can tune yourself to anything you want to find."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h2>II.</h2> + +<p>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 <i>creme-de-la-creme</i> of manhood. Only a +man with an extremely capable mind in an extremely capable body could +become an officer of a subspacer.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And on the Great Wheel of Fate the <i>Procyon</i>'s number came up.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"We're abandoning ship—get into this suit—quick!"</p> + +<p>"But what ... but I've <i>got</i> to dress!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> 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:</p> + +<p>"Come on, girl—sprint!" He put his arm under hers and urged her along.</p> + +<p>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——"</p> + +<p>Everything went out. Lights, gravity, air-circulation—everything.</p> + +<p>"You haven't been checked out on free fall, either. Hang onto this +tool-hanger here on my belt and we'll travel."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 173px;"> +<img src="images/illus_115.png" width="173" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Where to?" she asked, hurtling through the air much faster than she had +ever gone on foot.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What happened.... What hap ...?" the man began.</p> + +<p>"Wrecked. We've had it. We're abandoning ship. Get into that cubby over +there, shut the door tight behind you, and <i>stay there</i>!"</p> + +<p>"But can't I do something to help?"</p> + +<p>"Without a suit and not knowing how to use one? You'd get burned to a +cinder. Get in there—and <i>jump</i>!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Good girl, sweetheart. Hang on one minute more and we'll have gravity +and you'll be O. K."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Bobby! What do you read?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-six."</p> + +<p>"Good. I've found only one, but we're running out of time. I'm coming +in."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="center"><div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/illus_122.png" width="500" height="420" alt="" title="" /> +</div></div> + +<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"Now the soles of your feet—O. K. The last will hurt plenty, but we've +<i>got</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"Will do, sweetheart. Good and deep. No fight," and she emptied her +lungs.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But ... how ... about ... you?" She could just barely talk; her voice +was distorted, almost inaudible. "Let ... me ... help ... you ... +quick!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Baby Two acknowledging," Deston said. "First Officer Deston and three +passengers. Deconned to zero. Report, please."</p> + +<p>"Baby Three. Second Officer Jones and four passengers. Deconned to——"</p> + +<p>"Thank God, Herc!" Formality vanished. "With <i>you</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Huh? How come? And who's 'we'?"</p> + +<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> 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——"</p> + +<p>"Bun?" Barbara broke in. "Bernice Burns? How <i>wonderful</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Formerly Bernice Burns." The face of a platinum-blonde beauty appeared +on the screen beside Jones'. "And <i>am</i> I glad to see <i>you</i>, Barbara, +even if I did just meet you yesterday! I didn't know whether I'd ever +see another girl's face or not!"</p> + +<p>"Let's cut the chat," Deston said then. "Herc, give me course, blast, +and time for rendezvous ... hey! My watch stopped!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>After setting course, and still thinking of his watch, Deston said; "But +it's nonmagnetic. It never stopped before."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"We avoid it in case of trouble. You? Name and job?" Deston jerked his +head at the younger stranger.</p> + +<p>"I know <i>that</i> much. Henry Newman. Crew-chief, normal space jobs, +unlimited."</p> + +<p>"Your passengers, Herc?"</p> + +<p>"Vincent Lopresto, financier, and his two bodyguards. They were sleeping +in their suits, on air-mattresses. Grounders. Don't like subspace—or +space, either."</p> + +<p>"Just so." The gray-haired man nodded, almost happily. "We survivors, +then, absorbed the charge gradually——"</p> + +<p>"But what the——" Deston began.</p> + +<p>"One moment, please, young man. You perhaps saw some of the bodies. What +were they like?"</p> + +<p>"They looked ... well, not exactly as though they had exploded, but——" +he paused.</p> + +<p>"Precisely." Gray-Hair beamed. "That eliminates all the others except +three—Morton's, Sebring's, and Rothstein's."</p> + +<p>"You're a specialist in subspace, then?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"In other words, a Fellow of the College. I'm glad you're aboard, sir."</p> + +<p>"Oh, a Theoretician?" Barbara's face lit up and she held out her hand. +"With dozens of doctorates in everything from Astronomy to Zoology?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +I've never met ... I'm <i>ever</i> so glad to meet you, Doctor——?"</p> + +<p>"Adams. Andrew Adams. But I have only eight at the moment. Earned +degrees, that is."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Not eidetic, by any means. Merely very good."</p> + +<p>"And how many metric tons of apparatus have you got in the hold?" Deston +asked.</p> + +<p>"Less than six. Just what I <i>must</i> have in order to——"</p> + +<p>"Babe!" Jones' voice cut in. "Course change. Stay on alpha eighteen. +Shift beta to forty-four and gamma to two sixty-five."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Rendezvous was made. Both lifecraft hung motionless relative to the +<i>Procyon</i>'s hulk. No other lifecraft had escaped. A conference was held.</p> + +<p>Weeks of work would be necessary before Deston and Jones could learn +even approximately what the damage to the <i>Procyon</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The two girls wanted to be together. The two officers almost <i>had</i> 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 <i>Procyon</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"As a crew-chief, you know the law." Deston spoke quietly—too quietly, +as the other man should have known. "I am in command."</p> + +<p>"You ain't in command of <i>me</i>, 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 <i>this</i>!" He patted his side pocket.</p> + +<p>"Draw it, then!" Deston's voice now had all the top-deck rasp of his +rank. "Or crawl!"</p> + +<p>The First Officer had not moved; his right hand still hung quietly at +his side. Newman glanced at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"You should have thought of that sooner. But, this once, I won't move a +finger until your hand is in your pocket."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And Newman misinterpreted those smiles completely; especially Bernice's. +The words came hard, but he managed to say then. "I crawl."</p> + +<p>"Crawl, what?"</p> + +<p>"I crawl, sir. You'll want my gun——"</p> + +<p>"Keep it. There's a lot more difference than <i>that</i> between us. How +close can you count seconds?"</p> + +<p>"Plus or minus five per cent, sir."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>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 <i>had</i> to. He still might have to. Wherefore she said instead: +"Why'd you let him keep his pistol? The ... the <i>slime</i>! And after you +actually saved his life, too!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>Procyon</i>."</p> + +<p>"But you can lock up <i>all</i> their guns, can't you?" Bernice asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid not. How about the other three, Herc?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Check. The first thing to do is——"</p> + +<p>"One word first," Bernice put in. "I want to thank you, First Off—no,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +not First Officer, but I could hardly——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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——"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Are you any good at obstetrics?"</p> + +<p>"In the present instance I am perfectly safe in saying——"</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute!" Deston snapped. "Bobby, you are <i>not</i>——"</p> + +<p>"I am too! That is, I don't suppose I <i>am</i> yet, since we were married +only last Tuesday, but if he's competent—and I'm <i>sure</i> he is—I'm +certainly <i>going</i> to! If we get back to Earth I <i>want</i> to, and if we +don't, both Bun and I have <i>got</i> to. Castaways' Code, you know. So how +about it, Uncle Andy?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Deston was about to say something, but Barbara forestalled him. "Well, +we can <i>think</i> 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?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <i>absences</i>; for in dozens of volumes, of as many sizes +and of shapes incompatible with any three-dimensional geometry,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> every +solid thing had vanished—without leaving any clue whatever as to where +or how it had gone.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Oh? I can offer a few suggestions. It is virtually certain: One, that +no subspace equipment will function. Two, that all normal-space<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Hell's jets!" Deston exclaimed. "Do you mean we'll have to blast +<i>normal</i> to a system?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Point two two, approximately, to the closest."</p> + +<p>"So what?" Deston demanded. "What's the chance of it having an +Earth-type planet?"</p> + +<p>"Any solid planet will do," Adams said. "Just so it has plenty of mass."</p> + +<p>"That's still quite a trip." Deston was coming around. "Especially since +we can't use more than one point——"</p> + +<p>"One point <i>zero</i> gravities," Jones put in.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Just about," Jones agreed, and Adams nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, if that's what the cards say, there's no use yowling about it," +and all nine survivors went to work.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h2>III.</h2> + +<p>The tremendous engines of the <i>Procyon</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Eleven months in deep space is a +fearfully, a tremendously long time.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>in fee simple</i> by +Vincent Lopresto.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Play it my way and we've got it made, I tell you!" Newman pounded the +table with his fist. "Seventy <i>million</i> if it's a cent! Heavier grease +than your lousy spig Syndicate ever even <i>heard</i> 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 +<i>practical</i> stuff, and that's all we give a whoop about, I lay over +both them sissies like a Lunar dome."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yeah?" Lopresto sneered. "How come you aren't ticketed for +subspace, then?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>you</i> in subspace?"</p> + +<p>"I see." Lopresto forced his anger down. "But I've got to be <i>sure</i> we +can get back without 'em."</p> + +<p>"You can be <i>damn</i> sure. I got to get back myself, don't I? But get one +thing down solid. <i>I</i> get the big peroxide blonde."</p> + +<p>"You can have her. Too big. I like the little yellowhead a lot better."</p> + +<p>Newman sneered into the hard-held face so close to his and said: "And +don't think for a second <i>you</i> can make me crawl, you small-time, +chiseling punk. Rub <i>me</i> 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."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"You do it, Vince," Newman said, grandly. He had at least one of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +qualities of a leader. "Besides, you already have, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. Ferdy will take Deston——"</p> + +<p>"No he won't! He's <i>mine</i>, the louse!"</p> + +<p>"If you're <i>that</i> dumb, all bets are off. What are you using for a +brain? Can't you see the guy's chain lightning on ball bearings?"</p> + +<p>"But we're going to surprise 'em, ain't we?"</p> + +<p>"Sure, but even Ferdy would just as soon not give <i>him</i> an even break. +<i>You</i> wouldn't stand the chance of a snowflake in hell, and if you've +got the brains of a louse you know it."</p> + +<p>"O. K., we'll let Ferdy have him. Me and you will match draws to see +who——"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"O. K., and I'll give the signal. When I yell 'NOW' we give 'em the +business."</p> + +<p>Newman went to his cabin and the muscle called Moose spoke thoughtfully. +That is, as nearly thoughtfully as his mental equipment would allow.</p> + +<p>"I don't like that ape, boss. Before you gun him, let me work him over +just a little bit, huh?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I get you, boss."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A couple of evenings later, in Lifecraft Two, Barbara said: "You're +worried, Babe, and everything's going so smoothly. Why?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But they couldn't do <i>anything</i> without you two!" Bernice exclaimed. +"It'd be suicide ... and with no motive ... <i>could</i> they, Ted, +possibly?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>think</i> he is——" He +paused.</p> + +<p>"Could be," Deston said, doubtfully. "In with a mob of normal-space<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +pirate-smugglers. I'll buy that, but there wouldn't be enough plunder +to——"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Blockhead</i>!" Deston slapped himself on the forehead. "I never even +<i>thought</i> of that angle. That nails it down solid."</p> + +<p>"With the added attraction," Jones went on, coldly and steadily, "of +having two extremely desirable female women for eleven months before +killing them, too."</p> + +<p>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——"</p> + +<p>"Why?" Barbara asked. "I'd think they'd waylay you, one at a time."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>everybody</i> to be together, and that +itself will be the tip-off. Ferdy will probably draw on me——"</p> + +<p>"And he'll kill you," Jones said, flatly. "So I think I'll blow his +brains out tomorrow morning on sight."</p> + +<p>"And get killed yourself? No ... much better to use their own trap——"</p> + +<p>"We <i>can't</i>! Fast as you are, you aren't in <i>his</i> class. He's a +professional—probably one of the fastest guns in space."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but ... I've got a ... I mean I think I can——"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"Oh ... so <i>you</i> get hunches, too?" Jones demanded. "So you'll have +plenty of warning?"</p> + +<p>"All my life. The old alarm clock has never failed me yet. But the girls +can't start packing pistols now."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't know how to shoot one if I did," Bernice laughed. "I'll +throw things I'm very good at that."</p> + +<p>"Huh?" Jones asked. He didn't know his new wife very well, either. "What +can <i>you</i> throw straight enough to do any good?"</p> + +<p>"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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> but I won't throw 'em +or use 'em unless I absolutely have to. So who will I knock out with the +first chair?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>have</i> to go +armed."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Against a man-mountain like that? You're <i>that</i> good? Really?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>all</i> beat +them to the punch. O. K.?"</p> + +<p>It was O. K., and the four—Adams was still hard at work in the +lounge—went to bed.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="center"><div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/illus_129.png" width="500" height="375" alt="" title="" /> +</div></div> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>With an agonized "<i>WHOOSH</i>!" 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Both girls flung themselves, sobbing, into their husband's arms.</p> + +<p>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, <ins class="corr" title="Transcriber's note: As in original.">felt of Newman's head</ins>, then looked casually at the three other +bodies.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I <i>killed</i> him, Carl!" Barbara sobbed, convulsively. "And the worst +of it is, I really <i>meant</i> to! I <i>never</i> did anything like that before +in my whole life!"</p> + +<p>"You didn't kill him, Barbara," Adams said.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>sure</i> I killed him."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Andy, why don't you <i>use</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>one year</i>; and +it is a task for a team of specialists and all the resources of a +research center."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>After some argument, the officers agreed.</p> + +<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> 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."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" Deston exclaimed. "Oh ... <i>that</i> was what you meant by +'fantastic precautions,' back there?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>"But what can we <i>do</i> about it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I ... simply ... do ... not ... know." Adams lost himself +in thought for over a minute. "This is all <i>so</i> new ... I know <i>so</i> +little ... and am working with such <i>pitifully</i> 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."</p> + +<h2>IV.</h2> + +<p>The <i>Procyon</i> 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 <i>Procyon</i>'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.</p> + +<p>Thus, in less than six months, the <i>Procyon</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Listen, you egregious clam," she said, firmly, "I know darn well I've +been pregnant for at <i>least</i> seven months, and I ought to be twice this +big. Our clock isn't <i>that</i> 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 <i>truth</i>. <i>Are</i> we in for a lot of trouble?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Trouble? Of course not. <i>Certainly</i> 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. <i>Perfect</i>! No +malformations of any kind."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but for what <i>age</i>?" Bernice asked, pointedly. "Four months, say? +I see, I was exposed to a course in embryology myself, once."</p> + +<p>"But <i>that's</i> 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 <i>listening</i>!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>are</i> you sure, really?"</p> + +<p>"Of <i>course</i> I'm sure!" Adams snapped, testily, and Barbara led Deston +aside.</p> + +<p>"Have you got the <i>slightest</i> idea of what he was talking about?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>variable</i> +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."</p> + +<p>"But aren't you <i>worried</i>, sweetheart? Not even the least little bit?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not," and Deston very evidently meant just that.</p> + +<p>"I am. I can't help but be. Why aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>sure</i> that all four of you are +just as safe as though you were in God's lefthand hip pocket."</p> + +<p>"Oh—that's right. I never thought of it that way. So I <i>don't</i> have +anything to worry about, do I?" She lifted her lips to be kissed; and +the kiss was long and sweet.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>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 <i>much</i> higher—mathematics.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"W-e-l-l-," the scientist looked hurt, but did consent to forego the +high math. "The discharge <i>is</i> catastrophic; in energy equivalent +something of the order of magnitude of ten thousand discharges of +lightning. And, unfortunately, I do <i>not</i> know what it is. It is +virtually certain, however, that we will be able to dissipate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> it in +successive decrements by the use of long, thin leads extending downward +toward a high point of the planet."</p> + +<p>"Wire, you mean? What kind?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"We've got dozens of coils of hook-up wire," Deston said, "but not too +many <i>miles</i> and it's soft stuff."</p> + +<p>"<i>Graham</i> wire!" Jones snapped his finger.</p> + +<p>"Of course," Deston agreed. "Hundreds of miles of it. Float the senser +down on a Hotchkiss——"</p> + +<p>"Tear-out." Jones objected.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Sure ... surges—backlash. Remote it."</p> + +<p>"Check. Remote everything to Baby Two, and——"</p> + +<p>"Would you mind delousing <i>your</i> signal?" Adams asked, caustically.</p> + +<p>"'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."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know. What are Grahams?"</p> + +<p>"Why, they're the intermediates between the Chaytors ... O. K., O. K., +they're something like bottles, that have to stand terrifically high +pressures."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Your proper expedition might get its pants burned off, too."</p> + +<p>"There is always that possibility; but I will insist on being assigned +to the project. This information, young man, is <i>necessary</i>."</p> + +<p>"O. K., Doc," and it was done; and in a few days the <i>Procyon</i> hung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +motionless, a good five hundred miles high, directly above the highest, +sharpest mountain peak they had been able to find.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Procyon</i> was +hurled upward like the cork out of a champagne bottle. And as for what +it <i>felt</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <ins class="corr" title="Transcriber's note: The original read 'vulcanism'.">volcanism</ins> for hundreds of thousands of years.</p> + +<p>"And what," said Deston finally, "do you suppose happened to the other +side of the ship?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Shall I try the radio now, Doc?" Deston asked.</p> + +<p>"By no means. This first blast would, of course, be the worst, but there +will be several more, of decreasing violence."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>There were. The second, while it volatilized the boom and its grounding +network, merely fused portions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"Now you may try your radio," Adams said.</p> + +<p>Deston flipped a switch and spoke, quietly but clearly, into a +microphone. "<i>Procyon One</i> to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine. +Subspace Radio Test Ninety-Five—I think. How do you read me, Control +Six?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>Procyon</i>! The <i>PROCYON</i>, that was lost a +year ago! Unless some fool is playing a dumb joke."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"<i>Procyon One</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"It <i>is Procyon One</i>—the Runt himself—Hi, Babe!" the new voice roared, +then quieted to normal volume. "I read you eight and one. Survivors?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"Skip that for now. In a lifecraft? No, after this long, it must be the +ship. Not navigable, of course?"</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"It's a long story."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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'."</p> + +<p>"That's enough out of you, Herc my boy. You'll be next. Go ahead, Babe."</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> 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:</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"That <i>is</i> the real story, damn it!"</p> + +<p>"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—<i>verbum sap</i>. 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?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>hope</i> there aren't enough stars in it but what you can +find us sometime."</p> + +<p>"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 <i>you</i> 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."</p> + +<p>"Just a minute!" Deston snapped. "What's your time?"</p> + +<p>"Three, fourteen, thirty-seven. So go back to bed, you night-prowling +owl."</p> + +<p>"Of what day, month, and year?" Deston insisted.</p> + +<p>"Friday, Sep——" French's voice was replaced by a much older one; very +evidently that of a Fellow of the College.</p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i> +gibberish is a bountiful sufficiency, husband mine. So I think we'd +better take Captain French's advice, don't you?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Since there was only one star in Jones' "Confusion" (by the book, +"Volume of Uncertainty") finding the <i>Procyon</i> 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.</p> + +<p>Then the <i>Procyon</i> started back for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>"Theodore Warner Deston is going to be born on Newmars, where he should +be," Barbara had said, and Deston had agreed.</p> + +<p>"But suppose she's Theodora?" Bernice had twitted her.</p> + +<p>"Uh-uh," Barbara had said, calmly. "I just <i>know</i> he's Theodore."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Of what use is it to pit such puny and trivial things as <i>facts</i> against +rock-ribbed, iron-bound, entrenched AUTHORITY?</p> + +<p>The five, however, <i>knew</i>; 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:</p> + +<p>"Wherever you start or whatever your angle of approach, he <i>always</i> +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?"</p> + +<p>"It sounds like it ought to mean <i>something</i>, 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 <i>we</i> care?"</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUBSPACE SURVIVORS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 21647-h.txt or 21647-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/4/21647">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/6/4/21647</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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?" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUBSPACE SURVIVORS*** + + +******* This file should be named 21647.txt or 21647.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/4/21647 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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