Chapter II

Spaceflight Seventy-nine took off, lifted on schedule by Pilot Jock Norton. Norton was a big man, rather on the lazy side, but a good pilot. If he had had any ambition at all, he would have owned his spacecraft, maybe a string of several, instead of being a paid space jockey.

But Jock Norton lacked the drive, or perhaps had never seen anything he actually wanted. He was a love-em-and-leave-em kind of guy who spent everything he earned on good times and luxuries. He spent no time seeking out the better pay loads as other pilots did, and so did not collect any of the fancy commissions for being a good businessman. He had gravitated to a standard contract type of job and with this he was satisfied.

His cargoes were invariably bid-basis job lots, instead of valuable merchandise with a delivery factor. He ran mail loads mostly--mail that could not, for legal reasons, be micro-microfilmed, transmitted by facsi-wave, or recomposed by infrawave at the receiving end. Legal contracts, documents, and the like, the one-and-only original of which must bear the _bona fide_ signature of both parties.

Norton took the spacecraft up, fired the warp-generator, and headed for Castor Three at about forty parsecs per hour. Then, with the control room on the full automatic, he went down to the salon, because it had been a couple of months of Sundays since he had been pilot-host to anyone as young and attractive as Miss Alice Hemingway. Most of his passengers had been businessmen. The few women had been wives of such businessmen, a bit on the dowager side, and therefore more boring than interesting.

But Miss Alice Hemingway was interesting. Not that Jock Norton favored her ash-blond and dark-eyed attractiveness more than he would have admired a redhead or an olive-skinned brunette. He favored all women under thirty who were properly rounded here and there--especially there--and who had clear-skinned faces with regular features.

That Alice Hemingway, secretary, was traveling with her boss made her even more interesting. Norton had cased Mr. Charles Andrews carefully and put him down as a Napoleon type, peppery and active, and probably well-to-do, but not personally attractive to the opposite sex. It was money, decided Norton, that bought a reasonable facsimile of affection to Mr. Charles Andrews.

It would be masculine virility, thought Jock Norton, that would offset the money of Charles Andrews and really bring a proper emotional response from the girl.

"Good morning," he greeted them from the last step of the ladder that led down from the control room.

"How do you do, Pilot Norton," responded Andrews.

"My goodness!" exclaimed Alice. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Isn't what dangerous?" asked Norton, with a wide, lazy smile.

"Your leaving the ship to run itself."

"Not at all." Norton showed his superior knowledge. "Our auto-pilot is the best that money can buy and maintain. And after all, Miss Hemingway, there is little a pilot can do while we are in transit. The auto-pilot does the job from after take-off to before landing. In between, the human pilot relaxes and enjoys his space travel. So--may I build you a cocktail? Or maybe you'd prefer a highball."

"At this hour in the morning?"

Norton laughed and inspected his watch. "I admit that it is ten o'clock by Chicago time. But it is past midnight on Polaris Two at Minervatown. It's three A.M. in Leyport, Procyon Five. It's even three o'clock in London, Terra."

"Besides," said Charles Andrews curtly, "we're hard at work."

"Work?" exploded Norton loftily. "You're hard at work in deep space?"

"Certainly. Deep space or hard planet, work must go on. I did not get where I am by goofing off, Pilot Norton."

Jock Norton grinned. "All work and no play, you know."

"All play and no work is worse."

"It's more fun," said Jock, with a feeling that he was coming off second-best in this fool argument. "Look," he said, "everybody relaxes in deep space. It's customary. It's holiday."

"It's damn foolish." Andrews turned to Alice. "Miss Hemingway, what do you think?"

"I'm half-inclined to agree with you, Mr. Andrews. But you must know I'm thrilled to be a-space. I've never been off Earth before."

"Oh. Then I capitulate. Pilot Norton, will you give Miss Hemingway a space tourist's run of the ship, please?"

"Be happy to." Norton nodded.

* * * * *

He looked around the salon, from face to face. There were four others there, all of them watching with a blank sort of interest. Norton took a deep breath of inner cheer for his luck. All the rest looked as though nothing could be as boring as a tourist's run of a spacecraft. He made the gesture of asking, but all shook their heads.

Norton opened the small bar and set everyone up to cocktails. Then he said to Alice, "Now, let's start at the bottom and work our way up."

"Any way you say," she told him.

Andrews got to his feet. "I think I'll tag along."

Norton swore below his breath.

Alice walked between them as Norton explained the workings of the spacecraft. She found Norton a good talker, and his lazy manner of speech somehow managed to convey a lot of information that a more intense man would have flubbed, because of a greater preoccupation with facts.

Even Mr. Andrews seemed interested, although he had been a-space many times before, as a matter of business.

Norton explained the workings of the power pile in a much oversimplified way, showed them the various rooms of machinery for maintaining air and water and electrical circuits throughout the ship. As he had suggested, they started at the bottom, looking out through the below-hatch at the hull of the ship, where the misty blue corona flared down and back from the eight tubular drivers that thrust their blunt cylindrical noses down in a large circle, surrounding the after viewport.

Then Norton worked them aloft slowly, up through the room filled with water for the reaction mass, and hurled out from the throat of the driver tubes as a molecular-atomic gas so highly energized that it was not water, but nascent hydrogen and oxygen, completely ionized. The coronal flare below, he explained, was the recombination of the nuclei with their electrons in shells, and the partial recompositions of the gases into water.

He showed them the warp-generator that created the extra space field around the ship, nullifying every physical attribute of matter. Neither mass nor inertia remained, so that the thrust of the flare had no resistance against which to exert its force, resulting in a drive that violated the Einstein equations. Forward velocity reached terminal when the interstellar matter provided a tenuous medium against which the velocity of the ship found resistance.

He showed them the magnetic-mass detector that protected them against meteors, and explained that while the thing was primitive, it was the best that Mankind had. The infrawave was hopeless because it had an instantaneous velocity of propagation and was also nondirectional, and therefore neither direction-finding nor ranging could be accomplished with the infrawave.

But the magnetic-mass detector was not as hopeless as it looked.

He said casually, "There were a lot of tall stories back in the Early Twentieth Century about spacecraft filled with course-computing gear that measured the course of meteorites, then directed the spacecraft. A more practical study of any such device shows that any extraneous object that does not change its aspect angle is necessarily on a collision course. Ergo, any target that does not move causes the alarm to ring, and the auto-pilot to swerve aside." He grinned and added in a low voice, "We're as safe as if we were all in bed."

As his arm touched Alice's she realized that Jock Norton had been entertaining the idea of bed ever since this tourist's run had started. She smiled because it amused her. Jock Norton had made a snap judgment, probably because he had seen a lot of such shenanigans as man and woman playing employer and secretary before. She almost laughed at Norton, realizing that he was displaying all of his knowledge and his virility in the hope of convincing her that he was probably more fun in bed than the elderly Napoleon type with whom she was traveling.

She stole a look at Andrews, comparing the two men. She wondered whether Andrews had cottoned onto Norton's play and if he had, whether her boss found it funny or irritating.

* * * * *

As they walked along a curved corridor, she saw with some surprise that twice Mr. Andrews had lagged back a bit, then had come forward behind them to walk by her side instead of on the far side of Jock Norton. And both times Norton had quietly lagged back to circle her and step forward between them, explaining quietly that Mr. Andrews could hear his explanation better if he, Norton, walked between.

Alice was still wondering whether Charles Andrews actually held any off-trail notions about his traveling secretary when all hell broke loose.

First came the wild clangor of an alarm, and the automatic cry of a recorded order:

"Your undivided attention, please! This is urgent! You have eleven minutes from the end of this announcement to follow these directions. There has been a partial failure of the warp-generator. If this failure becomes complete, and the space field collapses, the effect will be that of precipitating intrinsic mass into the real Universe while traveling at some high multiple of the velocity of light. The spacecraft then will drop instantly below the speed of light but in doing so will radiate all the energy-mass equivalent to those multi-light speeds, according to the Einstein equation of mass and energy. It is therefore expedient that you repair to the lifeship locks and prepare to debark. The partial failure may or may not continue. If not, there will be no more danger. But in case of continued breakdown--"

The recorded announcement stopped abruptly as a louder alarm bell rang briefly. Then another voice from the squawk-box shouted:

"The warp-generator is failing! You have--"

A third voice came in automatically saying, "Eleven minutes," after which the second voice continued neatly, "to make your way to a lifeship and debark. Please do not panic. You have plenty of time."

"It's this way," Norton said anxiously.

"We'll find it," said Andrews. "I know this spacecraft type. Hadn't you better take care of your other passengers?"

Norton wanted to swear. It would have been so neat if Andrews hadn't insisted upon coming along on this tourist's run of the spacecraft. As it was, Norton couldn't quite bring himself to suggest that Andrews take care of the other customers while Norton himself took care of the girl. On the other hand, Norton had no intention of rushing off to take care of the others when they were probably being taken care of right now by the engineer-technician. He said that, and repeated it to give it force.

"This way," he said.

The announcer bawled, "You now have ten minutes!"

"Couldn't I get my bag?" pleaded Alice.

"Anything of real value in it?" asked Norton.

"Not really."

"Then we'd best leave it." Norton breathed a sigh of relief. Now she wouldn't find it more expedient to travel with the bunch upstairs.

He led them up a flight of curved stairs and around another curved corridor as the announcement howled:

"Nine minutes!"

The squawk-box said, in a more natural voice, "Jock? Look, I've got this section under control. How're you doing?"

"I'm doing fine, Limey. We're almost at the below-station lock."

"Be seein' you. Luck."

The announcement yelled:

"Eight minutes! You all have plenty of time. Remember, safety is more important that blind speed! Listen!"

The tremolo of an organ filled the spacecraft--vibrant, thrilling, brilliant music rising over the _throb, throb, throb_ of heavy bass, beating time just fast enough to keep feet moving briskly, but nowhere fast enough to cause panic or fumbled steps.

"Seven minutes!" came the cry.

* * * * *

Norton's hands closed on the space lock and he twisted the emergency handles. The inner door swung open ponderously and they walked past the portal. The lock swung behind them and the dogs went home.

"Six minutes!" came a less resonant call from a smaller loud-speaker in the lock.

Jock Norton handed Alice through the small space lock of the lifeship, boosted Andrews in after her, then climbed in himself.

"Five minutes!" was almost cut off as the lifeship space lock swung shut.

"Four minutes!" came as the big outer space lock was cracked.

Norton's hands on the lifeship controls moved and the little spacer leaped out of the doorway.

On the infrawave they heard the call of "Three minutes!" then "Two!" and finally the announcement, "You are now all debarked and are in places of safety. The distress call has been sent constantly from the moment of danger. Sit tight and make no foolish moves until help comes. Do not look to the rear, as the explosion of a collapsed field generator is brilliant enough to sear the eyes--"

The voice stopped abruptly as there came a wave of sheer heat. The ports on the side of the lifeship flared blue-white, and the spacecraft bucked as though it were being driven into a heavy gas cloud.

"What was that?" blurted Andrews, picking himself up off the heaving deck.

Norton shrugged. "That was Spaceflight Seventy-nine going to hell in a wicker basket," he said.

"But why? We weren't hit by anything."

"You can bet not," Norton said cheerfully. "Don't you know about spaceflight factors? The Einstein equation?"

Andrews eyed the pilot coldly. For several hours the younger man had been explaining all sorts of things in a condescending manner, showing off his knowledge in a field that he knew far better than any one else present. This was galling to the financier, who was used to paying mathematicians and physicists small change.

"I don't have time to clutter up my mind with equations," he told Norton coldly. "I usually pay people to have them explain these things to me. So go right ahead."

Norton's thick hide sloughed off the insult because he was still the bright one.

He said, "The original Einstein equation of mass and energy shows that as the speed of light is reached, the mass reaches infinite mass. This is an obvious impossibility, since even the total mass of the Universe is not an infinite mass. So when a body traveling at faster-than-light is hurled into the real Universe by the collapse of the warp-generator, for the barest instant it is actually traveling beyond light. This causes it to assume some unknown factor of mass that no physicist has been able to theorize yet, but must be the impossible infinity-plus. At any rate, the fabric of space is twisted, as if by a gravitational field so powerful that the field wraps up around itself and forces the mass into a Universe of its own."

"You're talking gibberish."

"Sure I am. But you find me someone who can explain this effect without talking like an imbecile and I'll buy you a good cigar."

"All right--go on. What is supposed to happen?"

Norton shrugged. "If a volume of space is removed from the structure of space--this is more gibberish, Andrews, believe me--then there must be an instantaneous flow of space back to fill the gap. Now, for God's sake don't ask me why empty space has got to flow into a place where some empty space has been removed. I've always been taught that nothing from nothing leaves nothing. Maybe nothing from nothing leaves less nothing than before, but that sounds as silly as the rest of the whole fool argument. At any rate, every time a warp-generator collapses, the same twist occurs in the structure of space. There have been billions of bucks' worth of equipment shot into nothingness by the White Sands Space Academy in the last hundred years, just to see if someone can come up with a logical answer."

* * * * *

Andrews said coldly, "All right. So now what do we do?"

"We sit it out," Norton said cheerfully.

"Doing what?"

"Decelerating to a velocity below light. We still have our ship's intrinsic to get rid of, you know."

"Why don't we keep on?"

"Because this is a lifeship and not a spacecraft. We have only enough space power to pull ourselves down safely, with some reserve, and then we use the reserve to emit our distress call. Cheer up. We got off safely. This will be a breeze."

"It will? And why are you so happy about it?"

Jock Norton smiled, then said the one thing that removed all and any chance of Alice Hemingway ever looking upon him as a desirable character, virile or not.

"Spaceman's insurance," he said. "For spacewreck, one thousand cold clams. For debarking with every passenger within a reasonable distance of my position at the time of distress, an award of one thousand more frogskins each. This is not so much an insurance award as it is a reward incentive for a spaceman to do the right and proper thing. Then, for every lonely hour adrift in deep space, from the time of distress until we are collected safely, one hundred fish. This should add up to a neat sum by the time we are picked up. Tommy Walton and Joe Lake drifted for eight hours and collected. Sure, we're sitting pretty and we'll be rescued in due time. So let's settle down and take it easy."

Andrews said, "I suppose you've spent half of your time a-space hoping for some disaster so you could collect a neat pile."

"Not quite that bad. This is likely to be sure rough before we're collected. But it does pay off. So let's relax, huh?"

Alice was breathing a silent prayer to Commodore Wilson that he make it a quick run. She was sick and tired of spacing already....

Admiral Stone said, "These are your orders, Wilson. You are to take your squadron out to Cube X-Z-Fifty-nineteen, District Forty-seven. You'll have to comb it inch by inch."

"I'll comb it millimeter by millimeter," asserted Wilson. "Miss Hemingway was on that spacer."

"Don't do anything foolish," warned the space admiral. "Just remember that you're a flight commodore and not a full squadron commander yet. You have your orders."

"I have. And I'll bring them back. Both lifeship loads."

"Then get going. Remember that every hour decreases their chances of a safe rescue. Luck, Wilson. Spaceman's luck!"

"Correct, Admiral Stone."

Less than a quarter-hour later, Ted Wilson's flight of twenty-five swift light spacecraft went barreling up out of Chicago Spaceport and into that region of the sky called Gemini....

Viggon Sarri sat in the main control cabin of the hunter spacecraft, quietly waiting for Linus Brein to finish some involved equations in logic symbols. When the long string of symbols had come to what looked like a satisfactory conclusion, Brein looked up.

"Any success?"

"Oh, yes indeed." Brein nodded. "Of course our interpretations of their speech is only symbolic at this point. But this much we know. This series of sounds--" he snapped a switch on the side of his desk and a wall speaker delivered a series of what sounded to them like sheer gibberish--"connotates as follows: Voice A has called for contact with any receiving station. Voice B has responded, informing A that he is ready to receive. Voice A then delivers a running account of the disaster, delivering his computed position, vector of travel, and space coordinates. I've untangled some of their tongue." Brein replayed the recording and stopped it after the first passage. He parroted the gibberish, "'Spaceflight Seventy-nine calling Distress.' That, Viggon, is interpreted in our tongue as 'Identification Number So-and-so calling to announce disaster.'"

* * * * *

He let the recording run a bit then said, again parroting the gibberish, "'Chicago Spaceport, Interstellar Service to Spaceflight Seventy-nine. We read you five by five, go ahead. What is your distress?' We interpret the reply as, 'Base of Operations has received your distress call. Please elucidate.' What follows defies identification, Admiral Sarri. Until we can meet one of these people and learn more of their physiognomy, we cannot hope to unravel their numerical system. Damn it, we don't even know how many fingers they have."

"Or," suggested Sarri drily, "whether they might have stopped counting on their hands."

"Indeed." Linus Brein nodded thoughtfully. "However, not long after the reception of this distress signal, the entire infrawave band seemed to fill up with all sorts of signals, all of them repeating the sounds that we assume are the space coordinates of this foundered spacecraft."

"Indicating that this is not a completely anarchistic or communal, insect-type culture. The individual is important."

"I would say so."

Regin Naylo smiled. It would have been an odd-looking facial grimace to an Earthman, for it turned the corners of his pencil-thin lips down and furrowed the skin of his head between the gleaming eyes and the low, ragged hairline.

Viggon Sarri said, "What do you find so amusing?"

Regin replied, "If they are individually important, then the culture finds the individual important, as opposed to the insect-type which wouldn't mind losing a few billions so long as the inner hive is intact, or the anarchistic culture where the loss of a unit is not even noticed, because every one of them is so preoccupied with his own affairs that he can take no time to consider the next man."

"Right. So what?"

"I say let's hit 'em while they're all occupied in tracking down the survivors of this wreck."

Faren Twill grunted sourly, "Ever try to interfere with a dog and her pups? You get bitten whether you mean good or ill. If you care for my opinion you'll ... Or do you give a damn?"

"Go ahead."

"I say we just slide in there quietly and collect the lifeships. Then, later, we can go in boldly and establish our superior position."

Regin Naylo shook his head superciliously. "I say we should hit 'em with all we've got and establish our physical superiority. Look, Faren, either way this gang of subhumans is going to end up in some form of servitude to us. Let's make it the quick and dirty way and save manpower. Besides, what can they possibly have that we want?"

Twill shrugged. "Any subject race is a good market."

Naylo laughed. "I'd rather shove it down their throats by taxation. Then we'd collect without having to give them a string of uranium beads for exchange."

Faren Twill asked Viggon Sarri for his opinion.

Viggon said, without changing expression, "There are races that will not abide the idea of collaboration, and there are races that either revolt or die under any superior government. It has been my lifework to expand the Bradian culture, one way and another, across the galaxy. When we finish with this problem here, another world--in this case another series of colonized worlds--will enter one of the forms of economic relationships with Brade. Whether we blast in and smash them, or ooze in and coerce them quietly; take them over, or hail them as an ally."

"Ally?" roared Regin Naylo scornfully. "This bunch of primitives who haven't even got an infrawave detector?"

"Ally?" snarled Faren Twill disgustedly. "This people who cannot protect their spacecraft from warp failure?"

Viggon Sarri held up his doubly-prehensile hand. "Either of you may be right," he said. "But remember that we do have time. So we'll wait until we know more about their basic character before we take any course. Go consult Linus Brein. Watch his computations and his evaluations. Come back when you have more complete data for your own evaluation."

Naylo and Twill left together.

Viggon Sarri called Brein on the ultra-infrawave.

"Linus? My headstrong youths are coming over to look at your data. Like any other kids they know everything, but dammit, like a lot of kids one of them may be right. Maybe I'm overcautious. So give them all the data you have, and let them evaluate it. I'll happily pin a medal on one of them if he's right and I'm wrong. Okay?"

Linus Brein agreed.