"Yes, sir," Willy said dolefully, shifting his gaze so that he did not
have to look directly at Goil or me. He hesitated for moments, then
when the silence was too thick, he continued.
"I--I took that generator and that energizer as I told you yesterday."
Again he paused, patently dreading what more he had to say.
"What did you do with such monstrous, expensive pieces of equipment?"
asked Goil. "Of what possible use could they be to you, especially out
here in space?"
"Willy," I said, "why don't you start right at the beginning so Mr.
Goil can get a complete picture?"
Willy looked behind and around me, gulped a couple of times, then
started.
"OK. Well, Martha's birthday--Martha is my wife, Mr. Goil--her
birthday is in a few days. And I missed her last birthday and she
never forgave me for that. And I almost missed this one too, except I
got an idea. And that was after reading about those private satellites
a lot of the rich people have going around Earth.
* * * * *
"It was too late for me to send any sort of a birthday present to
Martha; besides, what could I get her out here? Anyway, I got the idea
that what a wonderful birthday present it would be if I could get
Martha a private satellite. Not one of those prefabricated ones, but a
natural, real one. The more I thought about it the better the idea
sounded. Then I realized that I had everything here; a million
asteroids to choose from, and I could slip one of the gravity
generators in the middle of it. And I could hitch the drive from the
smashed tug to it, and install a sub-space energizer. Except for an
atmosphere generator it would be equipped enough for a start. I could
finish equipping it later. So I got an asteroid and took a sub-space
energizer and a gravity generator from supply--they are
expendable--and got the drive off the wrecked tug. I installed them on
the rock."
Willy ended his story abruptly.
Goil sat looking intently at Willy and drumming his fingers on the
desk top. Finally he said:
"We can recover those major items. Maybe it'll go easier with you,
Willy. If you can show us where this rock is--"
Willy hung his head again. And the silence became solid. Finally Willy
squeaked out:
"I can't. I sent it off yesterday."
"Just how and when did you determine the rock should be sent?" asked
Goil.
"I--I got a course tape," said Willy. I could almost feel his sense of
guilt as he virtually implicated one more of his friends.
"Don't you know," said Goil in an all-too-quiet, ominous voice, "that
a jury-rigged contraption like that could never get near Earth with
only a one-time course like that plotted for it? That it takes precise
computations to get something like that to a destination? _With_ a
human navigator? Just how did you figure you could do it? I'm
curious."
"Well," said Willy warming up to the subject a little, "I rigged up a
timing unit. When it left here, it was on the taped course for Earth.
Then it went into sub-space. From the computations I got, I set
another timer that will kick it back into normal space at the right
time, and in an orbit around Earth."
The room was silent for a time. Finally the silence exploded with:
"You damned fool! You dangerous idiot! You've got just enough
knowledge to be able to do something like that, but not enough sense
to know it is hopeless and idiotic! I've heard enough. Now, get out of
here!"
Willy got out in a stumbling hurry.
* * * * *
I stayed. Goil tried to glare me out of the room, but I would have
none of it. I was now ready to go into action. I was by no means
certain I would be right, but already deep in this mess, what more
could I lose by plunging?
With a lot more bravado than I really felt, I plunked down on Goil's
desk top a stack of sheets, a chart, and tapes. Then I put both palms
down on his desk and leaned over until I looked him squarely in the
face. I said:
"Do you know what is going to happen to that rock of Willy's, Mr.
Goil? It's going to come out of sub-space right smack in the path of
that freighter. It's going to knock that freighter right off course."
Of course, it sounded like a fantasy, and if I had been in Goil's
place, I would have thought it so. But Goil had been worrying over the
impending loss of his interests, and even the fantastic was something
to clutch at for the moment.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
I nodded to the stuff I had tossed on his desk. "Look at those. The
chart particularly. I got the course plotted by Artie Jones. I checked
the path and timing of both Willy's asteroid and the freighter.
Willy's asteroid is due to come out of sub-space in about six hours at
this point."--I pointed to an X I had marked on the chart--"And the
freighter will be at the same point at the same time."
Goil said nothing, but examined the chart and the computation figures,
and finally the tapes. He shook his head a number of times as if he
didn't want to believe but did not dare not to. Finally, he looked up
at me and said:
"The course and figures seem to check both ways. But I don't believe
it. That the rock and the freighter should meet in the same place at
the same time would be more than a coincidence. It would be a
miracle."
"More so than the 'coincidence' of the freighter headed straight for
Mars's only industrial area?" I asked.
Goil thought it over for a while. Then he said, "Yes. More than I can
imagine. We have the rock and the freighter, two moving bodies,
meeting in space by pure chance. Space is too vast for that sort of
thing. It can't happen."
"Mars and the freighter are two moving bodies in space that are going
to meet," I pointed out.
"Yes, but the ship was originally headed on a course to Mars. And Mars
is much bigger."
"True," I conceded. "But the asteroid is also on an interception
course with the freighter. And it is a lot bigger than the freighter."
Goil sat silent and thoughtful for quite a while. Finally, he said:
"I'm not gullible, Mr. Weston. Nor am I a fool. I have enough interest
in Mars to want a miracle to happen, aside from a natural desire to
see disaster averted. But what about you; what are you after? What are
you trying to prove?"
That was what I had been waiting for.
* * * * *
I told him about the Research Institute of Human Influences, for which
I was a field psychologist, and how they located accident prones and
safety prones, among other types of odd personalities, and how we
observers gathered data in efforts to learn ways to nullify the
accident prones' influence, and to learn the whys and hows of the
safety prones, as well as ways to expand their fields of influence.
Goil just sat there, his face indicating neither belief nor disbelief.
"Willy has no idea he does what he does, nor why. He's completely
unaware of his influence. I can't imagine how his mind works to
rationalize for his behavior. I'd do just about anything, Mr. Goil, to
keep Willy from learning all I've told you. It would make him aware,
and that might sour things, probably even nullify his influence."
Goil said, "I'm not at all convinced that this is not some sort of
lunatic hoax. But as long as there is nothing I nor you can do for the
time being, I'm going to hold any further action in abeyance. Let's
see what happens. Even if by some miraculous coincidence the rock and
the ship should meet, that's not proof that your yarn is true."
"No," I said. "But other things have happened before. Nothing this
big, though. But always, there is this synergism of Willy's; a
compulsion to do some crazy thing, or to build some silly gadget, even
if he has to steal to do it. And the inevitable end that sometimes
quite obviously prevents injury, and other times leaving the results a
mystery. Once the purpose has been accomplished, Willy loses all
interest. I have histories, documented cases of Willy's influence.
Files of tape recordings of his synergisms in action. And these files
all show a definite pattern."
"Let's hear some of your recordings, and read some of your documents,"
said Goil.
And that was how we spent the next four hours.
* * * * *
Of course, I had juggled the computations I had shown Goil a little
bit. And made the course of the asteroid look like it would coincide
with that of the freighter. If I hadn't, Goil would never have given
me the time I needed.
Art Jones had kept the news of the freighter coming in all day. It was
still on course for Mars. About a half-hour before the freighter crew
was due to leave the ship, the rec room was crowded with men waiting
to watch the escape of the crew.
There hadn't been time enough to get a ship in the area that could
blast the freighter off course. And there hadn't been any ship even on
Mars equipped for such action, not even an old slightly serviceable
derelict that could be placed in the runaway ship's path for
deflection.
The long-range scope still had the runaway ship in focus. It looked
like a little painted miniature in the trideo, with a very slowly
moving spangled background. A faint superimposed image of Mars
appeared. The announcer was talking about forces, vectors, and other
navigational terminology, plus nonsensical chatter of probability
factors. The picture faded and was replaced with an artist's animated
conception of the impending tragedy. It showed the present location of
the ship, the calculated course and trajectory of the ship through the
atmosphere to the point of impact--right in the center of the
industrial area. It ended with a big question mark before the image of
the ship returned.
During the sequence of the collision course, I was trying in my mind
to figure out just how far off Willy's asteroid would be. I could
figure it roughly in my head, remembering the original figures I'd
gotten from Artie. The asteroid would be no fewer than a million and a
half miles from the runaway ship, at its nearest point. Besides, it
wouldn't emerge from sub-space until it was near Earth, a good seventy
million miles from Mars at that time.
It had taken some belligerent persuasion to get Artie to conjure up
the figures and tapes I gave Goil.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and glanced up. Simon, one of the tug
pilots, was pointing toward the back of the room. I looked back.
Artie was there with a worried look on his face looking at me. His
eyes moved quickly toward where Goil sat, and then back at me. His
head gave a little backwards jerk.
Feeling real unhappy all of a sudden as premonition nudged my mind, I
got up quietly and went back.
Artie had stepped outside in the hall. When he saw me step out of the
rec room doorway, he motioned me down the hall farther. Gloom was all
over his face, even in his motions. He said:
"Sam, I don't know what's going on around here between Willy, Goil,
and you. But I thought you'd like to know Goil was in to see me a
little while ago. Before I had much of a chance to think about it, I
gave him the figures and tapes for that course I plotted for Willy. I
don't know how Goil knew about them, but he asked for them directly."
"Which figures, Art?" I asked anxiously.
"Why, the ones I made for you. Is there something wrong, Sam?"
My alarm must have shown in my face. I said, "No, Art. I thought maybe
you might have given him that other course I asked you to plot."
"You mean that false course? Hell, Sam. I didn't know--"
"It's all right, Art. You didn't know." And I left him standing there
puzzled. I went back to the rec room.
I wasn't feeling so good by the time I got back. My seat had been
taken, so I wriggled myself a place against the back wall.
Goil knew all about the fictitious course I gave him. Right there he
had me cold. But he was too worried to want to do anything about it
then.
The time seemed to stand still. The crew still had some fifteen
minutes before they were due to abandon ship, so I left the rec room
to sneak out to the galley for a cup of coffee. When I entered, there
was Artie and Elmer already having coffee.