In old-fashioned black letters, the legend on the thick metalo glass
door said OFFICE OF THE ADMIRALTY, SPACE ARM. Cragin swung past it as
though it had said Control Room and an officer of the day clad in an
Earth Headquarters uniform told him that an Admiral Kirkholland would
see him immediately.
Kirkholland's name was on the next door, and under it in smaller
letters the single word, "Intelligence." What the hell, Cragin mused,
why argue.
"At ease lieutenant. Sit down, cigarette?" Big, thought Cragin. Tough
old bird, red faced, cropped white hair, chief pilot's rockets pinned
to the plain front of his tunic. Cragin wondered how long he'd been
flying the eight-foot plastaloy desk.
He accepted the cigarette and sat.
"More time we save the better, Cragin. Here it is. You were recalled
because your records show you know your way around in Deep Space better
than anybody in the whole Arm. HQ figured it'd be a better bet for this
job to rely on what Intelligence training a regular Patrol officer gets
than to try teaching a specialized Intelligence officer how to handle
himself out where only yourself and Lin Griffin have ever flown and
gotten back to tell about it. Except that so far, you're the only one
who's told anything."
"Not sure I follow that all, sir. I take it Miss Griffin--"
"She's getting along all right. Ready to leave the station hospital
in a day or two. Only she won't talk. Just mumbled something about an
Ecliptic X when she finally started coming around, cried a little, and
then shut up tight. Doctor says it's extreme shock. I don't think so.
You can't do reams of mathematics that nobody else can make head or
tail of when you're suffering shock. She not only won't talk, but after
she finishes each sheet of calculations, she tosses it in the bedside
incinerator tube. So I'm making guesses."
Cragin let a little smoke dribble from his nostrils and tried reading
Kirkholland's penetrating look.
"The market, sir? There wasn't a gram of water crystal in her ship
when--"
"The report's been read phonic by phonic, Cragin. We've had the market
pretty well under our thumbs up to now, and we can't go taking any
chances. Setting up clay pigeons to lull us into a false sense of
security is as old as the Martian ridges but it's worth thinking about
if they've found a way to operate outside the Barrier."
"What about the flight plan she and her father had to file, sir?"
"In order, of course. Maybe just a clever part of the scheme. And who
would suspect a man of Griffin's caliber and position?"
"I see. She's a definite suspect, then, and--"
"Can't say that. Officially. But because of the circumstances
surrounding her return, she's certainly subject to observation."
"My job."
"You've been cleared by HQ, and put on carte blanche answerable to
myself only and to the President. As soon as you go out that door,
you're on the job. And remember we're not interested in her any further
than to whom she leads us. This," Kirkholland handed him a small,
smooth, slate-colored rectangle of enamelite with the insigne of Space
Intelligence atomically engraved through its molecular structure, "will
take care of anything you need at any time from any department of the
government and of course from any private citizen."
Cragin recognized and accepted it. He knew that it had been activated
to his own unique neurophysical vibration specie, taken of course from
his personal record. Within moments it would turn glittering white,
and only as long as it was white would it be valid. Taken from him or
lost, it would revert to the gray color and belie its bearer as either
a chance finder or an imposter.
"Good luck. And I repeat, if we're right, it's to whom she leads us
that I want brought in. Now blast off, lieutenant."
"A-blast she sails, sir."
Something new, anyway. Not exactly new, but it could mean tight-roping
beyond the Barrier again. Cragin's pulse picked up a beat. Routine
as hell of course. Take a week, maybe ten days. But it was something
he hadn't tried before. Until he had it all under wraps, it could be
interesting.
* * * * *
He had almost lost her in the sudden sand flurry, but it wouldn't have
mattered because he knew now where she was headed. He hoisted the
aircar a thousand feet and slacked throttle.
"Security channel 12 open. Central Port please ack."
"CP go ahead 12."
"This is Cragin on CB-42-SMBB. Check please and know me by this."
"Clear CB we know you."
"Is that custom job registered under Griffin still in your park?"
"Registered all right and primed to the forejets for a big ride if you
ask me. Orders?"
"Whack up her radar, but not with an axe. And warm me up an SP-15 if
you've got one, with a ten comp bank. Soup the drive and gun circuits.
Want a duplicate of her flight plan. That's all and beam me when she
blasts."
"When she blasts."
Then it was just a matter of sweating her out. Once Lin Griffin took
her trim craft into Space it would be routine, if her bosses, if she
were actually heading for any, didn't risk a track beam on her. If they
did and picked him up at the same time, they'd need faster guns than he
had.
The SP-15 looked brand new, and Cragin had little more than buttoned
her up when flight control beamed him. He kept the Griffin ship tracked
for a full minute, let it cut the edge of the Mars ecliptic before
he cut in his own drive. She was giving Pluto her starboard when he
decided on a comfortable watch dog position, and she was headed for the
nearest Barrier co-ordinate within an hour afterward. Just as though,
Cragin thought, somebody had written the whole script out for both of
them, and all they had to do was say their lines and pretty soon the
whole thing would be over.
He checked the gun circuits, tried the detectors for a track, jacked
in the comptometer bank. One began to hum a little and it took him off
guard; he hadn't expected it this soon. She had picked up speed and was
going like hell even for a Barrier-bust. But he was certain she hadn't
spotted him, and he was flying in her blind spot to keep out of her
electroscopes. Sooner or later she'd check in her radar proximity beams
and when they didn't work--If she were as smart as she looked she'd be
swinging her electroscope lenses all over the sky.
Her Starwasp took the Barrier-bust as though it were just so much
Space between Earth and Moon, and Cragin straightened a little in his
cushioned acceleration seat. He threw a track of his own on her, got
an echo measure on it and entered it as a constant into the comp bank,
knocking out the variable that had represented his own control-error
margin. It was the only way he'd be sure to keep her. But if she made
a mistake or her own comps broke down, they'd both fall off the tight
rope.
Three cut in and began whining. Cragin tried a speed check; they'd
passed light-speed, and there was no more danger of her catching him
in her electroscopes. The velocity needle began wider oscillations,
and the hum from Four verified it ... the critical speed changes were
getting trickier. Twenty minutes ticked off, and Cragin knew they were
further out than when he'd picked her up two weeks ago. Light-speed
trebled.
Back to double. Now times twelve.
Six was screaming. Seven started humming, and Cragin felt his clothes
beginning to stick to his back. By himself, he'd never had more than
seven comps to fly on, and had never taken the risk of flying past
breakdown. That was suicide. The SP-15 had been fitted with ten as he
had ordered. According to the books, if you tried to use more than
that, the circuits in One would burn up. Nobody, except Fowler Griffin
and his daughter, had ever tried past seven except himself. The risk
wasn't worth what you got out of it, and listening to a bunch of comps
getting ready to blow themselves to hell didn't net you anything but a
bad heart.
Eight came on. One began to glow. Cragin knew he either had to break
communications silence or kick himself clear into eternity.
His thumb slipped on the mike switch.
His fingers felt like wet sticks, and the mike was cold and greasy to
his touch.
"Calling you Starwasp calling you. This is Cragin, Space Intelligence
on a CB. On your track at 900,000 your six o'clock level. Let me hear
you, Miss Griffin."
There wasn't any answer and he tried again. Nine was humming. "I've
orders to burn you up if you refuse to acknowledge. Ack please." He
tried to keep his voice flat and machine-like so he wouldn't give
himself away, but he sounded like an hysterical schoolgirl compared to
the voice that answered him. It was that of a woman; a woman who might
have died and shriveled in the deserts a hundred years ago.
* * * * *
"Follow me, Patrolman, if you have the courage. Turn back if you'd
rather be safe to choke your life away on the sterile place you call
home. There's a lot of room beyond the Barrier, but little for men who
worship merely their own perfection and stay blind to problems which
they cannot solve. Or go ahead and burn me up if you think it will be
of some help to you."
"Starwasp!" He felt like a rank recruit. But Nine was beginning to
shrill. She was goading him, challenging his courage, daring him to
burn her when she knew that by so doing he'd defeat his own purpose.
"You contraband? I'll give you ten seconds to answer." He was being
ridiculous; had mishandled the whole thing. What the hell was the
matter with him? She was stalling him, making a fool of him, until his
comptometers couldn't take it any more.
"There is more that is contraband where I'm going than you dream of."
"Where you bound?"
"The X ecliptic. Before he died, Fowler Griffin found it. He found the
single machine-planet that circles within it. I expect to join him
there."
"Miss Griffin...."
"I've told you enough. Among the people of Earth there's too much
apathy already; my story would only make it worse. Follow me if you
want to, burn me up or turn back otherwise. But make up your mind."
"It's made up!" Cragin barked back. "I--" He wondered what she meant
by the machine-planet and by the X ecliptic. That was what Kirkholland
had said something about. And he wondered about the other things she
said. Earth was a sterile place....
"Since I only have ten comptometers, I--"
"That's all I have," came back.
And, in the last analysis, he would be safe just to choke his life
away....
"My ten is beginning to hum already--"
"So is mine."
And maybe the people of Earth were stuck on themselves just a little....
"OK, I'll follow."
"You'll have to now."
And they were apathetic, just sitting back, waiting, telling themselves
that all had been done that was possible to do. Because they had done
it.
"Velocity needle's going crazy--"
She didn't answer again, and Ten was screaming so he couldn't have
heard her if she had. Maybe two minutes until it broke up in his face.
The needle went wild. It hit--_just where the original Griffin
flight plan had ended--light-speed squared_! And then it fell off. And
Ten cut out, and so did Nine, Eight, Seven ... Six--Five. Four hummed
evenly. And Cragin knew that he'd never forget that impossible series
of critical speeds for what remained of his life. Wherever they were,
it was within seconds of the absolute ... a second Barrier, Cragin
thought, which existed simply because men didn't know how to devise a
way to go any further. But--
"You're in X ecliptic now," Lin Griffin's voice told him. But it was
a different voice than it had been before. There was something new
in it. Something Cragin couldn't find a word for. "Within it, you'll
find flight conditions very similar to those of ordinary Deep Space.
In a few minutes, you'll be able to pick up the machine-planet in your
electroscopes. That's where we're going. Unless you want to turn back.
You can, now that you know how the warp pattern works."
"Trying to shake me?" His hands weren't slippery any more. "I won't
shake. You're taking me straight to the boss or I'm placing you under
arrest. I remind you that the Patrol's jurisdiction extends to wherever
in Space one of its ships may fly. Acknowledge please."
He felt a sudden, uncomfortable warmth in his cheeks when she laughed.
It was a light, almost merry thing. She was doing it again!
"Wherever I am, I rule, is that it?"
"In effect, yes. And--"
"There is no head man, no leader of a giant smuggling ring where I'm
going, Patrolman. Just--" Her voice tapered off; the laugh was gone. "I
will be easy to follow," she said.
The planet toward which they flew--Cragin could see it easily now in
the electroscopes, although he could see no other and the 'scope seemed
to draw what stars there were no nearer--was hardly half the size of
the moon of earth. It glowed, somehow, radiating a pale phosphorescence
of its own, and its surface seemed entirely without configuration.
Completely smooth, unmarked even by stray chunks of hurtling cosmic
waste. It was in a definite orbit, yet around--nothing. It circled in
an ecliptic described in three dimensions; they were no longer flying
a tight-rope, and the comps were quiet. Yet it was an ecliptic that
men had never found. Except for Fowler Griffin. As though reading his
thoughts, his daughter spoke.
"You wonder where its center is. It has a center. What did you say your
name was? Cragin. It has a center, Cragin. Around which it has revolved
for untold millenia. Only by accident, while he was searching for an
almost negligible mass error in one of his computations, did my father
discover that this ecliptic must exist, and must contain at least one
revolving body. He found it. He determined its orbit. He found that the
solar system itself is the center of the machine-planet's orbit. It has
neither aphelion nor perihelion, nor does its ecliptic ever shift. It
is always perfect."
"I could almost believe you lady if you told me somebody had made it.
But you'll never--"
"Somebody did."
"You mean your father--"
"My father discovered its presence, Cragin. I helped him with the
latter stages of his calculations; accompanied him out here. He
discovered its presence and he discovered its function. And they--"
"Function? You mean it's a mine of some sort? Water crystal?"
"No, Cragin. It wasn't built to serve men. It rules them. For want of
a better term, call it a control point. Because the machine-planet
has absolute control over the axial rotation and orbital revolution
of every planet in the solar system; over the heat emitted from its
sun; over the physical laws which are peculiar to each of its planets.
Father was trying to learn how to use it. He thought if he could
discover how it worked he could readjust Earth, replenish the sun,
remake--"
"I don't believe you, Lin Griffin. It's a ruse--"
"I will show you the mark where he died. They killed him, and let
me go, half-crazed as I was, to keep men forever in fear of passing
through the Barrier. I think they underestimate us psychologically, and
that is why--"
"They? Who?" Cragin cut in, disbelief still welling in his brain,
edging the tone of his voice.
"The--Owners, I call them, Cragin. They told us they own the universe."