The next room held another man. He was young and wiry, like an athlete
cast in marble, dark haired and big jawed. A glassy eye stared up when
I rolled back his eyelid. The eyelid remained open until I closed it
and went on. Another room ... another man ... another stranger. This
man was tall and raw boned, light of skin and hair, as dead as the
others.
A flat, illogical voice had instructed me to revive these men. I
shivered in spite of the warmth of the room, studying the black box
that squatted on a shelf by his head. My hand shook when I touched
the metal. I dared not try to operate anything. Revive the others ...
instructions without knowledge were useless to me. I stopped looking
into the doors in the passageway and went back to the room with the
portholes. Everything lay in readiness, fastened down star charts,
instruments, glittering equipment. There was no feeling of disorder or
use in the room. It waited for human hands to make it operate.
Not mine. Not now.
I went past the room into another, where the curves were more sharp. I
could visualize the tapering hull leading to the nose of the ship. This
room was filled with equipment that formed a room out of the bordered
area I stood in. I sat in the deep chair facing the panel of dials and
instruments, in easy reach. I ran my hands over the dials, the rows of
smooth colored buttons, wondering.
The ports on the side were shielded and I stared out at static energy,
hung motionless in a world of searing light. There was no distortion,
no movement outside and I glanced back at the dials. What speeds were
they recording? What speeds and perhaps, what distance? It was useless
to translate the markings. They stood for anything I might guess, and
something kept pricking my mind, telling me I had no time to guess. I
thought of time again. I was supposed to act according to ... plan. Did
that mean ... in time ... in time. I went back down the passageway.
* * * * *
The fourth small room was the same. Except for the woman. She lay on a
cot, young and beautiful, even in the death-like immobility I had come
to accept. Her beauty was graceful lines of face and her figure--smooth
tapering legs, soft curves that were carved out of flesh colored stone.
Yet not stone. I held her small hand, then put it back on the cot. Her
attire was brief like the rest of us, shorts and a man's shirt. Golden
hair curled up around her lovely face. I wondered if she would ever
smile or move that graceful head. I rolled back her eyelid and looked
at a deep blue eye that stared back in glassy surprise. Four people in
all, depending on a blind helpless fool who didn't know their names or
the reason for that dependence. I sat beside her on the cot until I
could stand it no longer.
Searching the ship made me forget my fear. I hoped I would find some
answers. I went from the nose to the last bulkhead in a frenzy of
floating motion, looking behind each door until I went as far as I
could. There were two levels to the ship. They both ended in the lead
shield that was set where the swell of the curve was biggest. It meant
the engine or engines took up half the ship, cut off from the forward
half by the instrument studded shield. I retraced my steps and took a
rough estimate of size. The ship, as I called it, was at least four
hundred feet long, fifty feet in diameter on the inside.
The silence was a force in itself, pressing down from the metal walls,
driving me back to the comforting smallness of the room where I had
been reborn. I laughed bitterly, thinking about the aptness of that. I
had literally been reborn in this room, equipped with half ideas, and
no point to start from, no premise to seek. I sensed the place to start
from was back in the room. I searched it carefully.
Minutes later I realized the apparatus by the cot was different. It
was the same type of black box, but out from it was a metal arm, bent
in a funny angle. At the tip of the arm, a needle gleamed dully and I
rubbed the deep gash on my leg. I bent the arm back until the angle
looked right. It was then I realized the needle came to a spot where it
could have hit my neck when I lay down. My shout of excitement rang out
in the room, as I pictured the action of the extended arm. I lost my
sudden elation in the cabin where the girl lay. The box behind her head
was completely closed, and it didn't yield to the pressure I applied.
It had a cover, but no other opening where an arm could extend. I ran
my fingers over the unbroken surface, prying over the thin crack at
the base helplessly. If some sort of antidote was to be administered
manually I was lost. I had no knowledge of what to inject or where to
look for it. The chamber of the needle that had awakened me was empty.
That meant a measured amount.
In the laboratory on the lower level I went over the rows of cans and
tubes fastened to the shelves. There were earths and minerals, seeds
and chemicals, testing equipment in compact drawers, but nothing marked
for me. I wondered if I was an engineer or a pilot, or perhaps a doctor
sent along to safeguard the others. Complete amnesia would have been
terrible enough but this half knowledge, part awareness and association
with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of
me.
I went back to the cabin where the powerful man lay. I had to risk
failure with one of them. I didn't want it to be the girl. I fought
down the thought that he might be the key man, remembering the voice
that had given the message. It was up to me, and soon. The metal in the
box would have withstood a bullet. It couldn't be pried apart, and I
searched again and again for a release mechanism.