Acceleration had left Doug at the brink of unconsciousness despite the
hammock in which they'd secured him, but gradually the roar in his ears
subsided and the words took shape, as though they were being spoken
from the bottom of an empty well.
"... SQ check one ... speed five-three thousand one two oh,
acceleration two point one, steady ... trajectory minus two point oh
five seconds at eight thousand two hundred, three hundred, four, five,
compensate please ... plus point oh three seconds at nine thousand,
seven, eight, nine, compensate please ... SQ at stand-by, over."
"Three-dimensional plot-check, sir. Reconciled, and steady as she
blasts...."
"SQ to control, SQ check one, trajectory secure. Out."
He fumbled with the wide straps across his chest and hips, and his arms
were awkward as though he had lost at least half of his co-ordination.
He could taste blood at the corners of his mouth, but it was already
caking to his flesh.
"Old Man had a tough time this trip, sir...."
"Yes. When they're desk passengers for six months running and then try
to get aboard a space-deck they find it isn't as easy as when they wore
an ack harness every day. The price of being eager, sergeant."
"Yes, sir. He ought to be coming out of it soon."
"We'll be locked tight on the curve when he does. Off a half-second and
he'll holler like a Conservative--especially after final compensation.
How close did we come to the C-limit this time, anyway?"
"Had almost a minute to spare, sir."
"Nicely done, sergea--I think I hear him trying to get the deck under
him. Better get over to the trackers."
The words Doug heard still weren't making sense, but he was on his feet
and had his balance. He had slid oddly down to the metal deck from
the bulkhead on which the hammock was built, and he had the peculiar
feeling that up was no longer up, nor down exactly where it was
supposed to be. His body did not feel as though it were all of lead as
he'd half-expected, although it didn't feel its usual hundred and sixty
pounds, either.
He was still focusing his eyes when they saw the weird blur of color on
the bulkhead above the crewman's head. Teleview screen of course--and
the middle blur--Earth.
In moments he was able to see it plainly as it receded--a tan and blue
mass dotted with white, shadowed to the shape of a football, hanging in
what seemed direct contradiction to all the laws of physics in a great,
black void.
For minutes he stood without moving, oblivious to the immaculately
polished masterpiece of engineering which surrounded him.
As a video-image, what he saw could have been nothing more than a
cleverly-done stage prop, an ingenious painting by some futuristic
artist. But the realization that it was real held him fascinated.
Of all the human emotions, here was one that could only flounder
helplessly for expression, for it had no precedent for comparison.
The awe and the strangely-placid fear were intermingled with a sense
of brute power; the sudden loneliness and strange humility were
woven inextricably with an irrepressible consciousness of godliness,
of unbounded omnipotence. And Doug knew that the first airmen had
but touched a tiny edge of the sky, for here was the sky in her
entirety--the infinite woman, at once belonging to man, yet an unending
mystery to him, and granting of her uncountable secrets but slowly,
enticingly, stubbornly.
As he watched, the tan-and-blue shape shrank gradually as though Space
were tauntingly erasing it from existence.
* * * * *
The interior of the compartment in which he stood had been designed
with the same simplicity of line as had the ship itself, and with so
smooth a compactness that it seemed to occupy more of the ship's long
interior than a bare third. The two crewmen had evidently not seen him
as yet; they stood with their backs to him, their eyes intent on the
long, curving banks of dials which ran the gamut of geometrical shapes.
Oddly, their hands hung idle at their sides. Doug wondered if they
constituted the entire crew, and if they did not, how many more of them
there were.
He would let them speak first. He walked over to a panel of dials, gave
them a studied scrutiny. The officer turned immediately.
"Ablast thirteen minutes, sir, at fourteen thousand miles. I believe
you'll find our track with zero variation. C-limit was passed four
minutes ago. Glad to have you aboard again, sir."
Doug returned the salute, nodded his head in acknowledgement of
information he had no way of understanding.
"Communications effective?"
"Why--yes sir. Sergeant, prepare space-radio for message--"
"No, no." Doug waved the sergeant back to his post. "Just--checking,
captain. How long since the last overhaul of your unit?"
"Why, at the prescribed overhaul date for the entire ship, sir. I
believe about four months ago, sir."
"Don't you know, captain?"
"Four months ago, sir."
"I see. If I may inspect the unit, captain."
"Sergeant! Prepare communications for inspection!"
He had no way of knowing how unorthodox his procedure was, only that
while aboard the ship, at least, his rank was the final law, and that
they would never land on Venus. Yet, these were intelligent men, of the
same high caliber as those Earth-bound in the headquarters units. He
must be cautious.
Within minutes, the complex communications assembly had been bared, and
its circuits were half-mystery to him. Yet the fundamentals would be
the same, as they had been with the equipment he had ordered to build
the second Contraption. Only the shapes, the sizes, the juxtapositions
different.
"Your transmission power supply, captain--"
"The power-pack, sir?" Inadvertantly, the officer glanced at the unit
and Doug followed the glance. Smaller, more compact than the best he'd
seen in his own time, yet obviously evolved on identical principles.
But now he had to carry the farce out, had to wring some of the
freshman stuff from his memory.
"Sergeant--" He gestured toward the unit as he removed his gauntlets.
"What is the v--Kempage on the plates of the final amplifier?"
"Eleven hundred Kemps at 300 milliamperes, sir."
"Very well. Suppose you give me the final power supply nomenclature!"
"Yes, sir. Genemotor, type A-26-F modified. Two hundred fifty Kemp
input, eleven hundred Kemp output, at three hundred milliamperes. Two
filter condensers, type L-73 new departure, one filter choke, L-12, one
bleeder resistor--"
"That's enough, sergeant. Captain, upon perfunctory inspection at
least, your communications unit seems to be in excellent condition.
However, I suggest that after this you commit each successive overhaul
date to memory."
"Yes, sir."
* * * * *
So far, so good, Doug thought. Yet it was a thing of mocking irony.
He was actually perfecting the act so well that one day the risk of
impersonation would vanish entirely--yet now, now he must use it to
its utmost to carry through a desperate plan to escape, rather than to
stay. Worse, it was even a double irony, for had he sought escape at
first rather than a lifetime of imposture in this next-door world, they
would have helped him. Of course there were the games--he might never
have learned enough in so short a time to have gone undetected through
them. It was a strangely reassuring thought; it eliminated choice. But
at the same time it heightened his desperation. There was only one mark
at which to aim, but it was a bull's-eye with no margin for error.
The captain was speaking to him.
"... care to check the flight-pattern coordinates? Sergeant Zukar here
is quite justifiably proud, I think, of his ability to delay terminal
compensation until the last fraction of a minute before C-limit is
reached...."
"No--no thank you, captain. I am quite satisfied. I would like,
however, a routine check of the remaining crew."
"Remaining crew, sir?" The captain's face was suddenly a mask of
perplexity, and his features were again taut. "I'm afraid I fail to
understand, sir. Unless there were last-minute orders which I failed to
receive assigning two additional--"
He had discovered what he wanted, but he had been awkward....
"Yes, yes of course, captain. The orders for Tayne's ship. For some
reason I--"
"Of course, sir."
Not a natural, but he'd made the point. But he couldn't let the dice
get cold now. Only the two of them aboard; that made it simpler. And
the sergeant had said the power-pack used a 250 Kemp input, the same
as the wall current at the house. Usable, then, and he had to get it
back....
He walked slowly over to a bulkhead seat, sat down.
He groped uncertainly for the brief-tube he'd brought, let it fall with
a clatter to the deck.
The captain was scooping it up in a trice, and Doug twisted the muscles
of his face into a grimace of discomfort.
"Sir,--sir, is there something wrong?"
"I--no I don't think so, captain. Nervous strain, I'm afraid. I--"
Another grimace.
"Sergeant! Three neuro-tablets at once--"
"No, no--" Doug said. "Like poison to me." He doubled over.
"Captain...."
"Yes sir, what can I get--"
"Nothing, I'm afraid.... Back to Earth as quickly as possible--"
"Back to Earth, sir? But that's impossible! We're at least thirty
minutes past C-limit, sir ... the trajectory's locked. We must
continue, of course."
"Must--must _continue_?"
"Why, yes of course, sir."
Doug straightened his body, but kept his arms locked around his
middle, kept the grimace on his face and feigned shortness of breath.
"Of course _what_, captain?"
* * * * *
A look of comprehension came suddenly to the captain's face. He
straightened, stood again at attention. "According to Constitutional
Commandments Four, Part 3, Sub-section 12 as amended July 9, 1949,
part A: 'All space craft shall be robot-controlled and shall fly
predetermined trajectories, save (1) when bearing members of the
Science Council and/or their certified representatives, to whom manual
operation and navigation at will is singularly permissible, or (2)
when insurmountable emergency shall occur. All other craft shall be
launched on the predetermined trajectory as hereinbefore stipulated,
and shall be compensated to their true course by remote control from
Earth for so long as radio impulses between ship and Earth shall be
for all practical purposes instantaneous. Beyond this limit, to be
hereinafter described as Compensation Limit, whereafter distance shall
create a time-lag of communications and corresponding control impulses
so as to make further remote control an impracticability the ship shall
continue on the trajectory as last corrected under control of its own
self-directing, or autorobot, units. These units will be constructed
so as to be inaccessible to all passengers, including instrument and
communications technicians."
For a moment Doug said nothing, let the captain remain at attention,
struggling to regain his breath and composure. The man had thought the
feigned sickness was simply a device to get him off guard so that his
alertness might be tried with some disguised test of his knowledge of
regulations. Of course that was it ... unthinkable that any officer,
any rank, should give such an order as he had given for actual
execution.
Funny, how the twists saved you when there was no longer any point in
being saved. He was trapped here--trapped, and on Venus the trap would
tighten and finally close when Tayne found some opening in his guard
and plunged through it.
"Well done, captain. As you were. Your qualifications seem quite
adequate. See to it that they are continually maintained."
"Yes, sir."
With what nonchalance he could muster, Doug dropped the sickness act as
though it had been a trick the captain might have expected, and opened
the brief-tube. He would have to memorize every word of its contents,
every direction on the plastic sheets it contained. If he wanted to
see his own home again--for that matter, if he ever wanted to see Dot
again, he would have to run a bluff that would, he mused, even amaze
the United States Bureau of Internal Revenue.
And that, he knew, would be damn near impossible.