Commander Hatch looked down at his feet. "I was in a space can once,"
he said. "They don't last forever. I--" He let his voice trail away.
Wilson looked into their faces. The cold, bleak fact was so clear in
their faces that he could not ignore it. He was forced to recognize the
fact that a lifeship is no spacecraft. A lifeship is a flimsy tin can,
as spaceworthy as an open raft on the broad ocean, as spaceworthy as an
umbrella in a windstorm. A lifeship was not intended for comfort, or
for travel, or for use. It was aimed at a hope and a prayer that if the
mother spacecraft came a cropper that human lives could be protected
for a time, long enough to give hope of rescue.
In the faces of the men had been determination. Now the determination
had faded. Left was only sorrow and resignation.
Wilson had lost.
Doggedly he said, "We'll loaf it out for the next hour. We'll go on
as though this hadn't happened. We'll prepare for a recoverage of the
grid."
They all nodded and left, but the step of each had lost its spring, and
voices had lowered to funeral rumbles. Some even whispered.
* * * * *
Commodore Wilson swore at the closed door.
The hour passed with the slow interminable drag of eternity itself. It
was the complete uncertainty of the result, the angering fact that not
a single thing could be done until that hour had passed, and even then
there was a high possibility that nothing could be done at all. So long
as the hourly signal came in, there had been solid knowledge of the
survival of the lost party.
This had been a sort of haphazard thing. There had been times before
when a lifeship party had missed sending the signal because of fatigue,
and had finally sent their signal late. Suggestions were always
cropping up that the signal be entirely automatic, clock-timed. These
ideas were claimed to be impractical since a timed, automatic signal
only meant that the lifeship itself was still lost in space, and not
that any aboard it were alive.
A full, two-way infrawave system would have been the answer; if a full
two-way system could have been installed in a lifeship, still leaving
room in the little space can for things essential to the sustenance of
human life.
Ocean lifecraft are equipped with hooks and lines for catching fish,
with gizmos for making water from the salt ocean drinkable. Air is
free. Waste products are cast overboard.
In space there are no fish to catch, no salt ocean to purify, no air
but that within the tiny can and its high-pressure air flasks. There is
a supply of water and a small refining plant to distill waste products,
not at all efficient, but adequate for a few days. But the bulk of the
food and water and all of the air necessary to maintain life filled up
a large percentage of the small volume of a lifeship.
Slowly, that nerve-grinding hour passed, and then it became an hour and
a half. Then it was two hours, then two and a half. Then three hours.
No signal....
Andrews looked askance at Norton. "Nothing we can do?" he asked quietly.
Norton shook his head: "Nothing I can do," he said helplessly.
"But there must be something."
"There probably is," Norton said simply. "If I were a trained com-tech,
I could probably fake something together and make some fudged-up
repair that would at least radiate. But I'm a pilot, so I don't know
all the angles of infrawave equipment. Not even basic theory. I know
enough--with the aid of this repair manual--to replace any part that
might have failed. But beyond that--"
Andrews shook his head and scratched his nose. "I can't see it," he
said.
"See what?"
"I can't see how a man can claim the ability to make a repair on a
complicated thing like this without knowing more than you say you know."
Norton smiled thinly. "I can replace the plumbing under a sink, too,"
he said flatly, "without knowing enough to make me a licensed plumber.
This manual gives full directions, but no reasons. If the voltage at
this terminal is less than thirty-six hundred, then check the voltages
on terminals so-and-so, measure the resistance between terminals
this-and-that with the equipment off, connect terminal A to terminal
B, and check the alternating voltage across Component Two-nineteen.
Depending upon what we find that does not follow the book, we locate
the busted doodad and replace it. But the damned book doesn't bother
to tell you why the voltage across such-and-such terminals should be
thirty-six hundred, or what happens when it isn't. The book was not
written for infrawave engineers. It was written for guys like me who
care more to get a signal on the infrawave bands than we care for the
theory of operation."
"All right, then. So we blew something. Can't we run it down?"
"Trouble is that we blew too many things at the same time."
"Don't understand."
"Naturally," snapped the pilot. "You know less about this stuff than I
do. This is supposed to be more than thirty-six hundred, providing that
is functioning. But the voltage will go above seven thousand if the
other has come unglued. If you blow both items, together, the voltage
downed by one and upped by the other comes out to about four thousand.
The reading may be all right, but when everything in the damned set
reads wrong, I have to give up."
"So what do we do now?"
Norton shrugged. "We hope they don't give up. We keep on working on
this thing. We--Hell, we might as well turn on the receiver and listen."
"Can we spare the power?"
Norton looked at the financier. "Might as well," he said. "We might as
well. If they abandon this search because we aren't transmitting, we
might as well waste the power anyway...."
* * * * *
Viggon Sarri faced his lieutenants. "From Brein's report," he
announced, "they finished their grid search some three hours ago,
and have been milling around in stacked pattern ever since. Linus
predicts that they have been waiting for a recurrence of the regularly
transmitted signal that should have kept coming but which blew out from
some sort of overload. Within the half-hour, they have reformed their
search pattern and seem inclined to continue, even though it should
appear obvious to them that their friends have lost their ability to
transmit."
Regin Naylo looked puzzled. "Could it be that they've discovered how to
tell when an infrawave receiver is being used?"
Faren Twill shook his head, "If they knew that they'd have developed a
more efficient infrawave detector."
Linus Brein agreed vigorously.
Viggon Sarri seated himself self-confidently. "Gentlemen, you have
before you a race with dogged determination, the grit and will to go
on, even though they have tasted failure."
"Right," said Faren Twill.
"So now I know," said Viggon. "And now we go in!"
Regin Naylo looked hopeful. "To let 'em have it?" His face fell. "Or to
make friends of them?"
Faren Twill started to speak, but Viggon silenced him with a wave of
his multiflexed hand as he went on. "We go in prepared for anything.
Naylo, you will, as usual, set up our forces for battle. That means an
all-man alert at all stations. Complete alert, Naylo."
Naylo nodded.
"With one exception. No attempt to clear the space charge in the
projectors with a preliminary blast."
"But look, sir--"
"You'll issue instructions to your beam officers to set their beams for
the trial blast, but not to clear them."
"Mightn't that be dangerous?"
"It might. But the clearing blast can come before we strike--if we have
to strike. I doubt that the wait will be disastrous, Regin. After all,
they seem to have no armaments worthy of the name. And firing a few
thousand megnoid beams, even at test power, cuts up some awful didoes
in space."
"So?" sneered Naylo.
"Aside from scaring the armor off of them, it also kills a certain
element I demand. At any rate, those are your orders. You, Faren Twill,
will take charge of the maneuvers, setting up the fleet in battle
formation and instructing each ship captain to be prepared for any
maneuver, however unorthodox. Both of you are to maintain constant
personal contact with me, for my orders may change by the minute.
Linus, you had better clear your logic computer of all problems, but
retain the information we have stored regarding this race. Be prepared
to accept any information that may come from our next act. Understand?"
They all nodded.
"All right. Then as soon as each of you is ready for further orders,
report. At that time we are going in!"