HEIRS OF SPACE FLIGHT
Nick Hartnett stepped off the upper lip of the thousand-foot shaft and
floated gently downwards. When he had fallen about half the distance, he
reached out for a stanchion, grasped it easily and pulled himself
gracefully into the lounge-room of the _Columbia_.
What he saw there was precisely what he expected to see. There was
Dorothy Gilbert, curled in a spring-hammock, reading a book. Nick was
looking over’ her shoulder before she knew he had entered.
“Bodie’s ‘Parecliptic Orbits,’” he read aloud. “Dorothy, don’t you ever
think of anything but your job?”
She looked up, smiling, brushing aside a lock of tousled hair that
sought her eye. “Often, Nick. But where would we be if I didn’t check my
courses against those plotted by a competent authority?”
“Just about where we’ll be if you do,” he guessed, tugging at his ear
with long, knobby fingers. “You’re my idea of a competent authority
yourself.”
“Thanks, Nick. How are the contracels holding out?”
“Wonderfully!” he grinned. “It seems as if my father did a fair job of
inventing there—though maybe not quite good enough.” He knelt and
touched a button inset in the floor; instantly the metallic luster of it
dulled and clouded, then the clouds seemed to vanish as the floor became
transparent. In an instant it appeared to have vanished entirely,
revealing an immense sweep of blackness interspersed with white-hot,
tiny specks of light that were stars and planets.
Nick stared out at them. The whole field of stars was moving, it seemed,
though, in actuality, it was the ship itself that spun on its axis,
providing them with the illusion of gravity they required. It was hard
for Hartnett to realize that this view was almost brand-new to human
eyes, that only twenty or thirty people could ever have seen stars and
the solar system from this vantage point, outside the plane of the
ecliptic. There were seven persons in the _Columbia_ now, and there had
been eighteen or twenty in its predecessor which had been reported lost
some years before. Those two ships, the only ones in the System’s great
armada to be equipped with the counter-acceleration devices that made it
possible to venture out of the confines of the Solar System, were also
the only ones to leave the plane of the ecliptic.
“Where’s Earth?” Nick asked absently without looking up.
Dorothy closed the book on a finger and leaned over the edge of the
hammock to look. “It’s not in sight now,” she said. “Wait until we spin
a little farther. Of course, I can’t guarantee you’ll be able to see it
then, either, because the ship may hide it. But we’ll see. We’re looking
out one side of the ship and Earth is directly in back of us.”
He snapped off the vision and the floor returned to normal. “As soon as
we get the reports from the two goops,” he mused, “we can start making
definite plans for the outing.”
* * * * *
“We heard you,” came a voice from just outside the lounge, and, a second
later, Bob Vickers appeared, climbing hand-over-hand against the slight
pull of the acceleration that managed to seep through the
not-quite-perfect guard of the contracels. He pulled himself into the
lounge and turned back, extending a hand to Fred Marquis, who followed
him in.
The two glared at Nick with injured expressions. “So this,” stated
Vickers sadly, “is how you refer to your loyal aides behind their
backs.” He turned to Marquis: “Colleague, we may as well tear up that
paper and save ourselves further humiliation.”
Dorothy Gilbert closed her book with a snap. “Far be it from me to poke
my pretty nose into your little brawls, but haven’t you two been rather
long in getting the data?”
Marquis made a sweeping bow. “Fair lady,” he replied softly, “I appeal
to your innate sense of justice and fair play. Did or did not our noble
captain, on two occasions, call us all away from our gruelling labor to
strain our ears trying to hear an alleged distress signal?”
Dorothy laughed gaily, shaking her hair away from her forehead. “Indeed,
our noble captain did. Not only was your invaluable time wasted, but
mine as well. I was rechecking the course and had to start from scratch
after the interruption.”
“My lady is as gracious as she is charming,” bowed Vickers. He faced
Nick. “We will be generous, sir, and accept your apology.”
“The ship’s company,” sighed Nick, “is reminded that the original
Hartnett expedition was not entirely lost. It is to be assumed that they
are still trying to contact someone, us in particular. Thus the careful
attention to what appeared to be distress signals.
“Now may I suggest that you save your precious time by letting me know
what you found?”
“That,” murmured Marquis to Vickers, “is as close to an apology as he’ll
ever get.”
* * * * *
Marquis unrolled a small chart, holding it so both Dorothy and Nick
could see. “This,” he explained, “you can check at your leisure, though
I’m a monkey’s uncle if you find anything wrong with it. To sum it up
briefly, the _Columbia_ is not only the largest space-ship ever made but
also the fastest and most powerful.”
“Very nice,” replied Nick, “but that alone isn’t good enough. We can
still be the fastest thing aspace and not be capable of a voyage to
Alpha Centauri and back within the span of a lifetime.”
“If this is correct,” interrupted Dorothy, jabbing at an equation with
her index finger, “then we can do it easily.”
“It’s too damn bad,” mused Nick, “that my father was so secretive about
things. Whatever it is we have here, I’ll bet he had just as good—if
not better—on the Orion ten years ago.”
“Didn’t he leave any notes?” asked Vickers.
“None. Apparently he feared their falling into the wrong hands in case
anything happened to him. The only thing he did leave was wave n, the
one he promised to use for communications. That’s what the contracel
formula came over.”
Dorothy’s nose wrinkled in puzzlement. “I was under the impression,”
she said, “that the contracel formula was radioed to Earth
mysteriously—only it was badly garbled, just fractions coming through.
And you, Nick, were the only one who could make anything out of it.”
“Partly true,” he admitted. “The ‘mysterious’ radio message however was
something I cooked up to keep the newspapers satisfied. I wanted to let
out the publicity that the Hartnett expedition wasn’t completely done
in, but I didn’t want to draw attention to wave n. The fewer people who
know it exists, the better. If I hadn’t thrown them offtrack with a
little hocus-pocus, the secret might be out.”
Vickers blinked. “Excuse me,” he put in—“in this case, I guess I am a
goop. But can you explain the contracel to me? I never really got it.”
“I’m no better off,” grinned Nick. “I managed to get enough data from
the radio so as to know how to throw the thing together, but as to
precisely what it does and why I can only guess ... and I’d rather not
get out on a limb on it.
“All I know is this: interstellar travel, to be anything at all,
requires really tremendous speed. To get that speed you have to
accelerate like hell. And human bodies aren’t equipped to take the
acceleration required.
“Well, what Dad did was to figure out a counter-acceleration device,
which he called the ‘contracel’ for short. All I know is that it
blankets the effects of really terrific acceleration so far as our
feeling it goes.”
“Have you any idea, Nick,” asked Dorothy Gilbert, suddenly serious,
“where the Hartnett party is?”
He shook his head. “They were outward bound for Alpha Centauri, just as
we’ll be after we get home and check these results. I’ve no idea how far
they got, because I don’t know how to check distances by wave n. In
fact, I don’t think it can be done; the damned thing doesn’t travel
right.
“You, Dorothy, and Bob, Edgar, and I are all members of the family of
the original Hartnett expedition. The reason I wanted you three was
because I really expect to look for Dad and his friends on our way to
Alph. You. Fred, and Grenville and Timbie aren’t exactly family members
in our little circle, but you’re next thing to it. We’ll have to have a
bigger crew for the outing, of course.”
Dorothy ran her fingers through her hair. “It’s been over twelve years
since I last saw Harry,” she whispered. “I wonder what he looks like
now?”
* * * * *
Joe Timbie was sucking laboriously on a water-tube as they pulled
themselves into the control room. He laid it aside at their entrance,
and wiped his face furiously.
“The interference is terrific,” he began, “but I sounded the alarm
because I’m definitely getting something every now and then, although
it’s hard to say what.”
“Any idea as to the source?”
“You know how wave n is. Edgar’s been cooped up in his cage for about
seven hours now, and, if he survives, I damn well think he’ll have taken
wave n to pieces and put it together again. Then we’ll know how to trace
the signals.”
Dorothy Gilbert sat on a bench swinging her legs thoughtfully. “How’s
the intensity, Joe?”
Timbie clutched his hair. “O gawd!” he groaned. “It just shouldn’t
happen to a dog. This wave has the most unholy variations ever conceived
by Lucifer. You remember how it was on Earth?”
“Yeah,” agreed Nick. “Pretty wavy to say the least.”
“Well it’s all of that here—only the little jigger has got itself
another twist. Not only does the intensity vary according to no laws
whatsoever, but every now and then, she comes through full blast, sans
interference, backwards!”
“What!” There was a chorus on that.
“You heard rightly. I used to have a hobby back on Terra.
Super-imposition of recordings. I’d take several records of music, and
play them simultaneously, working in various others now and then and
thus make a new recording. At times I’d run them in backwards, lyrics
and all. So, after awhile, I got pretty accustomed to hearing common
English words spoken backwards. And damned if some of the apparently
garbled signals didn’t sound familiar until suddenly it struck me. I was
just beginning to set them down when, whup! in comes the interference,
then they’re straight again, but so faint I can’t make them out.”
“Joe,” called Dorothy softly, “are they always in reverse when they’re
strong?”
“Why—yes, they are.”
“Does Edgar know that?”
“Nope.”
She slid off the table. “I think I’d better tell him before he wastes
any more time.”
“Hold it a moment,” protested Nick. “I want to see if we can get
anything. Is the power on, Joe?”
“Yeah. Apparently they stopped just an instant after I rang you.”
“Any idea when they might be on again?”
“Ought to be a few minutes, Nick. I’ve found that they apparently repeat
each broadcast three times with a few hours interval between units of
three.” He shoved a slip of paper over to Nick. “Here’s what I’ve
managed to make out so far.”
Nick picked it up frowning. “Hmm—not much here—it reads ‘horribly
warped by effects of motion’ ... then there’s a blank—‘had to stay
and one’—damn, another blank.”
“That’s where it either faded out or interference came in,” explained
Joe.
“I see. This is where it reversed, eh? ‘Left and I am’ blank space ‘too
slight to lift.’ That’s all.”
“Do you suppose,” asked Marquis, “that the phrase ‘left and I am’ might
mean that the person sending the signals is the only one left and he’s
about at his rope’s end?”
“Maybe,” suggested Bob Vickers, “something happened to the crew as a
result of their acceleration. ‘Horribly warped by effects of motion’
sounds ominous. Perhaps the crew went bats and they had to land to save
the ship. Then something happened to them on the planet so that they
‘had to stay and one’—well, maybe he’s telling about the ghastly fate
of one of them.”
“What—what about ‘too slight to lift’?” reminded Fred.
“As I recall,” said Nick in hushed tones, “there was one outstanding bad
point about Dad’s setup. The contracel controls were pretty heavy and it
took a strong man to work them alone. If but one man were on the ship,
and he sick, or weak from hunger, he couldn’t lift those levers.” He
stared a moment, then added, “Particularly if the gravity on whatever
planet the ship is were greater than that of Earth.”
“I thought the controls were automatic,” protested Dorothy.
“They were. But Dad had manual controls installed just in case.”
At this point a wild-eyed, disheveled figure burst in upon them. “I’ve
found them,” he cried in a high, strained falsetto. “They’re in a tight
little orbit around Proxima Centauri.”
Dorothy Gilbert took his arm. “Come with me,” she whispered. “I have
some more data for you; you’ve done wonderfully.”
The two left the room, heads close together. An instant later a faint
shriek reached the ears of those in the control room, followed by
gibbering noises. Nick made a dive for the exit, to find Edgar cackling
faintly to himself as Dorothy led him away. “There, there,” she soothed,
“it wasn’t your fault. Now you just go and get a nice long rest, then
we’ll help you with the new calculations....”