1933-1956
_Prologue_
The Lexman Spacedrive was only the second most important theoretical
accomplishment of the exciting years at the dawn of the Space Age, yet
it changed all human history and forever altered the pattern of
sociocultural development on Earth.
Yet it was only the _second_ most important discovery.
The Cavour Hyperdrive unquestionably would have held first rank in any
historical assessment, had the Cavour Hyperdrive ever reached practical
use. The Lexman Spacedrive allows mankind to reach Alpha Centauri, the
closest star with habitable planets, in approximately four and a half
years. The Cavour Hyperdrive--if it ever really existed--would have
brought Alpha C within virtual instantaneous access.
But James Hudson Cavour had been one of those tragic men whose
personalities negate the value of their work. A solitary, cantankerous,
opinionated individual--a crank, in short--he withdrew from humanity to
develop the hyperspace drive, announcing at periodic intervals that he
was approaching success.
A final enigmatic bulletin in the year 2570 indicated to some that
Cavour had achieved his goal or was on the verge of achieving it;
others, less sympathetic, interpreted his last message as a madman's
wild boast. It made little difference which interpretation was accepted.
James Hudson Cavour was never heard from again.
A hard core of passionate believers insisted that he _had_ developed a
faster-than-light drive, that he had succeeded in giving mankind an
instantaneous approach to the stars. But they, like Cavour himself, were
laughed down, and the stars remained distant.
Distant--but not unreachable. The Lexman Spacedrive saw to that.
Lexman and his associates had developed their ionic drive in 2337, after
decades of research. It permitted man to approach, but not to exceed,
the theoretical limiting velocity of the universe: the speed of light.
Ships powered by the Lexman Spacedrive could travel at speeds just
slightly less than the top velocity of 186,000 miles per second. For the
first time, the stars were within man's grasp.
The trip was slow. Even at such fantastic velocities as the Lexman
Spacedrive allowed, it took nine years for a ship to reach even the
nearest of stars, stop, and return; a distant star such as Bellatrix
required a journey lasting two hundred fifteen years each way. But even
this was an improvement over the relatively crude spacedrives then in
use, which made a journey from Earth to Pluto last for many months and
one to the stars almost unthinkable.
The Lexman Spacedrive worked many changes. It gave man the stars. It
brought strange creatures to Earth, strange products, strange languages.
But one necessary factor was involved in slower-than-light interstellar
travel, one which the Cavour drive would have averted: the Fitzgerald
Contraction. Time aboard the great starships that lanced through the
void was contracted; the nine-year trip to Alpha Centauri and back
seemed to last only six weeks to the men on the ship, thanks to the
strange mathematical effects of interstellar travel at high--but not
infinite--speeds.
The results were curious, and in some cases tragic. A crew that had aged
only six weeks would return to find that Earth had grown nine years
older. Customs had changed; new slang words made language
unintelligible.
The inevitable development was the rise of a guild of Spacers, men who
spent their lives flashing between the suns of the universe and who had
little or nothing to do with the planet-bound Earthers left behind.
Spacer and Earther, held apart forever by the inexorable mathematics of
the Fitzgerald Contraction, came to regard each other with a bitter sort
of distaste.
The centuries passed--and the changes worked by the coming of the Lexman
Spacedrive became more pronounced. Only a faster-than-light spacedrive
could break down the ever-widening gulf between Earther and Spacer--and
the faster-than-light drive remained as unattainable a dream as it had
been in the days of James Hudson Cavour.
--_Sociocultural Dynamics_
Leonid Hallman
London, 3876
_Chapter One_
The sound of the morning alarm rang out, four loud hard clear
gong-clangs, and all over the great starship _Valhalla_ the men of the
Crew rolled out of their bunks to begin another day. The great ship had
travelled silently through the endless night of space while they slept,
bringing them closer and closer to the mother world, Earth. The
_Valhalla_ was on the return leg of a journey to Alpha Centauri.
But one man aboard the starship had not waited for the morning alarm.
For Alan Donnell the day had begun several hours before. Restless,
unable to sleep, he had quietly slipped from his cabin in the fore
section, where the unmarried Crewmen lived, and had headed forward to
the main viewscreen, in order to stare at the green planet growing
steadily larger just ahead.
He stood with his arms folded, a tall red-headed figure, long-legged, a
little on the thin side. Today was his seventeenth birthday.
Alan adjusted the fine controls on the viewscreen and brought Earth
into sharper focus. He tried to pick out the continents on the planet
below, struggling to remember his old history lessons. Tutor Henrich
would not be proud of him, he thought.
_That's South America down there_, he decided, after rejecting the
notion that it might be Africa. They had pretty much the same shape, and
it was so hard to remember what Earth's continents looked like when
there were so many other worlds. _But that's South America. And so
that's North America just above it. The place where I was born._
Then the 0800 alarm went off, the four commanding gongs that Alan always
heard as _It's! Time! Wake! Up!_ The starship began to stir into life.
As Alan drew out his Tally and prepared to click off the start of a new
day, he felt a strong hand firmly grasp his shoulder.
"Morning, son."
Alan turned from the viewscreen. He saw the tall, gaunt figure of his
father standing behind him. His father--and the _Valhalla's_ captain.
"Good rising, Captain."
Captain Donnell eyed him curiously. "You've been up a while, Alan. I can
tell. Is there something wrong?"
"Just not sleepy, that's all," Alan said.
"You look troubled about something."
"No, Dad--I'm not," he lied. To cover his confusion he turned his
attention to the little plastic gadget he held in his hand--the Tally.
He punched the stud; the register whirred and came to life.
He watched as the reading changed. The black-on-yellow dials slid
forward from _Year 16 Day 365_ to _Year 17 Day 1_.
As the numbers dropped into place his father said, "It's your birthday,
is it? Let it be a happy one!"
"Thanks, Dad. You know, it'll feel fine to have a birthday on Earth!"
The Captain nodded. "It's always good to come home, even if we'll have
to leave again soon. And this will be the first time you've celebrated
your birthday on your native world in--three hundred years, Alan."
Grinning, Alan thought, _Three hundred? No, not really._ Out loud he
said, "You know that's not right, Dad. Not three hundred years. Just
seventeen." He looked out at the slowly-spinning green globe of Earth.
"When on Earth, do as the Earthers do," the Captain said. "That's an old
proverb of that planet out there. The main vault of the computer files
says you were born in 3576, unless I forget. And if you ask any Earther
what year this is he'll tell you it's 3876. 3576-3876--that's three
hundred years, no?" His eyes twinkled.
"Stop playing games with me, Dad." Alan held forth his Tally. "It
doesn't matter what the computer files say. Right here it says _Year 17
Day 1_, and that's what I'm going by. Who cares what year it is on
Earth? _This_ is my world!"
"I know, Alan."
Together they moved away from the viewscreen; it was time for breakfast,
and the second gongs were sounding. "I'm just teasing, son. But that's
the sort of thing you'll be up against if you leave the Starmen's
Enclave--the way your brother did."
Alan frowned and his stomach went cold. He wished the unpleasant topic
of his brother had not come up. "You think there's any chance Steve will
come back, this time down? Will we be in port long enough for him to
find us?"
Captain Donnell's face clouded. "We're going to be on Earth for almost a
week," he said in a suddenly harsh voice. "That's ample time for Steve
to rejoin us, if he cares to. But I don't imagine he'll care to. And I
don't know if I want very much to have him back."
He paused outside the handsomely-panelled door of his private cabin, one
hand on the thumb-plate that controlled entrance. His lips were set in a
tight thin line. "And remember this, Alan," he said. "Steve's not your
twin brother any more. You're only seventeen, and he's almost
twenty-six. He'll never be your twin again."
With sudden warmth the captain squeezed his son's arm. "Well, better get
up there to eat, Alan. This is going to be a busy day for all of us."
He turned and went into the cabin.
Alan moved along the wide corridor of the great ship toward the mess
hall in Section C, thinking about his brother. It had been only about
six weeks before, when the _Valhalla_ had made its last previous stop on
Earth, that Steve had decided to jump ship.
The _Valhalla's_ schedule had called for them to spend two days on Earth
and then leave for Alpha Centauri with a load of colonists for Alpha C
IV. A starship's time is always scheduled far in advance, with bookings
planned sometimes for decades Earthtime by the Galactic Trade
Commission.
When blastoff time came for the _Valhalla_, Steve had not reported back
from the Starmen's Enclave where all Spacers lived during in-port stays.
Alan's memories of the scene were still sharp. Captain Donnell had been
conducting check-off, making sure all members of the Crew had reported
back and were aboard. This was a vital procedure; in case anyone were
accidentally left behind, it would mean permanent separation from his
friends and family.
He had reached the name _Donnell, Steve_. No answer came. Captain
Donnell called his name a second time, then a third. A tense silence
prevailed in the Common Room of the starship, where the Crew was
assembled.
Finally Alan made himself break the angry silence. "He's not here, Dad.
And he's not coming back," he said in a hesitant voice. And then he had
had to explain to his father the whole story of his unruly, aggressive
twin brother's plan to jump ship--and how Steve had tried to persuade
him to leave the _Valhalla_ too.
Steve had been weary of the endless shuttling from star to star, of
forever ferrying colonists from one place to another without ever
standing on the solid ground of a planet yourself for more than a few
days here, a week there.
Alan had felt tired of it too--they all did, at some time or
another--but he did not share his twin's rebellious nature, and he had
not gone over the hill with Steve.
Alan remembered his father's hard, grim expression as he had been told
the story. Captain Donnell's reaction had been curt, immediate, and
thoroughly typical: he had nodded, closed the roll book, and turned to
Art Kandin, the _Valhalla's_ First Officer and the Captain's
second-in-command.
"Remove Crewman Donnell from the roster," he had snapped. "All other
hands are on board. Prepare for blastoff."
Within the hour the flaming jets of the _Valhalla's_ planetary drive had
lifted the great ship from Earth. They had left immediately for Alpha
Centauri, four and a half light-years away. The round trip had taken the
_Valhalla_ just six weeks.
During those six weeks, better than nine years had passed on Earth.
Alan Donnell was seventeen years old.
His twin brother Steve was now twenty-six.
* * * * *
"Happy rising, Alan," called a high, sharp voice as he headed past the
blue-painted handholds of Gravity Deck 12 on his way toward the mess
hall.
Startled, he glanced up, and then snorted in disgust as he saw who had
hailed him. It was Judy Collier, a thin, stringy-haired girl of about
fourteen whose family had joined the Crew some five ship-years back. The
Colliers were still virtual newcomers to the tight group on the
ship--the family units tended to remain solid and self-contained--but
they had managed to fit in pretty well by now.
"Going to eat?" she asked.
"Right enough," said Alan, continuing to walk down the plastifoam-lined
corridor. She tagged along a step or two behind him.
"Today's your birthday, isn't it?"
"Right enough," Alan said again, more abruptly. He felt a sudden twinge
of annoyance; Judy had somehow developed a silly crush on him during the
last voyage to Alpha C, and since then she had contrived to follow him
around wherever he went, bombarding him with questions. She was a silly
adolescent girl, Alan thought scornfully.
"Happy birthday," she said, giggling. "Can I kiss you?"
"No," returned Alan flatly. "You better watch out or I'm going to get
Rat after you."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of that little beast," she retorted. "One of these
days I'll chuck him down the disposal hatch like the little vermin
he--_ouch!_"
"You watch out who you're calling vermin," said a thin, dry,
barely-audible voice from the floor.
Alan glanced down and saw Rat, his pet and companion, squatting near
Judy and flicking his beady little red eyes mischievously in the
direction of the girl's bare skinny ankle.
"He _bit_ me," Judy complained, gesturing as if she were going to step
on the little creature. But Rat nimbly skittered to one side, leaped to
the trousers of Alan's uniform, and from there clambered to his usual
perch aboard his master's shoulder.
Judy gestured at him in frustration, stamped her foot, and dashed away
into the mess hall. Chuckling, Alan followed and found his seat at the
bench assigned to Crewmen of his status quotient.
"Thanks, fellow," he said softly to the little being on his shoulder.
"That's kid's getting to be pretty annoying."
"I figured as much," Rat said in his chittering birdlike voice. "And I
don't like the way she's been looking at me. She's just the kind of
individual who _would_ dump me in a disposal hatch."
"Don't worry about it," Alan said. "If she pulls anything of the sort
I'll personally see to it that she goes out right after you."
"That does _me_ a lot of good," Rat said glumly as Alan's breakfast came
rolling toward him on the plastic conveyor belt from the kitchen.
Alan laughed and reached avidly for the steaming tray of food. He poured
a little of his synthorange juice into a tiny pan for Rat, and fell to.
Rat was a native of Bellatrix VII, an Earth-size windswept world that
orbited the bright star in the Orion constellation. He was a member of
one of the three intelligent races that shared the planet with a small
colony of Earthmen.
The _Valhalla_ had made the long trip to Bellatrix, 215 light-years from
Earth, shortly before Alan's birth. Captain Donnell had won the
friendship of the little creature and had brought him back to the ship
when time came for the _Valhalla_ to return to Earth for its next
assignment.
Rat had been the Captain's pet, and he had given Alan the small animal
on his tenth birthday. Rat had never gotten along well with Steve, and
more than once he had been the cause of jealous conflicts between Alan
and his twin.
Rat was well named; he looked like nothing so much as a small
bluish-purple rodent, with wise, beady little eyes and a scaly curling
tail. But he spoke Terran clearly and well, and in every respect he was
an intelligent, loyal, and likable creature.
They ate in silence. Alan was halfway through his bowl of protein mix
when Art Kandin dropped down onto his bench facing him. The _Valhalla's_
First Officer was a big pudgy-faced man who had the difficult job of
translating the concise, sometimes almost cryptic commands of Alan's
father into the actions that kept the great starship going.
"Good rising, Alan. And happy birthday."
"Thanks, Art. But how come you're loafing now? Seems to me you'd be busy
as a Martian dustdigger today, of all days. Who's setting up the landing
orbit, if you're here?"
"Oh, that's all been done," Kandin said lightly. "Your Dad and I were up
all last night working out the whole landing procedure." He reached out
and took Rat from Alan's shoulder, and began to tickle him with his
forefinger. Rat responded with a playful nip of his sharp little teeth.
"I'm taking the morning off," Kandin continued. "You can't imagine how
nice it's going to be to sit around doing nothing while everyone else is
working, for a change."
"What's the landing hour?"
"Precisely 1753 tonight. It's all been worked out. We actually are in
the landing orbit now, though the ship's gimbals keep you from feeling
it. We'll touch down tonight and move into the Enclave tomorrow." Kandin
eyed Alan with sudden suspicion. "You're planning to stay in the
Enclave, aren't you?"
Alan put down his fork with a sharp tinny clang and stared levelly at
the First Officer. "That's a direct crack. You're referring to my
brother, aren't you?"
"Who wouldn't be?" Kandin asked quietly. "The captain's son jumping
ship? You don't know how your father suffered when Steve went over the
hill. He kept it all hidden and just didn't say a thing, but I know it
hit him hard. The whole affair was a direct reflection on his authority
as a parent, of course, and that's why he was so upset. He's a man who
isn't used to being crossed."
"I know. He's been on top here so long, with everyone following his
orders, that he can't understand how someone could disobey and jump
ship--especially his own son."
"I hope _you_ don't have any ideas of----"
Alan clipped off Kandin's sentence before it had gotten fully started.
"I don't need advice, Art. I know what's right and wrong. Tell me the
truth--did Dad send you to sound me out?"
Kandin flushed and looked down. "I'm sorry, Alan. I didn't
mean--well----"
They fell silent. Alan returned his attention to his breakfast, while
Kandin stared moodily off into the distance.
"You know," the First Officer said finally, "I've been thinking about
Steve. It just struck me that you can't call him your twin any more.
That's one of the strangest quirks of star travel that's been recorded
yet."
"I thought of that. He's twenty-six, I'm seventeen, and yet we used to
be twins. But the Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things."
"That's for sure," Kandin said. "Well, time for me to start relaxing."
He clapped Alan on the back, disentangled his long legs from the bench,
and was gone.
_The Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things_, Alan repeated to
himself, as he methodically chewed his way through the rest of his meal
and got on line to bring the dishes to the yawning hopper that would
carry them down to the molecular cleansers. _Real funny things._
He tried to picture what Steve looked like now, nine years older. He
couldn't.
_As velocity approaches that of light, time approaches zero._
That was the key to the universe. _Time approaches zero._ The crew of a
spaceship travelling from Earth to Alpha Centauri at a speed close to
that of light would hardly notice the passage of time on the journey.
It was, of course, impossible ever actually to reach the speed of light.
But the great starships could come close. And the closer they came, the
greater the contraction of time aboard ship.
It was all a matter of relativity. Time is relative to the observer.
Thus travel between the stars was possible. Without the Fitzgerald
Contraction, the crew of a spaceship would age five years en route to
Alpha C, eight to Sirius, ten to Procyon. More than two centuries would
elapse in passage to a far-off star like Bellatrix.
Thanks to the contraction effect, Alpha C was three weeks away, Sirius a
month and a half. Even Bellatrix was just a few years' journey distant.
Of course, when the crew returned to Earth they found things completely
changed; years had passed on Earth, and life had moved on.
Now the _Valhalla_ was back on Earth again for a short stay. On Earth,
starmen congregated at the Enclaves, the cities-within-cities that grew
up at each spaceport. There, starmen mingled in a society of their own,
without attempting to enter the confusing world outside.
Sometimes a Spacer broke away. His ship left him behind, and he became
an Earther. Steve Donnell had done that.
_The Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things._ Alan thought of the
brother he had last seen just a few weeks ago, young, smiling, his own
identical twin--and wondered what the nine extra years had done to him.
_Chapter Two_
Alan dumped his breakfast dishes into the hopper and walked briskly out
of the mess hall. His destination was the Central Control Room, that
long and broad chamber that was the nerve-center of the ship's
activities just as the Common Recreation Room was the center of off-duty
socializing for the Crew.
He found the big board where the assignments for the day were chalked,
and searched down the long lists for his own name.
"You're working with me today, Alan," a quiet voice said.
He turned at the sound of the voice and saw the short, wiry figure of
Dan Kelleher, the cargo chief. He frowned. "I guess we'll be crating
from now till tonight without a stop," he said unhappily.
Kelleher shook his head. "Wrong. There's really not very much work. But
it's going to be cold going. All those chunks of dinosaur meat in the
preserving hold are going to get packed up. It won't be fun."
Alan agreed.
He scanned the board, looking down the rows for the list of cargo crew.
Sure enough, there was his name: _Donnell, Alan_, chalked in under the
big double C. As an Unspecialized Crewman he was shifted from post to
post, filling in wherever he was needed.
"I figure it'll take four hours to get the whole batch crated," Kelleher
said. "You can take some time off now, if you want to. You'll be working
to make up for it soon enough."
"I won't debate the point. Suppose I report to you at 0900?"
"Suits me."
"In case you need me before then, I'll be in my cabin. Just ring me."
Once back in his cabin, a square cubicle in the beehive of single men's
rooms in the big ship's fore section, Alan unslung his pack and took out
the dog-eared book he knew so well. He riffled through its pages. _The
Cavour Theory_, it said in worn gold letters on the spine. He had read
the volume end-to-end at least a hundred times.
"I still can't see why you're so wild on Cavour," Rat grumbled, looking
up from his doll-sized sleeping-cradle in the corner of Alan's cabin.
"If you ever do manage to solve Cavour's equations you're just going to
put yourself and your family right out of business. Hand me my
nibbling-stick, like a good fellow."
Alan gave Rat the much-gnawed stick of Jovian oak which the Bellatrician
used to keep his tiny teeth sharp.
"You don't understand," Alan said. "If we can solve Cavour's work and
develop the hyperdrive, we won't be handicapped by the Fitzgerald
Contraction. What difference does it make in the long run if the
_Valhalla_ becomes obsolete? We can always convert it to the new drive.
The way I see it, if we could only work out the secret of Cavour's
hyperspace drive, we'd----"
"I've heard it all before," Rat said, with a note of boredom in his
reedy voice. "Why, with hyperspace drive you'd be able to flit all over
the galaxy without suffering the time-lag you experience with regular
drive. And then you'd accomplish your pet dream of going everywhere and
seeing everything. Ah! Look at the eyes light up! Look at the radiant
expression! You get starry-eyed every time you start talking about the
hyperdrive!"
Alan opened the book to a dog-eared page. "I know it can be done
eventually. I'm sure of it. I'm even sure Cavour himself actually
succeeded in building a hyperspace vessel."
"Sure," Rat said drily, switching his long tail from side to side. "Sure
he built one. That explains his strange disappearance. Went out like a
snuffed candle, soon as he turned on his drive. Okay, go ahead and build
one--if you can. But don't bother booking passage for me."
"You mean you'd stay behind if I built a hyperspace ship?"
"Sure I would." There was no hesitation in Rat's voice. "I like this
particular space-time continuum very much. I don't care at all to wind
up seventeen dimensions north of here with no way back."
"You're just an old stick-in-the mud." Alan glanced at his wristchron.
It read 0852. "Time for me to get to work. Kelleher and I are packing
frozen dinosaur today. Want to come along?"
Rat wiggled the tip of his nose in a negative gesture. "Thanks all the
same, but the idea doesn't appeal. It's nice and warm here. Run along,
boy; I'm sleepy." He curled up in his cradle, wrapped his tail firmly
around his body, and closed his eyes.
* * * * *
There was a line waiting at the entrance to the freezer section, and
Alan took his place on it. One by one they climbed into the spacesuits
which the boy in charge provided, and entered the airlock.
For transporting perishable goods--such as the dinosaur meat brought
back from the colony on Alpha C IV to satisfy the heavy demand for that
odd-tasting delicacy on Earth--the _Valhalla_ used the most efficient
freezing system of all: a compartment which opened out into the vacuum
of space. The meat was packed in huge open receptacles which were
flooded just before blastoff; before the meat had any chance to spoil,
the lock was opened, the air fled into space and the compartment's heat
radiated outward. The water froze solid, preserving the meat. It was
just as efficient as building elaborate refrigeration coils, and a good
deal simpler.
The job now was to hew the frozen meat out of the receptacles and get it
packed in manageable crates for shipping. The job was a difficult one.
It called for more muscle than brain.
As soon as all members of the cargo crew were in the airlock, Kelleher
swung the hatch closed and threw the lever that opened the other door
into the freezer section. Photonic relays clicked; the metal door swung
lightly out and they headed through it after Kelleher gave the go-ahead.
Alan and the others set grimly about their work, chopping away at the
ice. They fell to vigorously. After a while, they started to get
somewhere. Alan grappled with a huge leg of meat while two fellow
starmen helped him ease it into a crate. Their hammers pounded down as
they nailed the crate together, but not a sound could be heard in the
airless vault.
After what seemed to be three or four centuries to Alan, but which was
actually only two hours, the job was done. Somehow Alan got himself to
the recreation room; he sank down gratefully on a webfoam pneumochair.
He snapped on a spool of light music and stretched back, completely
exhausted. I don't ever want to see or taste a dinosaur steak again, he
thought. Not ever.
He watched the figures of his crewmates dashing through the ship, each
going about some last-minute job that had to be handled before the ship
touched down. In a way he was glad he had drawn the assignment he had:
it was difficult, gruelingly heavy labor, carried out under nasty
circumstances--it was never fun to spend any length of time doing manual
labor inside a spacesuit, because the sweat-swabbers and the
air-conditioners in the suit were generally always one step behind on
the job--but at least the work came to a definite end. Once all the meat
was packed, the job was done.
The same couldn't be said for the unfortunates who swabbed the floors,
scraped out the jets, realigned the drive mechanism, or did any other
tidying work. Their jobs were _never_ done; they always suffered from
the nagging thought that just a little more work might bring the
inspection rating up a decimal or two.
Every starship had to undergo a rigorous inspection whenever it touched
down on Earth. The _Valhalla_ probably wouldn't have any difficulties,
since it had been gone only nine years Earthtime. But ships making
longer voyages often had troubles with the inspectors. Procedure which
passed inspection on a ship bound out for Rigel or one of the other far
stars might have become a violation in the hundreds of years that would
have passed before its return.
Alan wondered if the _Valhalla_ would run into any inspection problems.
The schedule called for departure for Procyon in six days, and the ship
would as usual be carrying a party of colonists.
The schedule was pretty much of a sacred thing. But Alan had not
forgotten his brother Steve. If he only had a few days to get out there
and maybe find him----
Well, I'll see, he thought. He relaxed.
But relaxation was brief. A familiar high-pitched voice cut suddenly
into his consciousness. _Oh, oh_, he thought. _Here comes trouble._
"How come you've cut jets, spaceman?"
Alan opened one eye and stared balefully at the skinny figure of Judy
Collier. "I've finished my job, that's how come. And I've been trying to
get a little rest. Any objections?"
She held up her hands and looked around the big recreation room
nervously. "Okay, don't shoot. Where's that animal of yours?"
"Rat? Don't worry about him. He's in my cabin, chewing his
nibbling-stick. I can assure you it tastes a lot better to him than your
bony ankles." Alan yawned deliberately. "Now how about letting me rest?"
She looked wounded. "If you _want_ it that way. I just thought I'd tell
you about the doings in the Enclave when we land. There's been a change
in the regulations since the last time we were here. But you wouldn't be
interested, of course." She started to mince away.
"Hey, wait a minute!" Judy's father was the _Valhalla's_ Chief Signal
Officer, and she generally had news from a planet they were landing on
a lot quicker than anyone else. "What's this all about?"
"A new quarantine regulation. They passed it two years ago when a ship
back from Altair landed and the crew turned out to be loaded with some
sort of weird disease. We have to stay isolated even from the other
starmen in the Enclave until we've all had medical checkups."
"Do they require every ship landing to go through this?"
"Yep. Nuisance, isn't it? So the word has come from your father that
since we can't go round visiting until we've been checked, the Crew's
going to have a dance tonight when we touch down."
"A dance?"
"You heard me. He thought it might be a nice idea--just to keep our
spirits up until the quarantine's lifted. That nasty Roger Bond has
invited me," she added, with a raised eyebrow that was supposed to be
sophisticated-looking.
"What's wrong with Roger? I just spent a whole afternoon crating
dinosaur meat with him."
"Oh, he's--well--he just doesn't _do_ anything to me."
I'd like to do something to you, Alan thought. Something lingering, with
boiling oil in it.
"Did you accept?" he asked, just to be polite.
"Of course not! Not _yet_, that is. I just thought I might get some more
interesting offers, that's all," she said archly.
_Oh, I see the game_, Alan thought. _She's looking for an invitation._
He stretched way back and slowly let his eyes droop closed. "I wish you
luck," he said.