_How can a ship travel both forward and
backward and sideways in two different directions,
be going twice as fast as the speed of
light--and still be completely motionless?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Carl Engle stood aside as the flight preparation crew filed out of the
_Argosy_'s airlock. Barnes was the last; fat and bald and squinting
against the brightness of the Arizona sun.
"All set, Carl," he said. "They had us to check and countercheck,
especially the drives."
Engle nodded. "Good. Ground Control reports the Slug cruiser still
circling seven hundred miles out and they think the Slugs suspect
something."
"Damned centipedes!" Barnes said. "I still say they're telepathic." He
looked at his watch. Zero hour minus twenty-six minutes. "Good luck,
boy, and I hope this space warp dingus works like they think it will."
He waddled down the boarding ramp and Engle went through the airlock,
frowning a little as he threw the switches that would withdraw the ramp
and close the airlock behind him. Barnes' implied doubt in the success
of the space warp shuttle was not comforting. If the shuttle failed
to work, the _Argosy_ would be on the proverbial spot with the Slug
cruiser eager to smear it well thereupon....
Access to the control room was up through the room that housed the
space warp shuttle. Dr. Harding, the tall, bristle-browed physicist,
and his young assistant, Garvin, looked up briefly as he entered then
returned their attention to their work. The master computer, borrowed
from M.I.T., stood like a colossal many-dialed refrigerator along one
wall. A protective railing around it bore a blunt KEEP OUT sign and
it was never left unwatched. Garvin was seated before it, his fingers
flitting over the keyboard and the computer's answer panel replying
with strange mathematical symbols.
The space warp shuttle sat in the middle of the room, a cube
approximately two-thirds of a meter along the edge, studded with dials
and knobs and surmounted by a ball of some shining silvery alloy. Dr.
Harding was talking into the transdimensional communicator mounted
beside the shuttle.
Engle went on to the computer and waited outside the railing until
Garvin finished with his work and turned in his seat to face him.
"The last check question," Garvin said. "Now to sweat out the last
twenty minutes."
"If you've got the time, how about telling me about the shuttle,"
said Engle, "I've been kept in the dark about it; but from what I
understand, the shuttle builds up a field around the ship, with the
silver ball as the center of the field, and this field goes into
another dimension called the 'space warp'."
"Ah--it could be described in that manner," Garvin said, smiling a
little. "A clear description could not be made without the use of
several special kinds of mathematics, but you might say this field in
normal space is like a bubble under water. The air bubble seeks its own
element, rises rapidly until it emerges into free air--in this case,
the space warp. This transition into the warp is almost instantaneous
and the shuttle automatically ceases operation when the warp is fully
entered. The shuttle is no longer needed; the hypothetical bubble no
longer exists--it has found its own element and merged with it."
"I know that a light-hour of travel in the warp is supposed to be
equivalent to several light-years in normal space," Engle said, "but
what about when you want to get back into normal space?"
"The original process is simply reversed: the shuttle creates a
'bubble' that cannot exist in the warp and seeks its own element,
normal space."
"I see. But if the shuttle should--"
He never completed the question. Dr. Harding strode over, his eyes blue
and piercing under the fierce eyebrows as he fixed them on him. He
spoke without preamble:
"You realize the importance of this test flight with the shuttle, of
course? Entirely aside from our personal survival should the Slug
cruiser intercept us."
"Yes, sir," he answered, feeling the question suggested an even lower
opinion of his intelligence than he had thought Harding held.
Project Space Warp existed for the purpose of sending the _Argosy_
to Sirius by means of the space warp shuttle and bringing back the
_Thunderbolt_ by the same swift method. The _Thunderbolt_, Earth's
first near-to-light-speed interstellar ship, was a huge ship; armed,
armored, and invincible. It had been built to meet every conceivable
danger that might be encountered in interstellar exploration--but the
danger had come to the solar system from the direction of Capella nine
years after the departure of the _Thunderbolt_. Eight cruisers of the
pulpy, ten-foot centipede-like things called Slugs had methodically
destroyed the colonies on Mars and Venus and established their own
outposts there. Earth's ground defenses had held the enemy at bay
beyond the atmosphere for a year but such defense could not be
maintained indefinitely. The _Thunderbolt_ was needed quickly and its
own drives could not bring it back in less than ten years....
"We will go into the warp well beyond the atmosphere," Harding
said. "Transition cannot be made within an atmosphere. Since a very
moderate normal space velocity of the ship will be transformed into a
greater-than-light velocity when in the warp, it is desirable that we
make turn-over and decelerate to a very low speed before going into the
warp."
"Yes, sir," he said. "I was briefed on that part and I'll bring us as
near to a halt as that cruiser will permit."
"There will be communication between us during the flight," Harding
said. "I will give you further instructions when they become necessary."
He turned away with an air of dismissal. Engle went to the ladder
by the wall. He climbed up it and through the interroom airlock,
closing the airlock behind him; the routine safety measure in case any
single room was punctured. He went to the control board with a vague
resentment gnawing for the first time at his normally placid good
nature.
So far as Harding was concerned--and Garvin, too--he might as well have
been an unusually intelligent baboon.
* * * * *
Zero hour came and the _Argosy_ lifted until Earth was a tremendous,
curving ball below and the stars were brilliant points of light in a
black sky. The Slug cruiser swung to intercept him within the first
minute of flight but it seemed to move with unnatural slowness. It
should have been driving in at full speed and it wasn't....
"Something's up," Ground Control said. "It's coming in too slowly."
"I see that," he answered. "It must be covering something beyond it, in
your radar shadow."
It was. When he was almost free of the last traces of atmosphere he saw
the other cruiser, far out and hidden from Ground Control's radar by
the radar shadow cast by the first one.
He reported, giving its position and course as given him by the robot
astrogating unit.
"We'll have the greatest amount of time if I make turn-over now and
decelerate," he finished.
The voice of Harding came through the auxiliary speaker:
"Do so."
The _Argosy_ swung, end for end, and he decelerated. The cruiser behind
him increased its speed, making certain it would be in position to
cut off any return to Earth. The other cruiser altered its course to
intersect the point in space the _Argosy_ would soon occupy, and the
_Argosy_ was between the rapidly closing jaws of a trap.
He made reports to Ground Control at one-minute intervals. At 11:49 he
said:
"Our velocity is approaching zero. We'll be within range of the second
cruiser's blasters in two more minutes."
Harding spoke again to him:
"We'll go into the warp now. _Do not_ alter the deceleration or the
course of the ship while we're in the warp."
"I won't," he said.
There was a faint mutter from the auxiliary speaker as Harding gave
some instructions to Garvin. Engle took a last look at the viewscreen;
at blue-green Earth looming large in the center, Orion and Sirius
glittering above it and the sun burning bright and yellow on the right.
It was a scene he had observed many times before, all very familiar and
normal--
The chronometer touched 11:50 and normalcy vanished.
Earth and sun and stars fled away from him, altering in appearance
as they went, shrinking, dwindling. The seas and continents of Earth
erupted and shook and boiled before Earth faded and disappeared. The
sun changed from yellow to green to blue, to a tiny point of bright
violet light that raced away into the blackness filling the screen and
faded and disappeared as Earth had done.
Then the viewscreen was black, utterly, completely, dead black. And the
communicator that had connected him with Ground Control was silent,
without the faintest whisper of background sound or space static.
In the silence the voice of Harding as he spoke to Garvin came through
the speaker; puzzled, incredulous, almost shocked:
"Our velocity couldn't have been that great--_and the sun receded into
the ultraviolet!_"
There was the quick sound of hurrying footsteps then the more distant
sound of the computer's keys being operated at a high rate of speed. He
wanted to ask what had gone wrong but he knew no one would answer him.
And it would be a pointless question--it was obvious from Harding's
tone that he did not know, either.
He had an unpleasant feeling that Man's first venture into another
dimension had produced catastrophic results. What had caused sun and
Earth to disappear so quickly--and what force had riven and disfigured
Earth?
Then he realized the significance of Harding's statement about the sun
receding into the ultraviolet.
If the ship had been traveling at a high velocity away from the sun,
the wave length of the sun's light would have been increased in
proportion to the speed of the ship. The sun should have disappeared
in the long-wave infrared end of the spectrum, not the short-wave
ultraviolet.
With the thought came the explanation of the way the continents
and oceans of Earth had quivered and seethed. The shifting of the
spectrum range had shortened normally visible rays into invisibly
short ultraviolet radiations while at the same time formerly invisible
long infrared radiations had been shortened into visible wave
lengths. There had been a continuous displacement into and past the
ultraviolet and each wave length would have reflected best from a
different place--mountains, valleys, oceans, deserts, warm areas, cool
areas,--and the steady progression into the ultraviolet had revealed
each area in quick succession and given the appearance of agitated
movement.
So there was no catastrophe and everything had a logical explanation.
Except how they could have been approaching a sun that he had seen
clearly, visibly, racing away from them.
"Engle--" The voice of Harding came through the speaker. "We're going
back into normal space to make another observation. I don't know just
where we are but we're certain to be far from the cruisers. Don't alter
our course or velocity."
"Yes, sir," he said.
They came out of the warp at 11:53. The communicator burped suddenly
and the viewscreen came to life; a deep, dull red that brightened
quickly. A tiny coal flared up, swelling in size and shifting from red
to orange to yellow--the sun. Earth appeared as a hazy red dot that
enlarged and resolved itself into a planet with distorted continents
that trembled and changed, to resume their natural shapes and colors.
Within a few seconds the sun was shining as ever, Earth loomed large
and blue-green before them and the stars of Orion glittered unchanged
beyond. Even their position in space was the same--they had not moved.
But the Slug cruisers had.
One was very near and from its forward port came the violet haze that
always preceded a blaster beam. There was no time to escape--no chance
at all. He spoke into the mike, harsh and urgent:
"_Into the warp!_ There's a blaster beam coming--_move!_"
There was a silence from below that seemed to last an eternity, then
the sound of a switch being slapped hastily. At the same time, the
violet haze before the cruiser erupted into blue fire and the blaster
beam lanced out at them.
It struck somewhere astern. The power output needle swung jerkily as
the generators went out and the emergency batteries took the heavy
load of the shuttle's operation. There was a sensation of falling as
the ship's artificial gravity units ceased functioning. The auxiliary
speaker rattled wordlessly and there was a sound like a hard rush of
wind through it, accompanied by quick bumping sounds.
Then the speaker was still and there was no sound of any kind as the
viewscreen shifted into the ultraviolet and Earth and stars and sun
once again raced away and disappeared in the blackness.
* * * * *
A myriad of lights above the board informed him the generators were
destroyed, the stern section riddled and airless, the emergency
batteries damaged and reduced to quarter charge, the shuttle room
punctured and airless.
And, of course, Harding and Garvin were dead.
He felt a surge of futile anger. It had all been unnecessary. If only
they had not considered him incompetent to be entrusted with anything
more than the ship's operation--if only they had installed an emergency
switch for the shuttle by his control board, there would not have been
the two-second delay following his order and they would have been
safely in the warp before the blaster beam struck.
But they had not trusted him with responsibility and now he was alone
in a space warp he did not understand; sole and full responsibility
for the shuttle suddenly in his hands.
He considered his course of action, then got into a pressure suit.
Magnets in the soles of its heavy boots permitted him to walk in
the absence of gravity and he went to the interroom airlock with
metallically clicking steps. He let himself through the lock and walked
down what had been the room's wall, then across to the center of its
floor.
But for the fact there was no one in the room, it was as he had last
seen it. The shuttle, computer, and other equipment stood in their
orderly positions with their lighted dials unchanged. Until one looked
at the gash ripped in the hull and saw the stains along its edge where
the occupants had been hurled through it by the escaping air.
He went on to the next room and the next. The damage increased as he
proceeded toward the stern. The power generators were sliced into
ribbons and the emergency batteries in such condition it seemed a
miracle they were functioning at all. The drives had received the
greatest damage; they were an unrecognizable mass of wreckage.
He made his way back to the shuttle room, there to appraise his
circumstances. He reached automatically for a cigarette and stopped
when his glove bumped the breast plate of his pressure suit.
First, he would have to make the shuttle room livable; get out of the
pressure suit. He would have to question the computer and he could not
do that with the thick, clumsy gloves on his hands.
The job didn't take long. There were repair plates on the ship and a
quick-hardening plastic spray. He closed the sternward airlock when he
was done and opened the airlock leading to the control room, as well
as the locks beyond. Air filled the shuttle room, with only a minor
over-all loss of air pressure. He removed the suit, attached a pair
of magnetic soles to his shoes so he could operate the keys of the
computer without the movements sending him floating away, and went to
it.
He had never been permitted to touch it before, nor even stand close
enough to see what the keyboard looked like. Now, he saw that the
alphabetical portion of the keyboard was minor compared with the
mathematical portion, many of the symbols strange to him.
The operation of an interplanetary ship required a certain knowledge of
mathematics, but not the kind used by theoretical physicists. He typed,
doubtfully:
ARE YOU CAPABLE OF ANSWERING QUESTIONS PRESENTED IN NON-MATHEMATICAL
FORM?
The word, YES, appeared at once in the answer panel and relief came to
him like the lifting of a heavy burden.
The computer knew as much about the space warp as Harding or anyone
else. It was connected with his drive controls and instruments and knew
how far, how fast, and in what directions the flight had taken place.
It had even been given blueprints of the ship's construction, in case
the structure of the ship should affect the ship's performance in the
warp, and knew every nut, bolt, plate and dimension in the ship.
There was supposed to be a certain method of procedure when questioning
the computer. "It knows--but it can't think," Garvin had once said. "It
lacks the initiative to correlate data and arrive at conclusions unless
the procedure of correlation is given it in detail."
Perhaps he could manage to outline some method of correlation for the
computer. The facts of his predicament were simple enough:
He was in an unknown medium called "the Space Warp." Something not
anticipated occurred when a ship went into the warp and Harding had
not yet solved the mystery when he died. The physicists in Observation
would be able to find the answer but he could not ask them. The
forward movement of the ship was not transferred with it into the warp
and if he emerged into normal space the waiting Slug cruisers would
disintegrate him before he spoke three words to Observation.
There was a pencil and a tablet of paper by the computer. He used
them to calculate the time at which the charge in the damaged
batteries would reach a critical low, beyond which the charge would be
insufficient to activate the shuttle.
The answer was 13:53. He would have to go out of the warp at 13:53 or
remain in it forever. He had a great deal less than two hours in which
to act.
He typed the first question to the computer: