They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the _Elephant's Child_,
eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm and
the frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O.
Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohp
of the extinct Martian Space Navy.
"If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp was
saying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter on
his chest--a tiny box which could be set to change any of nine thousand
spoken languages into any one of the others--"and at that time my people
had lost the secrets of space travel for approximately four thousand
years, this means that I have been reclining on a planetoid here for at
least 4,100 years. The probability is that it has been much longer.
Unfortunately my time recorder has long since become inoperative."
He extended one of his four rib appendages and picked up a piece of
carrot. "Naturally I was in a cataleptic state," he went on. "As you may
know, in my race that means that all body processes are suspended _in
toto_. There is no growth and no decay. Moth and rust do not corrupt,
you might put it."
Pink frowned momentarily. There was a false note somewhere, but he
couldn't put his finger on it. He tried to remember all he could about
the dying race of Martians. What Ynohp was saying was correct, as nearly
as he could recall, but ... he shrugged. My God! he thought, this
critter's over four thousand years old!
Well, Circe's about forty-five.
The hell she is. She's twenty-seven, which was her age when her ship was
wrecked, plus about one actual year of life which equals the eighteen
she was lost in the Slugjet. Twenty-eight, then, really. I'm thirty-one.
Not a bad combination.
Hey, boy, you're a confirmed bachelor, remember?
He chuckled. Who says so? He took a look at Circe. The prettiest
spaceman who ever came my way, he said to himself happily.
The dinner broke up. Space etiquette demanded that he escort the Martian
to his stateroom first, for the four-armed little gray man was senior to
a mere organicus officer; when he returned to the mess hall, he found
that Joe Silver had whisked Circe away to show her the new improvements
in space drives and other technical details.
"At least," said Bill Calico, "he said he was going to."
Pink went off to talk to Jerry, who was a lousy substitute for a
beautiful girl.
He found his O. O. tinkering with the life-scanner.
"Something wrong," Jerry said through his teeth. He was a slim young
man--Pink, who stood six-three and hefted in at two hundred, would have
made two of Jerry--and his normally joyous expression was now writhed
into a frown. "The red light's not on, but the scanner's not working."
"How d'you know?"
"Had a hunch. Don't ask me why--unless it's that the Martian makes me
suspicious. Anyway, I tested the scanner; turned it inside and aimed it
all over the ship. Nothing doing. No life in here, according to it. So
something's the matter with it, and I'm damned if I can figure what."
Pink said, "That means what?"
"Means that if Fawcett or any of his men are out there, we won't know
it. We could flash right by them, or through 'em for that matter, and
never know it."
"Nothing more serious, though?"
"That's bad enough, isn't it?" Jerry asked him.
"Sure, sure." Pink shook himself. "I feel--I guess _wary_ is the word."
Jerry looked a question. "Yeah," said Pinkham uncomfortably, "it's the
Martian. A nice guy and all, but he makes me wonder."
"Four thousand years plus," nodded Jerry.
"No, not that. I think that's possible. It's something else, son."
"What?"
Pink said slowly, futilely, "I don't know." He patted the O.O.'s
shoulder. "Keep at it, Jerry." He went out and walked down the long ramp
to the astrolab. Daley was there. "How's it going?" Pink asked him.
"We aren't moving," said the lieutenant.
"I know. I told Kinkare to put her into the same orbit as the asteroid
belt. We want to stay in the same relation to the planetoids till we
decide where to look for Fawcett."
"I know you issued those orders, Pink. I meant we aren't in the orbit.
We're hanging in space, and the dang asteroids are shooting past us."
Daley flipped on his great banks of scanners. "See?" Bands of light were
tiny balls of inert matter, flashing by an obviously stationary
_Elephant's Child_.
Pink jumped for the intercom. "No use," said Daley. "It's dead. I sent
Calico for Randy Kinkare." They looked at each other. "I think it's
Ynohp," said Daley.
Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without
admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a
number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago
in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to
reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done
it--if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet
per second."
"Maybe he can."
"You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as
Terrestrians."
"And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?"
"Washington, did you ever see a Martian?"
"Yeah."
"Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall,
four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?"
"I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety
that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other
facts could explain it."
Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run.
Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly.
The space drive was out of commission.
They were adrift in the void.