"Major." Casey's eyes narrowed, while the uneasy suspicion in them grew.
"We don't have no chit system at this club."
Lance's head felt like it would explode. He could take no more.
"You're lying!" he shouted. His big hands reached over the mahogany
counter and shook the bartender like a squawk-box that had refused to
function properly. "Tell me you're lying in your teeth. If you don't,
I'll push them down your throat--"
Suddenly, Lance sensed people behind him. A firm hand clamped down
heavily on his shoulder.
The pilot stretched his neck around. What now? His hands did not relax
their murderous grip on his victim.
The arresting party had entered the club quietly. Now, they were ganged
up around him: Colonel Sagen, his two aides, a fourth man Lance
recognized as Major Carmody, the base legal officer--and a fifth man
too, who wore the insignia of the Space Surgeon-General's Department. A
psychiatrist.
"Better come peacefully, major," rasped Colonel Sagen. "You've been
'cleared' for an explanation--and if you're smart, you'll listen to the
spiel and play ball."
The way it was said made Lance feel he could trust the Old Man for that
long. Anyhow, what choice did he have?
"It's about time," Lance sighed. He set Casey down, to the latter's
greatly exhaled relief. "Only how come all the suspense?"
"It was very necessary," broke in Major Carmody.
"Was it? Well, you had me about to crack--if that was your object. Now
then, would any of you mind easing my worries about Carolyn. She's O.K.,
isn't she?"
His glance shifted from one to the other.
"Isn't she?"
Nobody would reply--neither Colonel Sagen, nor any of the officers
bunched-up around him.
Sweat suddenly broke out on Lance's brow. The chilly feeling went
through him that if and when an answer was provided him, he wasn't
particularly going to like it.
Not in the slightest.
* * * * *
Shortly afterwards, Lance was driven across the base by his captors and
escorted into his commanding officer's private office. The two aides
were dismissed, but the psychiatrist-officer, who also wore eagles on
his shoulders, and Major Carmody remained.
Colonel Sagen seated himself behind his desk.
"Major," he began, clearing his throat, "you imagine me to have a
daughter. You're positive of it. You even visualize her so well, that
you remember something about how you were going to marry her."
"You're not going to talk me out of anything on that score," Lance shot
back.
"Perhaps, we don't intend to. Colonel Nordsen, here," Sagen indicated
the psychiatrist, "has flown in from HQ to chat with you. He can explain
the technical aspects of the phenomenon that has thrown you better than
I can. I'd advise you to listen to him. He's just what you need."
"Just what I need? What else do you intend to do? Hypnotize me, so you
can erase all my past?"
The colonel scowled. "Look here, major. You co-operate and learn to keep
your mouth shut, we may be able to restore you to duty. But if not ...
well, what happens then will be entirely up to Nordsen. It could mean a
padded cell. The development of hyperspace exploration has to go on,
whatever happens to you."
"I'll tell you one thing to your face, colonel," Lance replied, hotly.
"I'm not off my rocker."
"No one has maintained you were," broke in Colonel Nordsen. "But Colonel
Sagen had to throw a curtain around you fast."
"Why?"
Neither officer answered.
Finally, Colonel Sagen said, "I think you'd better continue with him,
Colonel Nordsen."
Nordsen was a youthful-looking man for his rank, yet prematurely
balding. He wore thick-shelled glasses.
"Major Cooper," Nordsen began, "let's go back to when you put the
_Cosmos XII_ through its first jump through hyperspace. How well do you
recall your experience?"
"I'll never forget it. You Earthbound kiwis should try it sometime."
"Did you experience a feeling ... perhaps, rather uncanny ... that the
whole thing had happened to you before? What psychologists call the
sense of _deja vu_?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Perhaps some other type of phenomenon was manifested? A feeling you'd
been split in half, maybe."
"That did happen."
"Describe it."
"It was more than just being split in half. I felt like I was suddenly
hundreds of selves. I could see other replicas of 'me' all around."
Nordsen nodded, thoughtfully. "That was what we call the 'Infinite
Fission' syndrome. All those other 'you's' were personality matrices of
yourself in alternate worlds. Did you notice anything else?"
Lance nodded, grudgingly.
* * * * *
"What?"
"Look, colonel. If I answer your questions, will you answer mine?"
"Any reasonable ones, yes. That's what we're here for."
"Well, there was the disturbing thing about the _Cosmos XII_, itself. I
saw images of the ship riding along beside me, out there in the hype.
Where nothing material could possibly exist. Where not even light could
reflect back, or any other wave propagation." Lance shook his head,
recalling the experience. "What could have caused a hallucination like
that?"
"It was no hallucination, Lance. It was real and has happened before. We
can rest you easy on that point."
Colonel Nordsen removed tobacco from a pouch, stuffed his pipe, lit up.
Bluish smoke formed a halo about him.
"Lance, the Space Service has been sending ships through hyperspace for
nearly two years now. Only recently did anybody notice something was
seriously wrong with the pilots who came back. Up until then ... oh, a
pilot might act a little queer for a day or two. But who wouldn't,
cooped up alone in a steel projectile for four weeks? We thought very
little of it."
"Uh huh," was Lance Cooper's only comment.
Nordsen transferred his pipe to his hand. "But eventually, even the
Space Service gets around to putting two and two together on the
slipstick. The incidents kept piling up. A pilot comes back from Epsilon
Eridani, for example, and insists on giving everybody left-handed
salutes. Another has taken a scout ship to 61 Cygni. He insists at the
Officers Club that Colonel Sagen here has a nickname of 'Old Hard-Head'.
Nobody else on the base is aware of any such thing. Then, still another
pilot--"
"Wait a minute!" Lance interrupted. "Hasn't he?"
"Hasn't what? I don't follow you."
"Colonel Sagen. Hasn't he got that nickname? I mean, it was a term of
respect and liking, of course. But--"
"No," said Nordsen.
"No?" Lance echoed, disbelieving. "Since when?"
"Not since _ever_, major. Not on this particular track."
"Colonel Nordsen, you're losing me."
"Patience, please. I was about to tell you that still another pilot
lands on our base, and he wears a blue tie. Claims the Space Service has
always worn blue ties."
"I take it back," said Lance. "I'm a pilot and all pilots are slowly
going nuts." Then, it occurred to him to evince more interest or they
might ship him back to the brig sooner than expected. "A blue tie, huh?"
"And blue suede chukkas, to match," Colonel Sagen's hoarse voice broke
in. "Most unmilitary-looking uniform I ever saw on a space officer."
Colonel Nordsen, the psychiatrist, set his pipe aside. "Gradually, we
began building up a file of such weird discrepancies. Another pilot
landed wearing a handle-bar mustache. He couldn't possibly have grown so
much lip-hair in a month. Yet, the man claimed he'd sported the mustache
for years; and that every officer in his squadron was decked out with
one, too."
* * * * *
"Tell me just one thing," Lance pleaded. His nerves were gradually
getting more on edge. "What has all this got to do with Carolyn Sagen?
Why is she being kept from me?"
Nordsen's eyebrows met, evincing a little displeasure. "Don't you get
the drift, major? I've been trying to accomplish two things at the same
time. Cushion a shock for you--and explain why what has happened has
happened. There is no Carolyn Sagen. The colonel and his wife have
always been childless."