And silently every panel went dead.
* * * * *
"Oh!" said Edith Ward in a solemn tone.
"Not yet," Barden objected. "This may be success."
"But--?"
"How do you hope to control a radio-controlled drone that is traveling
higher than the velocity of propagation?"
"But how will you ever know?"
"When we--"
He was interrupted by the chatter of the radiation counter. Light
splashed in through the tiny ports in a brilliant flare.
"Well, we won't," said Barden helplessly.
"Won't what?"
"Ever catch up with it! Not where it's gone!"
"So--?"
"So we've solved that problem," he said bitterly. "Your informant was
right. From what the counter says, that was a vicious number. Well, I
guess I am licked, finally. I admit it."
"Somehow," said Edith solemnly, "I know I should feel elated. But I am
not. Fact of the matter is, I am ashamed that there is a portion of my
brain that tells me that I am proven correct. I ... fervently wish it
were not so."
"Thanks," he said. "I wish but one thing."
"What?"
"I'd have preferred to have been aboard that crate!"
"Tom!" she said plaintively. "Not--oblivion."
"No," he said with a wistful smile. "At superspeed, my recording
instruments could record nothing. Perhaps if I'd been aboard I could
have found out what really happened. There is no way."
"But what can we do?"
"Build another one and spend my time trying to find out how to get a
recording from a body that isn't really existent in this space at all."
"That sounds impossible."
"Then there is but one answer," he said, "and that is to go out with it
and hope that by some machination I can control the reaction before it
gets beyond stopping."
"Tom," she said quietly, "you are still convinced that such a thing is
possible?"
"I am," he said. And then he stopped as his face filled with wonder.
"What?" she asked, seeing the change.
"Look," he said, his voice rising in excitement. "We caught radiation.
Right?"
"Right."
"That means that the ship was not exceeding the velocity of light when
it went up!"
"Yes, but--?"
"Then on the instantaneous recorders there must be a complete record of
what every instrument _should have been reading_ but did not due to the
mechanical inertia of these meters! Right?"
"But suppose--"
"Look, Edith. The theory of the drive is based upon the development
of a monopolar magnetic field that incloses space in upon itself like
a blister, twisted off from the skin of a toy balloon. Now that field
would collapse if the fission started, because the fission is initiated
as you claim by magnetostrictive alignment of the planetary orbits
of the field-electrons in the atoms. Obviously the magnetostrictive
effect is more pronounced near to the center of the monopolar
generator. Ergo that would go first, dropping the speed of the ship
to below the velocity of light by a considerable amount. Then as the
fission continued, spreading outward, the various instruments would go
blooey--but not until they'd had ... did you say thirteen microseconds
after initiation the major fission took place?"
"Yes."
"Give it twelve microseconds to drop the ship below the speed of light
and I have still one full microsecond for recordings!"
* * * * *
Edith Ward looked up in admiration. "And you'll bet your life on what
your instruments can see in one millionth of a second?"
"Shucks," he grinned. "Way way back they used microsecond pulses to
range aircraft, and they got to the point where a microsecond of time
could be accurately split into several million parts of its own.
Besides, I made those instruments!"
"Q.E.D." said Edith Ward quietly. "But how are you going to develop
a monopolar magnetic field without the magnetostrictive effect? The
prime consideration is not the field, but the fact that aligning the
planetary orbits means that two things tend to occupy the same place at
the same time. That isn't--they tell me--possible."
"Too bad the reverse isn't true," he said.
"You mean the chance of something occupying two places at the same
time?"
"Uh-huh."
"What then?"
"Then we could develop two monopolar fields of opposing polarity to
inclose the twin-ship proposition. Then the atomic orbits would not be
affected since they would receive the bipolar urge."
"Couldn't you change from one to the other very swiftly?"
"Not without passing through zero on the way. Every time we passed
through zero we'd end up at sub-speed. The ship would really jack
rabbit."
"Oh."
"But," he said thoughtfully, "what happens if the monopolar field is
generated upon a true square wave?"
"A true square wave is impractical."
"You mean because at the moment of transition, the wave front must
assume, simultaneously, all values between zero and maximum?"
"Yes," she said, "and it is impossible to have any item operating under
two values."
"That is an existent item," said Barden with a smile. "Bringing back H.
G. Wells' famous point of whether an instantaneous cube could exist."
"This I do not follow."
"Look, Edith," said Tom patiently. "Any true square wave must have a
wave front in which the rise is instantaneous, and assuming all values
between zero and maximum for the duration of an instant. An instant is
the true zero-time, with a time-quantum of nothing--the indivisible
line that divides two adjoining events. Just as a true line has no
thickness.
"Now," he went on, "generating the monopolar field on a true square
wave would flop us from one field to the other in true no-time. At that
instant, we would be existing in all values from maximum negative to
maximum positive, at the same time at zero--_but not truly assigned a
real value_. Therefore we should not stop.
"However," he went on, "that is an impossibility because the true
instant of no duration is impossible to achieve with any mechanism,
electrical or otherwise. However, the fields set up to make possible
this square wave do permit the full realization of the problem. For a
practical duration, however small, the value of the wave does actually
assume all values from maximum negative to maximum positive!"
She looked at him with puzzlement. "I thought they taught you only this
one science," she said.
"That would have been useless," he grinned. "As useless as trying
to teach a Hottentot the full science of electronics without giving
him the rest of physics as a basis. No, little lady, I got the full
curriculum, including a full training in how to think logically! How
else?"
"You win," she said solemnly. "Fudge up your true square wave, and I'll
buy a ticket back home in your crate!"
"Thanks, Edith," he said. "That's a high compliment. But there's more
of us than we-all. I'll have to take a vote."
* * * * *
There was a roar at Barden's explanation. And his head technician stood
up, waving for silence. "There's enough lifecraft aboard," he shouted
over the noise. "Anybody who wants to get out can take 'em. They can
make Terra from here in a couple of months in a lifecraft if they want
to."
That got a roar of approval.
"Lucky I had two ships all fitted out," said Tom. "Also, with all this
spare junk for radio-controlling the other crate we've got a shipload
of spare parts. Probably take about a week flat to tinker it together,
but it is far better to do it out here than to go all the way home to
Terra--that'd take about four weeks."
"I wonder why they didn't think of that square-wave idea," said Edith.
"Lord only knows."
"That's what bothers me," she said.
"Why?"
"Because we are playing with the other man's cards, remember. We're not
leading authorities in this art. You got both the square-wave generator
and the monopolar field out of them. Now why hadn't they tried it
before?"
"On the theory that no beginner ever has a valid idea? No soap. Maybe
they've been too close to the woods to see anything but them trees. Of
course, there's another little angle we've not considered."
"Go on. First it was a political difference between factions for and
against subjugation. Then I came in and threw in my two cents which
sort of hardened the argument a bit. We didn't know whether my stuff
was shoved in to stop production or to save Sol. We know now that your
informant was telling the truth but not the whole truth. We know that
mine was honest but not why he was. Then we came to the possibility
that someone somewhere tossed us a fish because they were afraid to try
it. Why the stopper on that?"
"Possibly they want us to really try it out and not total destruction."
"But--?"
"Look, Edith. Supposing you wanted to have something developed for you
by a consulting laboratory. You've done that yourself at Solar Labs.
Wouldn't you give them whatever information you had available?"
She nodded. "Nice explanation," she said solemnly. "Excepting that if
I were doing it, I'd not call one man and start him experimenting on
one pretext and then call another member of the laboratory and tell him
that the information would lead to disaster."
"In other words, the big problem is motive."
"Precisely. And that's what we're up against. Try to figure out the
hidden motives of extrasolar cultures."
"You believe there are two?"
Tom Barden nodded. "Uh-huh," he said. "And all the talking we can do
from now until we find out won't help because we cannot interpret the
thoughts of an alien culture in our own terms and hope to come out
right!"
* * * * *
And that, of course, was that. It was definitely true. Reviewing all
the evidence during the next ten days, they came up with a startlingly
minute amount of fact. Barden had been given a scientific field
because of a political argument; Edith Ward had been warned that the
information was incomplete and would lead to disaster.
Build upon those slender bricks and they tumble all too quickly.
Barden's story could be construed as an attempt to get consulting
service on a dangerous project without danger to the alien race.
Ward's informant might have been an attempt to give Sol a good chance
to solve it in safety, but in solution there would be no proof--or even
in failure. For there was no way of telling proof from failure at many
light-years of distance unless the failure bloomed the entire system
into a nova.
And regardless of any theoretical argument, it was still a technical
impossibility to construct any spaceship capable of traversing
light-years without some means of super speed. Not without a suitable
crew to do a job when it arrived.
Then, to reverse the argument, supposing that Barden's tale was
correct. The opposing faction might hope to forestall any work by
issuing the warning.
But if Barden's tale were correct, why did the so-called altruists
offer him a science that was dangerous to pursue?
Unless, perhaps, the political argument was conquest versus dominance.
Both factions wanted conquest and dominance. One demanded the
elimination of all races that might offer trouble. The other faction
might argue that a completely dead enemy offers no real reward for
conquest--for of what use is it to become king when the throne is safe
only when all subjects are dead?
Yes, there's Paranoia. The paranoid will either become king of all or
king of none--or none will remain to be king including himself. That
theory is quite hard on rational people.
So went the arguments, and when the ten days were completed, they were
no closer to the truth than they had been before.
Not entirely true, that. For they hoped to drive--somewhere--at a
velocity higher than the speed of light.
* * * * *
With a firm hand, Tom Barden pressed the Start button. The relays
clicked and the pilot lights flared red, and then after the warm-up
period they turned green.
"This is it," he said, grasping the small lever that would start the
automatic sequence.
Silence--almost silence came. From one corner came a small muttering
and the click of beads. A throat was cleared unnecessarily, for it,
like all others, was both dry and clear. A foot shuffled nervously--
"No!" shouted a voice.
Barden looked at Edith Ward. "Still--?" he said.
She nodded and put her hand over his on the lever. "Want me to prove
it?" she said, pushing it home.
There was a tinnily musical note that crept up the scale from somewhere
in the sub-audible, up through the audible scale and into the shrilling
tones that hurt the ear. It was hard to really tell when it passed
above the audible, for the imagination followed it for seconds after
the ear ceased to function.
There was a creak that rang throughout the ship. A tiny cricket-voice
that came once and changed nothing but to increase the feel of
tenseness.
Then--nothing pertinent.