Danger Ahead
I looked at Bert Donovan and he looked at me. Judging by the faces of
our two screwball intellectuals, there was something smelly on the
_Saturn_. But it was all a deep and dark mystery to me.
I said, "Hank, for old times' sake, would you brush that off again
lightly for me? In words of one syllable, what has the little letter
_i_ got to do with space flight, gray skies and time-travel?"
But Hank ignored me. On the right track at last, he was developing his
arguments.
"Reckon you know more 'bout energy-mass relationships than I do,
Lanse. 'Spect you'll remember, then, the transformations cooked up by
a guy from our time, feller by the name o' Lorentz? Him an' a couple
other guys named Einstein an' Planck fiddled around with hyper-spatial
mechanics an' discovered some interestin' things. Includin' the fact
that mass is altered when it travels at high velocities.
"Whut I figger musta happened is this. The gadget you invented worked
even better'n you expected. It worked so durn well that it give the
_Saturn_ one whale of a kick in the pants. Made it accelerate at a
speed _greater than that of light_!
"So then what? Why, then the _plus_ universe warn't big enough to
hold the _Saturn_ any more! That wild minute or two you talked about
was when you exceeded the limitin' velocity. An' then here you was in
the minus universe! Which is, so to speak, the negative matrix of the
normal _plus_ universe we ordinarily live in."
It didn't make sense to me, but apparently it did to Lieutenant Biggs.
He passed a damp palm across a sweating forehead.
"You're right, Cleaver! You must be right, because your argument
agrees with all the known theories and observed facts. The incredible
readings on our instruments, the weird surroundings in which we find
ourselves--" He stared at my friend sombrely. "But what are we going
to do? How shall we get out of here?"
Hank said, "Same way we come in. We blast out."
"But I've tried that, Hank," Biggs defended. "Before I realized the
full extent of our situation. And nothing happened. There's something
strange in the response of the motors. Don't ask me what. It's hard to
say, when the _Saturn_ is plunging into beaconless, starless nothing.
But stepped-up acceleration is just a waste of fuel."
"Yeah?" mused Hank. "That's queer. Now, I wonder why--"
At that instant came a most unexpected interruption. Todd, who had been
quietly tending his controls, suddenly came to life with a startled cry.
"Well, I'll be--Biggs! Captain Hanson!"
"Yes?" Both men answered at once.
"There--there's a large body before us!"
* * * * *
He pressed a button. A glassy pane above the panel glowed into
life. As if a portion of the _Saturn's_ prow had been sheared away,
I was looking at the vista before us. But it was no longer empty
as, according to Biggs, it had been ever since the moment of the
"accident." The stark, gray loneliness was relieved now by a monstrous
pockmark in space. A giant sphere, imponderably distant, but definitely
on our trajectory!
Hanson was a man of action, I learned. He leaped to the
intercommunicating system.
"Chief Garrity! Large body for'rd! Reverse hypes and apply drag
instantly. Todd, plot a course revision! Man! What a monster! Biggs,
get out the charts. Something solid at last. Maybe we've busted back
into our own universe!"
Biggs said, "Yes, sir! Right away, sir!" His eyes questioned Hank. But
Cleaver shook his head.
"Nope, I don't think so. It ain't logical. That's a phenom--a phenom--a
pee-culiarity o' the cockeyed universe we're in--Hey! What's goin' on
here?"
The constant hum of the hypatomic motors below, one I had hardly
noticed until suddenly it no longer throbbed in my ears, had subtly
altered. A brief instant of silence, a jarring concussion--and a
deeper, more resonant sound.
Biggs explained, "That's the hypatomics being thrown into reverse.
Anti-grav units are activated in the nose of the ship, then when we
get the course variation we swing around our objective. Common space
practice, Hank."
"That's what," said Hank dubiously, "I figgered. Is it common space
practice to make a beeline for danger, though, like Billy-be-damned?"
And he pointed to the visiplate. Biggs' eyes followed his finger--and
Biggs gasped.
"Great whirling comets! It's got us caught!"
For despite the mounting clamor of the reversed engines, despite the
anti-gravitational units of which Biggs had boasted, despite the
swiftly redoubled orders and efforts of a shocked Captain Hanson--the
_Saturn's_ speed had definitely increased!
The figure in the plate was looming larger moment by moment, and
even to my untrained eye it was plain that we were slam-banging,
hell-for-leather, toward a crackup!
Don't ask me what happened in the next few minutes. I wouldn't know.
It's all one whirling blind spot in my memory. Up till now, this entire
affair had partaken of the nature of a dream. Amusing, not unpleasant,
but quite remote and faintly incredible.
Now, suddenly, I realized it was not a dream. But that I, Jim
Blakeson, publicity representative of Midland U., had somehow been
dragged out of the normal routine of everyday life and thrust into a
wild, impossible adventure in a world three centuries beyond my time.
It was a disturbing awakening. It didn't make matters a bit better
to realize that I was now--along with five other twentieth century
exiles--in imminent peril of being slapped out of existence by a
gigantic planet that shouldn't be in a dull, gray universe that didn't
exist!
* * * * *
About me, frantic figures boiled and churned. The skipper of the Saturn
was bouncing about the control room like a bipedal gadfly, jerking
switches, bellowing orders, pawing through charts that--to me at
least--were a complete mystery.
Dick Todd still sat, tense and grim-jawed, in his bucket-shaped pilot's
chair. His fingers played the banked controls before him as the fingers
of an accomplished organist seek stops, but so far as I could see,
his movements availed nothing. For the object in the visiplate loomed
larger and ever larger.
Lancelot Biggs had wasted very little time scanning charts. Despairing
of finding any record of this cosmic visitant, he had grabbed paper
and pencil, and was now scrawling hasty calculations. Hank Cleaver
was watching him. I glanced at Helen. She was watching Hank. Rather
hopefully, I thought.
Hank said, "What's it show, Lanse?"
Biggs looked up at him haggardly.
"The mass of that planet must be terrific. It has a heavy gravitational
attraction. We're accelerating by leaps and bounds. At our present rate
of acceleration, only about twenty minutes remain before we--we--"
He paused, glancing helplessly at Helen MacDowell. There was a strange
longing in his eyes. I remembered, all of a sudden, a fact he had
mentioned. That somewhere back on Earth, a girl waited for him. A girl
who had promised to be his wife. His next words showed that he shared
my thought.
"I don't mind checking out," he said quietly. "We who dare the
spaceways risk that hazard always. But I wish I could have seen her
once more before--"
It was then that Hallowell pushed forward. He was scared, and plenty
scared. So scared that his voice was a thin, bleating yammer.
"Lieutenant, you can at least send us back to our proper time! You
can't let us die like this! Without a chance--like trapped rats!"
"Rats!" I said scornfully. "Speak for yourself, Hallowell!" But
Lancelot Biggs nodded.
"He's right. We still have twenty minutes. It is not right that you of
another age should share our fate. We must get the temporal deflector
into operation, send all of you back--"
Hank cried sharply, "Just us? Why not everybody, Lanse? Let's _all_
escape to the twentieth century. The whole kit an' kiboodle!"
But Biggs shook his head.
"I'm afraid that is impossible, Hank. There are limitations to temporal
transmission. You and your friends can enter _our_ time because
there is no natural barrier, but _we_ cannot violate the established
world-line of things that have been. We never were in your time,
therefore we cannot now go there. But, wait--"
He spun swiftly to a wall-audio, spoke to the engine room below.
"Get the deflector ready. We're sending our guests back!" Then, nodding
to all of us, "If you will come with me--"
* * * * *
We started for the door. But we had taken just a few steps when the
audio buzzed. Biggs answered its call, listened for a moment, cried out,
"But Garrity, are you absolutely sure? It can't be! It mustn't be!"
The clacking voice was regretful but positive. I felt a thin, cold
edge running up and down my spine. Now I look back upon it, I think I
guessed what Garrity was saying even before Biggs turned to us, his
eyes wide with sympathy and sorrow.
"My friends," he said in a choked voice, "forgive me for what I must
say. Your lot is irrevocably cast with ours. The strain on the motors
has burnt out several vital units. There is not time enough now to
repair them. The temporal deflector is--useless!"
That was a jolt. The way my several comrades took the message was the
measure of their characters. Hallowell cried out sharply, began to
scream protests in a frightened voice until Prexy--fat, staid, stuffy
old H. Logan, himself--silenced him with a backhander across the mouth.
"That will do, Hallowell!" snapped MacDowell. And he seemed to grow
three inches. It was a mile in my estimation. "I think, Lieutenant
Biggs," he said, "we need no further apologies. We are not afraid to
die with you."
I forgot to dislike the old guy then. I loved him a little bit for
that. And I liked Tomkins' reaction, too. The little observatory
technician sighed wistfully.
"It's too bad, though. I should have liked to take back to our time a
knowledge of some of the marvels we have seen here."
The detective said nothing. He still didn't seem to know what the hell
it was all about. But Helen MacDowell was as game as her old man.
She said, "We're not licked yet. I still think Hank--I mean, Mr.
Cleaver--will find a way out of this."
Biggs said gently, "I'm afraid not, Mrs. Cleaver. This is the end for
all of us."
Helen's eyes darkened suddenly.
"_Mrs._ Cleaver! My dear lieutenant! I'll thank you not to couple my
name with that of this--this person! What ever made you think I was his
wife? I wouldn't marry him if he were the last man on earth--"
And then Lancelot Biggs did a strange thing! For a startled moment he
stared at Helen MacDowell incredulously. Then he loosed a terrific
whoop. And I don't mean whisper.
"_Eeee-yow!_" he howled. "You and Hank aren't married?"
"Why, of course not!"
"You--you haven't any children?"
Helen turned brick-red.
"After _all_, Lieutenant--" she began stiffly. "But, _really_!"
I don't think Biggs heard her. For he had leaped to Cleaver's side, was
pounding him enthusiastically upon the back and shoulders.
"It's all right, then! You understand--it's all right! Get those
brain-cells to work, Hank, old boy! It's in the bag! _Eeee-yowee!_"
And Hank Cleaver, from the depths of a brown study, said suddenly,
"Say, looka here--I been thinkin'--"