[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science
Fiction September 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_The importance of a matter is almost entirely a matter of your
attitude. And whether you call something "a riot" or "a war" ...
well, there is a difference, but what is it?_
Nobody ever saw the message-torp. It wasn't to be expected. It came in
on a course that extended backward to somewhere near the Rift--where
there used to be Huks--and for a very, very long way it had traveled as
only message-torps do travel. It hopped half a light-year in overdrive,
and came back to normality long enough for its photocells to inspect the
star-filled universe all about. Then it hopped another half light-year,
and so on. For a long, long time it traveled in this jerky fashion.
Eventually, moving as it did in the straightest of straight lines, its
photocells reported that it neared a star which had achieved
first-magnitude brightness. It paused a little longer than usual while
its action-circuits shifted. Then it swung to aim for the bright star,
which was the sol-type sun Varenga. The torp sped toward it on a new
schedule. Its overdrive hops dropped to light-month length. Its pauses
in normality were longer. They lasted almost the fiftieth of a second.
When Varenga had reached a suitably greater brightness in the
message-torp's estimation, it paused long enough to blast out its
recorded message. It had been designed for this purpose and no other.
Its overdrive hops shortened to one light-hour of distance covered.
Regularly, its transmitter flung out a repetition of what it had been
sent so far to say. In time it arrived within the limits of the Varenga
system. Its hops diminished to light-minutes of distance only. It ceased
to correct its course. It hurtled through the orbits of all the planets,
uttering silently screamed duplicates of the broadcasts now left behind,
to arrive later.
It did not fall into the sun, of course. The odds were infinitely
against such a happening. It pounded past the sun, shrieking its news,
and hurtled on out to the illimitable emptiness beyond. It was still
squealing when it went out of human knowledge forever.
* * * * *
The state of things was routine. Sergeant Madden had the traffic desk
that morning. He would reach retirement age in two more years, and it
was a nagging reminder that he grew old. He didn't like it. There was
another matter. His son Timmy had a girl, and she was on the way to
Varenga IV on the _Cerberus_, and when she arrived Timmy would become a
married man. Sergeant Madden contemplated this prospect. By the time his
retirement came up, in the ordinary course of events he could very well
be a grandfather. He was unable to imagine it. He rumbled to himself.
The telefax hummed and ejected a sheet of paper on top of other sheets
in the desk's "In" cubicle. Sergeant Madden glanced absently at it. It
was an operations-report sheet, to be referred to if necessary, but
otherwise simply to be filed at the end of the day.
A voice crackled overhead.
"_Attention Traffic_," said the voice. "_The following report has been
received and verified as off-planet. Message follows._" That voice
ceased and was replaced by another, which wavered and wabbled from the
electron-spurts normal to solar systems and which make for auroras on
planets. "_Mayday mayday mayday_," said the second voice. "_Call for
help. Call for help. Ship_ Cerberus _major breakdown overdrive heading
Procyron III for refuge. Help urgently needed._" There was a pause.
"_Mayday mayday mayday. Call for help--_"
Sergeant Madden's face went blank. Timmy's girl was on the _Cerberus_.
Then he growled and riffled swiftly through the operations-report sheets
that had come in since his tour of duty began. He found the one he
looked for. Yes. Patrolman Timothy Madden was now in overdrive in squad
ship 740, delivering the monthly precinct report to Headquarters. He
would be back in eight days. Maybe a trifle less, with his girl due to
arrive on the _Cerberus_ in nine and him to be married in ten. But--
Sergeant Madden swore. As a prospective bridegroom, Timmy's place was on
this call for help to the _Cerberus_. But he wasn't available. It was in
his line, because it was specifically a traffic job. The cops handled
traffic, naturally, as they handled sanitary-code enforcement and
delinks and mercantile offenses and murderers and swindlers and missing
persons. Everything was dumped on the cops. They'd even handled the Huks
in time gone by--which in still earlier times would have been called a
space war and put down in all the history books. It was routine for the
cops to handle the disabled or partly disabled _Cerberus_.
* * * * *
Sergeant Madden pushed a button marked "_Traffic Emergency_" and held it
down until it lighted.
"You got that _Cerberus_ report?" he demanded of the air about him.
"Just," said a voice overhead.
"What've you got on hand?" demanded Sergeant Madden.
"The _Aldeb_'s here," said the voice. "There's a minor overhaul going
on, but we can get her going in six hours. She's slow, but you know
her."
"Hm-m-m. Yeah," said Sergeant Madden. He added vexedly: "My son Timmy's
girl is on board the _Cerberus_. He'll be wild he wasn't here. I'm going
to take the ready squad ship and go on out. Passengers always fret when
there's trouble and no cop around. Too bad Timmy's off on assignment."
"Yeah," said the Traffic Emergency voice. "Too bad. But we'll get the
_Aldeb_ off in six hours."
Sergeant Madden pushed another button. It lighted.
"Madden," he rumbled. "Desk. The _Cerberus_' had a breakdown. She's
limpin' over to Procyron III for refuge to wait for help. The _Aldeb_'ll
do the job on her, but I'm going to ride the squad ship out and make up
the report. Who's next on call-duty?"
"Willis," said a crisp voice. "Squad ship 390. He's up for next call.
Playing squint-eye in the squad room now."
"Pull him loose," Sergeant Madden ordered, "and send somebody to take
the desk. Tell Willis I'll be on the tarmac in five minutes."
"Check," said the crisp voice.
Sergeant Madden lifted his thumb. All this was standard operational
procedure. A man had the desk. An emergency call came in. That man took
it and somebody else took the desk. Eminently fair. No favoritism; no
throwing weight around; no glory-grabbing. Not that there was much glory
in being a cop. But as long as a man was a cop, he was good. Sergeant
Madden reflected with satisfaction that even if he was getting on to
retirement age, he was still a cop.
He made two more calls. One was to Records for the customary full
information on the _Cerberus_ and on the Procyron system. The other was
to the flat where Timmy lived with him. It was going to be lonely when
Timmy got married and had a home of his own. Sergeant Madden dialed for
message-recording and gruffly left word for Timmy. He, Timmy's father,
was going on ahead to make the report on the _Cerberus_. Timmy wasn't to
worry. The ship might be a few days late, but Timmy'd better make the
most of them. He'd be married a long time!
Sergeant Madden got up, grunting, from his chair. Somebody came in to
take over the desk. Sergeant Madden nodded and waved his hand. He went
out and took the slide-stair down to the tarmac where squad ship 390
waited in standard police readiness. Patrolman Willis arrived at the
stubby little craft seconds after the sergeant.
"Procyron III," said Sergeant Madden, rumbling. "I figure three days.
You told your wife?"
"I called," said Patrolman Willis resignedly.
They climbed into the squad ship. Police ships, naturally, had their
special drive, which could lift them off without rocket aid and gave
them plenty of speed, but filled up the hull with so much machinery that
it was only practical for such ships. Commercial craft were satisfied
with low-power drives, which meant that spaceport facilities lifted them
to space and pulled them down again. They carried rockets for emergency
landing, but the main thing was that they had a profitable pay load.
Squad ships didn't carry anything but two men and their equipment.
Sergeant Madden dogged the door shut. The ship fell up toward the sky.
The heavens became that blackness-studded-with-jewels which is space. A
great yellow sun flared astern. A half-bright, half-dark globe lay
below-the planet Varenga IV, on which the precinct police station for
this part of the galaxy had its location.
Patrolman Willis, frowning with care, established the squad ship's
direction, while Sergeant Madden observed without seeming to do so.
Presently Patrolman Willis pushed a button. The squad ship went into
overdrive.
It was perfectly commonplace in all its aspects.
* * * * *
The galaxy went about its business. Stars shone, and planets moved
around them, and double stars circled each other like waltzing couples.
There were also comets and meteors and calcium-clouds and high-energy
free nuclei, all of which acted as was appropriate for them. On some
millions of planets winds blew and various organisms practiced
photosynthesis. Waves ran across seas. Clouds formed and poured down
rain. On the relatively small number of worlds so far inhabited by
humans, people went about their business with no thought for such things
or anything not immediately affecting their lives. And the cops went
about their business.
Sergeant Madden dozed most of the first day of overdrive travel. He had
nothing urgent to do, as yet. This was only a routine trip. The
_Cerberus_ had had a breakdown in her overdrive. Commercial ships'
drives being what they were, it meant that on her emergency drive she
could only limp along at maybe eight or ten lights. Which meant years to
port, with neither food nor air for the journey. But it was not even
conceivable to rendezvous with a rescue ship in the emptiness between
stars. So the _Cerberus_ had sent a message-torp and was crawling to a
refuge-planet, more or less surveyed a hundred years before. There she
would land by emergency rockets, because her drive couldn't take the
strain. Once aground, the _Cerberus_ should wait for help. There was
nothing else to be done. But everything was nicely in hand. The squad
ship headed briskly for the planet Procyron III, and Sergeant Madden
would take the data for a proper, official, emergency-call traffic
report on the incident, and in time the _Aldeb_ would turn up and make
emergency repairs and see the _Cerberus_ out to space again and headed
for port once more.
This was absolutely all that there was to anticipate. Traffic handled
such events as a matter of course. So Sergeant Madden dozed during most
of the first day of overdrive. He reflected somnolently when awake that
it was fitting for Timmy's father to be on the job when Timmy's girl was
in difficulty, since Timmy was off somewhere else.
On the second day he conversed more or less with Patrolman Willis.
Willis was a young cop, almost as young as Timmy. He took himself very
seriously. When Sergeant Madden reached for the briefing-data, he found
it disturbed. Willis had read up on the kind of ship the _Cerberus_ was,
and on the characteristics of Procyron III as recorded a century before.
The _Cerberus_ was a semi-freighter, Candless type. Procyron III was a
water-planet with less than ten per cent of land. Which was unfortunate,
because its average temperature and orbit made it highly suitable for
human occupation. Had the ten per cent of solid ground been in one
piece, it would doubtless have been colonized. But the ground was an
archipelago.
"Hm-m-m," said Sergeant Madden, after reading. "The survey recommends
this northern island for emergency landing. Eh?"