He moaned, "Talk to me, Sparks. Talk quick, an' make it interestin'. I
promised Diane I wouldn't commit no mayhems on him, but I'm weakenin'.
I keep thinkin' how I'd like to--"
"Easy, Cap," I soothed. "Some day he'll choke to death on his own
Adam's-apple. But how come Biggs made the take-off? He's only the First
Mate on this barge."
Hanson snapped, "Don't call this crate a barge!" Then he added, "Well,
Sparks, I lost a bet with Biggs on the last trip. An' he won the right
to navigate the next three Venus-to-Earth shuttles. So--" He shrugged.
"He's handlin' the controls."
"Maltreating," I corrected, "is the word. I like Lancelot Biggs,
Skipper. But I'd as soon ride a Martian firebird bareback as hop gravs
with him in the turret. What do you say we--"
* * * * *
Just then the door busted open again, and this time in came the
skipper's daughter, Diane, followed by our gawky genius, L. Biggs.
There was a sight for you. Beauty and the Bust! I know Venusian, Earth
Standard, Universal and a smattering of Old Martian, but I don't know
the words to describe Diane Hanson. She was paradise wrapped up in a
five and a half foot bundle. She was honey and cream and lotus flowers
streamlined into a single heartache. She was--well, she was terrific!
Biggs looked like "Before" in the _Are You a Man?_ advertisements.
He was lean and lanky and gangly and awkward, and he walked like an
anaemic stork on ice-skates. His chief topographical feature was
an Adam's-apple that cavorted up and down his neck like a runaway
elevator. I'd known Biggs six months, and still couldn't figure out
whether he was a sixty horsepower genius or the luckiest mortal in
space.
Right now, both he and Diane were wearing size 12 grins. With a
prideful sidelong glance at her fiance, the skipper's gal demanded,
"Wasn't it wonderful, Dad? Lancelot made that take-off all by himself.
Wasn't it something?"
Hanson strangled softly. I did a relief job. I said, honestly, "It was
_something_. I haven't figured out _what_ yet. After I get the curdles
out of my brain--"
Mr. Biggs said apologetically, "I'm sorry if I caused you any
inconvenience, Sparks. I was trying out a new wrinkle. Instead of
using the aft blasts to throw us clear of Sun City spaceport, I used a
single jet and reversed the ship's gravity. That gave us an automatic
repulsion from the planet, and--"
"_What!_" roared the skipper. "Look here, Mr. Biggs, one more insane
trick like that an' I'll have you cashiered, bet or no bet! I've been
hoppin' gravs for nigh onto forty years, an' you can take my word for
it, them nonsensical ideas don't work! They only waste fuel, an'--"
"But," interjected Biggs, "I just checked with the engine room, sir.
They--they complained about the moment of weightlessness, but admitted
we'd saved approximately sixty percent of our normal escape fuel."
"The hell you say!" Cap Hanson's jaw played tag with his breast-bone.
Then he gathered up his self-respect and expelled it in an outraged
snort. "Nevertheless," he proclaimed, "an' howsoever--the stunt's no
good. Come to find out, you'll prob'bly discover we're at least a
degree off course an' behind schedule--"
Just at that moment the audio buzzed. I plugged in and contacted the
second officer, Lt. Dick Todd, calling from the bridge. Todd said
genially, "Hi, Sparks. Tell Mr. Biggs I just finished checking the
course revision, will you? And tell him that little trick of his was a
whiz-bang. The tape shows we've gained two parsecs on the normal escape
and we're point oh-oh-oh on course!"
The violent sound was Cap Hanson and his dignity slamming the door
behind them....
* * * * *
After he left, I coughed gently at Diane and Biggs, who evidently
thought my turret was the back row of a movie house, and while Biggs
was wiping the lipstick off his chin I said, "Look, Mr. Biggs, I don't
want to be critical, but that damned audio plate of yours--" And I told
him about what had happened just before the take-off.
He grinned amiably.
"It doesn't really matter, Sparks. That's one of the paradoxes you'll
have to get used to. The uranium trap has the faculty of probing into
the past, but only when you operate it in low frequencies."
I said, "But I actually _talked_ to Allonby over a five month lapse
of time! Here's what gets me--shouldn't he have remembered that
conversation yesterday when he and I had a couple of snorts together in
Sun City?"
"No. Because you didn't talk to him on his present world-line. You see,
every man moves through Time and Space in a series of four co-ordinates
dependent upon what he does. Five months ago Allonby did _not_ talk to
you. Therefore he did not remember it yesterday. The next time you see
him he will remember today's conversation as having happened--"
"Pardon the slight sizzling sounds," I apologized to Diane. "That's
just my brains heterodyning."
"In other words," continued Biggs blandly, "today you sheared the
Time-Space continuum from an unusual angle, thereby turning the
Present-Past into the Past-Present, and altering the Future-Present.
You might say you spoke not to Allonby, but to one of the many
_probabilities_ of Allonby. Do you understand now?"
"No," I said. "Where's the aspirin?"
"I'll try to make it clear," he persisted. "This is how it works--"
Then I got a break. The bug started chattering; I moved to the control
board and said, "So solly, folks. Me makee talk-talk on phonee.
Goombye!"
They left, wrapped around each other like a pound of melted chocolates,
and I switched in to hear the finger of Joe Marlowe buzzing me from
Lunar Station III. Marlowe was in fine form. He greeted me with a
"_Haloj, nupaso!_" which means, "Hi, pickle-puss!"
I called him something untranslatable, and then he got down to
business. "How's that dilapidated old crate of yours perking along,
pal?" he asked.
"Fine," I told him. "We've got genius at the helm, romance on the
bridge, and a cargo of Venusian pineapples in the hold. Which reminds
me, how's your girl friend?"
"Comets to you, sailor!" he snapped back. "This is serious. I wanted to
warn you, you'd better make a good trip. There's a prize dangling on
it."
"Come again?"
"Word just leaked through from the central office. The Government has
decided to turn its freight express transport over to the company whose
next normal Venus-Earth run is made in the shortest time. It's a blind
test, and nobody is supposed to know anything about it. The _Saturn_
was clocked when it pulled out of Sun City, and its time will be
checked against that of other competing liners--"
* * * * *
I got little cold duck-bumps on the forehead. When I brushed them they
were wet. This was a tough break for the Corporation. The _Saturn_ is
the oldest space-lugger still doing active duty on the interplanetary
runs. She was built way back there before the turn of the century.
Lacking many modern improvements, she is a ten-day freighter. One
of our new luggers could make the same trip in six or seven; it was
rumored that the _Slipstream_, pride of the Cosmos Company fleet, could
make it in five!
I squawked, "Fires of Fomalhaut, Joe, it's not fair! The _Saturn's_ the
slowest can the Corporation owns! Why don't they let us run the _Spica_
or the _Antigone_ on a test flight?"
"It's a little matter of politics, friend," he returned wearily.
"Politics--spelled g-r-a-f-t. Somebody's got a finger in the pie and
wants the Cosmos Company to get the allotment. The _Slipstream_ is
leaving Sun City tonight. All you have to do is beat her into Long
Island by about ten hours."
"Is that all?" I lamented. "You're sure they don't expect us to stop
on the way in and load up with a half ton of diamond dust? Shooting
meteors, Joe--"
He interrupted my etheric sobs with a hasty, "Somebody breaking in on
our band, guy. Got to go now. Best of luck!" The sign-off dropped the
needle, and I was staring at a killed connection.
So there we were, way out on the limb. The fastest freighter in space
competing against us for the fattest prize since the Government
lotteried off the Fort Knox hoardings. I worried two new wrinkles into
my brow, then went below to find Cap Hanson. He heard my complaint with
ominous calm. When I had finished he said, almost cheerfully, "Tough,
ain't it?"
I stared at him. "Skipper, we've got to figure out a way to hobble home
first! That Government contract carries at least three million credits
a year. If we lose it for the Corporation, they'll tie the kit and
kiboodle of us to stern firing jets!"
He just grinned ghoulishly and held out two hairy paws for my
inspection. "You see them hands, Sparks?"
"I'm a radio operator," I told him, "not a manicurist."
"Them hands," he persisted, "is clean as a pipeline on Pluto. Take a
look at the log. Mister Lancelot Biggs is writ down as the C.O. for
this trip. Which relieves me of all an' sundry obligations."
I said, "But, Skipper, you've had the experience! In an emergency like
this--"
He shook his head. "Sparks, we ain't got a chance of beatin' the
_Slipstream_ to Earth. Not the chance of a snowman on Mercury. I'm
perfectly satisfied to let Mr. Biggs do the worryin', an' if the
Corporation's thickheaded enough to want to blame anybody for our
failure, I'm content to let him have _that_ honor, too!"
He grinned again.
"Maybe after this," he said, "Biggs won't be quite so damn cocky. An'
maybe Diane won't think he's the hotshot he lets on to be!"
Which was absolutely all the skipper would say. I wasted words for five
more minutes, then went to find Lancelot Biggs....
* * * * *
He wasn't on the bridge. He wasn't in the secondary control cabin
or in the mess hall or in the holds. Nor in the engine room. I found
him, finally, in the ship's library, sprawled full-length on a divan,
holding a book in one hand and waving the other arm in the air, keeping
time to the poem he was reading aloud.
When I entered he looked up and said, "Hello there, Sparks! You're
just in time to hear something lovely. This space-epic of the Venusian
poet-laureate, Hyor Kandru. It's called _Alas, Infinity!_ Listen--"
He read,
"... comes then the quietude of endless void. The heart seeks out
and, breathless, listens to Magnificent monotonies of space...."
Monotony your eye! There are times when I'd trade all my bug-pounding
hours for a nice, quiet, padded cell out somewhere beyond Pluto. I
said, "Listen, Mr. Biggs--"
"You know, Sparks," he said dreamily, "sometimes I wonder if the poetic
mind is not more acute than the strictly scientific one. Since I met
Diane, and she acquainted me with the symphonic beauties of poetry,
I've thought of so many new things. The never-ending wonder of the
Saturnian rings, for instance. The problem of space vacuoles--"
"Speaking of vacuoles," I interrupted, "me and you and about fourteen
other mariners from the good ship _Saturn_ are going to be in one
pretty soon--if by vacuole you mean a hole. Because--"
And then I told him. Misery being, as rumor hath it, a gregarious soul,
it did my heart good to see the way he jolted up from his horizontal
position.
"But--but, Sparks!" he quavered, "that's terribly unfair!"
"So," I told him, "is betting on the gee-gees. Only one hoss can win,
but they all find backers. The point is, what are we going to do about
it?"
"Do?" he piped. "What are we going to do? We're going to do plenty.
Come on!"
We went to the engine room. There Chief Engineer Garrity heard Biggs'
plea with granite aplomb, then slowly shook his head from side to side.
"Ye're no suggestin', Mr. Biggs," he said, "that I try to double the
_Saturn's_ speed?"
"You must!"
Garrity grinned mirthlessly, ducking his grizzled head to designate
the laboring, old-fashioned hypatomics in the firing room. "Them
motors," he said, "is calculated to carry us from Earth to Venus, and
visey-versey, in ten days. By babyin' 'em we can make it in nine. By
strainin' 'em we can make it in eight--mebbe.
"But if we force 'em beyond that limit--" Once again he shook his head.
"--we'll arrive at Long Island rocketport as a fine conglomeration of
assorted bolts, plates and rivets. Ye wouldn't like that, Mr. Biggs,"
he appended speculatively.
We went to the bridge, then, and discussed the problem with our junior
officer, Dick Todd. Dick had lots of ideas, none of them good. Our
confab ended in a "no-decision" draw. And finally I said, "Well, Mr.
Biggs, I'm afraid it's over my head. I'd better get back to my turret
in case any messages come through...."
He didn't even hear me. He was pacing the floor, moaning softly from
time to time and scraping his scalp with frenzied fingers.
* * * * *
All of which took place our first day out of Sun City. It was a bad
start, and things rapidly became worse. At 24.00 on the dot, Solar
Constant Time, I got a flash from a ham operator on Venus, advising me
that the _Slipstream_ had just slipped her gravs. Which meant that the
race was on.
Huh! What race?
Eight hours later our _perilens_ picked up the _Slipstream_. She was
cutting a path through space like a silver arrow. And you can bet your
bottom buck that her skipper knew how important this trip was. I was
asleep when she whizzed by us, but my relief man woke me up to show me
the message her C.O. had sent us. It said, "Greetings, goats! Want a
tow?"
It wouldn't have been a bad idea at that!
Well, Garrity and his black gang were working themselves blue, and
to the everlasting credit of the _Saturn_, I'll confess that the old
freighter wallowed along in handsome style. We logged a trifle over
three million miles in the next twenty-four hours, which is about five
hundred thousand over par for our crate.
We did it with music, too! The plates were clinking and straining,
the jets were hissing like a nestful of outraged rattlers, and once
or twice, when our Moran deflectors shunted off fragments of meteoric
matter, I thought we were going to move out to make room for some
intra-stellar cold storage.
So what? The _Slipstream_, traveling at better than double our speed,
knocked off a cool six million that same day! Oh, if ever a "race" was
in the bag, that one was!
The second day was another dose of the same business. Biggs insisted
that we maintain our forced speed, although Garrity warned him bluntly
that it was dangerous.
"I been twenty years in space, Mr. Biggs," Garrity told him sternly.
"I look forward to spendin' another score the same way. But I have no
desire to whisk along the spaceways as a glowing clinker."
Lancelot Biggs said desperately, "But we've got to do our best, Chief!
We're beaten, yes--but we've got to show a little fight. Anything may
happen. They may have an accident--a breakdown--"
There was a pathetic intensity in his voice. Once again, as several
times before, I found myself thinking this Lancelot Biggs guy, screwy
as he might seem, had plenty of abdomen-stuffings. Garrity must have
felt the same way, for he said, grudgingly, "Verra well, then. But...."
So, for the third day in succession, our hypatomic motors churned like
a bevy of Martian canal-kitties having their morning dunk. And for the
third day in succession, the Cosmos Company's super-freighter, the
_Slipstream_, proceeded to show us the winking red dot of her rapidly
disappearing after-jets.
And then it happened!
* * * * *
I was in my turret, reading a copy of _Spaceways Weekly_, when all of
a sudden my bug started chattering and the condenser needle started
hopping. I plugged in and caught a garbled, frantic warning from the
Sparks on the _Slipstream_.
"Calling IPS _Saturn_! Calling IPS _Saturn_! _Saturn_, stand clear for
back-drag! Stand clear for back-drag!"
I jammed the "stand clear" warning to the bridge and shot a hasty query
back to the _Slipstream_ operator.
"_Saturn_ standing clear, pal. What makes?"
"Trouble on declension line sixteen-oh-four. Stay off our trajectory!
We're running into a vac--"
Then suddenly the message went dead; the condenser needle went to sleep
on zero; I was hammering a futile key at an operator who could no
longer communicate with me.
But I knew what the trouble was. Our streamlined rival had nosed into a
space vacuole!
By this time, the _Saturn_ was creaking and groaning like a jitterbug
on a coil-spring mattress; bells were dinging all through the runways,
and the forward blast jets were making an unholy din as they bounced
us off trajectory. And every time one exploded, of course, the lugger
shook as if a gigantic fist had smacked it square in the nose.
Footsteps pounded up the gangway, the door opened, and I had visitors.
Cap Hanson, Diane Hanson, and our acting Skipper, Lancelot Biggs. They
all hollered at once.
"What is it, Sparks?"
"Vacuole!" I snapped. "The _Slipstream_ broke into one. They're
preparing for the back-drag now."
Diane Hanson's eyes were like twin saucers.
"Vacuole?" she repeated. "What's that? What's a vacuole, Lancelot?"
Biggs said, "A hole in space, Diane. Their exact nature has never been
accurately determined. All we know is that space itself, being subject
to material warp, ofttimes develops 'empty spots' of super-space within
itself. These areas correspond, roughly, to 'air pockets' encountered
by planetary aviators; they are even more similar to the curious 'sacs'
found in protoplasmic substances like amoebae."
Diane faltered, "A--a hole in space! It sounds incredible! Are they
dangerous?"
"Apparently not," I told her. "Lots of space ships have tumbled into
them, and in every case the ship has eventually worked its way out.
Sometimes they're carried far off course, though. That's why the
_Slipstream_ has to back-drag, and do it fast." I grinned. "Sometime
when I'm not too busy I'll draw you a picture of a space vacuole. It
looks pretty. A hole full of nothing--in nothing!"
Cap Hanson had been peering through the _perilens_ in my turret. Now he
let loose a great roar of delight.
"I see her! I seen her stern jets flickerin' for a moment. Here
she--Nope! She's in again!"
Biggs explained to the girl, "She's trying to back out. The only
difficulty is, she has to reverse engines and come out with an
acceleration built up to match that at which she entered. Which means--"
"Which means," I interjected hopefully, "we're not beaten yet, folks!
When the _Slipstream_ busts clear of that vacuole, she's going to be
hell-bent in the opposite way to Earth. Mr. Biggs, if we can miss the
vacuole and keep going, we might--"
Still at the _perilens_, Cap Hanson now yelled, "By golly, I just
seen her again! But you ought to see where she is! That vacuole's a
rip-snorter! Tearin' like a fool--"
"Which way?" cried Biggs.
"Starboard declension. You never seen anything as fast as that there
gallopin' hole. Hey, here comes the old _Slipstream_! Whee! Nice job,
Skipper!"
I saw it then. It came blasting back toward us like a ray from a
needle-gun. I couldn't help admiring the good sportsmanship in Cap
Hanson which, even though he had seen his competitor's ship break free
of the bondage that might have cost it the race, caused him to commend
the navigator's space-skill.
Now the Skipper turned to Lancelot Biggs, and there was a battle-light
in his eyes. "Mr. Biggs, this gives us a fightin' chance to win the
race! The _Slipstream_ will be a day makin' up for this lost time. I'll
relieve you of your command now--"
But there was a strange, thoughtful look in Biggs' eyes. He said,
slowly, "Did you say starboard, Skipper?"
"Eh? What's that? Yes, I said starboard. Well--did you hear me, Mr.
Biggs? I've decided not to be hard on you. I'll relieve you of your
command now ... take the _Saturn_ on into port...."