Stories Complete, page 11
He stepped back, examining the machine. Up near the top was a lever slightly larger than the rest. Tenatively he pulled it—and was disappointed when nothing happened. Then he glanced out the window.
Squarely in the center of the meadow, and looking strangely out of place, was a forty foot pile of reddish sandstone!
IX
From somewhere behind him, he heard the click of a woman’s footstep. He turned to find Hortense Applerith eyeing him curiously. She had obviously boarded the ship while his attention was focused on the machine. When he looked at her the tight lines of her face twisted into an expression of displeasure. “Are you quite satisfied with yourself now, Mr. Conway?” she asked coldly. “I imagine it must give your ego quite a lift, knowing that you can operate your new toy.”
Vince shrugged. “I do all right.”
“Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Conway, to find out something about these machines before you started playing with them?” Vince became absorbed in the big star map fastened to the ship’s hull. Without turning, he said: “Do me a favor. Get off my back, will you?”
The girl’s voice went on relentlessly. “I presume, Mr. Conway, that you do understand a little about the machine. It’s not an Aladdin’s Lamp. You do know that, don’t you?”
Vince jerked his head at the pile of rocks on the meadow. It’s perfect enough for me. A few more lessons and I’ll be ready to pull a new Aerocar back from Detroit.”
Hortense laughed harshly. “Oh, come now, Mr. Conway,” she said brittlely. “Even you couldn’t be that naive.”
Vince frowned. “Why not? A fellow wants something, so he asks the good genie. That’s what your uncle said.”
“The fellow’s tastes would have to be a lot simpler than yours, Mr. Conway. His tastes certainly couldn’t run to new Aerocars.”
While she spoke, Vince watched the tight white line of her lips. The taut voice held the crisp overtones of authority. “Why not?” he hedged. “Won’t the machine reach Terra?”
The girl’s nod was almost imperceptible, as if she’d just broken through the thought-train of a nostalgic memory. “Yes, it will reach Terra,” she said. “Only there are some things it won’t duplicate.”
“Such as?”
I He followed her eyes to the galactic map on the hull.
“How far away is Terra?” she asked suddenly.
Vince moved his shoulders. “About four-hundred light years. Why?”
“There’s your answer, then, Mr. Conway. This machine’s limitations are governed by the speed of light. It car. only duplicate what it can see. In the case of Terra that would exclude anything that was built during the past four-hundred years. Your new Aerocar is out.”
Vince stared at the girl dully—stared past her shoulder and out the porthole at the big ungainly-looking building with the eighteenth century architecture.
“I’m sorry it doesn’t come up to your expectations, Mr. Conway,” Hortense was saying smugly, “but that’s the way it is.”
Vince ignored her. He was staring at the big wall map—a map which Brandt Lyle had apparently gone through considerable trouble to bring up to date. Superimposed over the area marked unexplored, were the six new suns and their planets and satellites—and radiating from a point near the Paroma System was a dark area that ran all the way out to Yeandro. It was lettered “Force Field.”
Finally he turned and looked at the girl. “You say the Bogs all went back to their own planet?”
She nodded. “They live on Paroma X. We call it Bounty. I looked at it once through the scopes. It looks like the whole planet is a single city.” When Vince took a step toward the scope room, she added: “You can’t see it now—at least not from this part of the planet. It’s in declination and below the horizon.”
“If this force field is so perfect, how do they manage to travel through it whenever they feel like it?”
The girl’s brief moment of civility vanished. “Oh really, Mr. Conway,” she said in a voice she probably used in talking to small children, “surely you’re not comparing your own mediocrity to that of a race five-thousand years ahead of you. . . . Don’t tell me your ego is toying with the idea of breaking through the screen!” She punctuated the words with a short laugh of derision.
Vince faced her belligerently. “Maybe I am,” he barked. “Apparently, for all your sharp wit, there’s something you failed to notice. Our little friends, for all their advanced knowledge, are a long cry from being perfectionists. Everything they make seems to have bugs in it. First they make a duplicator that can’t duplicate anything unless it’s so antiquated that no one would want it. Then they make a forcefield that only works part of the time.
He watched the girl move back a step. Apparently the best way to cope with her acid tongue was to shout at her.
“Did you say, ‘part of the time?’ ” she echoed hollowly.
Vince stabbed an index finger at the big dials mounted in the pile-guard-wall. “Look at them!” he barked. “Take a good look. Every one of those dials are registering at over ninety percent of their full potential. I’ve got news for you, baby. This ship has a live pile. I’ll bet I could start a flame right now if I wanted to!”
He waited—waited for some show of enthusiasm that never came. Instead the girl continued to shake her head. “It won’t work, Mr. Conway,” she said flatly.
“Why won’t it? All I need to get this crate off the ground is a live pile. I’ve got it!”
Hortense toyed for a moment with the top button of her high collar. “Yes, Mr. Conway,” she said. “You could get off. You could get about two-hundred miles past the G-pull of this planet. Then your pile would cut out and you’d settle back here. It’s been tried a hundred times. That’s what always happens.”
“It didn’t happen to Brandt Lyle,” Vince said doggedly.
The girl didn’t answer.
“What was Brandt Lyle to you?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“All right,” Vince fired at her, “I’ll ask you another then. What does the name Lois Burbank mean to you?”
“Nothing!”
“You lie! It’s a name you’re familiar with. Someone out of your past, maybe—one of your inhibitions, as you put it. Who was she? Someone you knew? Someone you’d like to be, if you had the chance—or the nerve?”
He watched her face muscles twitch. She started to say something, then apparently thought better of it. Then she wheeled and, without a word, walked briskly across the room and disappeared through the lock door.
Vince watched her through the port until she reached the bottom rung of the boarding ladder. Then he walked over to the big galactic wall-map. For a long while he merely stared at it. Then he removed the chart from its wall case and spread it out on the floor. Slowly, yet with an air of confidence, he began measuring distances, checking orbits, and ruling off angles of declination. More angles. . . . more orbits. . . . more minutes. . . . more hours. He worked on, unmindful of the time. Finally he got up and replaced the map in its wall-case.
The first thing he noticed was that it was dark outside. Overhead, the bright bridge of the galaxy gleamed like a billion spangles. And in the center of it all, like an emerald in a jeweler’s tray, was a single green satellite that bathed the landscape with a grotesque yellowish glow. Vince stared at it, then at the lake, and across the yellow-tinged trees to the big old-fashioned house where a single light gleamed in one of the square windows.
Briskly then, he strode through the open lock-door and worked his way down the boarding ladder and across the meadow. He waited a full minute at the door of the high-pillared house. Then Hortense Applerith answered his knock. She didn’t ask him inside. Instead she stepped out into the yellow shaft of light that spilled through the door.
“I’d like to speak to your uncle,” Vince said.
The girl patted the tight bun of her unattractive hairdo. “He isn’t here,” she stated flatly. “If you have anything to say, Mr. Conway, kindly say it and leave. I’m quite busy.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“I don’t know. Tomorrow, perhaps.”
“That’s too late,” Vince said. “We’ll have to leave tonight. I’ve figured it out. It’s either in the next two hours, or wait for thirty-eight more months.”
“Please leave, Mr. Conway. Your childish ideas no longer amuse me,” Hortense said drily.
“Look,” Vince pleaded. “You’re wasting time. I know how Brandt Lyle got through the screen. How we can get through.”
He looked at his watch. “We’ll leave in an hour and fifty minutes.”
The girl moved back a step. On her face was a tight look of utter bewilderment. “We. . . .” The reddish arc of her eyebrows twitched a bit. Then she repeated the word. “We? Did you say we, Mr. Conway?”
Vince nodded. “It’s now or never, baby. Everything is figured out just right.”
“Just what makes you think I’d go with you, Mr. Conway?” Hortense interrupted acidly. Do I look like a frontier follower or something?”
Vince managed a grin. Deliberately he allowed his eyes to run the length of the girl’s severely-clothed body. “No,” he said whimsically, “not by the longest stretch of anyone’s imagination.”
“Then why. . . . ?”
Vince pushed out the palms of his hands. “Look, baby, there’s no time to argue. If you’re worried about your precious chastity, go get your uncle. Only hurry. There’s not much time.”
“I can’t reach him, Mr. Conway,” the girl said testily. “I told you that. He’s not here, and I can’t reach him.”
“How about you then? Are you coming or staying?”
Hortense withered him with a look of exaggerated patience. “Surely you’re not serious, Mr. Conway. Do you really think I’d go with you alone?”
Vince could feel his lips tightening. “Suit yourself then,” he said disgustedly. “Come or stay. Frankly, I don’t give a damn. Maybe you do need a chaperon; it would fit right in with this civil war atmosphere you’re living in. All I know is that right now I wouldn’t have you on a bet!”
He watched the girl’s face—watched her lower lip quiver. In the subdued green moonglow, she seemed very frail suddenly, and very hurt: When two tears glistened in the corners of her eyes, he reached over and touched her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said thickly. “I didn’t mean. . . .” Impulsively, he leaned over and kissed her full on the lips.
For just an instant, the pleasant nearness he’d known briefly with Lois Burbank swept over him. Then it was over. Rigid and shock-still, Hortense Applerith froze up in his arms. It was like kissing the back of his hand. Against his shoulder, he was aware of a vigorous push, felt the sharp sting of a violent slap across his cheek, became aware of two smoldering eyes that bored into him.
“How dare you!” she said.
Vince sat down on the porch railing and looked up at her.
“Just what did you hope to accomplish by that?” Hortense demanded angrily.
Vince raised his eyebrows. “You’d better stay here with your uncle,” he said thickly. “Stay here and rot. See if I care.”
“You’re just like every other man,” she said. “All you ever think about. . . .”
“Thanks!” Vince interrupted hotly. “Thanks for the compliment. It’s a bigger one than I can pay you. I’m not sure you are a woman. Maybe you should talk some more to your friends who claim to know about people’s inhibitions. Maybe you could learn something. Right now, as a woman, you make a good duplicate!”
He watched her face redden. Then before she could answer, he stalked off the porch.
X
From the control room bucket seat, Vince Conway gave the panel board a final scanning. Behind him, through the deep well of the corridor he could hear the faint hum of the pile-primers.
Five seconds.
His hand reached up, closed around the master lever. Three.
He braced himself. With an air of finality, he slammed the bone-handled switch into place. The ship lurched, driving his spine deep into the foam-cushion seat back, while something thick and intangible slammed against his chest. In front of him the instrument board began to blur. He shook his head, hard, kept his mind racing to keep awake. The calculations. Had they been right? The intricate problem had been done so quickly—too quickly. He should have had more time. He wondered how much time Brandt Lyle had had to figure out the equation.
Then he passed out.
He awoke slowly, grappling with a familiar feeling of weightlessness. Dazedly, he groped across the panel for the G switch. Pulled it. Then he settled back in the seat. On the rear-view screen, the planet he’d shed had all but filled the viewplate. Carefully, and half-expecting the flame to fizz, he advanced the acceleration lever two notches. Again the ship leaped forward. He stared fixedly at the screen in front of him, watching the orb diminish in size—watched two other planets move out from behind it’s curved horizon.
So far it had been easy—as easy as hitting Saturn in a free fall. From here on out it would get harder. In front of him, the center mark of the calibrated blister-glass rested squarely against the heart of the galaxy. That was the way back—the way to Mercedes, Cygni, Procyon, and finally Sol. That was the logical way to go—the shortest distance between two points. The only trouble with the theory was, it failed to take forcefields into consideration.
Vince flexed his fingers. Then like a man playing a sensitive instrument, he began fingering seldom used dials on the big panel board. Slowly—like the big hand of a chronometer—the stars began to march across the calibrated blister glass, until ten minutes later, the Milky Way was off the starboard porthole. The ship’s nose was pointed at the blackness of deep space!
Two more notches. . . . Sweat, cold as spring water, stood out on his hands and forehead. Behind the ship, like an unripe orange in a sea of ink, lay Desire. And eclipsed somewhere behind it—if his calculations were right—was Bounty, the home planet of the Bogs. The idea now was to keep it that way. Eclipsed!
That was the theory, anyhow. And up until now that was all it was—a theory. Furthermore, out here in deep space, the evidence to support it, seemed a lot less logical than it had with the rudder-stanchions resting on solid ground. That was the trouble with theories.
Theoretically, the screen—or whatever it was that nullified a ship’s pile—probably originated on Bounty. That was the home planet of the Bogs. He’d also reasoned that it was operated by some improved system of radar, and radar-like, its rays traveled in a straight line. That would seem to bear out the fact that a ship standing on Desire, began to work up a pile-potential, as soon as Bounty went into declination. It would also account for a flame-out as soon as the ship got high enough to bring the planet where the force-screen originated into view. In theory it sounded good. But would it work? Or if it did work, was he a good enough navigator to make it work? With Desire close by, the problem of keeping Bounty eclipsed was as easy as hiding a marble behind a basketball. Trouble was, the basketball was going to get smaller, until finally it would narrow down to a problem of two marbles. Then they too would disappear against the sun of Paroma
itself. But the force field would still go on. It would go on all the way out to Yeandro!
Vince mopped his brow, and gave the ship another notch of acceleration.
It was primarily a matter of timing. The gist of the idea was to keep the two planets in a state of eclipse until the natural orbits of both carried them behind the sun of Paroma. After that, with the thick bulk of a sun to act as a shield, he could work his way back into the Galaxy at a tangent that was inversely proportionate to the natural orbit of Bounty. Simple? As simple as going from Terra to the Moon via Cygni!
He made a few adjustments on the instrument board. Again he reached for the acceleration lever. Another notch. He could feel the ship lurch, as he glued his eyes to the rear view screen—watched Paroma, over in the far corner, fade out and disappear. For a split second, he watched uncomprehendingly. Then his arm shot out, stabbing at the forward thrust switch.
The ship shuddered, as his chest strained against the harness. Then, through the sweat that rolled into his eyes, he watched the yellow sun glow on the screen again. He drew a long breath. The two planets were still eclipsed! But now it was impressed upon his consciousness that if rear-view vision was necessary it wasn’t a very good idea to exceed the speed of light.
He locked the accelerator.
Hours dragged on—long tedious hours that cut deep inroads into his nerves. In the rear-view screen, Desire was only a pinpoint now—a faint glimmer of light to be balanced on two crosshairs. And worst of all was the fact that the problem was increasing in direct proportion to his own tiredness.
With bloodshot eyes he continued to stare at the screen in front of him—watched it become blurred and indistinct. He leaned forward, pressing his face against the viewplate. Desire was gone now, lost somewhere in the glare of Paroma as it crept toward the center of the screen. He knew this would happen eventually and he knew what he had to do about it. Wearily he reached up and locked the controls. From here on in he was either on-course, or he wasn’t. If he was, another forty minutes would put Paroma between him and the forcefield. If he wasn’t—well, if he wasn’t, the piles would probably go dead and he’d drift into endless space—or, as had happened before, be suddenly and unexplainably whisked back to Desire.
What difference did it make anyhow?
The important thing was to get some sleep. Sleep. . . .
The first thing he heard when he opened his eyes was the sweet vibration of the pile engines. He looked at the screen. Resting squarely on the center of the crosshairs was the big ball of Paroma.
He noted he’d been asleep almost two hours, more than long enough to put the flaming yellow sun between himself and the force screen. Almost carelessly then, he reached up and banked the ship in a wide, sweeping arc. Held it until his course inversely paralleled the unseen planet’s orbit. Then he settled back, staring at the calibrated blister glass. He’d enter the galaxy somewhere in the region of Cygni. He’d make it now. The only trick was to keep the acceleration low enough to keep Bounty in a state of eclipse.
