An alarm bell interrupted him, chiming from the computer.

  “Mortal me!” old Habibula puffed. “What’s that?”

  Glancing out at that bubble of darkness, I saw another dull spark creeping out across it, the way the mutineers had gone. We soared across to the electron telescope, and I

  got its image on the screen—a jagged irregular mass, its projecting points and edges glowing faintly though most of it was dark. I recognized its angular coffin-shape.

  “It’s one of those queer iron asteroids,” I said. “The last one to appear. The electronic chart had showed it between us and the bubble. I suppose it has been sucked in ahead of us.”

  Clinging to the chrome rail, Ken Star spoke urgently to Lilith.

  “It’s giving light we need,” he said. “We can see four of those righting machines, spaced at the points of a tetrahedron around the bubble—which I think is the gate through which they came. I suggest you pick ‘em off.”

  “Not yet.” Moving with a confident skill in that null-G space, she turned to measure that dark blot through the dome again, with her own unfrightened eyes. “I’m not yet certain. The station is an obvious artifact. The fate of the mutineers shows that we are within range of their weapons. Yet they have not attacked us.”

  “Life’s sake, Lil!” old Habibula gasped. “They’re dragging us into that tunnel of wicked night—perhaps into another universe! They’ve left us just a few precious hours. Isn’t that attack enough? Can’t you see that we’re all in fearful danger?”

  “You knew this job was risky, Giles.” Her smile was a flash of kindly malice. “Yet you accepted it.”

  “To save my mortal life!” he wheezed. “Old age was killing me.”

  She turned to me.

  “Captain, we’ll try one more signal.” Her ah“ of absolute command made her again the goddess judging worlds. ”Train the strongest laser beam you can on one of those machines. Transmit the simplest signals possible. Begin with the series of squares. One flash. Four. Nine. And so on.

  “Monitor everything you can, for their reply.”

  “Lil, don’t!” old Habibula gasped. “You’re asking for a dreadful death!”

  But her air of power left me no choice. In the increasing light of that asteroid falling into the bubble, I chose the machine that hung northward from it. I set all our search and reception gear to tracking, and trained the main laser beam. Using the computer for a manual key, I tapped one flash.

  Watching the angular shadow of that invader, I saw a pale, greenish flicker. Then the screen went blank. The red instrument lights went out. That chrome rail shuddered under my hand. A dull reverberation boomed through Nowhere Near.

  “Well, Lil?” old Habibula croaked faintly. “That’s your answer!”

  “Answer enough.” Her voice was calm in the dark. “We have no choice.”

  That shot—a few milligrams of matter fired perhaps at one tenth the speed of light— had pierced the armored hollow of the ice asteroid and wrecked our main power plant. For a few seconds, Nowhere Near was dead. The only light was the cold blaze of the stars beyond the transite dome. The only sound was the far roar of our air escaping.

  But then the emergency reactors came on. Automatic valves began to thud, sealing off that deadly rush of air. The instrument lights shone again. The green image of that terrible machine swam into the screen again.

  “Hurry, Lil!” old Habibula was puffing. “They may fire again! What you promised me was precious immortality—not that I’d be shot like a trapped rat!”

  “Quiet, Giles!” Ken Star whispered. “Don’t bother her.”

  But Lilith seemed unaware of any of us. Working very deftly and quickly, she was assembling her weapon. The parts of it were oddly small and simple. She used a worn iron nail and a twist of wire that old Habibula produced, two or three pins from her hair, and her platinum ring—the red-eyed grin of that dull black skull gave me an unpleasant start, but now at last I thought I understood what it meant.

  In a few seconds, the thing was done.

  Holding it in one steady hand, she pointed it toward that blot on the stars. She moved her thumb, pressing the end of a bent hairpin against that platinum band. The death’shead leered redly at me. Shivering, I turned from her to watch that iron asteroid, which was brighter now, a tiny yellow star. Waiting for I didn’t know exactly what— perhaps for some spectacular explosion—I swung again to the electron telescope. The greenish shadow of the invader was brighter now, but otherwise unchanged.

  A low, wordless moan came from old Habibula.

  “It doesn’t work—”

  Lilith’s voice was broken, quivering. Her aloof serenity had been shattered. That air of power was gone. She was sobbing like a hurt child.

  “I—I don’t—know why—”

  Back Door to Nowhere

  Cold fear caught me. For one sick instant I thought the transite dome had somehow turned transparent to heat, draining off our warmth of life. In the ghastly glow of the instruments, old Habibula and Lilith and Ken Star were faint frozen ghosts, floating motionless around me.

  Implacable hostility glared down through the dome. The natural universe, the mist and frost and dust of stars, was suddenly as dreadful as that unnatural midnight funnel in the anomaly. Hanging to the hard chrome rail, I shrank from the pitiless, bottomless mystery of infinite space.

  We were terribly alone.

  “Oh!” Beside me, Lilith made a small, frightened gasp. “No—”

  Working with both hands to aim and try her absurd little weapon, she had let herself drift away into that null-G space. Now, flailing out in a sudden unthinking panic, she snatched at the railing. She couldn’t reach it.

  With a gentle thrust of my fan-jet, I overtook her. Her hand quivered in mine. She stared at me as we flew back together, her eyes black and strange and stricken in that deathly light. She gave me a faint, pale smile.

  “Thank you, Lars!” Her cold hand clung to me. “I need you now!”

  For a moment we clutched the cold rail, staring at the green and monstrous image of that enemy machine. I still hoped somehow to see her weapon take effect, still feared some grim retaliation. But nothing changed that glowing shadow.

  “They aren’t even shooting back!” Lilith swung in the air to face Ken Star. “I can’t understand it,” she whispered bitterly. “Why did my weapon fail?”

  “Because of the anomaly, I suppose.” His voice was dull and dry, broken with defeat. “Space is different there. The difference affects the transmission of light and radio and gravity. Perhaps it also affects your weapon.”

  “That might be.” She nodded helplessly, her icy hand limp in mine. “AKKA works by producing a peculiar distortion of space, in which matter cannot exist. If the anomaly creates a conflicting distortion—”

  Her voice trailed off into desolate silence. Moving like a stiff machine, she took her useless weapon apart and slipped the ring back on her finger. That ugly skull caught the red light, with a mocking wink of evil.

  I felt her shiver.

  We hung to the rail, watching that funnel of darkness swallowing the northward stars. Though I could not quite see it grow, at every glance it looked larger. The white point of the incandescent iron asteroid was drifting slowly but visibly toward the center of it, moving in the way we would go.

  Old Habibula uttered a wordless, tragic moan.

  “Giles, you know machines.” Ken Star’s sudden voice was strained, hoarse, somehow startling. “Tell us how to stop those machines.”

  “My precious life!” Old Habibula shuddered in the blood-red gloom. “Maybe I do know machines—I know these are wicked. I respect machines because they have a purpose I can understand. These have made their fearful purpose clear.

  “Their unknown makers mean no mortal good for us!”

  The girl’s cold hand shuddered in mine.

  “No hope!” she breathed huskily. “Nothing we can do—”

  “Perhaps—I think there is!” A quick excitement caught me. “Commander— Commander Star!” I stopped to smooth my shaking voice. “I think there’s something we can try. A pretty grim and hopeless thing—but better than waiting to follow that burning boulder into Nowhere!”

  His haggard eyes peered through the red dusk at me.

  “What’s that, Ulnar?”

  “I ran a computer analysis on the motions of those rocks,” I said. “Months ago. The results didn’t make much sense till just now. But now I think your theory explains them. I think I know a back door into—into Nowhere!”

  Shifting his grip on the cold chrome, he hauled himself toward me.

  “Let’s hear about it!”

  “We’d observed the way those rocks were moving,” I said. “At the instant of appearance. At the instant of disappearance. I fed the data into the computer, to search for common elements. In the appearing rocks, I found none—they seem to come out with random directions and velocities. But the rocks that vanished had all been moving up a cone less than one degree across, at nearly the same velocity.”

  Lilith’s hand squeezed mine, alive again.

  “What I want to do is take a rocket up that cone,” I said. “If your theory is correct, I think it might come through into the world beyond that bubble—without being sterilized! I think it might give us a chance for some sort of surprise attack on whatever is beyond. Not a good chance—but any is better than none!”

  He hung gazing at me. His hollowed eyes caught the instrument lights, and his gaunt head looked shockingly like the skull on Lilith’s ring. I had to turn away.

  “I see no chance at all,” his dull voice rasped. “Didn’t the mutineers sabotage your spare emergency rocket?”

  “I’ll take the escape capsule that Lilith and Habibula got here in.”

  “What will keep the invaders from picking you off like they did the mutineers?”

  “I’ll maneuver behind the ice asteroid,” I said. “Get up velocity and cut the rockets before I come out. I’ll coast down the cone. With the rockets dead, they may not detect me.”

  “Or, again, they may!” He gave me a mirthless, red-eyed grin. “What weapons will you carry?”

  “That’s a problem,” I said. “The mutineers wrecked our big proton-guns—which might be useless anyhow. The best chance I can think of is a couple of tons of cathode plates from the atomic power plant, with an improvised detonator—”

  “To turn the capsule into a nuclear missile?” He nodded slowly hi that blood-colored dusk. “You’re willing to pilot such a missile—on such a desperate strike?”

  “I’m going to try.” I turned to the dome again, to study that fearful funnel swelling at the heart of the anomaly, the captured asteroid burning brighter now and nearer the center. “We’ve no more than three hours to try anything.”

  “Lars!” Lilith’s hand clung to mine. “Lars—”

  I squeezed her hand, let her go.

  “Come along, Habibula.” I started out of the dome. “If you’re so clever with machines, you can help me rig a detonator for those uranium plates—”

  “Wait a moment, Ulnar!” Ken Star’s lifted voice interrupted me. “I approve the general outline of your plan—just because it looks better than no plan at all. But I’m going to revise a few details.”

  “Yes, sir.” I stopped obediently, hovering in the dark above the cherry-glinting instruments. “I welcome your suggestions, sir.”

  “I’m making two changes hi your plan,” Star said. “First, I’ll pilot the capsule myself—”

  “Sir!”

  “Listen, Captain!” Ken Star barked sternly at me. “Remember your duty here. Nowhere Near may be a wreck, but it’s still your command. You haven’t been relieved—”

  “Sir, you could relieve me—”

  “I could, but I won’t.”

  “But, sir, you aren’t fit for such a desperate strike. You’re already exhausted—”

  “Lilith has given me a shot. Considering the nature of the mission, I’m more fit than you are for it. I’ve spent most of my life studying this anomaly. I welcome—gladly welcome the bare possibility that I may live to see it from the other side.”

  “Sir, it’s—suicide!”

  “It was your own idea, Captain—and I rank you in the Legion!” His low chuckle rippled through the gloom. “I’ll pilot the capsule. And I’m making one other change in your plan.”

  “Yes, sir,” I muttered. “What’s that, sir?”

  “I’m not sure that any homemade nuclear bomb would be very useful against the technology that opened that gate. I’m going to take a more flexible weapon. I’m going to take Giles Habibula—”

  “Wa-a-a-a-a-ah!” Old Habibula’s broken cry echoed dolefully from the transite dome. “I ain’t no mortal weapon. I ain’t even in the Legion now. I’m just a peace-loving veteran. I came to Nowhere Near to find immortal youth—not to die in a foreign universe!”

  “Giles, I’ve heard you tell of your own exploits.” Ken Star grinned like that small black skull. “I’ll take your own word that you are more formidable than any machine—and I’ll hear no more about it. I want you aboard in fifteen minutes.”

  “For life’s precious sake, I—I—” Old Habibula floated unsteadily, blinking his rust-colored eyes at Ken Star. “Yes, sir,” he wheezed. “I’ll be aboard.”

  Lilith caught Ken Star’s arm.

  “Shouldn’t I come?” she whispered. “Don’t you think there might be a different space beyond the anomaly, where my weapon might work again?”

  His dull-eyed skull shook bleakly.

  “Wait here,” he said. “We’ve yet to find a target on the other side, and we have no assurance that AKKA would function there. Your duty is to guard it faithfully.”

  I heard the hurt gasp of her breath.

  “I’ll guard it.” I caught a faint flash of red and black and platinum, as she glanced at her deadly ring. “I’ll guard it faithfully.”

  Ken Star swung urgently to me.

  “Captain, is the capsule ready?”

  “It will be ready, sir,” I promised. “In fifteen minutes.”

  The cable-way was closed now, since that shot from the invader had punctured the air-space we had dug out and sealed off inside the ice asteroid. We had to leave the dome through emergency tubes— and we found that the automatic valves had closed most of them.

  Nowhere Near was badly crippled. That micro-missile had exploded against it like a tiny supernova. The blast had torn an enormous crater in the asteroid. The shock wave had shattered equipment everywhere. Debris had carried away half of the full-G ring. Hard radiation from the initial impact had poisoned one whole quadrant of the asteroid.

  But we found the capsule intact. Two broken lines from the supply pumps had to be patched, but within that desperate quarter-hour it was filled with fuel and air and water, loaded with space rations, stocked with survival gear. Old Habibula came rolling dolefully aboard, stumbling under a load of wine and caviar that would have buried him at full gravity.

  Lilith came with Ken Star to the lock. Standing ready at the lock monitor, I watched their farewell. He kissed her briefly. She murmured something. He started into the lock and stopped to call back sharply:

  “Guard your secret well. Trying to use it, we may have compromised it. Avoid capture.”

  “Trust me, Ken.” The smile on her gaunt and bloodless face looked almost gay. “I won’t fail!”

  “Guard her, Captain,” he snapped brusquely at me. “Keepers of the peace have been lost in the past. That must not happen again. The security of AKKA is your first duty now.”

  “Yes, sir.” I gave him a quick salute. “I understand, sir.”

  Moving with a brisk and almost jaunty haste, as if he felt more eagerness than fear, he slid into the capsule and sealed the hatch. A pang of envy stabbed me as I thumbed the launching-cycle button.

  “I wish—” Lilith whispered beside me. “I wish we were going.”

  I said nothing. They had at least a chance to find what was beyond the anomaly. I thought we had no chance at all—but I saw no need to speak of that. Silently, I caught Lilith’s hand. It lay cold and lifeless in my grasp.

  The inner valve thudded shut. The pumps roared briefly. The outer valve opened less than halfway—and stuck fast.

  “Wait for me,” I told Lilith. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I scrambled into an emergency suit and cycled through the man-lock. Inside the main chamber, I slid around the capsule and found room to slip through the jammed valve. Outside, I discovered that it had been fouled by a deflated plastic shaft—a spoke from the broken full-G wheel—blown across the lock.

  Working in frantic haste, with emergency tools designed for smaller and more delicate tasks of repair, I slashed away the crumpled plastic tube. The embedded steel cables still fouled the valve. They were too tough for my cutter, almost too heavy for my torch. Precious minutes were gone before I could part them.

  Then I found the valve still jammed, the servo-motor dead. Sweating in the suit, I toiled at the hand-wheel to widen the opening far enough so that I could guide the capsule past the knife-edge of the valve.

  Outside, we found that we were screened from the invaders only by the flimsy wreckage of the full-G ring. With laserphone dark, for fear of another shot, I jammed my helmet against the capsule to carry sound and shouted a warning to Ken Star that the invaders could see his rockets here.

  He let me push the capsule safely beyond the ice asteroid before he fired. That effort drained too much mass from my own pack. When he used his laserphone, in the shadow of the asteroid, to warn me to drive clear, my thrusters were too sluggish.

  The roaring jets of the capsule caught me, flung me spinning back toward the station. Flying through the dark, thrusters dead, I caught a frightening glimpse of the anomaly.

  The invading machines were still too far for me to see, but that terrible funnel of darkness had swallowed more of the reddened and distorted stars around it. The trapped iron asteroid was brighter now, closer to its black throat, still falling ahead of the station.

  Though that giddy glimpse of Nowhere left me cold and shaken, the more normal space around me was deadly enough. Helpless to control my flight, I missed the gray starlit bulk of the ice asteroid. Flying past it, I had time to wonder whether the direction and velocity of my unplanned flight lay within the critical cone that would take me into Nowhere.

 

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