Time Exposures

by Wilson Tucker

  Rat folded his arms and considered this. "Don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. Where's it hurt?"

  Gray pointed out the location. The Centaurian considered this further and drifted into long contemplation. Watching him, Gray remembered his eyes that night ... only last night ... in the office. Peterson had refused to meet them. After awhile Rat came out of it.

  "No," he waved. "No appendix. Never nowhere appendix."

  "Then Mother Nature has finally woke up!" she exclaimed. "But why do Centaurians rate it exclusively?"

  Rat ignored this and asked one of her. "What you and her doing up there?" He pointed back and up, to where Mars obliterated the stars.

  "You might call it a pleasure jaunt. She's only seventeen. We came over in a cruiser belonging to her father; it was rather large and easy to handle. But the cruise ended when she lost control of the ship because of an attack of space-appendicitis. The rest you know."

  "So you?"

  "So I'm a combination nurse, governess, guard and what have you. Or will be until we get back. After this, I'll probably be looking for work." She shivered.

  "Cold?" he inquired concernedly.

  "On the contrary, I'm too warm." She started to remove the blanket. Rat threw up a hand to stop her.

  "Leave on! Hot out here."

  "But I'm too hot now. I want to take it off!"

  "No. Leave on. Wool blanket. Keep in body heat, yes. Keep out cold, yes. Keep in, keep out, likewise. See?"

  Gray stared at him. "I never thought of it that way before. Why of course! If it protects from one temperature, it will protect from another. Isn't it silly of me not to know that?" Heat pressing on her face accented the fact.

  "What is your name?" she asked. "Your real one I mean."

  He grinned. "Big. You couldn't say it. Sound like Christmas and bottlenose together real fast. Just say Rat. Everybody does." His eyes swept the panel and flashed back to her. "Your name Gray. Have a front name?"

  "Patti."

  "Pretty, Patti."

  "No, just Patti. Say, what's the matter with the cooling system?"

  "Damn punk," he said. "This crate for surface work. No space. Cooling system groan, damn punk. Won't keep cool here."

  "And ..." she followed up, "it will get warmer as we go out?"

  Rat turned back to his board in a brown study and carefully ignored her. Gray grasped an inkling of what the coming week could bring.

  "But how about water?" she demanded next. "Is there enough?"

  He faced about. "For her—" nodding to Judith, "and him—" to Gladney, "yes. Sparingly. Four hours every time, maybe." Back to Gray. "You, me ... twice a day. Too bad." His eyes drifted aft to the tank of water. She followed. "One tank water. All the rest fuel. Too bad, too bad. We get thirsty I think."

  They did get thirsty, soon. A damnable hot thirst accented by the knowledge that water was precious, a thirst increased by a dried-up-in-the-mouth sensation. Their first drink was strangely bitter; tragically disappointing. Patti Gray suddenly swung upright in the hammock and kicked her legs. She massaged her throat with a nervous hand, wiped damp hair from about her face.

  "I have to have a drink."

  Rat stared at her without answer.

  "I said, I have to have a drink!"

  "Heard you."

  "Well...?"

  "Well, nothing. Stall. Keep water longer."

  She swung a vicious boot and missed by inches. Rat grinned, and made his way aft, hand over hand. He treaded cautiously along the deck. "Do like this," he called over his shoulder. "Gravity punk too. Back and under, gravity." He waited until she joined him at the water tap.

  They stood there glaring idiotically at each other.

  She burst out laughing. "They even threw the drinking cups out!" Rat inched the handle grudgingly and she applied lips to the faucet.

  "Faugh!" Gray sprang back, forgot herself and lost her balance, sat down on the deck and spat out the water. "It's hot! It tastes like hell and it's hot! It must be fuel!"

  Rat applied his lips to the tap and sampled. Coming up with a mouthful he swished it around on his tongue like mouthwash. Abruptly he contrived a facial contortion between a grin and a grimace, and let some of the water trickle from the edges of his mouth. He swallowed and it cost him something.

  "No. I mean yes, I think. Water, no doubt. Yes. Fuel out, water in. Swish-swush. Dammit, Greaseball forget to wash tank!"

  "But what makes it so hot?" She worked her mouth to dry-rinse the taste of the fuel.

  "Ship get hot. Water on sun side. H-m-m-m-m-m-m."

  "H-m-m-m-m-m-m-m what?"

  "Flip-flop." He could talk with his hands as well. "Hot side over like pancake." Rat hobbled over to the board and sat down. An experimental flick on a lever produced nothing. Another flick, this time followed by a quivering jar. He contemplated the panel board while fastening his belt.

  "H-m-m-m-m-m-m," the lower lip protruded.

  Gray protested. "Oh, stop humming and do something! That wa—" the word was queerly torn from her throat, and a scream magically filled the vacancy. Nurse Gray sat up and rubbed a painful spot that had suddenly appeared on her arm. She found her nose bleeding and another new, swelling bruise on the side of her head. Around her the place was empty. Bare.

  No, not quite. A wispy something was hanging just out of sight in the corner of the eye; the water tap was now moulded upward, beads glistening on its handle. The wispy thing caught her attention again and she looked up.

  Two people, tightly wrapped and bound in hammocks, were staring down at her, amazed, swinging on their stomachs. Craning further, she saw Rat. He was hanging upside down in the chair, grinning at her in reverse.

  "Flip-flop," he laconically explained.

  "For cripes sakes, Jehosaphat!" Gladney groaned. "Turn me over on my back! Do something!" Gray stood on tiptoes and just could pivot the hammocks on their rope-axis.

  "And now, please, just how do I get into mine?" she bit at Rat.

  Existence dragged. Paradoxically, time dropped away like a cloak as the sense of individual hours and minutes vanished, and into its place crept a slow-torturing substitute. As the ship revolved, monotonously, first the ceiling and then the floor took on dullish, maddening aspects, eyes ached continuously from staring at them time and again without surcease. The steady, drumming rockets crashed into the mind and the walls shrieked malevolently on the eyeballs. Dull, throbbing sameness of the poorly filtered air, a growing taint in the nostrils. Damp warm skin, reeking blankets. The taste of fuel in the mouth for refreshment. Slowly mounting mental duress. And above all the drumming of the rockets.

  Once, a sudden, frightening change of pitch in the rockets and a wild, sickening lurch. Meteor rain. Maddening, plunging swings to the far right and left, made without warning. A torn lip as a sudden lurch tears the faucet from her mouth. A shattered tooth.

  "Sorry!" Rat whispered.

  "Shut up and drive!" she cried.

  "Patti ..." Judith called out, in pain.

  Peace of mind followed peace of body into a forgotten limbo of lost things, a slyly climbing madness directed at one another. Waspish words uttered in pain, fatigue and temper. Fractiousness. A hot, confined, stale hell. Sleep became a hollow mockery, as bad water and concentrated tablets brought on stomach pains to plague them. Consciousness punctured only by spasms of lethargy, shared to some extent by the invalids. Above all, crawling lassitude and incalescent tempers.

  Rat watched the white, drawn face swing in the hammock beside him. And his hands never faltered on the controls.

  Never a slackening of the terrific pace; abnormal speed, gruelling drive ... drive ... drive. Fear. Tantalizing fear made worse because Rat couldn't understand. Smothered moaning that ate at his nerves. Grim-faced, sleep-wracked, belted to the chair, driving!

  "How many days? How many days!" Gray begged of him thousands of times until the very repetition grated on her eardrums. "How many days?" His only answer was an inhuman snarl, and the cruel blazing o
f those inhuman eyes.

  She fell face first to the floor. "I can't keep it up!" she cried. The sound of her voice rolled along the hot steel deck. "I cant! I cant!"

  A double handful of tepid water was thrown in her face. "Get up!" Rat stood over her, face twisted, his body hunched. "Get up!" She stared at him, dazed. He kicked her. "Get up!" The tepid water ran off her face and far away she heard Judith calling.... She forced herself up. Rat was back in the chair.

  Gladney unexpectedly exploded. He had been awake for a long time, watching Rat at the board. Wrenching loose a chest strap he attempted to sit up.

  "Rat! Damn you Rat, listen to me! When're you going to start braking, Rat?"

  "I hear you." He turned on Gladney with dulled eyes. "Lie down. You sick."

  "I'll be damned if I'm going to lie here and let you drive us to Orion! We must be near the half-way line! When are you going to start braking?"

  "Not brake," Rat answered sullenly. "No, not brake."

  "Not brake?" Gladney screamed and sat bolt upright. Nurse Gray jumped for him. "Are you crazy, you skinny rat?" Gray secured a hold on his shoulders and forced him down. "You gotta brake! Don't you understand that? You have to, you vacuum-skull!" Gray was pleading with him to shut-up like a good fellow. He appealed to her. "He's gotta brake! Make him!"

  "He has a good point there, Rat," she spoke up. "What about this half-way line?"

  He turned to her with a weary ghost of the old smile on his face. "We passed line. Three days ago, maybe." A shrug of shoulders.

  "Passed!" Gray and Gladney exclaimed in unison.

  "You catch on quick," Rat nodded. "This six day, don't you know?"

  Gladney sank back, exhausted. The nurse crept over to the pilot. "Getting your figures mixed, aren't you?"

  Rat shook his head and said nothing.

  "But Roberds said eight days, and he—"

  "—he on Mars. I here. Boss nuts, too sad. He drive, it be eight days. Now only six." He cast a glance at Judith and found her eyes closed. "Six days, no brake. No."

  "I see your point, and appreciate it," Gray cut in. "But now what? This deceleration business ... there is a whole lot I don't know, but some things I do!"

  Rat refused the expected answer. "Land tonight, I think. Never been to Earth before. Somebody meet us, I think."

  "You can bet your leather boots somebody will meet us!" Gladney cried. Gray turned to him. "The Chief'll have the whole planet waiting for you!" He laughed with real satisfaction. "Oh yes, Rat, they'll be somebody waiting for us all right." And then he added: "If we land."

  "Oh, we land." Rat confided, glad to share a secret.

  "Yeah," Gladney grated. "But in how many little pieces?"

  "I've never been to Earth before. Nice, I think." Patti Gray caught something new in the tone and stared at him. Gladney must have noticed it, too.

  The Centaurian moved sideways and pointed. Gray placed her eyes in the vacated position.

  "Earth!" she shouted.

  "Quite. Nice. Do me a favor?"

  "Just name it!"

  "Not drink long time. Some water?"

  Gray nodded and went to the faucet. The drumming seemed remote, the tension vanished. She was an uncommonly long time in returning, at last she appeared beside him, outstretched hands dry.

  "There isn't any left, Rat."

  Rat batted his tired eyes expressively. "Tasted punk," he grinned at her.

  She sat down on the floor suddenly and buried her face.

  "Rat," she said presently, "I want to ask you something, rather personal? Your ... name. 'Rat'? Roberds told me something about your record. But ... please tell me, Rat. You didn't know the attack was coming, did you?"

  He grinned again and waggled his head at her. "No. Who tell Rat?" Suddenly he was deadly serious as he spoke to her. "Rat a.w.o.l., go out to help sick man alone in desert. Rat leave post. Not time send call through. Come back with man, find horrible thing happen."

  "But why didn't you explain?"

  He grinned again. "Who believe? Sick man die soon after."

  Gladney sat up. He had heard the conversation between the two. "You're right, Rat. No one would have believed you then, and no one will now. You've been safe enough on Mars, but the police will nab you as soon as you get out of the ship."

  "They can't!" cried Patti Gray. "They can't hurt him after what he's done now."

  The Centaurian grinned in a cynical way.

  "Police not get me, Gladney. Gladney's memory damn punk, I think. Earth pretty nice place, maybe. But not for Rat."

  Gladney stared at him for minutes. Then: "Say, I get it ... you're—"

  "Shut up!" Rat cut him off sharply. "You talk too much." He cast a glance at Nurse Gray and then threw a meaning look at Gladney.

  Gladney subsided. Patti Gray noted with dawning wonder that his face had lost the loathing and anger he had previously held toward the outlaw pilot.

  "Look. Sea!" Rat said a few moments later. Gray was in her hammock. She twisted over as he moved bony shoulders aside to let her see through the vision port. A startlingly brief glimpse of glistening waters shot past, reflecting a dancing moonpath. A continent whirled into place on the plate. The skies were clear of other craft.

  "Travelling fast!" she warned. "I hope you know what you're doing." Another body of water shot past them beneath. "That must be the Pacific. Where are you going to set down?"

  "The ocean." Rat didn't turn his attention away from the plate. "Gladney you got bad memory too much. That's why we passed half-way line full speed! Sea water good brake, stop us hundred miles!"

  Gladney flopped back. "May I be kicked to death! Of course! I've heard of it being done by stunt pilots. But Rat, are you sure you can do it? I mean, can you land us without killing us all?"

  "Oh yes," but Rat was grimly serious. "I can all right, but...."

  "... but what?"

  "Ever see little boy skipping stones across water?" His hand shot out and described a series of violent ricocheting motions. "Like that? We land that way, I think. Splat-splat! First splat knock us all ... all ... what you say?"

  "Knock us out?" Gladney supplied.

  Rat shrugged. Gray caught his eyes.

  "Goodnight, Rat," she smiled at him. "When I wake up, I want to see you again. You won't be in jail for awhile, not until the hospital releases you, and perhaps by that time...."

  "All no bother, please. I liked you Patti Gray. But your memory pretty punk too. Forget your Fleet training, I think. Yes! But Patti ..." he stopped, helpless.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry about something. I kicked you."

  "Rat, please forget it. I won't forgive you for there is nothing to forgive you for!" She smiled at him, winked once and closed her eyes. "Goodnight everyone."

  They felt the nose dip as Rat dropped toward the moonlit sea. The ocean rushed up. The ship struck with titanic force, blasting through the white-caps, metal crumpling from the monstrous dive. And then all consciousness blacked out for those on board.

  Patti Gray awoke, pressed the button under her pillow for a nurse, smiled about the clean hospital room.

  Gladney was waiting to see her. He wheeled himself in and stopped the chair beside her bed.

  "Hello. Feel human again?"

  "Do I?" She laughed. "Gladney, I'm going to stay right here the rest of my life!"

  "Yeah ... that's what I said yesterday. But today I'm itching to get back up yonder." He dug a thumb at the sky.

  "Is Judith all right?"

  "Sure. She wants to see you. Frankly, Miss Gray," he lowered his voice, "I expected that first 'splat' of Rat's would kill her."

  Gray shivered. "I have a hazy memory of that landing. How did we do it?"

  "Easy. A coast-guard cutter saw us and picked us up about ten miles out."

  "Gladney," she said quickly, "you've got to help me clear Rat. We've got to ... why Gladney, you don't mean they got him...?"

  "They didn't get him. Earth did. Don't you remember what
he said about Earth being a nice place for us? Centaurians can't endure Earth's gravity and atmosphere; the Centaurian Embassy is very specially built, and all Centaurians come to Earth in what are virtually fish bowls.

  "Rat was beginning to die even as we dove for the water."

  Patti Gray stared at him a moment in frozen horror, then buried her face in the pillow.

  "Some day, he will be remembered, Miss Gray," Gladney whispered. "Some day, after all the bitterness over Ganymede is forgotten, they'll remember why Rat left his post, and they'll remember how he drove."

  The End

  **************************************

  The Job Is Ended,

  by Wilson Tucker

  Other Worlds Science Stories Nov. 1950

  Novelette - 8852 words

  He had a lifetime job here on Earth—to find

  an unnamed person. There were no clues; no

  hints as to identity; not even that he was

  human! Failure meant disaster to our Earth.

  THE moment I saw Marie Jackson I knew I was finished. At last, a thirty year search was over, a suspicious man’s theory had become a fact, and a laboratory problem was solved. Marie Jackson brought it to a close.

  Strangely enough, it was her husband who had betrayed her to me, and gave me the first hint that the job was nearing its finish.

  The secondary discovery was as strange as the first and was the one thing I had not been expecting. Marie Jackson was a woman ... I had been searching for a man. For thirty years I had been hunting down a man, any man who happened to fit the specifications of a laboratory theory. My instructions from Brigham in Washington had been to search for a man who didn’t belong, who, if he did fit the specifications, would prove that the theory was an actual fact and that Earth did have a visitor. Instead of a man I turned up Marie Jackson, and I made ready to close the case.

  Arthur Jackson wandered into my office one warm June day wearing his troubles on his face.