The voice came mechanically, transcribed by the instrument. All of them could hear through the relay function of Glenn’s intercom set.
“I accept your good will with thanks on behalf of my people,” Eindor continued. “We are the Centrasi from far beyond your galaxy cluster. But I fear that we have come too late. There is no salvation for us and my companions are already far beyond any assistance.”
“You are ill?”
“Yes. Already two have died.”
“Are you—?”
“Let me,” Gibbs interrupted. “Time is important now.”
To Eindor he said, “Is it an illness with which you are familiar or something strange you may have contracted in your travels?”
“It is a new and, strange thing. Nothing such as we have known before.”
The men could sense now, even through the mechanical voice of the cyberlogue, the weakness and difficulty with which Eindor was speaking.
“How many are there aboard?” said Gibbs quickly.
“Six remaining — “
“‘Six! We expected hundreds in such a ship!”
“No. It requires only a small crew. There were only eight of us to begin the Journey.”
“Where do you come from?” Prentiss demanded abruptly.
“From—I can’t express it clearly to you—it would be from behind space, I might say.”
“Please!” Gibbs snapped. “This is a case for medical precedence.” To Eindor he went on, “This illness—have you narrowed it down to any reasonable limits through past experience? Have you any treatment that alleviates?”
“None whatever. It is, wholly beyond our previous experience and knowledge.
“You have been gracious and kind to permit us to come here. Now I would ask one final favor. It is too late to accomplish what we had hoped. Even as our ship came into your field I hoped there would yet be time for you to at tempt repairs f or us but now V e is none.
“This final favor—accept our thanks and take your departure. We will take our ship away again. We can lift on primary power, pointing towards our home world. It will be many thousands of lifetimes before our corpses are found but in time they will come to rest upon our own soil. This is all we ask of you.”
* * * *
Abruptly Emdor’s eyes closed and he collapsed in the doorway.
“Find their suits!” ordered Gibbs. “Locate the other five Centrasi. Dress them all up and find some way down without carrying them down that ladder. There’s got to be an elevator or freight hoist of some kind.”
Glenn accepted the natural orders of Dr. Gibbs in the emergency. They made Eindor as comfortable as possible, then moved on down the corridor, searching carefully. They quickly found the locker of space-suits. Martin and Prentiss were left to dress the Centrasi and find an elevator or hoist to the ground level.
Glenn and Gibbs moved on toward the interior of the ship. Side doors along the corridor showed a score of tempting byways but they seemed to be in a hallway of central importance and continued. At the end they found an elevator which apparently traversed the length of the ship.
They entered. Glenn studied the controls for a moment. They were simple enough to him, who had made a career of working with alien mechanisms, but to Gibbs they looked like a miniature powerhouse switchboard.
The small transparent capsule of the car rose slowly as Glenn touched the controls. They rose past deck after deck crammed with mechanisms. Even those brief glimpses told Glenn he had never seen anything in all his life so vast and complex. If the Centrasi were too ill to assist with the analysis or give information about the ship it would take hundreds of thousands of man-hours to analyze this structure and repair it.
It would be done, of course. The Navy would not rest until the last bit of connecting wire had been tagged and the working of the whole great engine determined to the final detail. But it would not be out of love for the Centrasi. The creatures would be long dead by then unless Gibbs found a cure for them.
The analysis would be made on the million-to-one chance that this might be the long-sought Fourth Order drive.
The car rose faster as Glenn accelerated past endless decks without observing signs of life or evidence of the control room. He supposed finally that it would be found in the nose of the ship at the highest level.
It was.
The elevator halted automatically. The men stepped out to the deck of the control room. A lighted screen before the pilot’s position showed the entire field as viewed from the five-hundred-meter height of the ship’s-nose. The shapes, the lights, the distant swarms of curious onlookers—all were there on the screen. Even the tiny knot of people with whom Nancy stood. Glenn tried to pick out her face on the screen but he couldn’t be sure at that distance.
He turned quickly away to the more important business. There were no signs of Emdor’s companions. “Look for the crew’s quarters,” he said. “You could expect them on the level below or even on this one, since there were so few of them.”
“Over here,” said Gibbs quickly from the other side of the room. He beckoned and pointed through a doorway.
The five Centrasi were sprawled on low cushioned beds in attitudes of collapse. Gibbs stepped forward impulsively.
Glenn caught his arm. “Take it easy. Watch for weapons. If one of them should come to he might come out fighting, not recognizing who we are.”
Gibbs nodded and they approached the first bunk cautiously. There was no sign of life. Carefully they picked up the Centrasi and carried him to the elevator. It was scarcely large enough to permit laying the creature on the floor. No more than three of them could be taken at once.
“You go on,” suggested Gibbs. “Prentiss can be getting them into suits while we’re bringing out the next two.”
At full speed, the elevator was sickeningly swift in its fall.
Belatedly Glenn considered the effect upon his charges but it seemed to him that nothing they did now would make any difference to the dying Centrasi.
Prentiss and Martin had Emdor dressed in the suit when Glenn reached their level. “We located another hatch,” he said. There is an elevator all the way to the bottom of the vane but no airlock down there. The interior of the vane can be sealed off so we can let our atmosphere into it and consider letting out the ship’s atmosphere at a later time.”
“Good,” said Glenn. “I’ll be right back with Doe Gibbs and the other two. Then we’ll call it a night.”
The five Centrasi remained unconscious during the removal to the ambulance. Gibbs supervised his medical technicians as they transferred the strangers. The ambulance had been prepared with Centrasi atmosphere in case the creatures needed it but their suits were left on for the short run to the hospital, where a ward was also ready.
Gibbs climbed to a step of the van and glanced upward at the towering hull of the ship. He grinned cynically at Glenn. “There’s your plum. All you have to do is pick it for Pop Kendricks. If it turns out to be Fourth Order he’ll pat you on the head and maybe give you a one-grade promotion.
“And don’t worry about the owners of the thing. The poor devils are in no condition to object to anything!”
CHAPTER IV
Ships were admitted to foreign repair bases of members of the Galactic Council on what was virtually a salvage basis. In the beginning there had been some logical necessity behind it. But now all that Gibbs said of it was true—legalized highway robbery when it was enforced. Glenn knew it was an archaic reminder of barbaric days. But the custom was still on the books to be used when occasion demanded—occasions like this one.
In the early days of space travel there were worlds whose technique and science were hopelessly mismatched against others. Engineering on these separate worlds had sprouted off in ten thousand variant directions, some good, some bad.
There were sporadic outbreaks of warring among these early mismatched cultures—but not nearly so many as might have been expected. There was a degree of unexpected maturity
in men and their fellow creatures by the time they had succeeded in spanning the gulf between their worlds.
They formed a Council and agreed to cooperate and exchange. A ship demanding haven of an alien world was required to allow examination of its mechanisms and devices for copying—if that was desired to bring technology to a more even level throughout the Council worlds.
It was a good enough system in its day, Glenn knew. A day when the Council was young and the idea of cooperation had to be forced on some members and when intergalactic technical societies were only a dream.
But that dab was long gone now. Engineering exchange had passed far beyond such sporadic contact. An unbelievably complex patent system covered the galaxies and protected all cultures and dispensed invention to all who wished it.
The old haven-salvage custom was useful, only for pirating—as in the case of Fourth Order.
It didn’t matter that its creators might not be members of the Council. But there were other ways, Glenn knew, besides the plunder and legal blackmail of haven-salvage laws. There was still negotiation—and that didn’t mean what Gibbs had implied it was.
Glenn stood at the base of the ship with Prentiss and Martin after Gibbs left. Prentiss looked up. His eyes were already greedy and Glenn wished he could somehow keep Prentiss from defiling the ship with his presence from here on out.
Prentiss spoke suddenly to Martin. “You can get your crew aboard for preliminary inspection. I’ll go along.”
He was right in assuming the initiative in Glenn’s presence—technically right. It was his shift but only the hate that swirled between them driven him to ignorance of due his superior.
“You seem to forget who is in command here.” When Glenn recognized his own tired brittle tones he regretted the words. But there was no recalling them. The eyes of Prentiss were bright with the triumph of having forced Glenn to throw his rank.
“I’m sorry,” said Prentiss. “I assumed we could go ahead with routine procedure now that the Centrasi are out of the way.”
“The Centrasi are not out of the way. Their vessel is still their property. Post a guard and let no one aboard tonight. We will decide the disposition of the vessel after Dr. Gibbs determines the condition of its owners. Good night!”
He hung his spacesuit in the dressing room. He was well aware of leaving behind him the technical organization of the department facing a blank wall. It was like an admiral leading his fleet to the site of expected combat and surprising them with April Fool.
It was what Gibbs had said. He could not get the image of the bland cynical doctor out of his mind. Gibbs saying, “Everybody so anxious to rob the poor suckers…”
He had to keep the men from scratching through the fine Centrasi ship like horde of pack rats. He had to give himself a chance to bargain with Emdor. And muddling his decision was his own burning desire to know for himself whether the Centrasi had unlocked the Fourth Order mystery.
* * * *
Nancy greeted him with high excitement in her eyes as he approached her. She clutched his arm tightly and fell into step with him, walking towards the car. Her face was turned up to his and aglow as if she felt everything that he had sensed as he walked through the great ship.
“How was it, darling?” she whispered. “It must be a wonderful ship inside. What are the people like?”
He told her briefly the things he had seen, describing the Centrasi and his contact with them.
Nancy shuddered faintly. “It’s horrible for them to be in such a state so far from home. Maybe you’ll never find out where they come from at all if they die now.”
“Very likely we won’t,” said Glenn. “Their star charts will probably be so unfamiliar that we can’t possibly backtrack them. Emdor made a crazy statement about their origin. He said they came from the back-side of space.”
“What does that mean?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Sounds almost like crow-continuum flight but that’s impossible.”
“You told me once that impossible is a nasty word.”
He laughed softly and put his arm around her waist for a quick instant as he opened, the car door for her. But when he appeared on the other side and climbed behind the wheel his face was serious.
Nancy saw it at once. “Now what is it, darling? Why the sudden heavy visage?”
“That guy, Prentiss. He’s right behind me with a knife on this job.
It’s the first big one I’ve had and he’s going to queer it and put himself in my shoes if he can. Besides on the technical end I’m going to have to fight him all the way. I don’t see why somebody didn’t drown him when he was a pup—and his papa-in-law to boot.”
Nancy was silent as he drove through the broad gates of the Base. They came to the short stretch of beach road that led to their own turn-off. In the moonlight and the sea and the sand there seemed to be little of the troubles that Glenn spoke of.
“It’s my fault,” she said at last. “It’s all my fault.”
The car swerved as he jerked his head about suddenly. “Huh? What the devil are you talking about?”
“Oh, darling, don’t you remember what you used to say when we first went out to Ceres—‘It’s a black-and-white situation. Treat it that way and don’t get mixed up with the sterile puny grays.”
Glenn smiled. “Yeah, I remember. But what has that got to do with this?”
“Prentiss. He’s making a black-and-white situation, and you’re trying to be gray about it. You know what you have to do to perform your job. You know what the proper treatment of the Centrasi is. But you’re trying to adapt to the presence of Prentiss’ and to the fact that his father-in-law is your Commander and will get you thrown out on your ear if he can find an excuse. So you’re trying to play it in the middle, a nice pale gray. You’re forgetting that in a situation of this kind Prentiss and Commander Kendricks are both as black as hell.”
_”Whoa!_ Now wait a minute, lady. I picked up the wrong gal at the Base. You’re not the one I had at Kendricks’ party tonight.”
“No, I’m not. That’s what I mean. I’ve been a gray too ever since I came here. I hadn’t realized what I was doing to you. I’ve been gray about this whole business of rank, trying to match daggers with these harpies who’ve played the game of Navy rank all their lives. I’ve made you be gray about such things as Kendricks and his parties, about Prentiss.
“I’m sorry, darling. It’s no good at all. Neither of us can be that way. We’re trying to adapt to an impossible situation and feel proud about it. When we were on Ceres you used to say that most of the adaptability people brag about is nothing but plain damned cowardice. Do you still feel the same about it?”
“Yeah—of course I do.” Glenn nodded slowly. “That’s why I felt so bad seeing you trying to be II e these dames scrabbling for rank instead of being just plain Nancy Baird.
“And you’re right—I’ve been doing the same kind of thing, worrying about Prentiss and Kendricks. From the first minute I walked into the Base they acted as if I were some poor relation being forced to live with a rich uncle. It isn’t that way at all, is it? I’ve got as much right on the Base as either of them as long as I do a real Navy job here, haven’t I?”
“Sure. It’s as simple as black-and-white and to hell with the in-between grays who haven’t got the guts to be either.”
“To hell with Prentiss and Kendricks,” murmured Glenn fervently.
* * * *
It was two o’clock in the morning when they reached home. From the bedroom window they could see the spotlighted hull of the Centrasi ship like a glorious tower of light. But Glenn did not linger to watch.
They prepared quickly for bed. The moonlight was streaming in a glorious band across the floor but Glenn merely shuffled his arm gently until Nancy’s head settled just right in the hollow of his shoulder. Then he closed his eyes and was half asleep almost at once.
“What’s Fourth Order?” Nancy said abruptly.
“What’s—hu
h? Darling, let’s go to sleep. I’ve got to be at the Base by seven.”
“I know but you can tell me in just a word or two. I heard about it on Ceres and I heard it on the Moon and while you were inside the ship I heard all the mechanics and engineers talking about Fourth Order this and Fourth Order that and would you find it in this new ship. You’ve never really explained it to me. What is it anyway?”
“A word or two, darling! Look, It’s Einstein and Martell and Laughten and Cramer. It’s space-time and multidimensions and higher continua—and it’s two o’clock in the morning. Honey, will you please shut up and go—to sleep!”
“Oh, I don’t mean all that! You don’t have to give me an engineering lecture. Just what Fourth Order does—that’s all I want to know.”
He chuckled softly and kissed the top of her head. “What would I ever do without you, darling? Who else would understand a thumbnail sketch of the world’s most complex physical theory at o’clock in the morning?” He paused, hugging her close.
“Well?”
“Fourth Order—it’s a kind of a dream,” he said slowly. “And it’s poetry too. Poetry in mathematics, if you can imagine that.”
“Glenn!”
“You remember Columbus in the history books. It’s the same kind of a dream of going all’ the way around, of seeing all there is to see. A theory that you can find your way back home if you just keep on going in the same direction away from home—keep on going long enough.
“A long time ago they had a theory that nobody could go any faster than light. That was before space flight was ever a reality. Some gentlemen named Lorentz and Fitzgerald along with Albert Einstein cooked up the theory behind that. But when Laughten built the first super-cee ship and buzzed right on through the wall of light, as they called it then, he caused a lot of hasty revising of theories.
“So they built a new one that said we couldn’t go faster than the speed of light to the c power—you understand what that means, honey—and we pedaled along with Second Order flight for a long time. Eventually it was knocked over by Cramer, who came up with our present day drives, the Third Order kind, which added still another c exponent to the theoretical limit. This is the drive that is almost universal among members of the Galactic Council and so far as is known nobody has anything better.
Sunday is Three Thousand Years Away and Other SF Classics Page 12
