The Space Opera Novella

by Frank Belknap Long

  Let us explain period at best comma measure is an almost thing period absolute accuracy is impossible when you use one variable to measure another variable comma one thing of moving atoms to measure another thing of moving atoms period so far as you persist in doing this comma so far do you lose sight of the real value of measure period new paragraph

  Now the epit comma your basic unit of linear measure comma derives from that heroic ruler of old comma director lhimnyl one comma being the great circle distance from his glabella to his lambda period generations of interlocking directorates had produced by his time a standard model director and this has so inured you to measure as measure that when director lhimnyl seven got caught in an adrobot hassle you did not change the unit to conform to the new contour of his skull period herein lies your error period new paragraph

  As a director in essence uniquely symbolizes the unity of his people comma so the unit of measure should while he rules be the sign of his reign comma all the more so as he rules more by example than by authority period new paragraph

  We foresee that compensating for such renovating by slowing down or speeding up your handling of existing measuring rods may seem excruciatingly unsatisfying period and we foresee there may come times when comma having just related the epit of one realm to the epits of the others comma you find the installing of a new ruler forces you to begin all over again period but you will no longer fall under the spell of the illusion of precision period new paragraph

  Easy lies the head that wears the crown exclamation point and as a means to that end we are meting out lightweight infant-size crowns period unquote, end of message.”

  “Hum. Okay, Ogg, relax.”

  Crackle.

  “Hum. Why would the Crevbnod want to foul up the planet’s system of measure?”

  “Sir, it’s merely a way of making mischief.”

  “Hum. I have a feeling it’s more than that. There’s something they’re trying to cover up. Hum. Take off your pants—”

  “Chief!”

  “—and turn ’em inside out and hold ’em up to the decoder.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Crackle, crack, crackle.

  “Item reads quote gvizfuz city comma five-oh-fourday comma twentyeight-oh-one period press release from head astrophysicist dybdivv colon quote our mysterious visitors from space have let slip that their ship is on its maiden voyage and that this is its first stopping place period i comma dybdivv comma have taken a reading of the cosmic radiation the ship has passed through dash or vice versa period and knowing the distribution of cosmic radiation i have been able to compute how far the ship has come dash almost exactly two hundred parsecs period unquote. End of message.”

  “Hum. Okay, Ogg, you can set the pants on my desk.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Crackle.

  “Hum. The Crevbnod press release was calculated to take the play from Dybdivv. That was the immediate effect. The long-range effect they were after was that Dybdivvs to come would give up trying to cope with the firmament in general and with Crevbnod origin in particular. When you’re dealing with astronomical distances and the smallest unit is off by even a fraction, the whole reckoning becomes meaningless. Hum. Miss Qhepu.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Please step into my office.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Click, click, click, click, click.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Top priority, top secret. Tell Astromaps to spin Eta Normae II back to 405 day, 2801 and at the tip of a 200-parsec sweep out—give or take a parsec—show every Class S star having a Class Y planet. Get on it right away.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Click, click, dick, dick, dick.

  “Hum. Fine job, Ogg. Ogg? Where are you?”

  “Behind the decoder, sir.”

  “Hum. You can go now. Well, what are you waiting for?”

  “My pants, sir.”

  “Hum. Here. But first let me take this parchment for the archives.”

  Rip.

  CHAPTER VI

  In 2826, Ina Ibohutu, DSX Agent 1995, set careful toes on Nusakan IV. Out of sight, but occulting her mind, was Wyyku I.

  Shortly after Crevbnod visitation, the Wyykui had begun exchanging dwellings posthaste, everyone moving around in a kind of Brownian jitter to keep his personal nemesis from knowing where to drop in on him. This proved so exhausting that all but realtors were getting ready to call a halt and put out a welcome mat for their nemeses, whatever fearful apparitions they might turn out to be. Then someone—all Wyyku I would have beaten a path to his door had it known where he lived—hit upon a simpler scheme. The Wyykui merely removed their house numbers, wrapped them up, and addressed them to other homes. As all these numbers crossed in the mail, the nemeses must have taken up haunting the dead-letter office, for they have never forwarded themselves.

  In the chaos that was Wyyku I, Ina had failed to pick up the Crevbnod trail. True, the Chief hadn’t blamed her, but she couldn’t help feeling she’d made a mistake somewhere along the line. And this with the hands of Time a closing beak. And now a sudden silence as she entered the Nusakani spaceport waiting room nearly unnerved her. Finding she was the cynosure she looked to her bearing to see was she erring in any way.

  She appeared to be in order. She glanced about shyly.

  It seemed to her the silence grew somewhat menacing. They were watching her, waiting for her to do something. But what? Then she remembered that Nusakanis emit a continuous humming and talk by larding the humming with short and long silences, and she understood they were extending a friendly greeting.

  She sighed in relief and intermitted the sigh to return the greeting, and they went back to their humming. She smiled. Somehow they were making her feel at home. And she segued into humming until she could break out the buzzer she had brought for talking with them.

  The lodging she found with a family—a mother and the mother’s father; the son and the husband were away—was pleasing to her too.

  For that matter, the whole atmosphere of the planet was happy-go-lucky to the point of euphoria. Leading an unconventional life appeared to be a convention.

  And yet a vague feeling of unease possessed Ina. Trying to pin it down was like trying to snare the shadow of a pexalt. She got no closer fix than that vague feeling. And as the days wore on and nothing out of the way happened, and as dreams of clock faces filled her nights, she concluded that because her job required her to trust least what seemed most correct she was mistaking shadow for substance.

  And she gathered her belongings and asked Yugbit, the lady of the house, what was owing.

  “011 wulghdske,” Yugbit said smiling.

  Ina stared at her aghast. “011? Haven’t you made some mistake?” One wulghdske was worth four boxtops.

  Yugbit unsmiled. “I’ve made no mistake.”

  “But—” The old grandfather, Vebenpobep, happened to be approaching and in his anxiety to be in on what was going on he broke into a walk. He silenced sharply to gain his breath and Ina’s attention.

  “Give her the 011 wulghdske,” he said, winking.

  “But 011 will hardly pay for the food I ate. 110 would be more like it. She forgot her end-around carry.”

  “Never mind. Give her 011 and let it go at that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Do it for Yugbit’s sake.

  “I still don’t understand.”

  Vebenpobep gestured fatalistically. “It’s unlucky to admit making a mistake.” His manner livened and he began expandandanding on a favorite theme.

  Yugbit strode out but Ina listened to the tale though she knew it was likely he was fetching it far from the truth. A wolf tone marred his humming and she didn’t mind in the least how long his say lasted, the silences were so soothing.

  According to Vebenpobep
, at one time a chemachine hunting through all possible jugglings of molecules had come up with a drug. The chemachine proudly announced it as a panacea and leaped into production. But a statmachine proved by extrapolating that the chemachine’s statistics made out the drug to be so effective the death rate would fall below zero. And the statmachine scornfully asked if that meant some dead would come to life. This humbled the chemachine. It admitted its mistake and not only destroyed what it had brewed but forbade itself to ever remember the formula.

  And that would have been the end of the matter. But at that same time a strange spaceship was hovering in Nusakani skies.

  Ina, who had been nodding drowsily, started and nodded most affirmatively for Vebenpobep to go on.

  He looked hurt. He needed no encouraging.

  He went on, after humming a while to teach her a lesson. A Nusakani reporter, Bledmirkt, saw the stranger he was interviewing stare soulfully into the night as if quivering to be arrowing home. Bledmirkt pneumatically braked his humming. He noted the line of gaze and asked the stranger if the latter’s star was one of the—from the Nusakani point of view—formers of the constellation Ghozhus.

  A considered hiatus, conveying mockery, was the only answer. Even so, the possibility made good copy and it went to press in a twinkling.

  But Bledmirkt hadn’t much of a beat, only a slight syncopation before eleven colleagues each reported observing a homesick stranger in an off guard moment. And there was an ancillary catch—each of them reported a different constellation as the target of longing.

  At their last press conference the strangers begged the Nusakanis to forgive them. For security reasons they couldn’t divulge their true point of origin. But they had simply been unable to resist having a bit of fun with the Nusakanis by seeming to give it away. It was a shock, but for the most part the Nusakanis took the revelation in good part. But Bledmirkt somewhat pompously offered to retract his piece at once, perhaps hoping by doing this to label as mistakes too the flattering things he had said about the strangers.

  But the strangers urged him not to. Would he mind a bit of parting advice? Not at all? Good! Well, then, it was unlucky to be too hasty in admitting a mistake.

  Bledmirkt pressed them for a for instance.

  They hummed and hawed but finally hinted that had the chemachine not recanted, the statmachine’s extrapolation, as strange as it seemed, might really have come about.

  The strangers left the Nusakanis brooding over the lost panacea. But the mood soon changed.

  To eliminate rivalry, the Nusakanis had later consolidated all computing machines into one—the Factor. All went well for a time; then the Factor showed signs of dashing components. To maintain its integrity, the Factor couldn’t admit the outward signs were mistakes. And mindful of the lost panacea, the Nusakanis never questioned the workings of the Factor. In fact, they were grateful to the Factor for making life more interesting.

  Take this family. Vebenpobep’s son-in-law, Feruflurud, had set out one day on his daily humdrum commuting to a nearby suburb. It would be some time before he came back. The Factor had honored his ticket as one to Nu Delphini IX.

  As for Vebenpobep himself, he was taking things easy, having just got over a fatal disease.

  “Fatal?” said Ina.

  “How can I die when I haven’t come into being? The Factor has told me there’s no record of my birth.”

  “I see. And how has the Factor affected your grandson?”

  For a moment she wondered what error she had made to throw Vebenpobep back into sullen humming. Then she realized it was the house vibrating. It was trembling to a rhythmic thudding in the street.

  The sound stopped before that very house, and she saw troops dismount and each stand straight and stiff beside his spring-bottomed stilt. She trembled. What had she done wrong?

  The door opened. There was a high thin humming and a tiny figure in dazzling uniform entered. A tiny frown crossed his tiny brow as he saw Ina. He nodded curtly to Vebenpobep, who stood at attention. Yugbit came into the room and gave a silence of surprise.

  She rushed to meet the newcomer. She picked him up and hugged him. Then she held him out and looked him over.

  “Another star!” she said and shook him fondly. Medals jangled. “And more of those things!”

  “Put me down!”

  Yugbit almost dropped him in her haste to obey.

  Ina turned to Vebenpobep and hushed, “Who’s he?”

  Vebenpobep hushed back, “Usvernk-Kiluca. My grandson. Last year the Factor ordered him to active duty. Yugbit was only just weaning him. But of course it was no use arguing.”

  “I must rush,” Usvernk-Kiluca was saying more kindly. “I don’t want to keep my troops waiting. I just stopped by on the way to maneuvers.”

  And in a moment the house was vibrating to the army’s pogoing away.

  Ina wound up her secret mission by laying hands on copies of the contemporary pieces about the strangers and then once more she was asking Yugbit what was owing.

  “11111001011 wulghdske.” Yugbit said smiling.

  The buzzer leaped in Ina’s digits and she gripped it more firmly to keep from crying out. It was touching that Yugbit had a catch in her voice in time of parting, but after all!

  “Here’s your 11111001011 wulghdske,” Ina said. And she handed 110 wulghdske to Yugbit and was on her way before Yugbit could count them and find Ina had made a mistake.

  * * * *

  Ina leaned across the Chief’s desk to hand the Chief a tear-sheet. “And here, sir, is a fostat showing a group of Crevbnod swimming up to their craft.”

  The Chief lowered his eyes to the fostat. “Hum. The flight pattern seems strangely familiar. Allowing for the wrying of a differing viewpoint, it has the gestalt of the constellation Cassiopeia.”

  “Why, of course!” Ina gazed at him warmly. “And now that you mention it, sir, part of Cassiopeia forms part of the Nusakanis’ constellation Ghozhus—That’s what Bledmirkt caught the first Crevbnod pining for.”

  “Hum. And as soon as the Crevbnod realized he’d given it away he told the others to seem to long for different spots.”

  “I just know you can straighten me out on this, sir. If they were trying so hard to cover up, why did they foolishly give it away by their flight pattern?”

  “Hum. They didn’t know they were giving it away. Look again at the fostat. The formation is too undisciplined to be deliberate. It must have been a collective Freudian slip.”

  Ina clapped delightedly, then sobered quickly. “Oh, forgive me, sir, but it’s astonishing how you see to the heart of things.”

  “Harrumph.” The Chief got up and moved to a huge ball with flickerings all over its surface and within. “Come over here, Miss Ibohutu, and have a look at this astromap.”

  Ina came smiling. “This sphere is the 200-parsec sweep out from Eta Normae II as of 405 day, 2801. Now, see all those glaring points of light?” Ina had to lean close to him. “Harrumph. Well, those are the Class S stars. We’ve been eliminating them one by one.”

  “It must be horribly Time-consuming,” Ina said softly.

  The Chief laughed shortly. “Know when that job would be done?”

  “When, sir?”

  They were touching.

  “What?”

  “When, sir?”

  “When what? Oh, yes. In 3104.”

  “Oh, my!” Her shiver of alarm passed to him. “And the time limit is 2828!”

  “Right. And thanks to you,”—he spun the ball slowly, peering at the identifying code letters, and at last pointed dramatically to a pinpoint of light—“We’ll make it.”

  Ina gasped. “You mean, sir?”

  “Yes,” the Chief said very quietly, “this is it.”

  CHAPTER VII

  It was windy and dust swirled across the field. A youthf
ul pilot brushed past, almost throwing the Chief off balance. The young pilot threw a preoccupied but friendly glance back. “Sorry, pop.”

  “These fresh kids!” Ina said hotly. She pressed more closely to the Chief.

  “‘These fresh kids’ are doing Man’s job,” the Chief said quietly. He put an arm through Ina’s. “Come, we’d better move.”

  They moved to the edge of the field and looked at the waiting space fleet. Somehow the Galactic Council’s anti-Crevbnod crash program had scraped it together, fitting out each ship with a deathnium projector.

  “How does it work?” Ina asked.

  She seemed childlike in her wonder and the Chief smiled.

  “Hum. Well, you know our labsters found out tovh is a biaxial crystal rich in anti-protons. It breaks the law of gravitation. And it reverses entropy—turns matter back to a state where more and more hangs on less and less. The increase of entropy of a system is a moving from a less probable to a more probable configuration. So miracles were more likely—the farther back, the likelier. That meant if we could harness tovh we could perform miracles. And then the astrophysicist Kontonku Owia came up with the equation φ = √π² + e², as one popularizer has put it, the ‘hypotenuse’ of the ‘triangle’ of space generating the ‘cone’ of time.”

  Ina looked at him admiringly and he forgot that she had majored in math. He went on. “That equation paved the way for the deathnium projector, which transmits tovh characteristics to the other elements. It’ll be a stereotaxic operation. All those ships will surround Omega Cassiopeia II and zero in the core of the planet.” He sighed and fell silent.

  “And then?”

  “Hum? Well, no one knows for sure. Most of the brains on the project foresee a flooding of the Crevbnod by seemingly supernatural phenomena—water freezing over a fire, and the like—a flooding so overwhelming they’ll sink into the sort of superstition they’ve seeded.”

  The take-off siren wailed warning and they moved into the blockhouse. They stood off to one side by themselves.

  Ina gazed at the Chief wonderingly, “It’s a great day for you—but you don’t seem to be enjoying it.”