by James Gunn
Migliardo glanced at the repeater clock on the wall. “Five days, one hour, sixteen minutes, thirty-one seconds."
Barr muttered, “That clock must be wrong. It's more like a month."
Jelinick said, “It's synchronized with the crystal-stabilized chronometer on the control deck. There isn't a more accurate timekeeper anywhere."
Barr grumbled, “I wouldn't put it past Phillips to rig it slow. He's full of tricks like that. Then when we were halfway and about to go batty, he'd tell us the trip was almost over. He'd think that was cute."
“Now, Iron,” Craddock said, floating back toward the dining table, “what's the use of starting something like that, even as a joke?"
“Who's joking? I know we been gone more than five days."
Craddock caught the table edge and slipped his feet through the slings. “There's no radio—how could he tell us?"
Barr said sarcastically, “What do you think that swivelmounted, parabolic dish antenna is for?"
“That's for telemetering the sounding rockets when we get to Mars."
“So they told us.” Barr sneered. “But why is it always pointed toward Earth?"
Craddock said violently, “How do I know? Maybe it's telemetering our gauges."
“Telemetering! With the power that thing pulls? Are you kidding?"
Migliardo swallowed the bite of candy bar he had been chewing. “There's no big drain."
Barr looked at him scornfully. “That's why you're assistant engineer on this tub instead of engineer. The drain doesn't show on the gauge. I wondered why the reactor wasn't delivering its rated capacity. That dish out there takes part of it, and the power bypasses the gauge. It's gimmicked."
“Now, Iron,” Migliardo said peacefully, “why would they do anything like that?"
“Why would they seal up a wall of the control deck and place it out of bounds?” Barr demanded. He twisted to face Jelinek. “You know more than anybody else."
Jelinek said calmly, “We were told that there is a safety factor in addition to the safety factors in fuel and structural strength."
“Why didn't they tell us what it was?"
“As a psychologist I can tell you that a safety factor you know all about isn't really a safety factor at all. You start figuring it in with the rated capacity. This is something we can depend on to get us through if everything else fails. We're better off not knowing exactly what it is."
Migliardo said, “Like believing in God."
Jelinek nodded. “It's a matter of faith."
Barr's lips curled. “Nuts. I want to know. I'll leave God to those who need him. He doesn't show up on any of my gauges. Take my word for it, this business of a safety factor is just as phony. They didn't tell us what it was because there isn't any. That sealed wall is nothing. If we opened it up, we'd find it as empty as the Pope's promises."
Migliardo said intensely, “Barr—!"
Jelinek's mild voice cut through. “Mig! Keep your opinions to yourself, Iron, and keep your hands off that panel. If it's empty we're better off not knowing. The time business that started this is absurd, and you know it We check it every day when we figure our position."
“Well, yeah,” Barr conceded, “but—"
Something went pingngng! The echoes raced through the ship. The lights went out. Somebody screamed, “Meteor!” Voices shouted a confused cacophony of orders. Bodies blundered about.
Then Barr said stridently, “Shut up! Everybody It didn't hit the sphere. Burt? You all right?"
“Okay,” Holloway called from the control deck. “But we're on battery now. I'm trying to locate the hit."
“No need,” Barr said. “It's up ahead—in the reactor or the wiring between."
Craddock began, his voice quavering, “If it's the reactor—"
“We're dead,” Barr said bluntly. “The battery will only last a few hours, and then the air conditioning goes off.” There was a scuffling sound. “I'll go out and check. Mig. Suit up and get ready to lend a hand."
And then even the sound was gone.
III
In the viewing room of the Little Wheel, the screen was dark. Lloyd flipped on the lights and looked at Faust. The dapper little man was turning, his iron-gray, immaculate head becoming a finely chiseled face. He was no more than five feet four, but everything about him was in proportion, from his feet to his controlled face.
His smooth forehead was wrinkled now, his blue eyes hard. “It's you, Lloyd,” he said, too quickly, in his big, orator's voice. “Was that the end? Is that what you are keeping from me?"
“Calm down, Jim,” Lloyd said. “We're not keeping anything from you. The meteor didn't hit the reactor. It clipped a lead, and the Santa Maria went on battery. There wasn't enough power to give us anything but voice, and even that was a drain the ship couldn't take for long. Barr located the hole and spliced the lead in twenty-five minutes."
Faust relaxed. “Thank God for Barr. The rest of them sounded like an uninstructed delegation."
“Barr is the man of action,” Lloyd said. “When the unexpected demanded quick, accurate action, he took charge. That's why he was there."
“Then he earned his passage. Let's get back to it."
“We have two hundred and fifty-nine days of film—twenty-four hours a day."
Faust frowned. “Can I trust you to make a selection for me?"
Lloyd stood up. To him the room seemed big. It was Celestial Observation, a room about twenty feet high by twenty feet wide. To Faust, though, the room must seem cramped, sticky, and stinking. Of course, after ten years a man can get used to these things, just as he can get so used to a wife that he would be only part of a man if she should leave.
He took a chair close to Faust and looked squarely into the politician's eyes. “You'll have to, Jim. What's got into you? You're our public relations man. You've trusted us before. I think you're the politician now, Jim."
“I'm both. The Party has consistently thrown its weight behind spaceflight, starting with the first mad rush to reach the S.1.1 in time to save Rev McMillen. We've fought your battles for more than thirty years, Lloyd. I think we deserve a little trust."
Lloyd said softly, “You've got it, you and the Party, but let's not put everything down to disinterested benevolence. You've done very well out of it, politically and financially. The party is the most powerful single political force on Earth, even though it does not have an absolute majority. And you're the biggest voice in the Party.
“You've also done well personally. Nothing shady, I realize, but your side of the bread has been very well buttered. And you had some of your own money in the Big Wheel. You've made your profit. Now you say you can't trust us."
“Trust,” Faust said, “is a two-way street."
Lloyd said slowly, “What would it do to public confidence if the world knew that the crew of the Santa Maria was bickering before the ship had been out a week?"
“The stock market would take it hard."
Lloyd spread his hands expressively. “So?"
“So I'm here, Lloyd,” Faust said evenly. “I have to know the truth. The planets aren't indispensable. We can relax for a few years, consolidate our gains, forget about Mars and Venus."
“What about the surpluses, Jim? What about the economic dislocation?"
“Better a dislocation now that we can ride than a crash later that will throw us all into the mud and put somebody like Deacon McIntire in the saddle. We can stand a dislocation if we handle it right, if we prepare the public for another failure. They've seen two ships sail right past Mars and sweep back. If we broke the news of this failure suddenly, there would be chaos—political and economic. McIntire would gain enough of our shocked voters to give his Fundamentalist Coalition a clear majority. Once he's in, we couldn't get him out. We'd have to assassinate him, and that would really tear it. I don't want to see that, Lloyd. Space is important, but it's not as important as people. We can come back, Lloyd, if we aren't torn apart now."
“There's a saying about fighters. They never come back. Everything has its psychological moment. This is it for Mars. It's now or never."
Faust's voice was regretful. “Maybe you're right. It may be never. If that happens I'll be very, very sorry. But I'll live, and so will you. I'd like to see Earth go on living, too, even without the stars."
Lloyd said in amazement, “You really are prepared to throw us over! The Party has been identified with spaceflight Could you shake that tag?"
Faust hesitated. “It would be rough, but we could do it Space has been good to us—all of us, not just the Party. The people would understand retrenchment. But they would have to be prepared for it. Starting now."
“Sure, Jim,” Lloyd said bitterly “But you've got to understand. Everything isn't what it seems. It takes interpretation.” He spoke briefly into the wall mike. “Here's the thirtieth day."
IV
Thirty days out. The Santa Maria was five and one-half million miles from Earth. The planet was still a perceptible disk, but the moon beside it had dwindled to a point. Both were still the most brilliant bodies in the universe, excepting the sun. Holloway stood at the dark port staring back the way they had come at the planet called home. He did not move; he scarcely seemed to blink.
The living deck of the personnel sphere was completely quiet. It was a silence which would not even be imagined by anyone except a spaceman. Then came a slap of a magnetized card on the dining table where Craddock and Migliardo were playing gin rummy.
Craddock coughed and laid his ten cards face down on the table while he covered his mouth with both hands. The paroxysm jarred him, shaking his whole body.
Migliardo picked up a flask and shoved it into Craddock's hand. Barr twisted in his bunk, a stereoscopic viewer held carelessly in one hand. He shouted, “Knock it off! Knock it off!"
Craddock squeezed water into his mouth, swallowed convulsively between coughs, and squeezed again until all the water was gone. Slowly the seizure eased. Craddock wiped tears from his eyes. “Thanks, Mig,” he said weakly. He had grown thinner. They all had.
“Emil!” Barr shouted from his bunk “Why the hell don't you do something about that?"
Jelinek's calm voice floated to them from the control deck. “I've told you, Iron, it's psychosomatic."
Barr muttered, “If somebody doesn't do something, Ted is gonna wake up some morning without a throat to cough through."
Jelinek's thin face appeared in the hole. “What do you mean by that, Iron?"
“Just what I said."
Craddock said apologetically, “He didn't mean anything. It gets on his nerves, my coughing all the time. Hell, it gets on my nerves, too."
Jelinek hadn't moved. “We're all in this together, Iron. We all get through or none of us. Oh, I know—maybe Mig could take over for you and do a job that might be good enough. Burt could pilot the ship if something happened to me. Mig could navigate for Burt if he had to, and you know enough about wiring and electronics to do the essentials of Ted's work. But actually it wouldn't work out that way. There's five of us. That's a bare minimum for sanity. Any less and none of us would make it."
His face disappeared and silence descended again. Barr shrugged and looked back into his stereoscopic viewer. Craddock and Migliardo drew cards from the thick pack on the table and slapped them down. Holloway stared silently out the port.
Jelinek said, “Tank B is starting to freeze. I'm going to rotate it into sunlight."
Nobody moved or looked up. Somewhere in the ship a motor whined as it accelerated a flywheel. Very slowly the ship began to turn. The whine descended the scale again, faded into silence.
Holloway screamed. He pointed a shaking finger at the port as everyone turned toward him and Jelinek's face appeared in the opening.
“What the—"
“Burt!"
“For God's sake, Burt!"
“There—” Holloway said. “There was something—out there!"
“What was it?” Jelinek said. “Try to tell us what you saw."
Holloway clung to a handhold by the port and shook. His body floated out in the air. “I don't know what it was. Something—something white. It's gone now."
Jelinek said sharply, “You saw more than that to make you scream. What was it, Burt?"
Migliardo said softly, “It could be garbage, perhaps."
“Yes,” Holloway said quickly. “That was it. Floating beside the ship. When you turned the ship, it went past the port."
Jelinek said insistently, “Maybe that was it, Burt, but what did you think it was?"
Angrily Holloway said, “All right It looked like a face, a face with a beard!"
“Look like anybody you ever saw?” Jelinek asked.
Holloway's shaking had dropped to occasional tremors. “I'm not crazy, Emil. No, I never saw that face before."
“Did it look dead?"
“No!"
“How do you know?"
Holloway took a deep breath and said steadily, “It looked in at me. It saw me. Its eyes—I never saw such a look of sorrow and pity before. It felt—sorry for me. Sorry for all of us."
“For God's sake!” Barr complained. “I never heard so much bull in my life. You'd just been burning your eyes out looking at Earth and the moon. It was an after-image."
Jelinek nodded. “I suppose that was it—superimposed upon a flash of sunlight. Or maybe, like Mig said, some trash. Don't let it worry you, Burt."
Holloway laughed shakily. “Who's worrying? What could be out here, almost six million miles from anywhere?"
“Hey, now,” Barr said. “Here's something worth looking at.” He flipped the plastic viewer toward Holloway.
Holloway caught it, put it up to his eyes, and stared into it. “So that's what you've been having such a time with!” he said flatly.
Craddock said eagerly, “Let me see!"
Holloway tossed it to him as if he were getting rid of filth. Then he wiped his hand on his shorts and turned back to the port.
Craddock stared into the viewer for a long time, clicked another scene into place, and stared again. His cheeks grew flushed.
Migliardo was watching him curiously. “What's this all about?” He reached over to grab the viewer.
“You'll get your turn!” Craddock said.
Migliardo yanked it away. “You can have it back.” He stared into it and then hastily tore it away from his eyes. “In the name of—” He crossed himself automatically."How did you smuggle these damned things aboard? Can't you find anything better to do than staring at these dirty—?"
Craddock held out his hand. “Give it back! Give it to me!"
Jelinek's head was looking through the hole again. “I swear I spend more time looking at you idiots than I do looking at the gauges. Let me see that!"
Migliardo flicked it contemptuously toward Jelinek. He reached for it, but the viewer sailed through the hole and out of sight. A moment later there was a crash of plastic against metal.
Barr released his belt hooks in a swift, practiced movement and sprang toward the pole. He stared through the hole at Jelinek, who appeared again holding the smashed viewer.
“Sorry, Iron,” Jelinek said apologetically. “Clumsy of me."
Barr said furiously, “If I thought you did that on purpose—"
“You'd what?” Jelinek asked calmly.
In a cold, deadly voice Barr said, “I'd beat you until you'd walk out that airlock without a suit rather than stay in here with me. It's ruined,” he wailed.
“I'm not really sorry,” Jelinek said. “Can't you understand that dirty pictures just aren't the proper thing for a two-and-a-half year stag cruise. The only way you'll get back to women is by not thinking about them."
Barr said angrily, “Give it to me!” He grabbed the wreckage from Jelinek's hand. “You get by your way, and I'll get by mine.” His eyes held a heavy-lidded look of dislike. “Don't get in my way again, headshrinker, or one of us won't get back."
Barr slipped
his thick, hairy legs into two table straps and carefully put the smashed viewer on the table. None of the pieces were missing. Carefully, with a great delicacy in his thick fingers, he separated the broken segments and gently placed them on the table. “Hey, Burt,” he called, “throw me that tube of liquid cement in my locker."
In a moment it came sailing toward him. Barr raised a careless hand and plucked it out of the air. The movement stirred the pieces on the table, and Barr covered them quickly to keep them from blowing away. Slowly, moistening each edge with clear cement he began to fit the pieces together.
Migliardo went “gin,” and he gleefully added up the score.
Holloway stared out the port, unmoving.
“I'm hungry,” Barr said suddenly. “You're cook today, Mig. Put something on. I'd go for a nice, juicy steak today."
“We had steak yesterday,” Migliardo said absently, studying his cards.
“I don't care when we had steak,” Barr said. “I want steak today."
“If we eat steak once a week, we have enough to last for the whole trip,” Migliardo said. “If we eat it every day, we will have none for two years. Today we will have filet of sole."
“What is this—Friday?” Barr asked.
“As a matter of fact,” Migliardo said, “it is."
Barr sneered. “I thought I smelled a fish eater. Well, I hate fish! Why should I eat fish because of you?"
“There is fish enough for fish once a week,” Migliardo said calmly. “Friday is as good a day for the rest of you as any other. You liked fish before."
Barr slammed his hand down on the table. “Well, now I hate it! I tell you what,” he said slyly, “you eat my fish and I'll eat your steak."
“No, thank you,” Migliardo said politely. “I like fish once a week. I like steak once a week, too. Anyhow—” Migliardo glanced up at the clock—"it is not time for supper."
Barr roared, “That clock's wrong! Which are you gonna believe, my stomach or that clock? I know which I'm gonna believe.” He slipped his legs out of the slings and pulled himself around to the deep freeze beside the range, He sorted through the prepared meals until he found what he wanted and slipped it into the range.
