The Number of the Beast

by Robert A. Heinlein

  “Reporting, Deety. ‘Gay Deceiver, take us home!’”

  “Negative erase permanent program controlled by execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home. Report confirm.”

  “Confirmation report. Permanent program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home negative erase. I tell you three times.”

  “Deety,” said Zeb, “a neg scrub to Gay tells her to place item in perms three places. Redundancy safety factor.”

  “Don’t bother me, dear! She and I sling the same lingo. Hello, Gay.”

  “Hello, Deety!”

  “Analyze latest program execute-coded Gay Deceiver take us home. Report.”

  “Analysis complete.”

  “Invert analysis.”

  “Null program.”

  Deety sighed. “Typing a program is easier. New program.”

  “Waiting, Deety.”

  “Execute-code new permanent program. Gay Deceiver, countermarch! At new execute-code, repeat reversed in real time latest sequence inertials transitions translations rotations before last use of program execute-code Gay Deceiver take us home.”

  “New permanent program accepted.”

  “Gay, I tell you three times.”

  “Deety, I hear you three times.”

  “Gay Deceiver—countermarch!”

  Instantly we were over the Grand Canyon, cruising south. I saw Zeb reach for the manual controls. “Deety, that was slick.”

  “I didn’t save time, sir—I goofed. Gay, you’re a smart girl.”

  “Deety, don’t make me blush.”

  “You’re both smart girls,” said Captain Zebbie. “If anyone had us on radar, he must think he’s getting cataracts. Vice versa, if anyone picked us up here, he’s wondering how we popped up. Smart dodge, dear. You’ve got Gay Deceiver so deceptive that nobody can home on us. We’ll be elsewhere.”

  “Yes—but I had something else in mind, too, my Captain.”

  “Princess, I like your ideas. Spill it.”

  “Suppose we used that homing preprogram and went from frying pan into fire. It might be useful to have a preprogram that would take us back into the frying pan, then do something else quickly. Should I try to think up a third escape-maneuver preprogram?”

  “Sure—but discuss it with the court magician, your esteemed father—not me. I’m just a sky jockey.”

  “Zebadiah, I will not listen to you disparage yours—”

  “Deety! Lifeboat rules. Jake, are your professional papers aboard? Both theoretical and drawings?”

  “Why, no, Zeb—Captain. Too bulky. Microfilms I brought. Originals are in the basement vault. Have I erred?”

  “Not a bit! Is there any geometer who gave your published paper on this six-way system a friendly reception?”

  “Captain, there aren’t more than a handful of geometers capable of judging my postulate system without long and intensive study. It’s too unorthodox. Your late cousin was one—a truly brilliant mind! Uh… I now suspect that Doctor Brain understood it and sabotaged it for his own purposes.”

  “Jake, is there anyone friendly to you and able to understand the stuff in your vault? I’m trying to figure out how to warn our fellow humans. A fantastic story of apparently unrelated incidents is not enough. Not even with the corpse of an extra-terrestrial to back it up. You should leave mathematical theory and engineering drawings to someone able to understand them and whom you trust. We can’t handle it; every time we stick our heads up, somebody takes a shot at us and we have no way to fight back. It’s a job that may require our whole race. Well? Is there a man you can trust as your professional executor?”

  “Well…one, perhaps. Not my field of geometry but brilliant. He did write me a most encouraging letter when I published my first paper—the paper that was so sneered at by almost everyone except your cousin and this one other. Professor Seppo Räikannonen. Turku. Finland.”

  “Are you certain he’s not an alien?”

  “What? He’s been on the faculty at Turku for years! Over fifteen.”

  I said, “Jacob…that is about how long Professor Brain was around.”

  “But—” My husband looked around at me and suddenly smiled. “Hilda my love, have you ever taken sauna?”

  “Once.”

  “Then tell our Captain why I am sure that my friend Seppo is not an alien in disguise. I—Deety and I—attended a professional meeting in Helsinki last year. After the meeting we visited their summer place in the Lake Country…and took sauna with them.”

  “Papa, Mama, and three kids.” agreed Deety. “Unmistakably human.”

  “‘Brainy’ was a bachelor,” I added thoughtfully. “Cap’n Zebbie, wouldn’t disguised aliens have to be bachelors?”

  “Or single women. Or pseudo-married couples. No kids, the masquerade wouldn’t hold up. Jake, let’s try to phone your friend. Mmm, nearly breakfast time in Finland—or we may wake him. That’s better than missing him.”

  “Good! My comcredit number is Nero Aleph—”

  “Let’s try mine. Yours might trigger something…if ‘Black Hats’ are as smart as I think they are. Smart Girl.”

  “Yes, Boss.”

  “Don Ameche.”

  “To hear is to obey, O Mighty One.”

  “Deety, you’ve been giving Gay bad habits.”

  Shortly a flat male voice answered, “The communications credit number you have cited is not a valid number. Please refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.”

  Zebbie made a highly unlikely suggestion. “Gay can’t send out my comcredit code incorrectly; she has it tell-me-three-times. The glitch is in their system. Pop, we have to use yours.”

  I said, “Try mine, Zebbie. My comcredit is good; I predeposit.”

  A female voice this time: “—not a valid number. Puh-lease refer to your card and try again. This is a recording.”

  Then my husband got a second female voice: “—try again. This is a recording.”

  Deety said, “I don’t have one. Pop and I use the same number.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Cap’n Zebbie said bitterly. “These aren’t glitches. We’ve been scrubbed. Unpersons. We’re all dead.”

  I didn’t argue. I had suspected that we were dead since the morning two weeks earlier when I woke up in bed with my cuddly new husband. But how long had we been dead? Since my party? Or more recently?

  I didn’t care. This was a better grade of heaven than a Sunday School in Terre Haute had taught me to expect. While I don’t think I’ve been outstandingly wicked, I haven’t been very good either. Of the Ten Commandments I’ve broken six and bent some others. But Moses apparently had not had the last Word from on High—being dead was weird and wonderful and I was enjoying every minute…or eon, as the case may be.

  XIII

  Being too close to a fireball can worry a man—

  Zeb:

  Not being able to phone from my car was my most frustrating experience since a night I spent in jail through mistake (I made the mistake). I considered grounding to phone—but the ground did not seem healthy. Even if all of us were presumed dead, nullifying our comcredit cards so quickly seemed unfriendly; all of us had high credit ratings.

  Canceling Sharpie’s comcredit without proof of death was more than unfriendly; it was outrageous as she used the predeposit method.

  I was forced to the decision that it was my duty to make a military report; I radioed NORAD, stated name, rank, reserve commission serial number, and asked for scramble for a crash priority report.

  —and ran into “correct” procedure that causes instant ulcers. What was my clearance? What led me to think that I had crash priority intelligence? By what authority did I demand a scramble code? Do you know how many screwball calls come in here every day? Get off this frequency; it’s for official traffic only. One more word out of you and I shall alert the civil sky patrol to pick you up.

  I said one more word after I chopped off. Deety and her father ignored it; Hilda said, “My sentiments exactly!”
>
  I tried the Federal Rangers Kaibab Barracks at Jacob Lake, then the office at Littlefield—and back to Kaibab. Littlefield didn’t answer; Jacob Lake answered: “This is a recording. Routine messages may be recorded during beep tone. Emergency reports should be transmitted to Flagstaff HQ. Stand by for beep tone… Beep!… Beep!… Beep!”

  I was about to tell Gay to zip my tape—when the whole world was lighted by the brightest light imaginable.

  Luckily we were cruising south with that light behind us. I goosed Gay to flank speed while telling her to tuck in her wings. Not one of my partners asked a foolish question, although I suspect that none had ever seen a fireball or mushroom cloud.

  “Smart Girl.”

  “Here, Boss.”

  “DR problem. Record true bearing light beacon relative bearing astern. Record radar range and bearing same beacon. Solve latitude longitude beacon. Compare solution with fixes in perms. Confirm.”

  “Program confirmed.”

  “Execute.”

  “Roger Wilco, Zeb. Heard any new ones lately?” She added at once, “Solution. True bearing identical with fix execute-coded ‘Gay Deceiver take us home.’ True range identical plus-minus zero point six klicks.”

  “You’re a smart girl, Gay.”

  “Flattery will get you anywhere, Zeb. Over.”

  “Roger and out. Hang onto your hats, folks; we’re going straight up.” I had outraced the shock wave but we were close to the Mexican border; either side might send sprint birds homing on us. “Copilot!”

  “Captain.”

  “Move us! Out of this space!”

  “Where, Captain?”

  “Anywhere! Fast!”

  “Uh, can you ease the acceleration? I can’t lift my arms.”

  Cursing myself, I cut power, let Gay Deceiver climb free. Those vernier controls should have been mounted on arm rests. (Designs that look perfect on the drawing board can kill test pilots.)

  “Translation complete, Captain.”

  “Roger, Copilot. Thank you.” I glanced at the board: six-plus klicks height-above-ground and rising—thin but enough air to bite. “Hang onto our lunch, Sharpie!” I leaned us backwards while doing an Immelman into level flight, course north, power still off. I told Gay to stretch the glide, then tell me when we had dropped to three klicks H-above-G.

  What should be Phoenix was off to the right; another city—Flagstaff?—farther away, north and a bit east; we appeared to be headed home. There was no glowing cloud on the horizon. “Jake, where are we?”

  “Captain, I’ve never been in this universe. We translated ten quanta positive Tau axis. So we should be in analogous space close to ours—ten minimum intervals or quanta.”

  “This looks like Arizona.”

  “I would expect it to, Captain. You recall that one-quantum translation on this axis was so very like our own world that Deety and I confused it with our own, until she picked up a dictionary.”

  “Phone book, Pop.”

  “Irrelevant, dear. Until she missed the letter ‘J’ in an alphabetical list. Ten quanta should not change geological features appreciably and placement of cities is largely controlled by geography.”

  “Approaching three klicks, Boss.”

  “Thanks, Gay. Hold course and H-above-G. Correction! Hold course and absolute altitude. Confirm and execute.”

  “Roger Wilco, Zeb.”

  I had forgotten that the Grand Canyon lay ahead—or should. “Smart Girl” is smart, but she’s literal-minded. She would have held height-above-ground precisely and given us the wildest roller-coaster ride in history. She is very flexible but the “garbage-in-garbage-out” law applies. She had many extra fail-safes—because I make mistakes. Gay can’t; anything she does wrong is my mistake. Since I’ve been making mistakes all my life, I surrounded her with all the safeguards I could think of. But she had no program against wild rides—she was beefed up to accept them. Violent evasive tactics had saved our lives two weeks ago, and tonight as well. Being too close to a fireball can worry a man—to death.

  “Gay, display map, please.”

  The map showed Arizona—our Arizona; Gay does not have in her gizzards any strange universes. I changed course to cause us to pass over our cabin site—its analog for this space-time. (Didn’t dare tell her: “Gay, take us home!”—for reasons left as an exercise for the class.) “Deety, how long ago did that bomb go off?”

  “Six minutes twenty-three seconds. Zebadiah, was that really an A-bomb?”

  “Pony bomb, perhaps. Maybe two kilotons. Gay Deceiver.”

  “I’m all ears, Zeb.”

  “Report time interval since radar-ranging beacon.”

  “Five minutes forty-four seconds, Zeb.”

  Deety gasped. “Was I that far off?”

  “No, darling. You reported time since flash. I didn’t ask Gay to range until after we were hypersonic.”

  “Oh. I feel better.”

  “Captain,” inquired Jake, “how did Gay range an atomic explosion? I would expect radiation to make it impossible. Does she have instrumentation of which I am not aware?”

  “Copilot, she has several gadgets I have not shown you. I have not been holding out—any more than you held out in not telling me about guns and ammo you—”

  “My apologies, sir!”

  “Oh, stuff it, Jake. Neither of us held out; we’ve been running under the whip. Deety, how long has it been since we killed that fake ranger?”

  “That was seventeen fourteen. It is now twenty-two twenty. Five hours six minutes,”

  I glanced at the board; Deety’s “circadian clock” apparently couldn’t be jarred by anything; Gay’s clock showed 0520 (Greenwich) with “ZONE PLUS SEVEN” display. “Call it five hours—feels like five weeks. We need a vacation.”

  “Loud cheers!” agreed Sharpie.

  “Check. Jake, I didn’t know that Gay could range an atomic blast. Light ‘beacon’ means a visible light to her just as ‘radar beacon’ means to her a navigational radar beacon. I told her to get a bearing on the light beacon directly aft; she selected the brightest light with that bearing. Then I told her to take radar range and bearing on it—spun my prayer wheel and prayed.

  “There was ‘white noise’ possibly blanketing her radar frequency. But her own radar bursts are tagged; it would take a very high noise level at the same frequency to keep her from recognizing echoes with her signature. Clearly she had trouble for she reported ‘plus-minus’ of six hundred meters. Nevertheless range and bearing matched a fix in her permanents and told us our cabin had been bombed. Bad news. But the aliens got there too late to bomb us. Good news.”

  “Captain, I decline to grieve over material loss. We are alive.”

  “I agree—although I’ll remember Snug Harbor as the happiest home I’ve ever had. But there is no point in trying to warn Earth—our Earth—about aliens. That blast destroyed the clincher: that alien’s cadaver. And papers and drawings you were going to turn over to your Finnish friend. I’m not sure we can go home again.”

  “Oh, that’s no problem, Captain. Two seconds to set the verniers. Not to mention the ‘deadman switch’ and the program in Gay’s permanents.”

  “Jake, I wish you would knock off ‘Captain’ other than for command conditions.”

  “Zeb, I like calling you ‘Captain.’”

  “So do I!—my Captain.”

  “Me, too, Cap’n Zebbie!”

  “Don’t overdo it. Jake, I didn’t mean that you can’t pilot us home; I mean we should not risk it. We’ve lost our last lead on the aliens. But they know who we are and have shown dismaying skill in tracking us down. I’d like to live to see two babies born and grown up.”

  “Amen!” said Sharpie. “This might be the place for it. Out of a million billion zillion earths this one may be vermin-free. Highly likely.”

  “Hilda my dear, there are no data on which to base any assumption.”

  “Jacob, there is one datum.”

  “Eh? What di
d I miss, dear?”

  “That we do know that our native planet is infested. So I don’t want to raise kids on it. If this isn’t the place we’re looking for, let’s keep looking.”

  “Mmm, logical. Yes. Cap—Zeb?”

  “I agree. But we can’t tell much before morning. Jake, I’m unclear on a key point. If we translated back to our own earth now, where would we find ourselves? And when?”

  “Pop, may I answer that?”

  “Go ahead, Deety.”

  “The time Pop and I translated to the place with no ‘J’ we thought we had failed. Pop stayed in our car, trying to figure it out. I went inside, intending to fix lunch. Everything looked normal. But the phone book was on the kitchen counter and doesn’t belong there. That book had a toll area map on its back cover. My eye happened to land on ‘Juab County’—and it was spelled ‘Iuab’—and I thought, ‘What a funny misprint!’ Then I looked inside and couldn’t find any ‘J’s’ and dropped the book and went running for Pop.”

  “I thought Deety was hysterical. But when I checked a dictionary and the Britannica we got out in a hurry.”

  “This is the point, Zebadiah. When we flipped back, I dashed into the house. The phone book was where it belonged. The alphabet was back the way it ought to be. The clock in my head said that we had been gone twenty-seven minutes. The kitchen clock confirmed it and it agreed with the clock in the car. Does that answer you, sir?”

  “I think so. In a translation, duration just keeps chugging along. I wondered because I’d like to check that crater after it has had time to cool down. What about that one rotation?”

  “Harder to figure, Zebadiah. We weren’t in that other space-time but a few seconds and we both passed out. Indeterminate.”

  “I’m convinced. But, Jake, what about Earth’s proper motions? Rotation, revolution around the Sun, sidereal motion, and so forth.”

  “A theoretical answer calls for mathematics you tell me are outside your scope of study, uh—Zeb.”

  “Beyond my capacity, you mean.”

  “As you will, sir. An excursion elsewhere-and-elsewhen…and return…brings you back to where you would have been had you experienced that duration on earth. But ‘when’ requires further definition. As we were discussing, uh…earlier this afternoon but it seems longer, we can adjust the controls to reenter any axis at any point with permanent change of interval. For planetary engineering. Or other purposes. Including reentry reversed against the entropy arrow. But I suspect that would cause death.”