The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  “But they were heavier there—Oh, sure, you’re right. It’s mass, not weight, that counts. But we sure are in one fine, large jam now. Instead of being halfway back to the Earth we’re—where are we, anyway?”

  They made a reading on an object-compass focused upon the Earth. Seaton’s face lengthened as seconds passed. When it had come to rest, both men calculated the distance.

  “What d’you make it, Mart? I’m afraid to tell you my result.”

  “Forty-six point twenty-seven light-centuries,” replied Crane, calmly. “Right?”

  “Right, and the time was 11:32 P. M. of Thursday, by the chronometer there. We’ll time it again after a while and see how fast we’re traveling. It’s a good thing you built the ship’s chronometers to stand any kind of stress. My watch is a total loss. Yours is, too?”

  “All of our watches must be broken. We will have to repair them as soon as we get time.”

  “Well, let’s eat next! No human being can stand my aching void much longer. How about you, Dot?”

  “Yes, for Cat’s sake, let’s get busy!” she mimicked him gaily. “Doctor DuQuesne’s had dinner ready for ages, and we’re all dying by inches of hunger.”

  The wanderers, battered, bruised, and sore, seated themselves at a folding table, Seaton keeping a watchful eye upon the bar and upon the course, while enjoying Dorothy’s presence to the full. Crane and Margaret talked easily, but at intervals. Save when directly addressed. DuQuesne maintained silence—not the silence of one who knows himself to be an intruder, but the silence of perfect self-sufficiency. The meal over, the girls washed the dishes and busied themselves in the galley. Seaton and Crane made another observation upon the Earth, requesting DuQuesne to stay out of the “engine room” as they called the partially-enclosed space surrounding the main instrument board, where were located the object-compasses and the mechanism controlling the attractor, about which DuQuesne knew nothing. As they rejoined DuQuesne in the main compartment, Seaton said:

  “DuQuesne, we’re nearly five thousand light-years away from the Earth, and are getting farther at the rate of about one light-year per minute.”

  “I suppose that it would be poor technique to ask how you know?”

  “It would—very poor. Our figures are right. The difficulty is that we have only four bars left—enough to stop us and a little to spare, but not nearly enough to get back with, even if we could take a chance on drifting straight that far without being swung off—which, of course, is impossible.”

  “That means that we must land somewhere and dig some copper, then.”

  “Exactly.

  “The first thing to do is to find a place to land.”

  Seaton picked out a distant star in their course and observed it through the spectroscope. Since it was found to contain copper in notable amounts, all agreed that its planets probably also contained copper.

  “Don’t know whether we can stop that soon or not,” remarked Seaton as he set the levers, “but we may as well have something to shoot at. We’d better take our regular twelve-hour tricks, hadn’t we, Mart? It’s a wonder we got as far as this without striking another snag. I’ll take the first trick at the board—beat it to bed.”

  “Not so fast, Dick,” argued Crane, as Seaton turned toward the engine-room: “It’s my turn.”

  “Flip a nickel,” suggested Seaton. “Heads I get it.”

  Crane flipped a coin. Heads it was, and the worn-out party went to their rooms, all save Dorothy, who lingered after the others to bid her lover a more intimate goodnight.

  Seated beside him, his arm around her and her head upon his shoulder, Dorothy exclaimed:

  “Oh, Dicky, Dicky, it is wonderful to be with you again! I’ve lived as many years in the last week as we have covered miles!”

  Seaton kissed her with ardor, then turned her fair face up to his and gazed hungrily at every feature.

  “It sure was awful until we found you, sweetheart girl. Those two days at Wilson’s were the worst and longest I ever put in. I could have wrung Martin’s cautious old neck!

  “But isn’t he a wiz at preparing for trouble? We sure owe him a lot, little dimpled lady.”

  Dorothy was silent for a moment, then a smile quirked at one corner of her mouth and a dimple appeared. Seaton promptly kissed it, whereupon it deepened audaciously.

  “What are you thinking about—mischief?” he asked.

  “Only of how Martin is going to be paid what we owe him,” she answered teasingly. “Don’t let the debt worry you any.”

  “Spill the news, Reddy,” he commanded, as his arm tightened about her.

  She stuck out a tiny tip of red tongue at him.

  “Don’t let Peggy find out he’s a millionaire.”

  “Why not?” he asked wonderingly, then he saw her point and laughed:

  “You little matchmaker!”

  “I don’t care, laugh if you want to. Martin’s as nice a man as I know, and Peggy’s a real darling. Don’t you let slip a word about Martin’s money, that’s all!”

  “She wouldn’t think any less of him, would she?”

  “Dick, sometimes you are absolutely dumb. It would spoil everything. If she knew he was a millionaire she would be scared to death—not of him, of course, but because she would think that he would think that she was chasing him, and then of course he would think that she was, see? As it is, she acts perfectly natural, and so does he. Didn’t you notice that while we were eating they talked together for at least fifteen minutes about her father’s invention and the way they stole the plans and one thing and another? I don’t believe he has talked that much to any girl except me the last five years—and he wouldn’t talk to me until he knew that I couldn’t see any man except you. Much as we like Martin, we’ve got to admit that about him. He’s been chased so much that he’s wild. If any other girl he knows had talked to him that long, he would have been off to the North Pole or somewhere the next morning, and the best part of it is that he didn’t think anything of it.”

  “You think she is domesticating the wild man?”

  “Now, Dick, don’t be foolish. You know what I mean. Martin is a perfect dear, but if she knew that he is the M. Reynolds Crane, everything would be ruined. You know yourself how horribly hard it is to get through his shell to the real Martin underneath. He is lonely and miserable inside, I know, and the right kind of girl, one that would treat him right, would make life Heaven for him, and herself too.”

  “Yes, and the wrong kind would make it.…”

  “She would,” interrupted Dorothy hastily, “but Peggy’s the right kind. Wouldn’t it be fine to have Martin and Peggy as happy, almost, as you and I are?”

  “All right, girlie, I’m with you,” he answered, embracing her as though he intended never to let her go, “but you’d better go get some sleep—you’re all in.”

  Considerably later, when Dorothy had finally gone, Seaton settled himself for the long vigil. Promptly at the end of the twelve hours Crane appeared, alert of eye and of bearing.

  “You look fresh as a daisy, Mart. Feeling fit?”

  “Fit as the proverbial fiddle. I could not have slept any better or longer if I had had a week off. Seven hours and a half is a luxury, you know.”

  “All wrong, old top. I need eight every night, and I’m going to take about ten this time.”

  “Go to it, twelve if you like. You have earned it.”

  Seaton stumbled to his room and slept as though in a trance for ten hours. Rising, he took his regular morning exercises and went into the saloon. All save Martin were there, but he had eyes only for his sweetheart, who was radiantly beautiful in a dress of deep bronze-brown.

  “Good morning, Dick,” she hailed him joyously. “You woke up just in time—we are all starving again, and were just going to eat without you!”

  “Good morning, everybody. I would like to eat with you, Dottie, but I’ve got to relieve Martin. How’d it be for you to bring breakfast into the engine room and cheer my solit
ude, and let Crane eat with the others?”

  “Fine—that’s once you had a good idea, if you never have another!”

  After the meal DuQuesne, who abhorred idleness with all his vigorous nature, took the watches of the party and went upstairs to the “shop,” which was a completely-equipped mechanical laboratory, to repair them. Seaton stayed at the board, where Dorothy joined him as a matter of course. Crane and Margaret sat down at one of the windows.

  She told him her story, frankly and fully, shuddering with horror as she recalled the awful, helpless fall, during which Perkins had met his end.

  “Dick and I have a heavy score to settle with that Steel crowd and with DuQuesne,” Crane said slowly. “We have no evidence that will hold in law, but some day DuQuesne will over-reach himself. We could convict him of abduction now, but the penalty for that is too mild for what he has done. Perkins’ death was not murder, then?”

  “Oh, no, it was purely self-defense. Perkins would have killed him if he could. And he really deserved it—Perkins was a perfect fiend. The Doctor, as they call him, is no better, although entirely different. He is so utterly heartless and ruthless, so cold and scientific. Do you know him very well?”

  “We know all that about him, and more. And yet Dorothy said he saved her life?”

  “He did, from Perkins, but I still think it was because he didn’t want Perkins meddling in his affairs. He seems to me to be the very incarnation of a fixed purpose—to advance himself in the world.”

  “That expresses my thoughts exactly. But he slips occasionally, as in this instance, and he will again. He will have to walk very carefully while he is with us. Nothing would please Dick better than an excuse for killing him, and I must admit that I feel very much the same way.”

  “Yes, all of us do, and the way he acts proves what a machine he is. He knows just exactly how far to go, and never goes beyond it.”

  They felt the Skylark lurch slightly.

  “Oh, Mart!” called Seaton. “Going to pass that star we were headed for—too fast to stop. I’m giving it a wide berth and picking out another one. There’s a big planet a few million miles off in line with the main door, and another one almost dead ahead—that is, straight down. We sure are traveling. Look at that sun flit by!”

  They saw the two planets, one like a small moon, the other like a large star, and saw the strange sun increase rapidly in size as the Skylark flew on at such a pace that any earthly distance would have been covered as soon as it was begun. So appalling was their velocity that their ship was bathed in the light of that sun for only a short time, then was again surrounded by the indescribable darkness. Their seventy-two-hour flight without a pilot had seemed a miracle, now it seemed entirely possible that they might fly in a straight line for weeks without encountering any obstacle, so vast was the emptiness in comparison with the points of light that punctuated it. Now and then they passed so close to a star that it apparently moved rapidly, but for the most part the silent sentinels stood, like distant mountain peaks to the travelers in an express train, in the same position for many minutes.

  Awed by the immensity of the universe, the two at the window were silent, not with the silence of embarrassment, but with that of two friends in the presence of something beyond the reach of words. As they stared out into the infinity each felt as never before the pitiful smallness of even our whole solar system and the utter insignificance of human beings and their works. Silently their minds reached out to each other in mutual understanding.

  Unconsciously Margaret half shuddered and moved closer to her companion, the movement attracting his attention but not her own. A tender expression came into Crane’s steady blue eyes as he looked down at the beautiful young woman by his side. For beautiful she undoubtedly was. Untroubled rest and plentiful food had erased the marks of her imprisonment; Dorothy’s deep, manifestly unassumed faith in the ability of Seaton and Crane to bring them safely back to Earth had quieted her fears; and a complete costume of Dorothy’s simple but well-cut clothes, which fitted her perfectly, and in which she looked her best and knew it, had completely restored her self-possession. He quickly glanced away and again gazed at the stars, but now, in addition to the wonders of space, he saw masses of wavy black hair, high-piled upon a queenly head; deep down brown eyes half veiled by long, black lashes; sweet, sensitive lips; a firmly rounded but dimpled chin; and a perfectly-formed young body.

  After a time she drew a deep, tremulous breath. As he turned, her eyes met his. In their shadowy depths, still troubled by the mystery of the unknowable, he read her very soul—the soul of a real woman.

  “I had hoped,” said Margaret slowly, “to take a long flight above the clouds, but anything like this never entered my mind. How unbelievably great it is! So much vaster than any perception we could get upon earth! It seems strange that we were ever awed by the sea or the mountains…and yet.…”

  She paused, with her lip caught under two white teeth, then went on hesitatingly:

  “Doesn’t it seem to you, Mr. Crane, that there is something in man as great as all this? Otherwise, Dorothy and I could not be sailing here in a wonder like the Lark, which you and Dick Seaton have made.”

  Since from the first, Dorothy had timed her waking hours with those of Seaton—waiting upon him, preparing his meals, and lightening the long hours of his vigils at the board—Margaret took it upon herself to do the same thing for Crane. But often they assembled in the engine-room, and there was much fun and laughter, as well as serious talk, among the four. Margaret was quickly accepted as a friend, and proved a delightful companion. Her wavy, jet-black hair, the only color in the world that could hold its own with Dorothy’s auburn glory, framed features self-reliant and strong, yet of womanly softness; and in this genial atmosphere her quick tongue had a delicate wit and a facility of expression that delighted all three. Dorothy, after the manner of Southern women, became the hostess of this odd “party,” as she styled it, and unconsciously adopted the attitude of a lady in her own home.

  Early in their flight, Crane suggested that they should take notes upon the systems of stars through which were passing.

  “I know very little of astronomy,” he said to Seaton, “but with our telescope, spectroscope, and other instruments, we should be able to take some data that will be of interest to astronomers. Possibly Miss Spencer would be willing to help us?”

  “Sure,” Seaton returned readily. “We’d be idiots to let a chance like this slide. Go to it!”

  Margaret was delighted at the opportunity to help.

  “Taking notes is the best thing I do!” she cried, and called for a pad and pencil.

  Stationed at the window, they fell to work in earnest. For several hours Crane took observations, calculated distances, and dictated notes to Margaret.

  “The stars are wonderfully different!” she exclaimed to him once. “That planet, I’m sure, has strange and lovely life upon it. See how its color differs from most of the others we have seen so near? It is rosy and soft like a home fire. I’m sure its people are happy.”

  They fell into a long discussion, laughing a little at their fancies. Were these multitudes of worlds peopled as the Earth? Could it be that only upon Earth had occurred the right combination for the generation of life, so that the rest of the Universe was unpeopled?

  “It is unthinkable that they are all uninhabited,” mused Crane. “There must be life. The beings may not exist in any form with which we are familiar—they may well be fulfilling some purpose in ways so different from ours that we should be unable to understand them at all.”

  Margaret’s eyes widened in startled apprehension, but in a moment she shook herself and laughed.

  “But there’s no reason to suppose they would be awful,” she remarked, and turned with renewed interest to the window.

  Thus days went by and the Skylark passed one solar system after another, with a velocity so great that it was impossible to land upon any planet. Margaret’s association with Crane,
begun as a duty, soon became an intense pleasure for them both. Taking notes or seated at the board in companionable conversation or sympathetic silence, they compressed into a few days more real companionship than is ordinarily enjoyed in months. Oftener and oftener, as time went on, Crane found the vision of his dream home floating in his mind as he steered the Skylark in her meteoric flight or as he strapped himself into his narrow bed. Now, however, the central figure of the vision, instead of being an indistinct blur, was clear and sharply defined. And for her part, more and more was Margaret drawn to the quiet and unassuming, but utterly dependable and steadfast young inventor, with his wide knowledge and his keen, incisive mind.

  Sometimes, when far from any star, the pilot would desert his post and join the others at meals. Upon one such occasion Seaton asked:

  “How’s the book on astronomy, oh, learned ones?”

  “It will be as interesting as Egyptian hieroglyphics,” Margaret replied, as she opened her notebook and showed him pages of figures and symbols.

  “May I see it, Miss Spencer?” asked DuQuesne from across the small table, extending his hand.

  She looked at him, hot hostility in her brown eyes, and he dropped his hand.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, with amused irony.

  After the meal Seaton and Crane held a short consultation, and the former called to the girls, asking them to join in the “council of war.” There was a moment’s silence before Crane said diffidently:

  “We have been talking about DuQuesne, Miss Spencer, trying to decide a very important problem.”

  Seaton smiled in spite of himself as the color again deepened in Margaret’s face, and Dorothy laughed outright.

  “Talk about a red-headed temper! Your hair must be dyed, Peggy!”

  “I know I acted like a naughty child,” Margaret said ruefully, “but he makes me perfectly furious and scares me at the same time. A few more remarks like that ‘I beg your pardon’ of his and I wouldn’t have a thought left in my head!”