Ride the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

She said, “I don’t care if you burst into flame.”

  “Not very original,” I told her. “And not very funny.” I lit a cigarette. She stretched a shapely arm and took it from me, but still succeeded in displaying no more than her rear elevation. I lit another cigarette and put it to my lips. I said, “Come to think of it, it is rather hot in here.”

  “Is it?” she asked. Then she said, “No, you may not remove your shirt. And you may not, repeat not, remove your shorts. If you do, I shall holler rape. And as you’re in my cabin, and not I in yours, you’ll find yourself well in the cactus.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Precisely,” she said.

  For a while I smoked in silence, and she smoked in silence. I thought, You can look, but you can’t touch. I asked, “Aren’t you done on that side?”

  She said, “No.”

  We smoked in silence; this time, she broke it.

  “Why did you come to see me, Peter?”

  I said, “I thought you might be able to help.”

  “And why should I want to help you?”

  “Just enlightened self-interest,” I said. “You want Listowel, God knows why. I want Sandra back. If you get that stuffed shirt commander it’ll leave my everloving wife at loose ends—and I don’t think, somehow, that she’ll make a pass at either Doc Jenkins or poor old Claude.”

  “All right,” she said. “You help me, and I help you. If the old woman returns to her husband that leaves Ralph all on his ownsome. Then Martha and I can fight it out between us.”

  “This mutual aid . . .” I said.

  “It’s all rather complicated,” Peggy told me. She threw the end of her cigarette into the disposer. “It all hinges on the fact that Sandra puts the ship first. And I think—mind you, it’s not a certainty-that you can get yourself well into her good books. How would it be if you could say, ‘Look, darling, I’ve made you the captain of the first FTL ship in history’?”

  “This ship is not faster than light,” I said. “But the Mannschenn Drive ships are, and the Ehrenhaft drive wagons, what few there are left of them.”

  “Is that so?” she countered.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Oh.” She paused for a second or so, then said slowly, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Erikson drive, as it stands, will never be a commercial success. It takes far too long for a cargo, even a non-perishable cargo for which there’s no mad rush, to be carted from point A to point B. And there’s the problem of manning, too. As far as this ship was concerned, Auntie Susan was able to assemble a bunch of misfits with no close ties for the job, people who wouldn’t give a damn if the round voyage lasted a couple or three centuries—objective centuries, that is. Or even subjective. But it mightn’t be so easy to find another crew for another lightjammer. Agreed?”

  I said, “You drifted away from the script.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. Her face looked frightened.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing. It’s just that I seem to have heard you say almost the same words before.”

  She said, but doubtfully, “You’re space-happy, Peter.” Then she went on: “I’m new in space, relatively new compared to the rest of you, but I’ve read plenty. I’m no physicist, but I have a rough idea of the modus operandi of the various interstellar drives. And, so far, there’s been no faster-than-light drive.”

  “What!” I exclaimed, but somehow I didn’t feel as surprised as I should have.

  “No, there hasn’t. I’m right, Peter. The basic idea of the Ehrenhaft drive was that of a magnetic particle trying to be in two places at the same time in a magnetic field or current, the ship being the particle. But, as far as I can gather, space was warped so that she could do just that. I couldn’t follow the math, but I got the general drift of it. And then, of course, there’s the Mannschenn Drive—but, there, the apparent FTL speeds are achieved by tinkering with time . . .”

  “Hmm,” I grunted. “Hmm.”

  “Getting away from machinery,” she said, “and back to personalities, Sandra loves her ship. I’m sure that if she had to make a choice between Ralph and Aeriel it wouldn’t be Aeriel left in the lurch. Or if she had to make a choice between you and Aeriel . . . but what do you think she’d feel about the man who made her captain of the first real FTL starwagon?”

  I said, “You’d better see Doc when he comes off watch. He stocks quite a good line in sedative mixtures.”

  She said, “You’re turning down a good chance, perhaps your only chance, Peter.”

  “Damn it all,” I said, “even I, and I’m no physicist, can tell you that it’s quite impossible to exceed the speed of light. As you have already pointed out, we can cheat, but that’s all. And in this ship we can’t even cheat. We can no more outrun light than a windjammer could outrun the wind that was her motive power.” I started to point towards something that wasn’t there. “That’s our log. It works by Doppler effect. At the moment our speed is . . .”

  She looked at me hard, a puzzled expression on her face. “A log? Here? What the hell’s wrong with you, Peter?”

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  She said, “There’s something screwy about this ship. But definitely. Anyhow, let me finish what I was going to say. I maintain that we can give it a go—exceeding the speed of light, I mean.”

  “But it’s impossible,” I said.

  “How do you know?” she countered.

  “It’s common knowledge,” I sneered.

  “Way back in the Middle Ages,” she said, “it was common knowledge that the sun went round the Earth.”

  “Oh, all right,” I grunted. “But tell me, please, just how do you expect to attain FTL speeds?”

  “With an auxiliary rocket,” she said. “Just a stovepipe, sticking out from the stern end of the ship. I can make it—and you, with your access to the chemicals for the hydroponics tanks, can make the solid propellant, the black powder. We’re doing about Lume 0.9 recurring at the moment, all we need is a nudge . . .”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Peggy, Peggy, how naive can you be? And with homemade solid propellant yet!”

  “You can make it,” she said. “And it’s to your advantage.”

  I looked at her. During our heated discussion she had turned over. The dark glasses made her look so much more naked. I said, “I’m not sure that I’m really interested in getting Sandra back . . .”

  She flopped back again on her belly in a flurry of limbs.

  She said coldly, “Let’s not forget the purpose of this discussion. Frankly, it was my intention to bribe you with the body beautiful to play along with me on this FTL project, but it wouldn’t be right. You want Sandra back, and I want Ralph. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

  “But . . .” I extended a hand to one smooth buttock.

  “On your bicycle, spaceman,” she told me. “Hit the track. Make another pass, and I holler rape. After all, you’re in my cabin, I’m not in yours. Come and see me again when you’ve got two or three pounds of black powder made up. And if you can’t make it, then Martha and I will figure out some other way.”

  I asked, “She’s in on this?”

  “Of course,” said Peggy scornfully. “I hate the bitch, but she’s a good mate. I’d never be able to cut a hole in the stern for my auxiliary rocket unless she approved.”

  My hand had strayed back again and was stroking the silky skin on her back. I imagined that I heard her purring, like some great, sleek, lazy cat. And then, with shocking suddenness, she was off the bunk and bundling me towards the door.

  “Out,” she snarled. “Out. And don’t come back until you have that powder.”

  “But . . .”

  “Out!” she said with determined finality, and I was standing in the alleyway, staring resentfully at the panel that had slammed shut on her golden loveliness.

  I don’t know whether or not you have ever tried to make black powder, but I can tell you this: it’s easier talking about it than doing
it. You want flowers of sulfur, and you want charcoal (or carbon) and you want saltpeter. At first I made the mistake of trying to mix the ingredients dry, and all I got was a grayish dust that burned with a half-hearted fizzle. Then I substituted potassium chlorate for the sodium nitrate, and my sample went off prematurely and took my eyebrows with it. I came to the conclusion then that the powder would have to be properly mixed with water, and then dried out—using, of course, the recommended ingredients. And it worked out, even though I dried the sludge by exposure to vacuum instead of in the sun, as was done (I suppose) by the first cannoneers.

  Anyhow, it was as well that I had something to occupy my mind. It was obvious, far too obvious, what was going on between Listowel and Sandra. Peggy’s scheme was a harebrained one, but it might just get results. I had little doubt that it would get results—but what those results would be I could not imagine. Meanwhile, everybody in Aeriel continued to do his or her appointed duty, even though the ship was fast becoming a seething caldron of sexual jealousies.

  And then, one night (as reckoned by our chronometer) I had the last batch of gunpowder mixed and dried. There was a five-gallon can full of the stuff. I picked it up, let myself out of the galley and made my way to the officers’ flat. As I entered the alleyway I saw Doc Jenkins knocking on the door of Martha Wayne’s cabin. I wondered who was in control, and then wished that I hadn’t wondered. The control room would be well-manned, of course. There would be the captain, and there would be that blasted Survey Service commander, the pair of them looking at the stars and feeling romantic.

  “Ah,” said Jenkins, noticing me, “the commissioned cook. In person. Singing and dancing.”

  “Neither singing nor dancing,” I said grimly.

  “And what have you got in the can, Petey boy? You know that I have the monopoly on jungle juice.”

  “Nothing to drink,” I said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Something for Peggy.”

  “Something for Peggy,” he mimicked. “Something for Peggy . . .” He quoted:

  “When in danger or in fear,

  Always blame the engineer . . .”

  I tried to edge past him, but he put out his hand and grabbed my arm. In spite of his flabby appearance he was strong. And I was afraid to struggle; there was the possibility that the can of black powder might get a hard knock if I did. (I know that in theory it was quite safe, but I still didn’t trust the stuff.)

  “Not so fast,” he said. “Not so fast. There’s something going on aboard this ship, and as one of the executive officers, as well as the surgeon, it’s my duty to find out what it is.”

  The door of the chief officer’s cabin slid open. Martha stood there looking at us. “Come in,” she ordered sharply. “Both of you.”

  We obeyed. Martha shut the door behind us and motioned us to chairs. We sat down. With a certain relief I put the can of powder gently on the carpeted deck—and then, before I could stop him, Doc snatched it up. He shook it.

  He demanded, “What’s in this?”

  “Some powder,” I said lamely.

  “Powder?” He worried the lid off the container. “Powder? What sort of powder?”

  “Abrasive powder,” I lied. “Peggy gave me the formula and asked me to cook some up for her.”

  “Oh.” He put the can, lid still off, down beside his chair, away from me. He took a cigarette from the box on Martha’s desk, lit it, put it to his lips. He inhaled deeply, inhaled again. The burning end glowed brightly, the ash lengthened as we watched. He made as though to use the open can as an ash tray.

  Martha’s hand flashed out, smacked the cigarette from his fingers and sent it flying across the cabin in a flurry of sparks.

  Jenkins looked hurt. “What was that in aid of?”

  She said, “You were going to spoil the . . . mixture.”

  “How? If it’s abrasive powder, a little ash might improve it.”

  “Not this mixture,” she said.

  “No,” I supported her. “No. It wouldn’t.”

  “I’m not altogether a fool,” grumbled Jenkins.

  “No?” asked Martha sweetly. “No?” She extended a slender leg, and with her slim foot gently shoved the can out of harm’s way. “No?”

  “No!” he almost shouted. “I’ve lived on primitive worlds, Martha, planets where military science is in its infancy. And here’s Peter, lugging around a dirty great cannister of villainous saltpeter, and there’s Peggy, sweating and slaving over something that looks like a breech-loading cannon.” He snorted. “If it were a couple of dueling pieces it would make sense. Pistols for two and coffee for one. And then after the commissioned cook and the bold commander had settled their differences, you and Peggy could do battle, at twenty paces, for the favors of the survivor.

  “But a cannon . . . it doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” agreed Martha. She got up and went to a locker. I thought that she was going to offer us drinks. There were racked bottles there, and glasses. And there was a drawer under the liquor compartment, which she pulled open. She took from it a nasty-looking Minetti automatic.

  She said, “I’m sorry, Doc, but you know too much. We have to keep you quiet for the next few hours. And you, Peter, see about tying him up and gagging him, will you?” She motioned with the pistol. “Down, boy, down. I shan’t shoot to kill—but you wouldn’t like your kneecaps shattered, would you?”

  Jenkins subsided. He looked scared—and, at the same time, oddly amused. “But I don’t know too much,” he expostulated. “I don’t know enough.”

  Martha allowed a brief smile to flicker over her full mouth. She glanced at me fleetingly. “Shall we tell him, Peter?”

  I said, “It wouldn’t do any harm. Now.”

  Martha sat down again, the hand with the pistol resting on one slender thigh. It remained pointing directly at Jenkins. Her finger never strayed from the trigger.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll put you in the picture. As you are aware, there’s a considerable amount of ill-feeling aboard this vessel.”

  “How right you are!” exclaimed Jenkins.

  “We think that the captain is behaving in a manner prejudicial to good order and discipline.”

  He chuckled softly. “Mutiny, is it? In all my years in space I’ve never seen one. But why that absurd, archaic cannon? After all, you’ve access to the ship’s firearms.” He added, “As you’ve just proved, Martha.”

  “It’s not mutiny,” she snapped.

  “Have I another guess?”

  She told him, “You can guess all the way from here to Grollor, but you’ll never guess right.”

  “No?” He made as though to rise from his chair, but her gun hand twitched suggestively. “No? Then why not tell me and get it over with.”

  “If you must know,” she said tiredly, “it’s a way—it might work and it might not—to distract Sandra’s attention from Ralph. She’s more in love with her ship than with anybody in the ship but if Peter were to be able to say, ‘Look, darling, thanks to me you are now the captain of the first real FTL starwagon,’ she’d be eating out of his hand.”

  He stared at me in mock admiration. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Peter.”

  “He hasn’t,” said Sandra. “It was Peggy and I who cooked up the scheme. We don’t know if it will succeed or not—but something is bound to happen when Peggy’s solid fuel rocket gives the ship just that extra nudge.”

  “And all these years,” whispered Jenkins, “I’ve regarded you as just a stuffed shirt—mind you, a well-stuffed shirt—and Peggy as a barely literate mechanic. But there’s a streak of wild poetry in you, in both of you. Mind you, I don’t think that Listowel is worth the trouble. But throwing your bonnet over the windmill is always worthwhile. This crazy scheme appeals to me. I’m with it, Martha, and I’m with you. I’ve been dreaming about something on those lines myself, but not so practically as you have done . . .”

  His hand went to the side poc
ket of his shorts—and Martha’s hand, holding the pistol, lifted to cover him. But it was a folded sheet of paper that he pulled out.

  “Martha,” he pleaded, “put the Outer Reaches Suite on your playmaster, will you? Or get Peter to put it on, if you don’t trust me. And, if you would be so good, something to wet my whistle . . .”

  “Fix it, Peter,” ordered Martha.

  I fixed it, first of all pouring a stiff whiskey on the rocks for each of us, then adjusting the controls of the gleaming instrument. The first notes of the Suite drifted into the cabin. It wasn’t music that I have ever cared for. There was too much of loneliness in it, too much of the blackness and the emptiness—the emptiness that, somehow, was not empty, that was peopled with the dim, flimsy ghosts of the might-have-been.

  Jenkins drained his glass, then unfolded the piece of paper and blinked at it.

  “Down the years

  And the lightyears,

  Wings widespread

  To the silent gale . . .

  Wide wings beating

  The wall between

  Our reality and our reality

  And realities undreamed . . .

  And realities undreamed . . .

  Or dreamed?

  Down the years

  And the darkness—”

  He broke off abruptly, and Martha stiffened, her Minetti swinging to cover the open door. Peggy was there, demanding irritably, “Aren’t you people going to lend a hand? Do I do all the work in this bloody ship?” She saw Doc, muttered, “Sorry. Didn’t know you had company.”

  “We have company, Peggy,” corrected Martha.

  “You mean he . . .”

  “Yes. He knows.”

  “Yes, indeed,” agreed Doc happily. “And I’ll help you to beat your wings against the wall.”

  “What wall?” demanded Peggy disgustedly.

  It was odd that we now trusted Doc without any question. Or was it so odd? There were those half-memories, there was the haunting feeling that we had done all this before. Anyhow, we poured Peggy a drink, had another one ourselves, and then made our way aft. In the workshop we picked up the thing that Peggy had been making. It did look like a cannon, and not a small one either. It was fortunate that our acceleration was now extremely gentle, otherwise it would have been impossible for us to handle that heavy steel tube without rigging tackles.