(1/15) The Golden Age of Science Fiction: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  A few weeks after the turnover, Adams seemed to have more time. At least, he devoted more time to the expectant mothers, even to the point of supervising Deston and Jones in the construction of a weirdly-wired device by means of which he studied and photographed the unborn child each woman bore. He said nothing, however, until Barbara made him talk.

  "Listen, you egregious clam," she said, firmly, "I know darn well I've been pregnant for at least seven months, and I ought to be twice this big. Our clock isn't that far off; Carl said that by wave lengths or something it's only about three per cent fast. And you've been pussyfooting and hem-hawing around all this time. Now, Uncle Andy, I want the truth. Are we in for a lot of trouble?"

  "Trouble? Of course not. Certainly not. No trouble at all, my dear. Why, you've seen the pictures--here, look at them again ... see? Absolutely normal fetus--yours, too, Bernice. Perfect! No malformations of any kind."

  "Yes, but for what age?" Bernice asked, pointedly. "Four months, say? I see, I was exposed to a course in embryology myself, once."

  "But that's the interesting part of it!" Adams enthused. "Fascinating! And, indubitably, supremely important. In fact, it may point out the key datum underlying the solution of our entire problem. If this zeta field is causing this seemingly peculiar biological effect, that gives us a tremendously powerful new tool, for certain time vectors in the generalized matrix become parameters. Thus, certain determinants, notably the all-important delta-prime-sub-mu, become manipulable by ... but you aren't listening!"

  "I'm listening, pops, but nothing is coming through. But thanks much, anyway. I feel a lot better, knowing I'm not going to give birth to a monster. Or are you sure, really?"

  "Of course I'm sure!" Adams snapped, testily, and Barbara led Deston aside.

  "Have you got the slightest idea of what he was talking about?" she asked.

  "Just the slightest, if any. Either that time is relative--no, that's so elementary he wouldn't mention it. Maybe he's figured out a variable time of some kind or other. Anyway, you girls' slowness in producing has given the old boy a big lift, and I'm mighty glad of it."

  "But aren't you worried, sweetheart? Not even the least little bit?"

  "Of course not," and Deston very evidently meant just that.

  "I am. I can't help but be. Why aren't you?"

  "Because Doc isn't, and he knows his stuff, believe me. He can't lie any better than a three-year-old, and he's sure that all four of you are just as safe as though you were in God's lefthand hip pocket."

  "Oh--that's right. I never thought of it that way. So I don't have anything to worry about, do I?" She lifted her lips to be kissed; and the kiss was long and sweet.

  * * * * *

  Time flew past until, one day a couple of weeks short of arrival, Adams rushed up to Deston and Jones. "I have it!" he shouted, and began to spout a torrent of higher--very much higher--mathematics.

  "Hold it, Doc!" Deston held up an expostulatory hand. "I read you zero and ten. Can't you delouse your signal? Whittle the stuff down to our size?"

  "W-e-l-l-," the scientist looked hurt, but did consent to forego the high math. "The discharge is catastrophic; in energy equivalent something of the order of magnitude of ten thousand discharges of lightning. And, unfortunately, I do not know what it is. It is virtually certain, however, that we will be able to dissipate it in successive decrements by the use of long, thin leads extending downward toward a high point of the planet."

  "Wire, you mean? What kind?"

  "The material is not important except in that it should have sufficient tensile strength to support as many miles as possible of its own length."

  "We've got dozens of coils of hook-up wire," Deston said, "but not too many miles and it's soft stuff."

  "Graham wire!" Jones snapped his finger.

  "Of course," Deston agreed. "Hundreds of miles of it. Float the senser down on a Hotchkiss----"

  "Tear-out." Jones objected.

  "Bailey it--spidered out to twenty or so big, flat feet. That'll take metal, but we can cannibal the whole Middle without weakening the structure."

  "Sure ... surges--backlash. Remote it."

  "Check. Remote everything to Baby Two, and----"

  "Would you mind delousing your signal?" Adams asked, caustically.

  "'Scuse, please, Doc. A guy does talk better in his own lingo, doesn't he? Well, Graham wire is one-point-three-millimeter-diameter, ultra-high-tensile steel wire. Used for re-wrapping the Grahams, you know."

  "No, I don't know. What are Grahams?"

  "Why, they're the intermediates between the Chaytors ... O. K., O. K., they're something like bottles, that have to stand terrifically high pressures."

  "That's what I want to know. Such wire will do very nicely. Note now that our bodies must be grounded very thoroughly to the metal of the ship."

  "You're so right. We'll wrap the girls in silver-mesh underwear up to the eyeballs, and run leads as big as my wrist to the frame."

  * * * * *

  The approach was made, and the fourth planet out from that strange sun was selected as a ground. That planet was not at all like Earth. It had very little water, very little atmosphere, and very little vegetation. It was twice as massive as Earth; its surface was rugged and jagged; one of its stupendous mountain ranges had sharp peaks more than forty thousand feet high.

  "There's one thing more we must do," Adams said. "I have barely begun to study this zeta field, and this one may very well be unique--irreplaceable. We must, therefore, launch all the lifecraft--except Number Two, of course--into separate orbits around this sun, so that a properly-staffed and properly-equipped expedition can study it."

  "Your proper expedition might get its pants burned off, too."

  "There is always that possibility; but I will insist on being assigned to the project. This information, young man, is necessary."

  "O. K., Doc," and it was done; and in a few days the Procyon hung motionless, a good five hundred miles high, directly above the highest, sharpest mountain peak they had been able to find.

  The Bailey boom, with its spider-web-like network of grounding cables and with a large pulley at its end, extended two hundred feet straight out from the side of the ship. A twenty-five-mile coil of Graham wire was mounted on the remote-controlled Hotchkiss reel. The end of the wire was run out over the pulley; a fifteen-pound weight, to act both as a "senser" and to keep the wire from fouling, was attached; and a few hundred feet of wire were run out.

  Then, in Lifecraft Two--as far away from the "business district" as they could get--the human bodies were grounded and Deston started the reel. The wire ran out--and ran--and ran--and ran. The full twenty-five miles were paid out, and still nothing happened. Then, very slowly, Deston let the big ship move straight downward. Until, finally, it happened.

  There was a blast beside which the most terrific flash of lightning ever seen on Earth would have seemed like a firecracker. In what was almost a vacuum though she was, the whole immense mass of the Procyon was hurled upward like the cork out of a champagne bottle. And as for what it felt like--since the five who experienced it could never describe it, even to each other, it is obviously indescribable by or to anyone else. As Bernice said long afterward, when she was being pressed by a newsman: "Just tell 'em it was the living end," and that is as good a description as any.

  The girls were unwrapped from their silver-mesh cocoons and, after a minute or so of semihysterics, were as good as new. Then Deston stared into the 'scope and gulped. Without saying a word he waved a hand and the others looked. It seemed as though the entire tip of the mountain was gone; had become a seething, flaming volcano on a world that had known no volcanism[3] for hundreds of thousands of years.

  "And what," said Deston finally, "do you suppose happened to the other side of the ship?"

  The boom, of course, was gone. So were all twenty of the grounding cables which, each the size of a man's arm, had fanned out in all directions to anchorages welded solidly to the v
essel's skin and frame. The anchorages, too, were gone; and tons upon tons of high-alloy steel plating and structural members for many feet around where each anchorage had been. Steel had run like water; had been blown away in gusts of vapor.

  "Shall I try the radio now, Doc?" Deston asked.

  "By no means. This first blast would, of course, be the worst, but there will be several more, of decreasing violence."

  * * * * *

  There were. The second, while it volatilized the boom and its grounding network, merely fused portions of the anchorages. The third took only the boom itself; the fourth took only the dangling miles of wire. At the sixth trial nothing--apparently--happened; whereupon the wire was drawn in and a two-hundred-pound mass of steel was lowered until it was in firm and quiescent contact with the solid rock of the planet.

  "Now you may try your radio," Adams said.

  Deston flipped a switch and spoke, quietly but clearly, into a microphone. "Procyon One to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio Test Ninety-Five--I think. How do you read me, Control Six?"

  The reply was highly unorthodox. It was a wild yell, followed by words not directed at Deston at all. "Captain Reamer! Captain French! Captain Holloway! ANYBODY! It's the Procyon! The PROCYON, that was lost a year ago! Unless some fool is playing a dumb joke."

  "It's no joke--I hope." Another voice, crisp and authoritative, came in; growing louder as its source approached the distant pickup. "Or somebody will rot in jail for a hundred years."

  "Procyon One to Control Six," Deston said again. His voice was not quite steady this time; both girls were crying openly and joyfully. "How do you read me, Frenchy old horse?"

  "It is Procyon One--the Runt himself--Hi, Babe!" the new voice roared, then quieted to normal volume. "I read you eight and one. Survivors?"

  "Five. Second Officer Jones, our wives, and Dr. Andrew Adams, a Fellow of the College of Advanced Study. He's solely responsible for our being here, so----"

  "Skip that for now. In a lifecraft? No, after this long, it must be the ship. Not navigable, of course?"

  "Not in subspace, and only so-so in normal. The Chaytors are O. K., but the whole Top is spun out and the rest of her won't hold air--air, hell! She won't hold shipping crates! All the Wesleys are shot, and all the Q-converters. Half the Grahams are leaking like sieves, and----"

  "Skip that, too. Just a sec--I'll cut in the downstairs recorder. Now start in at your last check and tell us what's happened since."

  "It's a long story."

  "Unwind it, Runt, I don't give a damn how long it is. Not a full-detailed report, just hit the high spots--but don't leave out anything really important."

  "Wow!" Jones remarked, audibly. "Wottaman Frenchy! Like the ex-urbanite said to the gardener: 'I don't want you to work hard--just take big shovelfulls and lots of 'em per minute'."

  "That's enough out of you, Herc my boy. You'll be next. Go ahead, Babe."

  Deston went ahead, and spoke almost steadily for thirty minutes. He did not mention the gangsters; nor any personal matters. Otherwise, his report was accurate and complete. He had no idea that everything he said was going out on an Earth-wide hookup; or that many other planets, monitoring constantly all subspace channels, were hooking on. When he was finally released Captain French said, with a chuckle:

  "Off the air for a minute. You've no idea what an uproar this has stirred up already. They let them have all your stuff, but we aren't putting out a thing until some Brass gets out there and gets the real story----"

  "That is the real story, damn it!"

  "Oh, sure, and a very nice job, too, for an extemporaneous effort--if it was. Semantics says, though, that in a couple of spots it smells like slightly rancid cheese, and ... no-no, keep still! Too many planets listening in--verbum sap. Anyway, THE PRESS smells something, too, and they're screaming their lungs out, especially the sob-sisters. Now, Herc, on the air, you're orbiting the fourth planet of a sun. What sun? Where?"

  "I don't know. Unlisted. We're in completely unexplored territory. Standard reference angles are as follows"--and Jones read off a long list of observations, not only of the brightest stars of the galaxy, but also of the standard reference points, such as S-Doradus, lying outside it. "When you get that stuff all plotted, you'll find a hell of a big confusion; but I hope there aren't enough stars in it but what you can find us sometime."

  "Off the air--for good, I hope. Don't make me laugh, Buster, Your probable center will spear it. If there's ever more than one star in any confusion you set up, I'll eat all the extras. But there's a dozen Big Brains here, gnawing their nails off up to the wrist to talk to Adams all the rest of the night, so put him on and let's get back to sleep, huh? They're cutting this mike now."

  "Just a minute!" Deston snapped. "What's your time?"

  "Three, fourteen, thirty-seven. So go back to bed, you night-prowling owl."

  "Of what day, month, and year?" Deston insisted.

  "Friday, Sep----" French's voice was replaced by a much older one; very evidently that of a Fellow of the College.

  After listening for a moment to the newcomer and Adams, Barbara took Deston by the arm and led him away. "Just a little bit of that gibberish is a bountiful sufficiency, husband mine. So I think we'd better take Captain French's advice, don't you?"

  * * * * *

  Since there was only one star in Jones' "Confusion" (by the book, "Volume of Uncertainty") finding the Procyon was no problem at all. High Brass came in quantity and the entire story--except for one bit of biology--was told. Two huge subspace-going machine shops also came, and a thousand mechanics, who worked on the crippled liner for almost three weeks.

  Then the Procyon started back for Earth under her own subspace drive, under the command of Captain Theodore Jones. His first, last, and only subspace command, of course, since he was now a married man. Deston had wanted to resign while still a First Officer, but his superiors would not accept his resignation until his promotion "for outstanding services" came through. Thus, Ex-Captain Carlyle Deston and his wife were dead-heading, not quite back to Earth, but to the transfer-point for the planet Newmars.

  "Theodore Warner Deston is going to be born on Newmars, where he should be," Barbara had said, and Deston had agreed.

  "But suppose she's Theodora?" Bernice had twitted her.

  "Uh-uh," Barbara had said, calmly. "I just know he's Theodore."

  "Uh-huh, I know." Bernice had nodded her spectacular head. "And we wanted a girl, so she is. Barbara Bernice Jones, her name is. A living doll."

  Although both pregnancies were well advanced, neither was very near full term. Thus it was clear that both periods of gestation were going to be well over a year in length; but none of the five persons who knew it so much as mentioned the fact. To Adams it was only one tiny datum in an incredibly huge and complex mathematical structure. The parents did not want to be pilloried as crackpots, as publicity-seeking liars, or as being unable to count; and they knew that nobody would believe them if they told the truth; even--or especially?--no medical doctor. The more any doctor knew about gynecology and obstetrics, in fact, the less he would believe any such story as theirs.

  Of what use is it to pit such puny and trivial things as facts against rock-ribbed, iron-bound, entrenched AUTHORITY?

  The five, however, knew; and Deston and Jones had several long and highly unsatisfactory discussions; at first with Adams, and later between themselves. At the end of the last such discussion, a couple of hours out from the transfer point, Jones lit a cigarette savagely and rasped:

  "Wherever you start or whatever your angle of approach, he always boils it down to this: 'Subjective time is measured by the number of learning events experienced.' I ask you, Babe, what does that mean? If anything?"

  "It sounds like it ought to mean something, but I'll be damned if I know what." Deston gazed thoughtfully at the incandescent tip of his friend's cigarette. "However, if it makes the old boy happy and gives the College a toehold on subspace, what do
we care?"

  * * *

  Contents

  THE ALIENS

  by Murray Leinster

  The human race was expanding through the galaxy ... and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet ... war is inevitable. Or is it ...?

  At 04 hours 10 minutes, ship time, the Niccola was well inside the Theta Gisol solar system. She had previously secured excellent evidence that this was not the home of the Plumie civilization. There was no tuned radiation. There was no evidence of interplanetary travel--rockets would be more than obvious, and a magnetronic drive had a highly characteristic radiation-pattern--so the real purpose of the Niccola's voyage would not be accomplished here. She wouldn't find out where Plumies came from.

  There might, though, be one or more of those singular, conical, hollow-topped cairns sheltering silicon-bronze plates, which constituted the evidence that Plumies existed. The Niccola went sunward toward the inner planets to see. Such cairns had been found on conspicuous landmarks on oxygen-type planets over a range of some twelve hundred light-years. By the vegetation about them, some were a century old. On the same evidence, others had been erected only months or weeks or even days before a human Space Survey ship arrived to discover them. And the situation was unpromising. It wasn't likely that the galaxy was big enough to hold two races of rational beings capable of space travel. Back on ancient Earth, a planet had been too small to hold two races with tools and fire. Historically, that problem was settled when Homo sapiens exterminated Homo neanderthalis. It appeared that the same situation had arisen in space. There were humans, and there were Plumies. Both had interstellar ships. To humans, the fact was alarming. The need for knowledge, and the danger that Plumies might know more first, and thereby be able to exterminate humanity, was appalling.

  Therefore the Niccola. She drove on sunward. She had left one frozen outer planet far behind. She had crossed the orbits of three others. The last of these was a gas giant with innumerable moonlets revolving about it. It was now some thirty millions of miles back and twenty to one side. The sun, ahead, flared and flamed in emptiness against that expanse of tinted stars.