F. L. Wallace

by Address Centauri

  Of course. It was very plain, but anxiety had prevented his seeing it. Fearfulness was often next door to stupidity. Whoever got there first controlled the situation even more than And realized. He began to suspect the depth of preparadon that was against them, the intense fury and careful planning they had to overcome. Mankind was capable of more hatred for its own kind than it ever expended against outsiders. Methodically Docchi began kicking open switches.

  "You're right, And," he said. "But I think there are ways to see that they don't get there first." He was lying blithely, perhaps as much because he didn't want to face what he foresaw. "If those don't work, and there's a chance they won't, we have an unexpected ally." "Who?"

  "Not who, what.Distance." It was a most preposterous untruth. "If we don't get there in time we'll let them have both of the Centauris. We'll go on to the next star."

  "You can. always think of some way out," said Anti as tiny lights began to flash on the panel. The flickering confusion there matched his emotions.

  "Jordan?" he said urgently when the latter appeared on the screen. And after that there was Webber and anyone else who knew something about electronics or could be taught with a minimum of instruction. They were willing to drive themselves to exhaustion but there was no substitute for technical superiority.

  "Now don't worry," said Anti after he'd finished summoning everyone who could help. "I have a feeling they can't stop us no matter what they do."

  "That so?" he said. "Which toe tells you that, or is it an ache in your bones? Think it will rain tomorrow?"

  "Don't laugh," said Anti, rising and leaving with him as he hurried out. "I have confidence in what we're able to do together."

  It was a good thing someone did.

  "Maureen's getting worse," said Jeriann. "I need more power." There was a tiny bead of sweat on her temple, the first Docchi had seen since ordinarily she didn't perspire.

  "How much worse? I'd like to see her."

  Jeriann made a final adjustment on the machine but didn't straighten up immediately as if it disturbed her to contemplate what went on in her own mind. She snapped the synthesizer on and turned around, brushing the hair away from her eyes. "Do you think your diagnosis is better than Cameron's?"

  "I wasn't doubting his ability."

  "You'll have to take our word for it. I can see her because I'm a woman and she hardly reacts to me. Cameron can visit her because she's been conditioned to accept him. Even so he has to take precautions. The hypnotics control only the surface of her mind."

  "What precautions?"

  "Sprays that plasticize his skin. By now her senses are far keener than ours. The doctor has a cosmetic technician recreate his face, something impersonal with which she had no association."

  "I'll take your word for it. I don't want to see her under those conditions. But you didn't answer my question: how much worse?"

  The smock was clearly a laboratory garment to protect the wearer from chemical irritation and the chemicals from human contamination. It was only incidental there was a certain light in which it was almost transparent. Jeriann became aware she was standing in such a light and swished the smock angrily around her and moved out of the illumination. "I can tell you this: neither Cameron nor I will be responsible for keeping her alive longer than three weeks, unless I get that power."

  "Is this what Cameron said?"

  "It's my own idea. I know more about this machine than he does. But you can ask him. He'll back me up."

  Docchi didn't doubt her but there was more to think of than the fate of one individual. "You're just guessing, aren't you? There's a chance, if you experiment wildly enough, you'll find the right compounds."

  "Please," said Jeriann. "It will only be for a few weeks. Less than that if it works the way I think it will."

  "What about the other deficients? They need biologicals too."

  "They can wait and Maureen can't."

  Reluctantly he gave consent. "Then you can have all the power you need, for the next few days anyway. After that we'll see."

  "You're a dear." Jeriann walked through the lab, inspecting it critically from every angle. "Of course I'll need help. Part of the trouble is that we can't get enough power to the machine, we're not using it to the full capacity. With larger power connections we'll be able to turn out stuff we haven't touched on before."

  He shook his head. "That wasn't in the bargain. You can have all the power the existing lines will take. But we can't spare men to install new lines. The technicians we have are busy elsewhere."

  "It's such a little thing," she coaxed. "The machine's not a sledge hammer that smashes molecules apart and then crushes them into a new chemical alignment. It's a keen instrument, an ultramicrosize knife that slits delicately here and there and then slides the separated atoms together to form a different molecule."

  "I'm not arguing about power," he said adamantly. "I said you can have it and you can. Trained men you can't. I'll see if I can spare them after what they're working on is finished."

  She, stopped as if she'd stumbled into a taut wire she hadn't noticed. She looked at him thoughtfully and strolled back to the synthesizer, under the light that shone down and provocatively through the smock. She wore other clothing but that too seemed almost to vanish. "For me, won't you? Just a few men for a few days. It means a lot to Maureen."

  "I can't let you have technicians now," he said obstinately.

  She glanced at him curiously, sauntering closer as if to get a better look. "I forgot. Cameron has Nona, hasn't he? They're going to get married as soon as he can figure out a simple ceremony. And now you hate women, don't you? That's why you won't give Maureen the same chance you'd give a man."

  He rocked back under the cold hatred. He had no idea she was capable of such venom. "You're reading into my emotions something that was never there. I'm glad Nona found someone she can respond to. But why are you so concerned with Maureen? You never liked, her."

  "What rationalization," she said bitterly. "It makes no difference what I thought about her. She's going to die if I don't help her, and I will. I'd expect the same from anyone else."

  "Jeriann," he said but she was gone, tearing the smock off and thrusting in on a hook, leaving him alone beside a machine that alternately hummed and purred in oily accents. He stared at it with complete lack of interest as the cycle changed. The synthesizer grunted with satisfied pride and three drops of a colorless fluid were discharged into a retort.

  If there was no other way they could save Maureen by contacting the expedition behind them. They had the supplies Jeri-ann was trying vainly to duplicate. But that was surrender and the only alternative was to go ahead as planned.

  Docchi left the laboratory, taking the long way around to avoid the doctor's office. Cameron wouldn't put the same pressure on him that Jeriann had—no one could. Why did she have to think he was responsible?

  13

  THE dimensions of the place were fear, panic and loneliness. It was no-time or all-time, the endless instant of survival—or less. It was light or it wasn't, the illumination of the closed mind, the intellect turned in on itself, perception curled backward while it reached for the outside world. It was a universe which neither existed nor would ever quite vanish.

  And there wasn't a sound. To the distorted senses, wavering and uncertain, sounds could be masculine. "Yes?" said Maureen poutingly. "Where are you now?" But she couldn't hear what she said. So she stopped speaking.

  It was forbidden.

  The bloodstream left her heart and had no path but to return deviously. It travelled darkly with many branches, pounding, flushed with oxygen from the lung machines. The .mind was turned inward. The body was turned inward. Life had no place to go. It was out of balance.

  Her feet touched the floor and she got out of bed. The flesh was heavy. The tube in her chest whistled with exertion. There was oxygen, too much of it, but there was no substitute for the regulative substances her body didn't have. She was falling apart, pu
lled apart by the wild dissimilar tendencies of all her cells.

  She kept on walking until she lunged against a wall. Her nose splayed to one side but her veins weren't ready to bleed. There was nothing to tell them to let out the red drops. She fell down and got up, walking on, banging against the wall.

  She could never find anyone she knew. After a while she realized the person she missed most was herself.

  Why was it light without being light and dark with no darkness? Her eyes had forgotten they were supposed to see. She sat down in the middle of the floor and began plucking at the hospital gown, pulling it apart thread by thread. Her mind said she didn't feel what she touched but she didn't believe everything. She practiced playing tricks on her thoughts. There were so many tricks to play and such few thoughts.

  She sat there, pretending to listen to something that nobody said. She waved her fingers languidly and closed her eyes with deep regret, lips curved for the kiss that wasn't given.

  Cameron came in and hurried out after one glimpse, calling for Jeriann. The deterioration was proceeding more rapidly than he expected. There were not three weeks left. It might be less than three days.

  Webber nodded and went on working, aware that Anti was watching the coordination of his dissimilar arms and legs. It didn't disturb the rhythm of his movements. Anti moved to the other side to get a better view of what he was doing and as she did so remembered what she'd come for.

  "So that's why I couldn't get a book. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing. We're tearing it down to move it."

  "Why move it? This is where the books are."

  He bent over the mechanism, disconnecting it. "I don't know. You'll have to ask Docchi."

  He knew but was too engrossed to stop. Jordan could tell her but he wasn't here. She wandered through the library but found no one who could or would give her information. What made it worse was, with the librarian tom apart, there wasn't a book available.

  She was curiously perturbed. She knew where she could find Docchi, at gravity center where he had taken over the quarters formerly occupied by Vogel. More and more the asteroid was beginning to resemble a ship and if there was a definite control area it was located in gravity center.

  The first thing she saw when she entered the low structure —most of the gravity installation was underground—was the scanner. It had changed; the last trace of the makeshift origin had disappeared. It was metal encased and dials and switches replaced connections formerly made by hand. These alterations were Nona's but bringing it here was Docchi's idea. Anti frowned contemplatively; it wasn't far in straight distances from where Nona had originally constructed it, but the labor involved in carrying it through miles of tunnels and then overland to where it was now standing—that was considerable effort. It didn't square with what Jeriann had told her.

  She found Docchi a few stories below the entrance level, somewhere near the actual gravity computers. He looked up and then wriggled his head out of the harness. "Have you come to help, Anti?"

  "Nope. I've got a complaint."

  Hi6 smile wasn't appreciative. "The headquarters for that are in the other division."

  She ignored the reference to Jeriann. "I'd help if I could but I'm ignorant. And you're keeping me from learning."

  "The library?"

  "Of course. I can't get a single book."

  He looked at the design he'd been working on and then reluctantly stepped out of the machine which enabled him to put his ideas on paper.

  "Don't stop drawing because of me," said Anti.

  "It was nearly done. Jordan can carry on from there." He sat down while Anti remained standing, balancing an imaginary basket of fruit on her head. The years in the tank had ruined her posture.

  "I'm sorry we had to take the librarian but you can still get books. I've figured out a formula."

  "First I have to be a mathematician and then I've got to crawl back in the stacks? There must be places no one can get to, especially tapes and music."

  "That's the way it is. We'll have to go over the whole setup, relocate the stacks and train human librarians."

  "Seems like a waste when what we had was working perfectly."

  "We had to do it if we want to get to Centauri before they do." He jerked his head to indicate out there.

  "But what good is it? The librarian is just a--------------- " She closed

  her mouth.

  "Just a memory system? That's what we need to duplicate the drive they have. Of course the librarian remembers the wrong thing but we're changing that."

  "Can't we do it in some other way?"

  "Not in time with the facilities we have. Maybe Nona could but the rest of us are just humans." "Well, what's wrong with her?"

  "Nothing. If you can get her interested in building a control unit I'll step aside."

  "Why build it? She is the control."

  "Now she is, but there are a number of reasons why a mechanical control is better. For one thing we don't know how '"much of her attention it requires. The drive may not function at all when she isn't consciously thinking about it."

  "But the gravity never stops."

  "True, but does it apply to acceleration? We can't measure that."

  "You're working on a lot of suppositions—it may do this—it may not do that."

  "We don't have to guess at one thing, Anti. The expedition is gaining on us. And they are using a mechanical control."

  Anti looked over at the drawing Docchi had made. A bunch of squiggles. "You know more about it than I do. If it's your opinion that this is what we should have, then we ought to. To me it seems that another kind of control won't make much difference."

  "Review what we have. A nuclear pile that supplies all the power, a set of gravity coils, and three computers. One computer figures the gravity for the asteroid. Another calculates the propulsive force. The third, we think, actuates the scanner. Nona may rotate the duties among the computers and the unit we're building will do the same.

  "But this is what we can do that Nona doesn't: we'll cut everything to a minimum except the drive. Gravity, light, heat, all the personal conveniences will be cut to the least we can stand."

  Anti rose a few inches and thought herself back to the floor.

  "This is what you'll do if it works the way you imagine."

  "It will, Anti." Docchi's face was set. "Nona's too considerate. As long as she has it she won't impose the sacrifices we're glad to make ourselves. We're taking it out of her hands."

  If they needed somebody to make hard decisions, Docchi was the man. It was a crusade with him and he was willing to drive everyone the same as himself. Anti looked at his face and decided against the question she'd come to ask. "Sounds grim, but you're right. We're willing if there's a chance we'll get there first. What can I do to help?"

  "Reorganize the library. Get assistants to reach in the places too small for you. Collect the medical texts first.. Cameron may need them."

  "A thankless job," muttered Anti. "I started out to read a book."

  Docchi smiled. "I thought you had enough of sedentary life."

  "I have, but not enough of books. Picture and music tapes were easy to get in the tank but they didn't make acid proof books. Limited demand, I suppose."

  "Here's the formula I've worked out. Books are selected according to subject and author, filed according to size and date received." He went over the procedure until she had it straight.

  "I guess I can do it," she said dubiously. "But why not start at one end and go through to the other side of the stacks?"

  "You've got to segregate the medical references first."

  Belated compensation because he had refused Jeriann? Perhaps, but he was not that simple. If anything it was just recognition of what came first in importance. "A tedious job," she grumbled as she started to leave.

  "It is. But, except for what we are as persons and what we create in the future, it's the total of our human heritage. It's the last we'll get."

 
; "Sometimes I believe----------- " said Anti. "Oh, never mind what a

  huge old woman thinks." She went out the door and when she came back seconds later Docchi was again drawing.

  "Yes, Anti?"

  "You can start cutting down on me. I won't mind."

  "When it's necessary I'll take you up on it. I don't think it will be. It doesn't take much power to run the computers and they're always functioning anyway. And when we drop to quarter gravity, which is the minimum we'll go, you won't actually need your gadget. You see, you're not holding us back."

  "Just the same if it will help I'll stay in the tank."

  His face glittered and his eyes strayed back to the work. "If it's necessary I'll ask you," he repeated.

  Anti left again, secure in the knowledge that he would do as he said. In his own way Docchi was as ruthless as Judd. But the purpose was different and therefore the comparison not accurate. Strength was not easy to define.

  The librarian resembled an angular metallic squid spread out to dry on the floor. Docchi picked his way through the wiry tentacles, scrutinizing the work of the crew. He squatted near Webber, watching him splice and adjust the components, briefly giving advice and then moving on to the next man. The librarian was dormant but to Docchi's practiced eye it was nearly ready to be recalled the semi-life of a memory machine.

  Jordan came swinging in. Docchi heard him and turned. He knew who it was by the sound but seemed disappointed to find his judgment confirmed. "The star chart drum is finished," said Jordan, pausing at the tangle of wires. "Most of the observed data on the neighboring stars is included. Of course all the locations are figured from earth."

  "It's all right. The computers won't mind making the conversions." With his foot Docchi nudged a tool toward him that Webber was reaching for. "What about the crossover relays?"

  "Done too, waiting to be tied in. Guaranteed to switch from one computer to the other before even they realize what's happening."

  "Good. The next thing is the impulse recognition hunter. Last night I thought of a way to make the selection tighter. Here, I'll show you." Docchi went to a diagram strewn desk and waited while Jordan pawed through the sheets for him. "There it is," he said when Jordan uncovered it.