Between the Strokes of Night

by Charles Sheffield

  “But Wilmer did that, not me.”

  “Maybe. But Wilmer isn’t here, and you are. So you’re getting it.” “And he’s allowed to keep my friends unconscious?”

  “He’s the captain. He is in control until we reach Headquarters. Then he’ll have to explain his actions, but he’ll have no trouble doing that — he’s following regulations. And honestly, he’s not harming your friends at all. Now, I have to go. We can talk a little more if you like at the next meal period. Command: Take me to the forward exercise facility.”

  And she was gone.

  Peron found that he could get as far as the door of the suspense room, but it refused to open for him. And he could issue as many commands as he chose, in any tone of voice, for anything he liked, but they were all ignored.

  When he left his room and went off along the right-hand corridor, affairs were even less satisfactory. The left corridor led him to the upper part of the ship, in terms of the effective gravity. The right corridor should then have taken him to the lower part, and it certainly started out that way. But no matter which branch he followed, when he had progressed a certain distance there would be a dizzying flicker — and he would be back in his room, sitting at the desk. Some whole section of the ship, of indeterminate size, was inaccessible to him. After a dozen fruitless attempts, Peron lay on the bed in his room, thinking hard. It was twelve hours since his meeting with Rinker, but he didn’t feel at all tired. Olivia Ferranti had told him to expect little need for sleep. “One fringe benefit of S-space,” she had said. “You’ll find you sleep maybe one hour in twenty.”

  He continued to feel physically peculiar, but she had been right on that, too. After a while he simply adjusted to it. He still had the impression that he was moving his body in a world where the laws of mechanics had been slightly modified, but it was a feeling that faded.

  “Do you want to join us for dinner?” The voice came suddenly from the terminal next to his bed. It was Garao, another of the ship’s company that he had encountered in his travels around the forward section.

  “I don’t think so.” Then he sat up quickly. “No, wait a minute. Yes, I do. I’ll come over.” He didn’t feel hungry — except for more information. And the only way to get that seemed to be from other people. Direct exploration of the ship had been totally unrewarding.

  “No need for that,” said Garao. “Hold tight.”

  There was the now-familiar moment of disorientation. He found he was sitting in the dining area with three others. Captain Rinker was not present. As Ferranti had told him, the captain much preferred his own company and often dined alone. Everyone seemed to take it for granted that Peron would now eat and drink the same things as the rest of them. When he arrived there were already five or six different dishes on the table — all of them unfamiliar. He found something that looked like a fish fillet, but clearly wasn’t. And there were several pseudo-meat products, each flanked by some kind of vegetable. Nothing tasted quite the way he expected — and all the food was cold.

  The others seemed surprised when he mentioned that. Ferranti looked at Garao and at the linguist, Atiyah, then shrugged.

  “I should have mentioned that to you before. You won’t get hot food in S-space. Better become used to it cold.”

  “But why?”

  “Wait until we get to HQ, and ask there.” Ferranti was clearly uncomfortable with her non-answer. She was sitting next to Peron, so he was faced only with her profile. But her voice showed her discomfort. “I would tell you, but it’s against captain’s orders. If you like hot food, I can make what we’re eating more acceptable. It’s easy enough to order spices. Command: Bring more of these dishes for Peron Turca, but with added hot spice.”

  There was a delay of about fifteen seconds, then additional dishes appeared on the table in front of Peron. He was preparing to help himself to them, when he noticed the expression on Garao and Atiyah’s faces, across the table from him. “What’s wrong? Isn’t it all right for me to eat these?”

  “That’s not the problem.” Garao picked up an empty plate. “Command: Take this away.”

  Again there was a delay of a few seconds, then the plate suddenly vanished. “See?” Garao looked gleeful. “It’s the same trouble we had on the trip out from Headquarters. Seems even worse.”

  “It is,” said Ferranti. “This time it took twice as long.”

  “What took twice as long?” Peron felt as though they were speaking in riddles just to confuse him.

  “Service,” said Atiyah. He was a man of few words. “It should be instantaneous. Let’s time the delay. Command: Bring me a glass of water.”

  They sat in silence, until after about ten seconds a filled glass of clear liquid appeared in front of Atiyah.

  Garao nodded. “We’d better notify Rinker at once. He’ll have to leave S-space to correct this. Serves the stiff-necked bastard right — him and his ‘perfectly run ship.’ “

  “And won’t that make him pleased,” said Ferranti. “Already he’s complaining what a disaster this trip has been.”

  “Leave S-space? But where will he go?”

  The others looked at Peron for a moment. “Sorry,” said Garao sympathetically. “But this is captain’s orders again. We can’t include you on this. Command: Take Peron back to his room.”

  “Wait a minute.” Peron was frantic. “Look, to hell with captain’s orders. If something is wrong I have a right to know it, too. I’m on the ship as well as you. I want to stay here and find out what’s happening.”

  But the last sentence was wasted. Peron added a string of curses to it. The service delay might worry the others, but it was still too short. He was back in his room again, talking to the empty walls.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Peron allowed himself only a few seconds of cursing. Then he ripped off his shoes and ran at top speed along the corridor that led to the upper part of the ship. The monitors would still show his movements, that seemed certain. But now there was an emergency on board, so who would be watching? There would never be a better chance to explore areas that were normally forbidden.

  His earlier careful study of the ship’s internal layout had not been wasted. He ran fast and silently toward Rinker’s living quarters, sure of every corridor. At the branch before Rinker’s door he paused and peered around the corner. Was he in time? If Rinker had already left, there would be no way to know where he had gone.

  He heard the door slide open and ducked back, then retreated to the next bend in the corridor. No footsteps. Rinker must be heading in the other direction. He ran lightly back and stole another look along the corridor, just in time to see the disappearing back of Rinker’s blue jacket and shiny bald head. He was heading over to the left, angling away from the dining room.

  Peron tried to visualize the geometry. What lay in that direction? All that he could remember was two great storage chambers, each filled with some kind of pellets, and more living quarters. The suspense room lay out at the very end of the same corridor.

  Rinker was heading steadily on, hunched over and not looking back. Past the storage areas, past the living areas — what could he possibly want in the suspense room?

  Had Peron forgotten some branch in the corridor? He knew he could not ignore the possibility. He took a bigger chance and closed the distance that separated them. He was close enough to hear Rinker’s heavy breathing, and to smell the unpleasant musky talc that he used as body powder.

  Peron’s nose wrinkled. No wonder the man usually made his trips alone! He hesitated at the door of the suspense room. Rinker had gone inside, but there was no way to follow him in and remain unnoticed.

  There was a creaking sound from within. Peron ducked his head briefly into the doorway. Rinker had opened one of the great, gleaming sarcophagi — and now he was climbing inside and closing the door.

  As soon as the front panel was completely closed Peron sneaked forward into the room. But instead of going to Rinker’s chest he went to one farther along the
line. He looked in through the transparent top. Lum lay there, white and corpselike. Peron tried to ignore the massive, still form and looked instead at the walls of the container.

  Strange. Although he had not noticed it on his first visit with Captain Rinker, the box seemed to have a complete set of controls inside, as well as outside — as though those imprisoned frozen figures might waken, and wish to control the apparatus from within. And here was something else, just as odd. At the far end of the container, leading only into the blank wall behind it, was another door, the same size as the one at this end.

  A couple of minutes had passed since Rinker had gone inside and closed the door. Peron stepped quietly across to stand beside that box. He placed his ear close to it. There was a hissing of gases, and the dull thump of a pump. Peron risked a quick look in through the top. Rinker was lying there, eyes closed. He looked quite relaxed and normal, but a network of silvery filaments had appeared from the walls of the container and attached themselves to various parts of his body. Fine sprays of white fluid were drifting down from tiny nozzles to dampen his skin. Peron touched the surface of the container, expecting the icy cold he had felt at Lum’s casket. He jumped and pulled his hand away sharply. The surface was hot and tingling, as though it was sending an electric current through him. For a couple of minutes the situation did not change. Then the spray turned off. The nozzles were drawn back into the side of the container and the silver filaments loosened and withdrew. Peron watched and waited. Ten seconds later Rinker’s body seemed to tremble for a moment.

  And then the container was empty. In a fraction of a second, before Peron could even blink, Rinker had vanished completely.

  Peron was tempted to open the door of the container. Instead, he went to an empty one that stood near to it, and opened that. The internal controls appeared quite simple. There was a three-way dial, a timer with units in days, hours, and hundredths of hours, and a manual switch. The switch setting showed only an N, an S, and a C. The C position was in red, and below it stood a written notice: WARNING: DO NOT USE SETTING FOR COLD © WITHOUT SETTING TIMING SWITCH OR WITHOUT ASSISTANCE OF AN EXTERNAL OPERATOR.

  Peron was thinking of climbing inside to take a closer look when he heard a warning creak from the other container. The door was being opened again. He forced himself to move carefully and quietly as he closed his casket. Too late to leave the room — the door was swinging open. Fortunately it came toward him, so that he was hidden temporarily behind it. He moved silently to the shelter of the next box and ducked down behind it.

  Rinker had returned. He was slowly heading out of the room, looking neither to right nor left. Peron caught one glimpse or his half-profile, and saw sunken, bloodshot eyes and a pallid complexion. He followed at a discreet distance. The other man walked drunkenly, as though totally exhausted and giddy with fatigue. Instead of continuing to his quarters he went into the dining-room area. Garao, Ferranti, and Atiyah were still there, talking.

  And they were still eating dinner. That seemed peculiar, until Peron realized it had been only a few minutes since Garao’s verbal command had whipped him unwillingly back to his room.

  “All fixed,” said Captain Rinker harshly. “There’s a defective component in the command translation device. We don’t have replacements on board, so I’ve jury-rigged it for the trip.”

  “Will it last, or will it fail again?” That was Olivia Ferranti’s voice. “It will fail again eventually. Not for a while, I hope.” Rinker gave a great yawn. “That was almost too much for me. It took a long time. I was there nearly five minutes, with no rest. I must go and sleep now.”

  There was a murmur of semi-sympathetic voices. “Let’s hope it doesn’t go again during the trip,” said Garao — though his tone didn’t support his words. “It won’t,” said Rinker. “I don’t expect any more trouble on this trip.” Peron thought of those words as he tiptoed away along the corridor. Rinker’s actions and comments were revealing, and Peron had some faint inkling now as to what was going on.

  If he were right, Rinker had more trouble coming than he imagined. * * *

  As soon as he was out of earshot of the dining area, Peron began to run again at top speed. The emergency was over — and that meant his movements would be watched again. Would there be monitors, even within the caskets?

  He reached the suspense room and went at once to the same casket that Rinker had occupied. The door opened with the same creak, and he climbed inside and lay down. All the controls were within easy reach. He could stretch up his hand and set them with a simple push of a button. The choice was already fixed. He didn’t want S, since he was already in S-space; and he didn’t want C, since that was the cold sleep of Elissa and the others. It had to be N — but what did N mean? Peron had been moving at top speed, but now he hesitated. Suppose the process that took Rinker out of S-space called for other knowledge that Peron lacked? It was clear that the others on the ship had extra powers, since service commands from Peron were ignored. What if the use of this device required those same powers?

  Time was passing. At any moment the familiar dizziness might occur, and he would find that he was once more in his room. But still his finger stayed lightly on the button. When he had been absolutely certain of unavoidable death on Whirlygig he had been able to face it staunchly, with a complete calm. This was different. Whatever Rinker and the others might do to him, he did not believe that they would kill him. But he could die now by his own hand. His next action might prove to be suicide.

  Peron took a last look around at the casket walls. Now, or never. He drew a long, deep breath, closed his eyes, and pressed the button marked N.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  There was no startling moment of change. Peron had expected a twisting surge of nausea, or perhaps some unendurable pain of transition. Instead he felt a cool touch of electrodes at his temples, and the soothing spray of fluid on his skin. He relaxed, and drifted away into a quiet meditation. It went on for a long time, and ended only when he became aware of his own heartbeat, loud in the secret inner chamber of his ears.

  A feeling of well-being was creeping over him, as though he were waking from the best sleep of his life. There was a temptation to lie there for a long time, basking in the sensation. But then he became filled with a sudden fear that he had merely fallen asleep, that nothing else had happened. Worried, he opened his eyes and looked around him.

  The inside of the casket had not changed its configuration — but, startlingly, it had somehow changed color from a bland buff-yellow to a pale orange. Even his clothing was different, black instead of brown.

  He sat up, then steadied himself against one wall. He had fallen asleep in a one-gee gravity field; now he was in freefall.

  The door through which he had entered could not be locked from the inside. What about pursuit? Aware that he was still likely to be followed and discovered, Peron scrambled his way toward the other door. Thank heaven for the freefall experience he had gained after they left Pentecost. He felt a little peculiar now, but there was no vertigo or feeling of nausea.

  The door opened readily. He pulled himself through and closed it behind him. There was an outside catch, and he set it so that it could not be opened from within the box. Next he moved along the row of doors, and locked each one in the same way. Then, and only then, did he feel a first moment of safety. He looked around. He was floating free in a long, turning passageway. It was dimly lit by faint yellow tubes that ran parallel to the walls, and far away in the distance he could hear a low-pitched rumbling and whistling. He headed in that direction.

  As the passage turned, he came to a square-sided chamber with a fully transparent external wall. He stood there for a long time, overwhelmed by the sight of the universe outside the ship. The faint, luminous haze of S-space had gone. Instead he was gazing on a glittering sea of stars, as bright as they could appear only from open space. The old familiar constellations were there, just as they had looked from orbit around Pentecost. They gave him an odd f
eeling of reassurance. He was still alive, and he was back in a universe that he perhaps understood.

  While he was still watching, there was a louder rumble in the corridor. A machine was approaching, drifting along the wall on an invisible magnetic track. The main device was small, only as big as his head, but a number of long, articulated arms were tucked away in at the side. He watched it warily. It moved along quite slowly, at less than walking speed. A few meters away from him it ducked away into a small door in the wall of the corridor. Peron recognized the type of aperture — there were hundreds of them, all over the ship. They were everywhere, from the living quarters to the dining room to the library, and he had been unable to open any of them. The machine had no such trouble. It slipped through smoothly, and vanished.

  Peron continued on his way. He was in a part of the ship that he had never seen before. The passage finally led him to a great chamber, where hundreds of machines were located. Most sat immobile, but from time to time one or more of them would start into action and slide off on some mysterious errand. He followed a couple of them. Each finally passed through one of the small doors that lined each corridor.

  Peron decided that he had to find a quiet place to think. He headed farther along the passage, and at last found he was in a different type of chamber. This one was an automatic galley, similar to the one that had served the Planetfest winners on their travels around the Cass system. Peron found a water spigot and drank deeply from it. He reveled in the clean feel of the pure liquid on his tongue and palate. Whatever its other virtues, S-space definitely made food and drink taste less interesting. He took a few moments more to study the arrangement, and noticed that there was processing equipment different from anything he had seen in the other galley. From the look of it, it could produce a standard menu, or something with added and unknown ingredients. While he was watching, four of the little robots came trundling into the galley area. They ignored him. They were carrying plates, most of which still held the remains of a meal. One of those plates caught Peron’s eye. It held the remnants of uneaten spicy food — the same food that had been served to Peron at his last meal in S-space. The surface of the robots was glistening with moisture. Peron went across to one of them and touched it. The metal was icy cold. He put his finger to his mouth and tasted the liquid with his tongue. The droplets were plain water, condensed from the air around him.