by James White
He went on, "Well now, I realize that being separated from the rest of humanity by fifty million miles is bad enough. But if you have been rejected, or feel that you have been rejected by the other men in the ship, that could be the initial cause of your trouble. Your evident anxiety over this secret you have uncovered will not have helped matters."
McCullough had an almost overwhelming urge to scratch his left armpit through his spacesuit, and another sympathetic itch raged behind his right knee. He continued, "A rejected person tends to become self-conscious and much more aware of himself both physically and mentally. Your body becomes much more sensitive, even hypersensitive, to stimuli which are normally ignored. Your trouble probably began with an itchy scalp or ear lobe which you scratched almost without thinking. But gradually, through constant repetition and irritation, the psychosomatic itch became a real one.
"This is an extreme oversimplification, of course," McCullough said. "Doubtless there were many other factors which contributed to your present sorry state. But right now we should do something positive about alleviating your present condition -- with something more than lanolin, since that would relieve only the physical symptoms. Also, since the axiom that a trouble shared is a trouble halved is so old and true that it was used before psychology was invented, I would like to know what the other two are keeping secret which distresses you so much. I'll be discreet, of course . . ."
He let the sentence hang, but obviously Hollis needed more coaxing. McCullough tried a different tack. He said, "What is Morrison like as a person? And Drew? How have their relations toward you changed since the beginning of the trip? Be as objective as you can . . ."
A person could say an awful lot about themselves by the way they talked about someone else.
As he began to talk, Hollis may have thought that he was being objective, and McCullough, too, lost quite a lot of his objectivity as he listened. He began to feel angry with Morrison and Drew, particularly with the colonel. For despite his phenomenal brain, Hollis had always been the shy, timid, eager-to-please type and the necessary allowances should have been made. As his relations with the other two had steadily worsened, in an attempt to get on better terms with them again, his timidity had increased to ridiculous and quite irritating proportions for a grown man. He had abased himself and fawned and generally carried on like a frightened dog.
This was not the way Hollis told it, of course. McCullough was reading between the lines.
It had started because the colonel and Drew knew each other long before either of them were connected with astronautics. They had served together briefly in southeast Asia and Drew had done Morrison some sort of favor. Hollis had been unable to ascertain whether the favor had been sordid or sublime, whether it involved white slavery, the black market, or just saving the colonel's life.
As the weeks went by, the two had talked together more and more often about their small war, mentioning people and places and making stupid, in-group jokes. Hollis was excluded to an increasing extent from these conversations and when, out of sheer desperation, he tried to join in, he usually made a mess of it and stopped the conversation stone dead.
Listening to the physicist, McCullough could not help thinking of his own ship. He hesitated to make comparisons with the two comedian-psychologists on P-Two, and the sometimes artificial atmosphere of good cheer they generated, but if Morrison and Drew had made a similar effort, Hollis would probably not be in his present condition. From his knowledge of Hollis during training, he thought the physicist, once he got over his initial shyness and timidity, would have been a very pleasant and stimulating person to have on a long voyage.
Instead they had talked about their jungle air war as if it had been some kind of exclusive holiday, in a language which excluded Hollis. Then they had gone on to talk about another matter -- again in the cryptic, slangy manner the physicist was not supposed to understand. But Hollis had been able to understand -- a little at first, then later he had been able to piece together the whole frightful operation. He freely admitted to McCullough that he was uneducated where such things as women and power politics were concerned, because so much of his life had been spent in collecting degrees, but this did not mean that he was stupid . . . !
"This was when you became restless and itchy, I take it," McCullough broke in at that point, "and you began to irritate the others. How did they react?"
"The colonel didn't react at all," said Hollis. "He just looked long-suffering and stopped talking to me completely. Drew swore at me for a time, then he went the same way. They started going outside together between lectures, connecting their air lines to the ship supply so as not to waste tanked air. They switched off their radios sometimes and talked by touching helmets. But there was sound conduction along the return air line and sometimes I could make out a word here and there. Enough to know what was going on.
"Did you know," Hollis rushed on, "that the Hold at takeoff was deliberate? That Morrison has made no attempt to close the distance between the two ships? Fuel conservation, he says -- but your ship is expendable, did you know that? They've discussed all sorts of hypothetical approaches and tactics to use against the alien ship, the desirability of an armed as opposed to an unarmed approach . . ."
Hollis' arms were partly folded and he was tearing absent-mindedly at his forearms with fingernails which had been gnawed too short to do any real damage. Suddenly he stopped scratching, closed his eyes tightly and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to tell you. But you've a right to know, Doctor. P-One is carrying a Dirty Annie!"
Dirty Annie was a nuclear device which was a little too destructive and long-lasting in its aftereffects to be called tactical. Mccullough was silent for a moment as he thought over all the implications of what he had heard, then he said, "This is serious."
It was a dangerously ambiguous remark, he realized as soon as he said it, but Hollis had not noticed that. The physicist was talking furiously, apologizing for sharing his worries with the doctor, pleading with him not to tell the colonel, and to do something about Morrison and Drew. McCullough listened with half his mind while the other half cringed with sympathy.
Not all of the sympathy was for Hollis.
Morrison and Drew could not have had a very pleasant time either, driven as they had been into long periods of unscheduled extravehicular activity. They may well have been guilty of thoughtlessness in their dealings with Hollis, but constant EVA put a dangerous strain on their suits. The P-Ships could not afford the weight penalty of carrying spare spacesuits, much less weaponry.
McCullough wondered suddenly what shape his own delusion would have taken, what particular nightmare his own subconscious would have dredged up, if Walters and Berryman had rejected him. An atomic bomb was perhaps a too simple form for a physicist's nightmare to take, but then at heart Hollis was a very simple man.
There still remained the question of his treatment.
Very quietly and seriously McCullough said, "Naturally I shall not mention this to the colonel or Drew. At the proper time I may discuss it with Walters and Berryman -- but they won't talk out of turn either. It's hard to say exactly what we must do about it until the time comes, but when it does, remember that we will be four against their two. And remember this as well; the problem isn't yours alone any more -- three of your friends will be helping you solve it. They may even, since they are not so close to it as you are and may thus be able to consider the problem more objectively, solve it for you. Think about this, won't you? Think about it really hard."
McCullough paused for a moment, then went on, "You have already realized that your condition is directly attributable to worry about this bomb -- anyone with an ounce of sensitivity in them would have reacted in much the same fashion. But there is no necessity to worry now -- at least to the extent where it affects you physically.
"You may be surprised how quickly this skin condition clears up," he continued, "and how comfortable you will begin to feel generally. The colonel will be surpri
sed, too, and for that reason I'll leave a supply of medication to help the process along. Morrison will assume that the salve and tablets are effecting a cure, but this is a necessary subterfuge since you can't very well tell him the real cause of your improvement -- the fact that his secret is now common property. But in order to allay his suspicions further, I will have to be very tough -- or appear to be very tough -- on you."
McCullough was going to be very tough with Drew and the colonel as well. He was going to insist that Morrison pad and bandage the patient's hands so that he would be unable to scratch himself, giving his skin condition a chance to heal, which meant that Hollis would have to be fed and generally wet-nursed by the other two men. Drew would probably come in for most of the work, but the application of salve and the checking of Hollis' condition -- McCullough would insist on daily progress reports -- would be a two-man job. In short, Hollis must no longer be treated as an outcast, and Morrison and Drew would be made to realize that psychosomatic leprosy was not catching.
Drew and the colonel might not be too gentle in their treatment of the patient at first; it would be embarrassing for all concerned and the atmosphere would be anything but warm and friendly. But at least they would not be ignoring Hollis and that was an important first step. Later, other steps would suggest themselves. McCullough was confident that it would be only a matter of time before the physicist was back to normal and the relationships inside P-One more -- harmonious.
At no time did McCullough consider the possibility of the colonel refusing to cooperate. In the medical area Morrison was outranked and he was not the type to disobey a lawful order.
Later, when they were all crammed into the control module, McCullough was relieved and pleased at the reception given his suggestions for treating Hollis. It was now apparent that the other two had felt a certain amount of guilt over the way they had behaved toward the physicist and were very anxious to make it up to him. It restored McCullough's faith in people, especially in cold, withdrawn and not very friendly people like Morrison and Drew. He would have liked a long, private talk with the two men as well, if only to get their side of the business, but in the circumstances that might not be possible without running the risk of having Hollis think he had acquired another enemy instead of three friends . . .
He had a lot to think about on the way back, and this time he kept his hands and feet in their cuffs and stirrups and his eyes wide open until he saw P-Two again and Berryman and Walters were helping him out of his suit and he was saying, in a tone much more serious than he had intended, "It's nice to be home again."
chapter six
Radio interference had all but disappeared, so that the lectures, music, last-minute instructions and reminders that this was an epoch-making event and would they please not do anything silly, poured in on them constantly and so clearly that they had no real excuse to switch off. They were told that they must at all costs remember and apply the knowledge gained during their trip out, but at the same time they must not hesitate to forget all of their scientific, sociological and psychological theories and preconceptions if the situation warranted it. They were told to do, or not do, this several times an hour.
One did not have to be a psychologist to realize that the people at Prometheus Control had worked themselves into a fine state of jitters.
"The awful black immensity of space," said Walters sourly during one of the rare radio silences. "The vast and aching loneliness between the stars, the unutterable, soul-destroying boredom. Dammit, they won't even give us ten minutes peace and quiet to feel bored in."
Shaking his head, Berryman intoned, "Is some superhuman extraterrestrial intelligence already brushing our minds with unfelt tendrils of thought, sizing us up, judging us and perhaps with us the whole human race? Or is some bug-eyed bugger sitting at a rocket launcher just waiting for us to come into range?"
"We've been over all this before!" said McCullough, suddenly angry at the pilot for bringing up the subject which they all wanted to leave alone. Then awkwardly he tried to turn it into a joke by adding, "Three times in the last hour . . ."
"Thrust in minus thirty seconds, P-Two. Stand by, P-One . . ."
There was a note of self-satisfaction overlaying the tension in the voice of Control and, considering the fact that their computations had resulted in them hitting an impossibly small target with both ships, their smugness was perhaps justified. But McCullough wondered, a little cynically, how pleased an arrow was with the archer when a bull's-eye or a miss into the sandbags would result in an equally violent headache . . .
Deceleration was a strangely uncomfortable sensation after so many months' weightlessness. On Morrison's ship, thrust was delayed by several seconds to allow P-One to draw closer to P-Two -- but not too close. It had been decided that Berryman's ship would approach the alien vessel directly to within a distance of one mile, with the command pilot reporting back every yard of the way and using his initiative if something untoward occurred. With P-One's more powerful transmitter, Morrison would relay these reports back to Control, advising Berryman if or when necessary, and Control would do nothing but listen.
Because of the radio time lag, anything they might say would come too late to be useful.
All decisions on procedure in the area of the alien ship were thus the responsibility of Colonel Morrison. Berryman could exercise a little initiative to begin with, but once the situation was evaluated, all major decisions would be taken by the colonel. As a precautionary measure the thrust and attitude of P-One had been modified so as to bring it to a stop fifty miles short of the alien ship.
McCullough wondered what Hollis was making of that.
In the three weeks since he had visited him, the physicist's condition, both physical and mental, had improved enormously. Hollis had spoken to him several times and had said so -- without, of course, mentioning the Dirty Annie business. McCullough was well aware that Hollis could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be said to have been cured, but at least his condition had improved to the point where his difficulties, both emotional and physical, no longer impaired his functioning -- and that was half the battle.
On the radar screen the target showed as a pulsing blob of light which crept steadily down the distance scale, and in the telescope the Ship grew and spread until it overflowed the field of view. Gradually P-Two's velocity with respect to the other vessel lessened until it hung motionless at a distance of one mile from the Ship.
Like a minnow investigating a sleeping shark, McCullough thought.
Berryman cleared his throat loudly and said, "The -- the Ship is broadside on to us. I estimate its length at just under half a mile and its diameter at about one hundred yards. The diameter is uniform throughout its length, like a torpedo, except where it curves inward at nose and stern. Two-thirds of the way toward the stern -- I'm assuming it is the stern because the other end contains more transparent material -- the hull is encircled by a belt of large, transparent blisters. Twelve of them, I think. The sun is shining directly into one and I can see metallic reflections.
"There is another cluster of transparent domes encircling the nose," he went on, "but these are smaller and flatter -- possibly housing the Ship's communications and sensory equipment, while the bigger ones are either weapons or -- or . . . Maybe Professor Pugh would have some ideas on what they are, because there is nothing visible on the Ship resembling a conventional rocket motor or even a jet orifice . . ."
The pilot was dividing his attention between the telescope and the direct vision port. His voice was quiet, controlled and ostentatiously matter-of-fact. But every time he moved, the perspiration beading his forehead was shaken loose and hung suspended away from his face, like the stylized sweat of startlement of a character in a comic strip. Walters' lower lip had disappeared behind his upper teeth and McCullough did not know how he himself looked, but he did not feel at all well.
Berryman went on steadily, "We are beaming signal patterns denoting, we hope, intelligence
at them on a wide spread of frequencies and we are igniting flares every fifteen minutes. So far there has been no response. I don't understand this -- we're not exactly sneaking up on them. Have I permission to move in?"
To give him credit, Morrison did not warn them to be careful or remind them, again, of the absolute necessity of doing the right thing. Instead he said, "Very well. We will close to one mile and cover you . . ."
"What with?" said McCullough, in spite of himself.
He had been thinking about Hollis again and the physicist's delusion about a Dirty Annie on P-One. McCullough wondered suddenly if such delusions were contagious, like some kind of psychosomatic head cold
