Meet Me at Infinity

by James Tiptree Jr.

  When Sylla put up his fist Quent followed it until they reached a deep crater which would block the scatter of their star-to-star caller.

  “If we’re in luck,” said Pomeroy, “Farbase can get their tea kettle here in three days, plus or minus a week. All they have is a ferry for picking up pieces. Bound to be pieces—of somebody.” He sighed. “Let’s get back where we can hear ‘em.”

  They tiptoed back-to the horizon. The Drakes below them gave no sign of detecting the approach of Imray’s meteor. Neither did they reveal any intent to use their ship to fire on the town. As the moon on which the Rosenkrantz was riding sank below the horizon of the field they were obliged to leave it and maneuver into full sun-blast. Quent’s eyes burned; he was becoming aware that he had scarcely slept for a week.

  “If only we could give one little burn planetward,” Sylla chafed. “How soon, my scientific serpent?”

  “With their drive off—well—they would be able to read ship-sized burst from our present orbit for at least another hundred degrees of planetary rotation,” said Svensk. “Don’t you agree, Quent?”

  Quent nodded wearily. “And that A.E.V. has about double our acceleration and six times our rocket range and can turn inside us. We wouldn’t have a prayer.” He had said it twice before.

  The lutroid spat dryly and put his elbows on his console. Pomeroy sat, hands cupped over his earphones, motionless.

  “Emission,” said Svensk suddenly. “Imray is down and braking.”

  “That damn ship hasn’t even budged,” Pomeroy said. “I can still hear them yakking to the shore party. We’re all wrong.”

  “Still braking. It just occurs to me, there was space for two more chutes.”

  “He requires rather two more gravity webs,” said Sylla. “He is mad.”

  “Torchers,” said Pomeroy.

  “There is some distortion for which I cannot compensate,” Svensk complained. “He is very close to their horizon—ah—I believe he has managed to deflect.”

  “That ship isn’t going anywhere,” Pomeroy fumed.

  “If I could suppress this wretched bias,” said Svensk. “He is on impellors now, I think. But moving very erratically.”

  “He finds perhaps a ravine.” Sylla was kneading his console.

  “Toward the field again,” said Svensk. “Much too near. One fears that he is omitting to wait for them to lift.”

  “The old maniac will sail right onto their screens,” Pomeroy groaned.

  “While we sit here,” Sylla muttered.

  “If he’s in that canyon in back of the field,” said Quent, “he might sneak under their shield. Provided they weren’t looking. It’s a fairly broad target. Can he—”

  Sylla’s head had snapped around.

  “He understands to shoot,” he told Quent.

  “Can I rely on that, Mr. Sylla?” Quent met the lutroid’s yellow stare.

  “Accelerating on the same line,” Svensk announced. “Dismal.”

  “Got it!” Pomeroy shouted. “Secure locks—but there isn’t time. Up, you bastards! Up!”

  “How long before he cuts their line of sight, Mr. Svensk?”

  “This detestable—at ground level, maximum two minutes. Much too close. They’re bound to spot him.”

  “Over to me on manual, Mr. Sylla,” said Quent. “If you can get to the wrecking lasers it’ll help the display. Ready, Mr. Morgan?”

  The lutroid shot over him and down the shaft.

  “Stay braced and warn Appleby!” Quent yelled after him, coding for drive. “If Imray can hit what he shoots at, this’ll distract them. If not—”

  He rammed home the lever and they pitched in their webs. As the screens faded out the planet bloomed up and swirled crazily.

  “We’re in their sensors now,” gasped Svensk. “I believe—”

  “They’re lifting.” Pomeroy was plastered on his board. “They see us.”

  Quent bent the Rosenkrantz into an atmosphere-grazing turn. Pomeroy was struggling to move a switch. The bridge filled with Drake voices, reverberating lashback. A siren honked.

  The voder cut off. For a flash Quent thought his eardrums had gone but as acceleration topped out he heard the others fill their lungs.

  “Their shield does appear to have collapsed,” said Svensk. “I can’t be positive in this—*

  “He got ‘em” Pomeroy yelled. “Power’s gone! Wait—they’re coming back on emergency. Listen to ‘em cry!”

  Noises blared from the Drake ship.

  “Where’s Imray?” Quent threw in the retros and they pitched again. Sylla came scrambling out of the shaft, hanging onto Imray’s chair.

  “Where is he?”

  “I can’t at the moment,” Svensk protested. “The resultants—”

  “Listen.” Pomeroy tuned the uproar to ululating wails. “The Denebian national anthem.” He flopped back in his seat, grinning. “Might as well go get him—that ship’s dead in the dirt. He cracked one up their landleg socket while they were gawking at us. Must have been bloody under ‘em!”

  Quent jolted to a thump on his back. Sylla climbed down, grinning. Svensk arched his neck—his bony beak was not adapted for expression.

  “Is he all right?” called Appleby’s voice. “I fixed some hot jam truffles.”

  “So that was the anomaly,” said Svensk. “Incredible. The nutritive drive of the Human female.”

  “Bloody good, too,” said Pomeroy. He jerked to his board. “Holy Space—”

  “What is it?”

  “The Jasper just hailed us,” he told them. “She’s coming by. Five minutes earlier and we’d all been up the pipe.”

  He sagged again and reached for his bulb.

  “By the Path!” Imray howled on the voder. “You pick me up or I sprücher you too.”

  Quent was clumsy with exhaustion by the time they got the rocket module stowed and the hot drive unit back to Morgan. He gave a perfunctory glance at the wrecker ports and then followed the others to the bridge, where Pomeroy was watching the grounded Drakes.

  “I take over, son.” Imray sprawled in his command chair, rolling his hide luxuriously. “Watch tight. Bad mess they get loose before Farbase come.” He chomped a jam tart.

  “Are you all ready for the bad news?” Pomeroy wheeled around to face them. “Remember that Gal News man we ducked at Farbase? He’s on the shuttle. Coming here.”

  Imray choked.

  “Wants to interview you.” Pomeroy pointed at Quent. “And Appleby, too.”

  Quent shut his eyes. “He can—why won’t they let me alone?” Absently he fingered the laser by his console.

  “Admiral Quent’s son in battle with Drake pirates,” Pomeroy grinned sourly, “while Admiral Coatesworth’s fiancee cheers? His board’s all lit up.”

  “This rather cooks it,” said Svensk. Sylla was drumming his claws.

  They all looked at Quent.

  “What you tell him, son?”

  “Tell ‘em,” Quent muttered exhaustedly. “Why, I’ll tell ‘em the ship stinks and your computer is full of mush—and the engineroom is a fugnest—” his voice rose—“infested by a spook who has you so terrorized you have to bribe him to move the ship. And my fellow officers are a set of primitive jokers captained by a maniac who has to resort to physical force—and the only Humans who can stand the ship are an unshaven alcoholic and a madwoman who buggers the sensors with fudge machines and underwear, and—Heysu Caristo!” He rubbed his neck. “My first ship. Look, I’m going to sack out, alright?” He pushed off for the ladder.

  “You tell them that?” Imray demanded, beaming. “Flying fugnest?”

  “Hell no, why should I? It’s not true.”

  He pulled to the shaft and rammed into Imray’s hard paw.

  “Son, you got to.”

  “Huh?”

  “Tell them can’t stand. Want new job. Must!” Imray was shaking them both for emphasis.

  “Wait—one—minute.” Quent disengaged himself. “That’s exactly
what you were putting me on to think, wasn’t it? But why?” He frowned around at them. “Why? I mean, hell, I’m for integration.”

  “Precisely the problem,” said Svensk.

  Imray whacked his thigh exasperatedly.

  “Who you think build this boat?”

  “Well, it’s a Human design—”

  “Human fix up. Is build by Svenka people, original. Was part their navy. Space Force say, indefinite loan. Little boats, you never hear. Space Force come along, make treaty. Suck up little boats. Even ants they got some type space boat, vernt, Svenka?”

  “More of a pod, I believe.” Svensk crossed his long legs.

  “Something, anyway. Son, you think like your father say, all en-aitch people want integrate with Space Force?”

  “Well, uh,” said Quent. “The Gal Equality party.”

  “Sure, sure.” Imray nodded. “Some en-aitch people want be officer big starship, is fact. Also fact, en-aitch people want have say in Gal Council. But is different here.”

  He leaned back, folded his arms.

  “Here is original en-aitch space force, us little boats. We been on these boats long time. Long, long time. We been patrol since was no sector, eh Syll? When Humans come with us, is only individual Humans. One here, one there. Pom know. But we not integrated with you. You is integrated with us.”

  “Bravo!” cried Sylla.

  “Hear, hear,” said Svensk gravely.

  “But, what—” said Quent.

  “The captain means,” Pomeroy told him, “that he’s not about to get integrated with the Space Force. None of us are. We do our job. They can stow their sociological programs. Their directives. Channels. Personnel fitness profiles. Rotation and uptraining tours. Pisgah! If this integration trail business goes green, we’ve had it. And—” he poked his finger at Quent—“you are a prime test case, Lieutenant.”

  “Even Morgan they try steal,” Imray rumbled angrily.

  Quent opened his mouth, closed it.

  “We were so confident,” said Svensk. “It did seem ideal, when you turned out to be Admiral Quent’s son. We felt it would be simple to impress you as being, as it were, quite unintegrable.” He sighed. “I may say that your determined optimism has been a positive nightmare.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Quent scowled. “You wanted me to yell so hard for reassignment that the program would be shelved?”

  “Correct.” Sylla slapped his console. The others nodded.

  “What about this flimflam here in Sopwith?”

  “Too fancy,” grunted Imray.

  “We were getting desperate,” said Pomeroy. “You just wouldn’t discourage. So we thought maybe we could work it the other way, build up a case that would convince the Gal Eq crowd that Humans weren’t ready to, ah—” He looked away. “Well, you figured it.”

  “I knew you were out to clobber me,” Quent said grimly. “Only I thought it was my father.”

  “It was in no way personal, Quent,” Sylla assured him heartily. “Believe me, we would do the same for anyone, non?”

  “But this is insane!” Quent protested. “How can you? I mean, do you realize my father got me assigned here? He’s sure I’ll come around to his way of thinking and furnish him with political ammunition to use against integration.”

  “That rather optimises things, doesn’t it?” Svensk rattled his neck-plates. “Increased familial solidarity is a plus value for primates.”

  Quent snorted.

  “What were you supposed to be, Mr. Spock? I knew damn well you’re a Gal Tech graduate. You should have taken the course on oedi-pal conflicts. Also the one on ethics,” he added acidly. “Some primates set quite a value on truth.”

  “But you’ve got to help us, Lieutenant,” Pomeroy said urgently.

  Quent was preoccupied. “How many languages do you speak, anyway? There was a Pomeroy who wrote some text—”

  “Lieutenant! Look, we’ll all help fix up a tale of woe you can give them—”

  “Are you serious?” He looked at them, appalled. “You expect me to falsify my official duty report? Lie about you and the ship?”

  “What one little lie?” Imray’s voice sank to the crooning tone he used on Morgan. “Son, you good spacer. Save ship, vernt? You say this integration nonsense okay, we finish. You not let Space Force mess up old Rosy, son.”

  “But goddammit,” Quent exploded. “It’s not just one lie. It’d go on and on—investigations, appeals—my father smirking around with the Humanity Firsters trumpeting every word I said on one side—and the Gal Eq people reaming me from the other. I’d never be free of it. Never. How could I function as a space officer?” He rubbed his head wearily,

  “I’m sorry. I’ll say as little as possible, believe me. But I will not put on any act.” He turned to go below.

  “So stubborn, the Humans,” Sylla snarled. Quent continued down the ladder.

  “Wait, Quent,” said Svensk. “This publicity you dread can’t be escaped, you know. Suppose you say nothing. The facts speak for themselves. Gal Eq will be delirious: Arch-racist’s Son Leads Non-Human Attack on Human Pirates, for starters. Prolonged cheers. All-Gal network showing the hero and his en-aitch pals. I daresay they’ll nominate you for the next Amity award. Really, you’re just as well off doing it our way.”

  Quent stared at him in horror.

  “Oh, no. No.” He began to pound his forehead on the ladder. “It’s not fair.” His voice cracked. “I thought when I got to space they’d forget me. It’s been bad enough being Rathborne Quent Junior, but this—spending the rest of my life as a—a ventriloquist’s dummy for Integration politics. Everywhere I go! Every post, my whole career. How can I be a spacer?”

  Imray was shaking his head. “You natural victim social situation, son, looks like. Too bad.” He exhaled noisily, and licked a piece of jam off his fist. “So, is settled. You going help us, vernt?”

  Quent lifted his head. His jaw set.

  “No, I told you. That’s out,” he said bleakly. “I didn’t come into the service to play games.” His voice trailed off. “Call me next watch, right? We’re all pretty weary.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Imray. “Syll, Svenka, you boys go. We got time think something.”

  “Forget it,” Quent told him. “There’s no way out of this one. Caristo!” He sighed, hauling down the shaft. “I wish I could just disappear.”

  He stopped dead and looked up thoughtfully.

  “Ah-ah,” he said.

  He climbed back up and retrieved the lasers. The last thing he remembered was leaning back on his hammock fully dressed with a laser in his hand.

  Gal newsmen yelled at him, crowds jostled him. The bridge of the Adas-tra swarmed with kavrots. Quent came groggily awake, sure that he had heard a lock open. But the ship seemed to be normal. He sank back and dreamed that he was wearing a clangorous glass uniform. When the cocoon grabbed at him Quent struggled to consciousness. The Rosenkrantz was going into full star drive.

  He plunged into the shaft and found himself nose to nose with an unknown girl.

  “Gah!”

  “Hello, Lieutenant,” she said. “Want some breakfast?”

  She was a dark girl in silver coveralls.

  “Who—who’re you?”

  Tm Campbell, your new log off.” She smiled.

  “Drakes.” He hurled himself headlong for the bridge. “Where are they? What’s happened?”

  “Hi, there,” said Pomeroy. The others looked up from their consoles. They seemed to be drinking coffee.

  “Where are we headed? Where did she come from?”

  “Sit, son,” said Imray genially.

  The dark girl bobbed up to place a bulb of coffee on his console.

  “Is she a Drake?”

  “Good heavens, no,” she laughed. Quent blinked; the conformation under the coverall was interesting.

  “I’m a duck.” She vanished.

  Dazedly Quent gulped some coffee.

  “How long was I
asleep? Farbase—they’ve come and gone, right?”

  “Not likely.” Pomeroy snorted. “They won’t get to Sopwith for thirty hours yet.”

  “But who’s watching the Drakes?”

  “The Rosenkrantz, who else?” said Sylla, deadpan.

  “What? Captain Imray, what is going on?”

  Imray waved his paw.

  “Problem finish, son.” He belched comfortably. “We fix, eh, boys?”

  “Oh, God.” Quent squinted at them. He gulped some more coffee. “Mr. Pomeroy, you will explain yourself.”

  “Well, you can forget about that newsman and all that,” Pomeroy told him. “When he gets to Sopwith he’ll find the Rosenkrantz and he’ll find Miss Appleby all right—but he won’t find you. Nobody‘11 find you.”

  “Why not?” Quent glared around nervously.

  “Because you are no longer on the Rosenkrantz,” said Svensk.

  “Brilliant, really, your notion of disappearing. Since we could scarcely remove you from the Rosenkrantz, we simply removed the Rosenkrantz from you.” He stretched pleasurably. “Solves everything.”

  “What have you done now?”

  “Observe!” Sylla pointed to the sealed log certificates.

  Quent pulled himself over, eyes wary.

  “P-B 640T J-B,” he read. “But’s that’s wrong. That’s not—”

  “Peebee Jasper Banks, that is.” Pomeroy chuckled. “We’re the Jasper Banks now, see?”

  “What?” Quent pawed at the case. “Those are official seals. You—”

  “Not to worry, it’s just temporary. Jasper owed us a couple of favors. They were glad to oblige. Fact, they wanted to head back to Central anyway. So we just traded registry and log officers and gave them our mail. They took over the Drakes, see?”

  “But that’s—”

  “Beautiful.” Pomeroy nodded. “Gal News can pull the Jasper apart, they never heard of you. No one ever actually saw you on Rosy, did they? He’ll figure it’s some garble. Has to—there’s Appleby, all as advertised. And the Drakes. He’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

  Quent took some more coffee. He felt like a man trying to shake off a bad dream.

  “And the beauty part,” Pomeroy went on, “Jasper’s an all-Human peebee. That’ll really befuddle them.”