Orbitsville Trilogy

by Bob Shaw

  "What do you want?" he demanded, scowling at Nicklin with the face of an enemy.

  What's happening to us? Nicklin thought. "Scott, I'm with you. You're not the only one who sweated in here. Remember?"

  Hepworth's brow cleared at once. "We've got a minor problem down here, Jim. That Fleischer woman would just love it if the whole drive complex packed up, but it isn't going to! I know exactly what's wrong – and I know exactly how to put it right."

  "That's good," Nicklin said, unhappily remembering Hepworth's previous assertion that the weak acceleration was the result of unfavourable conditions outside the ship.

  "It's the output gate control mechanisms," Hepworth said, stepping over the door's high threshold into the bleakly illuminated environment of the engine cylinders. "They were never right! I told Corey that from the start. The contractors who overhauled them were a bunch of know-nothings, but he wouldn't part with the money for a dependable job. Not Corey! And now that the inevitable has happened that bitch up above is trying to shift the blame on to me!"

  Hepworth was moving towards the left output chamber as he spoke. Nicklin followed close behind, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. He had had little to do with the gates and their associated mechanisms, partly because they had been Hepworth's jealously guarded territory, but also because the gates themselves were blocks of ferro-molybdenum weighing in the region of 600 tonnes each. In spite of their enormous mass they had to be moved quickly, with three degrees of freedom, to direct the magnetic flux of the Tara's intake fields.

  The support frames, controls, gears and resonance motors were heavy power engineering, and outside the scope of Nicklin's fields of expertise. He had always worked alone and had taken no interest in anything he was unable to lift without help. But in spite of his limited knowledge, as he trailed behind Hepworth through the inhuman environment of the engine cylinder, he found himself again experiencing doubts about the man's qualifications and practical experience.

  What he had seen portrayed on the ship's control console had looked, to him, like a straightforward collapse of the left intake field. At a guess he would have said that a flux pump had developed one of the dozen or so faults to which such complex machines were prone. But he was relegated, condemned, to the role of bystander because of his cursed lack of relevant training. Could the field have withered in a way that, to the experienced eye, told of a failure in gate mechanisms?

  Hepworth reached the massive bulkhead of the field emission chamber and, breathing heavily, began tapping the access code into the lock.

  "Scott, what are you doing?" Nicklin grabbed Hepworth's upper arm. "You can't just walk in there!"

  Hepworth angrily shook his arm free. "I know what I'm doing. The whole complex has shut down automatically."

  "But you don't know what the residual level of motor activity is! There could be … I mean…"

  Nicklin strove for the right form of warning, the formula with which to penetrate the shell of Hepworth's irrational fury. He knew a lot about magnetic pulse motors, and on a small scale had seen the havoc they could wreak when suddenly frustrated in their normal activities. For as long as five minutes after a serious breakdown they could emit bursts of gyromagnetic energy which, flitting through the vicinity like poltergeists, could invade metal objects and invest them with a pseudo-life of their own. He had seen cables writhing like snakes, and pliers leaping from workbenches with enough force to shatter windows. In those cases the kinetic force had been released by broken motors no larger than his fist – and the motors in the field emission chamber were the size of beer kegs.

  "There's nothing wrong with the motors," Hepworth snapped. "The trouble is in the gate control rods, and I know exactly where."

  "But at least look at the monitors and…" Nicklin gestured at the panel beside the door and his voice faded as he saw that all its dials and counters were inert.

  "Somebody put the wrong fuses in that thing," Hepworth said defiantly. "It's a redundant piece of junk anyway."

  "But you told Corey … you told us all that the work on your side of things was finished weeks ago! What else have you declared redundant around here?"

  "All essential systems are functional."

  Nicklin stared into the physicist's eyes and saw something there which terrified him. "Fleischer was right about you, wasn't she? You're not up to the job!"

  The punch Hepworth threw was both clumsy and slow, but when Nicklin tried to avoid it his feet, lacking purchase in the low gravity, skidded out from under him. Hepworth's fist hit him squarely in the stomach as he went down. He landed on his back and slid into a tool rack. Mentally rather than physically shocked, he gripped the rack and drew himself to his feet as Hepworth was disappearing from his view in the emission chamber.

  "Scott, I'm sorry," he called out. "Please don't go–"

  His voice was lost amid a series of violent reports from within the chamber. Metal was striking on metal with a ferocity which punished Nicklin's ears and numbed his brain. The clamour went on for perhaps ten seconds, and somewhere in the heart of it he heard a different kind of sound. It was a softer impact, less strident than the others and with several elements – a crushing, a pulping, a gasp. The mechanical bedlam reached an awesome climax and then, quite abruptly, slackened off. In the ringing aftermath Nicklin could hear a single piece of metal bouncing, come to rest, vibrating – then there was total silence.

  He remained where he was, petrified, staring at the baffle screen which prevented him from seeing far into the emission chamber. Gyromagnetic demons had been unleashed behind that screen, he knew, and he was not venturing into their lair until it was safe to do so. Five minutes, he thought. I'll give it a full five minutes from now – just to be safe…

  He began counting the time on his wristwatch.

  Don't get me wrong on this thing. I'm not actually saying that old Scott is dead. No, sir! He isn't making any noises – I'll grant you that – but that doesn't mean he's been defunctified, not by a long chalk. He could be cowering inside a locker, wondering what the hell happened. Perhaps he has filled those awful fucking baggy pants of his and is too ashamed to come out into the open. What a bloody scream that would be!

  Almost two minutes had passed when there came a single loud clank from behind the screen.

  "Scott?" Nicklin whispered. "Is that you, Scott?"

  As if answering the query, the wrenches and screwdrivers in his pockets stirred into life, twisting and squirming like trapped animals. He gave a quavering moan as the rack upon which he was leaning shuddered and briefly became a discordant carillon, every tool on it clattering its individual note. But the agitation soon passed. His new fear evaporated as he realised that the gyromagnetic demons had, in their death throes, given birth to and sent forth a horde of mischievous kinetic imps.

  Another nice touch, O Gaseous Vertebrate! You really had me going there for a moment. But there's just one minor point – does this mean that Scott is really dead? Extincticated? Exanimated? Kaputorised?

  Two minutes further on Nicklin heard a faint sound to his right. He looked in that direction and saw a young man in the uniform of a spaceport guard. It was the same young man – obviously a restless and inquisitive type – who had earlier intruded on the control deck. He studied Nicklin's face for a long moment and then, without uttering a word, placed a finger vertically against his lips and retreated out of sight.

  When five minutes had gone Nicklin advanced slowly to the door of the emission chamber. From the narrow space between the bulkhead and the baffle screen he could see part of a surreal world of grey metal masses, grey cabinets and twisted control rods, the whole accented with streaks of red here, and spots of red there.

  When he moved to the end of the screen and looked around it the first thing he noticed, lying almost at his feet, was Hepworth's head. It had been untidily severed, very untidily severed, and the face was turned up to his.

  Nicklin felt his own face become an equally contorted death
mask, and his mind immediately ricocheted into the safe universe of the absurd and the irrelevant. Look at the blackhead at the side of his nose. Just look at the frigger! Maybe I should squeeze it out before anybody else sees him like this … do him a last favour … mark of respect…

  Part of Nicklin's mind which still dealt in logic told him there should be a body close by. On the perimeter of his vision there was something which just might have qualified as a body, but he was unable to direct his gaze on to it. Groaning with each breath, he backed out of the emission chamber and went to the nearest commset. He spoke the pilot's number and her face immediately appeared on the screen.

  "This is Jim Nicklin," he said.

  "I can see that," Fleischer replied drily. "Well?"

  "Is Doctor Harding up there?"

  "Yes, he's looking at Corey. Why?"

  "Scott is dead. Somebody has to … gather him up – and I can't do it." Nicklin took a deep, steadying breath. "Ask Doctor Harding if he would come down to 14 Deck right away. Tell him his professional services are required."

  In times of crisis – Nicklin had discovered – small, familiar comforts assume an inestimable degree of importance. There was no potable alcohol in the ship's medical supplies, thanks to Montane's prohibition, but it had turned out that Jon Harding had a bottle of brandy in his personal kit. Harding was not the Tara's official medic – he was a paid-up pilgrim, accompanied by his wife and two children – who happened to be a general practitioner, and was standing in for the appointee, who had been a casualty of the sudden departure from Beachhead. He had prescribed and dispensed a large measure of brandy for Nicklin's condition of shock. Nicklin had almost wept with gratitude on being handed the well-filled bulb, and now he treasured it more than an orb of gold.

  It was "night" time and, although the clamour of the previous hours had subsided, the ensuing silence was far from being restful. Too much had happened in too short a time. The passengers had been alarmed and confused by the news of Orbitsville's transformation – as was evidenced by the crowds which had formed around the television monitors on several decks. And then, in close succession, had come the cut in acceleration, Hepworth's sensational death, and the announcement that the Tara was turning back.

  Voorsanger and Fleischer had gone on the general audio system to say that the ship was returning to investigate the world cloud at close range – which was a diplomatic understatement rather than an outright lie. They had emphasised that the return was a minor event and should be viewed in the context of what was scheduled to be a months-long voyage, but too many doubts and fears had been aroused in the passengers' collective consciousness. Danea Farthing, and a few others of the mission's long-term staff who were fully acquainted with the situation, had spent hours in counselling anxious parents – with only qualified success.

  Nicklin could sense the icy apprehension which was abroad in the ship's lower decks. The chill of it was deep within him, and slow to disperse. He had never really enjoyed brandy in the past, but as he sat with Voorsanger and Fleischer in the control room each sip he took yielded nostalgic pleasure beyond description. He could imagine himself, were the right circumstances ever to return, devoting the rest of his life to the worship of the fiery spirit. That possibility, however, had begun to seem more remote than the stars.

  Harding had done heroic work in removing Hepworth's remains from the emission chamber without help. The Tara, as a ship of the Explorer class, was capable of being flown by one person if necessary. Its designers had done their best to anticipate every adverse situation a small crew might have to face, but they had overlooked the possibility that, occasionally, the crew might become even smaller. There was no suitable storage space for dead bodies. The oversight had created problems for Harding, and he had solved them by sealing Hepworth's corpse in wrappings of plastic and transferring it to a free corner of the ship's deep freeze facility, thus enabling Nicklin to enter the emission chamber and prepare a damage report.

  Nicklin had found that one of the gate positioning rods had failed, just as Hepworth had diagnosed. The broken rod had jumped its bearings, displaced other rods and damaged two servomotors – something Hepworth had not thought of and which had cost him his life. But the root cause of the trouble had been more fundamental.

  The sequence of disaster had been triggered by flux pump coils burning out. Automatic cut-outs had been slow coming into action – another fault – with the result that for a split-second the left intake field had been wildly misshapen. And it had been the system's attempt at correcting the field distortion that had made impossible demands on the output gate controls.

  Enter Nicklin and the doomed Hepworth from stage left…

  Nicklin squirmed in his seat as he wondered how badly the drive complex in the right-hand cylinder might be affected by the gangrene of Hepworth's incompetence.

  The ship as a whole was in good condition. The thermonuclear power unit could be trusted, because it was self-contained and designed to run for centuries. Much the same could be said for the short-range ion drivers, and Nicklin also had faith in anything for which he had been responsible. So there would be no structural failures and the Tara's passengers were assured of regenerated oxygen, ventilation, light, heat and water.

  All of which meant that, should the ship fail to reach a safe haven, they would be reasonably comfortable while they starved to death.

  Their lives depended on the trouble-free functioning of everything in the right-hand drive cylinder. And Nicklin could visualise the ghost of Hepworth down there at that very minute – bragging, boozing, issuing worthless guarantees, threatening violence to anyone who questioned his ability…

  "I've just come from Corey's room," Voorsanger said. "He is still asleep and Jon says he'll probably stay that way for the next six or seven hours. I think that could be something of a blessing for all of us, don't you?"

  "It's probably a blessing for him," Fleischer replied in a tired voice. "I don't see what difference it makes to the rest of us."

  "Well … He's less likely to … ah … object too strenuously to our going back if he finds we're already well on the way."

  "He can object all he wants," Fleischer said firmly. "I'm the commander of this vessel. I made the decision to return, and nothing will make me alter it."

  Good for you! Nicklin thought, sympathising in full with the pilot. She was becoming increasingly terse and irritable, and he could see why. She was a professional who had somehow allowed the religious side of her nature to blind her to the fact that she was joining a company of fools. It had become apparent to Fleischer that her faith in Corey Montane was going to cost her plenty, possibly her life, and she felt deeply embittered as a result.

  There's a good chance of the Gaseous Vertebrate gaining another convert here, Nicklin thought, allowing a few drops of brandy to float on to his tongue. We'll just have to see how it goes.

  "The Lord will decide everything in the end," Voorsanger said, reproving the pilot for her lack of humility. "Anyway, it makes me feel better to know that we're on our way back."

  "I'll probably feel the same way – when we actually begin travelling back."

  "But you turned the ship ages ago!" Voorsanger pointed at the sun and its fantastic retinue of planets on the main screen. "That's a forward view, isn't it? It-says so underneath. Nought degrees! That means the camera is looking dead ahead, doesn't it?"

  Nicklin smiled to himself as he took another minuscule sip of brandy, conserving the precious supply. Voorsanger was undoubtedly a good man with financial facts and figures, but it was obvious that he had not thought much about balancing the books in which the Tara's energy transactions were logged.

  "Yes, I turned the ship around," Fleischer said with some show of impatience, "but we had been accelerating for roughly thirty hours at that point and were travelling away from the sun at more than 320 kilometres a second. The ship is now pointing its nose at the sun, and it thinks it's moving in that direction – but it's actual
ly flying backwards.

  "We're trying to discard speed, but with only half of the original thrust available it will take us about sixty hours just to come to a halt and we'll have covered more than fifty million kilometres. Then we can start heading back to the edge of the world cloud, but the return leg is going to take even longer than the outward one."

  "I see," Voorsanger said gloomily. "I thought we'd be able to start the search quite soon … in a couple of days…"

  Fleischer shook her head. "Eight days minimum. That's assuming nothing else goes wrong – and around here that's a pretty big assumption."

  "I think we all realise that." Voorsanger gave Nicklin a disapproving glance. "I warned Corey about giving responsible posts to inebriates."

  "You shouldn't speak ill of the dead," Nicklin said in a pious voice.

  "When I said inebriates I was including you, though I must admit your friend was worse. I never met him when he didn't reek of alcohol – it's no wonder he wasn't fit for his job."

  "The booze had nothing to do with it," Nicklin countered. "Scott could make even better cock-ups when he was cold sober – he had a natural flair for it."

  Lovely epitaph, he added mentally, wondering when the emotional trauma associated with Hepworth's death was going to catch up on him. They had spent too many lonely bull sessions together, holed up on rainy nights in odd corners of the gutted ship, for him not to have pain in reserve. It was banked away for him, accruing interest. Before long he would become a pain millionaire.

  "Always the jokes," Voorsanger said. "But they don't alter the fact that Hepworth has endangered the lives of a hundred men, women and children."

  "Scott was a good man," Nicklin replied, provoked into a declaration he knew to be totally out of context and, in most people's eyes, indefensible.

  "Scott was a male chauvinist dinosaur," Megan Fleischer came in, her voice so matter-of-fact that Nicklin, even in his weariness and mild intoxication, knew it had to herald something important.