Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XII

by Various

"That does me a lot of good," Rat said glumly as Alan's breakfast came rolling toward him on the plastic conveyor belt from the kitchen.

  Alan laughed and reached avidly for the steaming tray of food. He poured a little of his synthorange juice into a tiny pan for Rat, and fell to.

  Rat was a native of Bellatrix VII, an Earth-size windswept world that orbited the bright star in the Orion constellation. He was a member of one of the three intelligent races that shared the planet with a small colony of Earthmen.

  The Valhalla had made the long trip to Bellatrix, 215 light-years from Earth, shortly before Alan's birth. Captain Donnell had won the friendship of the little creature and had brought him back to the ship when time came for the Valhalla to return to Earth for its next assignment.

  Rat had been the Captain's pet, and he had given Alan the small animal on his tenth birthday. Rat had never gotten along well with Steve, and more than once he had been the cause of jealous conflicts between Alan and his twin.

  Rat was well named; he looked like nothing so much as a small bluish-purple rodent, with wise, beady little eyes and a scaly curling tail. But he spoke Terran clearly and well, and in every respect he was an intelligent, loyal, and likable creature.

  They ate in silence. Alan was halfway through his bowl of protein mix when Art Kandin dropped down onto his bench facing him. The Valhalla's First Officer was a big pudgy-faced man who had the difficult job of translating the concise, sometimes almost cryptic commands of Alan's father into the actions that kept the great starship going.

  "Good rising, Alan. And happy birthday."

  "Thanks, Art. But how come you're loafing now? Seems to me you'd be busy as a Martian dustdigger today, of all days. Who's setting up the landing orbit, if you're here?"

  "Oh, that's all been done," Kandin said lightly. "Your Dad and I were up all last night working out the whole landing procedure." He reached out and took Rat from Alan's shoulder, and began to tickle him with his forefinger. Rat responded with a playful nip of his sharp little teeth. "I'm taking the morning off," Kandin continued. "You can't imagine how nice it's going to be to sit around doing nothing while everyone else is working, for a change."

  "What's the landing hour?"

  "Precisely 1753 tonight. It's all been worked out. We actually are in the landing orbit now, though the ship's gimbals keep you from feeling it. We'll touch down tonight and move into the Enclave tomorrow." Kandin eyed Alan with sudden suspicion. "You're planning to stay in the Enclave, aren't you?"

  Alan put down his fork with a sharp tinny clang and stared levelly at the First Officer. "That's a direct crack. You're referring to my brother, aren't you?"

  "Who wouldn't be?" Kandin asked quietly. "The captain's son jumping ship? You don't know how your father suffered when Steve went over the hill. He kept it all hidden and just didn't say a thing, but I know it hit him hard. The whole affair was a direct reflection on his authority as a parent, of course, and that's why he was so upset. He's a man who isn't used to being crossed."

  "I know. He's been on top here so long, with everyone following his orders, that he can't understand how someone could disobey and jump ship--especially his own son."

  "I hope you don't have any ideas of----"

  Alan clipped off Kandin's sentence before it had gotten fully started. "I don't need advice, Art. I know what's right and wrong. Tell me the truth--did Dad send you to sound me out?"

  Kandin flushed and looked down. "I'm sorry, Alan. I didn't mean--well----"

  They fell silent. Alan returned his attention to his breakfast, while Kandin stared moodily off into the distance.

  "You know," the First Officer said finally, "I've been thinking about Steve. It just struck me that you can't call him your twin any more. That's one of the strangest quirks of star travel that's been recorded yet."

  "I thought of that. He's twenty-six, I'm seventeen, and yet we used to be twins. But the Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things."

  "That's for sure," Kandin said. "Well, time for me to start relaxing." He clapped Alan on the back, disentangled his long legs from the bench, and was gone.

  The Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things, Alan repeated to himself, as he methodically chewed his way through the rest of his meal and got on line to bring the dishes to the yawning hopper that would carry them down to the molecular cleansers. Real funny things.

  He tried to picture what Steve looked like now, nine years older. He couldn't.

  As velocity approaches that of light, time approaches zero.

  That was the key to the universe. Time approaches zero. The crew of a spaceship travelling from Earth to Alpha Centauri at a speed close to that of light would hardly notice the passage of time on the journey.

  It was, of course, impossible ever actually to reach the speed of light. But the great starships could come close. And the closer they came, the greater the contraction of time aboard ship.

  It was all a matter of relativity. Time is relative to the observer.

  Thus travel between the stars was possible. Without the Fitzgerald Contraction, the crew of a spaceship would age five years en route to Alpha C, eight to Sirius, ten to Procyon. More than two centuries would elapse in passage to a far-off star like Bellatrix.

  Thanks to the contraction effect, Alpha C was three weeks away, Sirius a month and a half. Even Bellatrix was just a few years' journey distant. Of course, when the crew returned to Earth they found things completely changed; years had passed on Earth, and life had moved on.

  Now the Valhalla was back on Earth again for a short stay. On Earth, starmen congregated at the Enclaves, the cities-within-cities that grew up at each spaceport. There, starmen mingled in a society of their own, without attempting to enter the confusing world outside.

  Sometimes a Spacer broke away. His ship left him behind, and he became an Earther. Steve Donnell had done that.

  The Fitzgerald Contraction does funny things. Alan thought of the brother he had last seen just a few weeks ago, young, smiling, his own identical twin--and wondered what the nine extra years had done to him.

  Chapter Two

  Alan dumped his breakfast dishes into the hopper and walked briskly out of the mess hall. His destination was the Central Control Room, that long and broad chamber that was the nerve-center of the ship's activities just as the Common Recreation Room was the center of off-duty socializing for the Crew.

  He found the big board where the assignments for the day were chalked, and searched down the long lists for his own name.

  "You're working with me today, Alan," a quiet voice said.

  He turned at the sound of the voice and saw the short, wiry figure of Dan Kelleher, the cargo chief. He frowned. "I guess we'll be crating from now till tonight without a stop," he said unhappily.

  Kelleher shook his head. "Wrong. There's really not very much work. But it's going to be cold going. All those chunks of dinosaur meat in the preserving hold are going to get packed up. It won't be fun."

  Alan agreed.

  He scanned the board, looking down the rows for the list of cargo crew. Sure enough, there was his name: Donnell, Alan, chalked in under the big double C. As an Unspecialized Crewman he was shifted from post to post, filling in wherever he was needed.

  "I figure it'll take four hours to get the whole batch crated," Kelleher said. "You can take some time off now, if you want to. You'll be working to make up for it soon enough."

  "I won't debate the point. Suppose I report to you at 0900?"

  "Suits me."

  "In case you need me before then, I'll be in my cabin. Just ring me."

  Once back in his cabin, a square cubicle in the beehive of single men's rooms in the big ship's fore section, Alan unslung his pack and took out the dog-eared book he knew so well. He riffled through its pages. The Cavour Theory, it said in worn gold letters on the spine. He had read the volume end-to-end at least a hundred times.

  "I still can't see why you're so wild on Cavour," Rat grumbled, looking up fr
om his doll-sized sleeping-cradle in the corner of Alan's cabin. "If you ever do manage to solve Cavour's equations you're just going to put yourself and your family right out of business. Hand me my nibbling-stick, like a good fellow."

  Alan gave Rat the much-gnawed stick of Jovian oak which the Bellatrician used to keep his tiny teeth sharp.

  "You don't understand," Alan said. "If we can solve Cavour's work and develop the hyperdrive, we won't be handicapped by the Fitzgerald Contraction. What difference does it make in the long run if the Valhalla becomes obsolete? We can always convert it to the new drive. The way I see it, if we could only work out the secret of Cavour's hyperspace drive, we'd----"

  "I've heard it all before," Rat said, with a note of boredom in his reedy voice. "Why, with hyperspace drive you'd be able to flit all over the galaxy without suffering the time-lag you experience with regular drive. And then you'd accomplish your pet dream of going everywhere and seeing everything. Ah! Look at the eyes light up! Look at the radiant expression! You get starry-eyed every time you start talking about the hyperdrive!"

  Alan opened the book to a dog-eared page. "I know it can be done eventually. I'm sure of it. I'm even sure Cavour himself actually succeeded in building a hyperspace vessel."

  "Sure," Rat said drily, switching his long tail from side to side. "Sure he built one. That explains his strange disappearance. Went out like a snuffed candle, soon as he turned on his drive. Okay, go ahead and build one--if you can. But don't bother booking passage for me."

  "You mean you'd stay behind if I built a hyperspace ship?"

  "Sure I would." There was no hesitation in Rat's voice. "I like this particular space-time continuum very much. I don't care at all to wind up seventeen dimensions north of here with no way back."

  "You're just an old stick-in-the mud." Alan glanced at his wristchron. It read 0852. "Time for me to get to work. Kelleher and I are packing frozen dinosaur today. Want to come along?"

  Rat wiggled the tip of his nose in a negative gesture. "Thanks all the same, but the idea doesn't appeal. It's nice and warm here. Run along, boy; I'm sleepy." He curled up in his cradle, wrapped his tail firmly around his body, and closed his eyes.

  * * * * *

  There was a line waiting at the entrance to the freezer section, and Alan took his place on it. One by one they climbed into the spacesuits which the boy in charge provided, and entered the airlock.

  For transporting perishable goods--such as the dinosaur meat brought back from the colony on Alpha C IV to satisfy the heavy demand for that odd-tasting delicacy on Earth--the Valhalla used the most efficient freezing system of all: a compartment which opened out into the vacuum of space. The meat was packed in huge open receptacles which were flooded just before blastoff; before the meat had any chance to spoil, the lock was opened, the air fled into space and the compartment's heat radiated outward. The water froze solid, preserving the meat. It was just as efficient as building elaborate refrigeration coils, and a good deal simpler.

  The job now was to hew the frozen meat out of the receptacles and get it packed in manageable crates for shipping. The job was a difficult one. It called for more muscle than brain.

  As soon as all members of the cargo crew were in the airlock, Kelleher swung the hatch closed and threw the lever that opened the other door into the freezer section. Photonic relays clicked; the metal door swung lightly out and they headed through it after Kelleher gave the go-ahead.

  Alan and the others set grimly about their work, chopping away at the ice. They fell to vigorously. After a while, they started to get somewhere. Alan grappled with a huge leg of meat while two fellow starmen helped him ease it into a crate. Their hammers pounded down as they nailed the crate together, but not a sound could be heard in the airless vault.

  After what seemed to be three or four centuries to Alan, but which was actually only two hours, the job was done. Somehow Alan got himself to the recreation room; he sank down gratefully on a webfoam pneumochair.

  He snapped on a spool of light music and stretched back, completely exhausted. I don't ever want to see or taste a dinosaur steak again, he thought. Not ever.

  He watched the figures of his crewmates dashing through the ship, each going about some last-minute job that had to be handled before the ship touched down. In a way he was glad he had drawn the assignment he had: it was difficult, gruelingly heavy labor, carried out under nasty circumstances--it was never fun to spend any length of time doing manual labor inside a spacesuit, because the sweat-swabbers and the air-conditioners in the suit were generally always one step behind on the job--but at least the work came to a definite end. Once all the meat was packed, the job was done.

  The same couldn't be said for the unfortunates who swabbed the floors, scraped out the jets, realigned the drive mechanism, or did any other tidying work. Their jobs were never done; they always suffered from the nagging thought that just a little more work might bring the inspection rating up a decimal or two.

  Every starship had to undergo a rigorous inspection whenever it touched down on Earth. The Valhalla probably wouldn't have any difficulties, since it had been gone only nine years Earthtime. But ships making longer voyages often had troubles with the inspectors. Procedure which passed inspection on a ship bound out for Rigel or one of the other far stars might have become a violation in the hundreds of years that would have passed before its return.

  Alan wondered if the Valhalla would run into any inspection problems. The schedule called for departure for Procyon in six days, and the ship would as usual be carrying a party of colonists.

  The schedule was pretty much of a sacred thing. But Alan had not forgotten his brother Steve. If he only had a few days to get out there and maybe find him----

  Well, I'll see, he thought. He relaxed.

  But relaxation was brief. A familiar high-pitched voice cut suddenly into his consciousness. Oh, oh, he thought. Here comes trouble.

  "How come you've cut jets, spaceman?"

  Alan opened one eye and stared balefully at the skinny figure of Judy Collier. "I've finished my job, that's how come. And I've been trying to get a little rest. Any objections?"

  She held up her hands and looked around the big recreation room nervously. "Okay, don't shoot. Where's that animal of yours?"

  "Rat? Don't worry about him. He's in my cabin, chewing his nibbling-stick. I can assure you it tastes a lot better to him than your bony ankles." Alan yawned deliberately. "Now how about letting me rest?"

  She looked wounded. "If you want it that way. I just thought I'd tell you about the doings in the Enclave when we land. There's been a change in the regulations since the last time we were here. But you wouldn't be interested, of course." She started to mince away.

  "Hey, wait a minute!" Judy's father was the Valhalla's Chief Signal Officer, and she generally had news from a planet they were landing on a lot quicker than anyone else. "What's this all about?"

  "A new quarantine regulation. They passed it two years ago when a ship back from Altair landed and the crew turned out to be loaded with some sort of weird disease. We have to stay isolated even from the other starmen in the Enclave until we've all had medical checkups."

  "Do they require every ship landing to go through this?"

  "Yep. Nuisance, isn't it? So the word has come from your father that since we can't go round visiting until we've been checked, the Crew's going to have a dance tonight when we touch down."

  "A dance?"

  "You heard me. He thought it might be a nice idea--just to keep our spirits up until the quarantine's lifted. That nasty Roger Bond has invited me," she added, with a raised eyebrow that was supposed to be sophisticated-looking.

  "What's wrong with Roger? I just spent a whole afternoon crating dinosaur meat with him."

  "Oh, he's--well--he just doesn't do anything to me."

  I'd like to do something to you, Alan thought. Something lingering, with boiling oil in it.

  "Did you accept?" he asked, just to be
polite.

  "Of course not! Not yet, that is. I just thought I might get some more interesting offers, that's all," she said archly.

  Oh, I see the game, Alan thought. She's looking for an invitation. He stretched way back and slowly let his eyes droop closed. "I wish you luck," he said.

  She gaped at him. "Oh--you're horrible!"

  "I know," he admitted coolly. "I'm actually a Neptunian mudworm, completely devoid of emotions. I'm here in disguise to destroy the Earth, and if you reveal my secret I'll eat you alive."

  She ignored his sally and shook her head. "But why do I always have to go to dances with Roger Bond?" she asked plaintively. "Oh, well. Never mind," she said, and turned away.

  He watched her as she crossed the recreation room floor and stepped through the exit sphincter. She was just a silly girl, of course, but she had pointed up a very real problem of starship life when she asked, "Why do I always have to go to dances with Roger Bond?"

  The Valhalla was practically a self-contained universe. The Crew was permanent; no one ever left, unless it was to jump ship the way Steve had--and Steve was the only Crewman in the Valhalla's history to do that. And no one new ever came aboard, except in the case of the infrequent changes of personnel. Judy Collier herself was one of the newest members of the Crew, and her family had come aboard five ship years ago, because a replacement signal officer had been needed.

  Otherwise, things remained the same. Two or three dozen families, a few hundred people, living together year in and year out. No wonder Judy Collier always had to go to dances with Roger Bond. The actual range of eligibles was terribly limited.

  That was why Steve had gone over the hill. What was it he had said? I feel the walls of the ship holding me in like the bars of a cell. Out there was Earth, population approximately eight billion or so. And up here is the Valhalla, current population precisely 176.

  He knew all 176 of them like members of his own family--which they were, in a sense. There was nothing mysterious about anyone, nothing new.

  And that was what Steve had wanted: something new. So he had jumped ship. Well, Alan thought, development of a hyperdrive would change the whole setup, if--if----