He was so big that I had to look up to talk to him, even sitting down. Seven feet tall, I learned later—that was two hundred thirteen and a third centimeters, forty-three centimeters taller than I am, almost twenty centimeters taller than Zebadiah … and massing about twice what my husband masses. He wasn’t a freak; all the ship’s guard came from Valeria, where they grow ’em that size.
“Then these medals are for sleeping?”
“Not all of them, Deety. This one is for doing a good deed every day, and this one is for spelling, and this one is for whistling.”
“But anyone can whistle.”
“I do it under water. Can you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried. But porpoises can; I guess I can learn. I’ll try it in the bathtub tonight.”
“Deety, I’m sorry but there isn’t a bathtub in this ship. If we had known you were coming, the boys would have built one just for you.”
“Oh, there’s one bathtub, I know—I took a bath in it eighty-seven minutes ago.”
“Really?”
“Really truly, Major. It’s in this ship because our ship is in this ship.” He had been pulling my leg; now he was certain I was pulling his. I tried to estimate how wide and how thick he was. “Can you wiggle through a bulkhead door”—I paused to convert—“twenty inches wide and forty inches high?”
“A bit snug but, if I tackle it sideways and let out all my breath, I can make it.”
“That’s the tight spot; the bathrooms are abaft the transverse bulkhead. But both bathroom ceilings are a bit higher than you are tall. It’s a date but I must check first. Father. Excuse me, Chief—Pop!”
Pop looked up. “Yes, Deety? What’s the fifth root of nine hundred thirty-two point two?”
“Three point nine two five five six plus.”
“Thanks, dear. Now, Chief, if we—”
“Pop!”
“What is it, Deety?”
“Has Captain Zebadiah okayed taking visitors into Gay Deceiver?”
Pop blinked like an owl. “The Captain intends to take the Lensman through our craft after dinner. The chief engineer and I will go then, whenever that is. You may check with the captain if you wish … but I assume that there is no objection. Mmm …. Protocol. Perhaps it would be polite to wait until after Captain Smith has seen it.”
“But Agú—Mr. Nganagana—has been aboard.”
“Ordered aboard as the Lensman’s surrogate, dear. Different.”
Protocol! I’ve never had any use for it. “Major, we’ll sneak down fast as soon as dinner is over. Our ship isn’t big enough for six people at once.”
He answered quietly: “I had better wait, Dr. Carter.”
“When did I stop being ‘Deety?’ ”
“When you extracted a fifth root in your head.”
“But that’s just mental arithmetic. Anybody can do it, with practice.”
“So? My space ax masses sixty kilos. Could you learn to swing it—with practice?”
“What? Why, that’s a kilo more than I mass. No … but I could learn to swing one proportionate to my mass. I’m quite muscular, for my size.”
“That’s just it, Doctor. You don’t have the muscles I do; your skeleton could not accept them. I don’t have the mental muscles you have; I lack the capacity.”
“Major, if you don’t stop calling me ‘Doctor,’ I’ll—I’ll—I’ll sic Dr. Hilda on you. She eats cateagles for breakfast!”
“So I hear.” He glanced down the table at Aunt Hilda, looking tiny and doll-like and fragile. “Can she do your sort of mental arithmetic?”
“She does something much more difficult. Or it is to me. She knows everything.
“Not everything here of course; we’ve never been in a ship of the Galactic Patrol before. But she remembers everything that she has ever seen, read, or heard. By the way, you didn’t fool me a bit; I know combat medals when I see them, even though ours are different. Do I sic Dr. Hilda on you?”
“Deety, I surrender. But you fooled me. You told me that you did ‘programming on campus.’ I thought you meant assist students in arranging their study programs. Administration.”
“Oh. No, I’m not in administration. My degree is in computer science. The mathematical end, not the hardware—although a programmer must understand the hardware or she can’t write an optimum program for the computer she is using. I’m designated ‘Astrogator’ for our vessel, but I don’t do much astrogation. Mostly I devise special piloting programs for our autopilot.”
“Did you devise the program that put the whole ship in an uproar?”
“Did we cause an uproar?”
“You certainly did. That maneuver when you had young Nganagana as a passenger. If I hadn’t been watching a screen in the control room, I wouldn’t have believed it. I might not have believed my own eyes if I hadn’t glanced at the old man right after you disappeared. Deety, it takes a lot to shock a Lensman; Lensmen have the most stable minds in the galaxy. But I think you folks managed it; he looked as bewildered as I felt. How did you get out of that hold? Those doors are gas-tight.”
“Major, I’m willing to answer that question but I can’t. It involves mathematics outside my field. My father invented the continua machine; my husband engineered the adaptation of it to our ship; I simply program its maneuvers—or some of them.”
“Did you program the one that scared Goo almost blond?”
“He didn’t act scared. Yes, I did. I’m rather pleased with that program—only two syllables, and we left the cargo hold and were a hundred thousand kilometers away. But it’s perfectly safe because I’ve programmed the autopilot not to accept any voices but those of us four. If you said those two syllables in Gay Deceiver, she wouldn’t hear you. She can’t hear them with the doors open, either; she has to be ready for space. Yes, it’s a nice program; I like it. I enjoy writing a truly economical program.”
The major sighed—like a walrus sighing but I didn’t say so. “Deety, you’ve told me everything but how you got out.”
“Uh, do you understand parallel universes?”
“I know of them; I don’t understand them.”
“I’m not sure a three-dimensional brain can understand them. But they can be manipulated. We didn’t go out of that cargo hold; Pop’s continua machine pinned that locus, through other dimensions, to a second locus a hundred thousand kilometers away. My program simply told Gay Deceiver to do it. So we did. One gets used to it, though it’s spooky at first.” I reviewed in my mind whether or not I was under orders not to discuss certain matters. No, neither my husband nor my father had placed “classified” on anything … and I couldn’t give away the “secrets” of the continua drive even if I tried. “Major, we are not from this universe.”
He answered slowly, “I’ve been dodging that conclusion for the past two hours. I’m glad you dragged it out on the deck.”
“In the past twenty-nine hours, subjective time for us, we have been in seventeen universes. Some were very much like our own; some were very strange indeed. This one is the most like our native universe of any we’ve been in—so close an analog that we both speak English. Almost the same English—different accent, somewhat different vocabulary—but near enough.”
Major van Vogt said thoughtfully, “English is not the ship’s working language.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. It’s being spoken because you folks speak it and almost everyone in the ship understands English—except some of my Dutchmen and some other crew members. But this table has been arranged so that those who speak English the most fluently are seated with you four.”
“That was thoughtful of the captain. But I can always manage to talk. If I don’t know the language, I wave my hands and point … and presently, I do know the language. But I enjoy sitting by you, Major.”
“Me too, Deety.”
After toasts, dinner was over but the party went on—with music one could dance to. I looked around for Zebadiah but he and the captain had disappeared, so I c
onscripted Agú and asked him to dance with me. Praise Klono! He had a firm lead, and that was all I asked. He started out easy, discovered that I could follow—and started to embroider. I didn’t fall down, I stayed in step. Fun! Shortly all chairs were back against bulkheads and the table had already disappeared, somehow, and Hilda was dancing with an officer I had barely met. When the music stopped, an officer with the same stripes as the captain but no Lens put his hand on Agú’s shoulder and said, “RHIP, son”—then said to me: “May I have this dance, Doctor?”
“Yes, if you’ll call me ‘Deety.’ Thanks, Agú, that was fun!”
He thanked me with a big, toothy grin. I said to my new partner, “You’re the astrogator.”
“Yes, and you are astrogator of your ship. I need some coaching from you.”
“All right, we’ll trade. But now let’s dance.” He couldn’t dance the way Agú could, but he knew all the classic steps and some I was pleased to learn—and he had a firm lead. I could tell a real man from a namby-pamby just by his lead. Some officers in Nighthawk could dance better than others but all had firm leads.
Thirty-odd men can keep two women awfully busy; they almost danced our shoes off—we loved it! The major asked Hilda to dance; it didn’t work too well as she came up about to his medals even in high heels. They did dance, in step, with the major holding down his strides and the Hillbilly really stretching—then the major picked her up, set her on his left shoulder, held her there with one huge hand, and waltzed solemnly with himself. Everybody applauded and Aunt Hilda laughed and threw kisses at them and kicked up her heels, and a slipper came off.
Somebody caught it and they started drinking fayalin from it, almost-not-quite fighting for the privilege and RHIP got lost in the rush. Major van Vogt went right on waltzing. The tape of whatever they used segued into another waltz, a familiar one. Aunt Hilda had a nice mezzo and a big voice for her size; she started singing:
“Waaay down in Missoooori where I learnnned this melody ….”
… and everybody joined in, those who didn’t know the words faking it.
A soggy slipper isn’t much good for dancing but the Galactic Patrol can meet any emergency. Hilda told me later that it was bone dry (blown dry, I suppose, as with a hair dryer) and had talcum or some such dusted into it; the officer who claimed the privilege had no trouble slipping it onto her tiny foot. She went on dancing.
Aunt Hilda was the belle of the ball—but there was plenty for me. I forgot all about time until I spotted my husband and suddenly realized that I had hardly thought about my husband for three hours and seven minutes.
He came up and claimed me. Yes, Zebadiah can dance while wearing a sword. The music shifted to “The Merry Widow” and we danced it as a pattern, which I didn’t know he knew (I’m still learning things about my husband). He finished it with an exaggerated bow while “making a knee” and I curtsied almost to the deck, knowing that Zebadiah’s strong hand would lift me out of it. We got wave after wave of applause.
Hilda had been dancing with the captain; we swapped—and I almost got stage fright; I was dancing with a Lensman. But Captain Ted Smith was as easy as an old shoe; he didn’t try anything fancy, apologized for being rusty, said he was sorry to have missed most of the party but hoped his officers had kept me entertained.
I assured him that they had.
“Your husband Captain Carter and your father Doctor Burroughs have been showing me so many stupendously fascinating things that I could hardly tear myself away. Then I had to send a rather long message.” He added, “Part of what I saw were holopix—correction: stereopictures—of what you showed me in your mind earlier. That vermin.”
“We weren’t equipped to shoot holograms; we were taken by surprise.”
“Not so taken by surprise that two heroes—and two heroines—couldn’t handle it. Your husband and your father let me see into their minds to supplement the still pictures. I’m much impressed by both you and Dr. Hilda.”
I suddenly remembered parts of it and wondered if I could still blush. Apparently not. Then I recalled that Lensmen learned to accept any cultural mores no matter how prudish the ones of their childhoods.
“Your father also showed me a stereo of the crater where your home had been, and a mental picture of its destruction. All pictures, all data, are now at Prime Base and are being sent throughout civilization. We don’t know that this universe is infested but we are grateful for the warning—forewarned is forearmed.”
I didn’t want to think about Panki. “Did my husband show you our bathroom?”
The Lensman managed to frown and laugh at the same time. “Yes. I don’t understand it and wish I could see Sr. Austin Cardynge’s face when he sees it. The only explanation your father offered was ‘magic.’ ”
“Captain, what other word is appropriate for engineering one cannot explain?”
“Clarke’s Theorem. Yes. But I would like to see Sir Austin’s face.”
The party was over at the end of that dance. The invisible orchestra gave way to a military band, playing “Our Patrol.” Nobody told us to stand at attention but all four of us did. Then a young officer escorted us to our quarters. They were roomier than I expected them to be in a warship: a common room flanked by two staterooms, each with a small but complete bath—showers, no tubs. I expected double bunks, probably stacked—but each stateroom held a double bed.
I asked, “Zebadiah, what is this? Admiral’s quarters? Or does the Gray Lensman use this suite?”
“I don’t think so, to both. Jake, look at this.”
Pop and Zebadiah studied something at one of the doorways. “Well?” said my husband.
“They don’t do things by halves, do they?”
“What are you two talking about?” Aunt Hilda demanded.
“My dear, this suite was constructed after we came aboard. It probably started right after we insisted on dressing in Gay Deceiver. But I think that the beds were built during the last two hours. Eh, Holmes?”
“ ‘You know my methods, Watson.’ ” (My husband loves to show off.) “Gals, we showed the captain and the chief engineer how quickly we could rig two double beds in Gay—the big one forward for you and me, the smaller one after for Sharpie and Jake. The captain glanced at the chief—Lensed him, maybe—and as soon as we had the forward one unrigged, the chief ‘remembered’ that he had to phone the power room. He stepped outside Gay for about five minutes, then came back. But I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth; I’m going to sleep in it.”
“Suppose he bites down while you’re asleep, Zebbie?”
“That’s the horse’s problem. Sharpie, if it worries you, you can doss in Gay Deceiver. You can’t get lost; the passageway outside this suite, if you turn left, leads directly to the cargo hold where she is nested, with all side doors locked off—for our convenience and privacy, the chief said … although probably also to keep us from wandering into spaces where we should not be. But we aren’t prisoners; turn right and you are back in the wardroom and the pantry is manned all night. And that thing over there is a telephone; you can phone the pantry, or anywhere else. Even the captain’s cabin.”
Next morning we were at Prime Base.
XXXIX
Zebadiah
Iwoke up when we went inertialess; Deety didn’t. It’s a queasy feeling, unlike freefall. It didn’t nauseate me, quite—but it didn’t seem to affect Deety’s cast-iron stomach at all; she still clung like a koala while we bounced feather-light off the overhead. I managed to grab something, pulled us down, found the glowing light I had been told to look for, tapped it, and a net snapped over us—went back to sleep.
I woke once more when we acquired weight, rearranged my pet koala—went back to sleep; it had been a long day.
When we woke and stayed awake, it was about eight and we were hungry. Jake and Hilda were already awake, in the common room, and eating. “Lazybones,” she said, “Nothing left, we ate it all.”
“Sharpie, how do I order wha
t you are eating? And where did you find those dressing gowns?”
“Look in your wardrobe, dear. As for ordering, you don’t—because when I heard your shower, I ordered for you. Hotcakes, sausage, poached eggs, melon, and milk for Deety, she’s eating for two. Dry toast and coffee for you, Zebbie; you’re getting paunchy. It’ll be here in a moment; that little cupboard is sort of a dumbwaiter.”
It arrived before I could tell Sharpie what she could do with her dry toast—same order for both of us, plus milk for Deety.
At nine, the captain phoned me. “Captain, how soon would it suit you and your party to leave the ship?”
I was startled but answered quickly, “We can leave at once if you wish, sir. I may ask for astrogational advice. Am I to assume that Prime Base is expecting us?” (I didn’t want us burned out of space; these boys had weapons that made Sprint missiles seem like BB guns).
“Sorry, Captain, first I should have said that we are now at Prime Base.”
“I slept through it,” I told him, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “We can leave as quickly as we can man our ship. Say ten minutes. Or twice that if Gay Deceiver’s attitude is not horizontal with respect to ground level. I’ll take her straight up to any designated altitude if you will alert your ground defenses to expect us at that locus but I do need to know true horizontal since I will be flying blind in taking her out of your hold. Then I’ll need a beacon to show me where to land.”
“Again, Captain Carter, I have expressed myself poorly. If you are willing to do so, we will leave by gangway … and I hope you will accept side honors this time; the Port Admiral expressed his intention of meeting you at the foot of the gangway.”
“Captain, give it to me by Lens. What do you prefer?”
“Zeb, my new friend, both Port Admiral Haynes and I will be disappointed if you do not accept full honors. But we do not insist.”
“Very well, sir—full honors. In that case we will need at least an hour; we must get clothes from Gay Deceiver—and dress in her if she’s right-side-up ….”
“She is.”
“Good. I’ll take her out of your ship later. Unless you intend to leave Prime Base as soon as we disembark.”
The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes Page 47
