Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time

by Judith Merril (ed. )

  Walker sat down, eying them suspiciously.

  “How do you like our ship?” Arriglio asked.

  “It’s O.K.,” Walker said, with the air of a man who has seen bigger and better; despite the fact that this was the only completed spaceship, at present, in the United States.

  “How do you feel about the trip?” Danton asked.

  “Just another trip,” Walker answered, leaning back in his chair. “Shouldn’t be too tough.”

  “Would you like to see the rest of the ship?” Powell asked hastily. He could see that Arriglio was smoldering, and Danton didn’t look too happy.

  “Naw,” Walker said. “I’ll get plenty of chance later.”

  There was an awkward silence, which didn’t seem to bother Walker. Powell watched him out of the corner of his eye as he lighted a cigarette. Neuroticism he had expected. But Walker was plain arrogant.

  Walker grunted and thrust his hands in his pockets. Powell watched and realized that the man was clenching and unclenching his fists.

  He must be nervous, Powell thought, and tried to think of something pleasant to say.

  “How fast you figure you’ll shove the ship?” Arriglio asked. Walker looked at him scornfully. “Fast as she’ll take,” he said, and gulped convulsively.

  Not nervous, Powell decided. Scared. Just plain scared, and trying to hide it.

  “Well, you’ll find this a nice little boat,” Danton said inanely.

  “Nice little boat,” Arriglio repeated.

  “I want a candy bar,” Walker said.

  “How about a cigarette?” Powell said, offering him one.

  “I think I’ll just step outside and get a candy bar. There’s gotta be a hawker on the landing field.”

  “We’re off soon,” Powell said. “I’d like to run through the briefing—”

  “Nuts,” Walker said succinctly, and left.

  “I’ll kill that guy before we’re through,” Arriglio murmured when Walker was out of the room. Danton looked grim.

  “We’ll just have to bear him,” Powell said. “He’ll fit in.”

  “He’s insufferable,” Danton said. They sat and glared at the doorway. Powell began to feel sorry for himself. What had Command talked him into?

  “I decided I didn’t want a candy bar,” Walker said, coming back into the room. He looked from face to face. “You guys been talking about me?”

  “Why should we?” Arriglio asked abruptly.

  “You guys probably figure I can’t push this crate,” Walker said.

  “Now look,” Powell said sternly. “We don’t think any such thing. Each of us will do his job, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Walker just looked at him.

  “Let’s go through the briefing,” Powell said. “Come with me. Walker.”

  He led Walker into the control room and showed him the line of force diagrams, explained the sequence of orders and told him what he was supposed to do. Walker listened carefully, still chewing his lower lip.

  “Look, Captain,” he said. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Fine,” Powell said, rolling up his charts and laying them aside.

  “Just don’t count on me too much,” the psi said, and hurried out of the room. Powell shook his head and checked his instruments.

  Powell strapped himself in, and snapped on the intercom.

  “Danton. Set?”

  “Set, Captain.”

  “Arriglio.”

  “Just a moment—set. Captain.”

  “Walker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right.” Powell received his field clearance from the tower. He leaned back. “Ten seconds. Main drive on.”

  “On,” Arriglio said. A roar shook the ship as the engines leaped into violent life.

  “Get it up,” Powell said, reading his dials. “Fine. Hold it there. Danton. Get set on auxiliary.”

  “I’m on.”

  “Six seconds. Walker, stand by.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Four seconds.” Half a dozen fine adjustments, oxygen.

  “Two seconds. One second.”

  “Blast! Come in. Walker!”

  The ship started to rise, balancing on her jets. Then, a great force seized her. Powell was slammed back in his seat, knowing that Walker’s telekinetic force was shoving now. He read the climb dial. As soon as they had reached five hundred feet, he cut a switch.

  “Main drive off! Give it all you’ve got. Walker!”

  The roar stopped, but the ship leaped forward faster. The ship performed an incredible wrench. Powell wondered what it was. Not acceleration, certainly…

  The ship was wrenched again. Powell gasped and blacked out.

  When he recovered, the ship was surrounded by the blackness of space. Acceleration was still a giant hand against his chest, but he struggled forward and looked out a port.

  Stars, of course.

  Powell grinned weakly and decided to buy Walker a drink when they got back. The erratic, powerful psi dynamo had functioned—with a vengeance. He wondered how far from Earth they were.

  Touching the instrument panel, he got a screen-view behind him. He searched it for the blue-green globe of Earth.

  Earth wasn’t there.

  Manipulating the view, he quickly found Sol. But why was it so small? Earth’s sun looked about the size of a large pea.

  Where were they?

  Powell unstrapped himself. He could feel that the ship was beginning to lose its acceleration. He checked his instruments and calculated their velocity.

  Fantastic!

  “Danton!” he shouted into the intercom.

  “Ouch,” Danton said. “Brother!”

  “Get up here and check our position. Arriglio?”

  “Yes, Sam?”

  “See how Walker is,” Powell looked out at the stars again, then at the sun. Finally he frowned and rechecked his figures. He had to be wrong.

  Half an hour later, Danton came up with an answer. “As near as I can figure out,” he said, “we’re somewhere between Saturn and Jupiter. Probably closer to Saturn.”

  “That’s impossible,” Powell said flatly.

  “Sure,” Danton agreed. “Try it yourself.” Powell went over the navigator’s figures, but could find no error in them. They were five hundred million miles from Mars, give or take ten million.

  Powell shook his head. The figures had no real emotional impact on him. They couldn’t, since no one could grasp what five hundred million miles really meant. He reduced it, automatically, to an understandable size.

  Which was just as well, under the circumstances.

  “So here we are,” he said matter-of-factly. “Well,” Arriglio came in, and he asked him, “how are we on fuel?”

  “So-so,” Arriglio said. “That psi-assisted take-off saved us a lot, of course. But we still haven’t got enough.”

  “Of course not,” Powell agreed. A ship powered for a Mars trip, with refueling on the planet, couldn’t expect to get back from Saturn.

  Saturn! He tried to think what that meant in terms of straight-line acceleration, but gave it up. The telekineticized ship must have skipped a portion of space, somehow.

  Walker came into the room, his lips pallid and twitching. “Did you say we were around Saturn?” he asked.

  “Saturn’s orbit,” Powell said, automatically forcing a grin. “Saturn is on the other side of the sun now.” He widened the grin, and remembered rule two in the operating instructions. Praise must he afforded the psi at frequent intervals.

  “Boy,” he said, “you’ve really got something there. Magnificent!”

  “I suppose… I suppose—” Walker looked at them, his face drawn into a pout. Then he started to cry.

  “Take it easy,” Powell said, feeling extremely uncomfortable. His machine didn’t seem to be responding.

  “I knew I’d louse it up,” the psi dynamo blubbered. “I just knew it.”

  “Nothing’s lost,” Powell said, keeping his voice pleas
ant and even. “You just don’t know your own strength. You’ll bring us back.”

  “I can’t,” Walker said, covering his face with his big hands. “I can’t do it any more.”

  “What?” Danton shouted.

  “I can’t! I’ve lost the power! I felt it all whoosh out of me! I can’t do it any more!” He screamed the last at them, and half-sat, half-slid to the deck. Placing his face against his knees he wept uncontrollably.

  “Come on,” Powell said to Danton. Together they lifted Walker and carried him to his bunk. Danton gave him a sedative, and they watched until the psi fell into a restless sleep. Then they returned to the Main Room.

  “Well,” Arriglio said. They didn’t answer him. The three men sat down and stared out a port.

  After a while, Danton said, “If he really can’t do it any more—”

  “Suppose he’s a one-shot?” Arriglio said in a whisper.

  With an effort Powell turned from the port. “I don’t think so,” he said. “You don’t lose psi power that easily, I’ve heard.” He had heard no such thing; but morale was still a factor.

  “The point is,” Danton said, “he doesn’t have to lose it. If he just believes he’s lost it—”

  “We’ll talk him out of that,” Powell said. “Just think of him as a machine. A tricky one—but we’ve got the manual.”

  “I hope some of the spare parts aren’t on Earth,” Danton said.

  They were silent for a few moments.

  “We’d better get the engines going,” Powell said. “We have to turn the ship, or we’ll be out of the system in no time.”

  “That’s going to take a bit of fuel,” Arriglio said.

  “Can’t help it. Work out the curve, will you, Danton? As tight as we can take.”

  “Right,” Danton said.

  “And then we’ll eat.”

  Once the ship was turning, they ate. Then they held a conference.

  “It’s all up to us,” Powell said. “His arrogance before we took off was sheer bluff. Now his nerve is shot. We have to restore his confidence.”

  “Easy,” Arriglio said. “Telephone a psychiatrist.”

  “Very funny,” Danton said.

  “Not so funny,” Powell told them. “A psychiatrist might come in very handy now. In the absence of one, we have the operating instructions.”

  Danton and Arriglio took out their copies and looked them over.

  “For the duration,” Powell said, “we’ll have to think of Walker as a machine. It brought us out here. It can take us back. Now, any suggestions on getting it back in running order?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Danton said hesitantly. They discussed it for several minutes, and decided it was worth a try. Arriglio went back for Walker.

  When he came in, Powell and Danton were shuffling a deck of cards. “Care for some poker?” Powell asked carelessly. “Nothing else to do until we round the curve.”

  “Do you want me to play?” Walker asked in a whisper.

  “Sure. Sit down.” The tall psi took a chair self-consciously, and picked up his cards. The game began.

  Since the psi is unstable, his ego must he periodically boosted. It was the craziest game Powell had ever seen. They had decided to let Walker win, in hopes of restoring his confidence. But Walker was a hard man to lose to. Timidly he glanced at his cards and threw in hand after hand. He folded when anyone raised. His hands ran amazingly low, even with Arriglio’s skillful dealing. Walker never even opened a hand.

  But the men were persistent. Silently they worked, throwing away good cards in hopes of getting poor ones. They tried to beat Walker to the punch by folding before he could. Bit by bit, Walker forged ahead.

  Powell watched the psi play. The man’s sad, homely face was tense with strain. He took each card as though his life depended on it.

  Powell had never seen a man who played so seriously, and so poorly.

  Finally, a big pot came up. Walker, who hadn’t drawn any cards, seemed to pick up confidence. He bet. Powell had drawn one card, splitting up a pair. He raised. Danton and Arriglio raised. Walker hesitated, then raised back.

  After several rounds. Walker called.

  Powell had a ten high. Arriglio had an eight, and Danton a queen.

  Walker had stayed with an ace.

  “Good bluffing,” Powell said. Walker stood up, his face contorted.

  “I can’t lose,” he said in a strange voice.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Danton said.

  “I put you guys in this fix—and then I win your dough,” Walker said. He hurried away.

  Only then did Powell realize that Walker had wanted to lose. Expiation, he thought, but didn’t bother to explain it to Danton and Arriglio. He hurried after Walker.

  Walker was sitting on his bunk, staring at his hands. Powell sat down beside him and offered him a cigarette. He felt safe in doing so, since their food and water would run out long before their oxygen.

  “No thank you,” Walker said dully.

  “What’s wrong?” Powell asked.

  “Oh, me,” Walker said. “I’ve gone and done it again.”

  “Done what?”

  “Loused everything up. I’ve always done something like that. You can count on it.”

  Understanding and sympathy must he used at all times when dealing with the psi.

  “No reason to feel that way,” Powell said in a soothing, fatherly voice. “You did something no one else could. That push you gave the ship—”

  “Wonderful, wasn’t it?” Walker said bitterly. “I pushed us right where we didn’t want to go.”

  “It was still the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “And now what?” Walker said, knotting his fingers together in agony. “I can’t get us back. I’ve killed us!”

  “You can’t blame yourself—” Powell began, but Walker interrupted him.

  “I can! It’s my fault!” He started to cry, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  “All you have to do is push us back,” Powell said.

  “I’ve told you,” Walker gasped, his eyes wild. “I’ve lost it. I can’t do it any more.” His voice started to get louder.

  “Now listen to me,” Powell said sternly. “You don’t lose it. That’s defeatist talk.” He went smoothly into his best inspirational speech, one resented for extra-bad moments. It was good, he had to admit. He talked about the stars and Earth, and science, and man’s mission on the planets. He talked of the undeveloped psi powers, and their importance in the scheme of things.

  Walker stopped crying. He listened, his eyes knotted on Powell’s face.

  Powell told him about the future of psi, making it up as he went along. How the psi powers would some day link the stars. But until that day, it was up to men like Walker to lead the way.

  And a great deal more.

  “Come on, boy,” Powell cried, after he saw that his audience was thoroughly hooked. “You haven’t lost it. Try again!”

  “I will!” Walker wiped his nose on his sleeve again and shut his eyes. Cords in his neck stood out. Powell held on to the side of the bunk and watched his precious dynamo begin to operate.

  Across the room a door flew open, then slammed shut. Walker’s face grew red.

  Fascinated, Powell watched the psi’s face. The long nose glistened with sweat, the wide lips were peeled back. Walker was in an agony of concentration.

  Then he relaxed, and sagged back against the bunk.

  “I can’t do it,” he said. “I just can’t.”

  Powell wanted to tell him to try again. But he remembered Rule 4: The psi must he allowed to run at his own pace. Excess pressure will break him.

  “Take a rest,” Powell said, resisting a strong temptation to throttle the man. He stood up, taking care to keep his face expressionless.

  “I’ve killed you all,” Walker said.

  Powell left the room.

  The ship rounded the great curve and started the long fall sunwards. Arriglio c
ut the engines, mourning the expenditure of fuel. They were really short now. Just how short, Danton set out to discover.

  In free fall now, with all apparent motion stopped, the ship seemed to hang in space. The sun grew in size—too slowly. Much too slowly.

  Walker remained in his bunk, refusing any more conversation. Powell knew that the man was judging himself—and condemning, over and over again. He wanted to do something about it, but couldn’t figure out what.

  “Here’s the score,” Danton said, in the Main Room. He showed Powell a graph. “Here’s course and speed, here’s destination.” He pointed out the lines. “We run out of food here—” The line fell far short of their destination. “And we run out of water here.” That line was still shorter.

  “How about if we accelerate?” Powell asked.

  “Too far to go,” Danton said. “I’ve tried juggling it every way around, and it still comes out no good. We couldn’t even make it if we ate each other, and drank the blood.”

  “That’s a pleasant thought, you gory pig,” Arriglio said from the other side of the room.

  “Don’t you like it?” Danton asked.

  “Not a bit.” Arriglio pushed himself off a wall and floated forward, moving easily in the weightless ship.

  “Then do something about it,” Danton said, pushing himself forward to meet Arriglio.

  “Hey, stop it,” Powell said. “Come on, break it up.” The two men parted suddenly.

  “The guy I’d like to get is that—”

  “Stop it,” Powell said sharply. He heard a noise. Walker floated in. Powell hoped he hadn’t heard the conversation.

  “Come on in,” Powell said.

  “Sure, pull up a chair,” Danton said, with an effort at friendliness.

  Powell knew that they would love to cut Walker into little pieces; but the requirements of the situation forced them to be pleasant to him. It was an added strain, having to cater to the man who had put them in this spot.

  “I wanted to say—” Walker began.

  “Go on,” Arriglio encouraged, determined not to be outdone by Danton. “Go on, boy.” His tone was friendly, but his bleak eyes contradicted it.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Walker said. “I wouldn’t have even gone on this trip, only Mr. Waverley thought I should.”