by John Kippax
By John Kippax and Dan Morgan in Pan Books
A Thunder of Stars
Seed of Stars
The Neutral Stars
John Kippax
Where no stars guide
A Pan original
Pan Books Ltd London and Sydney
First published 1975 by Pan Books Ltd, Cavaye Place, London sw10 9PG
ISBN 0 330 24251 2
© The estate of John Hynam 1975
Printed in Great Britain by
Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks
an ebookman scan
Conditions of sale: This book shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The book is published at a net price, and is supplied subject to the Publishers Association Standard Conditions of Sale registered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956
For Merlay (Doc) Thomas, who found me an alien
Contents
A prologue and a link
Chapter I
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Dan Morgan and John Kippax (John Hynam)
End of Where No Stars Guide
A prologue and a link
Earth Space Corps ship Venturer Twelve was in orbit round the home planet, and Tom Bruce was expecting a distinguished visitor. There was no ceremonial bullshine, the visitor himself being an anti-bullshiner of renown. So, the Captain waited alone at the lock.
When a dull clunk vibrated through the ship's hull, the lock lights changed to green. The inner door opened, and the squat figure of World Admiral Junius Farragut Carter, SC, came through. He was the same old Carter (whatever could change him?) Bruce thought, except that three start had been exchanged for a ring of five on each shoulder tab. He wore one medal ribbon - the black and gold of the Space Cross.
Bruce saluted punctiliously, the very senior officer returned the salute in a similar manner, then put out a gnarled hand to shake that of his friend. 'Hi, Tom, good to see you again.'
'Hallo, Junius, you fireproof World Admiral, you.'
Dammit,' Carter said, 'I was fireproof when I was a lieutenant JG. I just came up to show off my personal scout- ship; she's a beaut; no damn gravity, though. That's where the big 'uns score. Take me to your crib, Captain, where I will bore the arse off you with the latest gossip.'
A silent elevator pushed them up eight levels, and they settled in Bruce's cabin. 'Any whisky, Tom?'
'Corps ships are dry.'
Carter grimaced. 'Ask a stupid question...' He opened
the flat briefcase. It contained what appeared to be a pack of sandwiches and a bottle of Bell's Best. 'Wasn't that thoughtful of me?' He held the bottle to the light, admiring the golden glow. 'Now, if we could have two—'
A double knock at the door was followed by the entry of a middle-aged CPO, grey, terrier-faced, wearing three rows of medal ribbons. He had a slight limp. He bore a tray on which were two shot glasses and a soda bulb.
'And who the hell,' Carter said pleasantly, 'told you to butt in?'
CPO Dockridge looked hurt. 'Oh, sorry, sir. In that case—'
He made for the door again; Carter gave a short bark. 'Dammit, Doc, I don't know how you survive in the Corps. Put that tray down, you old horse thief, and how are you?'
'Fine, Admiral, sir,' Dockridge said. 'And how's your heart?'
This one'll last a bit longer,' Carter said. 'And you will observe that your Captain and I are drinking lemonade, huh?'
'Yes, sir. A pale yellow liquid. I swear it'
'Bugger off,' said the Admiral, kindly.
Carter poured Bruce five centimetres' depth of Scotch, gave himself two centimetres, and added soda.
'That's a change,' Bruce said.
'Damn all medics,' Carter growled.
Bruce raised his glass. 'Damn one or two. Cheers.'
After some Scotch had been consumed, Carter said: 'I have been chatting with our little President.'
'Still on the ball?',
'I'll say.' Carter slowly shook his head. 'Henry Fong beats me; don't understand how such an honest man can be so - so devious.'
Bruce nodded. 'Honest he is, despite the WBI. Or maybe because of.'
'You ever thought what a real bastard of a president could do with the World Bureau of Investigation setup? They aren't loyal to Earth, you know; they're loyal to him.'
'And no senatorial questions, no accounts of appropriations for the WBI. Good thing he's loyal to all the hundred and fifty colonized planets. Or is it more than that now?' Bruce asked.
'Hundred and fifty-two,' Carter said.
'So, our Henry. What's he got on his mind?'
'Plenty, but nothing he can't deal with, of that I'm sure.' Carter looked at his pale glass with distaste. 'Fancy having to dilute good liquor like that..' He came back to the present. 'Excelsior are going to finance the Big Job, despite the sudden change in leadership.'
There's a Niebohr still running it/ Bruce reminded him. You call that a change? The Colonization Corporation was Elkan's; now it's Elsa's. And is your little mate Hans Koninburger going to run the Big Job?'
Carter glowered. "We need each other like a hole in the head. Working with him at Blue Mountain... oh, well, Blue Mountain Project is dead. But it goes on, with a new name. Project Elkan.'
Bruce just listened.
You meet any Kilroys, Tom?'
Bruce shook his head, but his green eyes narrowed; Carter knew very well what the Vee Twelve Captain wanted with the unknown - battle and victory. Bruce said: 'Give me that warp drive, somebody; then we'll see who rules the roost.'
'Hell of a big roost," Carter remarked. He sipped thoughtfully. 'Koninburger holed up in his Black Forest retreat where, so we're told, he reads for ten or twelve hours a day.'
'Just reads?'
'Yeah. Furthermore, it is possible - now it's possible we think, that he is replacing the essential brute force of the first warp drive idea with another, and he's studying to that end. You remember the risks we thought we might be taking with all that energy let loose?'
Bruce remembered.
"Now, that was based on some work done by Panish and
Hunsecker, twenty-first century bods.'
'Principle of locative enfieldment and dislocative de-enfieldment,' Bruce said.
'Right. That I understood. That was what the enormous power needs and all attendant dangers were about.' Carter did not seem entirely happy.
'And now Koninburger's changed his opinions?'
Carter shook his head. 'He's working on an older idea, but if I know Koninburger, he'd never admit that Parrish and Hunsecker were wrong. He's a devoted man who will do his best for Earth, as he sees it; I have to say that to be fair. Excelsior Corporation have corralled him so that he can do what research he wants. He's apparently gone back to the twentieth century, to the work of Professor J. A. Wheeler. Know of him?'
'Just a name to me.'
'Wheeler's theory is one of curved light, therefore curved space, and holes and tunnels in space where there is no time.'
'Puzzle: find the holes.'
'That's so. I'm no more than generally competent with mathematics, but the basis could be sound. Parrish and Hunsecker were a sight more spectacular, and they could still be right. But Wheeler's theories now see
m to appeal to Koninburger.'
'And what does the queen of Excelsior say to it?'
'She's keeping on the people that her father hired. Now she's decided on a Balomain planet for the job, but official line on Earth will be that they're working in the Antarctic. Two birds with one stone, it seems; Balomain Four is stuffed full with mineral goodies, even if it does have half the air a human needs and is cold enough to deactivate a statue's knackers.'
'How do we know,' Bruce said, 'that even if Wheeler is right, that we don't need the work of Parrish and Hunsecker?'
'We don't know.' Carter said, 'but her ladyship has the greatest faith in Koninburger. Here, have a lick more Scotch.'
Bruce remembered something. 'Doesn't K have a geo-nostalgic psychosis?'
'I guess he does.'
"How is she going to use him on Balomain Four, then?'
'I don't know. But I do know that Elsa Niebohr is no more a fool than her father was.'
True.' Elsa Niebohr was no favourite of Bruce's. 'If they're going to work on this new theory, there's no question of dangers attendant on the building of a prototype ship, as we once thought.'
That's right. But it could all be changed if K says so. As far as present thinking seems to show, we just have to have the right sort of ferret to shove in when we've found a hole.'
'And Niebohr's going to finance that?'
'She has to. She's hired Koninburger, and she who rides a tiger—'
'—must watch out when she wants to dismount.'
Bruce thought, tight-lipped, about Elsa Niebohr. That woman, she doesn't miss a trick. If it comes off - and I feel it must - she'll collect millions in licences-to-manufacture. What publicity! "Who killed Cock Kilroy? I, said Niebohr, that's what my money's for, I killed Cock Kilroy."'
'I know you're bitter, Tom. Do you have any better suggestion?'
'We could give Excelsior Corporation the whole blasted Space Corps, now. Save a lot of trouble. She'll buy it up soon, anyway.'
'No,' Carter said, easily. 'Henry Fong wouldn't like that. And he'd damn soon see that the world didn't, and the colonized planets likewise.' He poured himself a careful measure of Scotch, and diluted it. 'Here's to progress.'
Chapter I
I have spent much time upon the General Theory of Relativity. The more I work upon it, the more I find new and deeper meanings. Above all, there is the idea of multiply- connected space-time; I am able to show you how, though our present faster-than-light ships have annihilated the Special Theory, the General Theory remains full of hope, of fascination, and maybe of danger.
HANS KONINBURGER, lecturing at Harvard
James Creighton kept his back turned to Dr Frisch, Deputy Superintendent of the Biological Institute. Creighton held him in deep disgust, having at first meeting dubbed the man as an intellectual attempting to work beyond his intellect; he had never found reason to change his views.
Creighton busied himself with the sorting of his instruments, most of them designed by himself for his own use. Creighton was still under thirty, and was going places beyond the egregious Frisch; that was not merely Creighton's own opinion; other men in high places believed in the future of the younger man, despite his haughty manner.
'Er - ah - are all these yours, Dr Creighton?'
Creighton stiffened, turned, and faced his superior; he topped Frisch by ten centimetres. "What did you say?'
Frisch backed off. 'It did just occur to me that—'
Yes?' The question was like a pistol shot. 'Did you think I was stealing?'
'Oh, no—'
Keeping his eyes upon the other, Creighton took a small sheaf of paper from the pocket of his white coat. 'Would you care to check all the bills?'
'Er - no—'
'Then clear off.' Creighton put the papers back into his pocket, and turned away.
Frisch persisted. 'I am sorry if I seemed to imply that—'
'Listen,' snapped Creighton, 'I'm J. D. R. Creighton, world authority on alien life. I had a team working with me on the human cadavers which had been redesigned by the alien, but I sacked the team; they couldn't keep up with me. I had to check their work after they'd done it. Incompetents, every one. Furthermore: the evidence is now back in cold storage, and I have the information down to the tiniest detail. Don't bother to read the data; you wouldn't understand it.' Frisch was going purple. Creighton continued: There will be a security service pack; label some of these machines and deliver them according to my instructions. If you want to know the destination, then shove your long and graceless nose in here this afternoon. One more lecture to the poor, limited boys I'm given to instruct, and then I'll be well rid of you and this place. I'm off on a working holiday, if that's all right with you, Dr Frisch?'
Frisch did not reply. Frisch, and Barker, the chief, were just a pair of seat-warmers waiting for retirement. Creighton scorned them.
Frisch said: 'Oh. Yes. Of course. The - ah - standard of your work is very high.'
Creighton stared coldly, and his beautifully modulated voice cut like a lash. 'Well. However did you discover that?'
There were times when the presence of her dead father was strong in the mind of Elsa Niebohr. The simple but luxurious office at the top of the Excelsior Colonization Corporation building was exactly as it used to be when he was there.
Now, as she faced the vid scanner, her perfect figure clothed in a suit of iridescent green, this small dark woman seemed beautiful, despite the strong nose which characterized the family.
'Dr Fane, what my father promised you is still valid. Surely you don't wish to withdraw?'
The face on the screen was that of a dark, distinguished- looking man. He waited for her to continue.
The sum was two million credits. One million you have accepted, the other will be yours when you have completed your work on Koninburger suppressing his geo-nostalgic psychosis, so that he may be the technical director for Project Elkan.'
Fane raised an eyebrow. That's a dangerous oversimplification. Since politics brought the Space Corps's Blue Mountain Project to an end, I have been worried about your plan to do privately what the government was not allowed to do with public funds. I sometimes wonder if the project will not break you.'
'Leave that to me.'
'Gladly. But I must remind you; when a little boy, Koninburger was taken on a jaunt to the moon. Then he showed his weakness, and was near to death when they got him back to Earth. Ten minutes after his arrival here, he was sitting up and asking for chocolate. The psychosis is "a longing for earth". But there is not a cure. So what you want is to deceive Koninburger into thinking that he is working on this planet, below ground because of the dangers of surface working, when in actual fact the project will be upon the outer planet of a G-type star, Balomain. That means that everyone on the project has to conspire and combine to deceive this great man. I am talented, Miss Niebohr, but I cannot work miracles.'
Fane was talking sense, but her name was Niebohr and she would not be baulked.
Fane said: 'I have a new drug. It is derived from "shoot". You know of this?'
'I have a bloody fool of a younger brother who is again being treated for his addiction.' Her voice was harsh.
'It may be that a derivation of it could help us with our problem.'
'What would you say if I were to tell you that I could get one of the world's best medicos to work with you? We could arrange a logical cover for the operation; Project Elkan employees must pass a tough physical and be given a series of immunization shots.'
'The cost—'
'My worry.'
'Yes, but—'
'Dr Fane, aren't you satisfied with your money?'
Fane looked hurt. 'I accept your money and I am doing my best.'
'So you see about the drug, and I find the doctor; you're both at the top. I'm sure you'll get on.'
'Do I know him?'
'J.D.R. Creighton.'
Fane was astonished; she enjoyed looking at him. Fane asked: 'You guarantee that
?'
'I shall make the right offer.'
‘Nothing but the best, eh?'
'We do not think of failure.' Now her face hardened. 'The motto is "mistakes cost money".'
'And workers.'
'Naturally.'
She broke contact, glanced at the time numerals. After drumming her fingers for five seconds, she opened Creighton's dossier. 'James David Richard Creighton'. A rarity this man, a prize. He was almost a 'traditional' Englishman. Born Cadogan Square, London. Houghton Grove Prep School, Eton, Magdalene College, Oxford, transferred Edinburgh Medical... The pictures showed her a tall blond man, slim but muscular; had won a silver medal at the Olympics seven years ago... collected degrees as a child might collect stamps... was experienced with women... Elsa Niebohr (not Elsa Prince, since her husband had been sacrificed on the altar of her late father's greed) [see The Neutral Stars] found this item intriguing.
Fifteen minutes later, she was feeling irritated. Creighton had not arrived. She glanced at a list of possible numbers, and decided to try the Bio Institute first. Then Creighton, fair, with his blue eyes, his thick, well-brushed hair and reposeful manner, was displayed on her screen.
'I have been waiting for you, Dr Creighton.'
His reply was easy. 'I was not able to leave what I was doing. You still wish to see me?'
'Here.'
'We could talk just as well by—'
'Here. Please.'
'In fifteen minutes, then.'
She spent twenty minutes looking over the manifest copies of an Elkan class freighter. Occasionally, she pounced on such an item; freight personnel knew it.
Creighton arrived, greeted her, and sat placidly.
'I need a first class medico.''
'You have one. Fane.'
'Fane is a specialist. I need a—'
'I do not practise.'
'You have been on research programmes at the Institute. I know.'
'One programme.'
'I repeat; I need a first class doctor.'
'For your Antarctic Base - your project.'
'Yes.'
‘You must be flinging money away.'
'In all the right directions.' She was admiring him, speculating about him. 'My father made Fane a promise. I am keeping it; I need you, and similarly, I make an offer. The same as Fane. A million now, a million when the job is done.'
