Rogue Ship

37

Lesbee and Tellier arrived at the Hope of Man almost in no time. He had brought the entire craft up to 973-to-one time ratio, and so their coming was not visible to those aboard.

At the airlock, he reduced the ratio to ship time. His purpose was to enter quickly, which was done. But he was nervous now. As soon as the small craft was stowed away, he activated its airlock, emerged from it – and only he stepped up to the higher time ratio.

In this state he went directly to the bridge, and, with a small power tool that he had brought with him to fast time, released the relay that had snapped up when the lifeboat entered its compartment.

Next, he headed for Tellier's apartment and literally materialized before the eyes of Tellier's wife. It took a while then to give reassurances, to make clear what he wanted; the woman remained in a disturbed emotional condition longer than he had anticipated. She kept closing her gray eyes tight, then opening them and staring at him as if in disbelief. And she talked steadily about how she had missed her husband.

When she did grow calmer, it was only to break out on a new level of compulsive chatter. This time Lesbee learned about the coming of the strangers. He could have become interested at that point; could have questioned her closely. But even that, he decided, could wait.

At last, she subsided, smiled wanly, and said, 'What do you want me to do?'

He wanted her to get her clothes together and accompany him to the landing craft.

That also took time, but presently he had her in the lifeboat, and he left her there with her husband.

Lesbee returned to look over the ship. This time he saw the newcomers. He found vantage positions from which he could examine them; Lou Tellier had been singularly unclear as to who they were.

...Patrol officers and civilians.

He traced them to the Molly D, and examined the situation there with some interest, tried to analyze what was going on. Since a considerable amount of luggage had been moved into cabins, and several families were already aboard, he realized with amazement that the intention was to continue the voyage.

Lesbee hid in an empty case and accompanied one of the Molly D 's landing craft back to Earth.

And so he stood on a planet, stood with his two feet on soil, on pavement. For most of the first day he wandered in a normal state around the streets, watched the traffic, read the papers. Reverting briefly to high-time rate, he went into a bank vault where a responsible officer was getting money. Lesbee helped himself to a thousand dollars and departed. It would be months before anyone would discover that it was gone.

He came one to one, timewise, checked in at a magnificent hotel, and ate the finest meal he had ever had. Afterward, in the hotel bar, he picked up a good-looking young woman who was also staying at the hotel. Late in the evening, they retired to his apartment. For several hours he listened to her chatter, striving to orient himself to the world. In the morning they had breakfast together, he made her a suitable gift, and went his way; she hers.

The papers that morning reported that Gourdy had been re-arrested.

Lesbee read the charge with alarm. The Space Board had decided that it would extend its hold across a century of time, down five generations – claiming that only thus could space travel be kept orderly. No matter how long the voyage, people must learn that if they did not in the end accept the 'natural' -the word was actually used – development of authority aboard a space vessel, they would be punished to the full extent of the law.

What this reasoning told Lesbee was that his own rebellion might be illegal. The Browne take-over could easily be considered natural.

Suddenly, he had two choices only: Remain on Earth, live quietly, call no attention to himself... Go back to the ship, take it away from Hewitt, and resume the voyage...

Since a man with his special information should not remain silent, the first choice had no meaning.

But what really decided him was that several newspapers carried Peter Linden's reasoning on the possible validity of John Lesbee I's theory of change in the sun... It was carefully done by Linden. He predicted that there would be plenty of time to consider the matter and act on it.

Lesbee, who had read his ancestor's account in the ship's records, recalled that his great-great-grandfather had decided that the change would occur – as Lesbee remembered it – in from six to ten years.

He did a quick mental calculation, and realized anxiously: 'Good lord, we're already into that period!'

He switched to superfast time rate and went to the prison for a talk with Gourdy. After the shock effect of his abrupt materialization in the cell had passed – they talked.

...Agreement: retake the ship! Lesbee to be captain, Gourdy his chief lieutenant. To Lesbee, it was a dangerous but necessary compromise. One man could not capture a vessel by himself, and hold it.

He took Gourdy and his followers into the high time speed with him. They boarded the Molly D landing craft, carried out of the little vessel the contents of several packing cases,... then hid on a normal time basis inside those cases. So that when the craft took off that night it had aboard twenty unsuspected passengers.

Because of these activities, Lesbee did not see the evening papers that printed Hewitt's radioed protest on the arrest of Gourdy. Newspaper editorials supported Hewitt's position... Shortly before midnight, the Space Board yielded to the mounting opposition and promised to reconsider the matter at the next meeting a week hence.

But it was too late.

Back in the Hope of Man, Lesbee installed Gourdy and his men in a storeroom that would not normally be opened, and the equipment in it used, until a landing was made on an alien planet... It was agreed the group would remain quiet until all connection was severed between the interstellar vessel and the Molly D.

Technician Lesbee disconnected the wiring from the control room to the listening and scanning devices within the walls. He brought the men food and comforts: cots, blankets, games and books – there were a hundred thousand new books aboard.

When he was with Gourdy's group, and listened to their coarse humor, Lesbee felt uneasy. But each time, he fought off his doubts because there was no other solution.

Lesbee saw no difference between the decision of the Space Board to arrest and try Gourdy for murder, and the decision Gourdy had made to kill the two technicians and the scientist. By its action, the Space Board intended to pressure future space travelers into submitting to control of appointed kings. Gourdy's intent had been to frighten anyone who opposed his being king.

– No difference! Thus reasoned John Lesbee V. And his jaw tightened with the determination to carry through on his personal take-over plan.

While he waited for the Molly D to cast off, Lesbee watched what was happening on the ship -

Changes were occurring. Science had come aboard. Psychologists were lecturing. Sociologists traced the history of the ship for those who had been too close to the actuality to see its significance. The military aspect – which had been fastened onto the people virtually at the last minute when the voyage originally began – was replaced by a system worked out, not by military experts but by scientific people.

From a hidden point on a balcony overlooking the assembly room, Lesbee listened to a lecture by Hewitt on the difference between a scientific approach and other systems. Among other things, Hewitt said:

'Scientists are an amazing breed. On the one hand, they are conservative. But within the frame of their training, a group of scientists represent truth, integrity, order, sensitivity, and sensibility on the highest level...'

He compared the extreme difficulty of obtaining top scientists at the beginning of the voyage, with the ease he had had in obtaining any number of volunteers on this occasion. The reason: a ship returned from a voyage of over a hundred years represented a clear and immediate problem. Every aspect of that problem had aroused scientific interest and enthusiasm -

Lesbee watched the result of that enthusiasm. Humanitarian laws were codified. There were a police force, judges, a jury system. A captain, yes – Hewitt – but he became the administrator of the law through the system. He had his rights and duties...

Universal equal education was set up, with an administering board and teachers with personal rights and privileges...

Lesbee listened to Hewitt explain in another lecture why only on a ship could such a complete, perfect system be established. Outside force and technology, scientifically altruistic, could move in upon such a limited world as the Hope of Man and in a short time create a model system.

Hewitt explained that among nations on Earth there was no comparable altruistic outside force. Victors in wars, motivated by hatred and the need to control, degrade, despoil, and punish – were virtually the only outside forces human beings had ever known. The defeated knew their fate, held still for the disaster through fear, built up their own hatred, waited their chance -which usually came through the conniving of international politics.

Lesbee's first impulse was to consider Hewitt naive.

Hewitt didn't seem to be aware that, while the ship's inhabitants accepted their rights, there was already muttering against the duties.

And that the men were outraged by the attitude of the newcomers which implied that the women aboard had not been treated right.

Presently, Lesbee found himself wondering if Hewitt's apparent unawareness was not part of a skillful game, another way to power.

While all this was developing, the Molly D cast off.

For Lesbee, when he heard this, all the turmoil aboard the ship became as nothing.

The time had come for his take-over.