Search the Sky

9

THE guard spat disgustedly. "Fine lot of wrecks we're getting," she complained. "Not like the old days. They used to send real men here." She glowered at Ross and Bernie, holding their commitment papers loosely in her hand. "And for treason, too!" she added. "Used to be it took guts to commit a crime against the state." She shook her head, then made a noise of distaste and scribbled initials on the commitment papers. She handed them back to the pilot who had brought them up from Azor, who grinned, waved, and got out of there. "All right," said the guard, "we have to take what we get. I'll have to put you two on construction; you'll never stand up under hard work. Keep your noses clean, that's all. Up at 0500; breakfast till 0510; work detail till 1950; dinner and recreation till 2005; then lights out. Miss a formation and you miss a meal. Miss two, and you get punishment detail. Nobody misses three."

Ross and Bernie found themselves sharing a communal cell. They had all of five minutes to look around and get oriented; then they were out on their first work detail.

It wasn't so bad as it sounded. Their shiftmates were a couple of dozen ragged-looking wrecks, half-heartedly assembling a short of meccano-toy wall out of sheets of perforated steel and clip-spring bolts. All the parts seemed well worn; some of the bolts hardly closed. It took Ross the better part of his first detail, whispering when the guards were looking the other way, to find out why. Their half of the prisoners were Construction; the other half was Demolition. What Construction in the morning put up, Demolition in the evening tore down. Neither side was anxious to set any speed records, and the guards without exception were too bored to care.

With any kind of luck, Ross found, he could hope eventually to get a real job—manning the "Minerva's" radar, signal, or generating facilities, working in the kitchens or service shops, perhaps even as an orderly in the guard quarters. (Although Ross quite by accident chanced to see a guard's orderly as he passed through a corridor near the work area, a handkerchief held daintily to his nose. And though the orderly's clothing was neat and his plump cheeks indicated good eating, the haunted expression in his eyes made Ross think twice.)

The one thing he could not do, according to the testimony of every man he spoke to, was escape.

The fifth time Ross got that answer, the guard had stepped out of the room. Ross took the opportunity to thrash the thing through. "Why?" he demanded. "Back where I come from we've got lots of prisons. I never heard of one nobody escaped from."

The other prisoner laughed shortly. "Now you have," he said. "Go ahead, try. Every one of us has tried, one time or another. There's only one thing stopping you—there's no place to go. You can get past the guards easy enough— they're lazy, when they're not either drunk or boy-chasing. You can roam around 'Minerva' all you like. You can even get to the spacelock, and if you want to-you can walk right through it. But not in a spacesuit, because there aren't any on board. And not into the tender that brings us up from Azor, because you aren't built right."

Ross looked puzzled. "Not built right?"

"That's right. There's telescreens and remote-control locks built into that tender. The pilot brings you up, but once she couples with 'Minerva' the controls lock. And the only way they get unlocked is when three women, in three different substations down on Azor, push the RC releases. And they don't do that until they look in their screens, and see that everybody who has turned up in the tender has stripped down to nothing at all, and every one of them is by-God female. Any further questions?" He grinned wryly.

"Don't even think about plastic surgery, if that happens to cross your mind," he said. "We have two men here who tried it. You don't have much equipment here; you can't do a neat enough job."

Ross gulped. "Hadn't given it a thought," he assured the other man. "You can't even hide away in a trunk or something?"

The prisoner shook his head. "Aren't any trunks. Everything's one way—Azor to 'Minerva'—except pilots and guards. No men ever go back. When you die, you go out the lock—without a ship. Same with everything else that .they want to get rid of."

Ross thought hard. "What if they—well, what if you're sent up here and all, and then some new evidence turns up and you're found innocent? Don't they send you back then?"

"Found innocent?" The man looked at Ross pityingly. "Man, you are new. Hey," he called. "Hey, Chuck! This guy wants to know what happens if they find out back on Azor that he's innocent!"

Chuck exploded into laughter. Wiping his eyes, he walked over to Ross. "Thanks," he grinned.

"Haven't had a good laugh in fifteen years."

"I don't see that that's so funny," Ross said defensively. "After all, the judge can make a mistake, none of us is per—awk!"

"Shut up!" Chuck hissed, holding a hand over Ross's mouth. "Do you want to get us all in real trouble? Some of these guys would rat to the guards for an extra hunk of bread! The judges never make a mistake." And his lips formed the silent word: "Officially."

He let go of Ross and stood back, but didn't walk away. He scratched his head. "Say," he said, "you ask some stupid questions. Where are you from, anyhow?"

Ross said bitterly, "What's the use? You won't believe me. I happen to be from a place called Halsey's Planet, which is a good long distance from here.

About as far as light will travel hi two hundred years, if that gives you an idea. I came here in an F-T-L—that is, a faster-than-light ship. You don't know what that is, of course, but I did. It was a mistake, I admit it. But here I am."

Somewhat to Ross's surprise, Chuck didn't laugh again. He looked dubious, and he scratched his head some more, but he didn't laugh. To the other prisoner he said, "What do you think, Sam?"

Sam shrugged. "So maybe we were wrong," he observed.

Ross demanded, "Wrong about what?"

"Well," Chuck said hesitantly, "there's a guy here named Flarney. He's a pretty old son-of-a-gun by now, must be at least ninety, and he's been here a good long tune. Dunno how long. But he talks crazy, just like you. No offense," he added, "it's just that we all thought he'd gone space-happy.

But maybe we're wrong. Unless——" his eyes narrowed "unless the two of you are both space-happy, or trying to kid us, or something."

Ross said urgently, "I swear, Chuck, there's no such thing. It's true. Who's this Flarney? Where does he say he came from?"

"Who can make sense out of what tie says? All I know is, he talked a lot about something faster than light. That's crazy; that's like saying slower than dark, or bigger than green, or something.

But I don't know, maybe it means something."

"Believe me, Chuck, it does! Where is this man—can I see him?"

Chuck looked uncertain. "Well, sure. That is, you can see him all right. But it isn't going to do you a whole hell of a lot of good, because he's dead. Died yesterday; they're going to pitch him out into space sometime today."

Sam said, "This is when Whitker flips. One week without his old pal Flarney and he'll begin to look funny. Two weeks and he starts acting funny. Three and he's talking funny and the guards begin to crack down. I give him a month to get shot down and heaved through the locker."

Old pal? Ross demanded, "Who's this Whitker? Where can I get in touch with him?"

"Him and Flarney were both latrine orderlies. That's where they put the feeble old men, mopping and polishing. Number Two head, any hour of the day or night. Old buzzard has his racket—we're supposed to get a hank of cellosponge per man per day, but he's always 'fresh out'— unless you slip him your saccharine ration every once in a while."

Ross asked the way to Number Two head and the routine. But it was an hour before he could bring himself to ask the hulking guard for permission.

"Sure, sonny," she boomed. "I'll show you the way. Need any help?"

"No, thanks, ma'am," he said hastily, and she roared with laughter. So did the members of the construction gang; it must have been an ancient gag. He hurried on his way thinking dark and bloody thoughts.

"Whitker?" he asked a tottering ancient who nodded and drowsed amid the facilities of the head.

The old man looked up Wearily and squeaked: "Fresh out. Fresh out. You should've saved some from yesterday."

"That's all right. I'm a new man here. I want to ask you about your friend Flarney——"

Whitker bowed his head and began to cry noiselessly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Whitker. I heard. But there's something we can do about it—maybe. Flarney was a faster-than-light man. He must have told you that. So am I. Ross, from Halsey's Planet."

He hadn't the faintest idea as to whether any of this was getting through to the ancient.

"It seems Flarney and I were both on the same mission, finding out how and why planets were dropping out of communication. You and he used to talk a lot, they tell me. Did he ever tell you anything about that?"

Whitker looked up and squeaked dimly. "Oh, yes. All the tune. I humored him. He was an old man, you know. And now he's dead." The tears leaked from his rheumy eyes and traced the sad furrows beside his nose.

Was he getting through? "What did he say, Mr. Whitker? About faster-than-light?"

The old man said, "L-sub-T equals L-sub-zero e to the minus T-over-two-N."

That damned formula again! "But what does it mean, Mr. Whitker? What did he say it meant?" Ross softly urged.

The old man looked surprised. "Genes?" he asked himself hazily. "Generations? I don't remember.

But you go to Earth, young man. Flarney said they'd know, and know what to do about it, too, which is more than he did. His very words, young man!"

Ross didn't dare stay longer. Furthermore he suspected that the old man's attention span had been exhausted. He started from the room with a muttered thanks, and was stopped at the door by Whitker's hand on his shoulder.

"You're a good boy," Whitker squeaked. "Here."

Ross found himself walking down the corridor with an enormous wad of cellosponge in his hand.

The bunks were hard, but that didn't matter. Dormitories were the outermost layer of the hulk, pseudogravity varies inversely as the fourth power of the distance, and the field generator was conventionally located near "Minerva's" center. When your relative weight is one-quarter normal you can sleep deliciously on a gravel driveway. This was the dormitory's only attractive feature.

Otherwise it was too many steel slabs, tiered and spotted too close, too many unwashed males, too much weary snoring. The only things in short supply were headroom and air.

Not everybody slept. Insomniacs turned and grunted; those who had given up the struggle talked from bunk to bunk in considerately low tones.

Bernie muttered from a third-tier bunk facing Ross's: "I wonder if she made it."

Ross knew what he meant. "Unlikeliest thing in the world," he said. "But I think she went fast and never knew what hit her." He thought of the formula and "They'd know on Earth—and know what to do about it too." Earth the enigma, from which all planetary peoples were supposed to be derived.

Earth—the dot on the traditional master charts, Earth—from which and to which no longliners ever seemed to travel. Haarland had told him no F-T-L ship had in recent centuries ever reported again after setting out for Earth. Another world sunk in barbarism? But Flarney had said—no; that was not data. That was the confused recollections of a very old man, possibly based on the confused recollections of another very old man. Perhaps it had got mixed up with the semilegendary origin story.

Poor sweet Helena! He hoped it had happened fast, that she had been thinking of some pleasant prospect on Hal-sey's Planet. In her naive way she'd think it just around the corner, a mere matter of following instructions. . . .

So thought Ross, the pessimist.

In his gloom he had forgotten that this was exactly what it was. In his snobbishness he never realized that he was guilty of the most frightful arrogance hi assuming that what he could do, she could not. In his ignorance he was not aware that since navigation began, every new instrument, every technique, has drawn the shuddery warnings of savants that uneducated skippers, working by rote, could not be expected to master these latest fruits of science—or that uneducated skippers since navigation began have cheerfully adopted new instruments and techniques at the drop of a hat and that never once have the shuddery warnings been justified by the facts.

Up the aisle somebody was saying in a low, argumentative tone, "I saw the drum myself. Naturally it was marked Dulsheen Creme, but the guards here never did give a damn whether then- noses were dull or bright enough to flag down a freighter and I don't think they've suddenly changed. It was booze, I tell you. Fifty liters of it."

"Gawd! The hangovers tomorrow."

"We'll all have to watch our steps. I hope they don't do anything worse than getting quietly drunk in their quarters. Those foot-kissing orderlies'll get a workout, but who cares what happens to an orderly?"

"They haven't been on a real tear since I've been here."

"Lucky you. Let's hope they don't bust loose tonight. It's a break in the monotony, sure—but those girls play rough. Five prisoners died last time."

"They beat them up?"

"One of them."

"What about the others? Oh! Oh, Gawd—fifty liters, you said?"

Bernie began to whimper: "Not again! Not those plug-uglies! I swear I'll throw myself through the spacelock if they make a pass at me. Ross, isn't there anything we can do?"

"Seems not, Bernie. Maybe they won't come in. Or if they do, maybe they'll pass you by. There certainly isn't any place to hide."

A raucous female voice roared through the annunciator: "Bed check five minutes, boys. Anybody got any li'l thing to do down the hall, better do it now. See you lay-terrr!" Hiccup and drunken giggle.

For the first time in his life Ross suddenly and spontaneously acted like a tri-di hero, with the exception that he felt like a silly ass through it all.

"Got an idea," he muttered. "Get out of your bunk." He pulled the wad of cellosponge, old Whitker's present, from his pocket and yanked it in half, one for him and one for Bernie.

The Pullover said faintly: "Thanks, but I don't have Ross didn't bother to answer. He was carefully fluffing the stuff out to its maximum dimensions.

He unzipped his coveralls and began wadding them with cellosponge.

"I get it," Bernard said softly. He stepped out of his one-piece garment and followed suit. In less than a minute they had creditable dummies lying on their bunks.

The others watched their activity with emotions ranging between awe and envy. One giant of a man proclaimed grimly to whoever cared to listen: "These are a couple of smart guys. I wish them luck.

And I want you guys to know that I will personally break the back of any sneaking rat who tips off a guard about this."

"Sure, Ox. Sure," came a muted chorus.

Arranged in a fetal sleeping position, face down, the dummies astonished even their creators. It would take a lucky look in a f air light to note that the heads were earless, fibrous globes.

"They'll do," Ross snapped. "Come on, Bernie."

They walked quietly from the dormitory in their singlet underwear toward the dormitory latrine—and past it. Into the corridor. Through a doorless opening into a storeroom piled with crates of rations. "This'll do," Ross said quietly. They ducked into a small cavern formed by sloppy issuing of stock and hunched down.

"The dummies will fool the bed check. It's only a sweep with a hundred-line TV system. If the guards do raid the dormitory tonight we'll have to count on them ignoring the dummies or thinking they're a joke or being too busy with other things to care. They'll be drunk, after all. Then in the morning things'll be plenty disorganized. We'll be able to sneak back into formation—and that'll be that for a matter of years. They can't often bribe the pilots with enough to guarantee a real ripsnorting drunk. Now try and get some sleep. There's nothing more we can do."

They actually did doze off for a couple of hours, and then were awakened by drunken war whoops.

"It's them!" Bernie wailed.

"Shut up. They're heading for the dormitory. We're safe."

"Safe!" Bernie echoed derisively. "Safe until when?"

Ross threatened him with the side of his hand and Bernie was quiet, though his lips were mumbling soundlessly. The guards lurched giggling past and Ross said:

"We'll sneak into the lockroom. There won't be anybody there tonight; at least we'll get a night's sleep."

"Big deal," grumbled Bernie, but he followed, complaining inarticulately to himself. Ross thought tiredly: All this work for a night's sleep! And saw, half-formed, the dreadful procession of days and nights and years ahead. . . .

They reached the lockroom and stumbled in breathlessly.

"Dearie!" Two guards, playing a card game on the floor with a ring of empty bottles around them, looked up in drunken delight. "Dearie!" repeated the bigger of the two. "Angela, look what we've got!"

Ross said stupidly. "But you shouldn't be here——"

The guard made a clumsy pass at fluffing up her back hair and giggled. "Duty comes first, dearie.

Angela, just lock that door, will you?" The other guard scrambled unevenly to her feet and weaved over to the door. It was locked before Ross or Bernie could move.

The big guard stood up too, leering at Bernie. "Wow!" she said. "New merchandise. Just be patient, dearie. We've got a little something to attend to in a couple of minutes, but we'll have lots of time after that."

Then things began to happen rapidly. There was Angela the guard, inarticulate, falling-down drunk; she waved bonelessly at a brightly flickering light on the far side of the lockroom. There was the other guard, reaching out for Bernie with one hand, pawing at a bottle with the other. There was Ross, a paralyzed spectator.

And there was Bernie.

Bernie's eyes bulged wide as the guard came toward him. He babbled hysterically, "No! Nonononono!

I said I'd kill myself and I——"

He stiff-armed the big guard and leaped for the lock door. Ross suddenly came to life. "Bernie!"

he bellowed. "Hold it! Don't jump!"

But it was too late. The one guard sprawling, the other staggering helplessly across the floor, Bernie was clear. He scrabbled at the lockwheels, spun them open. Ross tensed himself for the sudden, awful rush of expanding air; he leaped after Bernie just as Bernie flung the lock door open and jumped.

Ross jumped after.

There was no rush of air. They were not in space. Around them was no ripping, sucking void, no flaming backdrop of stars; around them were six walls and a Wesley board, and Helena peering at them wide-eyed and delighted.

"Well!" she said. "That was fast!"

Ross said, "But——"

Helena, hanging from the acceleration loops, smiled maternally. "Oh, it was nothing," she said. "Ross don't you think we're far enough away yet?"

Ross said hopelessly, "All right," and cut the drive. The starship hung hi space hi the limbo between stars. Azor, "Minerva," and the rest were light-years behind, far out of range of challenge.

Helena wriggled free from the loops and rubbed her arms where the retaining straps had gripped them. "After all," she said demurely, "you told me how to run the ship, and really, Ross, I'm not quite stupid."

Ross said, "But——"

"But what, Ross? It isn't as it I were some sort of brainless little thing that had never run a machine hi her life. My goodness, Ross——" She wrinkled her nose. "You should remember. All those days hi the dye vats? Don't you think I had to learn a little something about machines there?"

Ross swore incredulously. To compare those clumsy constructs of wheels and rollers with the subtle subelectronic flows of the Wesley force—and to make it work! He said, unbelievingly, "And the 'Minerva' helped you vector hi? They gave you the co-ordinates and radared your course?"

"Certainly." Helena turned to Bernie, who was staring dazedly around him. "Are you all right, dear?" she asked.

Ross turned his back on them and faced the Wesley Christmas tree of controls. Don't question it, he told himself; take a miracle for what it is. God wanted you out of "Minerva"—and God moves hi most mysterious ways His wonders to perform.

Anyway, they had to get going. When the court had exiled Helena hi the starship they had gone through the customary rituals; not only was everything that looked like a weapon gone, along with all but a teacup of fuel for the auxiliary jets, but the food locker was stripped entirely. He put everything else out of his mind and began to calculate a setting.

Bernie said over his shoulder, "Home, huh? That place you call Halsey's Planet?"

Ross shook his head. "Not this tune. I got this far and I'm still alive; maybe I can finish the job. Anyway, I'll try. The first solid suggestion I've had ever since I took off was what that half-witted old moron——" He ignored a little gasp from Helena.

"———said back on 'Minerva.' If Flarney had lived, he would have gone there; we'll go there now."

He finished manipulating the calculator and began to set it up on the board. He said, "The name of the place is—Earth."