The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol V Part 65

"That there is danger involved. That something dreadfully, dreadfully wrong can happen to you while you're out there. No matter what the eggheads say about it." A paroxysm of sobs suddenly racked the girl's slender body. "Oh, darling, don't go!"

"Honey, honey!" Lance patted her thin shoulders.

"I love you so much."

"Love you, too, Carolyn. You know that."

"We shouldn't have postponed the wedding. It was wrong to set the date back."

Lance shook his head. "Sorry. I couldn't see it any other way."

He hugged the girl to him; she seemed more desperately frightened than he had realized. And again, as always when it came to comforting somebody, he felt as awkward and clumsy as some big lumbering repair-tug out in s.p.a.ce--say--trying to patch a small trim patrol craft.

But especially, he felt helpless in the presence of this frail, clinging, lovely piece of femininity he wanted so dearly. Nevertheless he could keep on trying--blundering though his words and gestures might be.

"Carolyn, you think I wanted to chance making you a widow twenty-four hours after you became a bride?" Lance took a deep breath. "So I did maintain the percentage wasn't great. Still, it does exist. I'm aware of that. I just don't let it concern me. But you, Carolyn--don't you see, hon? Lance Cooper couldn't let anything bad happen to his best girl."

"I'm trying to understand," said Carolyn.

Lance's blunt, serious face peered into hers. "Tell you what I will promise to do."

Hope cleared away some of the mistiness in Carolyn's eyes. She looked up at him. "What, Lance?"

"Once I've knocked off my sh.e.l.l-back trip through the hype, we'll stage the fanciest wedding this old s.p.a.ce base ever goggled its eyes over. I'll even see to it, the chaplain samples the spiked punch. And you remember what a raconteur the padre proved to be when Light-Colonel Galache got spliced?"

Carolyn Sagen managed a wan smile.

Lance revved his pep-talk up a few hundred r.p.m. "After all, think of it this way. Suppose I hadn't beat my brains out to get into hype-training? I'd never have wound up at this base. You and me would never have met. I'd never have fallen for you like a ton of s.p.a.ce-ballast."

"Oh, I know you're right," said Carolyn, clinging more tightly than ever to Lance's solid frame. "You're always right, just like the s.p.a.ce Service is always right. But I have a woman's intuition. And I ... I sense--"

Unable to finish, she released her grasp and once more withdrew into herself.

Lance's big muscular hand reached out, tilted the girl's chin upward. Her face was tear-stained for sure, now.

"Honey, this won't ever do."

"I can't help it."

"You're torturing yourself with useless premonitions." Lance wiped the briny shine from the girl's cheeks as he talked, his own voice getting hoa.r.s.er. "Carolyn, I love you so much that I ... well, you know I happen to hunger for you more than I do that Christmas tree on my control deck. But I just couldn't give up a chance to solo out to the stars. I couldn't, baby. I'd probably be court-martialed, anyhow," he added.

"No, Lance. They wouldn't do that. Not unless you actually got into s.p.a.ce, then turned back. I asked Major Carmody."

"Carolyn! You didn't?"

The girl nodded, affirming the truth of what she said. "Lance, I had to. T-there are some things I know about that you don't." A note of sudden urgency now tinged her voice. "Strange unfathomable things. Many of the other pilots who've come back have not been right. I think it has something to do with their having been outside of normal s.p.a.ce--"

He stared at her. "I just now realize you're trying to tell me something."

"Lance, I happened to overhear Dad telling Mother something one night. Apparently, he'd been rolling and tossing in bed, couldn't sleep. And Mother's looked after him so long, she just had to know what was wrong. They went downstairs and she poured him a stiff drink. Then in return, Dad poured out his troubled soul to her. And Lance--"

"Yes, Carolyn?"

"The most probable reason why some hype-pilots never quite make it back to our world is that the men involved--"

"The men? You mean, the pilots?"

"No, the bra.s.s. They haven't told the pilots about the fissioning of anything that gets into hypers.p.a.ce--"

Carolyn's breath gave out in a sudden gasp. Her eyes moved away alarmed, and Lance's own glance turned simultaneously. He saw Colonel "Hard-Head" Sagen and two other officers coming across the area.

Time had run out on them.

"Carolyn," Lance said, hurriedly. "I've gabbed with quite a few vets of hypers.p.a.ce. At the Club and in my training, both. Sure, a man feels like he's been crammed into a concrete mixer when he's burning up light-years in a hyper ship. But after a while, I'm told, even your brains get used to being bounced around." Lance took the girl's hands and squeezed them between his. "So let's not worry, huh?"

Carolyn started to say something in reb.u.t.tal, but her father and his aides were already upon them.

Colonel Sagen was a tall thin man of erect military carriage. His features were crisscrossed with radiation scars and his voice boomed out like a military drum. Yet when one got to know him, he wasn't so gruff. On the base, he commanded two thousand military personnel and half that many scientists and techs: a tough job, and one that he was giving his best.

After returning Major Lance Cooper's brisk salute, the colonel unbent and gave his prospective son-in-law a hardy handshake.

"Lance, I hope you'll be able to keep more of a rein on this little s.p.a.ce-filly of mine, than I've been able to. She was determined to see you off."

"I was glad to see her, colonel."

The colonel smiled. "Can't think of a man on this base I'd rather turn Carolyn over to."

"Thank you, sir," said Lance.

"Been counting the minutes to take-off, I suppose?"

"He's hardly had a chance to, Dad," Carolyn broke in. "What with me in his hair!"

One of the colonel's aides glanced at his watch, then opened up a brief case and took out a sealed envelope. The colonel relieved him of it and handed it to Lance.

"Your flight orders, Lance. Got the preset tapes installed and checked?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you should know your onions now, if you're ever going to. Best of luck, son."

"Thank you, colonel."

Lance turned. "Good-by, Carolyn. Just four weeks now, like I said."

"I'll be waiting."

"First jump's always the hardest, I hear," spoke up the second aide, cheerily. Like a great many other execs, the officer boasted no active s.p.a.ce rating, though he did wear the winged moons of an observer.

But Lance and Carolyn were again quite busy, and did not hear.

Inside the sh.e.l.l of the Cosmos XII, Lance, sitting flat on his back against gravity, looked up at the sweep hands on the control deck clocks and hurried through his pre-jump check list. Tension mounted inside him. He contacted the Operations people in the bunker over the radio net. Colonel Sagen's voice came in clear: "Five minutes, Lance."

"I am receiving. Area cleared?"

Traffic broke into report: "Take-off will proceed on schedule."

The function lights on the "tree" in front of Lance shone green. Gyros were caged; the tapes were set to roll. Lance's big hands hovered lightly near the manual over-rides. He was ready to fly, and the autopilot lights were already winking out in count-down. But you never could be sure until the last moment.

What had Carolyn been trying to tell him?

Before he could pursue the thought, he felt the pressure of the rising ship take hold; gently at first as she cleared the ground; then heavier and heavier, until his face felt like a rubber mask under the acceleration and his heart commenced pounding.

It didn't take long these days for any ship to build up a tremendous velocity in s.p.a.ce. Lance cleared the ecliptic by a hundred million miles; then with the Solar System spread out flat below him, he opened up his flight orders. His destination, he discovered, was Groombridge 34, a visual double star. Right ascension: zero hours, thirteen minutes. Declination: forty-three and four-tenths degrees. Nearly twelve light-years distant.

Since the star's apparent location was nearly halfway up the sky from the celestial equator, Lance could begin the jump any time and not worry on his way about skewing too near the gravitational field of any large-ma.s.sed body in his own immediate vicinity.

He permitted himself one brief glance at the blazing universe that hung all about him: the bright fixed lights that were innumerable suns against an eternal blackness, and the luminous dust in between that was even farther-flung. Confusion and chaos seemed to dwell here; if a man gazed too long, he could quietly go mad. But even more insane, he antic.i.p.ated, would be the thick, writhing nothingness of hypers.p.a.ce.

Lance Cooper made one final check of all the ship's operating components; then crossed his fingers and cut in the hype-drive.

Instantly, his teeth crashed together and clenched; his strapped-in body was jerked back in its cushioned seat; sweat beaded his brow. A thousand needles p.r.i.c.kling his skin couldn't have been worse. He had been told once that the switching-out from this known universe into an unknown one would feel just like a ten-thousand volt jolt in an old-fashioned electric chair; and now he could believe it. Every cell in his body had begun tingling; his stomach pitched under a racking nausea; and an involuntary trickle of saliva dripped from his mouth the moment he got his jaws working again.

But Lance fought the nausea, fought the sickness, and gradually as his flesh accommodated to the change, he felt better.

It was then that the most disturbing phenomenon of all took place. He felt for a moment as if he had been split into two persons. No, four persons, eight, sixteen, an infinity of other selves. They were all beside him, in him and out of him. His eyes ached. He shut them.

When he opened them again, everything was almost back to normal. The other selves had vanished. Only the constant throbbing vibration of the ship remained; yet it was a discomfort that had to be endured for four solid straight weeks now. There was no other means known, by which a man-made vessel could travel faster than light.

Funny about that four weeks, too, thought Lance. All distances in hypers.p.a.ce were the same, no matter where you wished to go; it required no more than fourteen days and no less, regardless of whether you jumped one light-year or fifty. Lance had always understood there were equations on file at HQ, which explained the paradox. But not being a math expert, he had never missed not being allowed to see them.

He flicked a switch and opened up his viewports again. The starry universe had vanished. The Cosmos XII was riding through a gray void. Alone and-- No, it wasn't alone!

Again, Lance's vision suffered a wrenching sickness. Out there in the colorless vacuum, hundreds of replicas of the Cosmos XII rode along beside him, above him, below him, stretched out in all directions.

There had been nothing in the manuals about this.

Lance stared at the meaningless phenomenon for a long time despite the fact it made his brain ill. At last, he decided it was harmless, whatever was causing it. He shook his head slowly and closed the ports down. He hoped Groombridge 34 would be less taxing.

The system was.

After the ship reverted to normal s.p.a.ce in the vicinity of Groombridge 34, Lance hovered about it exactly twelve hours, following all the instructions in his manual to the letter. He started up the cameras and other recording instruments. All went well, there were no incidents, no vessels disturbed him; though had the two components of the binary been at periastron, it would have simplified the work with the position micrometer. If anything else of interest had been detected, it would have to be deciphered from the film and tapes later. You can get as close as four billion miles to an Earth-sized planet in s.p.a.ce--and it'll still show up fainter than a fourteenth magnitude star.

Somewhere in the galaxy, Lance supposed, there must be other races building s.p.a.ceships and guiding them from sun to sun. But thus far, the scout ships from Terra--for all their magnified caution--had never run into signs of any.

The old veteran hype-pilots had the best philosophy after all. Earth was the choicest hunk of mud you were going to find. Enjoy it, brethren.

Well, he would certainly live it up when he got back, Lance swore. He would have his wedding; import Casey from the Club to spike the punch; and, perhaps after he'd gotten in his required number of scout-missions, he might even settle for a chair-borne exec's billet, himself.

Exactly twenty-eight days and twelve hours from the time of his departure from Earth, Lance Cooper was back home again. The Cosmos XII re-materialized out of hypers.p.a.ce in the neighborhood of the Solar System with its fuel tanks scarcely a third depleted, but its pilot a drained man. Lance, truthfully, not only felt weary and torpid, but a great deal disappointed.

He contacted Traffic, asked for and got a landing trajectory. A few hours later, he had coasted home and the trip was over.

He scrambled down out of the ship, hungry for Carolyn.

The base hadn't changed any in a month, that he could see. A couple of new floodlights put in, perhaps. Some bra.s.s were emerging from the control bunker. Colonel Sagen, several others. He recognized them all. Two were SSP's--s.p.a.ce Service Police.

When the colonel got close, Lance tossed off a salute and an insouciant grin: "Well, the Prodigal made it back home, sir. Hope that pessimistic daughter of yours is stashed around somewhere. Otherwise--"

"Otherwise, what?" returned the colonel, unsmiling.

"Why I'm liable to go busting right through that fence," said Lance. "And say, if anybody's worrying about the Cosmos XII, she flew like a dream, colonel. Matter of fact, she--"

Colonel Sagen's jaws snapped together. Wheeling, he barked at the two SSP's: "s.p.a.cemen, arrest this officer! Immediately!"

Lance couldn't believe his ears.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he protested. "What have I done?"

n.o.body answered. Not at first.

"Well?" Lance asked again, a little more uneasy this time.

"I have no daughter, major," Hard-Head Sagen growled, standing with his legs braced apart and his ramrod shoulders looking businesslike. "I never have had."

The s.p.a.ce cops sprang forward. One drew a pistol, held it on the returned pilot, while the other quickly moved behind Lance and pinioned his arms back.

"Is this a joke, colonel?" Lance demanded, struggling. "If it is, I don't appreciate it. You know you've got a daughter, and I'm going to marry her!"

The colonel's jaws clamped tight; and he shook his head from side to side, as if he were dealing with a person suddenly out of his mind. Then he acted.

"Put this man under close confinement," he ordered Lance's guards. "Allow no visitors of any kind." The colonel's tone was harsh and worried. "I've got to buck this matter to HQ. We can't have it blow up right now, G.o.d knows."

The s.p.a.ce police nudged Lance. "All right, major. Let's go."

Lance's anger seethed to a boil. Hunching his shoulders, he rammed back against the guard holding him, sending him tumbling. What was inside his mind to do if he managed an escape, he couldn't have told. He only knew he had to get away. The colonel had flipped.

And where, by the way, was Carolyn? It seemed impossible she could be in on it, too.

He stood free for a moment, watching warily.