The Imagination Trap Part 2

He produced a pencil and probed the splint carefully. It did not move, but seemed rather to penetrate the pencil and emerge unchanged. He examined the pencil in silence.

"I don't like this at all," he said finally, holding the pencil up to the light. "Would you fetch Paul?"

Porter came without comment. The top-line frown reflected the fear which was already clawing deep in his guts, and the new phenomenon could add no more or less to the burden of responsibility he was already carrying. Brevis watched him carefully for signs of hysteria, and was relieved to find none.

When they reached the corridor Sigmund had extinguished the overhead fluorescent panels, and was observing his discovery against the background under the dim illumination of the tritium safety lamps. In this setting the splint burned inconceivably bright for its size, casting a clear glow on the bulkhead.

"Don't touch it," Grus warned. "It could be dangerous. I want to try a test."

He went off to the laboratory and returned with a square of fine tungsten foil. He pa.s.sed this several times through the point of light. It remained unmoving. Then he ran to the optical room and closed the door. A minute later he was back.

"Holes right through," he said. "I don't think this can be a projection. Its heat is incredible but the holes it makes are so minute that they're hardly capable of being resolved with our microscope. Nothing that small should possess that sort of energy. Paul, I want to do a spectrum a.n.a.lysis on this thing."

"I'll help you," Porter said. "But we'll have to dismount the spectrograph and fetch it out here since we can't pick that thing up."

"Can I a.s.sist?" Brevis asked.

"Not much at the moment, Eric. We've some delicate work ahead of us, and its specialized. We'll let you know our findings when we're through."

Brevis nodded and returned to his cabin. He had the curious impression that both men already suspected and feared what their findings would be. He checked through his stocks of tranquillizers in the store-cupboard and wondered just how long such mental and intellectual strain could be offset by purely chemical means. At some point a psyche was going to refuse to be pacified by drugs, and when that point came somebody was going to snap. Driscoll was already showing signs of breaking up. And who next?

It was about an hour later that Porter knocked on his door.

"May we come in?"

"Do." Brevis pulled down the other bunk to form a seat and beckoned him in. Grus followed, still studying the long strips of photographic paper from his instrument. His handswere trembling.

"We've found what it was, Eric." Even at that point Porter was reluctant to put a name to his fear.

"I think I already know," said Brevis quietly. "It's a star."

"You knew?"

"I guessed about the same time that you did. But I was expecting it. You weren't."

"But a star . . ." said Porter, and his voice was ragged. "It's a spectral G-type sun, similar to Sol. It could measure perhaps a million miles across. And it's out there in the corridor like a point of light so small you can hardly measure the holes it makes. Christ, Eric, if that's a sun out there-what size does that make us?"

FOUR.

Putting his empty gla.s.s unsteadily back on the table, Porter pushed the hair from his face.

"I still don't see how you could have antic.i.p.ated this, Eric."

"Not exactly this, but I was prepared for something of this nature. I saw the Tau probe vessel which came back only twenty-two inches long. This is part of the same pattern.

Somehow, Paul, entry into deep-Tau cuts things adrift not only from the universe but from the controlling physical constants of the universe. I've no idea how long the ship is now, but if you want to try the calculation, start by using light-years instead of metres."

"And yet you aren't frightened silly at the prospect?"

Brevis refilled the gla.s.ses from the bottle on the table.

"No. So far the survival threats here are purely intellectual ones. It would take a well-trained mind to appreciate that we three, sitting here drinking whisky, regard ourselves as being close to death. And if asked what form of death, we none of us could even define it."

Porter watched his face carefully for a moment. "You're dead right of course. We've come unstuck from the universe, certainly, but so far it's panic not physics which is most likely to kill us. Sigmund, have you enough data to calculate our size from the dimensions of that star, a.s.suming it's a regular G-type dwarf?"

"I'll work on it," said Grus. "But there's a more urgent problem first. That star must have entered through the hull, and therefore left a puncture. I think our first concern must be the preservation of our atmosphere."

"If the holes it made in the hull are no greater than those it made in the foil, the air losses won't be measurable."

"True. But that's only a simple G-dwarf. What happens if we run up against a giant like Betelgeuse? That would make a hole we couldn't afford to ignore. I suggest we try to navigate in a direction away from the island universes until we've some idea of what we're up against."

"Good point," said Porter. "I'm going up to the control room to see if we can get sufficient information from the instruments to give us a bearing on a relatively unpopulated region of s.p.a.ce. I could use Pat's help, Eric. Is he still sleeping?"

Brevis glanced at his watch. "I gave him a sedative about four hous ago. He should be out of it by now. I'll go and wake him."

"Get him to join me in Control. We've got instrumentation for detecting stellar objects in real s.p.a.ce, but whether it can detect star systems the size of meteorites projecting into Tau is a rather different problem. Is it possible to use the blister?"

Brevis shook his head. "That's completely out of the question. The Tau-psychic interaction in there is so strong it would drive a man senseless in fifteen minutes, and kill him in thirty."

Porter nodded his acceptance of the fact and went out of the door. Brevis' own intention of following was delayed by a sudden gesture from Grus towards the end of the room. Throughthe wall of the cabin another star had drifted, and they both paused in fascination as the tiny splint of light cleared the mirror of the table top by a centimetre and neared the whisky bottle standing in its path. Brevis moved to take the bottle out of the way, but Grus stopped him.

"Wait, Eric. There's something we need to know."

The splint touched the bottle and penetrated slightly into the gla.s.s. Then with a crash the bottle shattered, scattering liquor and gla.s.s on to the table and the floor. The star, apparently unaffected, continued its slow, amazing journey across the room.

"Bad!" said Grus. "We none of us dare sleep with those things drifting through. At best they could be painful, at worst, lethal. Can you imagine waking with one of those entering your temple? Even walking into one could cause a pretty nasty injury." He glanced around him. "And it's only a matter of time before one of them cuts some wiring or hits something vital. And . . .

Oh my G.o.d!"

Brevis was caught by his sudden spasm of alarm.

"My G.o.d!" said Grus again. "I've been worrying about the heat and visible spectra, but those things must be chucking out hard radiation as well. Not only could they be a fair biological hazard, but if one of them gets into the computer it'll flip every solid-state device in the whole a.s.sembly. The whole control system will go haywire, to say nothing of the loss of the computer function. You'd best get Pat up to Control fast. I'll try and get a radiation check on this one, but unless I miss my guess we've a death threat far more tangible than panic already with us."

Brevis tried to raise Driscoll on the intercom, but failed. Carefully avoiding the star in the corridor he ran to Driscoll's cabin. It was empty. The sheets on the bed were still warm, but not too recently occupied. Swiftly he checked the few other likely places. They were similarly bare. Then he flipped the emergency communication b.u.t.ton.

"Paul! Sigmund! Is Pat with you somewhere?"

"Not here," said Grus.

"Nor in Control." Porter's voice carried a note of alarm. "What's the matter, Eric?"

"I've an idea the d.a.m.n idiot's gone back into the blister. The image there is so ultra-real it's almost addictive. I've noticed a similar tendency in myself. Once you've experienced it you can't let it alone."

"d.a.m.n!" said Porter. "Have you tried him on the intercom?"

"He must be hearing my voice now," said Brevis, "but if he's in the blister he won't respond because the Tau image will represent the dominant reality. Pat, for G.o.d's sake, if you can hear me, answer!"

The set returned only silence and little electronic sounds gathered from various parts of the ship.

"Then he'll have to stay there until the course is re-set," said Porter.

"No. He could have been there ten or fifteen minutes already. Leave him exposed for as long again and we won't need to fetch him out. Just paint R.I.P. on the blister door and pack his effects for his relatives. That's a killer image in there. I'm going to try and help him."

Without waiting for Porter to reply, Brevis ran directly to the blister door. It was slightly open, though he knew it to have been closed the last time he had left. The telltales on the wall indicated that the screen maze inside had been altered or damaged. This in itself was sufficient to show that Driscoll had entered and therefore needed help.

Before he could enter, Grus arrived. Porter was close behind. Porter summed up the situation with a quick glance, and turned to Brevis.

"I can't let you go in there, Eric. Pat'll have to take what's coming to him. I daren't risk losing you too."

"And we daren't risk losing Pat-not if we ever want to find our way home again. He may be unconscious, but I doubt if he's dead yet. There's still a chance of getting him out alive.Later there won't be."

Porter came to a sudden decision. "Very well. But you go in with a rope around your waist. You'll have five minutes, and then we'll haul you out if necessary. And try not to fall down among the screens or you might get hurt on the way out."

"If you insist." Brevis stood submissively while Grus fetched a rope from the store-room and fastened it round his waist. Porter caught him by the shoulder.

"Five minutes, Eric-and good luck!"

Brevis shouldered open the heavy door and entered. It was quite dark inside, and, as the telltales had indicated, the internal screens were disarranged. All he could see initially was a fuzz of diffused polychromatic light which crept around the disordered lines of the lead panels. Seeking orientation, he moved back to the wall and sought the light switch.

As his fingers moved the toggle he was engulfed by a wave of vibrant, dancing, idiotic, multi-coloured patterns, which swarmed in front of him like a living kaleidoscope. The imagery trapped his senses in a mesmeric focus which almost robbed him of his power to react. Mercifully the toggle remained under his fingers and he snapped it off urgently, thankfully relaxing in the return of darkness.

"Are you all right, Eric?" Porter's voice sounded a hundred times farther than it should.

"Just about," said Brevis. "Deep-Tau emanation and A.C. lighting make a formidable combination. I couldn't stand that for long. I'll do the rest blind."

Slowly he found the screens and devised a path between them and across those which had fallen, scowling at the thought of the psychic paroxysm which had driven Driscoll to attack the heavy screening with such irrational violence. The edges of the lead sheets appeared fuzzed and burred with a polychrome haze which grew stronger as he entered through the maze and hinted at the violence and turbulence of the Tau-psychic effects rampant in the blister proper.

He searched each area urgently with his hands, hoping that Driscoll had fallen between the screens and away from the awful aura ahead. But he knew in his heart that this would not be so, and he felt a wave of fear at the prospect of having to penetrate finally into the unshielded extravagances of the raw Tau influence.

When he turned the last corner into the blister the wave of imagery and sensation tore down at him apparently from all sides, swamping his senses and leaving only the single core of his objective mind to guide him in his purpose.

Dazed by light and form and colour, his eyes attempted to follow and a.n.a.lyse the geometrically untenable planes and images as he trod apparently through a macrocosm of chaos which only his iron resolution reminded him was the blister floor. His mind seized on the shattering images and attempted to rationalize them into meaningful terms and comprehend the semantic substance with which every line of light was seeded. Every now and again his imagination became caught in a snare of some intriguing speculation, and he had to wrench his mind free with almost physical effort, knowing the deadly penalty for indulgence.

He could understand now the fatal attraction of the Tau images for Driscoll. The brain received the images direct, without the filtration and attenuation of the normal human senses.

The mind was released from the mundane bonds of limited sensory experience, and could swing, undamped, in domains of previously unfathomable concepts, without the distractions and reflexes of the body.

A savage jerk under the ribs brought his own wandering thoughts back to focus on his mission. He stumbled over Driscoll's body on the floor, but fortunately did not fall. He could see nothing of the form he caught up to his shoulders, only the variegated colours of the quasi infinities which clawed at his mind with snags of intangible steel.

Again the rope caught at his chest, this time insistently. He hesitated, having no means ofgaining his bearings in the unchartable fantasies in which he was immersed. The rope had now become the sole link with another sort of reality, an invisible umbilical cord connecting him across the unknown to an isolated, dark womb of fear and apprehension which was the ship and its situation. He felt an irrational desire to slip the knot and not to return to the worry-shrouded oppression of shades with its precarious chance of re-birth.

The third pull of the rope was decisive. Before he could re-arrange his burden so as to get his fingers to the knot he was dragged forcibly against the screens and through them, until, near the end of the ruined maze, darkness closed down again and the mental turbulence grew quiet.

Hands seized him in the darkness and slipped the body from his back, then thrust him outward into a different kind of light-the cold, fluorescent harshness of reality. He fell into the corridor and remained there for many seconds, shaking the images from out of his head, until Porter came and helped him to his feet.

"How do you feel, Eric?"

"Grim. But I think it will pa.s.s." He looked up and saw the door of the blister still part open. "But it's not a risk I'd care to take again. Can you fix that hatch permanently closed?"

"I'll weld it shut," promised Porter. He looked at Driscoll, now laid desperately unconscious in the gangway. "Not that it looks as if he'll be interested in it for a while."

"I wasn't thinking of him," said Brevis. "I was thinking of myself."

Outwardly, Porter's evasive manoeuvre seemed to be a success. His instrumental questing finally located a direction in s.p.a.ce where the stellar population was obviously less. Breaking the pre-set course co-ordinates, he manually directed the ship in this direction. Miraculously both astral bodies which had entered the hull drifted slowly out through the fabric again without detectable damage to the vessel. Then they waited. No further cosmic intruders penetrated into the ship, and finally they relaxed.

This gave them the respite needed to consider their plight more logically. But internal tensions were creeping dangerously high. Brevis was more than anxious about the continuing stress and its inhibiting effect on the type of intellectual free-wheeling which the problem demanded.

Grus was tending to concentrate his energies on routine tasks, as though trying to convince himself that he did not have time enough to grapple with the major problem.

Driscoll was being maintained in a state of light sedation after his experiences in the blister, and was therefore intellectually inactive. Even Porter was having difficulty in bringing his mind to a position of logical attack.

"The h.e.l.l of it is," said Porter, "you can't even find a point from which to start solving a problem like this."

"You're not thinking too clearly, Paul," said Brevis. "You're allowing yourself to be fazed by the size of the concepts instead of looking for fundamentals. I'm no physicist, but the problem appears to me to be one of congruency. We've lost physical congruence with our own universe. We're no longer controlled by whatever factors control the size of things.

Now, what factors do control the size of things, Paul? Why is anything the size it is, rather than a million times larger or smaller?"

"A good question," said Porter, "and way outside my field. I don't pretend to know the answer. The size of a thing is always relative. I suppose the nearest thing to absolute units are the sizes of the atoms and molecules from which matter is constructed. Aggregates of matter generate and are acted upon by certain forces-molecular binding forces, gravitation, centrifugal forces and the like, which roughly determine the ma.s.s-range which that type of object normally achieves.

"It's the interaction of possible states of matter, and the forces generated by them and acting upon them, which appears to control the size of everything in the universe. You can'thave a molecule as large as a star or a star as small as a molecule because either would be unstable."

"Then what happened to place us outside this control?"

"I don't know. We were in a state of Tau-spin resonance when we accelerated through the speed of light. It's beginning to look as though the Einsteinian ma.s.s-velocity relationship does apply in Tau, but in a peculiar way. Instead of the velocity being limited to that of light, we pa.s.sed easily through the light barrier, but tore our own atoms free from the controlling influence of the universe instead. Effectively we're a universe in our own right now-still self-integrated, but unconnected with any other universe. And Heaven alone knows what factor is controlling our absolute size relative to the universe from which we started."

"Are we still in Tau-s.p.a.ce?"

"The Rorsch generator is still running, but our molecular density is so low relative to the star stuff through which we're pa.s.sing that it's doubtful if a true Tau state is being maintained."

"Can't we just reverse the process and drop back through the light barrier?"

"We're trying," said Porter, "but there's no indication yet that it's going to work. Since we cleared the star patch we've been winding down our speed-eighteen hours, and we still aren't much above light velocity now. So far our size has done nothing but increase slightly more. I'd guess that once our atoms were torn from the universe they found some arbitrary relationship of their own which is independent of velocity."

"That's a key factor," said Brevis. "This arbitrary relationship-I'm not convinced it's true. I suspect there's still some relationship between our present size and the size we were when we started. I think there must be some connecting link. Can we check this at all?"

"We can fling all our co-ordinates into the computer and see if we can spot a relationship.

If there is a controlling principle it should show up as a function of something."

"Will you do that?" said Brevis. "If you can isolate the controlling factor it gives us a possible method of attack on the problem by attempting to reverse the issue."

"I'll get Sigmund on it right away. If we spot anything I'll let you know immediately."