Part 1

CAPTAIN CHAOS

By D. ALLEN MORRISSEY

_Science equipped David Corbin with borrowed time; sent him winging out in a state of suspension to future centuries ... to a dark blue world whose only defense was to seal tight the prying minds of foolish interlopers._

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

I heard the voice as I opened my eyes. I was lying down, still not aware of where I was, waiting for the voice.

"Your name is David Corbin. Do you understand?"

I looked in the direction of the sound. Above my feet a bulkhead loomed. There were round dials set in a row above a speaker. Over the mesh-covered speaker, two knobs glowed red. I ran the words over in my sluggish mind, thinking about an answer. The muscles in my throat tightened up in reflex as I tried to bring some unity into the jumble of thoughts and ideas that kept forming. One word formed out of the rush of anxiety.

"No."

I shouted a protest against the strangeness of the room. I looked to the right, my eyes following the curving ceiling that started at the cot. The curve met another straight bulkhead on the left. I was in a small room, gray in color, like dull metal. Overhead a bright light burned into my vision. I wondered where in the universe I was.

"Your name is David Corbin. If you understand, press button A on your right."

I stared at the speaker in the wall. The mesh-covered hole and the two lights looked like a caricature of a face, set in a panel of dials. I twisted my head to look for the button. I pushed away from the close wall but I couldn't move. I reached down to the tightness that held my body, found the wide strap that held me and fumbled with the buckle. I threw it off and pushed myself up from the hard cot. I heard myself yell in surprise as I floated up towards the light overhead.

I was weightless.

How do you describe being weightless when you are born into a world bound by gravity. I twisted and shut my eyes in terror. There was no sensation of place, no feeling of up or down, no direction. My back bumped against the ceiling and I opened my eyes to stare at the cot and floor. I was concentrating too hard on remembering to be frightened for long. I pushed away from the warm metal and the floor moved up to meet me.

"If you understand, press button A on your right."

What should I understand? That I was floating in a room that had a curved wall ... that nothing was right in this hostile room?

When I reached the cot I held it and drew myself down. I glanced at the planes of the room, trying to place it with other rooms I could see in my mind. Gray walls with a crazy curved ceiling ... a door to my left that appeared to be air tight.

I stared at my familiar hands. I rubbed them across my face, feeling the solidity of flesh and bone, afraid to think too hard about myself.

"My name ... my name is...."

"Your name is David Corbin."

I stared at the speaker. How long did this go on? The name meant nothing to me, but I thought about it, watching the relentless lights that shone below the dials. I stood up slowly and looked at myself. I was naked except for heavy shorts, and there was no clue to my name in the pockets. The room was warm and the air I had been breathing was good but it seemed wrong to be dressed like this. I didn't know why. I thought about insanity, and the room seemed to fit my thoughts. When the voice repeated the message again I had to act. Walking was like treading water that couldn't be seen or felt.

I floated against the door, twisting the handle in fear that it wouldn't turn. The handle clanged as I pushed it down and I stared at the opposite wall of a narrow gray passageway. I pushed out into it and grasped the metal rail that ran along the wall. I reasoned it was there to propel yourself through the passageway in this weightless atmosphere.

It was effortless to move. I turned on my side like a swimmer and went hand over hand, shooting down the corridor. I braced against forward motion and stopped against a door at the end. Behind me I could see the opened door I had left, and the thought of that questioning voice made me want to move. I swung the door open, catching a glimpse of a room crowded with equipment and....

* * * * *

I will always remember the scream of terror, the paralyzing fright of what I saw through the portholes in the wall of the room. I saw the blackest night, pierced by brilliance that blinded me. There was no depth to the searing brightness of countless stars. They seemed to press against the glass, blobs of fire against a black curtain burning into my eyes and brain.

It was space.

I looked out at deep space, star systems in clusters. I shut my eyes. When I looked again I knew where I was. Why the little room had been shaped like quarter round. Why I drifted weightlessly. Why I was....

David Corbin.

I knew more of the puzzle. Something was wrong. After the first shock of looking out, I accepted the fact that I was in a space ship, yet I couldn't read the maps that were fastened to a table, nor understand the function or design of the compact machinery.

WHY, Why, Why? The thought kept pounding at me. I was afraid to touch anything in the room. I pressed against the clear window, wondering if the stars were familiar. I had a brief vivid picture of a night sky on Earth. This was not the same sky.

Back in the room where I had awakened, I touched the panel with the glowing eyes. It had asked me if I understood. Now it must tell me why I didn't. It had to help me, that flat metallic voice that repeated the same words. It must tell me....

"Your name is David Corbin. If you understand, press button A on your right."

I pressed the button by the cot. The red lights blinked out as I stood in patient attention, trying to outguess the voice. I recalled a phrase ... some words about precaution.

Precaution against forgetting.

It was crazy, but I trusted the panel. It was the only thing I saw that could help me, guard me against another shock like seeing outside of the clear portholes.

"It is assumed the experiment is a success," the voice said.

What experiment?

"You have been removed from suspension. Assume manual control of this ship."

Control of a ship? Going where?

"Do not begin operations until the others are removed from suspension."

What others? Tell me what to do.

"Rely on instructions for factoring when you check the coordinates. Your maximum deviation from schedule cannot exceed two degrees. Adopt emergency procedures as you see fit. Good luck."

The voice snapped off and I laughed hysterically. None of it had made sense, and I cursed whatever madness had put me here.

"Tell me what to do," I shouted wildly. I hammered the hard metal until the pain in my hands made me stop.

"I can't remember what to do."

I held my bruised hands to my mouth, and I knew that was all the message there was. In blind panic I pushed away from the panel. Something tripped me and I fell back in a graceless arc. I pushed away from the floor, barely feeling the pain in my leg, and went into the hall.

Pain burned along my leg but I couldn't stop. In the first panic of waking up in strangeness I had missed the other doors in the passage. The first swung back to reveal a deep closet holding five bulky suits. The second room was like my own. A dark haired, deep chested man lay on the cot. His muscular body was secured by a wide belt. He was as still as death, motionless without warmth or breath as I hovered over him.

I couldn't remember his face.

The next room held another man. He was young and wiry, like an athlete cast in marble, dark haired and big jawed. A glassy eye stared up when I rolled back his eyelid. The eyelid remained open until I closed it and went on. Another room ... another man ... another stranger. This man was tall and raw boned, light of skin and hair, as dead as the others.

A flat, illogical voice had instructed me to revive these men. I shivered in spite of the warmth of the room, studying the black box that squatted on a shelf by his head. My hand shook when I touched the metal. I dared not try to operate anything. Revive the others ... instructions without knowledge were useless to me. I stopped looking into the doors in the passageway and went back to the room with the portholes. Everything lay in readiness, fastened down star charts, instruments, glittering equipment. There was no feeling of disorder or use in the room. It waited for human hands to make it operate.

Not mine. Not now.

I went past the room into another, where the curves were more sharp. I could visualize the tapering hull leading to the nose of the ship. This room was filled with equipment that formed a room out of the bordered area I stood in. I sat in the deep chair facing the panel of dials and instruments, in easy reach. I ran my hands over the dials, the rows of smooth colored buttons, wondering.

The ports on the side were shielded and I stared out at static energy, hung motionless in a world of searing light. There was no distortion, no movement outside and I glanced back at the dials. What speeds were they recording? What speeds and perhaps, what distance? It was useless to translate the markings. They stood for anything I might guess, and something kept pricking my mind, telling me I had no time to guess. I thought of time again. I was supposed to act according to ... plan. Did that mean ... in time ... in time. I went back down the passageway.

* * * * *

The fourth small room was the same. Except for the woman. She lay on a cot, young and beautiful, even in the death-like immobility I had come to accept. Her beauty was graceful lines of face and her figure--smooth tapering legs, soft curves that were carved out of flesh colored stone. Yet not stone. I held her small hand, then put it back on the cot. Her attire was brief like the rest of us, shorts and a man's shirt. Golden hair curled up around her lovely face. I wondered if she would ever smile or move that graceful head. I rolled back her eyelid and looked at a deep blue eye that stared back in glassy surprise. Four people in all, depending on a blind helpless fool who didn't know their names or the reason for that dependence. I sat beside her on the cot until I could stand it no longer.

Searching the ship made me forget my fear. I hoped I would find some answers. I went from the nose to the last bulkhead in a frenzy of floating motion, looking behind each door until I went as far as I could. There were two levels to the ship. They both ended in the lead shield that was set where the swell of the curve was biggest. It meant the engine or engines took up half the ship, cut off from the forward half by the instrument studded shield. I retraced my steps and took a rough estimate of size. The ship, as I called it, was at least four hundred feet long, fifty feet in diameter on the inside.

The silence was a force in itself, pressing down from the metal walls, driving me back to the comforting smallness of the room where I had been reborn. I laughed bitterly, thinking about the aptness of that. I had literally been reborn in this room, equipped with half ideas, and no point to start from, no premise to seek. I sensed the place to start from was back in the room. I searched it carefully.

Minutes later I realized the apparatus by the cot was different. It was the same type of black box, but out from it was a metal arm, bent in a funny angle. At the tip of the arm, a needle gleamed dully and I rubbed the deep gash on my leg. I bent the arm back until the angle looked right. It was then I realized the needle came to a spot where it could have hit my neck when I lay down. My shout of excitement rang out in the room, as I pictured the action of the extended arm. I lost my sudden elation in the cabin where the girl lay. The box behind her head was completely closed, and it didn't yield to the pressure I applied. It had a cover, but no other opening where an arm could extend. I ran my fingers over the unbroken surface, prying over the thin crack at the base helplessly. If some sort of antidote was to be administered manually I was lost. I had no knowledge of what to inject or where to look for it. The chamber of the needle that had awakened me was empty. That meant a measured amount.

In the laboratory on the lower level I went over the rows of cans and tubes fastened to the shelves. There were earths and minerals, seeds and chemicals, testing equipment in compact drawers, but nothing marked for me. I wondered if I was an engineer or a pilot, or perhaps a doctor sent along to safeguard the others. Complete amnesia would have been terrible enough but this half knowledge, part awareness and association with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of me.

I went back to the cabin where the powerful man lay. I had to risk failure with one of them. I didn't want it to be the girl. I fought down the thought that he might be the key man, remembering the voice that had given the message. It was up to me, and soon. The metal in the box would have withstood a bullet. It couldn't be pried apart, and I searched again and again for a release mechanism.

I found it.

I swung the massive cover off and set it down. The equipment waited for the touch of a button and it went into operation. I stepped back as the tubes glowed to life and the arm swung down with the gleaming needle. The needle went into the corded neck of the man. The fluid chamber drained under pressure and the arm moved back.

I stood by the man for long minutes. Finally it came. He stirred restlessly, closing his hands into fists. The deep chest rose and fell unevenly as he breathed. Finally the eyes opened and he looked at me. I watched him adjust to the room. It was in his eyes, wide at first, moving about the confines of the room back to me.

"It looks like we made it," he said.

"Yes."

He unfastened the belt and sat up. I pushed him back as he floated up finding little humor in the comic expression on his face.

"No gravity," he grunted and sat back.

"You get used to it fast," I answered. I thought of what to say as he watched me. "How do you feel?"

He shrugged at the question. "Fine, I guess. Funny, I can't remember."

He saw it in my face, making him stop. "I can't remember dropping off to sleep," he finished.

I held his hard arm. "What else? How much do you remember?"

"I'm all right," he answered. "There aren't supposed to be any effects from this."

"Who is in charge of this ship?" I asked.

He tensed suddenly. "You are, sir. Why?"

I moved away from the cot. "Listen, I can't remember. I don't know your name or anything about this ship."

"What do you mean? What can't you remember?" he asked. He stood up slowly, edging around towards the door. I didn't want to fight him. I wanted him to understand. "Look, I'm in trouble. Nothing fits, except my name."

"You don't know me?"

"No."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, yes. I don't know why but it's happened."

He let his breath out in a whistle. "For God's sake. Any bump on your head?"

"I feel all right physically. I just can't place enough."

"The others. What about the others?" he blurted.

"I don't know. You're the first besides myself. I don't know how I stumbled on the way to revive you."

He shook his head, watching me like I was a freak. "Let's check the rest right away."

"Yes. I've got to know if they are like me. I'm afraid to think they might be."

"Maybe it's temporary. We can figure something out."

II

The second man, the dark haired one, opened his eyes and recognized us. He asked questions in rapid fire excitement. The third man, the tall Viking, was all right until he moved. The weightless sensation made him violently sick. We put him back on the cot, securing him again with the belt, but the sight of us floating made him shake. He was retching without results when we drifted out. I followed him to the girl's quarters.

"What about her. Why is she here?" I asked my companion.

He lifted the cover from the apparatus. "She's the chemist in the crew."

"A girl?"

"Dr. Thiesen is an expert, trained for this," he said.

I looked at her. She looked anything but like a chemist.

"There must be men who could have been sent. I've been wondering why a girl."

"I don't know why, Captain. You tried to stop her before. Age and experience were all that mattered to the brass."

"It's a bad thing to do."

"I suppose. The mission stated one chemist."

"What is the mission of this ship?" I asked.

He held up his hand. "We'd better wait, sir. Everything was supposed to be all right on this end. First you, then Carl, sick to his stomach."

"Okay. I'll hold the questions until we see about her."

We were out of luck with the girl. She woke up and she was frightened. We questioned her and she was coherent but she couldn't remember. I tried to smile as I sat on the cot, wondering what she was thinking.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

Her face was a mask of wide-eyed fear as she shook her head.

"Can you remember?"

"I don't know." Blue eyes stared at me in fear. Her voice was low.

"Do you know my name?"

The question frightened her. "Should I? I feel so strange. Give me a minute to think."

I let her sit up slowly. "Do you know your name?"

She tightened up in my arms. "Yes. It's...." She looked at us for help, frightened by the lack of clothing we wore, by the bleak room. Her eyes circled the room. "I'm afraid," she cried. I held her and she shook uncontrollably.

"What's happened to me?" she asked.

The dark haired man came into the room, silent and watchful. My companion motioned to him. "Get Carl and meet us in Control."

The man looked at me and I nodded. "We'll be there in a moment. I'm afraid we've got trouble."

He nodded and pushed away from us. The girl screamed and covered her face with her hands. I turned to the other man. "What's your name?"

"Croft. John Croft."

"John, what are your duties if any?"

"Automatic control. I helped to install it."

"Can you run this ship? How about the other two?"

He hit his hands together. "You fly it, sir. Can't you think?"

"I'm trying. I know the ship is familiar, but I've looked it over. Maybe I'm trying too hard."

"You flew her from earth until we went into suspension," he said.

"I can't remember when," I said. I held the trembling girl against me, shaking my head.

He glanced at the girl. "If the calculations are right it was more than a hundred years ago."

We assembled in the control room for a council. We were all a little better for being together. John Croft named the others for me. I searched each face without recognition. The blond man was Carl Herrick, a metallurgist. His lean face was white from his spell but he was better. Paul Sample was a biologist, John said. He was lithe and restless, with dark eyes that studied the rest of us. I looked at the girl. She was staring out of the ports, her hands pressed against the transparent break in the smooth wall. Karen Thiesen was a chemist, now frightened and trying to remember.

I wasn't in much better condition. "Look, if it comes too fast for me, for any of us, we'll stop. John, you can lead off."

"You ask the questions," he said.

I indicated the ship. "Where in creation are we going?"

"We set out from Earth for a single star in the direction of the center of our Galaxy."

"From Earth? How could we?"

"Let's move slowly, sir," he said. "We're moving fast. I don't know if you can picture it, but we're going about one hundred thousand miles an hour."

"Through space?"

"Yes."

"What direction?"

Paul cut in. "It's a G type star, like our own sun in mass and luminosity. We hope to find a planetary system capable of supporting life."

"I can't grasp it. How can we go very far in a lifetime?"

"It can be done in two lifetimes," John said quietly.

"You said I had flown this ship. You meant before this suspension."

"Yes. That's why we can cross space to a near star."

"How long ago was it?"

"It was set at about a hundred years, sir. Doesn't that fit at all?"

"I can't believe it's possible."

Carl caught my eye. "Captain, we save this time without aging at all. It puts us near a calculated destination."

"We've lost our lifetime." It was Karen. She had been crying silently while we talked.

"Don't think about it," Paul said. "We can still pull this out all right if you don't lose your nerve."

"What are we to do?" she asked.

John answered for me. "First we've got to find out where we are. I know this ship but I can't fly it."

"Can I?" I asked.

* * * * *

We set up a temporary plan of action. Paul took Karen to the laboratory in an effort to help her remember her job. Carl went back to divide the rations.

I was to study the charts and manuals. It was better than doing nothing, and I went into the navigation room and sat down. Earth was an infinitesimal point somewhere behind us on the galactic plane, and no one else was trained to navigate. The ship thundered to life as I sat there. The blast roared once ... twice, then settled into a muted crescendo of sound that hummed through the walls. I went into the control room and watched John at the panel.

"I wish I knew what you were doing," I said savagely.

"Give it time."

"We can't spare any, can we?" I asked.

"I wish we knew. What about her--Dr. Thiesen?"

"She's in the lab. I don't think that will do much good. She's got to be shocked out of a mental state like that."

"I guess you're right," he said slowly. "She's trained to administer the suspension on the return trip."

I let my breath out slowly. "I didn't think about that."

"We couldn't even get part way back in a lifetime," he said.

"How old are you, John?"

"Twenty-eight."

"What about me?"

"Thirty." He stared at the panel in thought for a minutes. "What about shock treatment? It sounds risky."

"I know. It's the only thing I could think of. Why didn't everyone react the same?"

"That had me wondering for a while. I don't know. Anyway how could you go about making her remember?"

"Throw a crisis, some situation at her, I guess."

He shrugged, letting his sure hands rest on the panel of dials. I headed back towards the lab. If I could help her I might help myself. I was past the rooms when the horn blasted through the corridor. I turned automatically with the sound, pushing against the rail, towards the control room. Deep in my mind I could see danger, and without questioning why I knew I had to be at Control when the sound knifed through the stillness. John was shouting as I thrust my way into the room.

"Turn the ship. There's something dead ahead."

I had a glimpse of his contorted face as I dove at the control board. My hands hit buttons, thumbed a switch and then a sudden force threw me to the right. I slammed into the panel on the right, as the pressure of the change dimmed my vision. Reflex made me look up at the radar control screen.

It wasn't operating.

John let go of the padded chair, grinning weakly. I was busy for a few seconds, feeding compensation into the gyros. Relief flooded through me like warm liquid. I hung on the intercom for support, drawing air into my heaving lungs.

"What--made you--think of that," I asked weakly.

"Shock treatment."

"I must have acted on instinct."

"You did. Even for a sick man that was pretty fast," he laughed.

"I can think again, John. I know who I am," I shouted. I threw my arms around his massive shoulders. "You did it."

"You gave me the idea, Mister, talking about Dr. Thiesen."

"It worked. I'm okay," I said in giddy relief.

"I don't have to tell you I was scared as hell. I wish you could have seen your face, the look in your eyes when I woke up."

"I wouldn't want to wake up like that again."