Part 2

"_You_ level off. I haven't had the power lever since I adjusted it before I hit the main switch. I can't even lift my arm now; I didn't expect you to run this heap of junk from up there and so I didn't adjust the arm rest."

The dial crept up past one-sixty.

"But we're not running it from here," yelled McBride. "We haven't touched a thing since Hammond told you to take it up at twenty feet per."

The automatic respirators started to work, pumping their rib-cages in rhythm with their own breathing urges, and they sank into the enveloping folds of the elastomer cushions which supported their bodies. The meter hit one-seventy and passed it.

"Then who _is_ running the soup up?" came back the labored voice of Sandra Drake. "If this is just a joke, cut it. I can't take much more."

"You--and all of us are doing well to take what we're getting now," stormed McBride. "Who--"

"Something's amiss somewhere," said Hammond thoughtfully. "At this point, any gagster would quit. Look at the meter. One hundred and ninety feet per! Almost 7-G! Uh--"

* * * * *

Black waves and dizziness came, shrouding little dazzles of colored pinpoints that danced before the eyes. The meter touched two hundred feet per second per second acceleration, and then the drive was cut with a snap. The compressed elastomer rebounded, almost throwing the men from their chairs, but the cover bars held them in.

The drive was completely off; acceleration zero.

"Drake! Get the inertia switch in again!" called Hammond.

"Going in," came the weakened voice of the pilot.

The original twenty feet per started again, and it began to climb, just as it did before. "Stay alive," said Hammond to Drake. "We need you to shove the inertia switch in if nothing else."

"I don't care to die," came her hard voice. "I'll keep alive. You pack of fools figure out what's wrong with your invention, that's all I ask."

"Can you crank the inertia switch down to about 5-G?" asked Pete. "Make it a hundred and fifty feet per. Then sit there and shove it in every time it comes out until we can get out of Pluto's grip. We've got to have a stable place before we can do any fixing."

"You and your jackrabbit drive," jeered Sandra Drake. "Concocted by the best brains in space. Baloney--the best space in brains, I call 'em."

"Some day," promised McBride, "I'm going to spank that woman--with a hairbrush!"

The meter rode up steadily to one-fifty, and then dropped to zero with a click. The oil switch closed again, and the meter started up the scale once again. This time McBride timed it.

"Steve," he said. "We're running at twenty per, original setting, and the acceleration is increasing at the rate of twenty feet per, also. That means our velocity is increasing at the rate of twenty feet per second per second per second."

"Something screwy. Larry, grab a few tools and ride below and fix that inertia switch so that it will close automatically. No use making Drake sit there punching on that control button every seven and one half seconds. We're going to be running this way for a couple of hours before we get to safe space."

"A couple of hours?" groaned Drake. "Listen, geniuses, is there any reason why I couldn't flatten this chair out? This is killing me."

"Look, Larry, make that switch cut out at 2-G. Sandra, set your drive for 1-G. It'll jerk our guts to pieces, but we'll be doing about the same as any ship under a 1-G drive--no, we'll be doing better. Something in this heap is making us accelerate our acceleration; we're working on the second derivative. That means--"

"That means," put in McBride, "that we're running on the rate of change of acceleration, which is the rate of change of velocity. Now under this drive, we have a new factor, which we can call 'R' and which stands for the rate of change of acceleration. Then, since our acceleration is increasing with respect to time, the linear equation: V=AT no longer holds to express our velocity at the end of T seconds. Our first equation under this rule becomes one to find the acceleration after T seconds under R rate of change of acceleration. Follow? We have Equation One:

(1) A=RT

Then to find the true velocity at the end of T seconds and so forth, we take the integral of that, and we have:

(2) V=1/2RT^2

To get the distance covered in T seconds at R rate of change, we integrate once more and come up with ... ah, let's see--Oh, sure:

(3) D=1/6RT^3

Is that clear?"

"I'd like to see that one worked out on a blackboard," said Jimmy. "At the present, I'll take your word for it. What I'm interested in right now is: does this factor 'R' increase with the power setting?"

"Drake just lifted it to thirty feet per," said Hammond, "and I've been timing it. So far, it does."

"Steve," said McBride, "if we can figure out some way of keeping ourselves from getting killed as the acceleration hits the upper brackets, we'll have a drive that will get us places like fury. Think fast, brother."

Hammond looked up, just as the acceleration reached a peak, and it snapped his head sharply. "_Whew_," he said. "This is fine stuff, but we couldn't run anywhere very long this way. We'd shake the whole crate loose." He was thoughtful for a minute. "Don't suppose that blackboard mind of yours could figure out our course constants from this saw-toothed curve we're running?"

"Sure," grinned McBride. "Since the thing is not increasing constantly, but is returning to zero accel each time and then building up linearly to peak, our over-all, long-time acceleration is equivalent to the average acceleration. Besides, what difference does it make? We'll get there somehow, and we can probably plot well enough to keep from doing a lot of return-chasing to hit the lens."

"O.K., but we're going to have to figure a way out of this. I couldn't stand knowing anything like this drive without trying to make it practical."

"Wait until we can talk without getting our tongues bitten off by this drive of yours, and we'll go to work on it."

McBride said: "And I'd say let's do it quick! Enid needs me--"

* * * * *

Sandra Drake forced the jack-rabbitting ship into a cockeyed orbit about Pluto after a couple of hours. They had nosebleed, jittery nerves, aching muscles, and voracious appetites by the time the drive was cut. They ate, smoked, took showers, and then decided to call a conference.

Hammond opened it by saying: "There's one quick way to do this. It's on everybody's tongue, but I have the floor and I'll voice it first. To keep from getting squashed by our own weight under a few thousand feet per, we need something to take up the shock--something to counterbalance the gravity-apparent. Jimmy, how many mechanogravitic generators have we aboard?"

"Two, including the one we're running in the drive right now. It is as big, however."

"How's the output of our patched-together alphatron?"

"Plenty. The coil of the E-grav was much oversize, and since electrons will rush in where alphons fear to tread, we've plenty of soup."

"Then we'll set the other mech-grav up in the nose, and extend the warp down to envelop the ship. Right?"

"Right. And now for some kind of safety factor? Supposing something goes blooey?" asked Pete. "And how do we maintain the relationship between the drive's power and the counter-drive's attraction?"

"Weight-driven power controls for the counter-drive. Inertia switches for safety. Interlocking circuits for every factor so that either the drive failure will knock out the counter-drive, or vice versa. We'll build this like an electric lock, so that the whole shebang must be right on the button before she'll move. Then the failure of any part to perform will stop all parts simultaneously. It'll probably be jerky at first, but the prime function is to get Mac to Station 1, and from there on in we can tinker with this thing until hell freezes over. O.K., let's hustle the mech-grav into the nose."

Installing the mech-grav generator in the nose of the ship was not a difficult job, since it weighed exactly nothing with the ship in an orbit about Pluto. But the intricate job of hooking the equipment together was to be more difficult.

They rammed holes in the bulk-heads to pass cables. They tore out whole sections of unimportant wiring circuits to get wire for the interlocking circuits--and when the terminals were there, the relays and inertia switches had to be made or converted from existing equipment.

Sandra Drake was of little help. She could make the ship perform to within a thousandth of an inch of its design, and perhaps add a few items that the designers hadn't included, but her knowledge of the works was small. She hadn't thought it necessary or desirable to understand, beyond the rudiments, how the drive worked.

In fact, up to the present time she had scorned the knowledge of any higher intricacies; her idea had always been that men were paid to think these things out and she was in a position to pay them for their knowledge. Let them do it, and give them hell if it was not right. Her hiring them automatically gave her the right to order them around like slaves, and since the laws that govern space travel are such that a ship's pilot or owner may demand attention to the ship, Sandra demanded such attention, needed or not.

But this was the second time in less than a year that she had seen men working with equipment. Before, it had been her fault, and she had sniffed at their labors in a scornful attitude, gaining their hatred as she had gained the dislike of so many others.

This time it was slightly different. She had been sandbagged into this job and now it seemed as though her own life depended upon the clearness of the minds of the men who worked over the equipment.

So she entered this strange world of nuts and bolts and small tools strewn around in profusion, and stood amazed at the order that was being worked out of chaos. It was apparent to her that some semblance to order must be present, since they knew where to turn to pick up the right tool, and because the right part was always less than a foot from their ready hands.

* * * * *

A headstrong, spoiled brat she may have been, but Sandra Drake was by no means unintelligent. After John McBride had cut off a tiny lathe-turning just in time to hand it to Pete, who seemed to need it at exactly that moment to fit into his instrument, Sandra said to McBride: "Is there any pattern to all this mess?"

"If there weren't, we'd really be in a mess." He opened the chuck, advanced the rod a few inches, and started to turn the rod down to size again.

"This," said Sandra in that infuriating voice, "is order, neatness, and efficiency?"

"We like it," answered McBride, his eyes on the cross-feed vernier. "It may not look like a drawing room, but we know what we're doing."

"Do you? Is this a sample of how the place looks every time the _Haywire Queen_ goes out to experiment?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Why couldn't it be neat and clean?"

"Because we can't replace every tool back in the cabinet when we are ready to lay it down for a minute. Because it is far better to run cutting chips all over the floor and sweep 'em up once instead of running the broom every seven seconds after each chip. Because it is easier to work this way."

"Well," said Sandra, unimpressed, "the _Haywire Queen_ seems deserving of her name."

"There have been a lot of ticklish space problems fought out in her," replied McBride. "Just as we're fighting one now."

"But where are your drawings? Where are your plans? Where are your calculations?"

"Our drawings will be made by draftsmen when we make the thing work," answered McBride. "No sense in having a sheaf of drawings when we'll change the thing a dozen times before it is perfected. Our plans are step-by-step, and any result from one step may change our next step. Our calculations and mathematical deductions will be handled by brilliant mathematicians who can twist simple formulas around to fit the observed data by adding or subtracting abstract terms that fit the case."

"Sounds slightly slipshod to me."

McBride cut the part from the bar and handed it to Pete. "Enough?" he asked, and Pete nodded over his shoulder.

"You can start on part two," he called.

McBride replaced the bar with a larger one and started to work it into shape. "We don't need drawings," he said. "I know what Pete wants and how they should fit together and they're fairly simple parts. He knows what he wants and knows that I know also, so why should we make a lot of sketches for something trivial?"

"It seems to me that this is far from trivial," said Sandra pettishly. "You're playing with the lives of us all."

"Your life wasn't worth a peanut when you tried to run through the lens," said McBride. "Why quibble now?"

"I lived through it," said Drake.

"You'll live through this, perhaps," said McBride. "Besides, we're not too worried about our own lives. We're all willing to take a chance on them for Enid."

"Yeah?" drawled Sandra sourly. "How about the rest of them? That's only speaking for yourself."

Steve Hammond called from across the room: "What he said still goes. He'd do as much for me!"

"Just a big bunch of mutual admirers," sneered Sandra. "Always sticking together in a pinch."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Why didn't you think of your wife a long time ago instead of worrying now. Fine show of nerves for the public consumption!"

"Miss Drake, as far as we are concerned, you haven't been properly treated. Somewhere in the Good Book is a reference to sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Do your parents twist their faces in anguish every time they see you? They should. Anyone who has foisted upon this solar system a stinking little, unfeeling rotter like yourself should hate to be alone with their thoughts. Now get out of here and let us alone."

Sandra moved back at the harshness of his voice. McBride looked behind her and instinctively put out a hand to stop her; but Sandra thought that the move meant violence and moved back faster. She collided with a dangling wire from the alphatron and went rigid. She toppled, as stiff as a board.

"Great Space!" exploded Hammond. "Jimmy, how much was that?"

"Nine hundred alphons," answered Jimmy, looking at the meters on the alphatron and making a quick calculation. "Not enough to harm. She's just had all of her voluntary nervous system paralyzed."

McBride stooped, picked her up, and carried her to a work-chair, which he kicked horizontal with his foot and dropped her into it. He went to the medicine cabinet and filled a hypo which he shot into her arm. Gradually her too-regular breathing became humanly irregular again and she moved to get up.

"Stay there," said McBride.

"Rest a bit," advised Hammond.

"And remember next time," warned Jimmy, "that this kind of a place is no place to walk backwards. Another two hundred alphons--and that is far from impossible--and you'd have been extremely dead." He wiped his forehead with a dirty cloth, mopping the beads of nervous perspiration away.

"I suppose that would have left you without a pilot," said Sandra. Her sharp remark lacked her usual conviction, however, and she realized that it fell flat. She got out of the chair and left abruptly.

* * * * *

"Well, I'll be--"

"Be careful," said Larry. "She isn't worth it."

"I'm going to take the bad taste out of my mouth by calling the Lens," announced McBride.

"Go ahead," offered Pete. "We'll polish off here and by the time you're through, we'll make a stab at it!"

McBride got a through connection to Station 1, and Dr. Caldwell came to the phone.

"Doc," asked McBride. "How's Enid?"

"Touch and go, lad. We're still fighting."

"Bad?"

"I'm afraid to say 'no' to that one," answered Caldwell in a tight voice.

"What does she say?"

"She's been in a coma ever since the fall, except for a minute or two in which she called for you. John, I shouldn't have sent you away."

"Don't worry about that one. After all, you didn't know she was going to take a header."

"Yeah, but--"

"You fix her up and we'll forget it."

"But suppose--"

"Doc, is it that bad?"

"I can not deny that she would be infinitely better off if you were here. She needs an emotional lift."

"I'm trying."

"I know, lad, but the next ship off of Pluto is in five days and then four more days of flight at a killing drive. Nine interminable days."

McBride debated the advisability of telling Caldwell of their experiment, but decided against it. If he said anything about the possibility of getting there sooner, Caldwell might tell Enid on the chance that it might do her some good. On the other hand, if Enid thought he were coming, and he did not come, the shock--

"O.K., Doc. We'll get there somehow."

"We'll keep fighting," said Caldwell.

He hung up the phone as Hammond spoke into the communicator. "Sunward at thirty feet per," he said.

"Thirty feet per," answered Drake. "And may we not get burned!"

"Trusting soul," observed Hammond.

Sandra thrust the main lever home with a savage motion. Deftly she juggled the steering levers until the ship pointed at Sol. "We're off," she said. "Hold your hats!"

* * * * *

The accelerometer climbed by the second. It hit one hundred feet per, and then slowed in its climb, approaching one twenty in an exponential curve. In the other room, a step-by-step switch continued to click off the contacts, and the generators in the turbine room whined higher and higher up the scale. Minutes passed and became a half hour.

"We're in," said McBride, with a deep exhalation. "But how in the name of sin can we tell what our acceleration is?"

"The Hooke type of accelerometer is useless when we neutralize the gravity-apparent," agreed Hammond. "We're going to have some inventing to do."

"I wonder what the limit of our acceleration is," said Jimmy. "It can't be infinite, because the mechanogravitic generator above can take only so much--"

The inertia switches went out with startling clicks, and the weight-loaded rheostats whirred home to zero. Relays danced madly as the acceleration went to zero once more.

"Right back where we started from," came the pained voice of Sandra Drake. "Can't you birds think of something practical?"

She thrust the main control home once more, hooking it up to the automatic circuit that Larry had installed. The acceleration began again. "Now we'll have some more jackrabbit drive--but with a longer jump," said Drake cynically.

"We'll have to limp all the way to the Lens on this drive," said McBride. "It isn't too good, but I can't see--"

"I'm tired of this jerky stuff," said Sandra Drake entering the room. "It seems to me that you should be able to duplicate the mess you have here by something similar up in the nose."

"Yes?" asked Steve Hammond politely. He was interested but not impressed.

"What I'm trying to say is this: Wouldn't a set-up similar to this space-eating drive also be capable of exerting mechanical attraction, thereby getting you a constantly increasing neutralizing force?"

Steve thought that one over. "Not bad. Not bad at all!"

Jimmy jumped to his feet. "It'll work, Steve. We'll have to induce the mechanogravitic force in a cupralum bar by secondary gravitic radiation, but it is a known phenomenon. Drakey, that's top!"

"Except for one thing," said Larry. "We're fresh out of magnetogravitic generators. Aside from that, we can run this heap all the way to Sirius."

Pete said: "Yeah, and if we did have one, we'd still be short a few thousand alphons. The alphatron won't carry another generator, nor will the little one upstairs." He grinned at Sandra. "We're not tossing cold water on your suggestion. It'll work--but not right now."

"Then it was good?" asked Drake with the first question of honest awe she had used in years.

"Perfect," said McBride, cheerfully. "But not quite complete. We won't censure you for that, however, since we know that you haven't been hanging around space-warp engineers for the last ten years. You couldn't have known that this mag-grav generator will do service on both ends. All we have to do is to direct the output on a two-lobe pattern instead of a single-lobe pattern, and set our induction bar up above in the field of the mechanogravitic we've already got there. Jimmy, change the output pattern of the mag-grav and we'll hike aloft with the cupralum bar." He bowed at Sandra. "Thanks to that one, we'll be moving right along!"

* * * * *

Pilot Drake sent the power lever home at thirty feet per, and watched the accelerator climb to exactly thirty, where it stopped and hung. Minutes passed, and the meter read constant.

Steve Hammond smiled wider and wider as the minutes added into a quarter hour. "I think our cupralum hull is helping," he said.

"How?" asked Pete.

"Why, it is collecting enough leakage-warp to create a nice large warp of its own--in which we now travel, and in which the accelerometer reads only that factor 'R' of Mac's. That meter reads the rate of change of acceleration. Drake, step it up to sixty."

Sandra advanced the drive, and the meter went up to sixty even.

"We're on the ball," said Hammond.

"We sure are," said McBride, passing a forefinger over his cheek. "It's hot in here."

"I know. And you can call the Lens and tell the Doc we're on our way."

"I tried that. The lines were busy, so I shot 'em a 'gram. They know now that we're coming."

"I wonder if your math is correct," said Steve.

"Why?"

"If it is," explained Steve, "we'll be halfway to the Lens in three hours from start--no, wait a minute. We're running at sixty feet now. That means a little better than two hours! But if they are correct, we'll be hitting almost two times the speed of light. That is not possible."

"I think we'll do it," said McBride. "After all, we're in a space warp, and no one really knows whether the laws of the universe hold in a space warp. Drake hit the Lens at about ten thousand miles per second, was stopped in time to get to one of the fore lens stations, which must have been terrific deceleration--unthinkably high--and it didn't even muss her hair. We'll know in a bit when we are supposed to hit the speed of light."

"Then for the love of Mike, what is our limiting velocity?"

"The same as any of the gravitic spectra. Gravitic phenomena propagates at the speed of light raised to the power of 2.71828--That's our limiting velocity."

"Want to make any bets?"

"I don't mind. My guess is as good as yours."

"Better," admitted Steve.

* * * * *

Below, in the pilot room, Sandra Drake was having a state of nerves. She was alone in the driver's seat of a ship destined to exceed the speed of light, and she was scared. For some reason, the men who professed to shy at danger were arguing the possibilities of running above the speed of light while she, who had lived the life of an adventuresome girl, a daredevil, was worrying. She listened through the communicator at their argument and cursed under her breath.

They were going at it in a pedantic manner, hurling equations and theorems and postulates at one another like lawyers with a case for the supreme court, not men who were heading for God-Knows-What at a headlong pace under an ever-increasing acceleration.

There were all sorts of arguments as to the aspect of the sky as the speed of light was approached. And how it would look at a velocity of more than light. This went on for some time, with Steve Hammond holding out for blackout and John McBride holding for a sky that crawled forward due to the angle-vectors created by the ship's passage across the light rays, until the entire sky appeared before them--all the stars in the sky would be in the hemisphere in front of them, no constellation recognizable.