Part 2

Len licked dry lips and tried again. "They say there're people--beings, anyway--_living_ in hyperspace." That tale he had heard from spacemen who had made the Jump. Even if he'd believed in the flluska's demons, he would have had the good sense not to admit such a thing to a starship officer--a man of sophistication from the Near Planets, perhaps even Earth herself. Still, spacemen were notorious myth-spinners. Perhaps he had made a fool of himself, anyway.

But the second officer wasn't laughing. "Federation law says we should have nothing to do with the creatures of hyperspace. If we leave them alone, they don't bother us."

It would have been better if the officer had laughed at him and said there was nothing in hyperspace but space. "Will we see them?"

"Does a ship going through ordinary space see any of us?" the officer returned. "The creatures of hyperspace live on their own planets, and we give those planets a wide berth. Simple as that." He added, "What are you so afraid of, boy? Not a ship's been lost in hyperspace for over two centuries, and there haven't been any blowups for years."

"Blowups?" Len repeated.

"Accidents. A technical term. You've taken worse risks shipping out in those tincan tramps."

Finally, Len gave in--to his own common sense more than to the officer's--and signed up for the voyage. He filled out the necessary forms--hundreds of them, it seemed like. When it came to each line for next of kin, he left a blank on every one.

"Haven't you any relatives at all?" the second officer asked, surprised.

"Not a one." Len didn't bother to mention that half-brother back on Fairhurst; a five-year-old kid isn't much kin to speak of. Besides, the boy probably didn't even know he had a brother--he'd been less than a year old when Len left. One of the barren women must have adopted him and brought him up as her own.

* * * * *

So Len Mattern filled out all the papers and was inscribed on the ship's rolls. And he made the terrible jump through hyperspace for the first time.

People who traveled on spaceships only as passengers never could understand why the Jump was invariably referred to as "terrible." That was because before the ship made the Jump they'd be given drugs, in their cocktails, in their food at dinner, or in their drinking water--and the next day they'd wake up and find they had slept right through the whole thing, so it couldn't be so awful. Of course those who traveled around the universe a lot were bound to catch on. Someday they'd miss a meal or not drink anything and they'd find themselves awake while the ship was Jumping. But the shipping lines didn't take any chances and the aberrant passengers would also find themselves locked in their cabins with smooth metal shutters where the mirrors used to be.

But one thing that couldn't be helped: They couldn't be stopped from looking down at themselves and seeing extra arms and legs; or finding no arms and legs at all, but tentacles instead; or that their skin had turned into shining scales or that there was an extra eye in the back of their head. And when the time came for another Jump, they would _ask_ to be drugged.

However, crewmen couldn't be drugged. They had to be awake to tend the ship. The credo of the Space Service was that you couldn't trust a machine to itself any more than you could trust an extraterrestrial, a non-human. If a man wasn't in charge, ultimately everything would go to pot. That was part of the space tradition, like the primitive axes that hung on the bulkheads, so a man could smash his way to the modern fire-fighting equipment. Except, of course, that if fire really broke out, it would be quicker to press the button that sent the automatic fire-fighting machines into immediate action. But still the axes hung there, because they had always hung there--and, like all the metal on the ship, they had to be kept polished.

Each time a ship made the Jump, the crewmen stayed awake. They saw space and time change before their eyes. They saw their own fellows turn into monsters. It was an awful thing to see, even though they knew it wasn't actually a change, but a shift to another aspect of themselves. Worse than the seeing was the _feeling_. It was like being turned inside out, organ by organ--your heart and your liver and your guts and all the rest, each carefully turned inside out, the way a woman takes off her gloves, smoothing each one with great precision. The hellish part was that it didn't hurt. A man felt as if he were being twisted and wrenched apart, and it didn't hurt, and it was the wrongness of that more than anything else that--well, that was why the pay was so high on the starships. So many of them went mad.

* * * * *

All this Len Mattern had heard of and had expected--though no amount of expectation could have braced him for that kind of reality. But there was more to it than he had heard, and it was the extra part that the second officer seemed curiously anxious to deny. "You saw nobody--nothing at the portholes," he told Mattern after that first Jump. "You just imagined it."

Mattern had been a spaceman long enough to be able to distinguish imagination from reality. Perhaps the creatures of hyperspace did live on planets, but it seemed they did not breathe the atmosphere of those planets as human beings breathe air, and so they were not confined to them. They could move around freely in the starless dusk of their universe. And, if there was a pact, then they must be intelligent creatures--though he would have known that anyway, for they spoke to him. He could hear them through the tight walls of the ship--less in his ears than his mind--cajoling, entreating, _promising_. And he shut his ears and his mind, because he was afraid.

At the end of the voyage, he was offered a permanent berth on the _Perseus_. "We don't usually take crewmen from the Far Planets," the second officer said thoughtfully. "They don't have the training needed. But you're a good deckhand."

Len waited tensely, not knowing whether he did want the job or not.

"The universe is opening up and sooner or later we're going to have to start diversifying our crews, take untrained men, maybe even--" the officer hesitated--"extraterrestrials. Sometimes training can restrict a man to the point where he can't think for himself. Main trouble with untrained men, though, is that often they've got too much imagination. They think things that aren't true, see things that aren't there."

"I understand, sir," Mattern said. "I'll keep my imagination stowed away until it's wanted."

From then on, he had seen no more at the ports than any of his properly conditioned mates.

IV

Len Mattern stayed with the _Perseus_ over three years. Gradually, from things he observed himself, from things his shipmates told him, he learned what little there was to be known about hyperspace. Everything was different there from normspace; even the mechanical properties of things changed. However, Jumping was safe enough, as long as the spaceships didn't stop. As long as they were only passing through that other universe, they were, in a sense, not actually there, so that the elements of which they were composed would not change, although, to the senses, they seemed to.

Unless, of course, the ship collided with something. Then everything became very real. That was what the pact was for--to make sure they didn't collide. Every spaceship had, locked in the captain's cabin, charts of that other universe--charts which gave, in normspace terms, the coordinates of the hyperspace worlds. That way, when a ship made the Jump, there would be no danger of her materializing inside one of the alien planets and destroying both. Even touching one of the hyper-worlds could have a disastrous effect. Only the captains were ever permitted to see these charts; they would be far too dangerous in irresponsible hands.

Len might have grown old in the _Perseus'_ service, if the Hesperia System hadn't been one of her stops, and if he hadn't seen Lyddy there.

Hesperia was a small, rose-pink sun surrounded by four planets and the debris of what once was a fifth. Most solar systems in the Galaxy had asteroid belts like that; some time later, Len found out why. Three of Hesperia's four planets were barren rocks. The fourth, Erytheia, was mostly water, calm water, sometimes blue, sometimes--when the sun was high--violet-tinged. There was land, a small continent in the north, where it was always spring, a slightly larger continent in the south, where it was always summer, and that large island in the west which was said to have a climate better than spring and summer combined.

The atmosphere of Erytheia was what they call Earth type--that is, Man could breathe on it. A very inadequate description, though, because men could breathe the atmosphere of Ziegler's Planet, too, only sometimes it almost seemed worthwhile to stop living in order to stop having to breathe Ziegler's air. Erytheia's atmosphere was gentler and purer than the air of Earth. The native fruits were edible and the local life-forms were small and amiable. But there wasn't enough land for the establishment of a self-supporting colony; it would have bred itself into poverty within a few generations.

What else could be done with a small paradise in a remote sector of space but turn it into a high-class brothel and gambling casino? Only the very rich could afford to travel so far to look at scenery, and by the time they reached their destination, scenery wasn't enough. They wanted some excitement.

Naturally, the _Perseus_ would stop at Hesperia. Naturally, Mattern would see Lyddy, who was one of the seven wonders of that system. She wasn't too many years out from Earth then, and he had never dreamed any woman could be that beautiful.

* * * * *

She was long-necked and slender, unlike the women of the Far Planets, who were mostly squat-built and bred for labor. It seemed to him he had seen her before--in a vision, a dream, who knew where? Certainly never in reality. But he could understand why men would travel light-years for her.

The prices she charged were also astronomical. Still, if he put away his money carefully, in a couple of years he ought to be able to save up enough for a night with her. It was a goal, and he'd never had a goal before, even such a small one; everything had been just aimless drifting. He got a tridi of her and put it up inside the door of his locker and was happy dreaming of her, even if it meant being kidded about her by his shipmates.

When he made the next Jump, he knew for certain that the creatures of hyperspace not only spoke to him through his mind, but could enter it and read it if they chose. He felt very naked and vulnerable. Why couldn't the others on his ship also see the creatures, so that he would not be the sole focus of their attentions?

"Do what we ask," the hyperspacers--the xhindi, they called themselves--said softly, "and you will have enough from just a single voyage to have her for a week, a month, a year. Do what we ask and you can have her for all eternity."

"But all I want is just one night!" he protested.

And they had laughed, and one with a honey-sweet mind had said, "Is that _all_ you want, _really_ all?" Then they began naming the things a man could want--and they certainly seemed to have a full knowledge of humanity and its most secret desires.

Afterward, Len had started to think. It _would_ be nice to have Lyddy all to himself--for a while, anyway. It would be nice to be able to buy her pretty dresses and jewelry. There were other things that would also be nice. Maybe he could have his teeth fixed and his leg straightened. His stepfather had broken it the night his mother died and it had never set properly. With money, he could do a lot of things. He hadn't realized there was so much in the universe to be wanted.

Now his wages began to look as picayune as once they had seemed large. He could make more elsewhere, he told himself; he might not be educated, but he had a good mind, plus rapidly dwindling principles. He didn't need the hyperspacers, though. There were plenty of illegal ways of making money within the framework of normspace activities. So he left the secure monotony of the starship to seek an enterprise which would bring in quick and copious profits.

* * * * *

His first step was to go see a rather disreputable acquaintance of his, Captain Ludolf Schiemann. Schiemann was an ancient spaceman from Earth, who owned and commanded a ramshackle craft of prehistoric design, held together with spit and spells.

Schiemann operated out of Capella IV with cargoes of whatever he could get. He was able to make a living with the _Valkyrie_ only because he would take on jobs that no sane skipper would touch. Some were dangerous; most were illegal into the bargain. The risks were out of all proportion to the profit, which was why the only helper he'd been able to get was Balas--a big, powerful man, not old but mad. He'd been a deckhand on one of the big starships and had broken too early to be entitled to a pension.

Mattern had met old Schiemann at a bar in Burdon, the capital of Capella IV, and had had a few drinks with him whenever the _Perseus_ and the _Valkyrie_ had happened to hit port at the same time. Schiemann had a favorite joke he kept repeating over and over: "If you ever get sick of the _Perseus_, Lennie--sick of good food and hot water and decent quarters--you can always come to the _Valkyrie_. I'll take care of you."

Now Mattern went to him and said he'd like to take Schiemann up on that offer.

The old man's pale green eyes protruded even further from his head. "You want to leave the _Perseus_ for a berth on my ship! You're madder than Balas!"

"Not a berth, Pop," Mattern told him. "A share of her--a half share."

Schiemann grinned. "Now you must think _I'm_ crazy, to hand over half my ship just like that. Maybe you'd like me to sign her over to you entirely." And he puffed savagely upon his Venuswood pipe.

"Look," Len said, "let's not kid ourselves. You're a crook, Pop, but such a lousy crook that you make it look as if crime really doesn't pay. And I'll tell you what's wrong with the way you operate. You have no organization, no system, no imagination. I have 'em all. You contribute the ship; I'll contribute my know-how. Together, we'll make a fortune."

"Modest, aren't you?" the old man jeered. "What kind of know-how do you get working as a deckhand on a starboat? All right, maybe you're the universe's best metal polisher, but--"

"Look, Pop," Len interrupted, "I'll make a deal with you. We work together for a year. If you don't pull in at least three times the amount you got before, as just your share, my half of the ship reverts to you. What could be fairer than that?"

Schiemann still wasn't convinced that he was not being played for a sucker. Being what he was, he could never expose himself to a court battle, no matter how much justice might be on his side in a particular instance. But he didn't think Len could be so rotten as to figure on something like that. Besides, the old captain couldn't help liking the boy. So he agreed, saying as he did so, "I should have my head examined." But before the fourth voyage was out, he realized that he had never done a wiser thing in his life. Under Len's direction, the _Valkyrie_ as a business enterprise was cleaning up.

Only in relative terms, of course. It took six months, over a dozen voyages, before Len managed to save enough for that night with Lyddy. And every time he made the Jump in the _Valkyrie_, the hyperspacers told him, "One night won't be enough," and the honey-minded one had insisted, "You must want more than that. You _must_. Who could be satisfied with so little?"

* * * * *

Finally, the night came. It was wonderful, it was ecstasy, it was everything he had dreamed of--but it was too short. "Good-by, honey," Lyddy said as he left, "come back and see me again."

"When you have some more money," she meant. And it was all over.

For her, not for him. He found he couldn't get her out of his mind. One night was not enough. The xhindi had been right. Now he wanted her for his own, for the rest of his life if not for all eternity.

He had no romantic fancies that she would be willing to go off with him for the sake of true love and himself alone. He had seen himself too often in the mirror panel on the door of his tiny cabin, and he looked there now, with a chill objectivity. Undersized, crippled, pallid with the unhealthy color that comes from spending too little time in any kind of sunlight, Len Mattern was twenty-four and looked forty. Not even an ordinary woman of the planets could love him, let alone a love goddess.

But a love goddess who loved money could be bought. However, in order to win her, he'd need to have really big money. No matter how efficiently he organized the _Valkyrie's_ operations, the ship was just a battered old hulk and, in her sphere, could never be more than small-time. There was only one answer--hyperspace.

He found Schiemann puffing contentedly at his pipe in the _Valkyrie's_ control room. "Look, Pop," he said, "we've been wasting our time on stardust. We have to aim for something big."

Schiemann looked trustfully at the young man. He had no relatives, so he had come to think of Len as his son, and, in fact, had made him his heir. "Whatever you say, Lennie. Figure on breaking out of this sector and moving in closer to Earth, do you?"

"Not exactly. We're going into hyperspace."

"Sure," Schiemann said, blowing a smoke ring. "Can't leave the sector without passing through hyperspace; that stands to reason. But where are we Jumping to?"

Len tried to keep the tautening of his body from becoming apparent. "We're not Jumping anywhere. We're _stopping_ in hyperspace."

The pipe dropped from the old man's mouth. He caught it in his hand and gave a muffled exclamation as the heat burned his palm. Then he looked at his partner. "Of course you're joking, Lennie." And he arranged his face for laughter.

Len shook his head. "No joke, Pop; I'm dead serious. We're going to take a cargo into hyperspace. To the mem--the mem--oh, hell, I can't pronounce it--the queen, I guess, of Ferr. That's one of their planets. She wants Earth stuff, she says, and she promises to do right by us if we bring it to her. Sounds like a good deal."

* * * * *

The silence thickened as the two men face each other. At last Schiemann got up. "Look, Lennie, I don't make out I'm a saint. I've smuggled and cheated and stolen. But this I will not do. For the laws of the Federation, I don't give a damn--men made 'em and men can break 'em--but to go against the laws of nature, that is a different thing." He turned on his heel and went out of the control room.

Len went to his cabin and began to pack his gear. As he had expected, Schiemann interrupted him when he was halfway through. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Leaving," Len said. "I'm sick of small-time operations."

"Leaving me? Just like that? Does our friendship mean nothing at all to you?"

"Sure it does," Len told him. "When I get a chance, I'll write."

The old man's face crumpled. "Look, Lennie, if we did move into one of the more important sectors, maybe--"

"You know we wouldn't have a chance there," Len said harshly, to conceal his true emotions. "The sectors closer in to Earth have bigger, faster ships, and bigger, tougher men to run 'em. And they wouldn't like us trying to jet in!"

"I'd rather take a chance on that than--"

"We wouldn't _have_ a chance; it'd just be a massacre, with us on the receiving end. The only way we can break into the big time ourselves is through hyperspace. We've got to do what's never been done before."

That wasn't quite true, from what the xhindi had told him, but near enough. It had been done before, but not very often, and not very recently. However, it had been done, so it was possible to do. Otherwise he wouldn't think of chancing it ... or would he?

"Why do you want money so much, Lennie?" Schiemann asked. "What do we need the big-time stuff for? It's nice and quiet and practically secure the way you've got things running for us, almost like we were honest businessmen. So why go looking for trouble?"

"If I'd wanted a quiet life," Len said, "I'd have stuck with the _Perseus_. So don't sing me security."

The hand that held the pipe was trembling. "Look, Lennie, at least give me time to think."

"Okay," Len said. He was, in his way, fond of the old man, but there were bigger things at stake. He had to have Lyddy; he had to have money; he had to have ... something he couldn't put a name to, but desperately important nonetheless. "I'll give you six months."

* * * * *

At the end of half a year, Schiemann said no, he positively wouldn't do it. Len said "Good-by." Schiemann said, "All right, but you'll be sorry; we'll all be sorry," and gave in.

So they took the _Valkyrie_, the two of them--and Balas, of course, but naturally nobody would consult a madman--and headed for hyperspace. Len knew exactly where to go, even though he had no charts. The breakthrough he wanted was in their own sector and it had been carefully marked for him in his mind.

Schiemann left all the details to him, even the selection of cargo. Len chose coal. He knew that what the xhindi wanted was normspace materials, but not precisely what materials. Their normspace value did not matter, because normspace matter changed to another form of itself when it got to hyperspace, and that was where the possibility of enormous profit came in. Something cheap in normspace could become something quite rare and expensive in hyperspace, and vice versa. The distribution of elements was different between the two universes; each one essentially complemented the other.

There was one hitch: a stable form in normspace could become an unstable one in hyperspace. Without empiric knowledge, it was impossible for anyone going from one universe into the other to tell whether any substance he was carrying or wearing or _was_ would remain stable. If unstable, it could turn into liquid or gas; it could turn into energy and blow up; it could cease to be a solid in any one of a number of ways.

As if that weren't bad enough, it could also happen that even a stuff previously proven to be stable in both universes could become unstable, if there was even the trace of a potentially unstable element, or if something that, stable in itself, combined with it in unstable fashion. Such an admixture could be accidental, which was what made the whole business especially tricky, and what made the reason for the inter-universe ban necessary.

The reason why that first load of the _Valkyrie's_ had been coal was a simple one. Somewhere, Len had read that coal and diamonds were different forms of the same normspace element, and he'd thought that might carry over into the other continuum. However, even an education wouldn't have helped him know what a right first cargo to take would have been. The xhindi had told him what they did know, but their terminology was not clear. They spoke his language with outward correctness but with imperfect conceptualization; he spoke theirs not at all. Much of what they did know, they appeared to have forgotten, or only half-learned.

They managed to make him understand that certain stuffs would be definitely unsafe; they could not make it clear which stuffs would be safe, or which they would find most desirable as trade goods. He gathered that they would be satisfied with anything that came through. So he chose coal, hoping to make a splendid initial impression.

* * * * *