Part 5

"Yes."

"I'll have a scooter go out and see. What's its spacial position?"

The tech took another look. "I'd say eighty-one plus longitude and forty-three latitude."

"From what?" demanded Wilson.

"From ship's axis, sir."

"Distance?"

"Oh, about half a parsec."

Wilson groaned. "Haven't you determined any spacial attitude?"

"Attitude, sir?"

"The angle of the ship's axis with respect to the stellar positions. So you've a blotch out there at half a parsec. It's an inch or so in diameter. Have one of your juniors run off some trig on the calculator and then tell me how much probable space volume that so-called response represents."

The tech thought a minute. "We've never run this gear anywhere but at Radiation, right at Mojave labs, on Earth. Our spacial coordinates--well, I'm afraid we--" His voice trailed away unhappily.

Wilson picked up the interphone and barked a call.

"Weston? Look, Hugh, can you get over here quick with a couple of your top astrogators? We've got a bunch of longhairs with a fancy infrawave detector and ranger, but the damned coordinates are set axially with the ship."

He listened to Hugh Weston's reply.

"Yeah," he said then. "We know where the target is with respect to the ship, but we don't know the spacial attitude of the ship with respect to the galactic check points. Right over? Good."

* * * * *

As Wilson hung up the dome flickered, then went into a regular _flash-flash-flash_ until something else came unglued and the dome went blank. There was shouting and rather heart-felt cussing, and some running around again before the dome light came back.

A tech--not the one that had come up before--moved into place alongside the commodore.

"Mr. Wilson, sir," he said, "I wonder if--er--That is, sir--er--"

"Take it easy," said Wilson, half-smiling.

"Well, sir, we've been getting a lot of interference."

Wilson looked up at the flickering dome. He merely nodded.

"Well, sir--er--I was wondering if you could issue some--er--order to have the other ships move away? I'm sure we could find those lifeships if the rest of space were clear. But you've got three hundred--"

Wilson stared the youngster down coldly. "Somewhere out there," he said sourly, "are two lifeships in which men, and a woman, are waiting for us to come and collect 'em. I'm combing space almost inch by inch. I can hardly give up my squadron for a half-finished flash in the dome like this, can I?"

"No sir--ah--I suppose not."

"Then you live with the responses tossed back by my squadron. It'll be good training for you. Er--get the hell out of my way!"

The junior tech melted out of sight and went back to his control panel.

Weston came over within the hour. Ted Wilson explained the situation and told Hugh to set up and measure the coordinates with respect to the stellar centers. Then he told him to send a space scooter out to investigate that spot.

Wilson went back to his own flagship wondering whether that fancy infrawave detector would turn out to be anything. An untried doodad. But now and then--

Wearily again, Commodore Wilson called Commander Hatch, who skippered one of the scout carriers. He told Hatch to make himself available either to Hugh Weston or Maury Allison, to investigate infrawave response targets as they saw fit.

Then Wilson hit the sack to finish his off-duty.

He dozed fitfully, but he did not sleep worth a damn. He would have been better off if he could have taken the controls of one of the spacers and gone out himself. Then, at least, he would have something to fill his mind and idle hands....

Alice Hemingway awoke from a rather pleasant dream that had something to do with either ice skating or skiing, or it might have been tobogganing--the dream had faded so fast she could not be sure--to face the fact that she was feeling on the chill side.

Her blanket had slipped. She caught it around her, and in minutes felt fairly warm again. It was not so much, she thought, the actual temperature in the lifeship, but the whole damned attitude of people, and everything else that was so chilling.

The lights were running all right, and from deep below she could hear the ragged throb of the pedal generator. She wondered which of the two men was pumping it this time.

When Jock Norton came in, she knew. He was mopping his face with a towel. He looked clean and bright, freshly shaved.

She looked at him and wished she could have a hot shower herself, and a change of clothing. She wanted a ten-hour sleep in a nice soft bed with clean sheets, too, and wearing a silk-soft nightgown.

"Awake, Alice?" Norton asked brightly.

"Awake again," she said unhappily. "For.... What is it? The ninth day?"

"Eighth," he said. "Can't go on much longer."

"I hope not."

"You look all in," he said softly. He sat down on the edge of the divan, beside her, and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Take it easy, m'lady. They're really scouring space for us. We'll be all right. You'll see."

* * * * *

Unexpectedly he bent and kissed her chastely on the forehead. Alice tensed at first, but relaxed almost immediately because the warmth of that honest affection made her feel less alone and cold, in the depths of uncharted space. Some of the worry and concern was erased, at least. She stretched warmly as he rubbed her forehead with his cheek.

Then he sat up and looked down at her. He put his hand on her cheek gently and said, "We'll be all right, kid."

"Eight days," she said in a hoarse whisper.

He nodded solemnly. "Every hour means they must be coming closer and closer. Every lonely hour means that it can't be many more, because they've covered all the places where we weren't. Follow me, Alice?"

She shook her head unhappily.

Doggedly he tried to explain. "They know that we must lie within a certain truncated conical volume of space. They comb this space bit by bit and chart it. Since the volume is known, and since it takes so many hours of work to comb a given volume, that means that at the end of a given time all the predicted volume of space has been covered. Since we must lie within that, we are bound to be picked up before they cover the last cubic mile."

"But how long?" she breathed.

"I wouldn't know," he told her honestly. "I have no possible way of computing it. They've got the best of computers and plotters, and they've got the law of probabilities on their side. But it's dead certain we'll be found."

"I hope."

"I know," he said.

"You've changed, Jock Norton."

"Changed?"

"You looked on this as a lark, before."

"Not exactly," he objected.

"But you did."

Slowly he shook his head. "Not exactly," he repeated. "I don't think I've changed at all. I still think that when you're faced with something inevitable you might as well look at it from the more cheerful side. After all, there was the chance that we might not have made it this far, you know. Now, tell me honestly, does it make sense getting all worried-up by thinking of how horrible it would have been if we'd been caught back there when Seventy-nine blew up?"

"I suppose not."

"Well, then," he said in a semi-cheerful tone, "since we did make it out safely, and are still waiting after eight days, we might as well expect to be collected soon."

Charles Andrews said, from behind him, "At a hundred dollars an hour, Norton?"

Norton turned around angrily. "So it's the hundred clams per," he snapped back. "That's damned poor payment for having to live with the likes of you in a space can this cramped."

Andrews eyed the pilot with distaste. "Tell me," he said smoothly, "did my last effort on the pedal generator go for power storage, or for a couple of gallons of hot water for that shave and shower you've enjoyed?"

Norton stretched and stood up. "I figured that having a clean face might help morale," he said pointedly.

"You're a cheap, chiseling--"

"Easy, Andrews! Easy. There's a lady present. Besides, I might forget my easy-going nature and take a swing at you."

Andrews said scornfully, "Without a doubt, a man of your age and build could wipe up the lifeship with me."

Norton chuckled. "Don't count on your age being good protection, Andrews. You may push me far enough to make me forget that you're a decrepit old man who has to buy what your physique can't get you."

"Now see here!" roared Andrews.

* * * * *

He was stopped short by Norton who took one long step forward to grasp him by the coat lapels. Andrews' face went white, because he was looking into the face of dark anger. Norton's other hand was clenched in a large, tight fist. He eyed the older man sourly for a minute, then shoved him backward to collapse in a chair.

"What are you trying to do?" sneered Norton. "Make me mad enough to clip you so you can yell 'Foul!'? I know as well as you do that the law doesn't even recognize taunts and tongue-lashings as contributory to assault."

Alice got up from her couch and stood between them. "Stop it, both of you!" she cried. "Stop it!"

Norton's anger subsided. "All right," he said to Andrews. "Now that we've all had our lungs exercised, I'll go below and pedal that generator. Alice, you can have the bathroom first. Andrews, you take it with what she leaves. Is that okay?"

"Aren't you the hard-working little Boy Scout?"

"Sure." Norton grinned. "I am that." He disappeared down the ladder towards the generator room.

Andrews turned to Alice. "You're not going to go for that fancy routine, are you?" he demanded crossly.

"What routine?"

"First he uses power for hot water, power that I was storing up. Now he's going to pedal that thing to waste more power."

Alice shrugged. "He's the spaceman," she said simply. "If he thinks we can spare the power for a bath, I could certainly use one."

"How can you trust the likes of him?"

"We've got to," she said. "We've got to."

"I wouldn't," said Andrews. "I can't."

She looked at her employer seriously. "We've both got to trust him," she said quietly. "Because, right or wrong, he is the only one who knows anything about space and what's likely to happen next."

"At a hundred an hour," Andrews said for the ninetieth time or so, scathingly.

Alice nodded soberly. "But you mustn't forget that isn't going to do him any good unless he gets us all home so that he can use it."

Reluctantly, Andrews nodded. "I suppose you're right."

Then Alice added, "And even if it weren't for the hundred per, he isn't the kind to kill himself."

Andrews grunted, "No, he isn't. But Alice, I'm not at all sure that Norton knows whether he's doing the right thing or not."

She shook her head. There was no answer to that argument. Furthermore, it was the kind of unresolvable argument that could go on and on until the answer was supplied from the outside. There could be no end to it until they were either picked up safely or died in lonely space.

She decided to drop the discussion as pointless, so headed for the bathroom. A hot shower and a quick tubbing of her underclothing were on her mind. Her garments, of course, would dry instantly. She had to smile a little. To think that a hundred years ago women thought something they called nylon was wonderful because it was fairly quick-drying! Not instantaneous, of course, as was the material of which her lingerie was made.

Anyhow, getting it clean now, and having a bath herself would make her feel better. And she would be better equipped to face the nerve-gruelling business of just sitting there watching the clock go around and around, with nothing to do but wait.

VII

Regin Naylo faced his superior with a scowl. "That rips it wide open," he said.

Viggon Sarri smiled confidently. He glanced at Linus Brein and asked, "Just how competent do you think this new thing is?"

Linus shrugged. "We've analyzed the infrawave pattern they've developed. It is obvious that this is their first prototype of an infrawave space detector. The pattern is of the primitive absorptive type, which is both inefficient as a detector and is also inclined to produce spurious responses. From our observations, their equipment must be extremely complex too. It must be loaded to the scuppers with fragile circuits and components, because the search pattern keeps breaking down, or becoming irregular. An efficient detector cannot be made of the infrawave bands until the third order of reflective response is discovered. I doubt that any research team, no matter how big, can start with the primitive absorption phase of the infrawaves and leap to the higher orders of infrawave radiation in less than a lifetime of study."

"So, gentlemen?" asked Viggon of his two aides. "Can you predict whether or not their new detector will deliver the goods?"

All looked expectantly at Linus Brein.

"We've been recalculating our probabilities at the introduction of each new phase of their behaviour," Linus Brein said seriously. "From their actions, I would say that they do not know, grasp, or perhaps even guess that space has flaws and warps in the continuum. They have been going at their search in a pattern of solid geometrical precision, but have been paying no attention to those rifts, small as they are, that actually make a straight course bend aside for a distance. So due to the fact that their search pattern has already passed over one of these rifts in which the one lifeship lies, and passed beyond in their line of search, we have produced a nine-nines probability that they will not locate this lifeship."

"And the other?" prompted Viggon Sarri, with interest.

"I'm not done with the first yet," Linus Brein said quietly. "There remains the random search group. Therein lies the eight-oughts-one positive probability."

Viggon snorted. "I call ten to the minus ten chances rather hopeless. But go on, Linus."

"The other has a sixty-forty chance," he said. "If the infrawave detector locates the space rift that lies along our coordinate three seventy-six, when the ship is near seven sixty-seven, then the scout craft will pass within magnetic detection range of the lifeship. That's a lot of 'ifs', I know, but they add up to a sixty-forty chance. I say this because space rifts tend to produce strong responses in any of the primitive detecting gear. They've certainly been busy running down space warps, which indicates that they've been getting a lot of spurious responses." He smiled. "If space were entirely clear of foreign matter and space rifts, they'd find their new detector vaguely inefficient. I--"

Viggon waved a hand to indicate he had heard enough.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I've been criticized for waiting, but what one man calls study the other man calls timidity. We'll continue to wait for the final factor. Then we'll know...."

* * * * *

The stereo pattern in the Information Center of Commodore Ted Wilson's flagship was slowly being filled with the hazy white that indicated that these volumes had been combed carefully. As he watched, he could see how the search was progressing, and it was painfully obvious that the search was not going good at all.

The flights of spacecraft in set patterns back and forth through the stereo had covered nearly all of the truncated space cone. The random search ships were slowly cutting secondary lines through the regions already covered. There was a green sphere combing the stereo pattern now, indicating the new infrawave detector ship and its expected volume of detector coverage.

Space was filled to overflowing with the fast patter of the communications officers, using infrawave for talks between flights, and ordinary radio for talks between ships of the same flight.

Wilson had appointed Chief Communications Officer Haggerty to police the bands. Haggerty had done a fine job, removing the howling confusion and interference caused from too many calls on the same channel. But the result was still a high degree of constant call and reply and cross talk. Most of the chatter came from the infrawave detector ship, sending the scout craft flitting hither and thither on the trail of spurious responses.

It was almost impossible to grasp the extent of the operation. Only in the stereo pattern could anybody begin to follow the complex operation, and those who watched the stereo knew that their pattern was only an idealized space map of what they hoped was going on.

It was worse than combing the area of an ocean from maps that contained a neat grid of cross rules. Much worse. For the uncharted ocean is gridded with radio location finders so accurate that the position of two ships a hundred yards apart shows a hundred yards of difference in absolute position in the loran.

Some day in the distant future space would be solid-gridded with infrawave navigation signals. Then the space coordinates of any spacecraft could be found to a fine degree of precision. But now all that Wilson and his nav-techs could do was to keep sighting the fixed stars, and from them compute their position.

This sort of space navigation was good enough to keep a ship on course, but far from precise enough to pinprick a true position. But, after all, a crude positioning in the middle of interstellar space is good enough. One literally has cubic light years to float around in. Once the spacecraft begins to approach a destination, the space positioning can be made.

Again, few spacecraft pause in mid-flight between stars long enough to care about their interstellar position. After all, space flight does provide a mode of travel where the destination lies within eyesight. Or rather, it has lain within eyesight ever since it became commonly accepted that these ultimate destinations were places, instead of holes poked in an inverted ceramic bowl.

Then, in the middle of the communications confusion, came a call from one of Commander Hatch's scout flights.

"Pilot Logan, Flight Eighteen, to Commander Hatch. Report."

"Hatch to Logan. Go ahead. Find something, Will?"

Will Logan said, "Solid target detected on radar, Commander. Approached and found. I am now within five thousand yards of what appears to be Lifeship One."

The entire fleet went silent, except for the detector ship, the scout craft, and Wilson's flagship.

Allison asked, "Was that our target, Logan?"

Logan replied laconically, "Nope. I was on my way back from a gas cloud--I think--when the radar got a blip."

In the background, they could hear Allison saying, "There's a real target out there where Logan went. Haven't you got an infrawave response out there somewhere--" The mike clicked off. Allison probably had remembered that he had his thumb on the "Talk" button and removed it.

* * * * *

Captain Warren said to Wilson, "That's a hell of a fine space detector, isn't it?"

Wilson nodded absently, picked up his own handset and called, "Logan from Wilson. How close are you now?"

"Thousand yards, Commodore. And no doubt about it. Lifeship Number One."

"You stay on, Logan, and give us a rundown."

"Yes, sir. Not much to tell, you know. But I'm closing in."

The scout craft pilot went on and on, mostly filling in with inconsequential details of how he was closing in, jockeying to parallel the lifeship's course and speed, and finally making a space approach.

At last he said, "They're on radio, Commodore Wilson. I'll relay as I get it. Too bad these crates aren't fixed to patch-cord the short range radio to the infrawave. I--" Pilot Logan went on to rattle off the names of the men aboard the lifeship, stopping once to reconfirm a pronunciation.

"Where's the pilot, and the other two? Miss Hemingway and Mr. Andrews?"

"They must be in Lifeship Three," said Logan. "That's a guess. Er--Commodore Wilson, I'm within a couple of hundred yards of them now and they're waving out through the astrodome at me. I'm about to toss out a light bomb. Or has anybody got a radar fix on me?"

"Better toss out the light bomb. Also radiate radio on the finding frequency. Hatch!"

"Hatch here."

"Hatch, send out a cruiser class thataway and pick 'em up."

Hatch laughed in a brittle tone. "It's been on its way for six minutes, Commodore. Half of our job is done!"

Wilson said, "Good!" and closed his mike. Half of the job was done, but it was, as far as Ted Wilson was concerned, the lesser half. He wanted the lifeship that sheltered Alice Hemingway.

Three hundred ships combing the spaceways with magnetic detectors and radar and eyesight. One ship combing God-knows-what with a half-cooked infrawave gizmo in which nobody had any confidence. One-half of the job done on what was as much a fluke of luck as good management.

And out there in the awful dark Alice was trapped in a space can with a happy-go-lucky hulk of a pilot who lacked the drive and ambition to buck for his own command, no matter how deeply mortgaged, and a small, wiry ruler of industry who bought what he could not command, and knew no more about spacing than Aunt Agatha's pet Siamese tomcat.

Wilson laughed bitterly. A-spacing she had wanted. Now she had it.

Pictures went through Wilson's mind. A picture of Charles Andrews comforting Alice by the force of his personal drive, confident that money could buy anything, including rescue from space. Andrews calming her fears and--it must be chill in the lifeship by now--bringing her the animal comfort of warmth, and offering to take care of her. His wispy arms about her, his bony hands caressing her as he held her head on his shoulder, his--

This picture was replaced by the vision of big indolent collar-ad Pilot Jock Norton. He would be taking over because he alone in that lifeship knew what spacing was all about. Mentally, Wilson could see Andrews a little hysterical because the financier was out of his element, and Norton taking over completely. Maybe Andrews had succumbed to some nervous affliction because of the strain.

Norton would be calming Alice's fears and confidently predicting rescue, and proposing that they combine the interrelated factors of the conservation of heat and the passage of time by indulging in exploratory dalliance. Wilson could even envision Alice, not entirely convinced that they would ever be rescued, agreeing because she would be unwilling to die without having reached the pinnacle of emotion.

That picture was even more distasteful, but it was replaced by another in which Charles Andrews was making the gesture. Where Norton had youth and masculine appeal, Andrews had the suave manner and the smooth experience of his years. Some fast talk and a few vague promises, to say nothing of some well-calculated suggestions, and Alice would--

* * * * *

Wilson tried to shut that notion out of his mind, but it went on and on and on.

And on.

Only one thing made this series of pictures bearable at all. Thank God Alice was aboard that lifeship with two men instead of one. Especially two men who could not help but find one another deficient in something or other.

Then the third or fourth vision came. Norton and Andrews might possibly, due to their precarious position, settle their differences in basic nature and come to an agreement.

They might be taking turns!

Ted Wilson gritted his teeth and tried to get deeply interested in the search grid.

It was nine days old....

Alice looked up with a startled expression as Jock Norton came through the ladder hatch into the central cabin of the lifeship.

"But isn't--ah--aren't you--" She let her voice trail away because she didn't quite know how to finish.

He laughed. "I put enough reserve in the tank to take care of the elderly Napoleon. Look, Alice, I want to talk to you without his guff on the side."

"About what?" she asked. "Or shouldn't I ask?" The recent shower and tubbing of her underclothing had given the girl a feeling of confidence.

"About me. You. You and I. Us, you know."

"What can I say?"

He blurted, "What the hell's wrong with me?"

"Why, I--"