Part 8

"He's passed out or burned out, or worked himself into a faint."

Alice brought a blanket as Norton lifted Andrews to one of the bunks. "Jock?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"What does this mean? Enemy ships and all that?"

"It ain't good, baby. From somewhere has come the inevitable transgalactic culture, only with guns instead of gifts."

"But it isn't like us to run."

He nodded soberly. "Yes, it is," he told her positively. "The first man lived to start the human race by knowing when to run like hell. He ran until he could pick up a handy rock to throw. That's what our men have done. Run home to get our rocks."

Alice looked wistful. "And Ted?"

Jock shrugged. "I wouldn't know," he said. "He'll probably get busted a few grades for insubordination. They took his command away. That's one way of preventing full insubordination from an officer who might have a lot of public sentiment on his side, or good high-rank material in him. They take away his command _before_ he disobeys, slap him down a few steps for trying, and let him sweat it out."

"I'm glad," she said simply and her voice was calm.

* * * * *

Norton looked at her strangely.

She caught his look and smiled, almost serenely.

"It would be a shame," she said, "for Ted to have to lose his rank and his prestige and his honor, and maybe his life and the lives of all his men, by doggedly staying out here in the face of an enemy fleet, against orders."

Norton nodded dubiously. "I suppose so," he said. "But do you know where that leaves _us_?"

"Yes," she said, "I know."

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she leaned forward to find strength in his arms, and a rest for her weary head on his shoulder. He held her, gently stroking her hair with one hand and pressing her against him.

She stopped sobbing after awhile, and looked up at him. Murmuring softly, he leaned down and kissed her eyes. She clutched at him and swayed in his arms. He found her lips then, but there was no fire in them.

Nor was he surprised. For there was no fire in his own, either....

Viggon Sarri gloated, "Ver-ry interesting. Ver-ry."

Faren Twill shrugged. "Just what else did you expect?"

Regin Naylo scowled. "We had 'em in your lap," he complained. "And nobody gave the order to fire. We could have chased 'em inch by inch, but all we did was to hang here in space and scare the hull plates off of them and let 'em run like rabbits."

Viggon smiled. "Exactly. I expected one of two things. They could have swarmed into us senselessly, suicidally, to take whatever toll they could take before they lost. That's why we had the projectors alerted and the fighters hot. I don't even open an ant hill without protection, gentlemen. So they did the other thing."

"Sure," growled Regin Naylo. "They could either stay or run. Since they didn't stay, they--"

"Stop being smart," snapped Viggon Sarri. "Or weren't you listening?"

"Yes, I was."

"Then you should realize that what they were doing was behaving sensibly. Just what would you do, Naylo, if you were wandering through a woods unarmed and a large, unknown, and completely unexpected beast leaped out on your path?"

Naylo sneered. "I'd run."

"Then what?"

Naylo's eyes widened. He said at last, "I'd run until I got where I could get armed, then I'd probably go back hunting the beast."

"Exactly. But not too good an analogy, which is my fault. They did not run in abject terror. They sent scouts to spy us and report our strength as best they could. Then they retreated. There's a difference. They _reported_ home, but _retreated_ to their base or bases, because they knew that they could do no good by hurling themselves on us."

"They want to arm themselves?"

"Precisely."

"And what do we do now?"

"I think we had best question the one we picked up."

Linus Brein shook his head. "Not that one," he said.

"Why not?"

"When we pried open his scoutcraft, he came out a-fighting and he fought until we had to take him over. He clipped several of our boys, and I'm afraid we got a little rough. Our fighting men can get hard, you know."

"Dead?" demanded Viggon.

"No. But he'll be in no condition for an extensive questioning for some time."

"Damn! Well, the next best thing to do is to collect the lifeship. We know what we wanted to know about their mass reaction. Now we must learn about their individual reaction to an awkward and dangerous situation."

Faren Twill picked up the microphone and ordered a flight of light destroyers into action....

* * * * *

Wilson sat in the dome room of the detector ship and cursed. The lights were still flickering across the presentation surface, flecks and streaks of spurious response. But with space cleared of the horde of searching spacecraft, the flickings and the streakings had diminished, although that cluster of spots still held its position.

Wilson said to Allison, "Seems to me we could have volunteered to stay out here and keep watch."

Allison was shaking his head when the dome went black again. "They wouldn't believe you," he said.

One of the techs readjusted something and the presentation returned.

"It's a damned funny business, this Space Service," said Wilson. "Any service, I guess."

"How so?" asked Manning.

"If I give a wrong order and you disobey, to keep from piling up, you get clipped for it. If you don't refuse to carry out the order and we pile up, I get busted--if any of us come back whole."

"I wonder if _they_ have that trouble, too," Wainright said musingly, looking up at the cluster of dots that represented the enemy fleet.

"Probably. I hope so."

Edwards shook his head. "I'd rather fight an enemy that had no iron-bound discipline. Let 'em run wild, taking their own ideas as they come. Let 'em argue with the skipper. Let 'em quit if their commander doesn't play their way. That's the difference between a mob and a service, Ted."

Wilson grinned. "Call it confusion then!" he said, with a wave at the dome. "And I hope they have it!"

As they watched, a group of dots moved from the group and started away, slowly, at an angle. They watched until the dots had progressed a few feet from the main cluster.

Ted Wilson eyed them intently. "There must be some reason.... Allison!"

"Yes?"

"See if you can project an imaginary line across that damn dome! I'll bet that our lifecraft lies somewhere along the course!"

Allison yelled, "Jones! Halligan!"

The dome blacked out with a puff of smoke from one bay. A tech groped deep in one of the open panels and went to work with long-handled tools. Someone called above the hubbub that they'd have it back in shape in a minute.

Wilson mumbled, "Sixteen thousand delicate infrawave parts, and a half-million electronics components, all balanced on the pinpoint of a page of equations rolled into a dunce's cap! And I have to live with it!"

Allison grumbled, "Hell, nothing is perfect the first time."

"All right, forget it." Wilson shrugged, as the dome flickered on again.

It made a flowing, over-and-over turn. Then the presentation spun around some one of its personal axes of no particular coordinate, like a planetarium being operated by a putterer who wants to see what happens when he pushes any button at random.

It settled down.

Jones and Halligan set up their sighting devices in the center of the big floor and began to project their line across the dome.

One of the techs came running up to Allison. "If we change the driver response threshold by seven ultrachronic levels--"

"Go away, Magill. Maybe tomorrow."

"But look--"

"You look. I said--"

A white-yellow circle appeared on the dome with a red line cross on it like a telescope reticule. Halligan was aiming a flashlight pointer at the dome and talking into the floor mike at the same time.

"Hey, Allison! Maybe that's it?"

* * * * *

In the circle was a pinpoint that came and went. It danced now and then, and it sloughed into flowing shapes as it merged with the rest of the flickering on the dome. It would have been lost in the ever-changing light pattern of the dome if there had been no reason to suspect it. The spot lay on a dead line across the dome from the course of the other spots.

"All right," Wilson said grimly. "We've got no more scouts to go look. Turn this crate head-on for that trace and we'll barrel!"

Slowly the presentation in the dome shifted. The almost lost spot rose until it was dead above.

"Pour on the coal!" yelled Wilson. "We've got to get there first!" He grabbed for the infrawave phone and cried, "Hello, out there! Lifeship Three, we've sighted you! We'll be with you in--" He glanced at Allison. "How far are they?"

Allison shook his head. "That's one of the limitations. We can detect, and display in solid angle azimuth, but we haven't got to the ranging yet."

Wilson said a few words that should never have gone out over the infrawave. Then he said into the phone, "Well, we've sighted you, anyway, and we'll be with you soon." And to Manning he said, "I hope to God they've got their receiver on...."

Linus Brein said, "I didn't catch part of that. New words for the files, I guess."

Viggon Sarri said, "Probably a few words of condemnation over the fact that their detector doesn't range."

"I'll catalogue them so."

"Do that. Maybe we can ask their specific meaning at some later date. But I'd not be inclined to bark those words at one of them to see what happens. It might happen. Linus, how do we stand with them?"

Linus consulted a chart. "They're a little closer to the life ship than we are. But we're faster."

"Faren, can't we get any more speed?"

Faren Twill shrugged. "We've a destroyer escort," he said. "If we don't mind leaving the destroyers behind."

"Pour it on," said Viggon Sarri sharply. "Then have the destroyers fan out in an intercept pattern just in case...."

"Cold," said Alice in a thin voice.

But it was not really cold; it was the giving up of all hope, the turning off of all will to live, that made her cold.

Norton cradled her in his arms and thought of how this would have been if they had been snug and warm a-planet, instead of lost and alone in space. Her slender body against him did not bring passion, but compassion. He stroked her head and tried to warm her shivering body.

Andrews still lay in a coma.

Jock Norton looked over Alice's shoulder at a wall cabinet. In that cabinet were some capsules that would bring a merciful end before the real suffering began. Andrews probably wouldn't need one. But maybe--maybe--

Slowly, as if doing something against his will, Norton disentangled Alice's arms. Gently, lest she stir and cry out in fear, he broke her hold on him and stroked her arms for a moment. He slipped his own arm out from beneath her neck and held her with his other arm for a second or two.

She was moaning faintly, staring at the ceiling and not really aware of what he was doing. He slipped off the bunk and walked across the room unsteadily.

Slowly he went, for the idea in his mind was against his determination. He cursed the ruined transmitter, and snarled under his breath at the broken receiver. Then he fiddled with the catch of the cabinet, his fingers obeying his subconscious, instead of his not too firm will.

* * * * *

He took two capsules from the bottle and went back to Alice with them in his hand. He had reached, was standing beside her, when he looked at his closed fist and decided to wait it out one more minute before he popped one into her mouth and took the other one himself.

For life, as poor and precarious as it was at this moment, and as likely as it was to get worse, was still better than taking that long, unknown and unpredictable step into the Long Dark.

His minute passed all too quickly.

Alice shuddered and pressed against him. "Ted," she pleaded weakly. "Ted--hold me."

"Yes, darling," he said softly. There was no point in hurting her any more. Let her think he was Ted, if that was the way she wanted it.

Andrews stirred, and groaned.

Norton looked at him, frowning thoughtfully. Maybe Andrews should have his easy out, too. It would be tough on the guy to come to, and find himself the only live one in the ship, and of course not know where to find the remedy.

The pilot decided to stall for another minute. He'd get another capsule and slip it to Andrews. Then he would hold Alice once more and keep her happy, thinking he was Ted.

"One moment more, honey," he breathed into her ear, then kissed it gently. "I've got to get you something."

"Hurry," she murmured.

Hurry? Yeah! Get it over with!

The trip across to the cabinet was longer this time, for the idea was still rubbing him the wrong way.

"Aw, hell!" he grunted, as he reached for the bottle again.

XI

As Commodore Theodore Wilson eyed the infrawave detector presentation on the dome of the detector ship, he groaned. The presentation of targets was stronger now. At the apex of the dome was the lifeship, its response waxing and waning, but always strong enough to stay visible even at its lowest ebb.

Some forty or fifty degrees down the hemisphere was the stronger response of the enemy warcraft, hanging motionless in the dome. The group of spacecraft that had come with it were dispersed in some complicated pattern. Most of these were lost in the tricky shift of the spurious lighting of the dome. Others had disappeared completely because they were out of range.

"Pilot!" cried Wilson. "Can't we pour on more power?"

The pilot rapped his levers with the heel of his hand and shook his head slowly. "Sorry, sir. We've been at the top of the military emergency range all along." Occasionally he looked back over his shoulder at the motionless enemy response in the dome.

No man in the detector room needed a fancy ranging detector and a computer to know the worst. The infrawave would not range, but it was good enough for this. The inefficient detector and knowledge of one of the simpler facts of navigation told the whole unhappy story.

When the angular position of a distant object remains constant to the observer in a moving vehicle, they are on collision course. And so long as that observed angle does not change, they will remain on that collision course, right up to the bump. Distance, or angle of attack does not contribute or detract. The fact remains.

The object may be stationary, or the observer may be stationary and the object moving, or both may be moving, but so long as that angle remains constant, they will collide. One may be curving and the other in acceleration or deceleration, but if the observed angle does not change, it's still collision.

In fact, there are only a couple of exceptions to this. One is when the subject object is astern and moving dead away _from_ a collision, or what might have been one before either ship moved onto the course. The other is when a circle is cut with the object at dead center. Make it a spiral and you have your course of danger.

Put it in space, or on the sea, or in the air, or across the land, and the same holds true.

So the fact that the enemy warcraft hung at some forty or fifty degrees and did not change its position meant that the detector ship and the enemy warcraft were going to meet! And undoubtedly at the point where the lifeship would be in the middle because the enemy was obviously heading for that spot. When they hit, the enemy warcraft would come through the detector dome exactly where its response now registered.

"Can't we stretch something?" demanded Wilson.

Manning thought about it. "We'll bust something if we--"

"Then bust something!" barked Wilson.

Manning and Wainright took off below, while Ted watched the spot over his head. He tried to guess whether he was closer to the lifeship than the enemy, or whether it was the other way around. Not that it made any difference to the chase, but it did mean that he or the enemy was the faster of the two.

Wilson put his chips on the enemy. But until he had two sides of range to his included angle of forty-odd degrees, no one could tell.

Then the spot moved down a bare trifle, faltered, and continued to flow slowly back toward the rim of the dome.

Wilson gave a howl of victory just as the infrawave detector conked out again. The crew scurried madly to repair the fault. He was still looking glumly at the blank dome when the infrawave phone rang beside him.

"Wilson!" he barked in it angrily.

"Wilson, I'm pleading with you to use some common sense."

"Admiral Stone, I've located them! We're on our way to get them and nothing anybody says will--"

"Still disobeying orders? Still mutiny?"

"My Good God, Admiral Stone! You wouldn't want me to abandon this search now that we've located them?"

"Wilson, you're out there with a crew of our top-flight infrawave engineers, physicists, and theorists, along with about eight billion dollars' worth of experimental gear. You're flying that responsibility into the teeth of an enemy."

"Admiral, I'm taking a calculated risk."

"If you manage to get back," snapped the admiral angrily, "you'll.... Oh, hell! It'll be better for you if you don't, that's all."

The detector dome came on again, and at the same time came the first faint failing whimper of a response from the reliable magnetic mass detectors. Wilson eyed the small celestial globe, saw that its angle-attack was that of the lifeship, and shouted into the phone:

"Admiral, we've got 'em on the magnetics! I'll be seein' you later."

He hung up the telephone on the admiral's shout of dismay....

* * * * *

Viggon Sarri snarled something to Regin Naylo and the second officer went below to snarl something at the engineering crew. They went to work shorting out the safeties and cutting out paths of attenuation.

Viggon Sarri read the detector with a set face and said, "Linus, we're barely keeping pace. Losing, if anything."

Linus Brein said, "You've got a half dozen one-man fighters aboard."

"They're no faster than.... Wait a minute! We can blow 'em out the forward catapult and add the catapult speed to the ship's speed."

The flagship became a flurry of action. Men hauled the fighters aloft and one by one they were hurled out of the launching tube. They kept their added velocity and slowly, yard by creeping yard, the fighters drew away from the mother space craft. But yard by crawling yard would be enough by the time the whole distance was covered....

Wilson said to Maury Allison, "You've got a tender ready?"

"Yes."

"All right, then. Let's plan this operation carefully. As I see it, we're going to have a split-second advantage, and we've got to make good use of it."

Allison eyed the dials on the magnetic-mass detector, and made some calibrating adjustments.

"From what I can tell," he said, "the lifeship is in free flight along a course not more than ten to fifteen degrees angle from our own free flight course. We've been in a slight-vector thrust, you know."

Wilson nodded. "That's all to our advantage. Now unless I've miscalculated, I think I can be belted out of here in your tender. I'll make contact, then continue on until you catch up with me. Right?"

"Sounds reasonable."

Allison gave some orders to one of his techs. The tech punched his keys for a half-minute and waited another ten seconds for a strip of paper to come out of the machine in jerky sequences. He tore the paper off when it had stopped, and handed it to Wilson.

"Here," he explained, "are a group of possible time-versus-velocity courses. Follow 'em exactly and we'll make space contact on the other side."

Wilson looked at Allison. "Wish me luck," he said.

Allison nodded. "You've got it," he said quietly. "You know we're for you, or we'd not be here."

"If I don't come back--"

Allison's face drew taut. "If you flop out there," he said solemnly, "Toby Manning is next in command, and he'll be forced to follow orders from Base. So don't flop, Ted."

"I won't," promised Wilson.

He fired up the tender, waited until everything was running hot and ready, and blasted himself out of the exit port forward. He set his magnetic detector and patch-corded it to the drive so that the warp-generator would close down and the drive would cease at the proper instant for deceleration in close proximity of the lifeship.

Although the long-range search radar was completely useless at velocities even approaching the speed of light, Wilson turned it on and checked it out in readiness. He patch-ordered it also to the basic space drive, to take over after the velocity of his ship fell below the speed at which radar became useful.

Then he waited, with one eye on the timer. The detector ship faded behind him and was lost as his lighter spacecraft responded to the drive.

He wished helplessly for an auto-timer drive, because he knew that his hand and eye were not accurate enough to do the job as smoothly as he'd have liked. He wanted a bigger ship with a monster-sized drive. One of those spaceport luggers that can hump spacers from berth to berth would have been fine, even though they carried insufficient storage power for anything more than close to Base operations. He wondered whether such a ship would be too massive for fast maneuverability, and decided to ask about that, some day.

* * * * *

The hundredth-second sweep hand of his watch came around and up, and he began matching its motion with a rhythmic beat of his hand on the reversal lever as the hand crossed the tenth-second marks. By the time the hand was swinging close to the zero-second, his beat was close to perfect.

The hand crossed the top and Wilson beat down on the lever hard!

The ship swung around in space and the drive flared out on the forecourse as the tender began to beat its terrific velocity down. Wilson felt that peculiar prickling of the skin that comes with a swiftly closing warp-generator, but he knew that it was deliberate, and not a failure.

He tried to force it down faster; tried to make the driver harder. His hand rapped the power lever again and again, ramming it against its hard stop as if he could force the setting higher than maximum.

There would be particular hell to pay when he got back home, but he would have the personal satisfaction of having accomplished his mission. He put the future out of his mind because he had no idea of what kind of special hell would be given to a man who was successful, because of disobeying orders.

He watched the meter crawl down to the red mark and below. Then the warp-generator collapsed with a jar. It was a little too soon. The speed of the tender was still high--not above light, of course, but high enough so that its Einstein Mass created quite a warp in space.

He felt the heat leap high and knew that the tender had slowed with the same sort of deceleration as a bullet hitting a patch of thin wool. He did not lurch in the ship for he, himself, had the same Einstein Mass effect. He felt a hot-sweat fever fill him as the excess mass reconverted into energy.

He shook it off, but knew that eventually he would pay for that sudden fever, with its biological effects. Then the long-range search radar produced a distant response and Ted Wilson put everything out of his mind except the problem of matching velocities with the free-flying lifeship.

He called on the close-range radio, frantically pleading for those in the lifeship to alert and be ready. He got no answer, which made him break out in a cold sweat.

The radar picked up the flight of Viggon Sarri's one-man fighters, and Wilson looked out of the dome to see if they were within sight.

They were, of course, too distant to be visible, but in the radar they were closing fast, converging upon the lifeship from a fairly tight solid angle. He clenched his fists and made a fast calculation. So far, he was ahead.