Chapter 4

The voice stopped, the orchestra resumed its playing, and the passengers sipped their coffee.

"I wonder why he said 'customary'?" said Tanya. "We've been out about three weeks, and this will be the first drill we've had. Do you suppose something is wrong?"

"I'm afraid your sense of the dramatic gets the better of you," said Alan. "What could be wrong with the _Star Lord_?"

"Maybe her name," murmured Professor Larrabee, and his eyes looked haunted.

* * * * *

Solitary at his table, Burl Jasperson sipped at a glass of ice water as he pondered. For the first time in his life he was not quite sure what course to follow. He wanted that Blue Ribbon for the Star Line, and yet--he did not know what to do. While he listened to the announcement of the lifeboat drill, his lip twisted in contempt. Just like Josiah Evans, he thought, to be over-cautious and run the risk of starting a panic.

Still thinking, he left the dining room and went to the main lounge to study the illuminated map of the ship. The three-dimensional panorama showed the slim and elegant body of the _Star Lord_, tapered like a silver spindle. Six small ships, three on each side of the long axis, each capable of carrying 250 people, were fastened into her hulk. Seemingly a part of the ship itself, their outer walls forming a part of the ship's wall, they were designed to be detached at the touch of a button, and launched into space as free craft.

When the warning bells rang, he joined the crowd of passengers who were assigned to Boat F, peered at the boat through the transparent panel, and listened attentively to the instructions. It was Steward Davis, he noted approvingly, who was in charge.

"Passengers will file in through the usual port and walk to the farthest unoccupied seat, and buckle themselves into place. They have nothing further to do. Crewmen will take care of the mechanics of detaching and launching the boat. You will note that there are no separate cabins, only rows of seats as in the primitive airplanes, but you will find this no real discomfort, since the boat would undoubtedly be picked up after a very short interval by some alerted space liner."

Jasperson raised his voice above the crowd's hum.

"What about provisioning? Are the boats stocked on Y-port?"

"No, Mr. Jasperson, except for food concentrates, and one air tank which is placed there for the greater comfort of the crewmen who must go in to clean or to make minor adjustments. The boats are not fully provisioned until the need arises. After all, we don't want to invite trouble, do we?"

People laughed appreciatively.

"No," he went on, "if there should be an emergency, we have specially trained crewmen whose job it is to stock reserves of air and water. They would go to work as automatically and efficiently as machines. Any other questions?"

Jasperson lingered after the indifferent crowd, to inspect the boat more closely, then slouched away.

* * * * *

All that afternoon he prowled the ship, trying to make up his mind. He stopped now and then to question a business acquaintance, ask a journalist his opinion, and he quizzed Larrabee again, more sharply than before, about the hypothetical Ripples. He kept moving, and as he walked he calculated, bringing to bear all the power of a mind which he believed to be logical, and which his financial success had proved to be keen and intelligent. All his life he had trusted his judgment, and it had rarely failed him--barring accidents like that unfair poker game. At last, as the hours went on, his decision crystallized. He had made up his mind.

At dinner he drank champagne in addition to his usual ice water, and only half heard the scraps of conversation in the dining room. There was to be a special masquerade dance, he gathered. People around him were excitedly planning the improvisation of costumes. He would not get himself up in any silly costume, he decided, but if his plans went well, he might look in later in the evening, on the chance to being allowed to glide over the waxed floor with the lovely Tanya.

After finishing his last drop of coffee he went directly to the cabin of Captain Evans, who had just begun to eat his simple dinner.

The Chairman of the board of directors pulled up a chair and sat down, without waiting to be asked.

"Look here, Josiah, I want to talk to you. I've been thinking. I'm afraid I was too brusque this morning. That's a bad habit of mine, and I want to apologize. But after all, we should not be quarreling, for your interests and mine are the same, as you surely realize."

Captain Evans pushed away his tray, lit a cigar, and puffed stolidly. "I realize that I must consider the safety of my passengers, if that's what you mean."

"That's included, of course." Jasperson made his voice warm and persuasive, the voice that had swayed boards of directors, the voice that reassured hesitant bankers.

"Passenger safety is always paramount, of course, and I respect your attitude there. But in this particular case, isn't it possible that you are being too cautious?"

"But Burl! Can the Captain of a ship _ever_ be too cautious? Think of his responsibility!"

"His responsibility is very great, and I would never advise you, nor permit you, to shirk yours. But sometimes caution may cease to be a virtue. Think about this caution of yours for a minute. Surely you believe that I would never urge you to do anything against the interests of the ship, or against your own conscience? Now you have an excellent mind--logical, objective, clear. That was one reason we chose you for this place. Try to consider, for a moment, the bare possibility that your decision to reduce speed may not have been justified."

* * * * *

Evans was silent, and finally Burl asked, "How far did we get today?"

"240 Light years."

"And if you decide to continue at that speed for five or six days, that means we'll be approximately three days behind schedule in touching Almazin III?"

"About that."

"And that means we won't break the record. Now consider the reason for this very unhappy situation. Think about it with an open mind. You have one Pile heating--but has that never happened to a ship before, even in normal space? You and I both know it happens, and that ships have been lost because of a defective Pile. Logically, why shouldn't this be just another such case? You say it is caused by the Ripples, but as man to man, what objective evidence can you bring forward to prove their existence? I'm not trying to browbeat you, you understand, but just to ask you to look at the matter carefully. You said yourself, this morning, that you hadn't expected to be meeting the Ripples at this point--you had thought they occurred in a rather different area of hyperspace. Couldn't that mean that they don't really exist, anywhere?"

Captain Evans wiped his glistening forehead with his handkerchief.

"Yes," he said. "I was surprised. I'll admit I didn't expect them here. But there's so much we don't know about hyperspace!"

"No, there's so much we _do_ know! Are you a child, to fancy there are goblins outside just because it's dark? There is a perfectly rational, alternative explanation for the things that worry you. Why can't you accept them?"

Evans got up and began to pace the floor. "I guess I'm following a hunch."

"But would you make us lose the Blue Ribbon for a mere hunch? Don't you trust your own objective judgment?"

Sweating heavily, the Captain tried to stub out his cigar, but his hands were moist and his fingers trembled.

"I don't know!" he shouted. Then he went on, his voice low and tired. "You may be right. Burl. You may be right. We may not have hit the Ripples. The Ripples may not even exist, although some very competent spacemen and some very brilliant physicists are convinced they do. But how can I judge? How can I be sure?"

Jasperson leaned forward, intent as a cat on a bird.

"None of the other Piles have started to heat? There's nothing else to make you suspicious?"

"Nothing except the space record tape, and that makes no sense."

"Exactly. Then why don't you look at this situation as a hardheaded spaceman should, and order full speed ahead?"

"Burl, there are fifteen hundred lives dependent on me. How can I take such a chance?"

"It wouldn't be a chance. And if by the one unlucky chance in ten million there should be trouble, you have ample lifeboat space for everyone. Isn't it worth the gamble?"

"I don't like gambling lives against a piece of blue silk ribbon."

* * * * *

Jasperson sighed. "Come, Josiah, be reasonable. I wouldn't think of giving you an order, or trying to interfere with your decision in any way, but surely I may be allowed to help you to reach the correct decision? How will you feel when the _Star Lord_ limps into port four or five days late, and you have to explain to the Board that she was delayed because you were trying to dodge some non-existent Ripples. You are afraid! Change your frightened point of view, and that will make you change your orders and get us on the way once more, full speed!"

Muttering to himself, wiping his brow, Captain Evans walked around the little room, while Jasperson sat back and watched him with cold, intent eyes. Evans glanced once at the little red book, half covered with papers, and pain contorted his face.

Suddenly he stepped to his desk and called Engineer Wyman.

"What about that space tape, Wyman? Has Smith been able to detect any pattern in the impulses?"

"No, sir. No pattern of any sort we can recognize, anyway."

"And what report on Pile Ten?"

"Pile Ten is doing nicely, sir. Lost half a degree in the last hour. By tomorrow she ought to be back to normal limits."

Clicking the phone, Evans resumed his pacing in the heavy silence. At last he faced Jasperson and spread out his palms, his face gray as parchment.

"All right, Burl. You're probably right. I won't argue any longer."

"Good man! The Star Line will know how to appreciate your decision." He hesitated, and asked, "You'll agree, now, I didn't push you into this? It's your own free decision?"

Calmly, Evans answered. "It is my own responsibility."

He buzzed Operations.

"Wyman? Captain Evans speaking. Full speed ahead!"

* * * * *

On the dance floor late that night, a crooner in blue Venusian mask and wig hummed the melody while the orchestra wailed and zinged behind him. The lights had been dimmed to a purple midnight, and shadowy couples flitted about the room, swaying, humming, laughing. Horned devils danced with angels, pirates and Roman senators guided in their arms lovely Cleopatras and sinuous mermaids. Hunched over the little tables, clinking glasses, grotesque silhouettes of Martians, Venusians, and Apollonians whispered intimately.

The walls of the room displayed the evening stars of late summer, and, special event for a gala evening, a fat yellow half moon sailed lazily in the sky.

The _Star Lord_ shuddered, briefly. Briefly the crooner's voice wavered, the notes of the violins hesitated, but no one noticed. A second quiver of the ship, and the dancers paused to look at one another questioningly, then laughed and danced on.

Jasperson had been sitting beside the wall, vainly searching among the dancers for Tanya. He stood up, his forehead suddenly wet with sweat. Plowing through the dancers and out of the door, in the corridor he ran into Steward Davis, gliding along on silent, slippered feet.

"What was that, Davis?"

"Don't know, sir. Nothing serious, or the alarm lights would be on."

"Come with me."

He flung open the door of the Captain's cabin. It was empty. Stacey was not in the anteroom, and the inner cabin was silent. The water carafe had been turned over on the desk, and a few papers lay scattered on the floor.

"They might be in Operations, sir."

"Show me the way!" They raced down the corridors, past the open door of the room where dancers still swayed and the orchestra still played. Through a hall, down an escalator, down, down, to the center of the ship.

Jasperson paused. "You needn't wait, Davis. But I may want you again. I'll let you know."

Pushing aside the crewmen who stood guard at the door, he rushed into the room.

"Josiah! What was that shock? I demand to know what's happened!"

Evans threw him a glance of pure, intense hatred, and then resumed his questioning of Chief Wyman.

"You say Number Ten just let go?"

"Not exactly, sir. For a couple of hours or so after we resumed speed, it stayed steady. All of a sudden, it started to climb. They called me, but by the time I got there it was already at critical level. We put in more dampers, but it kept going up and up, and I thought it might vaporize any minute. I hadn't any choice, sir. There wasn't time to call you and get orders. I had to drop it."

"Certainly. I'm not criticizing you. But there's one thing we hadn't counted on. Chief Thayer says Pile Ten took lifeboat C along with it."

"But how could that happen?"

"Boat C was just above, you remember. The heat triggered the release mechanism, and the boat launched itself into space."

Jasperson interrupted, trying to speak calmly. "What's happened? Tell me what's wrong?"

"We've hit the imaginary Thakura Ripples," Evans said savagely, "and they're tearing us apart!"

The plump soft body of Burl Jasperson seemed to deflate. The truculence drained from his face, leaving his skin a dirty white as he whispered, "Then the Thakura Ripples _are_ real? And we're in danger?"

The Captain's laugh was bitter. "What do _you_ think? Don't you want to give me the benefit of your advice now?"

Again the door burst open, and a crewman ran in.

"Captain Evans, sir. Piles Fourteen and Fifteen have started to heat. They're already at critical level."

"Dump them!"

The phone buzzed, and Evans listened with a face which was turning a graveyard gray.

"If you can hold them down, keep them. If they pass the critical point, shoot them away." Turning, he looked straight into the dilated eyes of Jasperson, and spoke as if every word were a knife thrusting into the pudgy body.

"Every one of the Piles is starting to heat. Every last one. One life boat is lost. That means fifteen hundred people to be crowded into five little boats!"

"What are you going to do?" croaked the little man.

"I've already reduced speed. I've sent out and am still sending out calls for help, over phase wave. We'll shift to normal space, and we'll launch the lifeboats as soon as they can be provisioned and loaded. And then we'll pray. And now, Burl Jasperson, how do you like the Thakura Ripples?"

Bracing himself against the desk, Burl tried to smile. "If there's any way I can help, of course, just let me know." With a feeble attempt at jauntiness, he staggered out of the cabin.

* * * * *

Opening the long-closed shutter of the observation port, Captain Evans could see the suns of normal space glittering in the blackness about the ship, unfamiliar and alien. Before the shift to normal space he had sent out SOS calls throughout the galaxy, but he had not waited for any replies before shifting. He could not know whether the calls had been heard, or even whether there were any ships close enough to send help after hearing the calls. He hoped, with all his being, that they had come out in a region of inhabited planet systems, in a regular shipping lane, so that his passengers could be picked up and taken to port--any port.

He kept his line open to Operations, and every minute or so Wyman spoke to him, giving the data on the climbing piles. Ten had been jettisoned in hyperspace, and so had Fourteen and Fifteen. Since their shift to normal space, it had been necessary also to detach the entire bank of Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-one, whose index had risen at a terrifying rate.

Wyman's voice spoke in his ear. "One, Two, and Three are climbing fast, sir."

"Shoot them away!"

"No good, sir. I've tried. The release mechanism has fused, and those three Piles are welded to the ship!"

Evans closed his eyes. That meant that the life of the ship was doomed. There would be no way to save her. But the passengers could still be saved, if they got away soon enough, before the three Piles vaporized.

"Wyman!" he whispered despairingly, "is there any single Pile that isn't heating?"

"No, sir."

"Is there any single Pile that's responding to your dampers?"

"No, sir, not one."

"Then, in your experience, they are all bound to go, sooner or later?"

"I've never seen anything like this in my experience, sir. It looks bad."

The door opened, and Jasperson slunk in. His skin had lost its cushioning, gray folds sagged under his cheek bones, and black hollows outlined his glittering blue eyes. The Captain ignored him, and spoke into the phone.

"Very well. In exactly fifteen minutes I shall sound the alarm and we'll abandon ship. I can't take a chance on waiting any longer. Keep a skeleton crew at work on those Piles to hold them down as much as possible, and have all other crewmen report to their lifeboat stations."

"Right, sir. But Boat C has gone, you remember. When we dumped Pile Ten."

"Yes. Distribute her passengers among the remaining boats."

He turned to look at Jasperson, who was shivering as though he were freezing.

"Is there no hope, Josiah? Is this the end?"

"The end of the _Star Lord_, yes. I hope to save the passengers. You heard me. In fifteen minutes all preparations should be finished, then I sound the alarm. Don't worry, Burl. There's room enough for everybody, your skin is safe."

"But won't the lifeboats be horribly crowded?"

"Crowded, yes, but not impossibly so. If they can carry two hundred and fifty people in fair comfort, they can jam in three hundred by squeezing a bit."

Jasperson shuddered. "So many people! And so close together! I can't bear crowds, Josiah, you know that. They make me feel sick and confused. It will be terrible!"

"Whether you like it or not, there's nothing else to do if we want to save lives. I'll sound the alarm in a quarter of an hour. Get yourself ready, but whatever you do, don't tell the others yet. I don't want a panic on my hands until I'm ready to deal with it."

Biting his lip, Jasperson turned, without a word, and shuffled out of the cabin.

* * * * *

Once in the corridor, he began to run, a shrivelled old man waddling on wings of fear down the hall to the dining room where empty tables waited in the elegant silence of gleaming silver and crisp white linen for the breakfast hour.

Davis was standing at the sideboard, staring blankly at the flashing red light above the door.

Jasperson ran up to him and clutched his arm. Looking around cunningly to see that they were alone, he whispered.

"Davis, I want to talk to you."

"Later, sir. That red light means I'm wanted at the briefing room."

"Yes, but wait a minute!"

"I'm supposed to go at once, sir."

"A thousand credits if you'll listen to me a minute!"

As Davis hesitated, Burl went on. "Listen, Davis, the ship is in trouble. The Captain is going to launch the lifeboats. You're in charge of Boat F, aren't you? You know how to operate it?"

"Of course, Mr. Jasperson."

"Then come with me, and we'll take the boat now. I'll pay you well."

"But we can't do that!"

"Why not? The _Star Lord_ is doomed. In fifteen minutes this place will be a madhouse, and there may not be room for everybody. I want to get out of here before the mob. We'll take Boat F."

Steward Davis' eyes were thoughtful as he replied. "But sir, we can't just take a boat for ourselves, like that. There's two hundred and fifty people assigned to Boat F."

"Worse than that! Three hundred! One lifeboat has been lost already. It's dangerous to wait--there'll be a stampede and the lifeboats might even be wrecked. No, we must take her alone, Davis. I'll give you ten thousand credits if you'll do it, and as long as you live you'll have me as a friend."

The steward's Little eyes looked sidewise at the pleading man. "But I'd be found out for sure, Mr. Jasperson, and then what would become of me? I'd never get another job as long as I lived. I'd have to change my name, disguise myself, and maybe live on some other planet, and all that would take money. I'm a poor man, and I don't see how I could afford it."

"But if I have to squeeze into one of those boats with three hundred other people crowding against me, I'll go crazy! We'll go to some out-of-the-way planet, and you can change your identity and be perfectly safe. Can't you understand, man? My life is at stake, and my sanity. I'll give you fifteen thousand credits!"

"Well," said Davis. "Could you make it twenty-five?"

"Done! Meet me at Boat F in five minutes."

Jasperson rushed to his cabin. Yanking open the wall safe he dragged out his brief case and the locked memorandum book, thrust his pistol into his pocket, and ran to the door.

"Follow me!" he called to his startled secretary, and hurried from the room.

Running past the library door, he glimpsed Tanya at work, her auburn head bent over her sketching. On impulse, he stopped and ran back.

Panting from the physical punishment of running, nearly smothered by the pounding of his terrified heart, he gasped out his invitation.

"Tanya! The ship is going to blow up! Don't tell anyone. Come with me now, before the crowd, and I'll get you off safely in my lifeboat. I'll take care of you, Tanya."

She pulled away. "Have you lost your mind, Mr. Jasperson?"

"Don't argue. There's no time. Come, I'll protect you. We'll have plenty of room. If you wait, it may be too late."

"Go with you, and leave the others? You're mad!"

"But if you wait, you'll be trampled to death by the mob. I'm giving you a chance to save your life."

"But you can't take that boat for yourself. What would happen to the other people? That would be murder. Get away from me! I'm going to call Captain Evans."

As she ran to the phone and pressed the dial, he padded out of the door and resumed his flight to Boat F where Davis waited, peering nervously up and down the hall. Waving his secretary to follow, Jasperson rushed through the port.

"Everything ready, Davis? Provisions all in?"

"All set. I saw the tail end of the truck leaving just as I got here, but I'll just check--"

"Hurry, man! There's no time to waste." He cocked his head, listening to the low rumble of an approaching motor. Davis ran inside, and together they watched from the port.

Coming swiftly down the corridor was a small motor truck. It stopped, and the driver jumped out and shouted.

"Get out of that boat! She's not ready yet! What are you--"

With a steady hand Jasperson drew his pistol and pressed the trigger. The man fell without a sound.

"What are you waiting for, Davis? Shove off!"

The port door slid shut. A few seconds delay, and Lifeboat F, carrying three persons, shot away from the _Star Lord_ into space.

* * * * *

Alarm bells rang, red lights flashed.

Sickening with the inexorable rise of her fevered power units, the _Star Lord_ trembled with the clangor of bells ringing in library and nursery, in lounges and dance hall, in bar and cabins, in dining rooms and theaters. The orchestra crashed to a stop, the dancers halted, startled and vaguely frightened, half laughing at themselves as they listened to the bells.

Then silence, and the voice of Captain Evans.