Part 2

Light flooded the valve as the inner doors slid smoothly open. Braun made routine tests, then opened his cockleshell lifeboat hatch. Blinded by light, he climbed out. On rubbery legs, encased in the bulging suit of space armor, he walked to the gaping doorway and entered the alien ship.

If a trap, it was a good one.

Braun staggered backward. As his eyes became accustomed to the light, he stared. Disbelief in his senses and doubt of his sanity showed on his face.

Opening the vent in his space helmet, he took a deep breath. Then he stared curiously at--

Charters and Topping.

"You weren't gone long," observed Charters. The pair studied Braun, their expressions puzzled.

"I guess I didn't get very far," admitted Braun uneasily. "Am I crazy or is it everything else?"

"That's anyone's guess," said Topping. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure I know."

They waited for explanations while Braun took a stiff slug of coffee laced with brandy.

"Somehow I must have got turned around," admitted Braun ruefully. "I can understand that, but the lifeboat was set on automatic pilot. I thought I came straight across, and with the robot pilot I should have. What do you think happened?"

Topping was sober. "There are several possible explanations. I don't like any of them. Maybe there's a flaw in space here. It could act like a mirror, reflecting back our own mass and the beam of our own light. Who knows? There may not even be an alien ship out there."

"But there's nothing material out there," objected Braun. "I was there, and our instruments would show anything above the size of a speck of dust. For that matter, we can see the thing in our telescopes, and there's nothing we know that can distort the gravity-effect of mass let alone turn it around like light reflected from a mirror. Who ever heard of--"

"Who ever heard of nine men sealed in an oversized can and set down halfway between home galaxy and M31?" reproved Topping. "Light and gravity may not be functions only of our space-time continuum but of others adjacent too and even overlapping ours. We know very little about the nature of either, and some of our unexplained phenomena may be the result of actions and reactions outside our continuum."

"That's getting too deep for me," said Braun. "I'm willing to try again ... if only to prove I didn't funk out the first time. And this time I'll go across with the lights blazing. I want you to use radar and visual scanners on me all the way."

Charters shook his head. "We're up against something we don't understand. I'm not sure I should permit--"

"What's the harm?" pleaded Braun. "I came through without a scratch before. The worst that can happen is a repeat of the same farce. Besides, I've just had a brainstorm. Suppose this is not the same ship I left. Suppose there really are two ships exactly alike, even to the people on board. Suppose that there are two civilizations that developed identically--"

"Maybe you'd better go," laughed Charters. "If you keep on in that vein, you'll give us all nightmares."

Braun's second try followed the same routine as the first. The difference was in Braun himself. Before, he had been mildly excited, calm but overstrained, expecting almost anything. There was a grimness about his second venture. He felt moody and more depressed than before. This time, there was no boredom.

Before leaving, he took a good look around, fixing the faces of his companions into his memory, engraving the ship and endless details of its structure and decoration into his brain. He felt as if he were leaving all of it behind him forever.

The worst that can happen, he thought, is the same thing.

He was wrong about that....

* * * * *

Approaching the alien ship, he braced himself. There was the light. Then the ship, with its metallic shimmer of reflected light dimmed by distance.

Again he circled, studying the contours of the immense fabrication. He remembered an old French proverb about the more a thing changes the more it remains the same. The ship was the same. It was the _Venture IV_. He would stake his life and his sanity on it.

No matter. In a way he was relieved. Once inside the ship, he would let the experts explain it to him. At least he had tried. Nobody could say this time that he funked the job. They would have had the scanners on him all the way. And this time he knew--somehow--that he had not turned around from any confusion. Also, with the lights on, he had watched the automatic pilot. There had been no trick turns. He had it on the flight-record tapes.

If the lifeboat had returned to its point of departure, the only possible explanation was that a space-warp or a flaw in the space-time continuum had turned it inside out.

"End of the line," Braun murmured contentedly. "End of the line again."

Skilfully he maneuvered the lifeboat up to the bulk of the _Venture IV_. He grappled it to the airlock valve and slipped it inside on the skids.

The outer doors closed. This time he was so sure of where he was that he did not bother with the spacesuit. He waited till the inner doors opened to matched pressures, then scuttled out of the lifeboat. The air was breathable, the usual hydroponic cycle stuff, just what he was used to. It smelled oddly of pumps as it always does, pump-packing and growing things. Air in the lifeboat had been too rich in ozone, and Braun was giddy with the sharp tang of it.

Braun strode confidently into the ship.

No one was around to greet him. It was a gag they had worked up, he figured. All right, he'd play along.

Through the ship he went, calling out names. Echoes rang hollowly in the vast interior, but they were the only answer. He kept wandering and calling, wandering and crying out. Finally, he was screaming hysterically.

It was a long time before the fact got through solidly to him. He was alone on the ship.

So far as he could tell, it was the _Venture IV_. Everything about the ship was the same. It was _his_ ship. Wherever he had been, he was back on _his_ ship. He had to keep on assuring himself of that. It was either the _Venture IV_ ... or an exact duplicate. But the other duplicate had duplicated the people, too.

"Where is everybody?" he screamed.

He went on screaming for a long time. A very long time....

* * * * *

Smoke curled up from Braun's cigarette to join the dense layers near the bar's ceiling. Light shone through the blued stratifications in blurred blobs as through fog.

"That's the story," said Braun huskily.

"Not all of it," somebody murmured.

"Not quite. The ship was mostly automatic. I knew then why I had been picked. As I said, in an emergency, I could handle any job or even all jobs, for as long as necessary. We had all the flight tapes from the long voyage out. Mainly it was a job for the computers. You couldn't just run the tapes through backward because nothing ever stands quite still in the universe. All I know is that we did it, the ship and I. The _Venture IV_ is the real hero, I guess. It brought me back."

"What about the others?" somebody persisted.

"I don't know," Braun answered irritably. "All I know is what I've told you. What happened to me. About the rest of the bunch, even the experts are still guessing. There are several theories. There were things about the ship. Odd differences. Nothing I could catch, but the experts found curiosities. They think I was tricked, that it's not really the same ship, but a clever and almost miraculous duplicate."

"But why, and how?"

Braun laughed bitterly. "Your guess is as good as anybody's. Mine is--that I wasn't wanted. The rest of the crew were all specialists, trained technicians, each one the best in his field. If _somebody_ out there wanted some samples of the best brains in the human race, he really got the top quality. They were all educated to the hilt, trained for a particular job. Maybe they were picked because they were ready for something else. They had the entrance qualifications. I hadn't. That may not be the only explanation. It's probably the best one."

Braun poured himself another drink and drank it. His eyes stared blankly, as if the essential part of him was back out on the raw frontiers of the dark unknown.

Somebody dragged him back to the bar with a final question.

"But surely you must have some ideas of your own. What do you think happened to the others?"

Braun smiled soberly. His voice was tired, and it sounded as empty as those black spaces where no sun ever shines.

"What I think doesn't matter. There may be another world out there ... or something in hyperspace. That may be a point of contact, or it may be a barrier against all man's dreams of further expansion and exploration into the unknown. You've asked what I think happened to the others, and it's a good question. People are going to keep asking me that. I don't know the true answer. Maybe I'll never know--"

Braun hesitated, glanced round him at the ring of strained and questioning faces. He saw the disbelief registered on them--the thinly veiled anger that seemed to shout out at him _why don't you tell us what really happened! Tell us the truth!_

Braun sighed resignedly. It was always the same. It would always be the same. Wherever he went. And he would have to keep moving ... alone, apart from other men.

He walked past the silent questioning faces and through the door. And down the street to the next bar....