"What could go wrong out here? Not even any meteors. Nothing to do but sit and watch. And there really isn't any need of that. The robot navigator handles everything." The soft purr of the geosectors filled the ship. There was no other sound. The ship seemed standing still in space. Saturn swung far down to the right, a golden disk of light with thin, bright rings. Pluto was a tiny speck of light almost dead ahead, a little to the left. The Sun, three billion miles astern, was shielded from their sight.
The Space Pup was headed for Pluto at a pace that neared a thousand miles a second. The geosectors, warping the curvature of space itself, hurled the tiny ship through the void at a speed unthought of less than a hundred years before.
And now Tommy Evans, out on Pluto, was ready, if only the Solar Commerce commission would stop its interference, to bullet his experimental craft away from the solar system, out toward the nearest star, 4.29 light-years distant. Providing his improved electro-gravatic geodesic deflectors lived up to the boast of their inventors, he would exceed the speed of light, would vanish into that limbo of impossibility that learned savants only a few centuries before had declared was unattainable.
"It kind of makes a fellow dizzy," Herb declared.
"What does?"
"Why," said Herb, "this Tommy Evans stunt. The boy is making history. And maybe we'll be there to see him do it. He's the first to make a try at the stars — and if he wins, there will be lots of others. Man will go out and out and still farther out, maybe clear out to where space is still exploding."
Gary grunted. "They sure will have to hurry some," be said, "because space is exploding fast."
"Now look here," said Herb. "You can't just sit there and pretend the human race has made no progress. Take this ship, just for example. We don't rely on rockets any more except in taking off and landing. Once out in space and we set the geosectors to going and we warp space and build up speed that no rocket could ever hope to give you. We got an atmosphere generator that manufactures air. No more stocking up on oxygen and depending on air purifiers. Same thing with food. The machine just picks up matter and energy out of space and transmutes them into steaks and potatoes — or at least their equivalent in food value. And we send news stories and pictures across billions of miles of space. You just sit down in front of that spacewriter and whang away at the keys and in a few hours another machine back in New York writes what you have written."
Gary yawned. "How you run on," he said, "We haven't even started yet — the human race hasn't. What we have done isn't anything to what we are going to do. That is, if the race doesn't get so downright ornery that it kills itself off first."
The spacewriter in the corner of the room stuttered and gibbered, warming up under the impulse of the warning signals, flung out hours before and three billion miles away.
The two men hurried across the room and hung over it.
Slowly, laboriously, the keys began to tap.
NELSON, ABOARD SPACE PUP, NEARING PLUTO. HAVE INFO EVANS MAY TAKE OFF FOR CENTAURI WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION OF SCC. MAKE ALL POSSIBLE SPEED TO PLUTO. HANDLE SOONEST. MOST IMPORTANT. RUSH. REGARDS. EVENING ROCKET.
The machine burped to a stop. Herb looked at Gary.
"Maybe that guy Evans has got some guts after all," said Gary. "Maybe he'll tell the SCC where to stick it. They been asking for it for a long time now."
Herb grunted. "They won't chase after him, that's sure." Gary sat down before the sending board and threw the switch. The hum of the electric generators drowned out the moan of the geosectors as they built up the power necessary to hurl a beam of energy across the void to Earth.
"Only one thing wrong with this setup," said Gary. "It takes too long and it takes too much power. I wish someone would hurry up and figure out a way to use the cosmics for carriers."
"Doe Kingsley, out on Pluto, has been fooling around with cosmics," said Herb. "Maybe he'll turn the trick in another year of two."
"Doe Kingsley has been fooling around with a lot of things out there," said Gary. "If the man would only talk, we'd have more than one story to send back from Pluto."
The dynamos had settled into a steady hum of power. Gary glanced at the dials and reached out his fingers. He wrote:
EVENING ROCKET. EARTH. WILL CONTACT EVANS AT ONCE IF STILL ON PLUTO. IF NOT WILL SEND STORY ON FLIGHT. NOTHING TO REPORT OUT HERE. WEATHER FINE. HERB DROPPED OUR LAST QUART AND BROKE IT. HOW ABOUT A RAISE.
"That last," he said, "will get "em."
"You didn't have to put that in about the Scotch," Herb declared. "It just slipped out of my fingers."
"Sure," said Gary. "It just slipped out of your fingers. Right smack-dab onto a steel plate and busted all to hell. After this, I handle the liquor. When you want a drink, you ask me."
"Maybe Kingsley will have some liquor," Herb said hopefully. "Maybe he'll lend us a bottle."
"If he does," declared Gary, "you keep your paws off of it. Between you sucking away at it and dropping it, I don't get more than a drink or two out of each bottle. We still got Uranus and Neptune to do after Pluto and it looks like a long dry spell."
He got up and walked to the fore part of the ship, gazing out through the vision plate.
"Only Neptune and Uranus ahead," he said. "And that's enough. If the Old Man ever thinks up any more screwball stunts, he can find someone else to do them. When I get back I'm going to ask him to give me back my old beat at the space terminal and I'm going to settle down there for the rest of my natural life. I'm going to watch the ships come in and take off and I'm going to get down on my hands and knees and kiss the ground each time and be thankful I'm not on them."
"He's paying us good dough," said Herb. "We got bank accounts piling up back home."
Gary pretended not to hear him.
"Know Your Solar System," he said. "Special articles run every Sunday in the Evening Rocket. Story by Leary Nelson. Pictures by Herbert Harper. Intrepid newsmen brave perils of space to bring back true picture of the solar system's planets. One year alone in a spaceship, bringing to the readers of the Rocket a detailed account of life in space, of life on the planets. Remember how the promotion gang busted a gut advertising us. Full page ads and everything."
He spat.
"Stuff for kids," he said.
"The kids probably think we're heroes," said Herb. "Probably they read our stuff and then pester the folks to buy them a spaceship. Want to go out and see Saturn for themselves."
"The Old Man said it would boost circulation," declared Gary. "Hell, he'd commit suicide if he thought it would boost circulation. Remember what he told us. Says he:
"Go out and visit all the planets. Get first-hand information and pictures. Shoot them back to us. We'll run them every Sunday in the magazine section." Just like he was sending us around the corner to cover a fire. That's all there was to it. Just a little over a year out in space. Living in a spaceship and a spacesuit. Hurry through Jupiter's moons to get out to Saturn and then take it on the lam for Pluto. Soft job. Nice vacation for you. That's what the Old Man said. Nice soft vacation, he said."
His pipe gurgled threateningly and he knocked it out viciously against the heel of his hand.
"Well," said Herb, "we're almost to Pluto. A few days more and we'll be there. They got a fueling station and a radio and Doc Kingsley's laboratories out there. Maybe we can promote us a poker game."
Gary walked to the telescopic screen and switched it on.
"Let's take a look at her," he said.
The great circular screen glowed softly. Within it swam the image of Pluto, still almost half a billion miles away. A dead planet that shone dully in the faint light of the far distant Sun. A planet locked in the frigid grip of naked space, a planet that had been dead long before the first stirring of life had taken place on Earth.
The vision was blurred and Gary manipulated dials to bring it more sharply into focus.
"Wait a second," snapped Herb. His lingers reached out and grasped Gary's wrist.
"Turn
it back a ways," he said. "I saw something out there. Something that looked like a ship. Maybe it's Evans coming back."
Slowly Gary twisted the dial back. A tiny spot of light danced indistinctly on the screen.
"That's it," breathed Herb. "Easy now. Just a little more."
The spot of light leaped into sharper focus. But it was merely a spot of light, nothing more, a tiny, shining thing in space. Some metallic body that was catching and reflecting the light of the Sun.
"Give it more power," said Herb.
Swiftly the spot of light grew, assumed definite shape. Gary stepped the magnification up until the thing filled the entire screen.
It was a ship — and yet it couldn't be a ship.
"It has no rocket tubes," said Herb in amazement. "Without tubes how could it get off the ground? You can't use geosectors in taking off. They twist space all to hell and gone. They'd turn a planet inside out."
Gary studied it. "It doesn't seem to be moving," he said. "Maybe some motion, but not enough to detect."
"A derelict," suggested Herb.
Gary shook his head. "Still doesn't explain the lack of tubes," he said.
The two men lifted their eyes from the screen and looked at one another.
"The Old Man said we were to hurry to Pluto," Herb reminded Gary.
Gary wheeled about and strode back to the controls. He lowered his gangling frame into the pilot's chair and disconnected the robot control. His lingers reached out, switched off the geosectors, pumped fuel into the rocket chambers.
"Find something to hang onto," be said, grimly. "We're stopping to see what this is all about."
CHAPTER Two
The mysterious space-shell was only a few miles distant. With Herb at the controls, the Space Pup cruised in an ever-tightening circle around the glinting thing that hung there just off Pluto's orbit.
It was a spaceship. Of that there could be no doubt despite the fact that it had no rocket tubes. It was hanging motionless. There was no throb of power within it, no apparent life, although dim light glowed through the vision ports in what probably were the living quarters just back of the control room.
Gary crouched in the airlock of the Space Pup, with the outer valve swung back. He made sure that his pistols were securely in their holsters and cautiously tested the spacesuit's miniature propulsion units.
He spoke into his helmet mike.
"All right, Herb," he said, "I'm going. Try to tighten up the circle a bit. Keep a close watch. That thing out there may be dynamite."
"Keep your nose clean," said Herb's voice in the phones. Gary straightened and pushed himself out from the lock.
He floated smoothly in space, in a gulf of nothing, a place without direction, without an up or down, an unsubstantial place with the fiery eyes of distant stars ringing him around.
His steel-gloved hand dropped to the propulsion mechanism that encircled his waist. Midget rocket tubes flared with tiny flashes of blue power and he was jerked forward, heading for the mystery ship. Veering too far to the right, he gave the right tube a little more fuel and straightened out.
Steadily, under the surging power of the spacesuit tubes, he forged ahead through space toward the ship. He saw the gleaming lights of the Space Pup slowly circle in front of him and then pass out of sight.
A quarter of a mile away, he shut off the tubes and glided slowly in to the drifting shell. He struck its pitted side with the soles of his magnetic boots and stood upright.
Cautiously he worked his way toward one of the ports from which came the faint gleam of light. Lying at full length, he peered through the foot-thick quartz. The light was feeble and he could see but little. There was no movement of life, no indication that the shell was tenanted. In the center of what at one time had been the living quarters, he saw a large rectangular shape, like a huge box. Aside from this, however, be could make out nothing.
Working his way back to the lock, he saw that it was tightly closed. He had expected that. He stamped against the plates with his heavy boots, hoping to attract attention. But if any living thing were inside, it either did not hear or disregarded the clangor that he made.
Slowly he moved away from the lock, heading for the control-room vision plate, hoping from there to get a better view into the shell's interior. As he moved, his eyes caught a curious irregularity just to the right of the lock, as if faint lines had been etched into the steel of the hull.
He dropped to one knee and saw that a single line of crude lettering had been etched into the metal. Brushing at it with his gloved hand, he tried to make it out. Laboriously, he struggled with it. It was simple, direct, to the point, a single declaration. When one writes with steel and acid, one is necessarily brief.
The line read:
Control room vision-plate unlocked.
Amazed, he read the line again, hardly believing what he read. But there it was. That single line, written with a single purpose. Simple directions for gaining entrance.
Crouched upon the steel plating, he felt a shiver run through his body. Someone had etched that line in hope that someone would come. But perhaps he was too late. The ship had an old look about it. The lines of it, the way the ports were set into the hull, all were marks of spaceship designing that had become obsolete centuries before.
He felt the cold chill of mystery and the utter bleakness of outer space closing in about him. He gazed up over the bulged outline of the shell and saw the steely glare of remote stars. Stars secure in the depth of many light-years, jeering at him, jeering at men who held dreams of stellar conquest.
He shook himself, trying to shake off the probing fingers of half-fear, glanced around to locate the Space Pup, saw it slowly moving off to his right.
Swiftly, but carefully, he made his way over the nose of the ship and up to the vision plate.
Squatting in front of the plate, he peered down into the control cabin. But it wasn't a control cabin. It was a laboratory. In the tiny room which at one time must have housed the instruments of navigation, there was now no trace of control panel or calculator or telescopic screen. Rather, there were work tables, piled with scientific apparatus, banks and rows of chemical containers. All the paraphernalia of the scientist's workshop.
The door into the living quarters, where he had seen the large oblong box was closed. All the apparatus and the bottles in the laboratory were carefully arranged, neatly put away, as if someone had tidied up before they walked off and left the place.
He puzzled for a moment. That lack of rocket tubes, the indications that the ship was centuries old, the scrawled acid-etched line by the lock, the laboratory in the control room… what did it all add up to? He shook his head. It didn't make much sense.
Bracing himself against the curving steel hide of the shell, he pushed at the vision-plate. But he could exert little effort. Lack of gravity, inability to brace himself securely, made the task a hard one. Rising to his feet, he stamped his heavy boots against the glass, but the plate refused to budge.
As a last desperate effort, he might use his guns, blast his way into the shell. But that would be long, tedious work… and there would be a certain danger. There should be, he told himself, an easier and a safer way.
Suddenly the way came to him, but he hesitated, for there lay danger, too. He could lie down on the plate, turn on the rocket tubes of his suit and use his body as a battering ram, as a lever, to force the stubborn hinges.
But it would be an easy matter to turn on too much power, so much power that his body would be pounded to a pulp against the heavy quartz.
Shrugging at the thought, he stretched flat on the plate, hands folded under him with fingers on the tube controls. Slowly he turned the buttons. The rockets thrust at his body, jamming him against the quartz. He snapped the studs shut. It had seemed, for a moment, that the plate had given just a little.
Drawing in a deep breath, he twisted the studs again. Once more his body slammed against the plate, driven by the flaming tubes.
Groggily he groped his way to his feet. The thin whine of escaping atmosphere came to his ears and unsteadily he made his way forward. Leaping at the plate, he slammed it back into place again. It closed with a thud, driven deep into its frame by the force of rushing air.
A chair stood beside a table and he swung around, sat down in it, still dizzy from the fall. He shook his head to clear away the cobwebs.
There was atmosphere here. That meant that an atmosphere generator still was operating, that the ship had developed no leaks and was still airtight.
He raised his helmet slightly. Fresh pure air swirled into his nostrils, better air than he had inside his suit. A little highly oxygenated, perhaps, but that was all. If the atmosphere machine had run for a long time unattended, it might have gotten out of adjustment slightly, might be mixing a bit too much oxygen with the air output.
He swung the helmet back and let it dangle on the hinge at the back of the neck, gulped in great mouthfuls of the atmosphere. His head cleared rapidly.
He looked around the room. There was little that he had not already seen. A practical, well-equipped laboratory, but much of the equipment, he now realized, was old.
Some of it was obsolete and that fitted in with all the rest of it.
A framed document hung above a cabinet and getting to his feet, he walked across the room to look at it. Bending close, he read it. It was a diploma from the College of Science at Alkatoon, Mars, one of the most outstanding of several universities on the Red Planet. The diploma had been issued to one Caroline Martin.
Gary read the name a second time. It seemed that he should know it. It raised some memory in his brain, but just what it was he couldn't say, an elusive recognition that eluded him by the faintest margin.
He looked around the room.
Caroline Martin.
A girl who had left a diploma in this cabin, a pitiful reminder of many years ago. He bent again and looked at the date upon the sheep-skin. It was 5976. He whistled softly. A thousand years ago!
All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories Page 34