Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  June 10th, 7 p. m.

  Course 41.864 by the Orion angle. Brushed a small asteroid.

  I've been noting the time wrong. It should be figured on a twenty-four-hour cycle. Midnight to midnight, the hell with it.

  Had a fight with Murdo. He wanted to take over the ship. His words were, "Let's get some speed out of this slop bucket." I reminded him I was Captain. He reminded me he was footing the bills. I asked him how he would like to be locked in his cabin for the remainder of the cruise? He didn't say, but I guess he wouldn't have liked it because he quieted down. Keebler has been quietly drunk for the last two days. Lucky Keebler.

  June 13th, 18 hours.

  Course 26.932 by the Virgo angle. Went four degrees off course to avoid small planetoid.

  Jane Kelvey came to my cabin an hour ago. The rest were asleep. She wore a blue dressing gown with nothing under it. I want to set down what happened in case there's ever a kickback although I don't think there ever will be.

  I was sitting in a chair and she came up behind me and it was very unfortunate because I saw the blue dressing gown first. By sheer chance it was almost exactly like the one Melody wore that first night. I was thinking of Melody. Melody was all around me and inside me. In my mind, in my heart, in all my aching regrets.

  So when that dressing gown brushed me, something electric happened inside and I got up and took Jane Kelvey in my arms. It wasn't more than three or four seconds but in that time the gown had been brushed aside. Then I came to my senses and pushed her away.

  The dressing gown stayed parted. She stepped back, confused. She said, "What's the matter? Are you scared?"

  "I'm disgusted. Button your gown. Get out of here!"

  "What are you? Not one of those noble creatures I hope--who wouldn't touch a man's wife."

  "I said get out! I wouldn't touch you regardless."

  "But you just did."

  "It was a mistake. I--"

  "Look--I'm a woman. You're a man--I think. We're alone in space and life is short. Let's have fun and then forget about it."

  I slapped her across the mouth. A skipper can be jailed for life for striking a passenger. Even with cause. But I slapped her and I'm setting it down in the log....

  * * * * *

  Kennedy looked up from his reading. "Jane Kelvey--she is the dead one?"

  Mason nodded.

  Kennedy looked at Holloway with marked severity. "Are you sure you only slapped her?"

  Mason exploded. "Good God, man. Did you see the body? You're not implying he did that to her, are you?"

  "I'm not implying anything," Kennedy said within a restrained grimness that infuriated Mason.

  "Why don't you finish the log before you start passing judgment?"

  Kennedy leafed through the pages. "I--wait a minute! This log doesn't cover the whole cruise! It breaks off in the middle of a sentence!"

  "Read what's there, man! Read what's there."

  "Very serious--very serious," Kennedy muttered. "Not completing a log. No license should have been issued this man. Lax! Very lax." He sat back to make himself more comfortable and prepared to go on with his reading.

  June 30th--3 hours

  Course 29.341 by the Virgo angle. I think that's the course. The instruments are acting funny. In fact a lot of things seem to be wrong. Some of the constellations aren't in the right places anymore.

  I began noticing these things a couple of days ago and spoke to Murdo. I suggested we turn back. I told him it was my duty as a skipper to look out for the welfare of my passengers. And that included not continuing if vital instruments showed signs of failure.

  He sneered at me and said, "I thought you were a big game hunter, Holloway?"

  I told him I'd hunted big game--yes.

  "It doesn't sound like it. You sound like a timid old woman. So you've made some miscalculations. The course is still right. It's on the flight pattern in the automatic control board and I know it's correct because I gave it to you."

  "But if instruments fail nothing stays right."

  "Okay--you're the skipper. If you've turned yellow and want to show your tail I guess there's nothing I can do about it."

  He almost got his jaw broken, but I was able to hold myself. Then, suddenly, I didn't care. I didn't care whether Murdo stayed alive or got killed. As to the others--they'd come on the cruise with their eyes open. They deserved whatever they got. And I certainly didn't give a damn about myself. Guess I wasn't cut out to skipper a ship. A skipper should care. That's all he should do. Just care. I'd rather dream about Melody.

  I don't know what the date is. The chronometer stopped so I don't even know what time it is. But what does it matter about the time if you don't even know what day it is? We just go on and on.

  Murdo--I can't figure out. Windbag or not--braggart or no--he has an iron will. I think he's scared but he won't admit it. And some stubborn streak inside him won't let him turn tail and run. He hides his fear behind long accounts of his hunting trips. He describes the vicious animals he's killed. He bores us with accounts of his skill as a great hunter.

  The rest listen because they have to. I go to my cabin and remember Melody.

  The rest are scared too, but they're too scared of Murdo to let him know it. That's an odd one. Scared for your life but afraid to tell the big man because he might kill you. Would Murdo kill in a fit of rage? I don't know.

  Keebler stays drunk so none of it bothers him. Keebler's wife, I think, is in love with Murdo but it's a kind of little-girl love. She never quite grew up. Kelvey glues himself to Murdo and sticks like a plaster. He seems to consider Murdo a haven, as though Murdo's bulk will make everything all right.

  Jane Kelvey hasn't quit making passes at me but they're half-hearted. She bothers me. I'm uneasy when she's around. I get the feeling that any minute she might drop to her knees and beg. What do you do with a woman on her knees before you, begging? Maybe before long her husband will look good to her. Maybe she'll be able to get him away from Murdo's side for a while.

  I look at both these women and realize what I lost. Melody.

  * * * * *

  Jane Kelvey came to my cabin. It's hit her that things aren't right. She's scared. She asked, "Why did you tell Murdo you wanted to turn back?"

  "Because I thought we'd come too far."

  "Do you still think so?"

  "Everything will be all right."

  "The instruments--are they working again?"

  I lied to her. "They're working."

  "Do you think it's really as Murdo says--that there are animals out in space?"

  "I don't know."

  She looked wan and forlorn and I was sorry for her. She said, "I've only been on one hunting trip in my life."

  "Is that so?"

  "In India. A boy carried my gun for me. When the tiger came the boy handed me the gun and told me where to point. I fired but I didn't hit the tiger. Somebody else shot it."

  "That was too bad."

  "No, it was all right. He was such a big beautiful animal. So sleek and powerful."

  I saw her body tremble as she closed her eyes. I said, "You better get some rest."

  She passed a hand over her eyes and then gave me an odd wistful smile. "Animals are smarter, I think. We do make awful messes out of our lives, don't we?"

  "I'm afraid we do."

  "But is it our fault? God makes us this way. We can't help that."

  "No, I guess we can't."

  "Why did God make us like we are?"

  "I don't know, Jane. Let's hope He does."

  "Isn't that sacrilege or something? Doubting Him?"

  "I guess it is."

  She reached out suddenly and touched my face. "You're a nice guy. I don't blame you for slapping me."

  "I'm sorry. You're pretty nice yourself."

  The smile faded. "I'm not," she said miserably, and left the cabin.

  Poor kid. I forgot her and thought of Melody.

  Something's gone wrong with everything. N
ot a very scientific statement for a skipper to make but that's how it is. The stars have disappeared. The instruments jumped around as though they had minds of their own. The dial needles spin around like crazy.

  And something else--something even worse. Space has changed. I mean there's something out there in space. First I just felt it. A raw uneasiness. Then I trained a light through the port and I could see it. Stuff that looks like dust but isn't. It's hazy and yet it sparkles and you have a sense of being on a ship that's pushing its way through a fog so thick the friction holds you back. And there's something more about this sparkling fog. You look out at it and it seems to be looking back at you. Or maybe I'm losing my mind. Anyhow, that's the way it seems. As though it's waiting for you to speak to it--say hello or something.

  I guess I'm going crazy.

  The sparkling fog is affecting the others, too. They've all quieted down and they slip along the bulkheads as though they were being followed. Only Murdo blusters back. He says, what the hell? We expected something different, didn't we? Well, this is sure different enough, isn't it?

  I'd turn back but I don't know how. I have nothing to go by. The instruments make no sense.

  I am going crazy. I looked out the port just now and saw a water buffalo. It was standing right out there in space with its head down looking at the ship! I had a light turned on it and suddenly it charged and hit the port headon. It bounced off and went staggering away and disappeared.

  But it left a big white scratch on the quartz outside. At least I think it did. Wait. I'll look again. Yes. A big white scratch. It's still there. So how can I be mad? Maybe it's a new kind of madness....

  * * * * *

  Some of the sparkling fog has penetrated the ship. Turn out the light and you can see it in the cabin. Not as thick as out in the void but thick enough to see; thick enough to stand there and ask you to talk to it.

  Murdo is ready to turn back. He came to the control room and said, "I saw it out there."

  "You saw what?"

  His face was pale and his hands twitched. "A boa-constrictor. Exactly like the one I killed four years ago on the Amazon. It came to the port and looked in at me."

  "It must be your imagination."

  "No. It was there. Let's turn back. Get out of this."

  "I wish we could."

  "You mean--?"

  "I don't know where back is. We might just as well go as we are. Changing course doesn't help if you don't know your directions. Our only hope is to drive on out of this cloud. If I turned I might go right back into it."

  "Then one direction is as good as another?"

  "That's right."

  His mind wandered as he turned away. "I didn't know it would be like this," he muttered. "I thought it would be fun--sport. I thought we'd put on space suits and go out and make a kill. I thought--"

  "The space suits are ready. Do you want to try it?"

  He shuddered, his hanging jowls almost flapping. "You couldn't drag me out there."

  The stuff is getting thicker in the ship.

  Jane came into my cabin. She had an odd look on her face. She said, "There's a big tiger in the companionway."

  I got up from my bunk and suddenly she seemed to realize what she'd said. She repeated it. Then she fell down in a faint. I put her in my bunk and looked out into the companionway. The sparkling fog glittered but there was no tiger.

  When she came to, she didn't seem to know where she was. Then she smiled. "I must have been drinking too much," she said. Then she realized where she was. "But look where it got me? Into your bunk."

  "Do you feel all right now?"

  "I guess so. I can get up now. I do have to get up, don't I?"

  "I think you'd better."

  After she left I did some thinking. The sparkling haze had been outside the ship and I'd seen a water buffalo through the port. Murdo had seen a boa-constrictor. Then the haze penetrated the hull and got inside the ship. And Jane had seen a tiger in the companionway.

  Were they phantoms? Was Jane's tiger a tiger of the mind? Murdo swore his snake had been real and my buffalo left a mark on the port. I sat there trying to think. With the sparkling fog drifting around me. It seemed to be trying to tell me something.

  Things grow worse. Today, at mess, Murdo was holding forth about a Plutonian ice bear he'd killed. I think he was trying to cover the gloom that has settled over us. Anyhow, he'd just got to the point where the bear was charging down on him when we heard the roar of thunder from outside. Maybe I'd better repeat that for the record. We heard a roaring through the walls of the space ship. In the void. Nothing goes through the walls of a space ship in the void but we all heard it and jumped to the port. And we all saw it.

  An ice bear as big as ten of the largest that ever lived in the Plutonian ice flows. A huge ravening beast that rushed through the void at the ship and tried to tear the port out of its metal seat with teeth as big as the height of a man.

  The women fell back, screaming. Keebler, in his usual stupor stared blankly as though not realizing what was going on. Kelvey looked to Murdo for guidance. When none came he crouched behind a chair.

  Murdo fell back slowly, step by step as though his eyes were fastened to the quartz and it was hard to pull away. I don't remember what I did. Murdo was saying "My God--my God--my God," as though chanting a ritual. He tore his eyes from the sight and looked at me.

  "You wanted big game, buster," I croaked. "There it is."

  "But it can't be real. It can't!"

  "Maybe not, but if that port gives I'll bet it won't be from vacuum pressure."

  "Vacuum draws. It doesn't press," Kelvey babbled inanely, but nobody paid any attention to him.

  The beast made two more charges on the ship, then drew back screaming in rage from a snapped tooth. And all around us, there in the ship, the sparkling fog glittered and tried to talk.

  Two hours. The beast still rages in the void outside our ship.

  * * * * *

  Jane is dead. She was horribly mangled. I put her in her bunk and laid a blanket over her and now the blanket is soaked in her blood.

  No one could have helped her. It happened in the lounge. She was in there alone. I was in the control room. I don't know where the rest were.

  I was working uselessly with the controls when I heard a terrible scream mixed with a hideous snarling. I ran into the companionway and stared toward the lounge. Murdo appeared from somewhere and we were shouldering each other on the companion ladder. Murdo fell heavily. Then we were both looking into the lounge.

  It was too late to help Jane. We saw her there, still and bloody. A shiny black leopard was crouching gory-mouthed over her body with its paws on her breast. It's eyes were black magnets, holding mine.

  I said, "Get a gun," trying to speak without moving my lips.

  "But--"

  "Damn you--get a gun!"

  Murdo staggered away. It seemed a year before he came back with a Hinzie Special .442. The leopard was tight, ready to spring. I didn't dare move a muscle. I said, "Over my shoulder. Get him. Don't miss."

  That last was a little silly. How could a man miss with a Hinzie at ten feet? Murdo fired and tore the leopard's head off. It was down already so it didn't move. It sat there headless, its tail twitching slightly. Then it was still.

  I didn't hesitate this time. I said, "Come on. We've got to get this out of here before the others show."

  We put the dead leopard into the forward storage bunker. Then I picked up poor Jane and carried her to her room. Murdo helped me up the ladder. The others were in the companionway and they pressed back in horror to let me pass. For the first time since we'd started, Keebler was sober. Ashen, shaking, stone sober. He broke; screamed and ran for his bottle, the world of reality too terrible for him to bear.

  There was no huddle, no conference, no meeting of the minds. Everyone else went to the galley and sat staring into space; stared at the dancing little sparkles in the air.

  I went to my cabin.


  When confronted by a reality no matter how crazy and improbable, a man must not turn from it. He can not carry the mangled body of a woman in his arms and then say to himself: This isn't real because it doesn't make sense. It does make sense--some kind of sense or it would not exist. A man must say rather: I don't understand this and maybe I never will but God gave me a brain and I must try. I can't sit back and deny reality. I must try to understand it. I cleared my mind and tried to rationalize the things around us.

  Out in the darkness there was a terrible roaring and yammering. The thuds and bellows of violence. I went to the port.

  There, in the light from the ship, the ice bear and the water buffalo were fighting. It was a terrible and magnificent thing but to me it was anticlimax; a sideshow of almost casual interest.

  The ice bear outsized the water buff by too much to be in any danger, but the buff fought savagely and the ice bear had no easy time. The buff opened a long deep gash in the bear's throat when the bear missed a lunge and the Plutonian mammal fell back with a roar of pain and fury. They came together again and this time the bear got the buff in a hug and it was all over. The buff's spine broke and the bear bent the body double, then tore it to pieces. I wondered if the others were watching.

  I went back to pacing; back to my thinking.

  I have been thinking, thinking, thinking; wracking my brain. And of one thing I am sure. Some invisible intelligence is trying to help me; trying to give me knowledge. The sparkling fog?

  * * * * *

  A great and wonderful thing has happened.

  And I know. Do you realize what that means? To know in a situation like this? And to be wonderfully and wildly happy? The knowledge was not all given me. There was a thought process of my own developing. The thing given me was the basic knowledge upon which to build. And proof of this knowledge. Absolute and indisputable proof.

  The sparkling fog is mind stuff.

  I will not defend that statement. I will not rationalize it. But I will seek explanations; consider possibilities.

  Known: This sparkling fog through which we drift is intelligent matter; the stuff of thoughts; the basic material from which consciousness springs. It is consciousness itself.