The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  “Two hundred and thirty-five light-years, Mart. They’re lost, and still going. Goodbye, old scout,” holding out his hand, “Tell Vaneman that I’ll bring her back or else stay out there myself.”

  “You must be crazy, Dick. You know I am going.”

  “Why? No use in both of us taking such a chance. If Dottie’s gone, of course I want to go too, but you don’t.”

  “Nonsense, Dick. Of course this is somewhat farther than we had planned on going for our maiden voyage, but where is the difference? It is just as safe to go a thousand light-years as only one, and we have power and food for any contingency. There is no more danger in this trip than there is in one to Mars. At all events, I am going whether you want me to or not, so save your breath.”

  “You lie like a thief, Mart—you know what we are up against as well as I do. But if you insist on coming along, I’m sure glad to have you.”

  As their hands met in a crushing grip, the bars were brought up and loaded into the carriers. Waving goodbye to Wilson, they closed the massive door and took their positions. Seaton adjusted the bar parallel with the needle of the object-compass, turned on the coil, and advanced the speed-lever until Crane, reading the pyro-meters, warned him to slow down, as the shell was heating. Free of the earth’s atmosphere, he slowly advanced the lever, one notch at a time, until he could no longer support the increasing weight of his hand, but had to draw out the rolling support designed for that emergency. He pushed the lever a few notches farther, and felt himself forced down violently into the seat. He was now lying at full length, the seat having automatically moved upward so that his hand still controlled the lever. Still he kept putting on more power, until the indicator showed that more than three-quarters of the power was in operation and he felt that he could stand but little more.

  “How are you making it, Mart?” he asked, talking with difficulty because of the great weight of his tongue and jaws.

  “All right so far,” came the response, in a hesitating, almost stammering voice, “but I do not know how much more I can take. If you can stand it, go ahead.”

  “This is enough for awhile, until we get used to it. Any time you want to rest, tell me and I’ll cut her down.”

  “Keep her at this for four or five hours. Then cut down until we can walk, so that we can eat and take another reading on distance. Remember that it will take as long to stop as it does to get up speed, and that we must be careful not to ram them. There would be nothing left of either car.”

  “All right. Talking’s too darn much work, I’ll talk to you again when we ease down. I sure am glad we’re on our way at last.”

  CHAPTER IX

  Lost In Space

  For forty-eight hours the uncontrolled atomic motor dragged the masterless vessel with its four unconscious passengers through the illimitable reaches of empty space, with an awful and constantly increasing velocity. When only a few traces of copper remained in the power-plant, the acceleration began to decrease and the powerful springs began to restore the floor and the seats to their normal positions. The last particle of copper having been transformed into energy, the speed of the vessel became constant. Apparently motionless to those inside it, it was in reality traversing space with a velocity thousands of times greater than that of light. As the force which had been holding them down was relaxed, the lungs, which had been able to secure only air enough to maintain faint sparks of life, began to function more normally and soon all four recovered consciousness, drinking in the life-giving oxygen in a rapid succession of breaths so deep that it seemed as though their lungs must burst with each inhalation.

  DuQuesne was the first to gain control of himself. His first effort to rise to his feet lifted him from the floor, and he floated lightly to the ceiling, striking it with a gentle bump and remaining suspended in the air. The others, who had not yet attempted to move, stared at him in wide-eyed amazement. Reaching out and clutching one of the supporting columns, he drew himself back to the floor and cautiously removed his leather suit, transferring two heavy automatic pistols as he did so. By gingerly feeling of his injured body, he discovered that no bones were broken, although he was terribly bruised. He then glanced around to learn how his companions were faring. He saw that they were all sitting up, the girls resting, Perkins removing his aviator’s costume.

  “Good morning, Doctor DuQuesne. What happened when I kicked your friend?”

  DuQuesne smiled.

  “Good morning, Miss Vaneman. Several things happened. He fell into the controls, turning on all the juice. We left shortly afterward. I tried to shut the power off, and in doing so I balled things up worse than ever. Then I went to sleep, and just woke up.”

  “Have you any idea where we are?”

  “No, but I can make a fair estimate, I think,” and glancing at the empty chamber in which the bar had been, he took out his notebook and pen and figured for a few minutes. As he finished, he drew himself along by a handrail to one of the windows, then to another. He returned with a puzzled expression on his face and made a long calculation.

  “I don’t know exactly what to make of this,” he said thoughtfully. “We are so far away from the earth that even the fixed stars are unrecognizable. The power was on exactly forty-eight hours, since that is the life of that particular bar under full current. We should still be close to our own solar system, since it is theoretically impossible to develop any velocity greater than that of light. But in fact, we have. I know enough about astronomy to recognize the fixed stars from any point within a light-year or so of the sun, and I can’t see a single familiar star. I never could see how mass could be a function of velocity, and now I am convinced that it is not. We have been accelerating for forty-eight hours!”

  He turned to Dorothy.

  “While we were unconscious, Miss Vaneman, we had probably attained a velocity of something like seven billion four hundred thirteen million miles per second, and that is the approximate speed at which we are now traveling. We must be nearly six quadrillion miles, and that is a space of several hundred light-years—away from our solar system, or, more plainly, about six times as far away from our earth as the North Star is. We couldn’t see our sun with a telescope, even if we knew which way to look for it.”

  At this paralyzing news, Dorothy’s face turned white and Margaret Spencer quietly fainted in her seat.

  “Then we can never get back?” asked Dorothy slowly.

  At this question, Perkins’ self-control gave way and his thin veneer of decency disappeared completely.

  “You got us into this whole thing!” he screamed as he leaped at Dorothy with murderous fury gleaming in his pale eyes and his fingers curved into talons. Instead of reaching her, however, he merely sprawled grotesquely in midair, and DuQuesne knocked him clear across the vessel with one powerful blow of his fist.

  “Get back there, you cowardly cur,” he said evenly. “Even though we are a long way from home, try to remember you’re a man, at least. One more break like that and I’ll throw you out of the boat. It isn’t her fault that we are out here, but our own. The blame for it is a very small matter, anyway; the thing of importance is to get back as soon as possible.”

  “But how can we get back?” asked Perkins sullenly from the corner where he was crouching, fear in every feature. “The power is gone, the controls are wrecked, and we are hopelessly lost in space.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say ‘hopelessly,’” returned the other, “I have never been in any situation yet that I couldn’t get out of, and I won’t be convinced until I am dead that I can’t get out of this one. We have two extra power bars, we can fix the board, and if I can’t navigate us back close enough to our solar system to find it, I am more of a dub than I think I am. How about a little bite to eat?”

  “Show us where it is!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Now that you mention it, I find that I am starved to death.”

  DuQuesne looked at her keenly.

  “I admire your nerve, Miss Vaneman. I didn’t suppose
that that animal over there would show such a wide streak of yellow, but I was rather afraid that you girls might go to pieces.”

  “I’m scared blue, of course,” Dorothy admitted frankly, “but hysterics won’t do any good, and we simply must get back.”

  “Certainly, we must and we will,” stated DuQuesne calmly. “If you like, you might find something for us to eat in the galley there, while I see what I can do with this board that I wrecked with my head. By the way, that cubby-hole there is the apartment reserved for you two ladies. We are in rather cramped quarters, but I think you will find everything you need.”

  As Dorothy drew herself along the handrail toward the room designated, accompanied by the other girl who, though conscious, had paid little attention to anything around her, she could not help feeling a thrill of admiration for the splendid villain who had abducted her. Calm and cool, always master of himself, apparently paying no attention to the terrible bruises which disfigured half his face and doubtless half his body as well, she admitted to herself that it was only his example, which had enabled her to maintain her self-control in their present plight. As she crawled over Perkins’ discarded suit, she remembered that he had not taken any weapons from it. After a rapid glance around to assure herself that she was not being watched, she quickly searched the coat, bringing to light not one, but two pistols, which she thrust into her pocket. She saw with relief that they were regulation army automatics, with whose use she was familiar from much target practise with Seaton.

  In the room, which was a miniature of the one she had seen on the Skylark, the girls found clothing, toilet articles, and everything necessary for a long trip. As they were setting themselves to rights, Dorothy electing to stay in her riding suit, they surveyed each other frankly and each was reassured by what she saw. Dorothy saw a girl of twenty-two, of her own stature, with a mass of heavy, wavy black hair. Her eyes, a singularly rich and deep brown, contrasted strangely with the beautiful ivory of her skin. She was normally a beautiful girl, thought Dorothy, but her beauty was marred by suffering and privation. Her naturally slender form was thin, her face was haggard and worn. The stranger broke the silence.

  “I’m Margaret Spencer,” she began abruptly, “former secretary to His Royal Highness, Brookings of Steel. They swindled my father out of an invention worth millions and he died, broken-hearted. I got the job to see if I couldn’t get enough evidence to convict them, and I had quite a lot when they caught me. I had some things that they were afraid to lose, and I had them so well hidden that they couldn’t find them, so they kidnapped me to make me give them back. They haven’t dared kill me so far for fear the evidence will show up after my death—which it will. However, I will be legally dead before long, and then they know the whole thing will come out, so they have brought me out here to make me talk or kill me. Talking won’t do me any good now, though, and I don’t believe it ever would have. They would have killed me after they got the stuff back, anyway. So you see I, at least, will never get back to the earth alive.”

  “Cheer up—we’ll all get back safely.”

  “No, we won’t. You don’t know that man Perkins—if that is his name. I never heard him called any real name before. He is simply unspeakable—vile—hideous—everything that is base. He was my jailer, and I utterly loathe and despise him. He is mean and underhanded and tricky—he reminds me of a slimy, poisonous snake. He will kill me: I know it.”

  “But how about Doctor DuQuesne? Surely he isn’t that kind of man? He wouldn’t let him.”

  “I’ve never met him before, but from what I heard of him in the office, he’s even worse than Perkins, but in an entirely different way. There’s nothing small or mean about him, and I don’t believe he would go out of his way to hurt anyone, as Perkins would. But he is absolutely cold and hard, a perfect fiend. Where his interests are concerned, there’s nothing under the sun, good or bad, that he won’t do. But I’m glad that Perkins had me instead of ‘The Doctor,’ as they call him. Perkins raises such a bitter personal feeling, that anybody would rather die than give up to him in anything. DuQuesne, however, would have tortured me impersonally and scientifically—cold and self-contained all the while and using the most efficient methods, and I am sure he would have got it out of me some way. He always gets what he goes after.”

  “Oh, come, Miss Spencer!” Dorothy interrupted the half-hysterical girl. “You’re too hard on him. Didn’t you see him knock Perkins down when he came after me?”

  “Well, maybe he has a few gentlemanly instincts, which he uses when he doesn’t lose anything by it. More likely he merely intended to rebuke him for a useless action. He is a firm Pragmatist—anything that is useful is all right, anything that is useless is a crime. More probably yet, he wants you left alive. Of course that is his real reason. He went to the trouble of kidnapping you, so naturally he won’t let Perkins or anybody else kill you until he is through with you. Otherwise he would have let Perkins do anything he wanted to with you, without lifting a finger.”

  “I can’t quite believe that,” Dorothy replied, though a cold chill struck at her heart as she remembered the inhuman crime attributed to this man, and she quailed at the thought of being in his charge, countless millions of miles from earth, a thought only partly counteracted by the fact that she was now armed. “He has treated us with every consideration so far, let’s hope for the best. Anyway, I’m sure that we’ll get back safely.”

  “Why so sure? Have you something up your sleeve?”

  “No—or yes, in a way I have, though nothing very definite. I’m Dorothy Vaneman, and I am engaged to the man who discovered the thing that makes this space-car go.…”

  “That’s why they kidnapped you, then—to make him give up all his rights to it. It’s like them.”

  “Yes, I think that’s why they did it. But they won’t keep me long. Dick Seaton will find me, I know. I feel it.”

  “But that’s exactly what they want!” cried Margaret excitedly. “In my spying around I heard a little about this very thing—the name Seaton brings it to my mind. His car is broken in some way, so that it will kill him the first time he tries to run it.”

  “That’s where they underestimated Dick and his partner. You have heard of Martin Crane, of course?”

  “I think I heard his name mentioned in the office, together with Seaton’s, but that’s all.”

  “Well, besides other things, Martin is quite a wonderful mechanic, and he found out that our Skylark was spoiled. So they built another one, a lot bigger, and I am sure that they are following us, right now.”

  “But how can they possibly follow us, when we are going so fast and are so far away?” queried the other girl, once more despondent.

  “I don’t quite know, but I do know that Dick will find a way. He’s simply wonderful. He knows more now than that Doctor DuQuesne will ever learn in all his life, and he will find us in a few days. I feel it in my bones. Besides, I picked Perkins’ pockets of these two pistols. Can you shoot an automatic?”

  “Yes,” replied the other girl, as she seized one of the guns, assured herself that its magazine was full, and slipped it into her pocket. “I used to practise a lot with my father’s. This makes me feel a whole lot better. And call me Peggy, won’t you? It will seem good to hear my name again. After what I’ve been through lately, even this trip will be a vacation for me.”

  “Well, then, cheer up, Peggy dear, we’re going to be great friends. Let’s go get us all something to eat. I’m simply starved, and I know you are, too.”

  The presence of the pistol in her pocket and Dorothy’s unwavering faith in her lover, lifted the stranger out of the mood of despair into which the long imprisonment, the brutal treatment, and the present situation had plunged her, and she was almost cheerful as they drew themselves along the handrail leading to the tiny galley.

  “I simply can’t get used to the idea of nothing having any weight—look here!” laughed Dorothy, as she took a boiled ham out of the refrigerator and hu
ng it upon an imaginary hook in the air, where it remained motionless. “Doesn’t it make you feel funny?”

  “It is a queer sensation. I feel light, like a toy balloon, and I feel awfully weird inside. If we have no weight, why does it hurt so when we bump into anything? And when you throw anything, like the Doctor did Perkins, why does it hit as hard as ever?”

  “It’s mass or inertia or something like that. A thing has it everywhere, whether it weighs anything or not. Dick explained it all to me. I understood it when he told me about it, but I’m afraid it didn’t sink in very deep. Did you ever study physics?”

  “I had a year of it in college, but it was more or less of a joke. I went to a girls’ school, and all we had to do in physics was to get the credit; we didn’t have to learn it.”

  “Me too. Next time I go to school I’m going to Yale or Harvard or some such place, and I’ll learn so much mathematics and science that I’ll have to wear a bandeau to keep my massive intellect in place.”

  During this conversation they had prepared a substantial luncheon and had arranged it daintily upon two large trays, in spite of the difficulty caused by the fact that nothing would remain in place by its own weight. The feast prepared, Dorothy took her tray from the table as carefully as she could, and saw the sandwiches and bottles start to float toward the ceiling. Hastily inverting the tray above the escaping viands, she pushed them back down upon the table. In doing so she lifted herself clear from the floor, as she had forgotten to hold herself down.

  “What’ll we do, anyway?” she wailed when she had recovered her position. “Everything wants to fly all over the place!”

  “Put another tray on top of it and hold them together,” suggested Margaret. “I wish we had a birdcage. Then we could open the door and grab a sandwich as it flies out.”

  By covering the trays the girls finally carried the luncheon out into the main compartment, where they gave DuQuesne and Perkins one of the trays and all fell to eating hungrily. DuQuesne paused with a glint of amusement in his one sound eye as he saw Dorothy trying to pour ginger ale out of a bottle.