Collision Course

by Robert Silverberg

  “Pleased,” Bernard muttered ritually.

  “And I’m Norman Dominici,” the stocky one said, crossing the room in tense steps that added to the impression of penned-up nervous energy he gave. “I’m a biophysicist— when I’m not out on expeditions to green-faced aliens, that is. Welcome to our little band, Bernard.”

  Only the Neopuritan had not offered an introduction. He remained where he was, at the wall but not leaning against it. Bernard felt irritated at the man’s lack of courtesy, but the sociologist’s innate desire for friendship got the better of him, and he turned uncertainly toward the Neopuritan, resolved to make the first overture.

  “Hello?” Bernard said doubtfully.

  “Watch out,” Norman Dominici warned sotto voce. “He’s just not the friendly type.”

  The big man turned slowly to face Bernard. He was, the sociologist thought, a veritable hulking giant of a man—six feet seven in height, at the very least. The Neopuritan bore the aloof, withdrawn look that men sometimes develop when they grow to enormous heights at precocious ages. A ten-year-old who stands six feet tall is never really going to get very chummy with the playmates over whom he towers, and the gulf quite unsurprisingly tended to widen in later years.

  “The name is Thomas Havig,” the lanky Neopuritan said in a high-pitched, reedy voice that was surprisingly thin for one so tall. “I don’t believe we’ve met before, Dr. Bernard— but we’ve shared the pages of several learned periodicals in the recent past.”

  Bernard’s eyes went wide with sudden amazement and consternation. Of all people…! “You’re Thomas Havig of Columbia?” he asked.

  “Thomas Havig of Columbia, yes,” the big man replied. “The Thomas Havig who wrote Conjectures on the Etruscan Morphemes, Dr. Bernard.” The merest trace of a smile appeared on Havig’s thin lips. “It was an article which you didn’t seem to appreciate, I fear.”

  Bernard looked at the other two men, then back at Havig.

  “Why—why, I simply found myself totally unable to swallow any one of your premises, Havig. Starting from the initial statement and going right down the line through everything you said. You flatly contradicted everything we know about the Etruscan personality and culture, you wantonly attempted to distort the known body of knowledge to fit your own preconceived social philosophy, you—you simply didn’t handle the job in a way I thought proper.”

  “And therefore,” Havig asked quietly, “you took it upon yourself to attempt to destroy my reputation and standing in the academic community.”

  “I merely wrote a dissenting opinion,” shot back Bernard hotly. “I couldn’t let your statements stand unanswered. And the Journal saw fit to print it. It…”

  “It was a malicious, slanderous article,” Havig said, without raising his voice to the level Bernard had adopted. “Under the guise of scholarship you covered me with unwarranted ridicule and cast abuse on my private beliefs…”

  “Which were relevant to the argument you were presenting!”

  “Nonetheless, your entire attitude, Dr. Bernard, was an unscholarly one. Your emotional attack on me clouded the issue and made it impossible for disinterested observers to see what the point of dissent between us really was. Your article was a display of wit—a quite scintillating display, I am told—but hardly a scholastic refutation.”

  Stone and Dominici had stood by somewhat puzzledly through the rapid-fire interchange of accusations. Now, evidently, Stone had decided that the bickering had gone far enough. He chuckled—the mollifying chuckle of the professional diplomat—and said wryly, “Evidently you gentlemen are old friends, even though you’ve never met. Or should I say more accurately old enemies?”

  Bernard glowered at the Neopuritan. Damned pious fraud, he thought. “We’ve had our disagreements scholastically,” Bernard admitted.

  “You aren’t going to carry those disagreements along for ten-thousand light-years, are you?” Dominici asked. “It’s going to make things damned uncomfortable in that ship if you two will be battling over Etruscan morphemes all the while, you know.”

  Bernard let a smile cross his face. He was not particularly disposed to be friendly toward Havig, but there was nothing to be gained by continuing the quarrel. The causes, he thought, lay too deep to be resolved easily. He was convinced that Havig hated him bitterly, and could not be soothed; still, the harmony of the expedition was important. Bernard said, “I suppose we can forget the Etruscans for this trip. Eh, Havig? Our quarrel was pretty small beer, after all.”

  He extended his hand. After a moment the towering Neopuritan grudgingly took it. The shake was brief; hands dropped quickly back to sides. Bernard moistened his lips. He and Havig had battled viciously over what was, indeed, a minor technical point. It was one of those quarrels that specialists often engage in when their separate specialties meet at a common point of junction. But it hardly was a good omen if he and Havig were part of the same team; the fundamental gap in their beliefs would be too great to allow of any real cooperation, Bernard thought.

  “Well,” said Roy Stone nervously, “we’ll be leaving almost any minute now.”

  “The Technarch said we’d have at least until tonight,” Bernard said.

  “Yes. But we’re all assembled, you see. And the ship and crew are ready as well. So there’s no point in delaying any farther.”

  “The Technarch wastes no time,” Havig muttered darkly.

  “There isn’t much time to be wasted,” Stone replied. “The quicker we get out there and deal with those aliens, the more certain we can be of preventing war between the two cultures.”

  “War’s inevitable, Stone,” said Dominici doggedly. “You don’t have to be a sociologist to see that. Two cultures are colliding. We’re just wasting time and breath by going out there to head off the inevitable.”

  “If that’s the way you feel,” Bernard said, “why did you agree to go along?”

  “Because the Technarch asked me to go,” Dominici said simply. “I needed no better reason. But I’m not confident of success.”

  The door irised open suddenly. Technarch McKenzie entered, a bulky, powerful figure in his formal robes. Technarchs were chosen for their size and bearing as well as for their qualities of mind.

  “Have you four managed to introduce yourselves to each Other?” McKenzie asked.

  “Yes, Excellency,” Stone said.

  McKenzie smiled. “You’ll be leaving in four hours from Central Australia. We’ll use the transmat in the next room. Commander Laurance and his crew are already out there, giving the ship its final checkdown.” The Technarch’s eyes flicked meaningfully from Bernard to Havig, and back. “I’ve picked you four for your abilities, understand. I know some of you have had differences professionally. Forget them. Is that understood?”

  Bernard nodded. Havig grunted assent.

  “Good,” the Technarch snapped. “I’ve appointed Dr. Bernard as nominal leader of the expedition. All that means is that final decisions will rest with him in case of absolute dead-lock. If any of you object, speak up right now.”

  The Technarch looked at Havig. But no one objected.

  McKenzie went on, “I don’t need to tell you to cooperate with Commander Laurance and his crew in every way possible. They’re fine men, but they’ve just had one grueling voyage, and now they’re going right out again on another one. Don’t grate on their nerves. It can cost you all your lives if one of them pushes the wrong button.”

  The Technarch paused as if expecting final questions. None came. Turning, he led the way to the adjoining transmat cubicle. Stone, Havig, and Dominici followed, with Bernard bringing up the rear.

  We’re an odd lot to be going starward, Bernard thought. But the Technarch must know what he’s doing. At least, I hope he does.

  FOUR

  One thing mankind had forgotten how to do, in the peaceful years of expansion under the Archonate: it had forgotten how to wait. The transmat provided instantaneous transport and communication; from any point with
in the 400-light-year radius of Terra’s sphere of dominion, any other point could be reached instantaneously. Such convenience does not breed a culture of patient men. Of all Terra’s sons, only a special few knew how to wait. They were the spacemen who piloted the lonely plasma-drive ships outward into the night, bearing with them the transmat generators that would make their destinations instantaneously accessible to their fellow men.

  Someone had to make the trip by slow freight first. Spacemen knew how to wait out the empty hours, the endless circlings of the clock-hands. Not so others; they fidgeted the hours past.

  The XV-ftl had left Earth at a three-g acceleration hurling a fiery jet of stripped nuclei behind it until it had built up to a velocity of three-fourths that of light. The plasma-drive was shut down, and the ship coasted onward at a speed fast enough to drive it nearly five times around the Earth in a twinkling of an eye. And its four passengers fretted in an agony of impatience.

  Bernard stared without comprehending at the pages of his book. Havig paced. Dominici ground his teeth together and narrowed his forehead till his frowning brows met. Stone haunted the vision port, peering at the frosty brilliance of the stars as if searching in them for the answer to some wordless question.

  The four men were quartered together, in the rear compartment of the slender ship. Fore, Laurance and his four crewmen were stationed. When acceleration had ended, Bernard went forward to watch them at work. It was like observing the priests of some arcane rite. Laurance stood in the center of the control panel like a tree in a storm, while about him the others carried on in a furious rage of energy. Nakamura, eyes hooded by the viewpiece of an astrogating device, chanted numbers to Clive; Clive integrated them and passed them to Hernandez, who fed them to a computer. Peterszoon correlated; Laurance coordinated. Each man had his job, each did it well. Bernard turned away, impressed by their fierce efficiency, feeling a layman’s awe.

  And no doubt they think it’s just as mysterious to write a sonnet or formulate theorems in sociometrics, he thought. Complexity is all a matter of viewpoint. Chalk up another score for relativistic philosophy.

  The hours dragged mercilessly. Some time later that day, when the four passengers were coming to their breaking-point, the door to their compartment opened and the crewman named Clive entered.

  He was a small man, built on a slight scale, with a mocking, youthful face and unruly, sttangely graying hair. He smiled and said, “We’re passing across the orbit of Pluto. Commander Laurance says for me to tell you that we’ll be makings the mass-time conversion any minute now.”

  “Will there be warning?” Dominici asked. “Or will it—just happen?”

  “You’ll know about it. We’ll sound a gong, for one thing. But you can’t miss it.”

  “Thank God we’re out of the solar system,” Bernard said fervently. “I thought the first leg of the trip would last forever.”

  Clive chuckled. “You realize you’ve covered four billion miles in less than a day?”

  “It seems like so much longer.”

  “The medieval spacemen used to be glad if they could make it to Mars in a year,” Clive said. “You think this is bad? You ought to see what it’s like to make a plasma-drive hop between stars. Like five years in one little ship so you can plant a transmat pickup on Betelgeuse XXIX. That’s when you learn how to be patient.”

  “How long will we be in warp-drive?” Stone asked.

  “Seventeen hours. Then it’ll take a few hours more to decelerate. Call it a day between now and landing.” The little spaceman showed yellowed teeth. “Imagine that! A day and a half to cover ten thousand light-years, and you guys are complaining!” He doubled up with laughter, slapping his thigh. Bernard and the other three watched the spaceman’s amusement without comment.

  Then Clive was serious again. “Remember—when you hear the gong, we’re converting.”

  “Should we strap down?”

  Clive shook his head. “There’s no change in velocity; you won’t feel any jolt.” He grinned. “Maybe you won’t feel anything at all. We’re still kinda new at this faster-than-light stuff, y’know.”

  There was no reply. Clive shrugged and walked out, letting the bulkhead swing shut behind him.

  Bernard laughed. “He’s right, of course. We’re idiots for being so impatient. It’s just that we’re accustomed to getting places the instant we want to get there. To them, this trip must seem ridiculously fast.”

  “I don’t care how fast it seems to them,” Dominici said tightly. “Sitting around in a little cabin for hour after hour is hell for me. And for all the rest of us.”

  “Perhaps you can now see the advantages of learning to resign yourself to the existence of discomfort,” advised Havig gravely. “Impatience is unwise. It leads to anger, anger to rashness, rashness to sin. But…”

  Dominici whirled to face the Neopuritan, a muscle cording in his cheek. The biophysicist snapped heatedly, “Don’t hand me any of your filthy piousness, Havig! I’m tensed up and I’m damned if I like being cooped up, and words aren’t going to make me feel any better! And anyway…”

  “Not words, no,” Havig said equably. “But the truths that lie behind the words are important. The truth of seeing yourself in relation to Eternity—of knowing that a momentary delay is of no importance—of seeing your place in the vast mechanism of the universe—this helps one overcome the itch of impatience.”

  “Will you keep that to yourself?” Dominici shouted.

  “Hold it, hold it, both of you!” Stone broke in. The chubby diplomat seemed to be cast in a permanent role as peacemaker in the expedition. “Calm down, Dominici. Steady. You aren’t making it any easier for us by blowing your stack. Just ease off.”

  “He had provocation,” Bernard said, glaring at Havig. “Mr. Gloom over there in the corner was handing out free advice. That’s enough to touch anyone off. I’m surprised you didn’t bring a bunch of tracts along to distribute, Havig.”

  An uncharacteristic flicker of amusement appeared on the Neopuritan’s face. “My apologies. I was trying to relieve the general tension you others feel, not to increase it. Perhaps I erred in speaking up. It seemed my duty, that’s all.”

  “We aren’t convertible,” Bernard said bluntly.

  “We teach, but we do not proselytize,” Havig replied levelly. “I was only trying to help.”

  “It wasn’t needed.”

  Stone sighed. “Some fine bunch of treatymakers we are! You’ll all be leaping for each other’s throats before long if this goes…”

  The gong sounded suddenly, resonating through the cabin with an impact that everyone felt. It was a deep, full-throated bonging chime, repeated three times, dying away slowly after the last with a shimmer of harmonics.

  The quarrel ended as though a curtain had been brought down to separate the quarrellers.

  “We’re making the conversion,” Dominici muttered hoarsely. He swung around to face the wall, and Bernard realized in some surprise, by observing the motions Dominici’s right elbow was describing, that the seemingly skeptical biophysicist was making the sign of the cross.

  Bernard felt uncomfortable. Although not a religious man himself, he wished he could commend himself in some way to a watchful deity, and take comfort therein. As it was, he could do no more than trust to good fortune. He felt monumentally alone, with the dark night of the universe only inches from him beyond the walls of the ship. And soon not even the universe would be there.

  Distressed, Bernard looked at his fellow voyagers. Havig was moving his lips in silent prayer, eyes open but lost in contemplation of the Eternity that now was so near. Dominici’s hoarse whisper rasped across the room, intoning Latin words Bernard knew only from his studies. Stone, evidently like Bernard a man without religious affiliation, had lost some of his cheery ruddiness of cheek, and sat staring leadenly at the wall opposite him, trying to look unconcerned.

  They waited.

  If the hours since their blastoff from Earth had seemed l
ong, the minutes immediately following the gong were eternities. No one spoke. Bernard sat back, tasting the coppery taste of fear in his mouth, and wondering what he was afraid of that turned his tongue so dry.

  He had no clear idea of what effect to anticipate as they made the conversion. Moments passed, and then he felt a dull vibration, heard a thrumming sound: the mighty Daviot-Leeson generators building up potential, most likely. Bernard knew about as much of the theory as any intelligent layman might. In a moment or two, he realized, a fist of energy would lash out in cosmic violence, sunder the continuum, and create a doorway through which the XV-ftl might glide.

  Into where?

  Into what kind of universe?

  Bernard’s mind could form no picture of it. All he knew was that they would enter some adjoining universe where distances were irrational figures, where objects might simultaneously occupy the same space. A universe that had been mapped—how accurately, he wondered?—in five years of experimental work, and now was being navigated by bold men who plunged onward with but the foggiest concept of where they were or where they might be heading.

  The thrumming grew louder.

  “When does it happen?” Stone asked.

  Bernard shrugged. In the silence, he heard himself saying, “I guess it must take a couple of minutes for the generators to build up the charge. And then we go kicking through…”

  The change came.

  The first hint was the flickering of the lights, only momentarily, as the great power surge drained the dynamos. The only other immediate effect was a psychological one: Bernard felt cut loose, severed from all he knew and trusted, cast into a darkness so mighty it was beyond comprehension by mortal man.

  The feeling passed. Bernard took a deep breath. Nothing was different, after all. The sensation of loneliness, of separation, that had been nothing but the trick of an overeager imagination.