On Patrol ptp-3

by Stanisław Lem

  From time to time, despite the zero gravity, he would tire of sitting in the same position, adjust the angle of the contour couch in which he was pinioned, and shift his gaze from left to right—without, strange as it may seem, distinguishing any of the 311 gauges, instrument lights, and pulsating dials and displays, as routinely familiar to him as the features of a face whose expression can be read without reference to any parting of the brows, arching of the lips, or pattern of wrinkles on the forehead. Just so, one glance, and dials, control lights—everything—would merge to form a single whole, a message telling him that all systems were go. Looking straight ahead, he commanded a view of both stellar screens—and between them, framed by a yellow, dome-shaped helmet partially obscuring chin and forehead, his own face.

  In between the two stellar screens was a mirror, rather modest in size but mounted in such a way that a pilot could not possibly escape his own reflection. What it was actually doing there, what purpose it served, was never explained. That is to say, it was explained, but the rationale given, while ingenious, fooled hardly anyone. The mirrors were the brainchild of psychologists. Man, according to them, when subjected to long periods of unrelieved solitude, is apt to lose control over his own mind and emotions, can be lulled imperceptibly into a dreamless, wakeful sleep from which he is not always able to waken in time. Some have been known to fall victim to hallucinations of obscure origin, to fits of anxiety or severe emotional outbursts, and the ability to control one’s own physiognomy is thought to be an excellent corrective, though, to be sure, it was no fun having to stare at one’s own face for hours on end and dutifully record its every expression. And no one can appreciate this better than the pilots of patrolships. It may begin innocently enough: you make a face, you frown or grin at your own reflection, and that unleashes a torrent of grimaces, one more contorted than the next. That’s what can happen when a situation so contrary to nature goes beyond normal human endurance.

  Fortunately, Pirx was not so infatuated with his own image as others were with theirs. Though difficult to verify, stories were told of those who, overcome by a debilitating boredom, were given to such embarrassing acts as spitting at their own reflection, and how, overwhelmed with shame, and in violation of all the rules, they would unfasten their straps, get up, and proceed to walk—or rather to swim—through the cabin’s zero-gravity atmosphere to the mirror, to somehow clean it before landing. There were some who stubbornly maintained that Wuertz had drilled his ship thirty-three meters into the concrete landing strip because he had put off cleaning his mirror until the moment of reentry.

  Pilot Pirx had never experienced such symptoms, much less felt the temptation to spit at his own reflection—the struggle to resist often led to severe psychological damage that could have been amusing only to those who have never flown a lonely patrol. In the end, even during his worst spells, Pirx had always found something to distract him, some dependable spool around which to wind his jumbled thoughts and emotions, like a long and tangled thread.

  The dial—the normal one, measuring time—showed 11:00 P.M. In thirteen minutes he would reach his orbit’s aphelion. He coughed once or twice into the microphone to test it, on a whim made the computer derive the fourth root of 8769983410567396, then showed not the slightest interest when the computer displayed the answer with the utmost speed, grinding out the digits and jiggling them nervously in its CRTs as if it were a matter of life and death; and was thinking that the first thing he’d do after landing would be to toss a glove out through the hatch door—just for kicks—light up a smoke, march down to the mess hall, order himself something hot and spicy, seasoned with paprika, and wash it down with a tall draft of beer (he was a great beer lover)—when he spotted a light.

  He had been monitoring the left-front video screen, with one of those seemingly unseeing looks of his, but mentally already back in the mess hall (where he could almost smell the dark-brown camp fries, a whole batch of them, prepared especially for him), when into the center of the screen crept this luminous white dot, the sight of which stiffened his whole body with such a jolt that if not for his straps he would have slammed right into the ceiling.

  The screen measured about a meter in diameter, pitch-black except for Rho Ophiuchi in the center, and the Milky Way, dissected by a yawning black void that stretched clear to the other side of the screen, which was bordered on either side by glittering Stardust. This perfect still-life spectacle was, slowly but steadily, invaded by a tiny brilliant light, which was not so tiny, however, that it couldn’t be distinguished from the stars. But then, it was not the brightness of it that had caught his attention, as much as the fact that it moved.

  Luminous moving dots in space usually mean one thing: a ship’s navigation lights. As a rule, a ship’s lights are not turned on except in response to a radio call, for purposes of identification. Different ships display different kinds of lights: passenger ships are identified by one kind, freighters by another, and the same applies to high-speed ballistic rockets, patrolships, rescue ships, tankers, and so on. The lights are mounted variously, depending on the ship, and they come in every conceivable color except one—white—to make the ships distinguishable at all times from the stars. When two or more vehicles are flying in tandem, a white light on the lead ship can too easily be mistaken for a stationary light, in which case the pilot following behind runs the risk of going off course.

  But the little speck floating leisurely across the screen was white as could be, and Pirx could actually feel his eyeballs coming loose from their sockets. Not once did he blink, afraid that he might lose track of it if he did—but the white dot sauntered gingerly along, undisturbed, now only a dozen or so centimeters away from the opposite side of the screen. Another minute and it would vanish from sight.

  Instinctively, Pirx’s hands went straight for the controls. The reactor, which had been idling, responded with instantaneous thrust, the acceleration shoving Pirx back into the seat’s foam-rubber cushion… stars scudding across the screen… the Milky Way running downhill, very much like a road of milk… This brought the mobile speck to a standstill, with the ship’s nose following right on its tail, aiming at it like a hunting dog pointing at a pheasant in the brush. Now was that classy handling, or wasn’t it?

  The whole maneuver consumed a mere ten seconds.

  Now, for the first time, he had the leisure to reflect, and it slowly dawned on him that what he was seeing was a hallucination, because such things were unprecedented. This deduction did him credit. On the whole, people tend to trust too much in the evidence of their senses; if they should happen to see a deceased acquaintance in public, they would sooner believe in a resurrection than admit to their own insanity.

  Pilot Pirx groped in one of the seat’s side pockets, pulled out a small flask, inserted its two small glass tubes into his nostrils, and inhaled until his eyes began to water. Psychraine was potent enough to disrupt the cataleptic trances of a Yogi or the mystical visions of a saint. But, much to his chagrin, the light continued its peregrinations in the center of the left screen. Having done the prescribed thing, he returned the flask to its proper place, maneuvered the ship’s rudders slightly to align himself with the other, and checked the radar to get a fix on the luminous object.

  And here he was in for his second shock: the meteoradar screen was blank. Its green tracing beam, incandescent as a strip of phosphorus exposed to a strong dose of solar radiation, swept around in a continuous circle, but without showing the slightest trace of any light—nothing. An absolute blank.

  Pirx was not so foolish as to think that he was pursuing a spirit with a shining halo. The fact was, he didn’t believe in spirits, although occasionally, especially in the company of women, he might shoot the breeze about them, but even then it was not born of any spiritualistic convictions.

  Of one thing he was sure: what he was following was not a dead celestial body, because such an object will always reflect a radar tracking beam, will always show up as a blip. Only
objects that are artificially made and externally treated with a substance capable of absorbing, neutralizing, and dispersing centimeter waves will not produce any optical echoes.

  Pilot Pirx cleared his throat and spoke deliberately, his Adam’s apple, with each measured phrase, bobbing up and down and pressing lightly against the laryngophone attached to his neck.

  “Patrolship AMU-111 calling object flying in sector one-thousand-two-point-two, steering a course approaching sector one-thousand-four-hundred-four, and showing one navigation light. Request your call numbers. Over.”

  He waited for the response.

  Seconds passed, the seconds turned into minutes—still no answer. Instead, Pirx noticed that the light was fading, which meant it was receding. Although the radar telemeter had flunked the test, he still had the more primitive optical range finder in reserve. He stretched one leg, pushed a pedal, and the range finder, similar in appearance to a telescope, dropped down from above.

  Pirx brought it up close to his eyes and adjusted the focus.

  He located the dot immediately—and discovered something else while he was at it. Magnified now by the lens, the speck assumed the proportions of a pea when seen from a distance of 5 meters—which, by standards prevailing in outer space, was nothing short of gargantuan. Not only that, but its somewhat flattened surface was traversed by a number of tiny dark squiggles, much as if several thick black hairs were being pulled across the front lens. The squiggles were just as blurry and indistinct, though constantly in motion—always from right to left.

  Pirx tried to increase the sharpness of the image, but the luminous speck adamantly refused to be focused; so, using a second prism, one designed especially for this purpose, he cut the image in two, brought the two halves together—with positive results—checked the scale, and received his third shock.

  The shining object was only 4 kilometers away! This was equivalent to driving a racing car at top speed and suddenly discovering that 5 millimeters away from you is another car—in space, a proximity of 4 kilometers is just as lethal.

  Pirx was running out of ammunition. He directed the outer thermocouple in the direction of the light, with the remote-control lever aimed the target finder straight at the milky-white dot, and read off the temperature out of the corner of his eye: 24 degrees Kelvin.

  That meant the light had the same temperature as ambient space—25 degrees above absolute zero.

  That cinched it. A luminous, self-propelled light in space? Never! But just because it was there, dead ahead of him, he gave chase.

  The light was growing visibly—and rapidly—fainter. A minute later he verified that it had gained a full 100 kilometers on him. He increased his velocity.

  Then the most uncanny thing of all happened.

  First the light deliberately let him gain ground—letting him get within 80, 70, then 30 kilometers—before jumping out in front again. Pirx accelerated to 75 kilometers per second; the light, to 76. Pirx applied more thrust, but this time he didn’t pussyfoot around. He opened the jets to half-power, unleashing a powerful forward thrust; the triple gravity shoved him back into the seat’s padded cushion. His AMU had a small rest mass, its rate of acceleration being roughly equivalent to that of a racing car. Before long he was hitting 140.

  The little light hit 140.5.

  Pirx was beginning to feel hot and clammy. He applied maximum thrust. His AMU-111 hummed; his tachometer, whose readings were based on fixed stars, climbed steadily higher: 155… 168… 190… 200.

  At 200 he took a peek through the range finder, which, considering the 4g, was a feat worthy of a decathlon athlete.

  He was gaining on the light, which swelled in size as the gap between them closed to 20, then 10, and finally 3 kilometers, at which distance it looked larger than a pea when seen from an arm’s length away. The dark, blurry shapes continued to shunt across its surface, whose brightness was comparable to stars of the second magnitude—except that it resembled more a disk than a starlike dot.

  His AMU-111 was giving everything it had, swelling Pirx with pride. During that sudden burst to maximum thrust, not a thing in the cabin had shaken—not a single vibration! The reaction was in the axis of acceleration; the jets were performing to perfection; the reactor was working like a champ.

  The light kept closing in, though at a slower rate of speed. When it was no more than 2 kilometers off board, Pirx’s wheels began to turn.

  The whole thing looked fishy as hell. A light, not attached to any terrestrial ship. Hm… Space pirates, maybe? What a laugh. Even if there were such things as space pirates, what would they be doing in such a godforsaken hole? The light had an extraordinary speed range; it could accelerate as sharply as it braked. And moody, too; first retreating, then letting itself be gradually overtaken. And that, more than anything, made him antsy. It was almost as if the thing were baiting him, stringing him along like a decoy, like a worm dangling on the end of a hook.

  And immediately he conjured up the image of a hook.

  “Not so fast, fella!” Pirx said to himself, and he braked as abruptly as if he were on a collision course with an asteroid, though the radar was blank and the video screens likewise empty. Instinctively he bent his neck, tucked in his chin, and felt the automatic compressor fill his suit with an extra supply to compensate for the sudden acceleration, which didn’t stop him from having a momentary blackout.

  The gravimeter plunged to -7, hovered there for a second, then climbed back up to -4. His AMU-111 had lost nearly a third of its velocity, dropping down to 145 kilometers per second.

  Where was the light? For a moment he was afraid he’d lost track of it. No, it was there—just farther away, that’s all. The optical tracking device gave the distance as 240 kilometers. During those brief two seconds it could have increased its lead by a great deal more than that. That it hadn’t meant that it must have braked within seconds of when he did!

  Then—later he was amazed that it could have taken him so long—he realized he was on the trail of that mysterious something encountered by Thomas and Wilmer while on patrol.

  Until now he had not been conscious of any danger. Suddenly he was afraid—a momentary case of the jitters. It was highly unlikely, of course, but supposing the light did belong to an extraterrestrial ship…?

  The light was moving closer… killing speed… closing the gap… 60… 50… 30… He decided to nudge a little closer, feathering the thrust… and watched in amazement as the thing ballooned—now only 2 kilometers off his bow!

  On the other side of the couch was a pocket containing a pair of 24-power night glasses—used mainly in emergencies, in case of a radar malfunction, for example, or when approaching a satellite from the night side. But at the moment they were just what the doctor ordered. Their magnifying power was strong enough to bring the light to within the 100-meter range, and what he saw was a small disk, the color of diluted milk, similar in size to the Moon when viewed from Earth, its otherwise smooth surface marred by a continual procession of vertical smudges. When it eclipsed the stars, they faded only gradually, as if the disk’s outer rim was somehow thinner and more transparent than at the center.

  But around the disk there was nothing, no luminosity to block out the starlight. Now, when examined through binoculars from a distance of 100 meters, a spaceship looks pretty much the size of a desk drawer. But there was nothing like that in sight, not a sign of any vehicle. And the little disk was definitely not somebody’s navigation light or exhaust flare.

  It was just what it appeared to be: a solitary, self-propelled, little white light.

  It was enough to drive a man batty!

  He felt a tremendous urge to fire a shot at the thing, but without any weapons aboard—the regulations made no provision for them—that would have been no easy task. There were only two things Pirx could fire from the cabin: himself and a balloon probe. The patrolships were designed such that a pilot could eject himself in his encapsulated seat, together with a braking chute. This wa
s done only as a last resort, and obviously there was no going back once a pilot had bailed out. That left the balloon probe—a remarkably simple device, consisting of a thin-walled rubber balloon that when deflated rolled up tightly enough to be a spear. To enhance its visibility, it was treated with an aluminum coating. Sometimes a pilot has a hard time telling by his aerodynamometer readings whether or not he has entered a planet’s atmosphere. Most importantly, he will want to know if any rarefied gas is lying in his path. When in doubt, he will fire the balloon, which inflates automatically and travels at a speed somewhat greater than the ship’s velocity. Because of its brightness, it is visible to the naked eye from as far away as 5 to 6 kilometers. If it encounters rarefied gas, the friction will cause it to heat up and explode. That’s when the pilot knows it’s time to start braking.

  Pirx did his level best to aim the ship’s nose directly at the milky-white disk. Without the radar to guide him, he had to rely on the telescopic range finder. But trying to hit a target that size from a distance of almost 2 kilometers is no mean feat. Whenever he went to fire the balloon, the little disk would slip out of the line of fire. And no sooner would he bring his nose around, gently feathering his yaw jets, than the disk would do a nifty little sidestep and pop up again in the center of the screen. It repeated this maneuver four times in a row, each time with greater speed and facility, as if it were already starting to second-guess him. And judging by the way it flew slightly off course, at an angle, it was clear the disk had no intention of letting the AMU-111 fire point-blank at it.

  This was fantastic. To react to such minute changes in his ship’s attitude, at a distance of 200 meters, the disk would have had to be using a telescope of gigantic proportions—of which nary a trace. But not only was it capable of carrying out a tricky evasive maneuver, it did so with only a split-second delay at the most.