35 – Adrift
The unexpected news that their sister ship Universe was on the way – and might arrive far sooner than anyone had dared to dream – had an effect upon the morale of Galaxy's crew that could only be called euphoric. The mere fact that they were drifting helplessly on a strange ocean, surrounded by unknown monsters, suddenly seemed of minor importance.
As did the monsters themselves, though they made interesting appearances from time to time. The giant 'sharks' were sighted occasionally, but never came near the ship, even when garbage was dumped overboard. This was quite surprising; it strongly suggested that the great beasts – unlike their terrestrial counterparts – had a good system of communication. Perhaps they were more closely allied to dolphins than to sharks.
There were many schools of smaller fish, which no-one would have given a second glance in a market on Earth. After several attempts, one of the officers – a keen angler – managed to catch one with an unbaited hook. He never brought it in through the airlock – the Captain would not have permitted it, anyway – but measured and photographed it carefully before returning it to the sea.
The proud sportsman had to pay a price for his trophy, however. The partial-pressure spacesuit he had worn during the exercise had the characteristic 'rotten eggs' stink of hydrogen sulphide when he brought it back into the ship, and he became the butt of innumerable jokes. It was yet another reminder of an alien, and implacably hostile, biochemistry.
Despite the pleas of the scientists, no further angling was allowed. They could watch and record, but not collect, And anyway, it was pointed out, they were planetary geologists, not naturalists. No-one had thought of bringing formalin – which probably would not work here in any event.
Once, the ship drifted for several hours through floating mats or sheets of some bright green material. It formed ovals, about ten metres across, and all of approximately the same size, Galaxy ploughed through them without resistance, and they swiftly reformed behind her. It was guessed that they were colonial organisms of some kind.
And one morning, the officer of the watch was startled when a periscope rose out of the water and he found himself staring into a mild, blue eye which, he said when he had recovered, looked like a sick cow's. It regarded him sadly for a few moments, without much apparent interest, then slowly returned to the ocean,
Nothing seemed to move very fast here, and the reason was obvious. This was still a low-energy world – there was none of the free oxygen that allowed the animals of Earth to live by a series of continuous explosions, from the moment they started to breathe at birth. Only the 'shark' of that first encounter had shown any sign of violent activity – in its last, dying spasm.
Perhaps that was good news for men. Even if they were encumbered with spacesuits, there was probably nothing on Europa that could catch them -even if it wanted to.
Captain Laplace found wry amusement in handing over the operation of his ship to the purser; he wondered if this situation was unique, in the annals of space and sea.
Not that there was a great deal that Mr Lee could do. Galaxy was floating vertically, one-third out of the water, heeling slightly before a wind that was driving it at a steady five knots. There were only a few leaks below the waterline, easily handled. Equally important, the hull was still airtight.
Although most of the navigation equipment was useless, they knew exactly where they were. Ganymede gave them an accurate fix on their emergency beacon every hour, and if Galaxy kept to her present course she would make landfall on a large island within the next three days. If she missed that, she would head on out to the open sea, and eventually reach the tepidly boiling zone immediately underneath Lucifer. Though not necessarily catastrophic, that was a most unattractive prospect; Acting Captain Lee spent much of his time thinking of ways to avoid it.
Sails – even if he had suitable material and rigging – would make very little difference to their course. He had lowered improvised sea-anchors down to five hundred metres, looking for currents that might be useful, and finding none. Nor had he found the bottom; it lay unknown kilometres further down.
Perhaps that was just as well; it protected them from the submarine quakes that continually. racked this new ocean. Sometimes Galaxy would shake as if struck by a giant hammer, as a shockwave went racing by. In a few hours, a tsunami, dozens of metres high, would crash upon some Europan shore; but here in deep water the deadly waves were little more than ripples.
Several times, sudden vortexes were observed at a distance; they looked quite dangerous – maelstroms that might even suck Galaxy down to unknown depths – but luckily they were too far off to do more than make the ship spin around a few times in the water.
And just once, a huge bubble of gas rose and burst only a hundred metres away. It was most impressive, and everyone seconded the doctor's heartfelt comment: 'Thank God we can't smell it.'
It is surprising how quickly the most bizarre situation can become routine. Within a few days, life aboard Galaxy had settled down to a steady routine, and Captain Laplace's main problem was keeping the crew occupied. There was nothing worse for morale than idleness, and he wondered how the skippers of the old windjammers had kept their men busy on those interminable voyages. They couldn't have spent all their time scrambling up the rigging or cleaning the decks.
He had the opposite problem with the scientists. They were always proposing tests and experiments, which had to be carefully considered before they could be approved. And if he allowed it, they would have monopolized the ship's now very limited communications channels.
The main antenna complex was now being battered around at the waterline, and Galaxy could no longer talk directly to Earth. Everything had to be relayed through Ganymede, on a bandwidth of a few miserable megahertz. A single live video channel pre-empted everything else, and he had to resist the clamour of the terrestrial networks. Not that they would have a great deal to show their audiences, except open sea, cramped ship interiors, and a crew which, though in good spirits, was becoming steadily more hirsute.
An unusual amount of traffic seemed directed to Second Officer Floyd whose encrypted responses were so brief that they could not have contained much information. Laplace finally decided to have a talk to the young man.
'Mr Floyd,' he said, in the privacy of his cabin. 'I'd appreciate it if you would enlighten me about your part-time occupation.'
Floyd looked embarrassed, and clutched at the table as the ship rocked slightly in a sudden gust.
'I wish I could, sir, but I'm not permitted.'
'By whom, may I ask?'
'Frankly, I'm not sure.'
That was perfectly true. He suspected it was ASTROPOL, but the two quietly impressive gentlemen who had briefed him on Ganymede had unaccountably failed to provide this information.
'As captain of this ship – especially in the present circumstances – I would like to know what's going on here. If we get out of this, I'm going to spend the next few years of my life at Courts of Enquiry. And you'll probably be doing the same.'
Floyd managed a wry grin.
'Hardly worth being rescued, is it, Sir? All I know is that some high-level agency expected trouble on this mission, but didn't know what form it would take. I was just told to keep my eyes open. I'm afraid I didn't do much good, but I imagine I was the only qualified person they could get hold of in time.'
'I don't think you can blame yourself. Who would have imagined that Rosie -'
The Captain paused, struck by a sudden thought.
'Do you suspect anyone else?' He felt like adding 'Me, for instance?', but the situation was already sufficiently paranoiac.
Floyd looked thoughtful, then apparently came to a decision.
'Perhaps I should have spoken to you before, Sir, but I know how busy you've been. I'm sure Dr van der Berg is involved somehow. He's a Mede, of course; they're odd people, and I don't really understand them.' Or like them, he might have added. Too clannish – not really friendly to o
ffworlders. Still, one could hardly blame them; all pioneers trying to tame a new wilderness were probably much the same.
'Van der Berg – hmm. What about the other scientists?'
'They've been checked, of course. All perfectly legitimate, and nothing unusual about any of them.'
That was not altogether true. Dr Simpson had more wives than was strictly legal, at least at one time, and Dr Higgins had a large collection of most curious books. Second Officer Floyd was not quite sure why he had been told all this; perhaps his mentors merely wanted to impress him with their omniscience. He decided that working for ASTROPOL (or whoever it was) had some entertaining fringe benefits.
'Very well,' said the Captain, dismissing the amateur agent. 'But please keep me informed if you discover anything – anything at all– that might affect the safety of the ship.'
In the present circumstances, it was hard to imagine what that might be. Any further hazards seemed slightly superfluous.
36 – The Alien Shore
Even twenty-four hours before they sighted the island, it was still not certain whether Galaxy would miss it and be blown on out into the emptiness of the central ocean. Her position, as observed by the Ganymede radar, was plotted on a large chart which everyone aboard examined anxiously several times a day.
Even if the ship did reach land, her problems might be just beginning. She might be pounded to pieces on a rocky coast, rather than gently deposited on some conveniently shelving beach.
Acting Captain Lee was keenly aware of all these possibilities. He had once been shipwrecked himself, in a cabin cruiser whose engines had failed at a critical moment, off the island of Bali. There had been little danger, though a good deal of drama, and he had no wish to repeat the experience – especially as there was no coastguard here to come to the rescue.
There was a truly cosmic irony in their plight. Here they were, aboard one of the most advanced transportation devices ever made by man – capable of crossing the Solar System! – yet now they could not deflect it more than a few metres from its course. Nevertheless, they were not completely helpless; Lee still had a few cards to play.
On this sharply curving world, the island was only five kilometres away when they first sighted it. To Lee's great relief, there were none of the cliffs he had feared; nor, on the other hand, was there any sign of the beach he had hoped for. The geologists had warned him that he was a few million years too early to find sand here; the mills of Europa, grinding slowly, had not yet had time to do their work.
As soon as it was certain they would hit the land, Lee gave orders to pump out Galaxy's main tanks, which he had deliberately flooded soon after touchdown. Then followed a very uncomfortable few hours, during which at least a quarter of the crew took no further interest in the proceedings.
Galaxy rose higher and higher in the water, oscillating more and more wildly – then tumbled with a mighty splash, to lie along the surface, like the corpse of a whale in the bad old days when the catcher-boats pumped them full of air to stop them sinking. When he saw how the ship was lying, Lee adjusted her buoyancy again, until she was slightly stern-down, and the forward bridge was just clear of the water.
As he expected, Galaxy then swung broadside-on to the wind. Another quarter of the crew became incapacitated then, but Lee had enough helpers to get out the sea-anchor he had prepared for this final act. It was merely an improvised raft, made of empty boxes lashed together, but its drag caused the ship to point towards the approaching land.
Now they could see that they were heading – with agonizing slowness – towards a narrow stretch of beach, covered with small boulders. If they could not have sand, this was the best alternative...
The bridge was already over the beach when Galaxy grounded, and Lee played his last card. He had made only a single test-run, not daring to do more in case the abused machinery failed.
For the last time, Galaxy extended her landing gear. There was a grinding and shuddering as the pads on the underside dug their way into the alien beach. Now she was securely anchored against the winds and waves of this tideless ocean.
There was no doubt that Galaxy had found her final resting place – and, all too possibly, that of her crew.
V – THROUGH THE ASTEROIDS
37 – Star
And now Universe was moving so swiftly that its orbit no longer even remotely resembled that of any natural object in the Solar System. Mercury, closest to the Sun, barely exceeds fifty kilometres a second at perihelion; Universe had reached twice that speed in the first day – and at only half the acceleration it would achieve when it was lighter by several thousand tons of water.
For a few hours, as they passed inside its orbit, Venus was the brightest of all heavenly bodies, next to the Sun and Lucifer. Its tiny disc was just visible to the naked eye, but even the ship's most powerful telescopes showed no markings whatever. Venus guarded her secrets as jealously as Europa.
By going still closer to the Sun – well inside the orbit of Mercury – Universe was not merely taking a short cut, but was also getting a free boost from the Sun's gravitational field. Because nature always balances her books, the Sun lost some velocity in the transaction; but the effect would not be measurable for a few thousand years.
Captain Smith used the ship's perihelion passage to restore some of the prestige his foot-dragging had cost him.
'Now you know,' he said, 'exactly why I flew the ship through Old Faithful. If we hadn't washed all that dirt off the hull, by this time we'd be badly overheating. In fact, I doubt if the thermal controls would have handled the load – it's already ten times Earth level.' Looking – through filters that were almost black – at the hideously swollen Sun, his passengers could easily believe him. They were all more than happy when it had shrunk back to normal size – and continued to dwindle astern as Universe sliced across the orbit of Mars, outward bound on the final leg of its mission.
The 'Famous Five' had all adjusted, in their various ways, to the unexpected change in their lives. Mihailovich was composing copiously and noisily, and was seldom seen except when he emerged at meals, to tell outrageous stories and tease all available victims, especially Willis. Greenburg had elected himself, no-one dissenting, an honorary crew member, and spent much of his time on the bridge.
Maggie M viewed the situation with rueful amusement.
'Writers,' she remarked, 'are always saying what a lot of work they could do if they were only in some place with no interruptions – no engagements; lighthouses and prisons are their favourite examples. So I can't complain – except that my requests for research material keep getting delayed by high priority messages.'
Even Victor Willis had now come to much the same conclusion; he too was busily at work on sundry long-range projects. And he had an additional reason to keep to his cabin. It would still be several weeks before he looked as if he had forgotten to shave, and months before he returned to his full glory.
Yva Merlin spent hours every day in the entertainment centre, catching up – as she readily explained – with her favourite classics. It was fortunate that Universe's library and projection facilities had been installed in time for the voyage; though the collection was still relatively small, there was sufficient for several lifetimes of viewing.
All the famous works of visual art were there, right back to the flickering dawn of the cinema. Yva knew most of them, and was happy to share her knowledge.
Floyd, of course, enjoyed listening to her, because then she became alive – an ordinary human being, not an icon. He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.
One of the strangest experiences of Heywood Floyd's fairly eventful life was sitting in semi-darkness just behind Yva, somewhere outside the orbit of Mars, while they watched the original Gone with the Wind together. There were moments when he could see her famous profile silhouetted against that of Vivien Leigh, and could compare the two – though
it was impossible to say that one actress was better than the other; both were sui generis.
When the lights went up, he was astonished to see that Yva was crying. He took her hand and said tenderly: 'I cried too, when Bonny died.'
Yva managed a faint smile.
'I was really crying for Vivien,' she said. 'While we were shooting Two, I read a lot about her – she had such a tragic life. And talking about her, right out here between the planets, reminds me of something that Larry said when he brought the poor thing back from Ceylon after her nervous breakdown. He told his friends: "I've married a woman from outer space."
Yva paused for a moment, and another tear trickled (rather theatrically, Floyd could not help thinking) down her cheek.
'And here's something even stranger. She made her last movie exactly a hundred years ago – and do you know what it was?'
'Go on – surprise me again.'
'I expect it will surprise Maggie – if she's really writing the book she keeps threatening us with. Vivien's very last film was – Ship of Fools.'
38 – Icebergs of Space
Now that they had so much unexpected time on their hands, Captain Smith had finally agreed to give Victor Willis the long-delayed interview which was part of his contract. Victor himself had kept putting it off, owing to what Mihailovich persisted in calling his 'amputation'. As it would be many months before he could regenerate his public image, he had finally decided to do the interview off-camera; the studio on Earth could fake him in later with library shots.
They had been sitting in the Captain's still only partly furnished cabin, enjoying one of the excellent wines which apparently made up much of Victor's baggage allowance. As Universe would cut its drive and start coasting within the next few hours, this would be the last opportunity for several days. Weightless wine, Victor maintained, was an abomination; he refused to put any of his precious vintage into plastic squeezebulbs.
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