Tiger in the Stars

by Zach Hughes

  It is simple to say that our galaxy is a highly flattened discoidal system of stars with a radius in the order of 2,000 parsecs. Elementary school

  children could tell you that a parsec equals 3.26 light-years or 3.1 X 10 to the 13th power, kilometers. Most Earthlings older than two had seen a model of the galaxy, a slowly rotating wheel with a white core of dense stars, which have a central bulge when viewed head on. Seen from the top, the model shows the effects of the slow rotation. Groupings of stars trail into spiraling arms. On the model, Earth is an insignificant speck toward the inner end of the Orion arm, 30,000 parsecs outward from the center. The Orion Arm is 400 parsecs wide. Four hundred parsecs equal 1,304 light-years. Compared with the galactic core, the Orion Arm is thinly populated. Distances between stars are vast. Yet Plank, looking into the arm with the eyes of his starship body, saw a number of stars which, on occasion, awed him. Glowing salt on a black platter. By the millions. And he was among them. He could place his position, roughly. He was, however, denied that overall view, as if seeing the galaxy as a model. He knew that he was in the area of the inner extension of the arm. He could position the galactic core to his right and take into account the known and distant star markers. He knew where he was. He was in the ball park. But

  it was a ball park of such vast dimensions that finding his way to first base

  was, he had decided, going to be a long process of trial, search and failure. Still, it should have been simple. His mind contained the knowledge of the heavens as seen from both the Earth and the Centauri systems. He should have been able to relate those positions, zero in, find the characteristic glow of either Sol or the two Centauri stars and return home in one jump. He made the calculations again and again. Time after time the position was the relatively open areas of space outside the arm. He could only arrive at several conclusions. One, something had happened to his head. Something either accidental or deliberate to knock the sure knowledge of home from his brain. His present condition would have a bearing there. Some minute trauma resulting from his brain being taken from his body and being encapsulated as the driving force of a most impressive starship? Some deliberate alteration making it impossible for him to go home? Two, it was obvious that he had run afoul of some intelligence not from the old Earth. Earth science was not yet prepared to build a ship like the new Plank's Pride. Certainly a race capable of making Plank a starship was capable of making minute alterations in his head to prevent him from finding his way home. The question was, why? Why put him into a ship capable of leaping unlimited distances in an instant and then send him zigzagging down the Orion Arm toward Perseus, star-hopping, planet-checking. Plank knew that, for all practical purposes, he was immortal. Oh, he could die. If he were careless enough to dive into a star the ship would burn and he would no longer exist. But, as he discovered more and more about his new state, he realized that he was self-repairing, that nothing ever went wrong with the marvelous machinery anyway, and that he had nutrients to last 1,000 years. Time, then, was meaningless. It was inevitable that he would find home. He'd find it if it meant checking every star in the arm. He'd find it if it took 1,000 years. There were times when he questioned himself. Why was it so important that he find home. If he spent 100 years, Hara would be as old as his mother and would have, long since, forgotten him. If he found it in ten years, she'd be in her sixties, still a young woman, but what good would that do him, a blob of brain cells inside a casing of starship? His singleminded search was senseless. He had the capacity to explore the universe as no one of his race had ever explored. He drew his power from the stars themselves. He could

  travel any distance in an instant, as long as the straight line route was free

  of star bodies. In a few jumps he could be outside the galaxy, covering vast distance, shooting toward the globular clusters, the far galaxies, the remote extensions of the universe. It was as easy for him to travel intergalactic distances as to jump the few light-years between stars. But as he thought about it, a massive and heavy loneliness saddened him and he continued his star by star search, checking planets, finding a few life-zone worlds and duly recording their statistics and locations. In spite of everything, he was a man and he sought the company of man. He told himself that he would present himself as a gift to mankind, opening up the universe to them. He was deceptively simple in his workings, and he could be copied. In ten years, a fleet of starships could be flashing outward from Earth, solving the problems once and for all. And if it took him 500 years, well, the Earth would be there. Man had, at least, grown past the threat of self-extinction. He had not outgrown his urge to multiply, and he crowded every available corner of the Earth and tried, in slow, sublight ships, to transfer himself to other worlds. His population was limited by law but still crowded, straining the dwindling resources of the old planet. Hara would, in 500 years, be dead. That was a

  sadness. Still he pressed on, stargazing, plotting, leaping zigzag, covering the stars in a 400-parsec arc and swinging back, slowly, methodically, blinking in and out of time and space, using more time to approach a planet than in the travel from star to star. He was driven. He realized it. He believed the urge came from within himself, his need to find human company, to fill his empty cabins and corridors with laughing, warm, human forms. Behind him, blanked from his sensors, the dark ship followed with infinite patience. CHAPTER FOUR Commander Walker Heath was not happy on the moon, nor was he happy in his job. He felt that he'd been shafted when he was pulled off the blink project and he felt even more strongly that the service and the whole world had been shafted when Congress cut the funds of the project and, in effect, put it in eternal mothballs. Heath felt that he was being wasted, putting the same old information into the computer and coming out with the same old answers. He thought the work of Section X was a waste of time and he did not hesitate to tell anyone who would listen exactly how he felt. He'd always been that way and that explained, he knew, why he was only a commander after 80 years in the service. A tall, perpetually rumpled man. Heath had a shock of iron gray hair the consistency of small wire, a strong hooked nose, dark unhappy eyes and a mouth that smiled, his subordinates said, once every 50 years. He was brilliant, one of the three top drive engineers in the world. He was vocal. He was a man with an extremely short fuse. He believed in space and he believed that the salvation of mankind lay in space and he believed in the blink drive. He knew the hydrodrive inside out, had been mostly responsible for some improvements through the years, and he'd been on the first Centauri expedition. He had tried his best to convince the brass

  to let him ride one of the blink test vehicles. He had been at the console for

  each of the eleven blink tests. He knew the blink drive worked. He, himself, had pushed the button that sent the first blink vehicle a full light-year from Earth and he himself had pushed the button that sent the last ten off into nowhere. The first returned with proof she'd been out there, salt and Stardust on her tail. He had been a witness to the worth of old John Blink's wild-eyed idea of drawing power from the stars, from the sun. He

  had seen the test vehicle blink out one full light-year and he'd seen it blink back, all in the period of five minutes, with almost all of that time spent beyond, farther from Earth than any man-made object had ever ventured. Walker Heath had watched man open up the universe and he'd seen the universe shoot back and close itself, swallowing ten blink vehicles without a clue. They left and they didn't return. He knew they went out, because he could follow them with his instruments. A blinking ship sent a signal ahead of itself through time and space and made subtle disturbances of the very warp of the universe. All that could be measured. The first time

  the ship blinked out, rested, blinked back, there was jubilation at the blink base on the dark side. He wanted to ride the second one and they wouldn't allow him. And it didn't come back. Heath had smelled the far stars and he'd had to settle for a plodding, sublight drive to Centauri. He had that, at least. They couldn't take that away from him. He'd been t
o the stars, even though it was a near star. He knew that man would, eventually, discover the flaw in the blink drive and—shooting outward in millions—populate the planets of a thousand, a million stars. But at the moment he was facing a worried young first nav. officer across a cluttered desk, explaining why it would be useless for her to run the same information through his computer that he'd run 100 times. «Think you're going to find something the old man didn't?» he demanded crossly. «No,» Hara said. «I just want to know all there is to know about it.»

  «All there is to know,» Heath said, «is that they lift off at one end or the other and they don't land.» «You must have some ideas,» Hara said. «I have the idea that something happens to them,» Heath said. «But what?» she insisted. «They disappear.» «Why?» «They are eaten by a space dragon.» «Now we're getting somewhere,» Hara said with a smile. «At least that's a working theory.» Heath used his smile for that 50 years. «I like that,» he said. «Tell me about it,» Hara said. «Let's start from the beginning.» In the beginning, five ships went out toward the Centauri systems. They left at one-week intervals from the relatively new moon base and they stayed in contact for a few weeks and then they were simply out there on their own. Then, ten years later, they began to return. Ships one, two, three and four. That was it. Number five didn't come back. Five was lost in space, and memorial services were held on Earth and on the moon. But everyone was excited by man's first trip to a star, a trip that discovered two life-zone planets and several planets with raw materials greatly needed on Earth. The first colony ship went out and traffic became relatively dense between Earth and the Centauri systems, moving slightly less than light speed, taking ten years to complete the round trip. In 30 years a good sized colony was formed on each of the two habitable planets, and government ships were bringing back cargoes. Then the government opened up space to free enterprise making it possible for a venturesome man to buy his own ship and make the Centauri run. Three runs would take 30-plus years out of a man's life, but if they were successful runs he could spend the rest of his years any way he wanted. With life expectancy up to almost 200, most of it healthy and active, 30 years didn't seem a long time to men like Plank, who worked the planetary system to earn the down payment on a starship and then went winging outward to achieve their goals. There were casualties. Power failed on an incoming freighter, and she crashed into a crater and pulverized. But casualties were to be expected. A crash into the moon was something people could understand. The dead

  were given funeral rites suitable to space heroes, and other ships went out. «In the first 30 years, the unexplained disappearances were few,» Hara said. She was getting the facts verbally from Heath and from the computer readouts. «You'll notice that their frequency increases by a geometric ratio.» Heath said. «And, as they increased, the service began to make efforts to hush them up,» Hara said. «Had to,» Heath said testily. «The nuts were on to it. They were talking about how it was wrong to push into God's universe, and that God was warning us to stay home.» «According to this printout, a full two-thirds of all the disappearances have not been made public,» Hara said. «Aren't we risking the reputation

  of the service? There's enough opposition to space spending as it is. If the not-so-loyal opposition should find out we've covered up some rather serious information…» «They'd have the secretary's head for lunch,» Heath said. «And they'd push a 50 percent cut in funds through Congress.» He leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk. «But we've painted ourselves into a corner. At first we held back on giving out information about a ship here, a ship there. Then the total was so high that we couldn't release it all at once. Total shock if we suddenly announced that, instead of nine or ten ships, more than 30 have just vanished in space.» «Forty counting the blink test vehicles,» Hara said. «Not the same thing,» Heath said. «We're dealing with the true unknown, in the case of the blinks. We're entering a new ball game with a

  different set of rules. With the blink, it's just a matter of insufficient data.» «I don't see the difference,» Hara insisted. «Both types of ship disappear.» «But the manned ships do so in time and space,» Heath said with some irritation. «Are you sure that the blink ships don't?» When Heath looked at her blankly, she continued. «Could your instruments see or detect the blink ships at the other end of the jump?» «I like that,» Heath said. «No.» «So you're not sure that the ships didn't blink back into normal space and then disappear.» «It could have happened that way,» Heath admitted. «Yes, I like that.» He scratched his left knee musingly. «I see what you're getting at, young

  lady. Yes, you're right. Forty-plus ships have disappeared. All, presumably, at a considerable distance from the Earth. For example, the shortest jump we programed into a blink test ship was a quarter light-year. We were going to program some shorter jumps, but the program was stopped. At first, since we were dealing with something totally new, it was decided not to allow a ship to blink back into space too near Earth. We didn't know what happened when a ship came back in, you see. We had no idea what disturbance it would make. We knew what happened at the start of a blink, because old John Blink had sent small generators off into nowhere; so did we in the beginning of the program. The effects of reentry into normal space—» «If your blink ships went out for a quarter light-year, they'd be in the

  approximate position of turnover and the initial blast of deceleration for a homecoming ship,» Hara said. «A sudden and spectacular burst of power,» Heath mused. «Yes. However, we have to assume that the manned ships disappeared at turnover to gather any valid assumptions of correlation.» «If anything could go wrong, it would be at turnover,» Hara said. «You're moving at just under light, still pushing to maintain speed against the resistance of the constant. You cut power for a period of hours, turn the ship on her gyros, then build the drive to full power in a matter of minutes.» «It's all assumption,» Heath said. «And I must say that I resent highly your walking in here and coming up with an assumption I should have made years ago.» «Sorry about that,» smiled Hara. «We know what happens when a ship turns and builds power to decelerate,» Heath said. He let his feet drop to the floor and squinted at Hara. «How much do you care about this Plank of yours?» «Quite a lot,» she said. «Enough to stick your pretty neck out?» «That depends on the possibility of it doing any good,» she said. «There is a completed blink test vehicle in mothballs over on the dark side,» Heath said. «It could be made operational within weeks. In the meantime, we could mount the control console aboard a hydrodrive ship. Take both of them out. Move the blink ship in short jumps. Find out what happens when she comes back into normal space.» «I like that,» Hara said, smiling. «It won't be simple,» Heath said. «But the secretary is coming in a few days. Annual inspection. He knows me and thinks I'm a pest. He wouldn't give me two minutes of his time. But a pretty first nav. officer just back from her second Centauri run…» «What do you expect me to do,» she asked, «vamp him?» «If all else fails,» Heath said, «I expect you to blackmail him.» «I don't like that,» Hara said. «Do you want to be an admiral or find out what happened to Plank?» «Both,» Hara said. «Forget it.» CHAPTER FIVE Secretary Maxwell Seagle was not a run-of-the-mill politician. He had

  the look of a spacer about him. In the last years of his reasonably expected vigor, as he faced retirement and the brief downhill plunge of old age, he stood tall and straight. As a young man he'd made Mars flights on the old solid fuel rockets and he had fought for space from the time he was an adult. He had tightly curled gray hair that had once been blond; his skin, although showing the effects of his age, was still bronzed and tight on his well-formed face. He had been Space Secretary for three decades. On his rare inspection trips Seagle wore the uniform of a fleet admiral. He enjoyed the trips, looked forward to them. He was always trying to get away from his office, and the pressure of his position was always preventing it. During the trip out on the moon ferry he had scant time to look out a viewer to see Earth behind him, blue and beautiful, because he was
on the radio with various congressmen and senators lobbying against still another attempt to cut space's budget. But as the ferry neared and began preparations for landing, he cut off his political activity and concentrated on the sensation, always new, of landing on a surface other than Earth's. He found the moon base to be functioning perfectly, the service ships to be in gleaming condition, the men and women of the service sharp and eager. He donned LSG for his self-promised excursion outside, hopped and grinned like a small boy, ate a huge meal and toasted the future of the

  service to a gathering of officers and civilian workers. He slept the sleep of the happy man and dreaded the return to office routine. He talked personally with the last ship's captain to make the Centauri run and smiled when he shook hands with a pretty first nav. officer named Sahara. Sahara returned his smile and held onto his hand for long seconds. She was standing in a reception line and had little time to make her request.

  «Sir,» she said, holding the secretary's hand in her strong grip, «I request an appointment.» «You'll have to see my secretary.» Seagle moved on down the line, but not before nodding at his secretary and gesturing toward Sahara. She saw the secretary, was told that the chiefs time was severely limited, but that she might be squeezed in for two minutes just before the ferry lifted off for the trip home. She presented herself at the ferry dock an hour ahead of time, waited, saw Seagle board, reminded the secretary's secretary that she had an appointment, and boarded the ferry while the ground crew was making last-minute checks. Seagle was seated in the lounge. He rose when Sahara entered, looking very smart in her best uniform. «Sir,» she said, «I would not ask you to see me if I didn't feel it necessary. I know your time is limited.» «We have very little of it,» said Seagle. «So, Sir, I will not go into too much preliminary,» Hara said. «I have been cleared to know the number of ships that have disappeared on the Centauri run.» Seagle frowned. «May I ask why?» «Because the last ship to disappear was captained by…» She paused, wondering how to phrase it. She decided to be slightly sticky about it. «… the man I love and intend to marry.» «I see,» Seagle said. «I have been talking with Commander Heath—» Seagle made a motion with one hand, a motion of complete disgust. «—and we've come to a conclusion,» Hara continued. «We feel that there is a correlation between the disappearance of manned ships and the disappearance of the blink test vehicles.» «Nonsense,» Seagle said. He was angered. He had been expecting some simple request from the pretty nav. officer, a request that he could grant with a smile, thus enhancing his image with the service. «Our theory is that both types of ships disappear in the same general