by Zach Hughes
area, the area of turnabout. We propose to use the last blink test vehicle—» «No,» Seagle said. «—to run a series of tests in the turnabout zone, far enough from the moon so that any accident would have no effect on—» «If Congress thought I was wasting money on the blink drive they'd cut me to the bone,» interrupted Seagle. «Sir, do they have to know? The ship is built. It couldn't cost much to make it operational.» «A dollar would be too much. No. I must say no. And you can tell Commander Heath that this latest gambit of his was ill advised. As for you, my dear, I advise you to choose your companions more carefully if you are looking forward to a future in the service.» «Sir,» Hara said, taking a deep breath. «I must tell you that if something is not done with existing equipment to try to solve the disappearances, I will be forced to go to the press.» Seagle's face hardened. «Do I understand what you're saying?» «I'm afraid you do, Sir,» Hara said. «To put it plainly, I'm going to blow the whistle. I'll tell the press that 30-plus ships have disappeared.» «Do you realize what you're doing?» Seagle asked. «I've looked at your record. It's a very good one. It's a shame that you've just tossed away 25 years of work.» «And it's a shame that Congress will know, within a few days, that the service has been concealing most important information.» Seagle opened his mouth. She could see that he was making a effort to control himself. Calmed, he said, «You're quite serious, aren't you?» She nodded. «You're blackmailing me.» «Yes.» «Let me get this straight. Heath wants to take out the last blink ship, jump it out in open space. Observing from a nearby ship?» «Yes, Sir. Short jumps. You see, we don't know what happens when a blink ship comes back. We think that there may be some relation between the blink end and the buildup of power after a ship does the turn and starts deceleration. More than 40 ships have disappeared, Sir, when you count the blink test vehicles. We could gain valuable information through these tests. And, I assure you, they can be done in secrecy. We've hidden some facts from the public, why not hide one more test?» «And you're absolutely sure you want to pursue this course of threat and coercion?» «Yes, Sir.» «I could have you busted, thrown out of the service.» «I've thought about that, sir. That wouldn't stop me from releasing the facts.» «I will not authorize use of the blink test ship,» Seagle said. «On the other hand, I am not going to do anything to stop its use. You may tell Heath that this is his last caper as a member of the service. You may tell him that he can obtain, through channels, permission to run ground tests on the blink ship. Ground tests. You and Heath seem intent on ruining yourselves, so I will allow you to do so. I will not stop you. Do you understand?» «I understand,» Hara said. «Thank you. Sir.» «I don't think you'll thank me when you are court-martialed,» Seagle
said. «And I foresee only one possibility of your avoiding it. That is, if you come up with some concrete results from the tests you're going to run when you take the blink ship into space without official authorization.» He stood. «If word leaks out, my official position is that the service knew nothing of Heath's plans to take out the ship.» Standing in a viewport, Hara watched the ferry lift off. She mused as the drive stirred moon dust and the ship dwindled as it shot upward. She felt an almost overwhelming sadness. She was due for promotion. Her life had been built around the service, and now she could measure her service
life in very small amounts of time. At best she could look forward to a long career as a first officer pushing papers on the moon Base or down below on Earth. She stood, watching the dust settle on the now empty pad. Then she lifted her eyes to the stars, to the great emptiness. Plank was out there somewhere, dead perhaps, but there. «Plank,» she said, her lips moving but the words forming inaudibly. «You're not worth it, you know.» But she knew, even as she said it, that if she were out there and Plank were down here on the moon, he'd be doing exactly what she was doing. Plank was that way. He'd risk everything for her and she, knowing that, could do no less. CHAPTER SIX Earth is never visible from the dark side of the moon. Space is more impressive from the dark side, made to seem larger, more empty by the absence of any near neighbor. The main bulk of moon installations were built in areas situated so that Earthrise and Earthset added dimension. The friendly, glowing ball of home was behind one's shoulder, comforting, endlessly beautiful. On the dark side one looked into infinity and felt the distances. The psychological reassurance of being able to look up and see the home planet was in evidence on the charts. More spare-time explorations had taken place on the Earth side than on the dark side. The working
facilities were on Earth side. On the other side were the experimental labs, the abandoned projects, the scrap heaps, the unexplored areas. Storage is relatively simple on the moon. The vacuum of space allows no oxidation. To protect electronic and mechanical gadgets from the extremes of temperature—a simple process when the energy of the raw sun is used to store energy to provide cooling and heating—a ship can be mothballed for decades without being encased in goos and greases. The last of the blink test vehicles sat behind an unlocked door in a round tank, which resembled an antique oil-storage tank from the planet's history. The moon's population was an elite bunch, against which locked doors were unnecessary. The ship gleamed with newness, just as it had gleamed on the day, years ago, when it was assembled from components flown from Earth. The simple storage cells in the bay along one side of the tank functioned perfectly. There were no moving parts, nothing to go wrong. Relays and thermostats, which had never known the tarnish of oxidation, clicked softly, heating elements glowed during dark periods, cooling air moved during the periods of sunlight. It was necessary to work in LSG. To fill the tank with atmosphere would have required going to Moon Control and would have put an entry into the record, a record that was scrutinized from time to time by anti-space legislators down home. Air was the one thing the moon needed to have to
support life inside the installations, and the expense of that air was not an inconsiderable item in the moon's budget. More than once, air consumption on the moon had been the subject of congressional debate. So, rather than risk having a new drain of air entered into the record, Walker Heath's team went out in LSG and worked in LSG, pumping air
only into the blink vehicle itself. This relatively minute amount of air was padded onto LSG issue, tabbed as recreational exploration. The caution seemed rather silly to Sahara. The moon had long since been self-supporting as far as air was concerned, making oxygen from water pumped up from the interior, breaking down other elements from native rock. However, air consumption was something even the most ignorant Earthling senator could understand, and the moon was saddled with the eternal problem of keeping careful books on air and costs. The vehicle was not perfect, but it was in an amazingly good state. Some of the more delicate electronics were replaced as a matter of precaution, although they tested operative, and some minor failures of components were expected, detected and rectified. Some additional monitoring equipment was installed. Weight was no problem. The power contained in old John Blink's drive was capable of handling many times the mass of the vehicle and all it could carry. Although, as a space officer, Sahara was capable of doing emergency repairs on most ship systems, she was not called upon to assist. She went out «backside» with the initial party, riding in open ground cars, and visually inspected the vehicle. She observed the complicated workings of the blink generator, watched Heath and his men begin the check-out procedures. In the following days, she made a cursory examination of the large control complex, which had been used until no less than ten blink ships had left the moon and disappeared. The complex would not be in use on
this last test of a blink vehicle. Instead, the vehicle would be piggybacked to a powerful Earth-moon shuttle ship and lifted out of the moon's weak gravity to space. Heath cannibalized a portion of the control complex to install monitoring and control mechanisms aboard the shuttle. He was in the midst of final ground tests of the equipment when Matt Webb appeared
on the site. Hara, seated at the pilot's controls in the shuttle ship on its pad outside the tank
, saw an approaching ground vehicle and alerted Heath, who was inside the tank with portable monitoring equipment attached to the blink vehicle. He called a halt and waddled outside, stood, hands dangling inside the armor, as the ground car swirled up, kicking up lunar dust, and disgorged one lsg-suited figure. «Aha,» Webb said, «caught you.» Hara recognized the voice immediately. «It's all right,» she said to Heath. «It is not all right,» Heath said. «Did you tell him?» «No,» Hara said. «Come off it, Heath,» Matt Webb said. «Half the moon knows you're out here.» «That's dandy,» Heath said. «Can we expect visits from all of them?» «I can't speak for everyone,» Webb said. «Speak for yourself, then,» Heath said. «Say goodbye and let us get back to work.» Webb chuckled. «I thought I'd watch for a while.» «Nothing to see,» Heath said. «I want to see, especially where I'll be riding during the test,» said Webb. «You'll be riding a desk,» Heath answered gruffly, turning to reenter the tank. «I assume that Sahara is to be the pilot,» Webb said. «I can brush up a bit and qualify as backup.» «Forget it,» Heath said, now out of view. «In fact,» Webb said, «I just took a check ride in a shuttle and passed with honors.» «Good for you.» «And there's one other small fact,» Webb said. «I have orders from the secretary to ride herd on you.» «Matt, that's sneaky,» Sahara said. «Not my idea,» Webb said. «The old boy is getting nervous about the
whole deal. I'd advise you to get into space as quickly as possible before he changes his mind. He's afraid of a leak.» «All right,» Heath said. «Let's activate systems seven and nine.» «Heath,» Webb said plaintively, «have you been listening to me?» «Get on board the shuttle,» Heath said. «If Hara needs help she'll let you know.» Once inside the lock, Webb opened his visor and grinned at Hara. «I just thought you'd like some friendly company to take the edge off that old bear.» «You're all heart,» Hara said. «Since you're here, ride that wave monitor. Commander Heath is about ready to put power to the generator.» Actually. Webb turned out in be a valuable man. The technique of piggybacking a ship was one that all cadets practised. It was standard rescue procedure. Hardware was too expensive to be left in space if it broke down. The method had been used a half-dozen times following breakdowns between the moon and Earth. Hara, however, had never been
directly involved in a piggybacking; it was a bit more tricky to perform the operation on the moon rather than in open space. So she was glad to have Webb standing by when she lifted the shuttle and lowered it carefully inside the now open tank to land beside the Blink vehicle. Having a backup man gave her confidence. The landing went smoothly, and the coupling of the ships was, then, a simple operation. Lashed together, the ungainly mass awaited lift-off. In the ten previous tests, blink vehicles had left directly from the moon's surface. Nothing much happens when a blink generator is activated, at least nothing damaging. That had been proven time and time
again in the early testing. The only effects are slight prickling feelings in all humans within a few hundred kilometers and an electromagnetic disturbance, detectable for hundreds of thousands of kilometers. A generator cranked up to full capacity on the moon would signal a chance observer on earth, any observer who happened, at that moment, to be using the proper detection instruments. Therefore, the plan was to lift the vehicle with the shuttle's power, drive it into deep space, far enough away from both the moon and Earth so that the start of the blink would not signal itself to one of the large number of researchers doing work in gravity, fields and magnetics. In the dark of a moon night, the two piggybacked ships lifted off, a crew of three aboard the shuttle. Heath had programed a course vertical to the
plane of the Earth's orbit, up and away in the general direction of Polaris. The initial stage of the trip was uneventful. The distance chosen for the tests was roughly half the distance to Mars. That was far enough to prevent any chance detection of the blink start, but not far enough away to
prevent detection of the blink itself, should anyone inside the solar system or within a few light-years be using instruments that could detect the subtle signal a blinking ship sent ahead of itself. Those instruments were of a highly specialized nature and would not likely be in use. The shuttle ship had been built to carry as many as 20 passengers plus several hundred tons of cargo. Three people felt lost aboard her. Large unused areas seemed to add to the loneliness engendered by their enforced wheel watches. They took four-hour shifts. Heath spent some of his non-watch time making final checks of the equipment. There was little
socializing. The demands of keeping tabs on all the potential disasters that a ship under power is prone to left one drained at the end of a watch and made the bunks in the rather spacious quarters very inviting. Short, or relatively short, space trips seemed to Hara to be more boring than the long run out to the Centauri systems. At first, the power was the same, but to allow proper deceleration time, power was cut early, and the ship coasted at interplanetary speeds much lower than the speeds attained after months, years of acceleration on the star runs. With the power down, they had time for partial relaxation during the brief period before turnaround and deceleration. Deceleration is always an uncertain time, because the power, which has been cut back, is turned up to full in a very short space of time, and enough stored-up energy is unleashed to vaporize a ship and make a small, temporary star where no star was before. But deceleration went smoothly. With the vehicles dead in space, Hara joined Walker Heath in lsg and crawled outside into the cold and loneliness to separate the two ships. She had been outside many times before, and she never tired of it.
There was danger, yes. A severed lifeline meant a slow drift away; it took a very sharp pilot to locate a single human form in the vastness of space in the time limit imposed by the amount of air stored in an lsg. But there was also beauty. The sun viewed through shielded visor. The gleam of the raw light on the metals of the two ships. The feeling of being alone in a universe that was, at best, indifferent. Hara accomplished her tasks quickly and watched as Heath finished his. Then, back inside the coziness of the shuttle's control room, everyone visibly relaxed. At the console, Hara fed steam to small steering jets. The shuttle moved
slowly, gravely, away from the blink vehicle. Once in position, Heath called
a rest period, during which all three of them slept. Later, fully refreshed, they gathered in the control room. The blink vehicle was enlarged on the visuals, riding dead in space 200 kilometers away toward Polaris. All systems were go. As if talking to himself, Heath outlined the first test. «We're going very, very short. Shorter than ever before. I'm going to send her a mere 2,000 kilometers, and she'll still be detectable on visual if she comes out.» They could feel it, the slight prickling sensation, the tension. Incredible power was being built up in the generator of the ship riding 200 kilometers away. That power swept over them, through the metal hull, telling them of the blink ship's readiness even as they watched the dials and gauges, which confirmed what they could feel for themselves. There were no dramatics, no countdown. When the power was ready, Heath pushed the button. Where there had been a ship there was nothing, and where there had been nothing, 2,000 kilometers away, the blink vehicle sat, dead in space. All motion had occurred outside time and space as detected by human senses. «Good,» Heath said quietly. She had gone out of normal space and she had come back to it. For the second time in the history of man, a ship had been blinked and had not gone off into that unexplained nothing, which had eaten the previous ten blink vehicles. There was a mass of data to be processed. Heath worked for ten hours without sleep. Then he was ready to try again. Once again there was the feeling of tension, the prickling sensation. Once again Heath quietly pushed a button, and the blink vehicle returned
to its original spot in less than an instant. It was there, whole, looking as though it had never blinked out of time and space to travel 2,000 kilometers out and 2,000 kilometers back. And once again the data was correct and contained no surprises. Heath, without sleep for 20 hours, called a break. The next jump would be 20,000 kilometers. CHAPTER SEVEN When t
he alarm went off, it took Plank a microsecond to place the system that was calling to him so urgently. Then he was in it and feeling the surge of power which told of a jump. He kicked relays with his mind, but it was already too late, for the signal had been of such duration that not even electronic reflexes could react before it had come and gone. He had never heard that particular alarm before, not in the months he'd been blinking in and out of the star systems of the arm. Yet he knew
its importance. There, at the end of that signal was a ship, a ship using the
power of the stars to pull itself out of time and space. That signal, so very brief, was a ship sending a telltale disturbance ahead of itself. And the source of that signal was something that interested him vitally. Something like him. Plank, of course, did not sleep. And for ten hours he maintained full alertness. In that time he familiarized himself with the little-used system that had signaled the blink of a ship somewhere in the galaxy. When the second signal came he was prepared. He had analyzed that part of himself and had made minor alterations. When the blink signal shot through his cold circuits, which were a part of him, he started a fix and cursed when the signal ended before the process was complete. But he had some information. He had a general direction, and his knowledge, knowledge of which he had been totally unaware prior to the first signal, told him that the distance was limited to a range of less than 1,000 light-years. For the first time since he had begun his star wanderings, he leaped stars, blinking down the Orion Arm in a giant step, taking time, after the blink was complete, to orient himself. He looked for the familiar star groupings and recognized the ball park, but he was as yet unable to find first base. He was still lost. There was nothing to do but wait. CHAPTER EIGHT «Could have been faulty technique,» Walker Heath was saying. «Ten times?» Webb asked. «With every space scientist who was anyone checking and double-checking?» «I know,» Heath said. «I was there.» «All right,» Hara said. «What did we do different?» «Nothing,» Heath said, running his hand through his dark, graying hair. «Except cover shorter distances.» «The first test of your series was a short jump,» Webb said. «One light-year,» Heath said. «And she came back.» «A light-year?» Webb frowned. «That's not short.» «When we lost her on the second blink out we began to cut down. Half a light-year, then a quarter on the remaining tests.» «Actually, then,» Hara said, «we're doing exactly what you did before and we've accomplished the same results. You got one ship back. We've got one ship back.» «From 2,000 kilometers,» Heath said. «So it is not the distance traveled that's critical,» Webb said. «At least not apparently. Your first test was successful before and now the first one of ours is successful.» «Cross your fingers,» Hara said. «I'm not going to, but if you think it might help don't let me stop you,» Heath said. The blink vehicle went out 20,000 kilometers and did not disappear. It was there, detectable on the instruments of the shuttle ship. When the data was processed, Heath pushed the button to bring her home, 200 kilometers away from the shuttle. «Good,» Heath started to say, as the vehicle materialized on the visuals. He didn't get the word out. The vehicle appeared, intact, for a period long enough to register not only on instruments but human eyes, and then it wasn't; before it wasn't, it altered its shape, breaking into planes and colors that reminded Hara of the work of some of the twentieth-century cubist painters. Heath punched full magnification into the visuals, sending beams searching out into the emptiness. There was nothing. «I saw it,» Hara said. «It was there.» «The blink was complete,» Webb said. «Power was off.» «Whatever happened to it happened in normal space,» Hara said. «Yes,» Heath agreed. «But we don't know what happened when it was in the blink. Ships don't break into distorted planes and disappear without reason.» «Some unknown stress factor,» Webb suggested. «We'll sweep the area,» Heath said. «If it merely broke up in normal space we'll find debris.» But he was not to make his sweep. «Communicator,» Hara said, her eye caught by a flashing light. «Someone is trying to call us.» «Might as well answer,» Heath said. «If it's moon base, we'll have to tell them about it sooner or later anyhow.» Hara hit switches and the voice which filled the control room was raspy, masculine. «… shuttle ship. Come in shuttle ship.» «Go ahead,» Hara said, without identifying procedure. «This is Plank's Pride…» «John,» she said quietly. «… moon based. caII 7-w-xx-3467. Please acknowledge and identify yourself.» «John Plank,» she said, «This is Hara. Where are you?» «Just off your port viewer,» Plank said. She looked. There was nothing. Then a gleaming globe was riding there, majestic, unknown. She felt a chill of fear, but Plank's voice was there, soothing. «Hara, I want you to board. Only you. Do you understand?» «I'm afraid we'll have to ask some explanation,» Matt Webb said. «No explanation. Not now. Just Hara. I'll light the port to the lock. I'll do the maneuvering.» Already the globe was moving, appearing larger as it neared the shuttle. «That's no Earth ship,» Heath said. «And it came in on a blink.» «I'm going,» Hara said, moving toward her LSG. CHAPTER NINE She stood, magnetic shoes clinging to the hull of the shuttle ship, and watched the alien globe move in. The alien was roughly twice the mass of the shuttle. She admired the workmanship. The full glare of the sun on the globe revealed no seams. Viewports were blackened from the outside, giving the ship a look of solidness. The symmetry of the globe was broken only by protrusions, which she thought looked suspiciously like weapons pods. Hara was one of those fortunate individuals who, in times of stress, become almost artificially calm. It seemed that all of her bodily processes slowed, heartbeat easing off by six to eight beats a minute, pulse slowing, making for an awareness, which seemed as if she were storing her resources for impending crisis. As the globe moved slowly nearer, she