Trapped in space

by Williamson, Jack, 1908-2006

"Our cab man left him out on the street in the alert. In the confusion we were separated. He doesn't understand much English and he must have felt the force of peoples' fear and hate during the raid. It must nearly have killed him."

  The creature purred again. Its big eyes looked back at Jeff. Now they glowed with warm sparks of green and gold.

  "Buzz wants to thank you." A smile flashed across the girl's lean face. "And I do, too. Buzz was—"

  "I'm glad you got here/' Jeff broke in. "I have to go."

  The gates had already closed. Now he could hear the first dull roar as the ferry built up power. High over the station, a thin mist formed and whirled inside the tube of force that was sweeping out a path through the air for the machine.

  Seven minutes! Maybe they wouldn't open the gate for him. But at least he could try. He grabbed his light space bag and started running toward the gates.

  "Wait—please!" the girl called after him. "We are going, too. Buzz says he will tell them to open the gates. He says they'll open the locks and hold the ferry five minutes for us. No time to explain—but you must help me carry Buzz!"

  JefF ran on for half a second, wondering what she meant. How could Buzz tell them to open the gates? Why would they hold the ferry? But then he saw the gates sliding open for them.

  He came back and picked up the brown cocoon. It felt lighter than it looked. He swung it to his shoulder like a roll of carpet. The girl slipped the space bag off his arm.

  "Thanks!" she said. "Let me carry this."

  He trotted toward the gates, the girl running beside him, buzzing. The cocoon buzzed back.

  ''Later!" she gasped at Jeff. "Later—we will explain."

  The air lock into the ferry was open. Reaching hands hauled Jeff through it and took the cocoon. In another 90 seconds he was in his tiny cabin, lying back in the padded shock seat.

  The launch field was roaring again, like a storm far away. Horns hooted. Jeff felt the shock, like something exploding under him. The ferry rose, putting pressure on Jeff so that soon he weighed half a ton.

  The thrust seemed to go on forever, squeezing his body and dragging at his brain. He could hardly breathe.

  When the main jets changed to the gentle push of the boosters, he felt too dull to think. He wanted to find the girl and talk to her about the queer little alien, but

  the seat was too comfortable. Perhaps the flight shot had made him sleepy. . . .

  When he woke, the ferry was falling toward the moon. He washed his face, brushed his uniform and went out on deck. The passenger deck had no real windows, but a big screen showed their approach.

  The moon was swelling in that screen as they fell. It was a big bright ball against the dusty dark of space. He could see the wrinkled mountains and the round holes where shadows lay like puddles of ink.

  Sickness hit the pit of his stomach.

  Jeff felt ashamed, and angry at himself, and a little afraid. The truth was, heights had frightened him since he was very young. He had no idea why.

  His brother Ben had climbed everything, their mother said, since he began to crawl—boxes and chairs and cabinet drawers. Later, it was trees and walls and even flag poles. Jeff had always tried to follow Ben, and he had always been afraid.

  He had never talked about it, not even to Ben, but he had tried to fight that fear. At school he had tried high diving. He had practiced on the flying rings. But stifl he had been afraid.

  Half the reason he had foflowed Ben through pilot training was to beat this old enemy. He had not beaten it entirely, but he had learned to keep it under control.

  Most of the training hadn't been so bad, because it was on the ground. Even most of the training flights were not real, but with 3-D screens to show the look of space. Real flight was not so easy.

  His flight alone in the old SP-y had left him weak and cold and dripping sweat. But at least he knew he had faced his fear at its worst and come out all right. It would never be so bad again.

  Jeff tried not to look at the moon in the screen, but he couldn't pull his eyes away. The moon was a great sharp ball of rock; its face scarred and terrible. He waited for the strong retro jets that would catch the ferry and steer it into the landing net. All he could feel was the gentle thrust of the boosters, too weak to stop that ten-thousand-mile fall.

  "Excuse me, Star Man Stone." A lean little man had touched his arm. "We are with the Space News Service." He waved toward a short fat man with a camera. "Will you speak to our 3-D audience?"

  Jeff felt nervous in front of the camera, but he was glad to have something else to think about

  "Tell us about the star ships," the news man said. "What are they like?"

  "They are the smallest space ships," Jeff said. "And the fastest. They are used to discover the world of new

  stars. They can do this because they have X-space drive."

  ''Will you explain X-space flight for our viewers?"

  Jeff thought hard, trying to make it clear.

  "In ordinary space/' he said, "the speed of light is the limit. Light seems fast—it goes 186,000 miles a second. But that's too slow for trips to the stars. Most trips would take hundreds of years at that rate. In X-space flight, we break the speed limit."

  The lump was still in his stomach, but Jeff tried to grin, aware of the camera.

  "The X-space drive twists each atom partly out of common space," he continued. "The mass of each atom drops toward zero. As mass goes down, speed goes up. A star ship can make a thousand light-years in ten hours."

  He looked at the camera, explaining that. "One light-year is the distance light can go in one year. It's nearly six trillion miles."

  "What makes X-space so dangerous?"

  Jeff shook his head. "It isn't. You are safe in X-space flight. The risk is all in ordinary space, when you come back out of X-space drive."

  "Why so?"

  "You come out fast," Jeff said. "Too fast to see what's

  ahead. Too fast for your instruments to be much help. You have to depend on yourself and your team—"

  He stopped, hoping good men had been picked to go with him on the Topaz flight.

  "You have to be extremely alert. There are so many objects that could smash your ship to bits if not avoided."

  "How about the X-space ships? Are they dangerous?"

  "Not a bit," Jeff said. "You see, the voyages carry an X-space station to each new star. The station has a beacon that guides arriving ships past any danger. Coming and going through the station, the big ships are as safe as this ferry."

  "Thank you. Star Man Stone. We wish you luck on your rescue flight to Topaz."

  The news man turned from Jeff to the 3-D camera.

  "That was Star Man Jefferson Stone. He will be on the Topaz rescue flight. Now I see two other crew members that you will want to meet."

  He hurried off across the deck, the fat camera man behind him. Jeff followed, eager to see who would be with him on the rescue flight.

  "—Lupe Flor," the news man was saying. "She's an official star man. So is her friend here. They were picked as members of the Topaz rescue team, to go along with Star Man Stone."

  Jeff walked over to the ring of passengers standing by. Lupe Flor, he saw, was the sHm dark girl who had come aboard the ferry with him. Her "friend" was the fuzzy little space alien.

  CHAPTER 3

  Moon Quake!

  The scarred gray curve of the moon filled the big screen. And still the ferry fell.

  Jeff watched the screen, listening for the jets that ought to be catching the falling ferry, thinking about the two strange members of his crew. A girl and a fuzzy alien—they couldn't be much good on the rescue flight. To find and help Ben, he needed trained men. The girl and the strange being were half the cause of the knot in his stomach.

  "Thank you, Lupe Flor," he heard the news man say. "Now will you introduce your friend?"

  Jeff slipped into the ring of people around them.

  "I call him Buzz Dozen-Dozen."

&nbs
p; Lupe Flor smiled down at the purring alien. Out of the cocoon, it looked different now. Its short fur had turned bright blue. Even its saucer eyes were blue now, happily watching Lupe.

  "He has no real name/' she told the news man. "You see, he's not a separate person. Not like one of us. He's part of a multiple being, and he doesn't need a name when he's at home. The number on his space passport ends with 1212—that's where we got the Dozen-Dozen."

  The news man looked at Lupe. "Would you explain a multiple being?"

  "It's made of millions of parts," Lupe said. "Just as our own bodies are made of millions of cells. They all work together for each other. Each brother-sister has a body like Buzz's and all the parts think together."

  "How do you mean?"

  "They all belong to one great mind," she said. "Buzz has his own brain cells. So does each brother-sister. But the master mind of the multiple being links them all together. Look at Buzz."

  She touched his thin blue arm, and the news man made a quick "signal for the camera to pick him up.

  "His body is here with us, but his mind is linked to all his sister-brothers everywhere—most of them are still on the worlds of Opal, his home star. The links work faster

  than X-space flight. Distance doesn't matter. The multiple mind can see and speak and act through any brother-sister."

  The little alien purred at her and gave a solemn nod, as if it understood.

  "Here's an example," she said. "Back on Earth, we were delayed by a space raid alert. The ferry was about to leave us. But Buzz has a sister-brother at the moon base. That sister-brother knew all about our trouble on Earth. He sent her his message and had the ferry held for us."

  So that was it, Jeff thought. He began to realize that Buzz could be pretty useful.

  The news man was saying, "Star Man Flor, will you tell us how you met Buzz?"

  "Buzz is my own brother-sister," Lupe said. "I've known him all my life. You see, my father and mother were star men. They came from Puerto Rico, and they were on the first voyage to Opal—which is two thousand light-years beyond the North Star.

  "Coming out of X-space flight, their ship hit a grain of dust. My father was the pilot. The ship was crippled and he was hurt. He lived just long enough to land on the nearest planet of Opal."

  The news man looked at Lupe with sympathy.

  "But I was lucky." Lupe's dark eyes shone. "The

  planets of Opal belong to tlie multiple being. Buzz's bigger brother-sisters pulled my mother out of the wreck. She had been hurt terribly, but she lived until I was born.

  "The multiple being took care of me. Buzz became my special brother-sister. He played with me and taught me and grew up with me. Finally his brother-sisters made a little X-space ship, patterned partly after the wreck of the old star ship, and Buzz came on it with me to look for my own people."

  Smiling down at the little blue alien, she made a purring sound.

  "And here we are!"

  "Thank you, Lupe Flor," the news man said. "That's a wonderful story. Now there's one more thing I want to ask you."

  "Yes?"

  "This rescue flight will be dangerous," the news man said. "It calls for expert star men. Why do you think you and Buzz were picked?"

  "In the first place," Lupe answered seriously, "there aren't many star pilots. Only a few men pass the entrance tests. Most of them wash out before they finish training. Those who finish make only three voyages on the average. So I didn't have that much competition.

  "I do know why Buzz was picked."

  Jeff listened carefully. This was what he had to know.

  "He will be a kind of living telephone." Gently, Lupe was stroking his bright blue fur. "Our signals can't reach the distant stars, but Buzz will always be in instant touch with his sister-brother at the base on the moon."

  "Is that important?"

  "It will be important," Lupe said, "if we run into trouble. In the past, when a star ship was lost, nobody knew why. Too many rescue voyages have failed to come back because their crews repeated the same mistake. This time we can file a running report to the base on the moon. If we make mistakes, the admiral will know what they are. If we don't come back, the people in the next voyage will know what went wrong."

  "That makes sense." The news man nodded. "In the long run, anyhow. Though I don't see how it can save your voyage. Or how it can help Ben Stone and his star men."

  "Other ships will follow us," Lupe said. "If they can't come in time to help us, it is still our job to clear the way to new stars."

  "I'm sure our viewers will want to know how a girl happened to be picked for this flight," the news man said. "You never really explained that."

  "For one thing—" Lupe hesitated before going on. "Well, I'm pretty good at getting around in space, though

  I don't use the human system. You see, Buzz's sister-brothers taught me a lot of their own sort of science while I was growing up on the worlds of Opal."

  "Oh." The news man looked suq^rised.

  "For another thing," Lupe said, "I guess it was known that Buzz needs me."

  "Why is that?" the news man asked.

  "Buzz can't speak human sounds, and most people can't understand him. Lots of people don't like him— I can't see why."

  Buzz purred at her and gripped her finger with a small blue hand.

  "We were separated in that space raid alert," she said. "People ran from Buzz, because he's a space alien. Their fear and hate hurt him terribly. He was nearly dead when Star Man Stone rescued him and helped him back into his cocoon."

  She saw Jeff across the deck and smiled at him.

  "We are both glad Star Man Stone will be with us on the rescue voyage."

  The 3-D camera swung to Jeff.

  "Now I have a question for all three of you," the news man said. He motioned for Jeff to stand with Lupe and Buzz.

  "How do you plan to deal with the rock hoppers of Topaz—I think that's what the distress message called

  them?" He looked at Buzz. "How about you, Star Man Dozen-Dozen? How can you fight the rock hoppers?"

  Buzz shook his head and made a low sound.

  "The multiple being is not a fighting creature/' Lupe said. "It doesn't believe in war. Buzz says he will try to make peace with the hoppers when we meet them."

  "Suppose they don't want peace?" the news man asked. "How will you defend yourself, Star Man Flor?"

  "I grew up with Buzz," Lupe said. "I don't like fighting any better than he does. I believe that space is big enough for all creatures. I will work with Buzz for peace."

  The news man turned to Jeff.

  "How about you. Star Man Stone?"

  "I'm not looking for trouble," Jeff said. "But the pilot of the lost voyage was my brother. I'm going to help him in any way I can."

  "So you are prepared to fight?"

  "The star ships are not armed," Jeff said. "They're too small to carry heavy weapons. But I will want permission to carry weapons on the rescue flight. If necessary, I will fight with everything I have."

  A horn honked.

  "Shock seats, please," a loud voice ordered through a speaker. "Prepare to land on the moon. Shock seats, everybody."

  The news man waved to Lupe and Buzz and JefF. 'Thank you all and good luck on your rescue flight." He made a sign to the fat man with the camera. "This is Space News—"

  The horn was honking again. Jeff hurried back to the shock seat in his tiny cabin. Though he was still worried about having Buzz and Lupe on his crew, at least the cold knot was gone from his stomach.

  His blood raced with a new excitement. They were landing on the moon. The old SP-y should be waiting for them there. Who else, he wondered, had been picked for the crew?

  The hard thrust of the jets braked the ferry. Jeff left his seat, grabbed his space bag, and scrambled out of the cabin. He saw Lupe and Buzz just ahead of him. Eagerly, he looked around the ferry station. It was a huge round room, dug deep in the moon and walled with bare concrete. The ferry was a tall
silver tower standing in the middle of it.

  Electric trucks moved rapidly over the floor. Loud speakers boomed. High overhead, humming machines carried freight and baggage off the ferry.

  "Hi, Jeff!"

  The happy shout came from the waiting crowd. A tall space man ran over to meet him.

  'Hi, Tiger!'

  Jeff slapped the man's back and tliey shook hands. Ty Clark was a slim Negro. He looked lean and handsome in his silver uniform.

  "I guess we are going to be together on the Topaz job!"

  "We are?" If Ty Clark was a crew member, Jeff was delighted. Ty was good at everything. He had been commander of the new boys at Space School and champion of the class in boxing.

  "I've got our orders here." Ty showed him a gray official envelope. "I've been picked for pilot. You are copilot. I'm looking for the rest of our crew."

  Jeff felt a stab of disappointment. He had half expected to be pilot of the rescue voyage. He had wanted to be the one in charge of rescuing Ben.

  But then he felt ashamed of himself. Topaz A had to be rescued. Nothing else really mattered. The best available pilot had to be picked, and of course that was Ty.

  He wondered for a second if his own weakness was known. But he decided that wasn't likely. His fear of high places couldn't be that serious or the tests he had taken would have washed him out of Space School.

  He was lucky, he thought, even to be assistant pilot. It took a moment for him to pull himself together. Then he looked back into the happy grin on Ty's face.

  "rm proud to be worlcing with you!" Jeff told him. "Our other star men are just ahead."

  He called Lupe and Buzz—and waited to see how Ty would act. But Ty didn't even seem surprised that the other members of the rescue team were going to be a girl and a little blue alien being.

  ''This is Tyler Clark/' Jeff told them. "Back at Space School, we used to call him the smiling tiger. He was my room mate there, and the best friend I had. He will be our pilot to Topaz."

  In his easy, friendly way, Ty shook hands with Lupe and Buzz.