Godspeed

by Charles Sheffield

  I tasted mine. "Nothing. It's perfectly fine."

  "Fine? No wonder the crew on this ship are always in a foul temper. I wish I'd brought some decent food with me."

  But she was starving, and after a moment she went on eating.

  The curious thing is, I had thought that the food on Home had something wrong with it. Reminded of that now, I fished the little silver box of pills out of my pocket and laid it on the table.

  "You're supposed to take one with each meal," Mel said.

  "I know. How come you don't have any?"

  "Because I don't need them." She sounded grouchy and bossy. "What's the matter, afraid you'll be poisoned? The controller's health monitors decided you need those, and they're never wrong. Swallow your pill."

  "Suppose their programs are designed for females? I don't want to be fed pills for women." But after a few more seconds I took a little blue capsule from the box and washed it down with water. It tasted of nothing.

  I didn't have time to worry about its possible effects, because within a few seconds a vibration shook the whole room. My weight increased from near nothing to something substantial. Mel, a spoon at her mouth, missed it and hit her chin. She gave me a surprised glance.

  "It's all right," I said. "That's the drive heading up to power. We're on our way."

  She jumped up. "Wonderful. Come on."

  "Come on where?"

  "I want to take a last look at Home. It could be months before I'm back."

  So much for explanations and warnings. "You can't do that! You can't go near a viewing port or a display screen. You can't go anywhere until we get to Godspeed Base."

  I wasn't sure what would happen after that. Danny Shaker had said things would change, but he hadn't told me how.

  "It's going to be at least an eight-day trip," she said. "Eight whole days! I'll go out late at night, when no one is around."

  "Mel, this isn't Erin, or Paddy's Fortune, with a night and a day. It's a ship. Things happen around the clock."

  "Well, I can't stay stuck in this little hole forever. It's worse than being back at Home. You have to do something. You're the one who got me into this."

  That was so outrageous I couldn't do more than glare at her.

  "You did," she said. "You told me that I'd have more space to wander around in than I could ever imagine."

  "I meant on Erin, when we get there—not on this ship."

  "Well, you should have been clear. You should have—"

  How long we might have gone on with that, I don't know, because Mel's next objection was interrupted by a rattling sound from the outer door of the living quarters. It was locked, and in principle only Shaker had a key. But Mel made a dive for the inside room, while I stared at the table and realized that if anyone did manage to get in I would have a hard time explaining why there were places set for two.

  It was Danny Shaker. He looked grim. He came right to the table, settled down in Mel's chair, and glanced around him. "Where is Mel Fury?"

  "Inside. We heard you coming."

  "Get her. I have to talk to both of you."

  Mel had recognized his voice, and was already on her way back into the room.

  "Two problems." Shaker wasn't one to mess about, and he came to the point at once. "Nothing you can do about either of them, but you need to know what they are. First, the ship. When we came up to full drive, the engines of the Cuchulain showed an imbalance. We'll keep going for five or six days, but when we turn and prepare for deceleration we'll have to switch off and do another overhaul. That means a period of free-fall, and since we'll be under reduced power it adds a few days to the trip time."

  I could imagine Mel's reaction to that, but Danny Shaker didn't wait to hear it.

  "That's the practical problem. The other one is more worrying. It's the crew." He stared at Mel. "When we left, did you bring anything with you? Trinkets, or gadgets, or anything else?"

  Mel shook her head. "I didn't bring anything. Just what I'm wearing."

  She saw me glance across at the counter. "Well, that as well. But it's just my backpack. I carry it all the time, it's like part of my clothes."

  "What's in it?" Shaker asked.

  "Oh, bits and pieces, all sorts of things."

  "Did you lose anything from it?"

  "No, I'm sure I didn't."

  I wasn't sure. Nor was Danny Shaker.

  "You think you didn't," he said. "But Joe Munroe and Robbie Doonan did the final inspection of the cargo beetle before it went into mothballs for the trip, and I think one of them got a sniff of something that shouldn't have been there. Not a word was said to me, but I sense trouble. Too many little private meetings, too much silence when I'm around."

  Danny Shaker wasn't a man to rant and rave about anything, and Mel didn't know what a band of cutthroats the rest of the crew were. So it's not surprising that she didn't realize the significance of what he was saying.

  I did, though. "What should we do?"

  "Not one thing. Lie low, stay quiet, don't move unless I tell you otherwise. I'll have to bring you out for part of the time, Jay, you're crew now and you have to work. But don't give a hint, ever, that there's anything aboard this ship from Paddy's Fortune. And especially don't let anyone suspect there might be more than one person in here."

  It was exactly what I wanted Mel to hear, but it might have had little effect on her if Shaker hadn't backed words with action. "I'll do my best to stay on top of things," he said, "but don't be misled by that session back on the cargo beetle. I handled the problem, but there's still a lot of anger and hot blood in the crew. I don't know how well I can control it. In case I can't"—he reached into his own pocket—"I think you ought to have this."

  He pulled out Walter Hamilton's white-handled pistol and handed it to me. I took it—nervously. "Is it loaded?"

  "Full magazine. No point in handing somebody an empty gun." He studied my face. "I'm giving it to you, Jay, and you ought to carry it with you all the time. But I'll be honest: I don't know if you've got the guts to shoot, no matter how you're threatened. Just remember this: Don't ever point a weapon you're not willing to use."

  He was finally getting through to Mel. She had seen this gun before. It was the one Dan Shaker had used when he killed Sean Wilgus, and Mel could not take her eyes off it.

  Shaker had been watching her closely. He nodded. "All right, then." He was standing up when he saw the little silver box, sitting on the table. "What's that?"

  "Pills," I said. "I got them on Paddy's Fortune, they're supposed to make me healthier. Do you think I shouldn't take them?"

  "That's up to you. But it's exactly the sort of thing I was warning about. Take the pills out and put them in your pocket, and give me the box."

  I did as he ordered, and he tucked it away in his jacket.

  "One look at that," he went on, "and any smart crew member would start wondering where it came from. It's workmanship like nothing on board the Cuchulain."

  He left, closing and locking the door behind him. I tucked the little white-handled gun away in my other pocket, where it made an awkward bulge. Mel sat down again at the table. Her expression was somewhere between guilty and defiant.

  "You think I did it, don't you? You think I left something on the cargo beetle."

  "It doesn't matter what I think. Shaker thinks so, and there's trouble with the crew. That's good enough for me."

  She stood up, reached across for her backpack, and headed for the inner room where she would be sleeping. "Well, I didn't," she said over her shoulder. "No matter what you and your great Captain Shaker believe."

  She closed the door behind her. I picked up a glass, walked quietly across to the door, and set one end gently against the crack where it opened. Then I put my ear on the other.

  It was a trick that Duncan West had taught me, so long ago I don't know when I learned it. The glass amplified all sounds coming to its open end, so I could hear very well what was happening in the next room.

&nbs
p; I heard a strange rattling noise, hard and soft objects hitting the floor all at once.

  I knew what it was. Mel was emptying out her backpack.

  * * *

  She didn't say what was in it. I didn't ask. But for the next few days she was on her best behavior, and she didn't cause me one moment of extra worry.

  She didn't need to, because I did plenty of worrying without Mel adding more.

  If it was important that Mel stay hidden away in my living quarters, it was just as vital that I appear every day to work with the rest of the crew. There was lots to do, too, because the Cuchulain was in awful shape and the senior men, Shaker and Toole and O'Rourke, spent most of their time monitoring the ailing drive. That, plus the absence of Sean Wilgus, meant extra work for everybody. There were more than enough unpleasant chores to pass on to me.

  I didn't mind. Checking the work of the cleaning robots, or rebalancing the mass around the cargo spindle, was not fascinating work, but it helped to keep my mind off Mel—and whatever she might be doing, cooped up by herself.

  For the first three days I couldn't complain. She mooched around the restricted space of my quarters, and if she seemed bored when I returned late in the day it was no more than natural. And on the fourth day I had an idea of my own.

  "Here," I said. Then I had to pause to clear my throat. I must have picked up a minor bug, here or in the damp jungle of Paddy's Fortune, and my voice sounded rough and scratchy. "Here, why don't you take a look at this when I'm away."

  I handed her the navaid. "We used it to get the coordinates for the Net and the hardware reservoir, but the controller said it put all sorts of other information in about the Godspeed Base and the Godspeed Drive. I have no idea how to get those data out. Maybe you can do it."

  Mel took the navaid. "Humph," she said. It wasn't exactly a sign of enthusiasm, and I wondered how long it would keep her quiet. Not long enough, I felt sure. I hadn't told Mel, but we were making slower progress than expected. The engines had to be constantly nursed.

  The problem came to a head early on the fifth day. We were still far from the turnover point when Shaker called the crew together. The engines were still deteriorating. We had to switch off the drive later in the day and service it.

  That would not please Mel when she heard about it, but for the moment it pleased me.

  To explain why, I have to describe something in a bit more detail. Seen from a distance, the Cuchulain looked like a long, knobbly stick, with a round ball on the "top" end and a flared cone—rather like a bathroom plunger—at the other, "bottom," end. The knobbly stick was the cargo area, capable of changing shape, when the ship was fully loaded, to a bloated oval bag; the round ball contained all the crew living quarters. And the words "top" and "bottom" make sense, because the cone was the drive unit, and when it was turned on, anything a person dropped would "fall," accelerating from the round ball of the living quarters toward the drive unit.

  The place where we all had our living quarters looked like a smooth ball from outside, but of course it had lots of internal structure. Thinking of the whole ship as standing upright on its flared conical end, there were five main layers to the ball. At the very top were the living quarters used now by Doctor Eileen, Jim Swift, and Duncan West. Below that was a general area of crew quarters, some for sleeping but mainly for exercise and recreation. In the next layer came the central control region for the whole ship, buried deep in toward the center where it was well-protected from hull leaks or outside impact. The place where Mel and I lived now was off to the side of that same layer, near the outside hull.

  The fourth layer contained kitchens, food machines, and storage areas for food, raw materials, and water. And finally, the bottom layer provided additional crew sleeping accommodation, plus access to the cargo region and, beyond that, to the drive.

  It wasn't hard to get between the different levels when the drive was on. There were spiral staircases between them. But when the drive was off, those staircases actually became harder to negotiate.

  I had learned long ago that most crew members were lazy, and wouldn't take on any effort that wasn't needed. When the drive was off, and they were going back and forth to work on it, it was easier to stay down on the fourth and fifth levels. They would not come up to the third level, where Mel was hidden, unless they had a good reason to do so.

  I didn't tell Mel—I didn't want her deciding it was safe to roam around—but I felt a good deal of relief when the drive went off an hour or two later, and Mel and I were suddenly in free fall.

  "Let me find out how long this will take," I said, and left her fiddling moodily with the navaid.

  I didn't expect to meet anyone, because the crew ought to be already down near the drive. It was a surprise, and a real opportunity, when I came to the stairway leading down from our level and saw Duncan West right in front of me. "Uncle Duncan!"

  He was floating easily along, no more hurried or worried now in free fall than if he were lounging in an easy chair at our house by Lake Sheelin. He turned and gave me his slow, easy smile.

  "Going along to give a hand, Jay? Me too. I got the word from Captain Shaker, he thinks I can be useful."

  "Maybe later. Uncle Duncan, stop a minute. I need to talk to you."

  He halted, and inspected me carefully from head to foot. "You've changed, Jay. You look different, and you sound different."

  "Never mind that. I haven't had any chance at all to talk privately to Doctor Eileen, and I've got a lot of things I must pass on to her. Will you do it for me?"

  "Sure. When I get back up there—as soon as we finish playing around with the drive. What's going on, Jay? Keep it short, I'm expected down below in a few minutes."

  Keep it short! I had so much to tell, I hardly knew where to begin. I gabbled at him. Everything. What I had overheard on the Cuchulain about the crew's plans, Walter Hamilton's murder on Paddy's Fortune, my flight from Sean Wilgus, finding Mel Fury—or being found by her—the interior of Paddy's Fortune and the new navigation aid, Mel's arrival on board the Cuchulain—

  He stopped me at that point. "You mean she's here. On board the ship right now?"

  "Yes. Nobody knows. I mean, Captain Shaker knows, but no one else. But listen, that's not the main thing. You have to tell Doctor Eileen what Shaker's like—what the whole crew's like. They can't be trusted."

  "But you're one of them yourself. You joined the crew. Why do that, if they're as bad as you say?"

  "I didn't have any choice."

  Duncan nodded. "I see."

  But he didn't. I could see the doubt on his face. How could anyone be forced to work with someone they said was a murderer, and worse? He hadn't heard the crew talking about women, didn't know the threat to Mel.

  "I'll tell Doctor Eileen," he said, "everything you've told me. I promise. But I have to be honest with you, Jay. If she were to ask me what she ought to do about it, I wouldn't know what to suggest." In other words, he didn't believe me. He started to move along the stairwell in the direction of the cargo hold. "Now I have to hurry," he said over his shoulder, "before Pat O'Rourke does too much of his 'repair work' without me. The only tool he understands is a hammer. See you down there in a little bit."

  He disappeared around the curve of the staircase, with the odd irregular clattering of feet against floor and walls that signaled movement in free-fall.

  I stayed where I was, crushed and despondent. The opportunity that I had sought for days had come. And gone. If Duncan West reacted like that to what had happened to me, was Doctor Eileen likely to be any different? It was all very well for Duncan to say that I had changed, but he didn't really think so. He still treated me like a child.

  After half a minute I heard the clatter of his footsteps again, and was filled with a new hope. He must have been thinking over what I told him, and decided it was important enough for him to come back and get the details.

  The person producing the footsteps came into view, and I had another disappointment. It was
not Duncan at all. It was Joe Munroe.

  He came steadily up the staircase, and I moved to one side to let him pass. I was too full of my own thoughts to do much more than notice his presence, and I certainly felt no alarm—until he came level with me, grabbed my neck and shoulder, and swung me around hard so that the side of my head smashed against the solid steps.

  I was dazed, but I didn't lose consciousness. I heard every word when he said, "Couldn't be better. The perfect time, and the perfect place. Now we can have that bit of a talk I've been wanting."

  He was twice my mass, and hardly seemed to notice my struggle to get free. But I must have given him at least a bit of trouble, because he went on, "Not feeling cooperative, eh? Well we can't have that, can we. See if this helps."

  I felt myself being swung around in the air again, faster than ever. This time I don't know what piece of the Cuchulain tested its strength on my skull, and if Joe Munroe said anything to me, I can't report it.

  I vanished into space. I didn't see even a single star.

  * * *

  It was a point of pride with me that I had never thrown up in free-fall. But I came close to it when I swam back to consciousness.

  It was my head that hurt, dull throbbing pressure all around my skull. Yet it was rolling nausea in my stomach that caused me the most distress. I knew that any movement at all would finish me off and I hung motionless with my eyes closed, feeling thoroughly sorry for myself.

  Joe Munroe didn't offer a scrap of sympathy. I can't have been unconscious for more than a few seconds, and he still had me by the neck. He gave a vicious squeeze, and I gasped.

  "That's better," he said. "Don't pretend you're not awake. Now, if you know what's good for you, you're going to answer a few questions. Don't move, either, or I'll whack you a good one next time." He shook me, as though I was a child's doll. "Let's talk about Paddy's Fortune. You found things there, didn't you, and never told us?"

  It's easy to talk about being brave, and a lot harder to do it. "Yes," I whispered. I didn't want him to hit me again.

  "And this is one of the things you found, right? Come on, open your eyes and look. Right now. Unless you want me to pop your eyeballs out of your skull and make you swallow them."