by Bob Shaw
"We don't need to worry about traffic controllers, and we don't need to worry about traffic," Fleischer said, turning back to the console.
Nicklin watched in fascination as she moved her hands over the sloping surface, causing lanes, highways, townships of coloured lights to spring into existence. This was the first step in taking the ship out of Einstein's domain and into that realm of strangeness where Arthurian physics held sway. Nicklin knew, and only dimly understood, that in order for the ship to travel at multiples of the speed of light it would temporarily cease to exist as far as observers in the normal continuum were concerned.
The massive vessel and everything in it, including his own body, would be transformed into a cloud of particles with more affinity to tachyons than to normal matter. The mode of travel – which had once been described as "crooked accountancy applied to mass-energy transformations" – was magical in its effect. But before it could be brought into play the ship would have to reach a very high normal-space velocity, and there was nothing at all magical about how that velocity was achieved.
It was a product of greasy-overall engineering, spanner-and-screwdriver technology, involving a host of control systems – mechanical, electrical, hydraulic – among which a twentieth-century artificer would have felt reasonably at home. To begin the voyage proper, Megan Fleischer was activating the thermonuclear reactor and feeding power to the flux pumps, thereby unfurling the Tara's intangible wings. At the ship's present negligible rate of movement the scoops could do little more than complement the ion drive, but they would become increasingly effective as the speed built up.
"Here we go," Fleischer said after a few seconds, touching the master control pads.
Nicklin felt a slight but immediate increase in weight and was gripped by a numbing sense of wonder as he realised that the great metallic entity, upon which he had lavished three years of devotion, had ceased being an inert object and was stirring fully into life.
Fleischer switched camera channels and the star fields ahead of the ship blossomed in the main view screen. Perhaps a hundred major stars shone with a diamond-pure lustre against a dusting of fainter specks, creating a three-dimensional matrix which seemed to draw Nicklin's consciousness into it. I must have been blind, he thought as his gaze roved through the alien constellations. How did I fail to understand that we were all born for this?
"Not very good," Fleischer said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Not very good, at all."
Hepworth was beside her on the instant, scanning the console. "What do you mean?"
"It wasn't what I would call a clean start-up. The intake fields seemed a bit slow in establishing themselves."
"It happens in a hundredth of a second." Hepworth sounded relieved and irritated at the same time. "You can't judge it by sight."
"I've been a pilot for more than twenty years, and I can judge it by sight," Fleischer snapped. "Besides, that wasn't the only thing I didn't like – the left field wasn't a good shape when it opened up."
"What was wrong with it?"
"It looked a bit … flat."
Hepworth examined the glowing butterfly that was the intake field distribution diagram. "It looks fine to me."
"It looks all right now," Fleischer said stubbornly, "but I'm telling you it started off flat."
"It might have met a bit of resistance – God knows what sort of stuff is spewing out of Orbitsville." Hepworth patted the pilot's luxuriantly covered head. "I think you can safely leave the vacuum physics to me."
She twisted away from him. "Keep your hands to yourself, Mister Hepworth, or I'll bar you from this deck."
"Touchy, touch-eee!" Hepworth said jovially. He turned to look at Nicklin, enlisting support, his eyes rounded in a what-do-you-think-of-that? expression.
Nicklin gazed back at him unsympathetically, unable to think of anything but Zindee White's scathing comments on Hepworth's qualifications as a physicist. The little that Nicklin had seen of Megan Fleischer had persuaded him that she was a top-class professional pilot, a woman who knew exactly what she was talking about. It was quite possible that a fleeting irregularity in a scoop field was an insignificant event, just as Hepworth had said, but did he know as much about starship drives as he claimed? Montane, desperate for low-cost help, had taken him pretty much on trust…
"Something on your mind, Jim?" Hepworth's joviality had evaporated, and there was now something watchful and unpleasant in his expression.
Nicklin recalled the way in which Hepworth would become caustic and angry, and even threaten violence, when challenged on any technical or scientific point. It had happened on many occasions in the past three years, but this would be a particularly inconvenient time for a fresh performance.
"I've got plenty on my mind," he said, glancing at the view screens. "All this is a bit daunting."
Hepworth shook his head impatiently, refusing to be put off. "You're looking at me like I was something you'd just found in your soup – perhaps you think I don't know what I'm talking about."
"You must be nearly as jumpy as I am, Scott," Nicklin soothed. "You know I think you're the greatest living expert on everything."
"Don't patronise me, you country – " Hepworth broke off, staring in surprise at the companionway.
A bearded young man in the blue uniform of a spaceport guard had appeared on the ladder. He stared for a moment at the group by the console, raised one hand in a kind of apologetic greeting, then slowly sank from view again.
"This place is getting like a train station," Fleischer said irritably. "I can't have people wandering in here any time they feel like it."
"Quite right!" Montane, perhaps comforted by being given a minor administrative problem, appeared quite composed as he turned to Affleck. "I want you and Gerl to spell each other on the deck below this one. Nobody is to pass you – except those that are here now – unless I give you the word."
"Right, Corey." Affleck, looking gratified, immediately hurried to the ladder.
Montane directed a thin smile at Nicklin. "Jim, as you've decided to grace us with your company on this flight, I expect you to earn your rations. You can start right now by going through all the decks and finding out just how many outsiders have jumped on board. Make a list of their names and bring it to me and I'll decide what rooms we can put them in."
"Okay, Corey," Nicklin said, slightly surprised at how glad he was to see the improvement in the other man's state of mind.
"And tell them I'll want to speak to them in my room, individually, as soon as I have the time."
"Yessir, yessir!" Putting the uneasy confrontation with Hepworth to the back of his mind, Nicklin glanced once more at the main screen – wondering if Prospect One was even visible at that early stage of the flight – then made his way to the lower regions of the ship.
The hot shower felt even more luxurious than he had been anticipating.
He had slept for almost seven hours, disturbed only by occasional dreams of falling, and had risen from his bed feeling both hungry and filthy. The thought of breakfast was alluring, but he had decided it would be more enjoyable were he in a reasonably hygienic condition when he sat down to eat. He had descended through many levels to 24 Deck, where the laundry and shower rooms had been situated because of the ease of supplying hot water from the adjoining engine cylinders. He had washed his underpants and socks and had put them in one of the driers before going into a shower cubicle.
Now there was a blessed period in which he had nothing to do but let the needle sprays cleanse his body. Clothes were going to be quite a problem he realised as he relaxed in the tingling warmth, especially if the voyage were to last for months. Many of those on board the Tara had nothing other than what they had been wearing when the panic had gripped Beachhead City. The families who had managed to bring suitcases had thus become instant aristocrats, distinguished from their fellows by a wealth of fresh underwear.
Nicklin smiled as he tried to visualise how Montane would handle the situation. In an
ideal Christian society the rich should share their goodies with the poor without even waiting to be asked, but the cynic in Nicklin suspected that things might not work out that way.
Luckily, Montane had been spared similar problems with the ultimate commodity, the one which really would have separated the haves from the have-nots. Imperishable food stores had been going on board for weeks, and any shortfall due to the hasty departure was more than compensated for by the Tara carrying only half the projected number of passengers.
Paid-up emigrants accounted for sixty-nine of the complement, and another twenty-six mission personnel had been able to join the ship in the dreadful last hour – the remainder being on home leave or simply out on casual errands. Nicklin's census had revealed, in addition to the Whites, the presence of three spaceport guards, plus a group of seven men and women who had happened to be working in the dock area at the crucial time.
The total came to 108, which meant that the Tara could, if necessary, extend the New Eden quest for as long as two years. Nicklin refused to think what would happen at the end of that time if no suitable world had been found. In the past he had felt some concern about the ultimate fate of the pilgrims, especially the children, but had avoided becoming too pessimistic. No matter how distant the ship might be when the decision to abandon the mission was taken it would always be possible to return to the starting place. The strange mathematics of supraluctic flight meant that all destinations in the universe were roughly equidistant and equally accessible – but there would be no point in the travellers returning home when all doors were barred against them.
A new and disturbing thought occurred to Nicklin as he absorbed the abundant warmth of the shower. It would be a grim irony, one of the Gaseous Vertebrate's finest pranks, if the disturbances in Orbitsville had been transient phenomena – incidental effects which had manifested themselves while the portals were preparing to close. If that were the case, daily life in places like Orangefield would already be returning to drowsy normality. The Orangefield Recorder would be preparing waggish editorials about the curious goings-on in the Big Smoke, couples would be strolling in Coach-and-Four Lane and there would be business as usual in the Victoria Hotel and Mr Chickley's orange-lit ice-cream parlour. And in a few years' time the very existence of portals would be a fading memory – and nobody would know about the ghost ship drifting in the void which began a short distance beneath their feet, beyond Orbitsville's impenetrable shell.
The unwelcome vision had the effect of suddenly making Nicklin feel trapped and claustrophobic. He stepped out of the cubicle and began towelling himself dry. The only other person in the washroom was Lan Huertas, who – as usual – refrained from speaking to him. Nicklin dressed in silence, ran a depilator over his chin and left the room.
A short distance up the ladder he began to wonder if the going was easier than it should have been. When he had gone to bed, at the beginning of the arbitrary "night" period, the ship's acceleration had been about .5G. Now it was, perhaps, slightly less, although it was difficult for a novice in such matters to say for sure whether his weight was a half or a third or a quarter of normal. Was this an indication that a genuine fault existed in the intake field generators? Or was it simply that the ship had entered a region in which the harvest of interstellar particles was poor?
The aroma of coffee drifting down from the canteen – or refectory, as Montane styled it – distracted him from the questions. He felt a pang of guilt-tinged pleasure as he recalled that the atrocious cook, Carlos Kempson, had been one of those left behind in Beachhead. One of the new pilgrims, a professional chef, had volunteered to run the canteen, thus making the prospect of a long voyage somewhat brighter.
The levels that Nicklin passed were quiet for the most part, the passengers having been requested to remain in their quarters until 09.00 hours, ship time. A few children were at play in the landing areas common to each deck's four suites, but they were unnaturally subdued. Resilient as the very young always were, they had not had time to adjust to the austere environment of plasboard partitions and arctic lighting.
On 10 Deck, three levels below the canteen, he heard a familiar voice and looked around to see Zindee White standing at the open door of a suite. She was talking to a teenage girl, presumably from adjacent quarters. Nicklin raised his hand in greeting, but before he could say anything Zindee had retreated out of his sight. The teenager gave him a quizzical look as he ascended through the deck above.
On reaching the canteen he saw half a dozen mission personnel – Danea Farthing and Gerl Kingsley among them – seated at one of the narrow tables. Kingsley produced one of his grotesque smiles on seeing Nicklin, but the others studiously ignored his arrival. The reception was of a kind to which he had become accustomed, and from which he usually derived perverse satisfaction. Normally he would have elbowed his way into the group and proceeded to dominate the conversation, but on this occasion the force of silent rejection was overwhelming.
He obtained a bulb of coffee from the dispenser and sat down alone. Something is happening, he thought as he sipped the hot liquid, and it started yesterday morning when Zindee ran away from me.
Like a drunk trying to reconstruct the events of the previous night's binge, he played the meeting with Zindee on the screen of memory, step by step and in considered slow motion. There was a stranger there … a stranger who looked and spoke like Jim Nicklin … a stranger who was Jim Nicklin as far as the rest of the world was concerned…
Isolated, mesmerised, appalled, Nicklin watched the intruder – the usurper of his body – go about his business, which was the pretence of being alive while in reality the essential spark of humanity had been quenched. Observing the encounter was a difficult and painful thing to do, because he had to accept that he and the stranger were as one, and that there could be no apportionment of responsibility or shame.
I was a dead man! I was a walking corpse … and Zindee came out of times that were lost … reminding me of the good that was lost … and how did I repay her?
Nicklin felt the hot pulsing of blood in his face as he watched the simulacrum act on his behalf and heard it speak the lines he had devised for it. The coffee bulb grew cold in his hand. An indeterminate time later he became aware that Danea – her eyes dark and thoughtful – was watching him from the other table. He averted his gaze, smiled the self-deprecating smile of one who wants people to believe he has just remembered an appointment, and left the canteen.
On the cramped landing he hesitated for a moment, with no particular objective in mind, then went up towards the control room. When he reached 3 Deck, easily distinguishable because of the pinnace tunnel, the red telltales on the locks told him that the doors to Montane's and Voorsanger's suites were bolted shut. Both men were probably still asleep – one in the company of his dead wife; the other deprived of the company of his living wife. Neat touch, O Gaseous Vertebrate!
On 2 Deck, which housed the pilot's private quarters, he found Nibs Affleck dutifully guarding the topmost section of the ladder. Affleck gave him a barely perceptible nod as he climbed past. Emerging in the control room he saw that two of the five seats were occupied by Hepworth and Fleischer. The main screen was again being fed by an aft-facing camera, but the view was no longer one of unrelieved darkness.
The ship had been under continuous acceleration for more than fifteen hours, allowing the camera to take in a large area of Orbitsville's shell – and the captured image had been transformed. Luminous green lines filled the entire screen in a pattern of complex curvatures which resembled interlocking flowers. The effect was that of a vast array of brilliantly glowing neon tubes laid out to the design of an artist working on a macroscopic scale. In the auxiliary screens the shining filigree spread away in every direction until, condensed by perspective, the lines merged to form horizons of cold green radiance.
"Quite a sight, eh Jim?" Hepworth turned in his seat to look up at Nicklin. He looked exhausted, as though he had not been to bed, but his
face showed none of the animosity which had been there the night before.
"I've never seen anything like it," Nicklin said, grateful that the benign streak in the other man's nature had never allowed him to nurse a grudge. It was of some comfort to know that not quite everybody had been alienated by his malaise of the past three years.
"Yes, the old lady's putting on quite a show for us." Hepworth took a silver flask from his side pocket and offered it to Nicklin. "Drink?"
Nicklin glanced at Megan Fleischer and saw that she was in a deep sleep, although still sitting upright. "No, thanks."
"This is an unrepeatable offer, Jim – I haven't even got a bottle tucked away in my room. When this is finished we're on a strict diet of cocoa and carrot juice and similarly disgusting brews." A look of intense revulsion appeared on Hepworth's well-padded face. "Christ! I might even have to drink some of Corey's God-awful fucking tea!"
Nicklin chuckled and reached for the proffered flask. A drink of neat, warm gin was the last thing he wanted at that moment, but it represented friendship and that was something for which he had developed a craving. In the boozers' ethic the sharing of the last available drink was a symbol as potent as a wedding ring.
Here's to solidarity, he thought as he swallowed the flat and tepid spirit. For years there were just the two of us. Two disbelievers, two disciples of the Gaseous Vertebrate – the Lord of Chance – surrounded by an army of bible-thumpers. But we got the ship ready. Between us we got the ship ready…
"Have a seat," Hepworth said. "Her ladyship is in no condition to object."
"Okay." Nicklin handed the flask back as he sat down, his gaze returning to the fantastic glaring traceries of the main screen. "What do you think happened back there?"
Hepworth took a swig of gin. "Who knows? And, if you ask me, it isn't finished yet. I have this feeling in my water, Jim. It's totally unscientific, I know, but I have this feeling in my water that the show has only just started."