“John Carradine,
Fourth Captain.”
Chapter 19
THEY LEFT THE CONTROL SPHERE then, and made their way through an airlock to the tube that connected it with the large globe that was the main body of the ship. They found themselves in a cylindrical space with a domed deck head, in the center of which was the hatch through which they had entered. In the center of the deck there was a similar hatch.
There were doors equally spaced around the inside surface of the cylinder. All of them were labeled, having stenciled upon them names as well as rank “First Captain Mitchell . . .” read Sonya Verrill. “Chief Officer Alvarez . . . Second Officer Mainbridge . . . Third Officer Hannahan . . . Bio-Technician Mitchell . . .” She paused, then said, “I suppose that a husband-wife set-up is the best way of manning a ship like this . . .”
Grimes slid the door aside.
The helmet lanterns threw their beams onto eight tanks—a tier of four, and another tier of four. They looked, thought the Commodore, like glass coffins, and the people inside them like corpses. (But corpses don’t dream.)
Four of the tanks held men, four held women. All of them were naked. All of them seemed to be in first-class physical condition. Mitchell—his name was on a metal tag screwed to the frame of his tank—was a rugged man, not young but heavily muscled, robust. He did not need a uniform as a professional identification. Even in repose, even in the repose that was almost death, he looked like a master of men and machines, a man of action with the training and intelligence to handle efficiently both great masses of complex apparatus and the mere humans that operated it.
Grimes looked at him, ignoring the other sleepers. He wondered if Mitchell were the fisherman whose pleasant dreams were being spoiled by the sense of anxiety, of urgency. It could be so. It probably was so. Mitchell had been overdue to be called for his watch for a matter of centuries, and his was the overall responsibility for the huge ship and her cargo of human lives.
Todhunter was speaking. There was a certain disappointment in his voice. “I don’t have to do anything. I’ve been reading the instructions, such as they are. Everything is fully automated.”
“All right, Doctor. You can press the button. I only want First Captain Mitchell awakened.” He added softly, “After all, this is his ship. . . .”
“I’ve pressed the button,” grumbled Todhunter. “And nothing has happened.”
McHenry laughed. “Of course not. The dead Captain in the control sphere, in the wardroom, said that he’d shut down all the machinery.”
“As I recall it,” said Grimes, “these things were powered by a small reactor. It will be right aft, in the machinery sphere. Carradine was able to shut down by remote control, but we won’t be able to restart the same way. The batteries must be dead.”
“As long as the Pile is not,” contributed McHenry.
“If it is, we shall send for power packs from the Quest. But I hope it’s not.”
So they left Mitchell and his staff in their deep, frozen sleep and made their way aft, through deck after deck of the glass coffins, the tanks of the motionless dreamers. Jones paused to look at a beautiful girl who seemed to be suspended in a web of her own golden hair, and murmured something about the Sleeping Beauty. Before Grimes could issue a mild reprimand to the officer, McHenry pushed him from behind, growling “Get a move on! You’re no Prince Charming!”
And Grimes, hearing the words, asked himself, Have we the right to play at being Prince Charming? But the decision is not ours to make. It must rest with Mitchell . . .
Then there was the airlocked tube leading to the machinery sphere, and there were the pumps and the generators that, said McHenry, must have come out of Noah’s Ark. “But this is an Ark,” said Jones. “That last deck was the storage for the deep-frozen, fertilized ova of all sorts of domestic animals. . . .”
There were the pumps, and the generators and then, in its own heavily shielded compartment, the Reactor Pile. McHenry consulted the counter he had brought with him. He grunted, “She’ll do.”
Unarmored, the people from Faraway Quest could not have survived in the Pile Room—or would not have survived for long after leaving it. But their spacesuits gave protection against radiation as well as against heat and cold and vacuum, and working with bad-tempered efficiency (some of the dampers resisted withdrawal and were subjected to the engineer’s picturesque cursing) McHenry got the Pile functioning.
Suddenly the compartment was filled with an opaque mist, a fog that slowly cleared. With the return of heat the frozen air had thawed, had vaporized, although the carbon dioxide and water were still reluctant to abandon their solid state.
McHenry gave the orders—he was the Reaction Drive specialist, and as such was in charge, aboard his own ship, of all auxiliary machinery. McHenry gave the orders and Calhoun, assisted by the second Mate, carried them out. There were gauges and meters to watch and, finally, valves to open. Cooling fluid flashed into steam, and was bled carefully, carefully into piping that had been far too cold for far too long a time. And then hesitantly, complainingly, the first turbine was starting to turn, slowly, then faster and faster, and the throbbing whine of it was audible through their helmet diaphragms. Leaping from position to position like an armored monkey, McHenry tended his valves and then pounced on the switchboard.
Flickering at first, then shining with a steady brilliance, the lights came on.
They hurried back through the dormitory sphere to the compartment in which First Captain Mitchell and his staff were sleeping. There Todhunter took charge. He slid shut the door through which they had entered and then pulled another door into place, a heavier one with a thick gasket and dogs all around its frame. He borrowed a hammer from McHenry to drive these into place.
Grimes watched with interest. Obviously the Surgeon knew what he was doing, had studied at some time the history of the “deep freeze” colonization ships, probably one written from a medical viewpoint. He remarked, “I can see the necessity for isolating this compartment, but what was that button you pressed when we first came in here? I thought that it was supposed to initiate the awakening process.”
Todhunter laughed. “That was just the light switch, sir. But once we’ve got over these few preliminaries everything will be automatic. But, to begin with, I have to isolate the other bodies. Each tank, as you see, is equipped with its own refrigeration unit, although this transparent material is a highly efficient insulation. Even so, it will be as well to follow the instructions to the letter.” He paused to consult the big, framed notice on the bulkhead, then went to a control console and pressed seven of a set of eight buttons. On seven of the eight coffins a green light glowed. “Now . . . heat.” Another button was pressed, and the frost and ice in the wedge-shaped compartment began to boil.
When the fog had cleared, the Surgeon muttered, “So far, so good.” He studied the tank in which lay the body of First Captain Mitchell, put out a tentative hand to touch lightly the complexity of wiring and fine piping that ran from its sides and base. He said, “You will have noticed, of course, that the arrangements here are far more elaborate than those in the main dormitory decks. When the passengers are awakened, they will be awakened en masse . . .”
“Get on with it, Doctor!” snapped Sonya Verrill.
“These things cannot be hurried, Commander. There is a thermostatic control, and until the correct temperature is reached the revivification process cannot proceed.” He gestured towards a bulkhead thermometer. “But it should not be long now.”
Suddenly—there was the whine of some concealed machinery starting, and the stout body of the First Captain was hidden from view as the interior of his tank filled with an opaque, swirling gas, almost a liquid, that quite suddenly dissipated. It was replaced by a clear amber fluid that completely covered the body, that slowly lost its transparency as the pneumatic padding upon which Mitchell lay expanded and contracted rhythmically, imparting a gentle agitation to the frame of the big man. T
he massage continued while the fluid was flushed away and renewed, this process repeated several times.
At last it was over.
The lid of the coffin lifted and the man in the tank stretched slowly and luxuriously, yawned hugely.
He murmured in a pleasant baritone, “You know, I’ve been having the oddest dreams . . . I thought that I hadn’t been called, and that I’d overslept a couple or three centuries. . . .” His eyes opened, and he stared at the spacesuited figures in the compartment. “Who are you?”
Chapter 20
GRIMES PUT UP HIS HANDS to his helmet, loosened the fastenings and gave it the necessary half turn, lifted it from the shoulders of his suit. The air of the compartment was chilly still, and damp, and a sweet yet pungent odor made him sneeze.
“Gesundheit,” muttered the big man in the coffin.
“Thank you, Captain. To begin with, we must apologize for having boarded your ship uninvited. I trust that you do not object to my breathing your atmosphere, but I dislike talking through a diaphragm when I don’t have to.”
“Never mind all that.” Mitchell, sitting bolt upright in his tank, looked dangerously hostile. “Never mind all that. Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Grimes. Commodore. Rim Worlds Naval Reserve. These others, with the exception of the lady, are my officers. The lady is Commander Verrill of the Federation Survey Service.”
“Rim Worlds? Federation?” He looked wildly at the other tanks, the transparent containers in which his own staff were still sleeping. “Tell me it’s a dream, somebody. A bad dream.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. It’s not a dream. Your ship has been drifting for centuries,” Sonya Verrill told him.
Mitchell laughed. It was a sane enough laugh, but bitter. “And while she’s been drifting, the eggheads have come up with a practicable FTL drive. I suppose that we’ve fetched up at the very rim of the Galaxy.” He shrugged. “Well, at least we’ve finally got some place. I’ll wake my officers, and then we’ll start revivifying the passengers.” His face clouded. “But what happened to the duty watch? Was it von Spiedel? Or Geary? Or Carradine?”
“It was Carradine.” Grimes paused, then went on softly, “He and all his people are dead. But he asked to be remembered to you.”
“Are you mad, Commodore whatever your name is? How did you know that it was Carradine? And how can a man who’s been dead for centuries ask to be remembered to anybody?”
“He could write, Captain. He wrote before he died—an account of what happened. . . .”
“What did happen, damn you? And how did he die?”
“He shot himself,” Grimes said gravely.
“But what happened?”
“He didn’t know. I was hoping that you might be able to help us.”
“To help you? I don’t get the drift of this, Commodore. First of all you tell me that you’ve come to rescue us, and now you’re asking for help.”
“I’m deeply sorry if I conveyed the impression that we were here to rescue you. At the moment we’re not in a position to rescue anybody. We’re castaways like yourselves.”
“What a lovely, bloody mess to be woken up to!” swore Mitchell. He pushed himself out of the tank, floated to a tall locker. Flinging open the door he took out clothing, a black, gold-braided uniform, a light spacesuit. He dressed with seeming unhurriedness, but in a matter of seconds was attired save for his helmet. He snapped to McHenry, who was hung about with his usual assortment of tools, “You with all the ironmongery, get ready to undog the door, will you?” And to Grimes and Sonya Verrill, “Get your helmets back on. I’m going out. I have to see for myself . . .” And then he moved to the tank beside the one that he had vacated, looked down at the still body of the mature but lovely woman. He murmured, “I’d like you with me, my dear, but you’d better sleep on. I’ll not awaken you to this nightmare.”
Mitchell read the brief account left by Carradine, then went to the next level, the control room, to inspect the Log Book. He stared out through a port at Faraway Quest, and Grimes, using his suit radio, ordered Swinton to switch off the searchlights and turn on the floods. He stared at the sleek, graceful Quest, so very different from his own ungainly command, and at last turned away to look through the other ports at the unrelieved emptiness. His suit had a radio of sorts, but it was A.M. and not F.M. He tried to talk with Grimes by touching helmets, but this expedient was far from satisfactory. Finally the Commodore told McHenry to seal off the control room and to turn on the heaters. When the frozen atmosphere had thawed and evaporated it was possible for them all to remove the headpieces of their suits.
“Sir, I must apologize for my lack of courtesy,” said the First Captain stiffly.
“It was understandable, Captain Mitchell,” Grimes told him.
“But Captain Carradine should have called me,” Mitchell went on.
“And if he had, Captain, what could you have done? In all probability you would have died as he died. As it is, you know now that you stand a chance.”
“Perhaps, sir. Perhaps. But you haven’t told me, Commodore, how you come to be marooned in this Limbo.”
“It’s a long story,” said Grimes doubtfully.
“And we’ve all the time in the Universe to tell it, John,” put in Sonya Verrill. “Or all the time out of the Universe. What does it matter?”
“All right,” said Grimes. “It’s a long story, but you have to hear it, and it could well be that you might be able to make some suggestion, that there is some important point that has escaped us but that you, with a mind fresh to the problem, will seize upon.”
“That’s hardly likely,” The First Captain said. “When I look at your ship out there, and envisage all the centuries of research that have gone into her building . . . But go ahead, sir. At least I shall be privileged with a glimpse into the future—although it’s not the future now.”
Grimes told the story, trying to keep it as short as possible, but obliged, now and again, to go into technical details. He told the story, asking his officers to supply their own amplifications when necessary. Mitchell listened attentively, asking an occasional question.
“So,” he said when at last the Commodore was finished, “we are not the only ones to have fallen into this hole in Space-Time. There was the old surface ship that you boarded; there was the surface ship that Carradine’s people boarded. There were the aircraft that Captain Carradine mentioned . . . That dirigible airship, sir, with the crew of beelike beings . . . ?”
“The Shaara, Captain. They, too, have interstellar travel.”
“There’s some sort of a connection, Commodore. You got here, you think, by the use of your fantastic electronic gadgetry. But we didn’t. And those old surface ships and aircraft didn’t . . . And those people, sighted by Carradine, with no ships at all . . . These Shaara, Commodore, what are they like?”
“To all intents and purposes, Captain, they’re highly evolved honey bees.”
“H’m. But they have something that we have, otherwise they’d never have gotten here. Intelligence, of course. Technology. The airship that Carradine saw, and the spaceships that you say they have now . . . But there must be something else.”
“There is,” stated Calhoun flatly.
“And what is that, Commander?” asked Grimes.
“It’s a matter of . . . Well, I suppose you’d call it Psionics, sir.”
“But the Shaara are an utterly materialistic race.”
“I agree, sir. But they still possess certain abilities, certain talents that were essential to their survival before they started to climb the evolutionary ladder. Such as dowsing . . .”
“Dowsing, Commander Calhoun?”
“Yes. According to some authorities, the ability of the honey bee on Earth, and on the other worlds to which it has been introduced, to find nectar-laden blossoms is akin to dowsing, for water or minerals, as practiced by human beings.”
“H’m. This is the first time that I’ve heard that theory.”
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“It’s not a new one, sir.”
Mitchell smiled for the first time since he had been awakened. It was not a happy smile, but it brought a momentary easing of the stern lines of his face. “Dowsing . . .” he whispered. “Yes. There could be a connection . . .”
“Such as?” asked Sonya Verrill.
The First Captain replied in a voice that was again doubtful, “I don’t know. But . . .” He went on, “As you must know, this ship is one of the specialized vessels built for large scale colonization. I’ve no doubt that in your day, Commander Verrill, newly discovered worlds are thoroughly surveyed before the first shipment of colonists is made. But in my time this was not so. The big ships pushed out into the unknown, heading for sectors of Space recommended by the astronomers. If their first planetfall was disappointing, then they proceeded to an alternative objective. And so on. But the crews and the passengers of the ships were themselves the survey teams.
“I need hardly tell you what such a survey team would have to look for. Water, on worlds that were apparently completely arid. Necessary ores. Mineral oil. The necessary electronic divining apparatus could have been carried, but in many ways it was better to carry, instead, a certain number of men and women who, in addition to their other qualifications, possessed dowsing ability.”
“I think I see what you’re driving at, Captain,” objected Sonya Verrill. “But those surface ships and aircraft would not have carried dowsers as an essential part of their crews.”
“Perhaps not, Commander Verrill. But—”
Calhoun broke in. “Dowsing ability is far more widespread than is generally realized. Most people have it to some degree.”
“So the Shaara can dowse, and we can dowse,” said Grimes. “But what is the connection?”
“You know where the dowsers among your passengers are berthed, Captain?” asked Calhoun. “Or should I have said ‘stowed?’ ”
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