"Bull!" said Fitz. "The oxygen tanks were part of the backup. We lost three storage banks."
"We still have the cryogenics to draw on," Danny said quietly. "They're good for a year."
"Hey, without recycling?" asked Foxy, for once not kibitzing. "You'd eat up the fuel!"
The staff room was considering item two: the water estimate itself. Stan's Bruno managed this time to survive the commander's impatience. The conclusion was that there were four months with medium comfort but restricted showers. Water was not a critical deterrent within the parameters of a landing maneuver, yet it was a limiting factor on the allowed period for a decision.
Danny pricked up his cars because navigation entered at this point. Their present velocity, even in free-fall, was rapidly pulling them away from the nearby planetary system.
Poyntner in astrophysics spoke up sharply. "The obvious decision is retropulsion."
"I recommend a vote on that," said Lyshenko, "at the end of your agenda, Doctor." His eyes gleamed briefly. "Or within one hour, whichever comes first!"
"Touche!" whispered Boozie.
Danny thought of the long chemical fuel tanks under the cold starlight out on the frames, the waiting clusters of the jet engines which had not been used for many months. These were the powerful thrusters that would be used for braking their velocity so that they could make a turn-around. How many Gs would they vote for? Would they go into retro before the S-link question was resolved? On that still hung the last thin thread of hope for the homeward journey. Otherwise, it would be a final commitment in favor of the Jumpers.
While everyone was absorbed in the meeting on the screens, he watched Frederica pensively. When he concentrated on her young, intelligent profile, he found himself wondering about the person inside. Aside from her position on board as a medical psychiatrist, what about the woman in her, or the girl behind the woman? Had she ever had an Earth dream? What kind of hangups had turned her off and made her a cog in the machine? He remembered that one brief moment when she had been trapped in his arms and her eyes were close with the shield temporarily down. What had he seen in those amber pools of an inner, secret life? His double-think shot him the concept of fear, but of what? How was she going to react to a decision to land on an unknown, untried planet, stranded for better or worse as one of three women with over three hundred men, not to mention the unprobed perils of a totally alien environment? What then of libido tensions and fantasizing patterns, Doctor?
He became aware of Boozie's studied surveillance. The faint smirk the Belgian gave him was loaded.
CHAPTER IV
When the S-link issue came up at last, it ran into a dilemma. As Alonso summarized it, there were two ways of looking at the subject: either they had to assume that the spare link was definitely gone and thus develop their decision from that premise; or they had to assume there was a possibility of finding it. In the latter case, they were again faced with the question of how much time could be devoted to a search. Chief geologist Cyrus Stockton cut the Gordian knot with an unexpected stroke of logic.
"It seems to me that if another point is settled first, we won't have to worry about the S-link. If we can determine here that a return trip to Earth is unfeasible, we will only have one choice before us. We must try for a landing on one of the local planets." He smiled up the table at Alonso. "In that case we won't have to waste time discussing the biophysical feasibility of planetary survival. We'll be committed to it!"
"He's one of the head Jumpers," said Fitz.
"I hate to say it," said Mabuse, "but he has a point."
"What if it's a toss-up?" asked Danny. "Home, or here?" Again he met the steady gaze of the bearded holy man next to Lalille. The wise old eyes carried a message that troubled him.
In the staff room, the big discussion was in full swing. Considering the theoretical feasibility of a return flight to Earth at this late stage was admittedly embarrassing, since it had already been started in desperation months ago. It was only now in the last few hours of their PNR limit that all issues had to be reexamined.
"It looks like the Skipper's a bit confused," said Fitz.
"The Jumpers are ganging up on him."
"He'll be more confused," said Frederica smugly, "when he learns just how many new Jumpers there are." She hesitated a moment, then looked directly at Danny, Fitz, and Boozie. "He also doesn't realize that the ship is an emotional powder keg. The tension curves are clearly graphed in the Psych Department's reports. He may find out about psycho-phasing the hard way."
The staff room meeting was beginning to get out of control. The shootings and arm wavings finally had to be quelled by threats from Lyshenko. He warned them he'd declare a crisis, In which case the parliamentary procedures would be at an end. By the rulebook, this would give him and Alonso dictatorial powers of decision.
The threat achieved its purpose except for one note of rebellion. This was from Marius Nolokov, who had been dubbed the "Mad Monk" by the crew. His Rasputin countenance appeared briefly on a remote screen above the conference table.
"Do you have a decision, commander?"
As Lyshenko only stared at him, apparently caught off guard, Nolokov added curtly, "Then you will permit this company to arrive at one!"
"Sir, you are in contempt!" said Alonso, raising his voice.
"Let's get on with this," said Lyshenko, ignoring the challenge as a lion might ignore a jackal.
"The Monk is asking for it," said Foxy.
As the meeting proceeded, Danny kept thinking about Marius Nolokov, assistant director of the parapsychology sector. Everyone in the psi group was some kind of paragnostic specialist, but the Mad Monk was more like a sorcerer among them. Known as having virtually a semi-mutant intelligence and possessing an eidetic memory, he was the super whiz kid of the starman set, often unassailable when it came to intellectual in-fighting. He was also known as a master of occultism including the gift of telekinesis.
Actually, Nolokov had gotten away with his assault on Lyshenko because in a sense it was part of his assignment. Among strategy men and think-tank scenario writers, Marius was known technically as a "Yabbut." This meant what it sounded like: yeah but. He was supposed to challenge everyone's thinking at the impasse and crisis points, and he performed his task only too well. Holy Sam was the only one who appeared to be his friend. Perhaps this was because the swami was the only one who understood him, or was it vice versa?
The issue before the staff was highly theoretical now. They were examining the possible nature of the barrier effect. In other words, what had really happened to them, and what were their navigational findings? In the course of this, something came up that troubled Danny. There was much reference to magnetic and gravitic warp affects when they broke through the eighth Barrier stage at a velocity of 8-C. This had happened about eighteen months previously, but everyone clearly remembered the crisis at the time. The ship had almost been shaken apart. Emergency outside action had been necessary. Scientific and technical crews had fought the warp storm while working out on the pod frames, checking tank tie downs and servo lines, rescuing cargo modules, and protecting the chem-fuel cryogenic system.
It was mention of Dr. Ernst Hahnemann that activated his peculiar double-think processes. Hahnemann had been the original project administrator before Alonso. During the crisis he had lost his life. In Danny's mind an unframed question lingered vaguely. He didn't know why it bothered him at the moment, so he was soon distracted from it by the staff room developments.
Dr. Alfred Poyntner, the chief astronomer and astrophysicist, was attempting to explain something that he admitted was an unknown dimension in science. Beyond the possibility of something working tangentially to Einstein's curved space structure, or something to do with the older Lorentz-Fitzgerald time-contraction theory, he was not able to speculate any further on what might have occurred.
"Then that would seem to make any other speculation equally valid," said Dr. Elliott, the head of the parapsychology group.
&nb
sp; Poyntner sneered loftily at him. "I suppose this is where we waste our time on the UFOs again!"
"Which is something you're not able to speculate about!" said Nolokov over his separate circuit.
There was a flurry of argument and comments on this almost taboo subject. Danny recalled the weird circumstances surrounding their sudden jump across the light-years. After the warp storm crisis, all hands on board had blacked out for a period which astrophysicists said could not be measured in real time. Before and after the occurrence, UFOs had allegedly been sighted. In spite of photographs, Poyntner and his empirical colleagues had insisted they were translight warpages and optical distortions. Poyntner's favorite argument against the theory of UFO influence was that all such phenomena were some kind of visual deception.
"So-called flying saucers are often seen rushing toward the observer on a crash course. Then they attenuate. They vanish like figments of the imagination, which they are!" While the argument continued in the staff room, Lalille mentioned the subject of dreams. She said this was another element that Freddie had included among her psycho-phasing indicators. Danny recalled that he was not alone in the weird vision department. He knew that Freddie had also had a few that were eerie and even symbolic, involving lights, alien faces, and once a topless pyramid on a geometric plane. Dr. Elliott, a bioplasma sensitive, had confessed that similar flashes had come to him in his dreams lately. Oddly enough, even Alfred Poyntner had spoken of such hallucinations, except that his were of a mathematical and geometric nature: curves, arcs and space-time equations, or sometimes electromagnetic spectra and sine waves.
"We've broken through a barrier, all right," Boozie said. "All the old rules are out the portholes. The lid is off!"
Finally, Dr. Elliott brought the UFO discussion to an end. "By admissible speculation," he said carefully, "that subject wasn't what I had in mind."
Poyntner reddened suddenly. "Now don't bring up that chastity-belt idea again! We can't waste our time on that!"
"According to what I've heard of it," said Tallullah Marsh, "it sounds fascinating, at least from an ethnological point of view. At any rate, we're examining anything we can lay our hands on at the moment, so I propose we have a clear presentation of the theory."
"It's unadulterated rubbish!" said Poyntner, who now seemed to be earning his nickname of "Old Pointed Head." "Let's get it into the record," said Lyshenko, "so we can use it or forget it!"
Alonso gave Dr. Elliott the floor. The gentle-mannered parapsychoiogist hastened to explain that it wasn't his own theory. "You might say it's been developed from various sources." He smiled resignedly. "Mostly philosophical, you might say."
Danny had only heard rumors of something called Nature's chastity belt. He had dismissed it before as some kind of philosophical cynicism, but soon he was leaning forward and double-thinking about it. Here again were some of those things he had never considered before, as if he were in a slow mutational awakening. As the theory was developed, he recalled the cryptic look in Sam's old eyes, and he felt the gooseflesh rise on his back. Here quite verily the lid was off!
"So to summarize the concept," said Elliott, "the laws of nature seem to impose this barrier wall, in order to prevent a cross-contamination of cultures in the universe. We've seen its effects in our own case – time-shift, parallel universe, another dimension – call it what we may. The fact is, no star ship has ever returned."
"Which leaves us nowhere!" said Poyntner with lofty impatience.
The Mad Monk was back on the screen. "That's precisely where you came in, Doctor!"
"Nolokov!" said Lyshenko abruptly. "You've opened your mouth enough without putting anything into it! Elliott tells me you're the expert on this zany idea. Now either make your point, or stay off the channel!"
Danny noted Nolokov's hesitation, as if he were caught off guard. He saw Dr. Elliott nod his approval at the Russian, and the latter's sarcastic manner changed. He seemed to move from an emotional level to an apathetic mental level.
"First, the ground rules, gentlemen. Do you want truth or politics? Your psychologists call it role playing, saving face, walking on eggs with each other, self-deceptive dodging–"
"Nolokov," said Alonso firmly, "get on with it, please."
Nolokov returned an icy smile. His dark, mystic's eyes gleamed contempt. "Very well, I'll give it to you straight. Metaphysically your collective condition is called the bondage of illusion. Your little personalities take precedence over the intuitions of super consciousness. Most of you are completely incapable of comprehending the implications here."
"Oh for God's sake!" moaned Poyntner impatiently.
"Particularly the purely mechanistic empiricists like yourself, Dr. Poyntner. You're flat out on a marble slab, dead to the issues involved."
Poyntner leapt to his feet so abruptly that he had to grab the table. Under the light deck gravity he almost lost his balance. "Sir, I do not intend–"
"Sit down!" said Lyshenko. "Let's get this over with, once and for all. Then we can get on with the more pragmatic business at hand!"
"Ah yes!" said Nolokov as Poyntner sat down angrily. "Pragmatism is the favorite word of the self-styled realist. The glorious New World Order has become so pragmatic that it's reduced you all to sausages – packaged ideologies, packaged people, all on a technological assembly line, zippered up and as turned off as the roborg consciousness. Behold the cyborg armies of the blind!"
There were indignant shouts of angry dissent.
Lyshenko stiffened visibly. "Nolokov, I warn you!" he said menacingly. "There will be no discussion of ideologies. You strain my official responsibilities here. Now get to the point and keep your insults to yourself, or by God, you'll be a roborg!"
Nolokov frowned darkly at this ultimate threat of the age, but he rallied fiercely. "You've missed the most basic factor of all – intelligence! Even materialistic science recognizes at least the effect of some kind of intelligence working behind the laws of the universe. Let me give you a hypothesis: Universal Intelligence. Consider that the universe itself is a form of conscious intelligence. After all, you can't define electro-magnetics, gravitation, or mental energy. I'll tell you that they're all the same, a living consciousness working behind cause and effect. Take it as a hypothesis that this intelligence, blind or cognizant, imposes the Barrier Wall; and as a consequence of our traversing that barrier we have been deliberately tossed astray."
Lyshenko slapped the table with a meaty hand. "For Christ's sake, Nolokov, I don't even know if you're speaking English!"
"Precisely!" said Poyntner vindictively.
Nolokov took a long breath, obviously striving to control his own fiery personality. "I get carried away. Perhaps another talent than mine is needed. It's an art, you know, to reduce archetypal ideas to verbal expression and concrete imagery, that is, where the intuitive faculty is absent. We have someone else on board who knows more about this subject than any of us. I suggest you have him explain it to you."
Dr. Elliott smiled nervously. "I believe I know who he's referring to."
"Then let's hear from him," said Alonso. For the first time the Duke appeared to be troubled by the discussion. He seemed anxious to get it over with. "Who's the man you're talking about?"
"Swami Sambhava Ramprasad."
Lalille turned gracefully and placed a delicate white hand on the holy man's dark wrist, as if to awaken him from meditation. An invisible operator somewhere extended a camera boom to bring him into video close-up. The staff room officials could see him on their screens. Alonso was urging him to speak.
The old swami seemed hesitant, but finally he smiled gently and spoke, slowly and carefully, with a soft East Indian accent. "There are perhaps a few points I may be able to explain. I may also say that this may bring you to a surprising conclusion, so that our time on this subject may not have been entirely wasted."
"I hope you can keep that promise, Swami," said Lyshenko pointedly.
"It is not given without reaso
n," said Sam with quiet confidence. "First, the few points I mentioned. In the matter of the intelligence of Nature, this has already become quite evident to science. In the instincts of animals you see what you often refer to as the wisdom of Nature. The biological cosmologist recognizes some kind of intelligence working in the formation of self-duplicating molecular chains which he calls basic life." He went on with a number of other learned examples but then addressed himself to his promised conclusion.
"There is no reason to believe that Nature, or a Universal Intelligence, should not have a mechanism to prevent the untimely crossing of human or humanoid cultures in the universe. We ourselves might well interfere with a primitive culture on a pristine world, as your anthropologists may be willing to confirm. On the other hand, some greatly advanced and even superhuman culture might give us knowledge that we are not prepared for, which in its own way can be dangerous. Our own technology, for example, far outstrips our wisdoms. At this point it is well to remember an axiom of the ancient wise: until we know what we don't know, we are not ready to know–"
"You promised us a conclusion," said Poyntner sharply. The holy man smiled benignly. "You have failed to focus your attention on the main effect of crossing the Barrier. I refer to the unaccountable great leap across vast interstellar distances at a velocity that is far beyond the design capacity of your vessel."
Lyshenko stared at him with sudden new interest. "Yes? And what do you make of that?"
"I find in this a positive note, sir. It may relieve all of you of the task of much discussion. Consider the long leap through the cosmic continuum – another working of Universal Intelligence – to bring us here for a purpose, to this alien sun and its family of planets. If you insist on attributing such things to natural law, which is valid enough, then you must also admit that Nature never works without purpose. Therefore, good friends, your attempt to return to Earth across the Barrier Wall may well prove to be futile, until you know what you don't know. Your efforts will be put to best use by submitting to forces already at work. You should proceed at once to make your landing, because it may well be that a wisdom greater than our own has guided us to this place."
Star Quest Page 4