“No, stupid, but they might lead to doors.”
“Stupid, eh? Even so, how are you going to open them—answer me that, bright boy?”
“What,” demanded Hugh, “are the ‘locked compartments’?”
“Don’t you know? There are seven doors, spaced around the main shaft in the same bulkhead as the door to the Main Control Room. We’ve never been able to open them.”
“Well, maybe that’s what we’re looking for. Let’s go see!”
“It’s a waste of time,” Jim insisted. But they went.
Bobo was taken along to try his monstrous strength on the doors. But even his knotted, swollen muscles could not budge the levers which appeared to be intended to actuate the doors. “Well?” Jim sneered to his brother. “You see?”
Joe shrugged. “O.K.—you win. Let’s go down.”
“Wait a little,” Hugh pleaded. “The second door back—the handle seemed to turn a little. Let’s try it again.”
“I’m afraid it’s useless,” Jim commented. But Joe said, “Oh, all right, as long as we’re here.”
Bobo tried again, wedging his shoulder under the lever and pushing from his knees. The lever gave suddenly, but the door did not open. “He’s broken it,” Joe announced.
“Yeah,” Hugh acknowledged. “I guess that’s that.” He placed his hand against the door.
It swung open easily.
The door did not lead to outer space, which was well for the three, for nothing in their experience warned them against the peril of the outer vacuum. Instead a very short and narrow vestibule led them to another door which was just barely ajar. The door stuck on its hinges, but the fact that it was slightly ajar prevented it from binding anywhere else. Perhaps the last man to use it left it so as a precaution against the metal surfaces freezing together—but no one would ever know.
Bobo’s uncouth strength opened it easily. Another door lay six feet beyond. “I don’t understand this,” complained Jim, as Bobo strained at the third door. “What’s the sense in an endless series of doors?”
“Wait and find out,” advised his brother.
Beyond the third door lay, not another door, but a compartment, a group of compartments, odd ones, small, crowded together and of unusual shapes. Bobo shot on ahead and explored the place, knife in teeth, his ugly body almost graceful in flight. Hugh and Joe-Jim proceeded more slowly, their eyes caught by the strangeness of the place.
Bobo returned, killed his momentum skillfully against a bulkhead, took his blade from his teeth, and reported, “No door. No more door any place. Bobo look.”
“There has to be,” Hugh insisted, irritated at the dwarf for demolishing his hopes.
The moron shrugged. “Bobo look.”
“We’ll look.” Hugh and the twins moved off in different directions, splitting the reconnaissance between them.
Hugh found no door, but what he did find interested him even more—an impossibility. He was about to shout for Joe-Jim, when he heard his own name called. “Hugh! Come here!”
Reluctantly he left his discovery, and sought out the twins. “Come see what I’ve found,” he began.
“Never mind,” Joe cut him short. “Look at that.”
Hugh looked. “That” was a Converter. Quite small, but indubitably a Converter. “It doesn’t make sense,” Jim protested. “An apartment this size doesn’t need a Converter. That thing would supply power and light for half the Ship. What do you make of it, Hugh?”
Hugh examined it. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but if you think this is strange, come see what I’ve found.”
“What have you found?”
“Come see.”
The twins followed him, and saw a small compartment, one wall of which appeared to be of glass—black, as if the far side were obscured. Facing the wall were two acceleration chairs, side by side. The arms and the lap desks of the chairs were covered with patterns of little shining lights of the same sort as the control lights on the chairs in the Main Control Room.
Joe-Jim made no comment at first, save for a low whistle from Jim. He sat down in one of the chairs and started experimenting cautiously with the controls. Hugh sat down beside him. Joe-Jim covered a group of white lights on the right-hand arm of his chair; the lights in the apartment went out. When he lifted his hand the tiny control lights were blue instead of white. Neither Joe-Jim nor Hugh went out; they had expected it, for the control involved corresponded to similar controls in the Control Room.
Joe-Jim fumbled around, trying to find controls which would produce a simulacrum of the heavens on the blank glass before him. There were no such controls and he had no way of knowing that the glass was an actual view port, obscured by the hull of the Ship proper, rather than a view screen.
But he did manage to actuate the controls that occupied the corresponding position. These controls were labeled: launching; Joe-Jim had disregarded the label because he did not understand it. Actuating them produced no very remarkable results, except that a red light blinked rapidly and a transparency below the label came into life. It read: air-lock open.
Which was very lucky for Joe-Jim, Hugh, and Bobo. Had they closed the doors behind them and had the little Converter contained even a few grams of mass available for power, they would have found themselves launched suddenly into space, in a Ship’s boat unequipped for a trip and whose controls they understood only by analogy with those in the Control Room. Perhaps they could have maneuvered the boat back into its cradle; more likely they would have crashed attempting it.
But Hugh and Joe-Jim were not yet aware that the “apartment” they had entered was a spacecraft; the idea of a Ship’s boat was still foreign to them.
“Turn on the lights,” Hugh requested. Joe-Jim did so.
“Well?” Hugh went on. “What do you make of it?”
“It seems pretty obvious,” answered Jim. “This is another Control Room. We didn’t guess it was here because we couldn’t open the door.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Joe objected. “Why should there be two Control Rooms for one Ship?”
“Why should a man have two heads?” his brother reasoned. “From my point of view, you are obviously a supernumerary.”
“It’s not the same thing; we were born that way. But this didn’t just happen—the Ship was built.”
“So what?” Jim argued. “We carry two knives, don’t we? And we weren’t born with ’em. It’s a good idea to have a spare.”
“But you can’t control the Ship from here,” Joe protested. “You can’t see anything from here. If you wanted a second set of controls, the place to put them would be the Captain’s veranda, where you can see the stars.”
“How about that?” Jim asked, indicating the wall of glass.
“Use your head,” his brother advised. “It faces the wrong direction. It looks into the Ship, not out. And it’s not an arrangement like the Control Room; there isn’t any way to mirror the stars on it.”
“Maybe we haven’t located the controls for it.”
“Even so, you’ve forgotten something. How about that little Converter?”
“What about it?”
“It must have some significance. It’s not here by accident. I’ll bet you that these controls have something to do with that Converter.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Why are they here together if there isn’t some connection?”
Hugh broke his puzzled silence. Everything the twins had said seemed to make sense, even the contradictions. It was all very confusing. But the Converter, the little Conver—“Say, look,” he burst out.
“Look at what?”
“Do you suppose—Do you think that maybe this part of the Ship could move?”
“Naturally. The whole Ship moves.”
“No,” said Hugh, “no, no. I don’t mean that at all. Suppose it moved by itself. These controls and the little Converter—suppose it could move right away from the Ship.”
“That’s pretty fantas
tic.”
“Maybe so—but if it’s true, this is the way out.”
“Huh?” said Joe. “Nonsense. No door to the Outside here either.”
“But there would be if this apartment were moved away from the Ship—the way we came in!”
* * *
The two heads snapped simultaneously toward him as if jerked by the same string. Then they looked at each other and fell to arguing. Joe-Jim repeated his experiment with the controls. “See?” Joe pointed out. “‘Launching.’ It means to start something, to push something away.”
“Then why doesn’t it?”
“‘Air Lock Open.’ The doors we came through—it has to be that. Everything else is closed.”
“Let’s try it.”
“We would have to start the Converter first.”
“O.K.”
“Not so fast. Get out, and maybe you can’t come back. We’d starve.”
“Hm-m-m—we’ll wait a while.”
Hugh listened to the discussion while snooping around the control panels, trying to figure them out. There was a stowage space under the lap desk of his chair; he fished into it, encountered something, and hauled it out. “See what I’ve found!”
“What is it?” asked Joe. “Oh—a book. Lot of them back in the room next to the Converter.”
“Let’s see it,” said Jim.
But Hugh had opened it himself. “‘Log, Starship Vanguard,’” he spelled out. “‘2 June, 2172. Cruising as before—’”
“What!” yelled Joe. “Let me see that!”
“‘3 June. Cruising as before. 4 June. Cruising as before. Captain’s mast for rewards and punishments held at 1300. See Administration Log. 5 June. Cruising as before—’”
“Gimme that!”
“Wait!” said Hugh. “‘6 June. Mutiny broke out at 0431. The watch became aware of it by visiplate. Huff, Metalsmith Ordinary, screened the control station and called on the watch to surrender, designating himself as Captain. The officer of the watch ordered him to consider himself under arrest and signaled the Captain’s cabin. No answer.’
“‘0435. Communications failed. The officer of the watch dispatched a party of three to notify the Captain, turn out the chief proctor, and assist in the arrest of Huff.’
“‘0441. Converter power off; free flight.’
“‘0502. Lacy, Crewman Ordinary, messenger-of-the-watch, one of the party of three sent below, returned to the control station alone. He reported verbally that the other two, Malcolm Young and Arthur Sears, were dead and that he had been permitted to return in order to notify the watch to surrender. The mutineers gave 0515 as a deadline.’”
The next entry was in a different hand: “‘0545. I have made every attempt to get into communication with other stations and officers in the Ship, without success. I conceive it as my duty, under the circumstances, to leave the control station without being properly relieved, and attempt to restore order down below. My decision may be faulty, since we are unarmed, but I see no other course open to me.
“‘Jean Baldwin, Pilot Officer Third Class, Officer of the Watch.’”
“Is that all?” demanded Joe.
“No,” said Hugh. “‘1 October (approximately), 2172. I, Theodor Mawson, formerly Storekeeper Ordinary, have been selected this date as Captain of the Vanguard. Since the last entry in this log there have been enormous changes. The mutiny has been suppressed, or more properly, has died out, but with tragic cost. Every pilot officer, every engineering officer, is dead, or believed to be dead. I would not have been chosen Captain had there been a qualified man left.’
“‘Approximately ninety percent of the personnel are dead. Not all of that number died in the original outbreak; no crops have been planted since the mutiny; our foodstocks are low. There seems to be clear evidence of cannibalism among the mutineers who have not surrendered.’
“‘My immediate task must be to restore some semblance of order and discipline among the Crew. Crops must be planted. A regular watch must be instituted at the auxiliary Converter on which we are dependent for heat and light and power.’”
The next entry was undated. “‘I have been far too busy to keep this log up properly. Truthfully, I do not know the date even approximately. The Ship’s clocks no longer run. That may be attributable to the erratic operation of the auxiliary Converter, or it may possibly be an effect of radiations from outer space. We no longer have an anti-radiation shield around the Ship, since the Main Converter is not in operation. My Chief Engineer assures me that the Main Converter could be started, but we have no one fitted to astrogate. I have tried to teach myself astrogation from the books at hand, but the mathematics involved are very difficult.’
“‘About one newborn child out of twenty is deformed. I have instituted a Spartan code—such children are not permitted to live. It is harsh, but necessary.’”
“‘I am growing very old and feeble and must consider the selection of my successor. I am the last member of the crew to be born on Earth, and even I have little recollection of it—I was five when my parents embarked. I do not know my own age, but certain unmistakable signs tell me that the time is not far away when I, too, must make the Trip to the Converter.’
“‘There has been a curious change in orientation in my people. Never having lived on a planet, it becomes more difficult as time passes for them to comprehend anything not connected with the Ship. I have ceased trying to talk to them about it—it is hardly a kindness anyhow, as I have no hope of leading them out of the darkness. Theirs is a hard life at best; they raise a crop only to have it raided by the outlaws who still flourish on the upper levels. Why speak to them of better things?’
“‘Rather than pass this on to my successor I have decided to attempt to hide it, if possible, in the single Ship’s boat left by the mutineers who escaped. It will be safe there a long time—otherwise some witless fool may decide to use it for fuel for the Converter. I caught the man on watch feeding it with the last of a set of Encyclopaedia Terrestriana—priceless books. The idiot had never been taught to read! Some rule must be instituted concerning books.’
“‘This is my last entry. I have put off making the attempt to place this log in safekeeping because it is very perilous to ascend above the lower decks. But my life is no longer valuable; I wish to die knowing that a true record is left. Theodor Mawson, Captain.’”
Even the twins were silent for a long time after Hugh stopped reading. At last Joe heaved a long sigh and said, “So that’s how it happened.”
“The poor guy,” Hugh said softly. “Who? Captain Mawson? Why so?”
“No, not Captain Mawson. That other guy, Pilot Officer Baldwin. Think of him going out through that door, with Huff on the other side.” Hugh shivered. In spite of his enlightenment, he subconsciously envisioned Huff. “Huff the Accursed, first to sin,” as about twice as high as Joe-Jim, twice as strong as Bobo, and having fangs rather than teeth.
* * *
Hugh borrowed a couple of porters from Ertz—porters whom Ertz was using to fetch the pickled bodies of the war casualties to the Main Converter for fuel—and used them to provision the Ship’s boat; water, breadstuffs, preserved meats, mass for the Converter. He did not report the matter to Narby, nor did he report the discovery of the boat itself. He had no conscious reason—Narby irritated him.
The star of their destination grew and grew, swelled until it showed a visible disc and was too bright to be stared at long. Its bearing changed rapidly, for a star; it pulled across the backdrop of the stellarium dome. Left uncontrolled, the Ship would have swung part way around it in a broad hyperbola and receded again into the depths of the darkness. It took Hugh the equivalent of many weeks to calculate the elements of the trajectory; it took still longer for Ertz and Joe-Jim to check his figures and satisfy themselves that the preposterous answers were right. It took even longer to convince Ertz that the way to rendezvous in space was to apply a force that pushed one away from where one wished to go—that is to say,
dig in the heels, put on the brakes, kill the momentum.
In fact it took a series of experiments in free flight on the level of weightlessness to sell him the idea—otherwise he would have favored finishing the Trip by the simple expedient of crashing headlong into the star at top speed. Thereafter Hugh and Joe-Jim calculated how to apply acceleration to kill the speed of the Vanguard and warp her into an eccentric ellipse around the star. After that they would search for planets.
Ertz had a little trouble understanding the difference between a planet and a star. Alan never did get it.
“If my numbering is correct,” Hugh informed Ertz, “we should start accelerating any time now.”
“O.K.,” Ertz told him. “Main Drive is ready—over two hundred bodies and a lot of waste mass. What are we waiting for?”
“Let’s see Narby and get permission to start.”
“Why ask him?”
Hugh shrugged. “He’s Captain. He’ll want to know.”
“All right. Let’s pick up Joe-Jim and get on with it.” They left Hugh’s apartment and went to Joe-Jim’s. Joe-Jim was not there, but they found Alan looking for him, too.
“Squatty says he’s gone down to the Captain’s office,” Alan informed him.
“So? It’s just as well—we’ll see him there. Alan, old boy, you know what?”
“What?”
“The time has arrived. We’re going to do it! Start moving the Ship!”
Alan looked round-eyed. “Gee! Right now?”
“Just as soon as we can notify the Captain. Come along, if you like.”
“You bet! Wait while I tell my woman.” He darted away to his own quarters nearby.
“He pampers that wench,” remarked Ertz.
“Sometimes you can’t help it,” said Hugh with a faraway look.
Alan returned promptly, although it was evident that he had taken time to change to a fresh breechcloth. “O.K.,” he bubbled. “Let’s go!”
Alan approached the Captain’s office with a proud step. He was an important guy now, he exulted to himself—he’d march on through with his friends while the guards saluted—no more of this business of being pushed around.
Man Who Sold the Moon / Orphans of the Sky Page 40