by Isaac Asimov
Powell said, “What are you talking about? What’s the good of sending us out if we don’t know how to run the machine? How are we supposed to bring it back? No, this ship left by itself, and without any apparent acceleration.” He rose, and walked the floor slowly. The metal walls dinned back the clangor of his steps.
He said tonelessly, “Mike, this is the most confusing situation we’ve ever been up against.”
“That,” said Donovan, bitterly, “is news to me. I was just beginning to have a very swell time, when you told me.”
Powell ignored that. “No acceleration – which means the ship works on a principle different from any known.”
“Different from any we know, anyway.”
“Different from any known. There are no engines within reach of manual control. Maybe they’re built into the walls. Maybe that’s why they’re thick as they are.”
“What are you mumbling about?” demanded Donovan.
“Why not listen? I’m saying that whatever powers this ship is enclosed, and evidently not meant to be handled. The ship is running by remote control.”
“The Brain’s control?”
“Why not?”
“Then you think we’ll stay out here till The Brain brings us back.”
“It could be. If so, let’s wait quietly. The Brain is a robot. It’s got to follow the First Law. It can’t hurt a human being.”
Donovan sat down slowly, “You figure that?” Carefully, he flattened his hair, “Listen, this junk about the space-warp knocked out Consolidated’s robot, and the longhairs said it was because interstellar travel killed humans. Which robot are you going to trust? Ours had the same data, I understand.”
Powell was yanking madly at his mustache, “Don’t pretend you don’t know your robotics, Mike. Before it’s physically possible in any way for a robot to even make a start to breaking the First Law, so many things have to break down that it would be a ruined mess of scrap ten times over. There’s some simple explanation to this.”
“Oh sure, sure. Just have the butler call me in the morning. It’s all just too, too simple for me to bother about before my beauty nap.”
“Well, Jupiter, Mike, what are you complaining about so far? The Brain is taking care of us. This place is warm. It’s got light. It’s got air. There wasn’t even enough of an acceleration jar to muss your hair if it were smooth enough to be mussable in the first place.”
“Yeah? Greg, you must’ve taken lessons. No one could put Pollyanna that far out of the running without. What do we eat? What do we drink? Where are we? How do we get back? And in case of accident, to what exit and in what spacesuit do we run, not walk? I haven’t even seen a bathroom in the place, or those little conveniences that go along with bathrooms. Sure, we’re being taken care of – but good?”
The voice that interrupted Donovan’s tirade was not Powell’s. It was nobody’s. It was there, hanging in open air – stentorian and petrifying in its effects.
“GREGORY POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN! GREGORY POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN! PLEASE REPORT YOUR PRESENT POSITIONS. IF YOUR SHIP ANSWERS CONTROLS, PLEASE RETURN TO BASE. GREGORY POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN!-”
The message was repetitious, mechanical, broken by regular, untiring intervals.
Donovan said, “Where’s it coming from?”
“I don’t know.” Powell’s voice was an intense whisper, “Where do the lights come from? Where does anything come from?”
“Well, how are we going to answer?” They had to speak in the intervals between the loudly echoing, repeating message.
The walls were bare – as bare and as unbroken as smooth, curving metal can be. Powell said, “Shout an answer.”
They did. They shouted, in turns, and together, “Position unknown! Ship out of control! Condition desperate!”
Their voices rose and cracked. The short businesslike sentences became interlarded and adulterated with screaming and emphatic profanity, but the cold, calling voice repeated and repeated and repeated unwearyingly.
“They don’t hear us,” gasped Donovan. “There’s no sending mechanism. Just a receiver.” His eyes focused blindly at a random spot on the wall.
Slowly the din of the outside voice softened and receded. They called again when it was a whisper, and they called again, hoarsely, when there was silence.
Something like fifteen minutes later, Powell said lifelessly, “Let’s go through the ship again. There must be something to eat somewheres.” He did not sound hopeful. It was almost an admission of defeat.
They divided in the corridor to the right and left. They could follow one another by the hard footsteps resounding, and they met occasionally in the corridor, where they would glare at each other and pass on.
Powell’s search ended suddenly and as it did, he heard Donovan’s glad voice rise boomingly.
“Hey, Greg,” it howled, “The ship has got plumbing. How did we miss it?”
It was some five minutes later that he found Powell by hit-and-miss. He was saying, “Still no shower baths, though,” but it got choked off in the middle.
“Food,” he gasped.
The wall had dropped away, leaving a curved gap with two shelves. The upper shelf was loaded with unlabeled cans of a bewildering variety of sizes and shapes. The enameled cans on the lower shelf were uniform and Donovan felt a cold draft about his ankles. The lower half was refrigerated.
“How... how-”
“It wasn’t there, before,” said Powell, curtly. “That wall section dropped out of sight as I came in the door.”
He was eating. The can was the preheating type with enclosed spoon and the warm odor of baked beans filled the room. “Grab a can, Mike!”
Donovan hesitated, “What’s the menu?”
“How do I know! Are you finicky?”
“No, but all I eat on ships are beans. Something else would be first choice.” His hand hovered and selected a shining elliptical can whose flatness seemed reminiscent of salmon or similar delicacy. It opened at the proper pressure.
“Beans!” howled Donovan, and reached for another. Powell hauled at the slack of his pants. “Better eat that, sonny boy. Supplies are limited and we may be here a long, long time.”
Donovan drew back sulkily, “Is that all we have? Beans?”
“Could be.”
“What’s on the lower shelf?”
“Milk.”
“Just milk?” Donovan cried in outrage.
“Looks it.”
The meal of beans and milk was carried through in silence, and as they left, the strip of hidden wall rose up and formed an unbroken surface once more.
Powell sighed, “Everything automatic. Everything just so. Never felt so helpless in my life. Where’s your plumbing?”
“Right there. And that wasn’t among those present when we first looked, either.”
Fifteen minutes later they were back in the glassed-in room, staring at each other from opposing seats.
Powell looked gloomily at the one gauge in the room. It still said “parsecs,” the figures still ended in “1,000,000” and the indicating needle was still pressed hard against the zero mark.
In the innermost offices of the U. S. Robot & Mechanical Men Corp. Alfred Lanning was saying wearily, “They won’t answer. We’ve tried every wavelength, public, private, coded, straight, even this subether stuff they have now. And The Brain still won’t say anything?” He shot this at Dr. Calvin.
“It won’t amplify on the matter, Alfred,” she said, emphatically. “It says they can hear us... and when I try to press it, it becomes... well, it becomes sullen. And it’s not supposed to – whoever heard of a sullen robot?”
“Suppose you tell us what you have, Susan,” said Bogert.
“Here it is! It admits it controls the ship itself entirely. It is definitely optimistic about their safety, but without details. I don’t dare press it. However, the center of disturbance seems to be about the interstellar jump itself. The Brain definitely laughed when I brought up t
he subject. There are other indications, but that is the closest it’s come to an open abnormality.”
She looked at the others, “I refer to hysteria. I dropped the subject immediately, and I hope I did no harm, but it gave me a lead. I can handle hysteria. Give me twelve hours! If I can bring it back to normal, it will bring back the ship.”
Bogert seemed suddenly stricken. “The interstellar jump!”
“What’s the matter?” The cry was double from Calvin and Lanning.
“The figures for the engine The Brain gave us. Say... I just thought of something.”
He left hurriedly.
Lanning gazed after him. He said brusquely to Calvin, “You take care of your end, Susan.”
Two hours later, Bogert was talking eagerly, “I tell you, Lanning, that’s it. The interstellar jump is not instantaneous not as long as the speed of light is finite. Life can’t exist... matter and energy as such can’t exist in the space warp. I don’t know what it would be like – but that’s it. That’s what killed Consolidated’s robot.”
Donovan felt as haggard as he looked. “Only five days?”
“Only five days. I’m sure of it.”
Donovan looked about him wretchedly. The stars through the glass were familiar but infinitely indifferent. The walls were cold to the touch; the lights, which had recently flared up again, were unfeelingly bright; the needle on the gauge pointed stubbornly to zero; and Donovan could not get rid of the taste of beans.
He said, morosely, “I need a bath.”
Powell looked up briefly, and said, “So do I. You needn’t feel self-conscious. But unless you want to bathe in milk and do without drinking”
“We’ll do without drinking eventually, anyway. Greg, where does this interstellar travel come in?’
“You tell me. Maybe we just keep on going. We’d get there, eventually. At least the dust of our skeletons would – but isn’t our death the whole point of The Brain’s original breakdown?”
Donovan spoke with his back to the other, “Greg, I’ve been thinking. It’s pretty bad. There’s not much to do – except walk around or talk to yourself. You know those stories about guys marooned in space. They go nuts long before they starve. I don’t know, Greg, but ever since the lights went on, I feel funny.”
There was a silence, then Powell’s voice came thin and small, “So do I. What’s it like?”
The redheaded figure turned, “Feel funny inside. There’s a pounding in me with everything tense. It’s hard to breathe. I can’t stand still.”
“Um-m-m. Do you feel vibration?”
“How do you mean?”
“Sit down for a minute and listen. You don’t hear it, but you feel it – as if something’s throbbing somewheres and it’s throbbing the whole ship, and you, too, along with it. Listen-”
“Yeah... yeah. What do you think it is, Greg? You don’t suppose it’s us?”
“It might be.” Powell stroked his mustache slowly. “But it might be the ship’s engines. It might be getting ready.”
“For what?”
“For the interstellar jump. It may be coming and the devil knows what it’s like.”
Donovan pondered. Then he said, savagely, “If it does, let it. But I wish we could fight. It’s humiliating to have to wait for it.”
An hour later, perhaps, Powell looked at his hand on the metal chair-arm and said with frozen calm, “Feel the wall, Mike.”
Donovan did, and said, “You can feel it shake, Greg.”
Even the stars seemed blurred. From somewhere came the vague impression of a huge machine gathering power with the walls, storing up energy for a mighty leap, throbbing its way up the scales of strength.
It came with a suddenness and a stab of pain. Powell stiffened, and half-jerked from his chair. His sight caught Donovan and blanked out while Donovan’s thin shout whimpered and died in his ears. Something writhed within him and struggled against a growing blanket of ice, that thickened.
Something broke loose and whirled in a blaze of flickering light and pain. It fell – and whirled and fell headlong into silence!
It was death!
It was a world of no motion and no sensation. A world of dim, unsensing consciousness; a consciousness of darkness and of silence and of formless struggle.
Most of all a consciousness of eternity.
He was a tiny white thread of ego – cold and afraid.
Then the words came, unctuous and sonorous, thundering over him in a foam of sound:
“Does your coffin fit differently lately? Why not try Morbid M. Cadaver’s extensible caskets? They are scientifically designed to fit the natural curves of the body, and are enriched with Vitamin B1. Use Cadaver’s caskets for comfort. Remember-you’re-going-to-be-dead-a-long-long-time!”
It wasn’t quite sound, but whatever it was, it died away in an oily rumbling whisper.
The white thread that might have been Powell heaved uselessly at the insubstantial eons of time that existed all about him – and collapsed upon itself as the piercing shriek of a hundred million ghosts of a hundred million soprano voices rose to a crescendo of melody:
“I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal, you.
“I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal, you.
“I’ll be glad-”
It rose up a spiral stairway of violent sound into the keening supersonics that passed hearing, and then beyond-
The white thread quivered with a pulsating pang. It strained quietly-
The voices were ordinary – and many. It was a crowd speaking; a swirling mob that swept through and past and over him with a rapid, headlong motion, that left drifting tatters of words behind them.
“What did they getcha for, boy? Y’look banged up-”
“– A hot fire, I guess, but I got a case-”
“– I’ve made Paradise, but old St. Pete-”
“Naaah, I got a pull with the boy. Had dealings with him-”
“Hey, Sam, come this way-”
“Ja get a mouthpiece? Beelzebub says-”
“– Going on, my good imp? My appointment is with Sa-”
And above it all the original stentorian roar, that plunged across all:
“HURRY! HURRY! HURRY!!! Stir your bones, and don’t keep us waiting – there are many more in line. Have your certificates ready, and make sure Peter’s release is stamped across it. See if you are at the proper entrance gate. There will be plenty of fire for all. Hey, you – YOU DOWN THERE. TAKE YOUR PLACE IN LINE OR-”
The white thread that was Powell groveled backward before the advancing shout, and felt the sharp stab of the pointing finger. It all exploded into a rainbow of sound that dripped its fragments onto an aching brain.
Powell was in the chair, again. He felt himself shaking.
Donovan’s eyes were opening into two large popping bowls of glazed blue.
“Greg,” he whispered in what was almost a sob. “Were you dead?”
“I... felt dead.” He did not recognize his own croak.
Donovan was obviously making a bad failure of his attempt to stand up, “Are we alive now? Or is there more?”
“I... feel alive.” It was the same hoarseness. Powell said cautiously, “Did you... hear anything, when... when you were dead?”
Donovan paused, and then very slowly nodded his head, “Did you?”
“Yes. Did you hear about coffins... and females singing... and the lines forming to get into Hell? Did you?”
Donovan shook his head, “Just one voice.”
“Loud?”
“No. Soft, but rough like a file over the fingertips. It was a sermon, you know. About hell-fire. He described the tortures of... well, you know. I once heard a sermon like that – almost.”
He was perspiring.
They were conscious of sunlight through the port. It was weak, but it was blue-white – and the gleaming pea that was the distant source of light was not Old Sol.
And Powell pointed a trembling finger at the sin
gle gauge. The needle stood stiff and proud at the hairline whose figure read 300,000 parsecs.
Powell said, “Mike if it’s true, we must be out of the Galaxy altogether.”
Donovan said, “Blazed Greg! We’d be the first men out of the Solar System.”
“Yes! That’s just it. We’ve escaped the sun. We’ve escaped the Galaxy. Mike, this ship is the answer. It means freedom for all humanity – freedom to spread through to every star that exists – millions and billions and trillions of them.”
And then he came down with a hard thud, “But how do we get back, Mike?”
Donovan smiled shakily, “Oh, that’s all right. The ship brought us here. The ship will take us back. Me for more beans.”
“But Mike... hold on, Mike. If it takes us back the way it brought us here-”
Donovan stopped halfway up and sat back heavily into the chair.
Powell went on, “We’ll have to... die again, Mike”
“Well,” sighed Donovan, “if we have to, we have to. At least it isn’t permanent, not very permanent.”
Susan Calvin was speaking slowly now. For six hours she had been slowly prodding The Brain – for six fruitless hours. She was weary of repetitions, weary of circumlocutions, weary of everything.
“Now, Brain, there’s just one more thing. You must make a special effort to answer simply. Have you been entirely clear about the interstellar jump? I mean does it take them very far?”
“As far as they want to go, Miss Susan. Golly, it isn’t any trick through the warp.”
“And on the other side, what will they see?”
“Stars and stuff. What do you suppose?”
The next question slipped out, “They’ll be alive, then?”
“Sure!”
“And the interstellar jump won’t hurt them?”
She froze as The Brain maintained silence. That was it! She had touched the sore spot.
“Brain,” she supplicated faintly, “Brain, do you hear me?”
The answer was weak, quivering. The Brain said, “Do I have to answer? About the jump, I mean?”