by Larry Niven
65
The next days were a blur, Baedeker slipping in and out of consciousness. Slip in, anyway. The return was never so gentle. Sigmund cajoled, he berated, he threatened. When speech failed to work, the jabbing and kicking began.
How often did the cycle repeat? Baedeker had lost count. Each time that he emerged enough to hear, Sigmund would say the same thing. “Only you can save us.”
And only Baedeker could. Somehow, on the first day, he had suited up and managed to follow Sigmund to a stepping disc in the drifting stern. Its hull, severed from the power plant still embedded in the bow, had become dust blown away by air pressure.
Baedeker found half of a hyperdrive shunt and a thin wedge of a hyperwave transceiver. He saw no way to repair either. The rest had been carried away in the normal-space bubble around the Gw’oth shunt when they left.
The Gw’oth building a hyperdrive from scratch only proved Baedeker had been correct all along about them. And made his inability even to repair a hyperdrive all the more bitter.
With scavenged supplies, he and Sigmund had stepped back to the bridge. Then, in fits and starts, in a fog of confusion and exhaustion and dread, Baedeker had toiled. It had seemed endless. He stabilized what remained of the environmental systems. He extracted tiny fusion reactors from scavenged stepping discs to keep life support running. While Sigmund continued to forage what remained of the ship for water and emergency rations and anything else possibly useful, Baedeker began, fearfully, to disassemble everything nonessential.
This stump of a ship would wander forever. It had no use for force-field generators for crash-couch protection. It was in the middle of nowhere, and that made radar useless. The comm laser, too: Any signal they transmitted would be too attenuated to matter when, creeping along at light speed, it finally reached anyone who might help them. By then, in any event, they would long since have starved. Gravity control circuits, distributed processing nodes, power distribution—it was all expendable to build the thing they needed most: a hyperwave radio.
He had the wrong parts, hardly any instrumentation with which to test what he cobbled together, and only a pocket computer on which to simulate designs. Time and again he zoned out, lost himself in his thoughts, faded away, until Sigmund, with escalating levels of alarm and abuse, roused Baedeker to refocus on his task.
Throughout, fear plagued him. Had the Concordance traded the Pak for—even created—an even worse threat?
At last the hyperwave radio was complete. They powered it with a cascade of three stepping-disc fusion reactors. They reached one of the comm buoys in orbit around New Terra. Sigmund had scarcely spoken more than their coordinates when, with an earsplitting pop, the jury-rigged hyperwave set burst into flame.
Baedeker slipped away once more.
SIGMUND BEGAN making tick marks on the bridge bulkhead: dark/light cycles since their call for help. Call each cycle a day.
On day one, he told himself he was optimistic. The coordinates were the most important part of his message. He had sent those. Help would come.
Nothing could rouse Baedeker again. Sigmund tucked Baedeker, comatose, out of the way behind the copilot couch and activated the only emergency stasis-field generator he had found.
On day three, Sigmund spent hours experimenting with his jumpsuit controls. Patterns, colors, textures, and combinations—he studied them all. For years he had promised Penny he would, “When he could spare the time.” He had the time now. He still failed to see the point.
On day five, he began resenting Baedeker, oblivious within the stasis field. Never mind that the Puppeteer had been all but comatose. Never mind that only one of them eating, drinking, and breathing effectively doubled Sigmund’s rations.
By day ten, he really resented Baedeker.
On day fifteen, Sigmund began screaming and throwing stuff against the walls to hear something other than his own thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” Ol’t’ro had said. Only that message had been just to Sigmund; Baedeker’s comp had no such message. Sorry to kill you, Sigmund. Not so sorry about Baedeker.
Apology not accepted.
On day twenty-two, Sigmund found his thoughts stuck in a loop, obsessing over Er’ o’s final visit. Gw’oth fears. Feelers for New Terran support. Sigmund’s noncommittal response. Never mind that he could not commit New Terra.
By the time Baedeker and he were rescued—if they were rescued—Ol’t’ro would have reached their home solar system. Could they land the habitat? Sigmund had his doubts, but it didn’t matter. A Gw’oth interplanetary ship could rendezvous with the habitat.
Knowing the Fleet’s location and building hyperdrives of their own, the Gw’oth had become untouchable.
On day twenty-five, Sigmund made the mistake of powering up the view port. Nothing but stars and a blobby nebula in sight. Suddenly he was clawing at the bridge hatch he had had the foresight to spot-weld shut. Blood streamed from torn fingers. A massive flat-phobia attack. He was starving when he returned to his senses, and never quite believed his day count after that.
On day thirty (if it was), he fixated on the Gw’oth coming on Reap the Whirlwind when he had offered to send them home. They had insisted on seeing the job through, without regard for their safety. Only then—their task complete, the Pak deterred—had Er’o come to Sigmund for reassurance.
And then, after realpolitik and Sigmund’s evasive answers had left them no choice, Ol’t’ro saved themselves. He wished them well.
“I’m sorry, too,” Sigmund whispered.
ON DAY THIRTY-FOUR, choking down another sawdust-flavored energy bar, Sigmund found himself fantasizing how Puppeteer meat would taste.
On day thirty-seven, he thought about the Gw’oth stringing along Baedeker. Pulling a Puppeteer’s strings. That was hilarious, and even funnier when he used his hands as Puppeteer heads looking each other in the eyes. He spent the rest of the day composing limericks about it.
On day forty, he caught his reflection in the stasis field. Someone wild-eyed, heavily bearded, and gaunt stared back at him. He huddled between crash couches for the rest of the day.
On day forty-two, flatland phobia seized him again. He came out of it chanting to himself, “No more spaceships. No more spaceships. No more spaceships . . .” and overwhelmed by déjà vu. He was croaking like a frog, his throat raw, before he forced himself to stop.
Then came the day he could not remember when he had last put a mark on the wall. His comp would tell him, he suddenly remembered. He wondered where he had left it. He spent hours tearing apart the bridge before finding the comp in his pocket. That reduced him to helpless laughter, tears running down his face. He laughed, or cried, himself to sleep.
The next day, he checked the comp. It was day fifty-two.
On day fifty-four, he could not remember why he was counting.
On day fifty-five, he wondered if he could survive much longer.
On day fifty-six, Sigmund struggled to recall why he should care.
On day fifty-seven, figures materialized on the bridge stepping disc. Eric. Then Kirsten. When Penelope appeared, he remembered.
EPILOGUE
Thssthfok’s eyes darted from instrument to instrument. Nothing made sense.
A moment ago, space-time itself was coming apart. Close behind, the debris of a shattered world spewed at him. Failure was still bitter in his mouth.
Now his instruments showed only peaceful void.
He shivered. The cockpit was cold. How could the temperature drop instantaneously? And when he dared to glance up from his console, stars rolled past.
The canopy was gone! An almost subliminal shimmer marked the force field that logic insisted must be holding in his air. When he looked around, the ship was pocked with holes.
The console clock still kept time. Thssthfok understood human units of time, but not their dating system. Time had passed for the universe-gone-mad to heal itself, but how much? He had no idea.
Only a few of his attitude j
ets still held compressed air—more holes?—but he managed to kill his spin. Star configurations seemed both familiar and warped. Instruments confirmed what he had been loath to admit: He was light-years removed from the last view he remembered.
And light-years distant from the Pak fleets. The leading edge of the advance again receded from him. Nor was it only Thssthfok whose location had shifted: The ramscoops had moved, too.
Somehow, years had passed.
HIS MAIN FUEL TANKS WERE PUNCTURED, their deuterium long vanished. Only a small reserve tank, all but drained, held deuterium. Once he used that—that was it. The force field would disappear, his air would spurt out, and he would die.
Maybe that was why the ship had ended his oblivion. It needed his help.
Somehow this ship had kept him alive for years. What other unsuspected capabilities did it have? Whatever the universe thought, in Thssthfok’s mind he had hurriedly reassembled the control console just a few day-tenths earlier. He remembered the unfamiliar subsystems inside.
He opened the console, slid out drawers and racks, spread apart wiring harnesses. He remembered where gauges and instruments had been clipped. The humans had studied the very subsystems that interested Thssthfok.
Whatever those circuits did, their design was Pak-inspired. He was second-guessing a mutant protector.
AS COLD AS THE CABIN WAS, Thssthfok left the temperature alone. He had no deuterium to spare for mere comfort. He took a nibble of tree-of-life root and continued his studies.
The self-repair capability was a brilliant blend of Pak and human technology. So was the pressure-retaining force field, only that was also an enigma. To judge from the position of the Pak fleets, Thssthfok’s ship had been adrift for years. The force-field generator would have drained his reserve tank in a fraction of the time. And that led him to the most astonishing discovery—
The stasis generator. Within the field it created around the pilot’s couch, time would stand still. Nothing inside would change—and that included any consumption of energy.
Time itself had frozen for him while this ship drifted, slowly repairing itself, until its energy reserves dipped dangerously low. So the ship had activated the pressure-retaining force field, put air into the cabin, and released him from stasis.
How to survive was his problem now.
Instruments showed a world on which he could survive, scarcely a light-year away. That could not be a coincidence—the ship had brought him here. Whether it had sought a planet to support Pak or human, the result was the same.
Smog tainted the planet’s atmosphere. Radio emissions spewed forth. The natives were advanced well beyond the point to which, after long years of effort, he had pushed the Drar. He could put to-be-conquered slaves to good use, and quickly.
Could one Pak alone conquer that world? What he could infer of their technology made that uncertain. But certainly he would fail if he did not try. He would plan on success, and find out when he arrived.
So: They could build him a ramscoop—maybe even a hyperdrive—in only a few years. With severe rationing, possibly even before he died for lack of tree-of-life root. Maybe the planet would even grow tree-of-life.
If he could get there.
THSSTHFOK FINALLY KNEW why the ship had released him from stasis. Enough deuterium remained to complete repairs. And to cross the final distance. And to shed his velocity and land.
Pick any two.
While he studied the capabilities of his ship, surveyed his destination, and assessed his options, the demands of the pressure-retaining force field moved him perilously close to having energy for only one of three.
He climbed into a rescue bag and turned off the force field. Energy consumption slowed to a trickle. Oxygen in the rescue bag would sustain him for half a day-tenth.
He spent half that time, his hands clumsy through the tough material of the rescue bag, reconfiguring the force-field generator. Rather than gently holding air within a large volume, the device would thrust—hard!—in one direction.
He spent the rest of his time calculating and refining exactly how and when to apply that thrust. With a single shove, he had to reach the solar system, then reach the habitable planet, hitting the atmosphere at just the right angle, and then—now reaching the resolution limit of his telescope—come down on land. The only workable solution involved a looping trajectory through the solar system, with two gravity assists from other planets.
Were his sensors precise and accurate enough for this calculation? There was one way to find out. Choking on his own stale breath, his fingers tinged blue with hypoxia, he set the navigational controls.
Uncontrolled landing. Broken ship. No air.
None of that mattered in stasis.
As the launch timer approached zero, as Thssthfok reached out to activate the stasis field, his final, hopeful thoughts were of his family.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
LARRY NIVEN has been a published writer since 1964. He has written science fiction, fantasy, long and short fiction, nonfiction, children’s television, comic books, and stranger stuff. His books, including many collaborations, number somewhere around sixty. He lives in Chatsworth, California, with Marilyn, his wife of forty years.
EDWARD M. LERNER has degrees in physics and computer science, a background that kept him mostly out of trouble until he began writing fiction full-time. His books include Probe, Moonstruck, Fools’ Experiments, Small Miracles, and the collection Creative Destruction. His previous collaborations with Larry were Fleet of Worlds and Juggler of Worlds. Ed lives in Virginia with Ruth, his wife of a mere thirty-eight years.