Ascent

by Thorby Rudbek

  Isaac looked at the shadows. “I’ll come back out in a couple of hours; I think it will be dark then. One look at the stars should prove it one way or the other.”

  “I didn’t know you had studied the stars,” Terry commented as he looked around.

  “Oh, I haven’t, or not in that way – I did some work on the nuclear processes that occur inside stars, but…” He shrugged that off as an irrelevancy. “I forgot to mention that you’d be coming with me. I figured that you should be able to navigate after all those years of practice with those boats of yours,” Isaac’s voice teased.

  “Glad to be of some further use!” Terry bowed theatrically; his voice sounded confident, and it was obvious that he was pleased he was needed.

  “Let’s get some of this food and go back in,” Ruth urged. “It’s cold out here.”

  They walked over to the trailer, and Latt opened the doors. Isaac jumped up, almost hitting his head on the roof. He shuffled slightly to regain his balance and turned, extending his hand to Ruth to help her up.

  “This should last us for a week or two!” Ruth breathed in amazement as she surveyed the stacks of boxes.

  “You will not have time to eat it all.” Latt’s sobering comment dampened down her excitement, and she got down to business, checking the labels on each carton.

  “Ah-ha! Chicken! Let’s take one of these for a change.”

  Terry obliged by picking up the box. A couple of other selections were made, and the haul was transported back to the outer door of the airlock. Latt closed the doors of the trailer and followed them in.

  While the food was being cooked by Ruth, the others got right back to work, developing their theories and plans. Isaac had some ideas about modifying the artificial Gravity Inducers, and Latt was busy trying to explain, in his still awkward and highly accented English, how the circuits were laid out for ease of maintenance, and how this would make their modifications easier to perform. Terry began practicing with the plastic welder, as he continued to call it, trying to build some triangular sections for bracing objects against vertical surfaces, in accordance with Isaac’s plan.

  Soon the first batch of food was ready; they all dug in, sitting around rather awkwardly on the floor, the benches, or the low tables. Latt, after the others were finished, cooked up another two frozen dinners, his appetite seemingly knowing no bounds.

  “I don’t know how to tell you, Latt, but there’s even better food available back on Earth,” Ruth said hesitantly, after watching him start to demolish his second plate-full.

  “Then we musst hope that your hussband’s plan workss, sso that we can usse the Controllers’ sship to return to your home world,” was his simple response.

  “I like that!” Ruth smiled at his enthusiasm. “What a reminder to all of us to appreciate what we call ‘the basics’,” she remarked to no one in particular.

  Terry nodded as he braced his construction against the wall and leaned on it to test its strength. “I have a friend in the restaurant business who would pay handsomely to have Latt endorse her products. What a scoop that would be!”

  Latt continued with his second round of food, aware that his new friends were discussing another of the more obscure, and, at least to him, complicated facets of society on Earth. He was relatively unconcerned, as long as the discussion did not intimate that he would have any problems obtaining nourishment of comparable quality if he ever got there.

  “You know,” Isaac began as his wife, and both new and old friends reached a natural pause in their conversation. “We’ll have to be very careful about how we carry out the second phase of our plan, assuming the first phase is successful and we do indeed manage to take over the Controllers’ ship. Can either of you imagine what the reaction would be if we landed that thing on the lawn at the White House?”

  Ruth closed her eyes and started to form a mental picture.

  “It is called a ‘Warrnam’ in the Controllers’ language,” Latt explained, not catching the significance of Isaac’s facetious idea. “That is ‘Space Hammer’ in your Englissh.”

  Terry laughed. “Very appropriate! It would probably be too big to fit, and end up crushing half the neighbourhood to rubble.”

  “We’ll have to take it to a military base,” Ruth suggested finally.

  “I think not, my dear,” Isaac said gently. “They might react a little violently to such an approach!”

  Ruth giggled as she realized how naive her idea had been. “I see what you mean; it would be a bit like taking a pet lion in to visit the neighbour’s miniature poodle!”

  “Ha!” Terry corrected her. “More like turning up with a living, breathing, roaring, ripping T-rex!”

  Ruth acted acutely shocked at his suggestion, knowing he would like that response best, and was rewarded with a theatrical bow from her second dearest friend.

  Latt dug into his third meal and shrugged his shoulders mentally, deciding that he would do his utmost to ensure that he succeeded in his attempt to return to Earth, this time as a free man, and proceed to discover it all at his own pace. Maybe then he would be able to understand his friends’ concerns.

  Soon it was time for Terry and Isaac to prepare for their night walk. Latt helped them suit up, and he and Ruth watched while the two men entered the small chamber and the inner door slowly closed. Once the two had entered the airlock and were waiting for the outer door to open, he asked Ruth about the food she had begun to describe earlier.

  Ruth gladly provided him with a summary of her favourites to cover her nervousness while her husband and dear ex-boyfriend disappeared from sight. She reminisced on the delicious meals she had experienced with her husband over the years, at exclusive restaurants in the cities where various scientific conferences and conventions were held, and on other, more personal occasions like anniversaries and birthdays. Her apprehension around Latt had vanished completely now, and was replaced by an almost motherly feeling of affection. She watched his open face mirror her feelings as she described the atmosphere of her favourite restaurants, and the fantastic clothes of some of the patrons. She found him such a good audience that she almost forgot her concern for her husband and Terry, outside in a temperature of minus eighty centigrade on the hostile surface of a barren planet.

  Latt watched her intently, his brilliant blue eyes now surrounded by pale but fairly healthy-looking skin. He observed her obvious and -to him- peculiar emotions concerning her husband. Latt wondered what could cause such feelings; he had never experienced the comfort of a quiet padded sofa – together with someone important in an inexplicable, but strangely appealing way – by a crackling log fire, or a slow drive along a coastal road at sunset when the clouds seem to blaze with colour, or a walk under a shared umbrella through ornamental gardens in an April shower. Somehow he began to feel confused by the sensations he was experiencing. He sat down on a box opposite Ruth as she continued her nervous relating of trivia; for the moment he was content to listen, happy to feel accepted and trusted, important and respected.

  Isaac and Terry looked out into the bitter cold night. They stepped out and walked a few yards from the airlock to obtain an unrestricted view.

  “Hey! Look! That’s the Plough,” Terry pointed at the familiar constellation. He turned and found Orion’s Belt and the North Star, and several other features that had guided him during his night-sailing days before he had bought the Getaway.

  “That confirms we are not far from Earth, astronomically speaking, but it doesn’t convince me that we are on Mars,” Isaac stated matter-of-factly, his excitement at possibly being on the mysterious ‘Red Planet’ now firmly under control.

  “What if I were to find something which could only be seen from within the Solar System?” Terry suggested. “There was a comet just visible from Earth. Now with Mars high in the sky at midnight,” he began, thinking out loud, “it must be in the same quadrant as Earth, just farther out, so I think it should be visible, if this is Mars. I was going to show it to you guys Sunday
night – I have some binoculars on Getaway. It was near the southern horizon, so I should– Ah! There it is! It’s actually easier to see from here, I guess that shows we must be closer to it.” He pointed out the fuzzy tail on the tiny comet and waited until Isaac confirmed that he had seen it. They hurried back into the airlock and waited impatiently for the pressure to equalize.

  “It’s Mars, all right,” Terry announced jubilantly, as soon as they had pulled off their masks and walked into the utility room. “There’s even a comet visible that I was going to show you that first night on the Getaway.”

  “You could see it from here?” Ruth questioned.

  “Yup,” Isaac confirmed. “When Terry mentioned it, I realized that it had to be about this far out, just like he said.”

  Terry smiled. “He’d make a pretty good navigator, for a theoretical physicist, that is.”

  Isaac finished pulling off his protective clothing and bowed theatrically to his sardonic friend before starting back toward the laboratory. “I reckon that with your experience we could ‘sail’ the Narlavs’ ship back to Earth; all we need to do is hijack it when they return.”

  “You make it all sound so simple,” Terry muttered to Isaac’s receding back as he followed his friend’s example and struggled out of the suit.

  Some hours later, Isaac found he was staring at nothing in particular; the electronics board in front of him was slipping slowly through his fingers. He shook his head to clear it, and pulled the board back into place.

  So much still to do. He had been working on the modifications he had planned with Latt for several hours, and the induced gravity unit was almost ready to test.

  A hand tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Time to get some sleep, professor.” Ruth’s voice sounded somewhat silky in his ear.

  Isaac turned to her and his half-closed eyes flew open as he saw that she was wrapped in some kind of thin cloth that didn’t quite disguise the fact that she had little or nothing on underneath it. Her other hand was holding the delicate fabric at her sternum, where it met and overlapped.

  “Latt helped me move my bed into your room and fix it to yours,” she explained in the same sensual tones. “I found some extra material we could use as blankets, and this very special stuff. Latt told me it is used for protecting ‘delicate equipment’… so I thought…”

  Isaac glanced back at his work momentarily, then around the laboratory. All was deathly quiet.

  Ruth continued, her own eyes wide with innocent amazement: “Latt and Terry said they were too tired to work any longer, so they quit for the night. They’re already asleep by now, I’m sure. You need your sleep too, Professor Hardy, but first of all, we have some things to discuss.” She fluttered her eyes at him and leaned on the monitor. The thin, translucent fabric slipped slightly in her hand, exposing more of her neck. She wiggled a little, and it slipped off one shoulder.

  Isaac got up and took the hand that she had rested on the monitor in his. He led her into the sleep dome, putting the technical thoughts in which he had been immersed to one side without any real effort.

  “I’ve got some things on my mind, too,” he declared emphatically, pulling her close as the door slid down softly behind them.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Eliminator: source of opportunity! – Ibernal, Arshonnan Engineer

  The Moss Room seemed to dissolve; Richard and Karen found themselves standing in an area about twenty-five feet across and fifteen deep, behind three high-backed chairs that were arranged before curved banks of instruments and displays. The scene was immediately familiar from one of the earliest portions of the ship’s audio-visual log, and as Richard’s left hand found Karen’s right, they shared the rather illogical but still unnerving impression that Vochan, the paranoid Commander who had blocked the Scouts’ memories – and who had been dead now for five and a half centuries – would materialize behind them at any moment and repeat the process on them.

  Above the displays, occupying the entire curved surface of the front half of the room, was a large viewscreen. It was functioning, and from the look of the scenery that was visible, the room appeared to be located inside the seaward turret of Citadel. The ocean stretched off into a hazy horizon; tiny white, almost mouse-like clouds scurried across the sky. Off to one side, like a lazy, well-fed or indifferent cat, lay the removals truck.

  “Bingo!” Richard muttered in amazement. He turned, ostensibly to check what was to be found in the rear of the Control Centre, only to discover a large, obviously fake door outlined on the wall behind him (which he concluded after a moment’s thought must be the way back to the Moss Room) surrounded by further panels of instruments. An occasional light could be seen, glowing amidst the mass of instruments on the display panels. As the silence started to seep into him, Richard shivered involuntarily.

  The sound of fabric moving across fabric drew his attention to the chairs, where Karen was just making herself comfortable on the right. Richard slipped into the middle chair quickly and started to check the displays on the panels before him.

  “All power levels seem to be at or near zero,” he summarized after a couple of minutes.

  Karen nodded, as if to say that she had found the same, then raised her head a little. “Tutor, can you hear me?” she called.

  “Yes. It would appear that I have been admitted, too.” Tutor replied. “I have access to the Command Computer, now. I am integrating both systems.” Tutor started to scan the records.

  Richard glanced again at the instruments before him, which indicated the status of various mysterious components. All were dark or barely illuminated, glowing with a dull red tinge.

  “Where is the power for the Control Centre supposed to come from, Tutor? I thought I fixed this problem when I removed that sheet of cardboard.”

  “All the instrumentation here derives its power from the Star Drive,” Tutor announced. “This information is available now, as I have completed my scan of the Command Computer data-banks. The power is developed in a reaction chamber in the rear sphere by converting Quad Proton/Neutron Units into pure energy. There currently are insufficient Q.P/N.U reserves remaining for correct operation of the displays and sensors.”

  “Not even enough for that?” Karen gasped.

  “‘Quad Proton-Neutron Units’…” Richard mused after a few seconds. “Do you mean it runs on the element with four protons and four neutrons in each nucleus?”

  “Negative, there are five neutrons in the stable isotope of that element. This isotope is an intermediate state, only in existence for an instant during the conversion process.”

  “That’s, er… beryllium, right?” Richard recalled after a moment’s thought.

  “Confirmed. This reactor functions by eliminating the mass attributes of that element over a series of five interrelated processes.”

  “This isn’t a fission process, right?” Richard said slowly. “It must be fusion, then.”

  Karen looked on a little blankly as the highly technical conversation continued, then she started to search the memories she had obtained from Richard during their mind-link.

  “Negative, this is an Elimination Reactor;” Tutor corrected Richard’s assumption. “There are essentially no waste products. The matter is all converted into energy.”

  “Oh… Wow!” was all Richard could say, as he finally understood what Tutor had been trying to tell him. “That is utterly fantastic!”

  Karen grinned with relief as she discovered the significance of total matter-to-energy conversion from Richard’s shared memories.

  “That will give us a lot of power for a small amount of the element,” she surmised, happily.

  Tutor did not contradict her.

  “And where could we get some of this ‘beryllium’?” she questioned finally.

  “I imagine there’s a mine or two somewhere in the States,” Richard speculated. “Perhaps they keep stockpiles in a warehouse not too far from here.”

  “I am monitoring satell
ite transmissions and checking computer data-banks accessible through the phone system,” Tutor explained. “I will have the information presently.”

  Suddenly the displays dimmed noticeably, and warning lights flashed on feebly.

  “Hey, it looks like it’s failing completely!” Karen exclaimed in alarm.

  “I am trying to locate the problem,” Tutor responded, his voice tinged with a hint of urgency. “Power levels are near the critical limit.”

  Richard and Karen activated various monitors desperately in an attempt to discover some hint of the cause of the power drain, but the complex displays baffled them, and the dimness of them made it next to impossible to determine the symbols displayed anyway.

  “It is a malfunction of the main Star Drive Power Coupling Unit,” Tutor concluded finally. “Power builds up periodically, and is released in the form of microwave energy as a kind of safety release valve. This is the same unit that the Commander was intending to remove when he was attacked by the wild animal, as shown in the audio-visual playback. He had previously logged the spare out of storage and shifted it outside Citadel. The records show he fastidiously recorded his intention to remove the damaged unit and mount the spare. Later, the unused spare was moved back into the Moss Room by Sheldrif, some days after Vochan was killed.”

  “D’you mean the big, brassy thing that weighs a ton?” Richard queried.

  “Affirmative.”

  “So that’s why the energy levels are so low;” Richard concluded. “Five hundred years of wastage!”

  “Dad, you kept it, even though you had no idea what it was for!” Karen murmured proudly; she felt warm and happy inside, though her eyes glistened.

  “Can we replace it, like Vochan was going to?” Richard asked hesitantly.

  “You would have no real difficulty, as long as nothing interfered with you.”

  “Like a wild animal,” Richard mused, recalling Vochan’s demise. “Or the hordes of government workers outside.” He sat back, deep in thought.

  “Is-is there enough power to fly Citadel to a safer location, so we can fix it where no one will be around to stop us?” Karen rubbed her hands together nervously.