Space Cadet (20 page)

Matt took along a supply of study spools on his first week of search intending to play them on the jeep’s tiny, earphones-type viewer. He did not get much chance; four hours out of eight he had to keep his eyes glued to the search scopes. During the four hours off watch he had to sleep, eat, attend to chores, and study, if possible.

Besides that, Lieutenant Thurlow liked to talk.

The bomb officer was expecting Earth-side duty in post-graduate study at the end of the cruise. “And then I’ll have to make up my mind, Matt. Do I stay in and make physics a part-time specialty, or resign and go in for research?”

“It depends on what you want to do.”

“Trite but true. I think I want to be a scientist, full-time—but after a few years the Patrol becomes a father and a mother to you. I don’t know. That pile of rock is creeping up on us—I can see it through the port now.”

“It is, eh?” Matt moved forward until he, too, could see the undersized boulder that Thurlow had been watching by radar. It was of irregular shape, a pattern of sunlight and sharp, dark shadow.

“Mister Thurlow,” said Matt, “look—about the middle. Doesn’t that look like striation to you?”

“Could be. Some specimens have been picked up that were definitely sedimentary rock. That was the first proof that the asteroids used to be a planet, you know.”

“I thought that Goodman’s integrations were the first proof?”

“Nope, you’re switched around. Goodman wasn’t able to run his checks until the big ballistic computer at Terra Station was built.”

“I knew that—I just had it backwards, I guess.” The theory that the asteroids had once been a planet, between Mars and Jupiter, was denied for many years because their orbits showed no interrelation, i.e., if a planet had blown to bits the orbits should intersect at the point of the explosion. Professor Goodman, using the giant, strain-free computer, had shown that the lack of relationship was caused by the perturbations through the ages of the other planets acting on the asteroids.

He had assigned a date to the disaster, nearly half a billion years ago, and had calculated as well that most of the ruined planet had escaped from the System entirely. The debris around them represented about one per cent of the lost planet.

Lieutenant Thurlow measured the angular width of the fragment, noted its distance by radar, and recorded the result as gross size. The rock, large as it was, was too small to merit investigation of its orbit; it was simply included in the space-drift survey. Smaller objects were merely listed while collisions with minute particles were counted by an electronic circuit hooked to the hull of the jeep.

“The thing that bothers me,” went on Thurlow, “about getting out is this—Matt, have you noticed the difference between people in the Patrol and people not in the Patrol?”

“Haven’t I, though!”

“What is the difference?”

“The difference? Uh, why, we’re spacemen and they’re not. I guess it’s a matter of how big your world is.”

“Partly. But don’t get carried away by mere size. A hundred million miles of empty space isn’t significant—if it’s empty. No, Matt, the split goes deeper. We’ve given the human race a hundred years of peace, and now there is no one left who remembers war. They’ve come to accept peace and comfort as the normal way of life. But it isn’t. The human animal has millions of years of danger and starving and death behind him; the past century is just a flicker of an eyelash in his history. But only the Patrol seems aware of it.”

“Would you abolish the Patrol?”

“Oh, my, no, Matt! But I wish there were some way to make people realize by how thin a barrier the jungle has been shut out. And another thing, too—” Thurlow grinned sheepishly. “—I wish they had some understanding of what we are. The taxpayer’s hired man, that’s what they think of us.”

Matt nodded. “They think we’re some sort of traffic cop. There is a man back home who sells used copters—asked me why Patrolmen should be pensioned when they retire. He said that he hadn’t been able to sit back and take it easy at thirty-five and he didn’t see why he should have to support somebody else who did.” Matt looked puzzled. “At the same time he sort of glamorized the Patrol—wants his son to be a cadet. I don’t understand it.”

“That’s it. To them we are a kind of expensive, useless prize pet—their property. They don’t understand that we are not for hire. The sort of guardian you can hire is worth about as much as the sort of wife you can buy.”

The following week Matt found time to look up what the ship’s library afforded on the subject of the exploded planet. There was not much—dry statistics on sizes of asteroids, fragments, and particles, distributional and orbital data, Goodman’s calculations summarized. Nothing at all about what he wanted to know—how it happened!—nothing but some fine-spun theories.

He took it up with Thurlow the next time they were out on Patrol. The lieutenant shrugged. “What do you expect, Matt?”

“I don’t know, but more than I found.”

“Our time scale is all wrong for us to learn much. Suppose you pick out one of the spools you’ve been studying—here, this one.” The officer held out one marked “Social structures of the Martian aborigines.” “Now suppose you examine a couple of frames in the middle. Can you reconstruct the thousands and thousands of frames that come before it, just by logic?”

“Naturally not.”

“That’s the situation. If the race manages to keep from blowing its top for a few million years, maybe we’ll begin to find out some things. So far, we don’t even know what questions to ask.”

Matt was dissatisfied, but had no answer ready. Thurlow knit his brows. “Maybe we aren’t built to ask the right questions. You know the Martian ‘double-world’ idea—”

“Certainly, but I don’t understand it.”

“Who does? Let’s forget the usual assumption that a Martian is talking in religious symbols when he says that we live just on ‘one side’ while he lives on ‘both sides.’ Suppose that what he means is as real as butter and eggs, that he really does live in two worlds at the same time and that we are in the one he regards as unimportant. If you accept that, then it accounts for the Martian being unwilling to waste time talking with us, or trying to explain things to us. He isn’t being stuffy, he’s being reasonable. Would you waste time trying to explain rainbows to an earthworm?”

“The cases aren’t parallel.”

“Maybe they are to a Martian. An earthworm can’t even see, much less have a color sense. If you accept the ‘double world’ as real, then to a Martian we just don’t have the proper senses to be able to ask the right questions. Why bother with us?”

The radio squealed for attention. Thurlow glanced toward it and said, “Someone calling, Matt. See who it is and tell ‘em we don’t want any.”

“Okay.” Matt flipped the switch and answered, “Jeep One,
Triplex
—go ahead.”

“
Triplex
calling,” came Sublieutenant Cleary’s familiar voice. “Stand by to be picked up.”

“Huh? Cut the comedy—we’re only three days out.”

“Stand by to be picked up—official. Jeep Two has found the
Pathfinder
.”

“The deuce you say! Did you hear that, Mr. Thurlow? Did you hear that?”

It was true; Peters and Gomez, in the other jeep, had discovered the missing ship, almost by accident. The
Pathfinder
was found anchored to a smallish asteroid about a mile in greatest dimension. Since it was a listed body, 1987-CD, the crew of the jeep had paid little attention to it, until its rotation brought the
Pathfinder
into view.

With fine consideration Captain Yancey had elected to pick up Thurlow and Dodson before rendezvousing with the second jeep. Once they were inside, the
Aes Triplex
moved toward 1987-CD and matched orbits. Sublieutenant Peters had elected to expend some of his get-away fuel and had matched orbits also.

Matt fidgeted while the second jeep was brought into the ship. He could see nothing, since the ports were covered, and for the moment had no assigned duties. With maddening deliberation Captain Yancey secured his ship to the
Pathfinder
, sending a line over by Sublieutenant Gomez. The rest of the ship’s company was crowded into the control room. Tex and Matt took the opportunity to question Sublieutenant Peters.

“Couldn’t tell much,” he informed them. “Off hand, she looks undamaged, but the door of the lock was standing open.”

“Any chance anyone is alive inside?” asked Tex.

“Possible. Hardly likely.”

Captain Yancey looked around. “Pipe down,” he ordered. “This is a control room, not a sewing circle.” When he had finished he ordered Peters and Gomez to come with him; the three suited up and left the ship.

They were gone about an hour. When they returned the Captain called them all into the mess room. “I am sorry to tell you, gentlemen, that none of our comrades is alive.”

He went on heavily, “There is not much doubt as to what happened. The outer armored door of the lock was open and undamaged. The inner door had been punched through by a missile about the size of my fist, producing explosive decompression in the connecting compartments. Apparently they had had the enormous bad luck to have a meteor enter the ship through the door just as it was opened.”

“Wait a minute, Skipper,” objected Miller. “Was every airtight door in the ship wide open? One rock shouldn’t have done the trick.”

“We couldn’t get into the after part of the ship; it still holds pressure. But we could reconstruct what happened, because we could count the bodies—seven of them, the entire ship’s company. They were all near the lock and not in spacesuits, except for one man in the lock—his suit was pierced by a fragment apparently. The others seem to have been gathered at the lock, waiting for him to come in.” Yancey looked grave. “Red, I think we are going to have to put in a recommended technical order over this—something to require personnel to spread out while suit operations are going on, so that an accident to the lock won’t affect the entire ship’s company.”

Miller frowned. “I suppose so, Captain. Might be awkward to comply with, sometimes, in a small ship.”

“It’s awkward to lose your breath, too. Now about the investigation—you’ll be the president, Red, and Novak and Brunn will be your other two members. The rest of us will remain in the ship until the board has completed its work. When they have finished and have removed from the
Pathfinder
anything needed as evidence I will allow sufficient time for each of you to satisfy his curiosity.”

“How about the surgeon, Captain? I want him for an expert witness.”

“Okay, Red. Dr. Pickering, you go with the board.”

The cadets crowded into the stateroom shared by Matt and Oscar. “Can you beat it?” said Tex. “Of all the cheap tricks! We have to sit in here, a week or ten days, maybe, while a board measures how big a hole there is in the door.”

“Forget it, Tex,” advised Oscar. “I figure the Old Man didn’t want you carving your initials in things, or maybe snagging the busted door for a souvenir, before they found out what the score was.”

“Oh, nuts!”

“Quit crabbing. He promised you that you could snoop around and take pictures and satisfy your ghoulish appetites as soon as the board is finished. In the meantime, enjoy the luxury of eight hours of sleep for a change. No watches, none of any sort.”

“Say, that’s right!” agreed Matt. “I hadn’t thought about it, but there’s no point in watching for rocks when you’re tied down and can’t duck.”

“As the crew of the
Pathfinder
know only too well.”

Last Muster was held for the
Pathfinder
on the following day. The bodies themselves had been sealed into a compartment of the dead ship; muster took place in the wardroom of the
Aes Triplex
. It was rather lengthy, as it was necessary to read the services of three different faiths before the Captain concluded with the Patrol’s own all-inclusive farewell: “
Now we shape our orbit home
—”

It so happened that there were just enough persons present to answer the roll. The
Aes Triplex
’s company was a captain and eleven others. For the
Pathfinder
there were exactly eleven—six patrol officers, one civilian planetologist, and the Four who are present at every muster. Captain Yancey called off the
Pathfinder
’s roll and the others answered, one after the other, from Commander Miller down to Tex—while
The Long Watch
, muted down to a requiem, played softly over the ship’s speaker system.

Matt found his throat almost too dry to answer. Tex’s chubby cheeks ran with tears and he made no effort to wipe them.

Lieutenant Brunn was a source of information for the first couple of days of the investigation. He described the
Pathfinder
as in good shape, except for the damaged door. On the third day he suddenly shut up. “The Captain doesn’t want the board’s findings discussed until he has had time to study them.”

Matt passed the word on to the others. “What’s cooking?” demanded Tex. “What can there possibly be to be secret about?”

“How should I know?”

“I’ve got a theory,” said Oscar.

“Huh? What? Spill it.”

“The Captain wants to prove a man can’t die of curiosity. He figures that you are a perfect test case.”

“Oh, go soak your head.”

Captain Yancey called them all together again the following day. “Gentlemen, I appreciate your patience. I have not wanted to discuss what was found in the
Pathfinder
until I had time to decide what should be done about it. It comes to this: the planetologist with the
Pathfinder
, Professor Thorwald, came to the unmistakable conclusion that the disrupted planet was inhabited.”

The room started to buzz. “Quiet, please! There are samples of fossil-bearing rock in the
Pathfinder
, but there are other exhibits as well, which Professor Thorwald concluded—Dr. Pickering and Commander Miller and I concur—concluded to be artifacts, items worked by intelligent hands.

“That fact alone would be enough to send a dozen ships scurrying into the asteroid belt,” he went on. “It is probably the most important discovery in System-study since they opened the diggings in Luna. But Professor Thorwald formed another conclusion even more startling. With the aid of the ship’s bomb officer, using the rate-of-radioactive-decay method, he formed a tentative hypothesis that the planet—he calls it Planet Lucifer—was disrupted by artificial nuclear explosion. In other words, they did it themselves.”