The Mile Long Spaceship (2 page)

"Most likely a benign dictatorship. A world couldn't be governed by a democratic government, a small area, perhaps, but not a world." Thus spoke the psychologist. But the telepath had been inside Allan's mind, and he knew it could and did work. Not only the planet Earth, but also the colonies on Mars and Venus.

The captain was still pursuing his own line of questioning.

"Has he ever shown any feeling of fear or repulsion toward us?"

"None, he accepts us as different but not to be feared because of it."

"That's becausc he believes we are figments of his imagination; tbat he can control us by awakening."

The captain ignored this explanation advanced by the psychologist. A mind intelligent enough for dreams, could feel fear in the dreams—even a captain knew that. He was beginning to get the feeling that this Earth race might prove a formidable foe when and if found.

"Has he shown any interest in the drive?"

"He assumed we use an atomic drive. He has only the scantiest knowledge of atomics, however. His people use such a drive."

"The fact that the race has atomics is another reason we must find them." This would be the third planet using atomic energy. A young race, an unknown potential. They did not have interstellar travel now, but one hundred fifty years ago they didn't have atomic energy and already they had reached their neighbor planets. It had taken three times as long for the captain's people to achicve the same success. The captain remembered the one other race located in his time that had atomics. They were exploring space in ever widening circles. True they hadn't made any startling advances yet in weapons, they had found decisive bombs and lethal rays and gases unnecessary. But they had learned fast. They had resisted the invaders with cunning and skill. Their bravery had never been questioned, but in the end the aggressors had won.

The captain felt no thrill of satisfaction in the thought. It was a fact, accomplished long ago. The conclusion had beea delayed certainly, but it had also been inevitable. Only one race, one planet, one government could have the energy, and the right to the raw materials that made the space lanes thoroughfares. The slaves might ride on the masters' crafts, but might not own or operate their own. That was the law, and the captain was determined to uphold to the end that law.

And now this. One mind freed from its body and its Earth roaming the universe, divulging its secrets, all but the only one that mattered. How many millions of stars lit the way through space? And how many of them had their families of planets supporting life? The captain knew there was no answer, but still he sought ways of following the alien's mind back to his body.

Allan stirred his coffee slowly, not moving his head. This was his first meal sitting up, now at its conclusion he felt too exhausted to lift his spoon from his cup. Clair gently did it for him and held the cup to his lips.

"Tired, darling?" Her voice was a caress.

"A little." A little! All he wanted was his bed under him and Clair's voice whispering him to sleep. "I don't believe I'd even need a hypo." He was startled that he had spoken the thought, but Clair nodded, understanding.

"The doctor thinks it best to put off having anything if you can. I'll read to you and see if you can sleep." They had rediscovered the joy of reading books. Real leather-bound books instead of watching the three D set, or using the story films. Allan loved to lie quiescent, listening to the quiet voice of his wife rise and fall with the words. Often the words themselves were unimportant, but there was music in listening to Clair read them. They were beautifully articulated, falling into a pattern as rhythimc as if there were unheard drums beating the time.

He tried to remember what the sound of her voice reminded him of. Then he knew. By the very difference in tone and expression he was reminded of the crew of the mile-long spaceship in his dream. He grinned to himself at the improbability of the dream. Everyone speaking in the same metallic tone, the monotonous flight, never varying, never having any emergency to cope with.

The noises of the hospital dimmed and became obscure and then were lost entirely. All was silent again as he sped toward the quiet lonesome planet he had last visited. There he had rested, gazing at the stars hanging in expanding circles over him. He had first viewed the galaxy from aboard the spaceship. Interested in the spiral shape of it he had left the ship to seek it out at closer range. Here on this tiny planet the effect was startling. If he closed out all but the brightest and largest of the stars there was ring after ring of tiny glowing diamonds hanging directly above him. How many times had he come back? He couldn't remember, but suddenly he thought about the mile-long spaceship again.

"He's back," the telepath never moved from his position, before the sky screen, nor did the astro navigator. Abruptly, however, the panorama went blank and the two moved toward the screen on the opposite wall.

"Is he coming?"

"Yes. He's curious. He thinks something is wrong."

"Good." The two stepped from the screen into a large room where a group watched a film.

The navigator and the telepath seated themselves slightly behind the rest of the assemblage. The captain had been talking, he continued as before.

"Let me know what his reactions are."

"The film interests him. The dimensional effect doesn't bother him, he appears accustomed to a form of three-dimensional films."

"Very good. Tell me the instant something strikes a responsive chord."

The film was one cf their educational astronomy courses for beginners. Various stars were shown singly and in their constellations and finally in their own galaxies. Novae and super novae, planets and satellites appeared. The telepath dug deep into the alien's memory, but found only an increasing interest, no memories of any one scene. Suddenly the telepath said,

"This one he thinks he has seen before. He has seen a similar galaxy from another position, one that shows the spiral directly overhead."

The captain asked, "Has this one been visible on the screen from such a position?"

"Not in detail. Only as part of the charted course." The navigator was making notes as he answered. "There are only three fixes for this particular effect. A minor white dwarf with six satellites and two main sequence stars, satellites unknown."

The captain thought deeply. Maybe only a similar galaxy, but again maybe he was familiar with this one.

The orders were given in the same tone he had used in carrying on the conversation. The alien had no way of knowing he was the helmsman guiding the huge ship through space.

The telepath followed the alien's mind as he gazed raptly at the ever-changing film. Occasionally he reported the alien's thoughts, but nothing of importance was learned. As before, the departure of the alien was abrupt.

With the telepath's announcement, "He's gone," the film flicked off and normal acitivity was resumed.

Later the captain called a meeting of the psychologist, the telepath, the chief navigator and the ethnologist.

"We represent the finest minds in the universe, yet when it comes to coping with one inferior intellect, we stand helpless. He flits in and out at will, telling us nothing. We are now heading light-years out of our way on what might easily prove to be a fruitless venture, merely because you," he held the telepath in his merciless gaze, "think he recognized one of the formations." The captain's anger was a formidable thing to feel, and the rest stirred uneasily. His voice, however, was the same monotone it always was as he asked, "And did you manage to plant the seeds in his mind as suggested at our last meeting?"

"That is hard to say. I couldn't tell." The telepath turned to the psychologist for confirmation.

"He wouldn't know himself until he began feeling the desire for more education. Even then it might be in the wrong direction. We can only wait and hope we have hit on the way to find his home planet through making him want to learn astro-navigation and astronomy." Soon afterward the meeting adjourned.

Allan was back at work again, with all traces of his accident relegated to the past. His life was well-ordered and full, with no time for schooling. He told himself this over and over, to no avail. For he was still telling himself this when he filled out the registration blank at the university.

"He's here again!" The telepath had almost given up expecting the alien ever again. He kept his mind locked in the other's as he recited as though from a book. "He's completely over his injury, working again, enrolled in night classes at the school in his town. He's studying atomic engineering. He's in the engine room now getting data for something they call a thesis."

Quietly the captain rolled off a list of expletives that would have done justice to one of the rawest space hands. And just as quietly, calmly, and perhaps, stoically, he pushed the red button that began the chain reaction that would completely vaporize the mile-long ship. His last breath was spent in hoping the alien would awaken with a violent headache. He did.

Fear is
a thing. It starts small and sharp, a pinpoint of cold black that pierces the surrounding envelope of courage and eats at it until there is only the black. A sliver on one edge of the light—a ray—a wide band—a heavy, menacing mantle of black. That's fear, how it comes and stays and grows. Royle had watched it grow among the seventeen remaining passengers aboard the Criterion 111.

They were starting to crack here and there and it reminded him somewhat of a forest fire where sparks, wind driven bits of glowing destruction, would cross fire lines and threaten to become worse than the primary cause if not put down. Only in his case with the Criterion and her passengers, it was panic that could destroy them all. Of necessity he, Royle, was the fire spotter.

"Captain, sir....?" Custens peered at him anxiously and Royle shot a quick glance at the door. He hadn't heard it opening, or the man entering. "Are you all right, sir?" Custens asked hollowly, but rather as if sorrow, not fear, lengthened his naturally gloomy face.

"Shake it, Custens. I'm all right. What is it?"

"It's Maller, Captain. He's starting to... to... Like the others, sir. He asks permission to blast off now."

Captain Royle swore bitterly and rose wearily to his feet. "Temperature?" he asked hopelessly.

"Seventy-four, sir, dropping one tenth every two hours."

"Hell! This will tear it. Anyone else know?"

"No sir," Custens said hesitanily, "least I don't think so. But they must all suspect that he's already dead."

"Yes, I know. All right, Custens, check the door and blast it off." Maller would die in open space, as had the last four of the victims of the disease, and with the doctored air supply it would be fast and painless. "And, Custens, you'd better lock yourself in one of the other staterooms. Give me a call when you're established."

Custens looked at his feet and mumbled, "I'll go to the lifeboat, sir. If that's okay. I figure I'll be the next one and Maller lasted two weeks in one."

Alone again Royle automatically dragged out the log book and wrote, "Maller's temperature dropping, approaching convulsion, hallucinatory stage. Like other twenty-four. Disposing of him in life boat. No lab test." No doctor, he added despairingly to himself and snapped the book closed. Nothing to show why the temperatures started dropping and continued until death took over. Next would be Custens and then who? Probably he would be it. He was the only one still leaving his cabin for any purpose whatever. The rest were sealed in tight, fear for company for those traveling singly, and fear as an unwelcome third for the two couples aboard.

His communicator flicked and he connected with the life ship where Custens' dour face attempted a grin. His left hand was encased in what looked like a large mitten, the medic bag that would automatically record his physiological changes on the mastercomputer.

"Okay, Custens, take it easy," Royle said.

"Yes sir. Sir?" Custens hitched the bag and rested it on the seat beside him, "I've been wondering if the automat could perhaps be transporting the disease. Like when it sends out the food to various compartments, the germs could go too."

"No germs," Royle corrected absently and asked curiously, "And what could we do about it if that were the case? We have to eat."

"Yes sir. Only the sick ones don't, do they? I mean, it's been one hundred percent fatal up to now and why keep a dead man alive with food?

"Custens!" Royle shouted, "what's your temperature?"

"Ninety-four, sir. But I think it was still normal when I was with you. I had checked a very short time before that And, sir... I've disconnected and sealed off the automat to the life boat."

"Custens, you can't just..." Royle started, but he stopped himself and very gently said instead, "Very well, Custens. I'll be in touch with you. If you want to talk, I'll be handy."

"Aye, aye, sir," Custens said properly.

You can't just give up, Royle finished bitterly at the empty screen. But what else can you do? You'll freeze to death, slowly, one degree at a time. You'll scream for death, for help, for sleep, for warmth. You'll convulse and pull muscles and maybe, like Tischner, you'll break your back or, like Malthaus, watch gangrene claim your feet and creep up your legs.... Why couldn't they just die?

Royle rubbed his burning eyes with the back of his hand and arose abruptly. He now had only three crew members and the seventeen passengers, but they were still his responsibility. He adjusted the message that would announce to a viewer who might call that he would be in the engine room and he walked solidly down the companionway, his footsteps setting up echoes in the semi-deserted ship that sounded like death stalking his next victim.

His glance about the room was cursory and for the first time since he had been assigned to her, he didn't note whether or not the brass gleamed and the steel glistened. His look at the neatly printed message from Capella Four was just as brief and perfunctory. He had seen and answered it six days ago. "Isolate all new cases and maintain hyperbolic course. Will advise." Will advise, he grunted, when? By the time they sent the next message he might well be having the chills himself. They were as stumped as his own doctor had been, but they were investigating and would advise. They would send medics to the infected world and if they didn't all die, eventually they would solve it. Eventually. He sat down before the oversized screen and flicked a switch. Instantly he was outside the ship watching the unfolding panorama of speeding space. It was a sight that never failed to thrill him when the ship cruised along just under over-drive speed.