The Number of the Beast Read online

  “Why, Pop? Why wouldn’t it just reverse your memory?”

  “Memory is tied to entropy increase, my darling daughter. Death might be preferable to amnesia combined with prophetic knowledge. Uncertainty may be the factor that makes life tolerable. Hope is what keeps us going. Captain!”

  “Copilot.”

  “We have just passed over North Rim.”

  “Thank you, Copilot.” I placed my hands lightly on the controls.

  “Pop, our cabin is still there. Lights in it, too.”

  “So I see. They’ve added a wing on the west.”

  “Yes. Where we discussed adding a library.”

  I said, “Family, I’m not going closer. Your analogs in this world seem to be holding a party. Flood lights show four cars on the grounding flat.” I started Gay into a wide circle. “I’m not going to hover; it could draw attention. A call to their sky cops—Hell’s bells, I don’t even know that they speak English.”

  “Captain, we’ve seen all we need. It’s not our cabin.”

  “Recommendation?”

  “Sir, I suggest maximum altitude. Discuss what to do while we get there.”

  “Gay Deceiver.”

  “On deck, Captain Ahab.”

  “One gee, vertical.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” (How many answers had Deety taped?)

  “Anybody want a sandwich?” asked Sharpie. “I do—I’m a pregnant mother.”

  I suddenly realized that I had had nothing but a piece of pie since noon. As we climbed we finished what was left of supper.

  “Zat Marsh?”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Sharpie.”

  “Zebbie you brute, I said, ‘Is that Mars?’ Over there.”

  “That’s Antares. Mars is—Look left about thirty degrees. See it? Same color as Antares but brighter.”

  “Got it. Jacob darling, let’s take that vacation on Barsoom!”

  “Hilda dearest, Mars is uninhabitable. The Mars Expedition used pressure suits. We have no pressure suits.”

  I added, “Even if we did, they would get in the way of a honeymoon.”

  Hilda answered, “I read a jingle about ‘A Space Suit Built for Two.’ Anyhow, let’s go to Barsoom! Jacob, you did tell me we could go anywhere in Zip—nothing flat.”

  “Quite true.”

  “So let’s go to Barsoom.”

  I decided to flank her. “Hilda, we can’t go to Barsoom. Mors Kajak and John Carter don’t have their swords.”

  “Want to bet?” Deety said sweetly.

  “Huh?”

  “Sir, you left it to me to pick baggage for that unassigned space. If you’ll check that long, narrow stowage under the instrument board, you’ll find the sword and saber, with belts. With socks and underwear crammed in to keep them from rattling.”

  I said soberly, “My Princess, I couldn’t moan about my sword when your father took the loss of his house so calmly—but thank you, with all my heart.”

  “Let me add my thanks, Deety. I set much store by that old saber, unnecessary as it is.”

  “Father, it was quite necessary this afternoon.”

  “Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s to Barsoom we go!”

  “Captain, we could use the hours till dawn for a quick jaunt to Mars. Uh—Oh, dear, I have to know its present distance—I don’t.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Gay gobbles the Aerospace Almanac each year.”

  “Indeed! I’m impressed.”

  “Gay Deceiver.”

  “You again? I was thinking.”

  “So think about this. Calculation program. Data address, Aerospace Almanac. Running calculation, line-of-sight distance to planet Mars. Report current answers on demand. Execute.”

  “Program running.”

  “Report.”

  “Klicks two-two-four-zero-nine-zero-eight-two-seven point plus-minus nine-eight-zero.”

  “Display running report.”

  Gay did so. “You’re a smart girl, Gay.”

  “I can do card tricks, too. Program continuing.”

  “Jake, how do we this?”

  “Align ‘L’ axis with your gun sight. Isn’t that easiest?”

  “By far!” I aimed at Mars as if to shoot her out of the sky—then got cold feet. “Jake? A little Tennessee windage? I think those figures are from center-of-gravity to center-of-gravity. Half a mil would place us a safe distance away. Over a hundred thousand klicks.”

  “A hundred and twelve thousand,” Jake agreed, watching the display.

  I offset one half mil. “Copilot.”

  “Captain.”

  “Transit when ready. Execute.”

  Mars in half phase, big and round and ruddy and beautiful, was swimming off our starboard side.

  XIV

  “Quit worrying and enjoy the ride.”

  Deety:

  Aunt Hilda said softly, “Barsoom. Dead sea bottoms. Green giants.” I just gulped.

  “Mars. Hilda darling.” Pop gently corrected her. “Barsoom is a myth.”

  “Barsoom.” she repeated firmly. “It’s not a myth, it’s there. Who says its name is Mars? A bunch of long-dead Romans. Aren’t the natives entitled to name it? Barsoom.”

  “My dearest, there are no natives. Names are assigned by an international committee sponsored by Harvard Observatory. They confirmed the traditional name.”

  “Pooh! They don’t have any more right to name it than I have. Deety, isn’t that right?”

  I think Aunt Hilda had the best argument but I don’t argue with Pop unless necessary; he gets emotional. My husband saved me.

  “Copilot, astrogation problem. How are we going to figure distance and vector? I would like to put this wagon into orbit. But Gay is no spaceship; I don’t have instruments. Not even a sextant!”

  “Mmm, suppose we try it one piece at a time, Captain. We don’t seem to be falling fast and—ulp!”

  “What’s the trouble, Jake!”

  Pop turned pale, sweat broke out, he clenched his jaws, swallowed and reswallowed. Then his lips barely opened. “M’sheashick.”

  “No, you’re space sick. Deety!”

  “Yessir!”

  “Emergency kit, back of my seat. Unzip it, get Bonine. One pill—don’t let the others get loose.”

  I got at the first-aid kit, found a tube marked Bonine. A second pill did get loose but I snatched it out of the air. Free fall is funny—you don’t know whether you are standing on your head or floating sideways. “Here, Captain.”

  Pop said, “Mall righ’ now. Jus’ took all over queer a moment.”

  “Sure, you’re all right. You can take this pill—or you can have it pushed down your throat with my dirty, calloused finger. Which?”

  “Uh, Captain, I’d have to have water to swallow it—and I don’t think I can.”

  “Doesn’t take water, pal. Chew it. Tastes good, raspberry flavor. Then keep gulping your saliva. Here.” Zebadiah pinched Pop’s nostrils. “Open up.”

  I became aware of a strangled sound beside me. Aunt Hilda had a hanky pressed to her mouth and her eyes were streaming tears—she was split seconds from adding potato salad and used sandwich to the cabin air.

  Good thing I was still clutching that wayward pill. Aunt Hilda struggled but she’s a little bitty. I treated her the way my husband had treated her husband, then clamped my hand over her mouth. I don’t understand seasickness (or free-fall nausea); I can walk on bulkheads with a sandwich in one hand and a drink in the other and enjoy it.

  But the victims really are sick and somewhat out of their heads. So I held her mouth closed and whispered into her ear. “Chew it, Aunty darling, and swallow it, or I’m going to spank you with a club.”

  Shortly I could feel her chewing. After several minutes she relaxed. I asked her, “Is it safe for me to ungag you?”

  She nodded. I took my hand away. She smiled wanly and patted my hand. “Thanks, Deety.” She added, “You wouldn’t really beat Aunt Sharpie.”

  “I sure would, darli
ng. I’d cry and cry and wallop you and wallop you. I’m glad I don’t have to.”

  “I’m glad, too. Can we kiss and make up—or is my breath sour?”

  It wasn’t but I wouldn’t have let that stop me. I loosened my chest strap and hers, and put both arms around her. I have two ways of kissing: one is suitable for faculty teas; the other way I mean it. I never got a chance to pick; Aunt Hilda apparently never found out about the faculty-tea sort. No, her breath wasn’t sour—just a slight taste of raspberry.

  Me, I’m the wholesome type; if it weren’t for those advertisements on my chest, men wouldn’t give me a second glance. Hilda is a miniature Messalina, pure sex in a small package. Funny how a person can grow up never really believing that the adults you grow up with have sex—just gender. Now my saintly father turns out to be an insatiable goat, and Aunt Hilda, who had babied me and changed my diapers, is sexy enough for a platoon of Marines.

  I let her go while thinking pleasant thoughts about teaching my husband technique I had learned—unless Hilda had taught him in the past. No, or he would have taught me—and he hadn’t shown her style of virtuosity. Zebadiah, just wait till I get you alone!

  Which might not be too soon. Gay Deceiver is wonderful but no honeymoon cottage. There was space back of the bulkhead behind my head—like a big phone booth on its side—where Zebadiah kept a sleeping bag and (he says) sometimes sacked out. But it had the space-time twister in it and nineteen dozen other things. Hilda and I were going to have to repress our primary imperative until our men found us a pied-à-terre on some planet in some universe, somewhere, somewhen.

  Mars-Barsoom seemed to have grown while I was curing Aunt Hilda’s space sickness. Our men were talking astrogation. My husband was saying, “Sorry, but at extreme range Gay’s radar can see a thousand kilos. You tell me our distance is about a hundred times that.”

  “About. We’re falling toward Mars. Captain, we must do it by triangulation.”

  “Not even a protractor where I can get at it. How?”

  “Hmmmm—If the Captain pleases, recall how you worked that ‘Tennessee windage.’”

  My darling looked like a school boy caught making a silly answer. “Jake, if you don’t quit being polite when I’m stupid, I’m going to space you and put Deety in the copilot’s seat. No, we need you to get us home. I’d better resign and you take over.”

  “Zeb, a captain can’t resign while his ship is underway. That’s universal.”

  “This is another universe.”

  “Transuniversal. As long as you are alive, you are stuck with it. Let’s attempt that triangulation.”

  “Stand by to record.” Zebadiah settled into his seat, pressed his head against its rest. “Copilot.”

  “Ready to record, sir.”

  “Damn!”

  “Trouble, Captain?”

  “Some. This reflectosight is scaled fifteen mils on a side, concentric circles crossed at center point horizontally and vertically. Normal to deck and parallel to deck, I mean. When I center the fifteen-mil ring on Mars, I have a border around it. I’m going to have to guesstimate. Uh, the border looks to be about eighteen mils wide. So double that and add thirty.”

  “Sixty-six mils.”

  “And a mil is one-to-one-thousand. One-to-one-thousand-and-eighteen and a whisker, actually—but one-to-a-thousand is good enough. Wait a half! I’ve got two sharp high lights near the meridian—if the polar caps mark the meridian. Le’me tilt this buggy and put a line crossing them—then I’ll yaw and what we can’t measure in one jump, we’ll catch in three.”

  I saw the larger “upper” polar cap (north? south? well, it felt north) roll gently about eighty degrees, while my husband fiddled with Gay’s manual controls. “Twenty-nine point five, maybe…plus eighteen point seven…plus sixteen point three. Add.”

  My father answered, “Sixty-four and a half” while I said, six four point five in my mind and kept quiet.

  “Who knows the diameter of Mars? Or shall I ask Gay?”

  Hilda answered, “Six thousand seven hundred fifty kilometers, near enough.”

  Plenty near enough for Zebadiah’s estimates. Zebadiah said, “Sharpie! How did you happen to know that?”

  “I read comic books. You know—‘Zap! Polaris is missing.’”

  “I don’t read comic books.”

  “Lots of interesting things in comic books, Zebbie. I thought the Aerospace Force used comic-book instruction manuals.”

  My darling’s ears turned red. “Some are,” he admitted, “but they are edited for technical accuracy. Hmm—Maybe I had better check that figure with Gay.”

  I love my husband but sometimes women must stick together. “Don’t bother, Zebadiah,” I said in chilly tones. “Aunt Hilda is correct. The polar diameter of Mars is six seven five two point eight plus. But surely three significant figures is enough for your data.”

  Zebadiah did not answer…but did not ask his computer. Instead he said, “Copilot, will you run it off on your pocket calculator? We can treat it as a tangent at this distance.”

  This time I didn’t even try to keep still. Zebadiah’s surprise that Hilda knew anything about astronomy caused me pique. “Our height above surface is one hundred four thousand six hundred and seventy-two kilometers plus or minus the error of the data supplied. That assumes that Mars is spherical and ignores the edge effect or horizon bulge…negligible for the quality of your data.”

  Zebadiah answered so gently that I was sorry that I had shown off: “Thank you, Deety. Would you care to calculate the time to fall to surface from rest at this point?”

  “That’s an unsmooth integral, sir. I can approximate it but Gay can do it faster and more accurately. Why not ask her? But it will be many hours.”

  “I had hoped to take a better look. Jake, Gay has enough juice to put us into a tight orbit, I think…but I don’t know where or when I’ll be able to juice her again. If we simply fall, the air will get stale and we’ll need the panic button—or some maneuver—without ever seeing the surface close up.”

  “Captain, would it suit you to read the diameter again? I don’t think we’ve simply been falling.”

  Pop and Zebadiah got busy again. I let them alone, and they ran even the simplest computations through Gay. Presently, Pop said, “Over twenty-four kilometers per second! Captain, at that rate we’ll be there in a little over an hour.”

  “Except that we’ll scram before that. But, ladies, you’ll get your closer look. Dead sea bottoms and green giants. If any.”

  “Zebadiah, twenty-four kilometers per second is Mars’ orbital speed.”

  My father answered, “Eh? Why, so it is!” He looked very puzzled, then said, “Captain—I confess to a foolish mistake.”

  “Not one that will keep us from getting home, I hope.”

  “No, sir. I’m still learning what our continua craft can do. Captain, we did not aim for Mars.”

  “I know. I was chicken.”

  “No, sir, you were properly cautious. We aimed for a specific point in empty space. We transited to that point…but not with Mars’ proper motion. With that of the Solar System, yes. With Earth’s motions subtracted; that is in the program. But we are a short distance ahead of Mars in its orbit…so it is rushing toward us.”

  “Does that mean we can never land on any planet but Earth?”

  “Not at all. Any vector can be included in the program—either before or after transition, translation or rotation. Any subsequent change in motion is taken into account by the inertial integrator. But I am learning that we still have things to learn.”

  “Jake, that is true even of a bicycle. Quit worrying and enjoy the ride. Brother, what a view!”

  “Jake, that doesn’t look like the photographs the Mars Expedition brought back.”

  “Of course not,” said Aunt Hilda. “I said it was Barsoom.”

  I kept my mouth shut. Ever since Dr. Sagan’s photographs anyone who reads The National Geographic—or anything—knows what Ma
rs looks like. But when it involves changing male minds, it is better to let men reach their own decisions; they become somewhat less pig-headed. That planet rushing toward us was not the Mars of our native sky. White clouds at the caps, big green areas that had to be forest or crops, one deep blue area that almost certainly was water—all this against ruddy shades that dominated much of the planet.

  What was lacking were the rugged mountains and craters and canyons of “our” planet Mars. There were mountains—but nothing like the Devil’s Junkyard known to science.

  I heard Zebadiah say, “Copilot, are you certain you took us to Mars?”

  “Captain, I took us to Mars-ten, via plus on Tau axis. Either that or I’m a patient in a locked ward.”

  “Take it easy, Jake. It doesn’t resemble Mars as much as Earth-ten resembles Earth.”

  “Uh, may I point out that we saw just a bit of Earth-ten, on a moonless night?”

  “Meaning we didn’t see it. Conceded.”

  Aunt Hilda said, “I told you it was Barsoom. You wouldn’t listen.”

  “Hilda, I apologize. ‘Barsoom.’ Copilot, log it. New planet, ‘Barsoom,’ named by right of discovery by Hilda Corners Burroughs, Science Officer of Continua Craft Gay Deceiver. We’ll all witness: Z. J. Carter, Commanding—Jacob J. Burroughs, Chief Officer—D. T. B. Carter, uh, Astrogator. I’ll send certified copies to Harvard Observatory as soon as possible.”

  “I’m not astrogator, Zebadiah!”

  “Mutiny. Who reprogrammed this cloud buster into a continua craft? I’m pilot until I can train all of you in Gay’s little quirks. Jake is copilot until he can train more copilots in setting the verniers. You are astrogator because nobody else can acquire your special knowledge of programming and skill at calculation. None of your lip, young woman, and don’t fight the Law of Space. Sharpie is chief of science because of her breadth of knowledge. She not only recognized a new planet as not being Mars quicker than anyone else but carved up that double-jointed alien with the skill of a born butcher. Right, Jake?”