Starman Jones Read online

  Mr. Walther had been present, a mute judge. They spoke of matters outside his profession; he had seemed to be studying their faces. Max had stuck doggedly to his story.

  He found Kelly still on watch. Kovak and Smythe were taking spectrograms; Noguchi and Lundy were busy with papers. “Want to be relieved?” he said to Kelly.

  Kelly looked troubled. “I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

  “Huh?”

  “Mr. Simes phoned while you were on your way up. He says you are not to stand duty until further notice.”

  “He did? Well, I’m not surprised.”

  “He also said that you were to stay out of the control room.”

  Max made a violent statement about Simes. He added, “Well, it was nice while it lasted. Be seeing you.”

  He turned away but Kelly stopped him. “Don’t be in a hurry, Max. He won’t be up for a while. I want to know what happened. From the computer I can’t tell what goes on.”

  Max told him, drawing on his memory for the figures. Kelly nodded at last. “That confirms what I’ve been able to dig out. The Captain flubbed with a transposition—easy to do. Then Simes didn’t have the guts to make a big correction when it came around to him. But one more thing you don’t know. Neither do they—yet.”

  “Huh? What?”

  “The power room recorder shows it. Guenther had the watch down there and gave it to me over the phone. No, I didn’t tell him anything was wrong. I just asked for the record; that’s not unusual. By the way, any excitement down below? Passengers blowing their tops?”

  “Not when I came up.”

  “Won’t be long. They can’t keep this quiet forever. Back to my story—things were already sour but the Captain had one last chance. He applied the correction and a whopping big one. But he applied it with the wrong sign, just backwards.”

  Profanity was too weak. All Max could say was, “Oh, my!”

  “Yeah. Well, there’s the devil to pay and him out to lunch.”

  “Any idea where we are?”

  Kelly pointed to Kovak and Smythe at the spectrostellograph. “They’re fishing, but no bites. Bright stars first, B-types and Os. But there is nothing that matches the catalogues so far.”

  Noguchi and Lundy were using a hand camera. Max asked, “What are they doing?”

  “Photographing the records. All of ’em—programming sheets, the rough data from the chartsmen, the computer tape, everything.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “Maybe none. But sometimes records get lost. Sometimes they even get changed. But not this time. I’m going to have a set of my own.”

  The unpleasant implications of Kelly’s comments were sinking into Max’s mind when Noguchi looked up. “That’s all, Boss.”

  “Good.” Kelly turned to Max. “Do me a favor. Stick those films in your pocket and take them with you. I want them out of here. I’ll pick them up later.”

  “Well…all right.” While Noguchi was unloading the camera Max added to Kelly, “How long do you think it will take to figure out where we are, checking spectra?”

  Kelly looked more troubled than ever. “Max, what makes you think there is anything to find?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Why should anything out there…” He made a sweeping gesture. “…match up with any charts we’ve got here?”

  “You mean,” Max said slowly, “that we might not be in our own galaxy at all? Maybe in another, like the Andromeda Nebula, say?”

  “Maybe. But that’s not all. Look, Max, I’m no theoretical physicist, that’s sure, but so far as I know all that theory says is that when you pass the speed of light you have to go out of your own space, somewhere else. You’ve become irrelevant and it won’t hold you. But where you go, unless you are set just right for a Horst congruency, that’s another matter. The theory doesn’t say. Does it?”

  Max’s head started to ache. “Gee, I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I. But since we weren’t set to duck back into our own space at another point, we may be anywhere. And I mean anywhere. We may be in some other space-time totally unconnected with our own.” He glanced up at the strange stars.

  Max went below feeling worse than ever. He passed Simes going up; the Astrogator scowled at him but did not say anything. When Max reached his stateroom, he put the films in a drawer—then thought about it, removed the drawer and cached them in dead space behind the drawer.

  Max stayed in his room and worried. He fretted over being kept out of the control room, wanting very badly himself to check the sky for known stars. B- and O-type stars—well, that was all right, but there were half a dozen other ways. Globular star clusters, now—they’d be easy to identify; snag four of them and you’d know where you were as clear as reading a street sign. Then it would be just a case of fining it down, because you’d know what to look for and where. After which, you’d high-tail it for the nearest charted congruency, whether it took you a week or a year. The ship couldn’t really be lost.

  But suppose they weren’t even in the right galaxy?

  The thought dismayed him. If that were the case, they’d never get home before the end of time. It was chased out by another thought—suppose Kelly’s suspicion had been correct, that this was an entirely different universe, another system of space and time? What then? He had read enough philosophical fancies to know that there was no theoretical reason for such to be impossible; the Designer might have created an infinity of universes, perhaps all pretty much alike—or perhaps as different as cheese and Wednesday. Millions, billions of them, all side by side from a multidimensional point of view.

  Another universe might have different laws, a different speed of light, different gravitational ballistics, a different time rate—why they might get back to find that ten million years had passed and Earth burnt to a cinder!

  But the light over his desk burned steadily, his heart pumped as always, obeying familiar laws of hydraulics, his chair pressed up against him—if this was a different sort of space the differences weren’t obvious. And if it was a different universe, there was nothing to be done about it.

  A knock came at the door, he let Kelly in and gave him the chair, himself sitting on the bed. “Any news?”

  “No. Golly I’m tired. Got those pix?”

  Max took out the drawer, fished around behind it, gave them to Kelly. “Look, Chief, I got an idea.”

  “Spill it.”

  “Let’s assume that we’re in the right galaxy, because—”

  “Because if we ain’t, there isn’t any point in trying!”

  “Well, yes. All right, we’re in the Milky Way. So we look around, make quick sample star counts and estimate the distance and direction of the center. Then we try to identify spectra of stars in that direction, after deciding what ones we ought to look for and figuring apparent magnitudes for estimated distance. That would…”

  “—save a lot of time,” Kelly finished wearily. “Don’t teach your grandpop how to suck eggs. What the deuce do you think I’ve been doing?”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s more than our revered boss thought of. While I been trying to work, he’s been bellyachin’ around, finding fault, and trying to get me to say that he was dead right in everything—worrying about himself instead of worrying about his ship. Pfui! By the way, he grabbed the records just like I thought he would—‘to show the Captain.’ He says.” Kelly stood up. “I’d better go.”

  “Don’t rush. I’ll ring for coffee.”

  “Running out of my ears now.” Kelly took the films from his pocket and looked at them dutifully. “I had Noggy make two shots of everything; this is a double set. That’s a good hidey-hole you’ve got. What say we stick one set in there and let it cool? Never can tell.”

  “Kelly, you aren’t really expecting trouble over those records? Seems to me we’ve got trouble enough with the ship being lost.”

  “Huh? Max, you’re going to make a good officer someda
y. But you’re innocent. Now I’m a suspenders and belt man. I like to take as few chances as possible. Doc Hendrix—rest his soul!—was the same way.” Kelly waited until Max had returned the spare set to the space back of the drawer, then started to leave. He paused.

  “One thing I forgot to tell you, Max. We happened to come out pretty close to a star and a G-type at that.”

  “Oh.” Max considered it. “Not one we know?”

  “Of course not, or I would have said so. Haven’t sized it yet, but figuring normal range in the Gs we could reach it in not less than four weeks, not more than a year, at high boost. Thought you’d like to know.”

  “Well, yes. Thanks. But I can’t see that it makes much difference.”

  “No? Doesn’t it seem like a good idea to have a Sol-type star, with maybe Earth-type planets around it, not far off?”

  “Well…”

  “It does to me. The Adam-and-Eve business is rugged at best—and we might be in for a long stay.” With that he left.

  No steward’s mate came to tell Max it was time for dinner; when he noticed that it was past time, he went to the lounge. Most of the passengers were already seated, although some were standing around talking. It was impossible to miss the feeling of unrest in the room. Max saw that the Captain was not at his table, nor was Mr. Walther at his. As he headed for his own table, a Mr. Hornsby tried to grab his arm. Max shook him off. “Sorry, sir. I’m in a hurry.”

  “Wait a minute! I want to ask you…”

  “Sorry.” He hurried on and sat down. Chief Engineer Compagnon was not at the table, but the usual passengers were present. Max said, “Good evening,” and reached for his soup spoon, just to keep busy.

  There was no soup to be toyed with, nor were there rolls and butter on the table, although it was ten minutes past the hour. Such things simply did not happen in Chief Steward Dumont’s jurisdiction. Come to think about it, Dumont was not in sight.

  Mrs. Daigler put a hand on his arm. “Max? Tell me, dear—what is this silly rumor going around?”

  Max tried to maintain a poker face. “What rumor, ma’am?”

  “You must have heard it! After all, you’re in astrogation. They say that the Captain turned the wrong corner or something and that we’re falling into a star.”

  Max tried to give a convincing chuckle. “Who told you that? Whoever it was probably couldn’t tell a star from his elbow.”

  “You wouldn’t fool your Aunt Maggie?”

  “I can assure you positively that the Asgard is not falling into a star. Not even a small star.” He turned in his chair. “But it does look like something’s fallen into the galley. Dinner is awfully late.”

  He remained turned, trying to avoid further questions. It did not work. Mr. Arthur called out sharply, “Mr. Jones!”

  He turned back. “Yes?”

  “Why stall us? I have been informed authoritatively that the ship is lost.”

  Max tried to look puzzled. “I don’t follow you. We seem to be in it.”

  Mr. Arthur snorted. “You know what I mean! Something went wrong with that whatyoumucallit—transition. We’re lost.”

  Max put on a school-teacherish manner, ticking off points on his fingers. “Mr. Arthur, I assure you that the ship is in absolutely no danger. As for being lost, I assure you just as firmly that if we are, the Captain neglected to tell me so. I was in the control room at transition and he seemed quite satisfied with it. Would you mind telling me who has been spreading this story? It’s a serious thing, starting such rumors. People have been known to panic.”

  “Well…it was one of the crew. I don’t know his name.”

  Max nodded. “I thought so. Now in my experience in space…” He went on, quoting from his uncle “…I have learned that the only thing faster than light is the speed with which a story can spread through a ship. It doesn’t have to have any foundation, it spreads just the same.” He looked around again. “I wonder what has happened to dinner? I’d hate to go on watch hungry.”

  Mrs. Weberbauer said nervously, “Then we are all right, Maxie?”

  “We’re all right, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Daigler leaned toward him again and whispered, “Then why are you sweating, Max?”

  He was saved by a steward’s mate rushing up to the table and starting to deal out plates of soup. Max stopped him when he came around and said quietly, “Jim, where’s Dumont?”

  Out of the corner of his mouth the waiter said, “Cooking.”

  “Huh? Where’s the chef?”

  The steward’s mate leaned down and whispered, “Frenchy is boiled as a judge. I guess he couldn’t take it. You know.”

  Max let him go. Mr. Arthur said sharply, “What did he tell you?”

  “I was trying to find out what went wrong in the galley,” Max answered. “Seems the cook incapacitated himself.” He spooned up a mouthful of the soup. “From the taste, I’d say he had burned his thumb in this so-called chowder. Pretty bad, isn’t it?”

  Max was saved from further evasions by the arrival of the First Officer. Mr. Walther went to the Captain’s table and banged on a glass with a spoon. “Your attention, please!”

  He waited for quiet, then took a paper from his pocket. “I have an announcement to make on behalf of the Captain. Those of you who are familiar with the theory of astrogation are aware that space is changing constantly, due to the motions of the stars, and that consequently no two trips are exactly alike. Sometimes it is necessary, for this reason, to make certain changes in a ship’s routing. Such a circumstance has arisen in this present trip and the Asgard will be somewhat delayed in reaching her next destination. We regret this, but we can’t change the laws of nature. We hope that you will treat it as a minor inconvenience—or even as additional vacation, in the friendly and comfortable atmosphere of our ship. Please remember, too, that the insurance policy accompanying your ticket covers you completely against loss or damage you may be cost through the ship being behind schedule.”

  He put away the paper; Max had the impression that he had not actually been reading from it. “That is all that the Captain had to say, but I want to add something myself. It has come to my attention that someone has been spreading silly rumors about this minor change in schedule. I am sorry if any of you have been alarmed thereby and I assure you that I will take very strict measures if the originator can be identified.” He risked a dignified smile. “But you know how difficult it is to trace down a bit of gossip. In any case, I want to assure you all that the Asgard is in no danger of any sort. The old girl was plying space long before any of us were born, she’ll still be going strong after we all die of old age—bless her sturdy bones!” He turned and left at once.

  Max had listened in open-mouthed admiration. He came from country where the “whopper” was a respected literary art and it seemed to him that he had never heard a lie told with more grace, never seen one interwoven with truth with such skill, in his life. Piece by piece, it was impossible to say that anything the First Officer had said was untrue; taken as a whole it was a flat statement that the Asgard was not lost—a lie if he ever heard one. He turned back toward his table mates. “Will someone pass the butter, please?”

  Mr. Arthur caught his eye. “And you told us,” he said sharply, “that nothing was wrong!”

  Mr. Daigler growled, “Lay off him, Arthur. Max did pretty well, under the circumstances.”

  Mrs. Weberbauer looked bewildered. “But Mr. Walther said that everything was all right?”

  Daigler looked at her with compassion. “We’re in trouble, Mama Weberbauer. That’s obvious. But all we can do is keep calm and trust the ship’s officers. Bight, Max?”

  “I guess that’s right, sir.”

  15

  “THIS ISN’T A PICNIC”

  Max kept to his room that evening and the next day, wishing neither to be questioned by passengers nor to answer questions about why he had been relieved of duty. In consequence, he missed the riot, having slept through it. He first
heard of it when the steward’s mate who tended his room showed up with a black eye. “Who gave you the shiner, Garcia?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. It happened in the ruckus last night.”

  “Ruckus? What ruckus?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it. What happened?”

  Garcia Lopez stared at the overhead. “Well—I wouldn’t want to say too much. You know how it is—nobody wants to testify against a mate. No?”

  “Who asked you to peach on a mate? You don’t have to mention names—but what happened?”

  “Well sir. Some of those chicos, they ain’t got much sense.” Slowly Max learned that the unrest among the crew had been greater than that among the passengers, possibly because they understand more clearly the predicament. Some of them had consulted with Giordano’s poor-man’s vodka, then had decided to call on the Captain in a body and demand straight talk. The violence had taken place when the master-at-arms had attempted to turn them back at the companionway to “C” deck.

  “Anybody hurt?”

  “Not what you’d call hurt. Cut up a little. I picked this up…” He touched his eye tenderly. “…from being too anxious to see what was going on. Slats Kovak busted an ankle.”

  “Kovak! Why would he be in it?” It did not make sense that a member of the Worry gang should take part in anything so unreasonable.

  “He was coming down, coming off watch, I guess. Maybe he was backing up the constable. Or maybe he just got caught in the swinging doors. Your friend Sam Anderson was sure in the thick of it.”