Starman Jones (18 page)

“What are your orders, sir?”

Simes was silent, then answered, “Print his name, then sign under it ‘By direction’—and after this use your head.”

They changed to watch-and-watch for the last week. Max continued under the Captain; Kelly assisted Simes. Once the shift was made, Blaine became meticulous about being present in the control room and, when Max started to make the first computation, gently pushed him aside. “I had better take over, lad. We’re getting closer now.”

So Max assisted him—and became horrifyingly aware that the Captain was not the man he must once have been. His knowledge of theory was sound and he knew all the short cuts—but his mind tended to wander. Twice in one computation Max had to remind him diplomatically of details. Yet the Old Man seemed unaware of it, was quite cheerful.

It went on that way. Max began to pray that the Captain would let the new Astrogator make the transition himself—much as he despised Simes. He wanted to discuss his misgivings with Kelly—there was no one else with whom it would have been possible—but Kelly was on the opposite watch with Simes. There was nothing to do but worry.

When the last day arrived, he discovered that Captain Blaine neither intended to take the ship through himself nor to let Simes do it; he had a system of his own. When they were all in the Worry Hole the Captain said, “I want to show you all a wrinkle that takes the strain out of astrogating. With no reflections on our dear brother, Dr. Hendrix, while he was a great astrogator, none better—nevertheless he worked too hard. Now here is a method taught me by my own master. Kelly, if you will have the remote controls led out, please.”

He had them seat themselves in a half-circle, himself, Simes, and Max around the saddle of the computer, with Kelly in the saddle. Each of them was armed with programming forms and Captain Blaine held the remote-control switches in his lap. “Now the idea is for us each to work a sight in succession, first me, then Mr. Simes, then Mr. Jones. That way we keep the data flowing without strain. All right, lads, start pitching. Transition stations everyone.”

They made a dry run, then the Captain stood up. “Call me, Mr. Simes, two hours before transition. I believe you and Mr. Jones will find that this method gives you enough rest in the meantime.”

“Yes, sir. But Captain—may I make a suggestion?”

“Eh? Certainly, sir.”

“This is a fine system, but I suggest that Kelly be put in the astrogating group instead of Jones. Jones is not experienced. We can put Kovak in the saddle and Lundy on the book.”

Blaine shook his head. “No. Accuracy is everything, sir, so we must have our best operator at the computer. As for Mr. Jones, this is how he must get experience—if he gets rattled, you and I can always fill in for him.” He started to leave, then added, Kovak can alternate with Kelly until I return. Mustn’t have anyone getting tired, that way mistakes are made.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Simes said nothing more to Max. They started working sights, alternately, using written programming on printed forms. The sights were coming in on a twenty-minute schedule, giving each of them forty minutes for a problem if he cared to take it. Max began to think that the Captain’s method did have its points. Certainly, Dr. Hendrix had worked himself to death—ships did not wear out but men did.

He had plenty of time to work not only his own problems, but those of Simes. The data came out orally and there was nothing to keep Max from programming Simes’ sights in his head and checking on what went into the computer. So far as he could see Simes was doing all right—though of course there was no real strain involved, not yet.

They ate sandwiches and drank coffee where they sat, leaving their seats only for five minutes or so at a time. Captain Blaine showed up twenty minutes early. He smiled and said cheerily, “Everyone happy and relaxed? Now we really get down to it. I have just time for a cup of coffee.”

A few minutes later, he sat down and took over the control switches from Simes. The sights were coming through on a ten-minute schedule now, still ample time. Max continued to work them all, his own on paper and the others in his head. He was always through in time to catch the data for the next sight, program it mentally and check translations as Lundy thumbed the book. It gave him a running picture of how closely they were in the groove, how much hunting they were having to do in approaching their invisible target. It seemed to him that Simes tended to over-correct and that the Captain was somewhat optimistically under-correcting, but neither was so far out as to endanger the ship.

Maybe he was wrong about the Captain—the Old Man seemed to steady down when it mattered. His own corrections, he was glad to see, the Captain applied without question.

After more than an hour with transition forty-five minutes away Captain Blaine looked up and said, “All right, boys, we’re getting close. Slam them to us as fast as you can now.”

Smythe and Kovak, with Noguchi and Bennett running for them, slipped into high gear; data poured out in a steady stream. Max continued to work every sight, programming his own in his head and calling off figures faster than he wrote them down. He noticed that Simes was sweating, sometimes erasing and starting over. But the figures Simes called out agreed with what Max thought they should be, from his own mental programming. Captain Blaine seemed relaxed, though he had not speeded up materially and sometimes was still using the computer when Max was ready to pour his sight into it.

At one point Simes spoke too rapidly, slurring his figures, Lundy promptly said, “Repeat, sir!”

“Confound it! Clean out your ears!” But Simes repeated. The Captain glanced up, then bent back to his own problem. As soon as the computer was free, Captain Blaine called his own figures to Lundy. Max had already set up the Captain’s sight in his mind, was subconsciously listening while watching Simes.

An alarm bell rang in his mind. “Captain! I don’t check you!”

Captain Blaine stopped. “Eh?”

“That program is wrong, sir.”

The Captain did not seem angry. He simply handed his programming board to Simes. “Check me, sir.”

Simes glanced quickly at the figures. “I check you, sir!”

Blaine said, “Drop out, Jones. Mr. Simes and I will finish.”

“But—”

“Drop out, Mister!”

Max got out of the circle, seething inside. Simes’ check of the Captain’s set up hadn’t meant anything, unless Simes had listened to and remembered (as Max had) the data as it came in. The Captain had transposed an eight and a three in the fifth and sixth decimal places—the set up would look okay unless one knew the correct figures. If Simes had even bothered to check it, he added bitterly.

But Max could not keep from noting and processing the data in his mind. Simes’ next sight should catch the Captain’s error; his correction should repair it. It would be a big correction, Max knew; traveling just under the speed of light the ship clipped a million miles in less than six seconds.

Max could see Simes hesitate as the lights from his next sight popped up on the computer and Lundy translated them back. Why, the man looked frightened! The correction called for would push the ship extremely close to critical speed—Simes paused, then ordered less than half the amount that Max believed was needed.

Blaine applied it and went on with his next problem. When the answer came out, the error, multiplied by time and unthinkable velocity, was more glaring than ever. The Captain threw Simes a glance of astonishment, then promptly made a correction. Max could not tell what it was, since it was done without words by means of the switch in his lap.

Simes licked the dryness from his lips. “Captain?”

“Time for just one more sight,” Blaine answered. “I’ll take it myself, Mr. Simes.”

The data were passed to him, he started to lay his problem out on the form. Max saw him erase, then look up; Max followed his gaze. The pre-set on the chronometer above the computer showed the seconds trickling away. “Stand by!” Blaine announced.

Max looked up. The stars were doing the crawling together that marked the last moments before transition. Captain Blaine must have pressed the second switch, the one that would kick them over, while Max was watching, for the stars suddenly blinked out and were replaced instantaneously by another starry firmament, normal in appearance.

The Captain lounged back, looked up. “Well,” he said happily, “I see we made it again.” He got up and headed for the hatch, saying over his shoulder, “Call me when you have laid us in the groove, Mr. Simes.” He disappeared down the hatch.

Max looked up again, trying to recall from the charts he had studied just what piece of this new sky they were facing. Kelly was looking up, too. “Yes, we came through,” Max heard him mutter. “But
where?
”

Simes also had been looking at the sky. Now he swung around angrily. “What do you mean?”

“What I said,” Kelly insisted. “That’s not any sky I ever saw before.”

“Nonsense, man! You just haven’t oriented yourself. Everybody knows that a piece of sky can look strange when you first glance at it. Get out the flat charts for this area; well find our landmarks quickly enough.”

“They are out, sir. Noguchi.”

It took only minutes to convince everyone else in the control room that Kelly was right, only a little longer to convince even Simes. He finally looked up from the charts with a face greenish white. “Not a word to anybody,” he said. “That’s an order—and I’ll bust any man who slips. Kelly, take the watch.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“I’ll be in the Captain’s cabin.” He went below to tell Blaine that the
Asgard
had come out in unknown space—was lost.

Two hours later, Max climbed wearily up into the Worry Hole. He had just had a bad half-hour, telling the truth as he saw it. Captain Blaine had been disinclined to blame anyone but himself, but had seemed stunned and bewildered. Simes had been nasty. His unstated logic seemed to be that, since it could not possibly be his fault and since it was unthinkable to blame the Captain, it must be Max’s fault. Since Max had been relieved some minutes before transition, his theory seemed to be that Max had caused it by making a disturbance as they were approaching the critical instant—joggled their elbows, so to speak.

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.