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قراءة كتاب Subspace Survivors

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‏اللغة: English
Subspace Survivors

Subspace Survivors

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

It was; and they did; and after they had slept and had eaten "breakfast" the three men wafted themselves across a couple of hundred yards of space to the crippled starship. Powerful floodlights were rigged.

"What ... a ... mess." Deston's voice was low and wondering. "The whole Top looks as though she'd crash-landed and spun out for eight miles. But the Middle and Tail look untouched."

Inside, however, devastation had gone deep into the Middle. Bulkheads, walls, floors, structural members; were torn, sheared, twisted into weirdly-distorted shapes impossible to understand or explain. And, much worse, were the absences; for in dozens of volumes, of as many sizes and of shapes incompatible with any three-dimensional geometry, every solid thing had vanished—without leaving any clue whatever as to where or how it had gone.

After three long days of hard work, Adams was satisfied. He had taken pictures as fast as both officers could process the film; he had covered many miles of tape with words only half of which either spaceman could understand. Then, finally, he said:

"Well, that covers the preliminary observations as well as I know how to do it. Thank you, boys, for your forbearance and your help. Now, if you'll help me find my stuff and bring some of it—a computer and so on—up to the lounge?" They did so; the "and so on" proving to be a bewildering miscellany indeed. "Thank you immensely, gentlemen; now I won't bother you any more."

"You've learned a lot, Doc, and we haven't learned much of anything." Deston grinned ruefully. "That makes you the director. You'll have to tell us, in general terms, what to do."

"Oh? I can offer a few suggestions. It is virtually certain: One, that no subspace equipment will function. Two, that all normal-space equipment, except for some items you know about, will function normally. Three, that we can't do anything about subspace without landing on a planet. Four, that such landing will require extreme—I might almost say fantastic—precautions."

Although both officers thought that they understood Item Four, neither of them had any inkling as to what Adams really meant. They did understand thoroughly, however, Items One, Two, and Three.

"Hell's jets!" Deston exclaimed. "Do you mean we'll have to blast normal to a system?"

"It isn't as bad as you think, Babe," Jones said. "Stars are much thicker here—we're in the center somewhere—than around Sol. The probability is point nine plus that any emergence would put us less than point four light-years away from a star. A couple of them show disks. I haven't measured any yet; have you, Doc?"

"Yes. Point two two, approximately, to the closest."

"So what?" Deston demanded. "What's the chance of it having an Earth-type planet?"

"Any solid planet will do," Adams said. "Just so it has plenty of mass."

"That's still quite a trip." Deston was coming around. "Especially since we can't use more than one point——"

"One point zero gravities," Jones put in.

"Over the long pull—and the women—you're right," Deston agreed, and took out his slide rule. "Let's see ... one gravity, plus and minus ... velocity ... time ... it'll take about eleven months?"

"Just about," Jones agreed, and Adams nodded.

"Well, if that's what the cards say, there's no use yowling about it," and all nine survivors went to work.

Deston, besides working, directed the activities of all the others except Adams; who worked harder and longer than did anyone else. He barely took time out to eat and to sleep. Nor did either Deston or Jones ask him what he was doing. Both knew that it would take five years of advanced study before either of them could understand the simplest material on the doctor's tapes.

III.

The tremendous engines of the Procyon were again putting out their wonted torrents of power. The starship, now a mere spaceship, was on course at one gravity. The lifecraft were in their slots, but the five and the four still lived in them rather than in the vast and oppressive emptiness that the ship itself now was. And socially, outside of working hours, the two groups did not mix.

Clean-up was going nicely, at the union rate of six hours on and eighteen hours off. Deston could have set any hours he pleased, but he didn't. There was plenty of time. Eleven months in deep space is a fearfully, a tremendously long time.

"Morning," "afternoon," "evening," and "night" were, of course, purely conventional terms. The twenty-four-hour "day" measured off by the brute-force machine that was their masterclock carried no guarantee, expressed or implied, as to either accuracy or uniformity.

One evening, then, four hard-faced men sat at two small tables in the main room of Lifecraft Three. Two of them, Ferdy Blaine and Moose Mordan, were playing cards for small stakes. Ferdy was of medium size; compact rather than slender; built of rawhide and spring steel. Lithe and poised, he was the epitome of leashed and controlled action. Moose was six-feet-four and weighed a good two-forty—stolid, massive, solid. Ferdy and Moose; a tiger and an elephant; both owned in fee simple by Vincent Lopresto.

The two at the other table had been planning for days. They had had many vitriolic arguments, but neither had made any motion toward his weapon.

"Play it my way and we've got it made, I tell you!" Newman pounded the table with his fist. "Seventy million if it's a cent! Heavier grease than your lousy spig Syndicate ever even heard of! I'm as good an astrogator as Jones is, and a damn sight better engineer. In electronics I maybe ain't got the theory Pretty Boy has, but at building and repairing the stuff I've forgot more than he ever will know. At practical stuff, and that's all we give a whoop about, I lay over both them sissies like a Lunar dome."

"Oh, yeah?" Lopresto sneered. "How come you aren't ticketed for subspace, then?"

"For hell's sake, act your age!" Newman snorted in disgust. Eyes locked and held, but nothing happened. "D'ya think I'm dumb? Or that them subspace Boy Scouts can be fixed? Or I don't know where the heavy grease is at? Or I can't make the approach? Why ain't you in subspace?"

"I see." Lopresto forced his anger down. "But I've got to be sure we can get back without 'em."

"You can be damn sure. I got to get back myself, don't I? But get one thing down solid. I get the big peroxide blonde."

"You can have her. Too big. I like the little yellowhead a lot better."

Newman sneered into the hard-held face so close to his and said: "And don't think for a second you can make me crawl, you small-time, chiseling punk. Rub me out after we kill them off and you get nowhere. You're dead. Chew on that a while, and you'll know who's boss."

After just the right amount of holding back and objecting, Lopresto agreed. "You win, Newman, the way the cards lay. Have you ever planned this kind of an operation or do you want me to?"

"You do it, Vince," Newman said, grandly. He had at least one of the qualities of a leader. "Besides, you already have, ain't you?"

"Of course. Ferdy will take Deston——"

"No he won't! He's mine, the louse!"

"If you're that dumb, all bets are off. What are you using for a brain? Can't you see the guy's chain lightning on ball bearings?"

"But we're going to surprise 'em, ain't we?"

"Sure, but even Ferdy would just as soon not give him an even break. You wouldn't stand the chance of a snowflake in hell, and if you've got the brains of a louse you know it."

"O. K., we'll let Ferdy have him. Me and you will match draws to see

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