A Voyage To Dari Page 8

  Heavily I sat, scratching in what was left of my hair. “Do you have plans?” I queried.

  “None. With your permission, sir, I am trying to think.”

  “Then I will allow you to think. Think, Chloris—and report when you have something to report.”

  She did not reply. She was thinking.

  And I entered upon an intensive scrutiny of the events during just-past Day 3, the events leading down to this complex disaster. Yesterday had been loaded with clues, but no clue had synapsed with any other clue. Could I somehow now produce out of the mess a pattern hypothesis that could start Chloris on an intelligent search for Croyd or the Castel or both?

  PRIOR ACTION: H-Hour minus 18:

  CROYD’S MALE SECRETARY brought him a morning note from Djeel: she challenged him to a prebreakfast set of space handball. He sent back a yes.

  Djeel wore a minimum red bikini, Croyd minimum black shorts. They played in a court wherein artificial gravity was shut off. The players moved languidly like submarine swimmers while the ball bulleted with normal velocity; one consequence was that you accepted more ricochet before returning a shot; another was that if you were clever enough to apply dead Anglian, the ball died much too soon for your opponent to return it; a third was that you were hit by the ball more often, and it smarted.

  Before starting, Djeel and Croyd argued prolongedly and logically about her handicap, comparing records and physiques, and finally arrived at a fair hard bargain. With this handicap, she won 6-4, bringing off the last game on the last point floating upside down. They shook four hands hard and parted for the showers; their mornings would be full, but they promised to meet for lunch.

  H-Hour minus 12:

  At lunch, Admiral Gorsky announced publicly that we would approach and crack the metagalactic barrier between 1500 and 1530 hours that afternoon; all present were urged to congregate at viewplates as far forward as possible.

  Privately then she invited Princess Djeelian, Governor Croyd, and me (naming us properly in the protocol inverse of that order) to be on the bridge at that time—if we could stand the high G’s incident to the reduced inertial shield on the bridge.

  Croyd asked Djeel, “Can you handle an equivalent of three G’s?”

  She responded, “I’ve handled eight.”

  We men eyed each other above her head. Croyd shot a thought at me, “Still something is brewing, my friend, in this prolonged calm; she may soon have more than eight to handle.”

  Unaccountably, this thought I did not receive. Still more unaccountably, Croyd did not know this.

  Childe Roland had now completed his system of inhibitors. He had shut off every power of Croyd which transcended the powers of a normal human being having high intelligence highly educated or self-educated.

  Childe Roland rested, and continued alternately peering out through Croyd’s clear windows and enthralling himself with the inward mind that remained after Roland’s disabling attack. Roland could stay, he knew, until shortly after the Castel Jaloux would break through the metagalactic barrier.

  H-Hour minus 9:

  All but the floor of the Castel’s bridge was an astrodome, but in the starview there was an odd discontinuity. This was caused by the following arrangement: while the ceiling panels and those near the floor were transparent plastic, showing space as when and where it was the middle 180-degree cyclorama was a system of eighteen videoplates, each independently controllable and revealing exteriors fore, aft, port, starboard, above, and below. Djeel could not decide whether the direct transparencies or the videoplates were more realistic. She was, however, sure that the twenty-meter beam of the bridge was satisfyingly grand.

  Nevertheless Djeel mock-grated at Croyd, “Why do we have to take all these G’s? I feel as if I weighed three hundred pounds.”

  “You’re probably not far off,” he returned; both their heads were pressed back against the pneumatic headrests of their chairs. “This is a thing with Admiral Gorsky: she wants her crewmen on the bridge to be on the ball, and she feels that a reduced inertial shield on the bridge will do it. Three G’s for her are the equivalent of wind on the bridge of a sea vessel. She used to go six G’s, but she’s older, and now it’s only three.”

  “Then her crew must be only half on the ball.”

  “I don’t dare ask her. Personally I’ve always felt that these extra G’s must cripple efficiency and fast thinking; but I have to admit that with these extra G’s she has become an admiral.”

  “What would the G’s be if there were no inertial shield at all?”

  “Same as the relative acceleration of the ship. About forty million G’s. You’d weigh around four billion pounds.”

  “Oh.”

  “Didn’t your pirate captain explain all this?”

  “Do you want me to slug you with my forty-million-pound fist?”

  Gorsky, standing stolid, leaning forward against her G wind with her hands clasped solid behind, studied now one videoplate and now another, rarely glancing above or below at the transparencies. Once in a while she spoke a word or two to a slight-framed brown-skinned lieutenant. Whenever she spoke, the lieutenant went into action as though there were no wind at all.

  Djeel murmured, “That’s a good-looking hunk of man there.”

  “I agree. But I thought you had eyes only for me.”

  “I have thoughts only for you. But I am not blind.”

  “Watch the videoplate. Beautiful views.”

  “I prefer the transparencies,”

  However, she was watching both, as well she might. A stern videoplate revealed a very large segment of the shining Sol Galaxy behind and below. The arc of the outer spiral wherein the Sol system somewhere lurked was clearly descriable on a bias, with even some of the dark of space showing through the palest milkiness of the spiraling star tendrils; and over to one side there was the start of the pregnant swelling that was the brilliant nucleus of the galactic pancake. But just above it, the panel of transparency revealed what was really ahead of them: an amorphous violet-white glow that seemed to fill all the sky, growing steadily brighter.

  They talked about the barrier and the associated brightness ahead; Djeel’s prior understanding was fair, she’d experienced it before; always Croyd was thrilled by a rarely responsive mind, and with her the thrill was particularly piquant.

  He firmed her on the theory. “The metagalaxy is the system of all galaxies that can be in communication with each other. We don’t know how big it is—many billions of light-years across, that we know. It’s rather like a giant bubble in space, steadily expanding.”

  But it wasn’t a simple sphere. It consisted of many galaxies all running away from each other. Each outward-bound galaxy was pushing the bubble skin ahead of itself, analogously as postmedieval aircraft, just a little slower than sound, used to thrust the sound barrier ahead of themselves. Between galaxies, however, the surface tension sagged inward; the outermost galaxies were dragging it outward, but behind them the tension sagged inward in deep convolutions.

  Sol Galaxy was creating one lobe, Djinn Galaxy another. Light between these galaxies, skating along the inside of the surface tension, went down-lobe and up-lobe, taking nearly two billions years for the trip. But the Castel Jaloux was about to crack through the surface-tension barrier at the tip of Sol lobe, in order to take the shortcut across (through metaspace) and reenter the tension at the tip of Djinn lobe—shortening the trip, at their average translight velocity, from twenty-five years to six days.

  Djeel demanded, “Croyd, how dangerous is it?”

  Gorsky interrupted, announcing into the ship’s intercom, “Attention all passengers and crew. Now hear this. We will hit the barrier in a few minutes. There will be severe turbulence for several minutes. Your best procedure will be to batten down. Your second-best procedure will be to find something fixed rigidly to the ship structure and hang on with both fists. We are not responsible for personnel accidents. Probably the ship will survive. Out.”

 
I, whom both of them had forgotten, added lazily from the other bucket seat flanking Djeel, “Not too dangerous, really. Only three hazards. The ship might buckle passing through the barrier. Or our repulsor thrust might be unable to gain purchase on raw space, where inertia can behave queerly, so that we would be unable to turn and move toward Djinn, but instead would move radially outward forever. Or the ship might buckle returning through the barrier off Djinn. But these risks are small, my Djeel; on a great ship like this, at worst, one chance in fifty of disaster.”

  Leaning far forward against the thrust, she exclaimed at me, “But that’s a two-percent chance of death!”

  I spread a fat hand. “Smaller than my chance of heart failure.”

  She spread a slender challenging hand. “But larger than mine! Besides, if I should die on this out-of-the-universe flight, where then would I be?”

  Unexpectedly the whip-lithe brown lieutenant bent over us; his face was soft, slenderly handsome, his eyes flashing black, and his full-lipped mouth was smiling. “She’d be where I’d be,” he asserted, “low in the sky above the most beautiful hill on Dari.”

  He and Djeel engaged eyes an instant. Then he broke away and went about his duties.

  Djeel continued to lean forward, staring after him. Slowly she relaxed back into her chair. She said after a bit, “Croyd, why the glow out there ahead of us?”

  “That’s a mix of light from our galaxy and a flock of other galaxies bouncing off the metagalactic barrier and returning to our eyes. Most of the light just slides along the inner surface of the barrier; but it disperses, and some of it hits the barrier and is reflected inward.”

  “Why doesn’t it go out through the barrier?”

  “Light has practically no mass, and therefore practically no momentum; it can’t break through the bubble. But our ship has generated mass equal to that of a star, and we are driving toward the barrier at 6xl06C, or about six million times the velocity of light; and our momentum will carry us through—I think.”

  Admiral Gorsky told the squawk box, “We hit the barrier in thirty-three seconds. Estimated time through is seven minutes. High turbulence. High turbulence. Protect yourselves. Out.”

  The young lieutenant came over to Djeel. “Excuse me, miss . . .” With long-fingered hands he checked her safety belt and shoulder harness. Straightening, facing her, leaning back against the three G’s, he commented. “You seem all right.”

  “Thank you,” she responded, looking at him steadily. “I am glad I seem all right.”

  Croyd was watching them closely. So was I.

  Djeel added, “Lieutenant, since you are in the presence of the Interplanetary President and the new Governor of Dari, I suggest you identify yourself.”

  His face darkened, and he confronted Croyd and me directly, coming to a stiff salute, feet together, leaning back against Gorsky’s wind; the effect as we looked up at his tilted-back face was rather weird. “Pardon me, gentlemen. Mr. President, Governor . . . Lieutenant Onu Hanoku, at your ser—”

  Turbulence took the Castel Jaloux in terrier teeth and shook her like a rat.

  Hanoku was flung staggering across the bridge.

  Croyd rose, fought G’s for an instant, drove himself across the bridge after and past the reeling Hanoku, interposed his own body between Hanoku and the forward bulkhead. Hanoku crunched into Croyd, shoulder into chest. Croyd’s big hands gripped Hanoku’s tough little shoulders, steadying him.

  Hanoku regained something like balance; in the pitching-tossing-yawing he reached overhead to grab a rigid rail fixed in the ceiling; and at the same instant he seized Croyd’s upper arm to steady him. The two men held that , pose for a moment, eye-to-eye, although Hanoku was almost a head shorter than Croyd (but half a head taller than Djeel).

  Gorsky’s flat voice thudded their way. “Well done, Governor. Do you know what you kept Mr. Hanoku from crashing through?”

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Croyd returned, his eyes on Hanoku’s glowing eyes, “my back is against a frangible panel that covers high-voltage reonics.”

  Hanoku said, low, “Command me, sir.”

  Croyd went grave: “It was nobody’s fault, least of all yours—you were observing courtesy, leaning off-balance. But I’d like to make your acquaintance, sir.”

  Hanoku smiled-flashed pleasure. “I should be honored.” “I’ll ask the admiral to seat you at our table tonight, so we can talk. You’d better go back to duty.”

  Hanoku saluted, grinned charmingly, and departed; and now his uncanny preservation of balance against three G’s and random turbulence underscored the freak nature of his accident.

  It was totally dark outside. No stars or galaxies on any viewplate. And the turbulence was gone. Djeel had an eerie-edgy feeling, remembering certain fever-dreaming in her childhood when the long dream was a hideous alternation between horrible abstract roughness and obscene abstract smoothness, with the smoooth the more unbearable.

  And all was silence. Nobody was speaking. Djeel wanted to speak, but she dared not.

  Croyd broke it, his voice unnaturally natural. “In a little while the admiral will go on to I-ray sensor, and then you can see the skin of the metagalaxy from the outside—if see is the word. Nothing is visible out here, because all light is trapped inside the metagalactic bubble. You are outside the finite universe; you have entered infinity. This is a rare experience of perfect darkness.”

  They talked low about this experience, which Djeel had known once before with her pirate, without perfectly understanding it. The I-ray sensor would send a carrying beam through absolutely lightless metaspace. When the beam or ray would hit a significant event having significant duration, its tip would fragment, and impulses would come back along the beam; and when they would be received at ship’s end on a suitable screen, the effect would be like vision. I-rays were practically instantaneous—so much faster than light that the interval of transmission could not be timed. Sol Galaxy had discovered I-rays three decades earlier, and Djinn warships had copied within a decade; this was why Darian pirates had been motivated and able to fly intergalactic sorties.

  Djeel pursed lips, thinking. Presently, irrelevantly: “It’s a good thing you have those special powers.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Because of Lieutenant Hanoku.”

  “How do you mean?”

  I was intently attentive; Croyd seemed disconcerted.

  Djeel said carefully, “Well, against all those G’s and all that turbulence, nobody could possibly have beaten staggering Hanoku across the bridge to that reonic panel without the famous powers of Governor Croyd.”

  That same Governor Croyd frowned, seeming to go into himself.

  Becoming conscious of this, Djeel turned to gaze at him.

  I asked quietly, “Did you use any special powers?”

  He shook his head.

  Up went Djeel’s brows.

  “I thought not,” I commented, “because it took you an instant to collect yourself against the acceleration and get going.”

  Having taken a few seconds to comprehend, Djeel demanded, “You did that just on your ordinary human resources?”

  Admiral Gorsky’s voice dominated the bridge: “Mr. Hanoku, will you be good enough to activate the Meta-distance Agent Sensor, M-3.”

  “That’s I-rays,” Croyd commented. “This is the Navy.”

  The total cyclorama of the bridge-filling lower videoplate was vital, with a nondescript glow pitted here and there with darkness in an indescribable manner that was ineffably splendid.

  I left the bridge with difficulty, grunting.

  Djeel whispered, “That’s the . . . the metagalactic skin? It glows like that?”

  Croyd told her, “We’re still too close to it to make out any shape. And it isn’t really glowing, you know; our I-rays are bouncing off its surface tension like postmedieval radar and coming back to us to create the glow. We could make it any color we might choose; but this blue-white is best for discrimination of features.
Actually, there is no light at all—just I-rays returning with their messages.”

  Djeel drank it in.

  Presently she missed Lieutenant Hanoku. Keeping her G-pressed head frozen still, she scanned the bridge with her eyeballs; but Hanoku was gone.

  She said to Croyd, “I think I’m ready to go below.”

  H-Hour minus 5½:

  Lieutenant Hanoku lithed in at dinner, was welcomed by Gorsky, and was offered the vacant chair beside Croyd; but Croyd told him with cheerful candor, “I have an elemental desire for Princess Djeelian to sit here, Lieutenant; why don’t you flank her there?” and he indicated the next chair. With a smile, and with a brow up, Hanoku nodded and sat there. Croyd glanced at Gorsky; she was stolid.

  He turned to Hanoku. “As a new guest at the admiral’s table, you are most welcome, Mr. Hanoku. The princess and I were admiring your operations on the bridge—before, after, and during the turbulence. I mean it sincerely.”

  All the lieutenant’s face bones participated in his pleased smile. Then Djeel entered, face-flashed friendship to Hanoku, and took her seat between him and Croyd, who felt himself receding from the foreground of the lieutenant’s interest.

  Gorsky observed, "That time he did well.” Hanoku lost his smile.

  Croyd interjected, “Be ready for instant action, Lieutenant. I have a sense that something outside is building up.” Hanoku went alert.

  Unexpectedly Djeel turned forty-five degrees toward Hanoku, presenting most of her back to Croyd. She told the lieutenant warmly, “I’ve been wanting to meet you. I’ve conceived a tremendous admiration for you. I think you are the most.”

  Hanoku went deadly serious, and he leaned significantly toward her.

  Almost all of Djeel’s back faced Croyd. “Your eyes are entirely too audacious, Mr. Hanoku. Why don’t you forget that I am a girl? It might be easier for both of us.”

  Hanoku went mock-sober. “As you wish, Mr. Faleen. But now that you are a boy, I shall have to look for girls.”

  “They will look for you,” she assured him, “and they will find you. This is the Darian curse that I must bear—whenever I happen to be at home, that is.”