Destination: Void

That had to be it: the chemical experiments on her own flesh were creating imbalances. She was using a series of variations on tetrahydroca

That was just the hissing of tapes, she reminded herself. But her head wanted to move from side to side. Something within her was fascinated by that sound.

Bickel glanced around the room - Flattery at the big board yet, composed and so serenely sure of himself; Prudence in her action couch and with her eyes intent on the vocal translator at the AAT; Timberlake in his couch, eyes closed, breathing deeply. One might almost think he was asleep, but for the pulse at his temple. Bickel recognized that ma

"Hit it," Hempstead said.

"That must be an error," Bickel said. "The AAT goofed on that one."

"We do worse ourselves sometimes," Flattery said.

"On the question of defining consciousness," Hempstead said. "Reference is made to nerve barrier and threshold data your computer. Best dive to date."

"Best definition to date," Flattery said. "That's what he must've said."

"New Organic Mental Core," Hempstead said. "Medical perso

"There's something wrong with the AAT," Prudence said.

"Not with the AAT," Bickel said. "With the translator circuits from the computer."

"That goddamn wild program we flushed through the system like a high colonic," Timberlake growled. He opened his eyes and stared accusingly at Bickel.

"Abandon all such attempts," Hempstead said. "Repeat: abandon all such attempts. This is a direct order."

"That sounds like him rightly enough," Prudence said.

"Under no circumstances are you to attempt to make inanimate components," Hempstead said.

"Try that one on your violin," Timberlake said.

"Analyze course and reaction data related to mass changes," Hempstead said. "Unknown area derived mathematically."

"Hash!" Timberlake snarled. "Garbage!"

"Project over and out," Hempstead said. "Acknowledge year compliance."

Timberlake sat up, swung his feet to the deck. "Go ahead, Bick, " he said. "Acknowledge year compliance."

Flattery glanced at Timberlake, returned his attention to the board. Timberlake obviously was making a bid to regain his authority. That could have been predicted. Their first setback would bring him charging out - from fear for all those lives dependent on the life systems, if not for any other reason. Flattery had watched the way Timberlake studied the life-systems repeaters - nothing wrong there... yet. But a threat to any part of the ship was a threat to all.

"Was he asking us to install a new brain?" Prudence asked.

"Where could we get one?" Timberlake asked.

"We've already been through that," she said, looking at each of them in turn.

And for the first time since taking her position with the umbilicus crew, Prudence allowed herself to wonder what it really would be like to become that fleshless embodiment, the mentality which was central to a driving behemoth such as this ship.

She shivered.

They taunt me with blasphemy, Flattery thought.

"Are you cold, Prudence?" he asked.

He watches me all the time, she thought. The medical part of her faced the feminine part then. "I'm quite comfortable," she said.

But she wasn't comfortable. Moods of depression and elation shot through her without warning and had to be concealed. Strange psychic aches tortured her mind - fantasies of godlike power competed with the urge for physical abasement.

She suspected she was close to finding the selective stimulator of consciousness. Some of the combinations she was now using on herself provided enormous amounts of oxygen to the brain in abrupt bursts. There seemed to be a threshold effect involving the blood-brain barrier. The experiments produced residual effects, though. One of their by-products had forced her to complete abandonment of anti-S and its body-chemistry-balance substitutes. Lately, she'd had to mask and suppress acute withdrawal symptoms. And she had found herself unable to deny the profound, compulsive hungers for foods heavy in B-complex vitamins.

She also found herself plagued by sexual dream fantasies involving all of her companions.

Bickel turned from the AAT with a length of printer tape, said: "Garbage."

"What else?" Timberlake snapped.

Flattery started to speak, froze in the act while he studied the track graph on his board. He hadn't imagined it; the graph was climbing. "We've been gaining speed for several minutes. Slow... but steady."

"Drive problems now!" Timberlake snarled.

Flattery activated the drive readout, sca

"Mass register?" Bickel asked.

Flattery's hands flicked over the keyboard. He sca

"What are your readings?" Bickel asked.

"They vary through ten argos," Flattery muttered. "They don't graph back... no series-constant in the curve of change. Mass is out of register with speed."

"What'd Hempstead say?" Bickel demanded, looking back at the printout tape. "'Analyze course and reaction data related to mass changes.' If he -"

"That could be garbage!" Timberlake snapped.

"Still that gradual speed increase," Flattery said. "A slow increment for about four minutes now."

The ship is programmed for emergencies, Prudence thought. That's what they said. But which are emergencies from that program... and which are emergencies from an unknown source?

Flattery took a comparator readout. "In the past minute and eight seconds, our speed has gone up .011002 against the fixed reference."

Bickel began shifting plugs on his computer board. His fingers danced over the keys. He checked the telltales, looked to the visual readout screen.

"Mass interference," he said.

Timberlake coughed. "Is that thing saying our speed has raised our mass to a point where something is... colliding with us?"

"We don't know," Bickel said.

"And with that computer, the answer could be garbage," Timberlake said.

"But the problem isn't garbage," Flattery said. "I'm getting direct reports."

"Speed and mass are our major variables," Bickel said. "Mass reference is cockeyed. Something outside their rated spectrum is colliding with our sensors. That'd throw the -"

"Prepare for retro-firing," Flattery said.

"Wouldn't it be wiser to turn ship?" Timberlake asked. He kicked the manual cocoon switch and the action couch snapped securely around him.

"Raj's right," Bickel said. "Use minimum change. Something's happening for which we have no experience."

"I am starting retro with micro-emission," Flattery said. "Prue, monitor the track graph. Tim, watch our mass reference. I am recording for later analysis."

"If there is a later," Timberlake muttered.

Flattery ignored him. "John, monitor hull temperature and Doppler comparison."

"Right." Bickel cleared his throat, thinking how crude was this quartered division of functions when compared with a properly working ship-control robobrain. The umbilicus crew was a pack of limping cripples by comparison... and in a situation where they needed to run and dodge and balance with the ability of an athlete.

"Starting retro," Flattery said.

He moved the micro-controls one notch.

Action couches made a slight adjustment to the change. It registered as a creeping movement of their repeater consoles against the conduits, pipes, and instruments of the fixed walls.

"Track graph report," Flattery said.

"Speed is dropping unevenly," Prudence answered. "Fits and jerks."

Bickel, watching the edge of his repeater where it aligned with the edge of a wall plate, could see the bucking movement of the ship as a series of tiny jerks. His hands on the console keys sensed a tremor in the ship.