Rogue Ship

However, before leaving the ship after delivering the letter, Hewitt should set off a general alarm aboard to ensure that the awakening took place quickly.

Hewitt frowned over the suggestion. He could think of no logical reason why it shouldn't work. And yet, having been aboard that foreshortened, eerie vessel, with its nuclear piles operating to the very limit of safety and its lopsided passengers moveless as in death, he had a feeling that some factor was being neglected.

He found himself remembering, the man crumpled against the headboard of the bed in the captain's cabin. Such an incongruity needed to be explained. But the older man's words had also brought several thoughts of a practical nature. His tank suit needed to be modified and equipped with power tools to set off the alarm, and to perform labors that would be necessary within the frame of such a time difference. And, as for making a third trip later on, he said slowly, 'If it turns out that I have to shut off the drives also, then I'll have to take along food and water. The time difference could make such a task very involved.'

It had required thirty-five hours to open an airlock, which normally took five minutes. By comparison, reversing the drive might involve weeks of not necessarily hard but certainly persistent labor. It would be better if those aboard could do it.

Another scientist suggested that the suit might also be fitted with instruments for detecting and observing and recording the drive states co

This thought unleashed a tornado of excited, creative ideas, which Hewitt finally stopped with the statement: 'Now, look, gentlemen, only so much additional equipment can be added to this suit. So why don't a couple of you come down with me to the factory, and you can work with them to add the possible modifications? Meanwhile, the letter can be written and copies made. We should be back here reasonably soon, and then I'll go aboard again.'

This was agreed on, and they took the suit back to the factory. Hewitt left the scientists there to see that the job was done right and he went outside.

He had estimated that it would require a week to do all that had to be done. He proposed to spend the first few hours of that time in sleep.

He headed straight for his hotel room.

25

Aboard the ship, Lesbee V awakened.

He lay quite still, momentarily not remembering what had happened, simply lying there in the darkness like a child, not thinking.

Then memory rushed in on him. He thought, 'Oh, my God!'

For many seconds he felt scared, but suddenly relief came. For he was still alive. Translight-speed was not lethal. The feared instant when the ship was traveling exactly at the speed of light had arrived, been experienced, and was behind them.

Lying there, he wondered how long he had been blacked out. That thought brought a new sense of urgency, the realization that he should be down in the engine room, testing, checking, preparing for the slowdown.

He thought of Gourdy. 'Can he be dead?' he wondered hopefully.

He reached up and turned on the light beside the bunk. It was an automatic action, and it was only as the light flooded his little prison cell that he realized that electric impulses and light waves and antigravity seemed to be functioning as normally as ever.

...Wonder came. Yet that fitted the theory that at light-speed, light still traveled at the speed of light.

Lesbee freed himself from his acceleration belt and sat up.

He heard a noise outside his cell. A key sounded in a lock. The door beyond the metal bars swung open. Gourdy, wearing a bandage on his head, peered in at him. Behind the captain, loomed the larger figure of a former kitchen worker named Harcourt.

As he saw Gourdy, instant disappointment hit Lesbee. He had expected it; his analysis about it was correct; but somehow the reality – that Gourdy had not been fatally injured -violated a basic hope that he had cherished... As quickly as it had come, the disappointment faded.

He remembered that Gourdy's coming here was victory.

Lesbee's spirit lifted. It was true. This was why he had programmed the drives: to force this shrewd, murderous little man to come to him for help.

He spoke quickly, to get in the first word, to guide the thought. 'I was knocked unconscious. I just came to. What happened? Is everybody safe?'

He saw that Gourdy was staring at him with a baffled expression. 'You were caught, too!' the man said.

Lesbee merely stared at him. He had a fear of overdramatizing, was convinced that even a single repetition might be a giveaway.

'Lesbee, you're sure this is not part of some scheme?'

Lesbee was able to say that there was no scheme, and it was true, in that his plan had not carried him beyond this moment. Therefore, the scheme such as it was, was already a thing of the past. From this instant, he and everyone aboard confronted a situation new to man: the phenomena related to supralight-speed.

The denial must have reassured Gourdy. He hesitated, but only for a moment. Then, roughly: 'I'm going to take one more chance on you, Lesbee, so you get down to the engine room! Harcourt'll go with you – and take care! No fu

Gourdy must have realized the futility of threats. 'Look, Lesbee,' he pleaded, 'find out what happened, straighten it out and we'll talk. O.K.?'

Lesbee did not trust him; could not. He recognized that Gourdy's situation had not changed, that the new captain still must not go to Earth. But aloud he said, 'O.K. Of course.'

Gourdy managed a facial contortion that was meant to be a friendly smile. 'I'll see you later,' he said.

He departed to interrogate the other prisoners. At this moment, having cleared Lesbee – in his own mind – his suspicion had turned on Miller. Who else could have done it but the only other man who had been in the engine room? He recalled how Miller had examined some of the dials, touched them. That was when it must have happened, Gourdy decided savagely. 'Right there in front of my eyes!' The mere thought enraged him.

Lesbee, with Harcourt trailing him, reached the alternate control room. A quick glance into the viewplates indicated that there was plenty of black space ahead. Quickly, trembling a little in his haste, he programmed the drives for reverse on a twelve g plus eleven artificial-gravity basis. The programming done, he reached for the master switch, grasped it -

And then he stopped.

It seemed to him, in this moment of ultimate decision, that he had several vital things to consider.

The acceleration to translight-speeds had achieved the purpose that he had vaguely anticipated. It had freed him from prison. But it had changed nothing basic in his situation.

No matter what he did, if he failed, or even if he merely failed to act, he was slated to be murdered. That was his certainty, and it must govern what he did now.

...Get Harcourt's gun, and incapacitate the man, somehow, in the process; bind him, hold him, even kill him – if absolutely necessary. But, whatever, put him out of action.

Then rescue Tellier... and the two of them get off the ship exactly as they had pla

The decisions made, once more he started to reach for the switch.

But this time he drew back without touching it. There was another factor to consider, less personal, perhaps even more important. He thought, 'Why did I black out at the transition point? That should be explained.'

People were hard to knock out. That had been discovered many times aboard the big ship. Short of being given an anesthetic, people clung to consciousness under conditions of extreme shock and pain with a tenacity that was almost incredible.

Lesbee half-turned to the big man, asked, 'Did you become unconscious, Harcourt?'