Rogue Ship

'Yeah.'

'Do you remember anything about it?'

'Nope. Just conked out. Came to. Thought to myself: "Boy, I'd better get up to Gourdy!" Found him piled up against the headboard of his bed and -'

Lesbee interrupted. 'No thoughts?' he asked. 'No pictures, no dreams, no odd memories? Just before consciousness, I mean.'

He himself had had only some vague fantasies and memory images in reverse.

'Well– l-l!' Harcourt sounded doubtful. 'Come to think of it, I did have a dream. Kind of vague now.'

Lesbee waited. The expression on the man's fleshy face indicated that he seemed to be straining for the memory, and so there was no point in urging him.

Harcourt said, 'You know, Mr. Lesbee, when it comes right down to it, I guess we human beings have really got truth in us.'

Lesbee groaned inwardly. This man was too slow in thought and tongue. He said hurriedly, 'I'd better reverse the engine, Harcourt. We can talk later.'

Once more he took hold of the relay. This time he gently closed the switch. The job done, Lesbee seated himself in the master chair, picked up an attached microphone, and spoke into the ship's loud-speaker system, a

The observation electrified him. Should he attack the other man now?

Breathless, Lesbee sank back into his own chair. 'Not now!' he thought. There were too many unknowns. Now, if there was a struggle, it could be interrupted by the deceleration. 'Wait!' Lesbee thought. With trembling fingers, he fastened his own belt.

Uneasily, a little wide-eyed, he watched the dials on the control board.

Abruptly, the needles surged.

Involuntarily, he braced himself. But nothing special happened. He had set up a gap of one g between deceleration thrust and artificial gravity, and that was what it was.

He thought, 'Can we depend on that, even at speeds above light?'

The needles continued to show response as before.

Harcourt spoke. 'You know, Mr. Lesbee, that dream was sure fu

Lesbee had turned as the man was describing his subjective experience. Listening, it seemed to him that he was hearing what a simple, uncluttered mind had observed with a pure i

'... flip– flop...' What else?

'...as big as all space... ' That was the theory: at light-speed, mass became infinite, though size reduced to zero.

'... fuzzy flecks... ' Electrons, for heaven's sake, whirling in their orbits, suddenly reversing -

Of course. Fantastic, but of course.

And, naturally, that was where the blackout would occur. Exactly at the moment of reversal. The very structure of life and matter must have been wrenched. He felt a sudden awe, thought, 'While we were having these petty squabbles, could it be that the ship was breaking the barriers of time and space?'

He visualized fantasia: the colossal night out there conquered by discovery and utilization of the rules inherent in its structure. Distance defeated totally, even time probably distorted.

Tensely, Lesbee sat, waiting for the ship to cross light-speed, slowing down. Waited for the shock of return to normalcy-

The swift seconds sped by. The needles continued their surging.

Nothing.

26

On Earth, three weeks had gone by.

A disconcerted Hewitt had tried to speed up the various things that had to be accomplished. What money could do, he was able to do. But the human factor would not move a single hour or day faster than its normal rate.

The letter was one of the holdups. Hewitt had it written quickly, and then he dispatched copies of it by special messenger to the various persons who must approve it and sign it.

What with suggested changes and unexplained delays, and the final version being 'lost' for a week in the office of the Minister of State, the time dragged on.

But finally, the twelve copies of the letter were in Hewitt's possession, needing only his signature. In its final version, the letter read:

The first signature space was for Hewitt. The other signatories had graciously left the top line for him. The Minister of State of the Combined Western Powers had signed immediately below. And below that was the name of the Officer Commanding Space Fleets (OFCOMSPAF). Then came the signatures of three scientists: the 'great man' physicist – Peter Linden – a leading astronomer, and the head of the government science bureau.

A variety of officials and professional observers accompanied Hewitt aboard the Molly D : Space Patrol officers, a doctor, a member of the cabinet, a representative from the Asiatic Powers, and several space physicists...

The Hope of Man, as was to be expected, had outdistanced Earth, in the course of the three weeks, by over five hundred thousand miles. But, more important, since it was not affected by the sun's gravity, the solar system's over-all twelve-miles-per-second motion, in the direction of Aries, had caused the ship to have an apparent drift at that speed diagonally past the sun, a total of ten million miles. Twice during this time, the big ship had been observed to adjust course in such a ma

This was believed to be an indication that the ship's sensor-guidance equipment was still programmed to zero in on Earth.

Urgently, Hewitt ordered the takeoff.

Eight days later, the salvage vessel again attached itself to the huge ship. That was nearly a month, Earth time, since its previous journey... But it would be about half an hour on the Hope of Man -

As soon as the airlock was open and co