Chapter II

The second man, the dark haired one, opened his eyes and recognized us. He asked questions in rapid fire excitement. The third man, the tall Viking, was all right until he moved. The weightless sensation made him violently sick. We put him back on the cot, securing him again with the belt, but the sight of us floating made him shake. He was retching without results when we drifted out. I followed him to the girl's quarters.

"What about her. Why is she here?" I asked my companion.

He lifted the cover from the apparatus. "She's the chemist in the crew."

"A girl?"

"Dr. Thiesen is an expert, trained for this," he said.

I looked at her. She looked anything but like a chemist.

"There must be men who could have been sent. I've been wondering why a girl."

"I don't know why, Captain. You tried to stop her before. Age and experience were all that mattered to the brass."

"It's a bad thing to do."

"I suppose. The mission stated one chemist."

"What is the mission of this ship?" I asked.

He held up his hand. "We'd better wait, sir. Everything was supposed to be all right on this end. First you, then Carl, sick to his stomach."

"Okay. I'll hold the questions until we see about her."

We were out of luck with the girl. She woke up and she was frightened. We questioned her and she was coherent but she couldn't remember. I tried to smile as I sat on the cot, wondering what she was thinking.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

Her face was a mask of wide-eyed fear as she shook her head.

"Can you remember?"

"I don't know." Blue eyes stared at me in fear. Her voice was low.

"Do you know my name?"

The question frightened her. "Should I? I feel so strange. Give me a minute to think."

I let her sit up slowly. "Do you know your name?"

She tightened up in my arms. "Yes. It's...." She looked at us for help, frightened by the lack of clothing we wore, by the bleak room. Her eyes circled the room. "I'm afraid," she cried. I held her and she shook uncontrollably.

"What's happened to me?" she asked.

The dark haired man came into the room, silent and watchful. My companion motioned to him. "Get Carl and meet us in Control."

The man looked at me and I nodded. "We'll be there in a moment. I'm afraid we've got trouble."

He nodded and pushed away from us. The girl screamed and covered her face with her hands. I turned to the other man. "What's your name?"

"Croft. John Croft."

"John, what are your duties if any?"

"Automatic control. I helped to install it."

"Can you run this ship? How about the other two?"

He hit his hands together. "You fly it, sir. Can't you think?"

"I'm trying. I know the ship is familiar, but I've looked it over. Maybe I'm trying too hard."

"You flew her from earth until we went into suspension," he said.

"I can't remember when," I said. I held the trembling girl against me, shaking my head.

He glanced at the girl. "If the calculations are right it was more than a hundred years ago."

We assembled in the control room for a council. We were all a little better for being together. John Croft named the others for me. I searched each face without recognition. The blond man was Carl Herrick, a metallurgist. His lean face was white from his spell but he was better. Paul Sample was a biologist, John said. He was lithe and restless, with dark eyes that studied the rest of us. I looked at the girl. She was staring out of the ports, her hands pressed against the transparent break in the smooth wall. Karen Thiesen was a chemist, now frightened and trying to remember.

I wasn't in much better condition. "Look, if it comes too fast for me, for any of us, we'll stop. John, you can lead off."

"You ask the questions," he said.

I indicated the ship. "Where in creation are we going?"

"We set out from Earth for a single star in the direction of the center of our Galaxy."

"From Earth? How could we?"

"Let's move slowly, sir," he said. "We're moving fast. I don't know if you can picture it, but we're going about one hundred thousand miles an hour."

"Through space?"

"Yes."

"What direction?"

Paul cut in. "It's a G type star, like our own sun in mass and luminosity. We hope to find a planetary system capable of supporting life."

"I can't grasp it. How can we go very far in a lifetime?"

"It can be done in two lifetimes," John said quietly.

"You said I had flown this ship. You meant before this suspension."

"Yes. That's why we can cross space to a near star."

"How long ago was it?"

"It was set at about a hundred years, sir. Doesn't that fit at all?"

"I can't believe it's possible."

Carl caught my eye. "Captain, we save this time without aging at all. It puts us near a calculated destination."

"We've lost our lifetime." It was Karen. She had been crying silently while we talked.

"Don't think about it," Paul said. "We can still pull this out all right if you don't lose your nerve."

"What are we to do?" she asked.

John answered for me. "First we've got to find out where we are. I know this ship but I can't fly it."

"Can I?" I asked.

* * * * *

We set up a temporary plan of action. Paul took Karen to the laboratory in an effort to help her remember her job. Carl went back to divide the rations.

I was to study the charts and manuals. It was better than doing nothing, and I went into the navigation room and sat down. Earth was an infinitesimal point somewhere behind us on the galactic plane, and no one else was trained to navigate. The ship thundered to life as I sat there. The blast roared once ... twice, then settled into a muted crescendo of sound that hummed through the walls. I went into the control room and watched John at the panel.

"I wish I knew what you were doing," I said savagely.

"Give it time."

"We can't spare any, can we?" I asked.

"I wish we knew. What about her--Dr. Thiesen?"

"She's in the lab. I don't think that will do much good. She's got to be shocked out of a mental state like that."

"I guess you're right," he said slowly. "She's trained to administer the suspension on the return trip."

I let my breath out slowly. "I didn't think about that."

"We couldn't even get part way back in a lifetime," he said.

"How old are you, John?"

"Twenty-eight."

"What about me?"

"Thirty." He stared at the panel in thought for a minutes. "What about shock treatment? It sounds risky."

"I know. It's the only thing I could think of. Why didn't everyone react the same?"

"That had me wondering for a while. I don't know. Anyway how could you go about making her remember?"

"Throw a crisis, some situation at her, I guess."

He shrugged, letting his sure hands rest on the panel of dials. I headed back towards the lab. If I could help her I might help myself. I was past the rooms when the horn blasted through the corridor. I turned automatically with the sound, pushing against the rail, towards the control room. Deep in my mind I could see danger, and without questioning why I knew I had to be at Control when the sound knifed through the stillness. John was shouting as I thrust my way into the room.

"Turn the ship. There's something dead ahead."

I had a glimpse of his contorted face as I dove at the control board. My hands hit buttons, thumbed a switch and then a sudden force threw me to the right. I slammed into the panel on the right, as the pressure of the change dimmed my vision. Reflex made me look up at the radar control screen.

It wasn't operating.

John let go of the padded chair, grinning weakly. I was busy for a few seconds, feeding compensation into the gyros. Relief flooded through me like warm liquid. I hung on the intercom for support, drawing air into my heaving lungs.

"What--made you--think of that," I asked weakly.

"Shock treatment."

"I must have acted on instinct."

"You did. Even for a sick man that was pretty fast," he laughed.

"I can think again, John. I know who I am," I shouted. I threw my arms around his massive shoulders. "You did it."

"You gave me the idea, Mister, talking about Dr. Thiesen."

"It worked. I'm okay," I said in giddy relief.

"I don't have to tell you I was scared as hell. I wish you could have seen your face, the look in your eyes when I woke up."

"I wouldn't want to wake up like that again."

"You're all right now?" he asked. I grinned and nodded an answer. I saw John as he was at the base, big and competent, sweating in the blazing sun.

I thought about the rest of the crew too. "We're heading right for a star...."

"It's been dead ahead for hours," he grunted. I leaned over and threw the intercom to open. "This is control. Listen ... everyone. I'm over it. Disregard the warning siren ... we were testing the ship."

The lab light blinked on as Paul cut in. "What was it ... hey, you said you're all right."

"John did it. He hit the alarm figuring I would react. Listen, Paul. Is any one hurt?"

"No. Carl is here too. His stomach flopped again but he's okay. What about food. We're supposed to be checked before we eat."

"We'll have to go ahead without it. Any change?"

"No, I put her to bed. Shall I bring food?"

I glanced at John. He rubbed his stomach. "Yes," I answered. "Bring it when you can. I've got to find out where we are."

We had to get off course before we ran into the yellow-white star that had been picked for us. Food was set down by me, grew cold and was carried away and I was still rechecking the figures. We were on a line ten degrees above the galactic plane. The parallactic baseline from Earth to the single star could be in error several degrees, or we could be right on the calculated position of the star. The radar confirmed my findings ... and my worst fears. When we set it for direction and distance, the screen glowed to life and recorded the star dead ahead.

In all the distant star clusters, only this G type star was thought to have a planetary system like our own. We were out on a gamble to find a planet capable of supporting life. The idea had intrigued scientists before I had first looked up at the night sky. When I was sure the electronically recorded course was accurate for time, I checked direction and speed from the readings and plotted our position. If I was right we were much closer than we wanted to be. The bright pips on the screen gave us the distance and size of the star while we fed the figures into the calculator for our rate of approach.

Spectroscopic tests were run on the sun and checked against the figures that had been calculated on Earth. We analyzed temperature, magnetic fields, radial motion, density and luminosity, checking against the standards the scientists had constructed. It was a G type star like our own. It had more density and temperature and suitable planets or not, we had to change course in a hurry. Carl analyzed the findings while we came to a decision. Somewhere along an orbit that might be two hundred miles across, our hypothetical planet circled this star. That distance was selected when the planets in Earth's solar system had proved to be barren. If the observations on this star were correct, we could expect to find a planet in a state of fertility ... if it existed ... if it were suitable for colonization ... if we could find it.

* * * * *

"So far, so good," said Carl as he laid the papers down.

"What's your guess about planets?"

Carl shrugged. "I wouldn't care to even guess that."

"Here's something," Paul shouted and we looked up at the screen.

Another mass was recorded. "It's too close," he commented. "But it's something at least."

"We'll have to head for a probable orbit and follow it," I said.

"The whole thing looks improbable up close," John said.

"I agree," Paul said.

"Consider this. We're thirty days past its probable orbit. That's quite some figuring, roughly a small fraction of one percent. Unbelievably small error considering the distance we've come. I'm willing to stake my life that there will be such a planet."

"One thing," said John, "if this planet should exist we can find it in less than a year by following its probable orbit."

"That's half our answer," Carl said. "We can still look farther out with the radar."

John shook his head ponderously. "I remember when they first tested this drive. To the moon and back in sixty hours, with the ship so hot you could fry eggs on the wall. Now with the bugs taken out we can hit two million miles in an Earth day."

"Remember Ellington talking about the speed of light within the realm of fuels and metals?"

"Yeah. We could meet some of our children's children coming out to meet us."

"Except that married men didn't make this trip," I reminded them.

When we turned and set up an arbitrary course we were within forty million miles of the brilliant sun. Opaque shields went over the portholes to keep out the blinding glare, and we settled down to the routine of resting and watching the instruments. I set up two man watches, partly to keep us from getting in each other's way in the crowded quarters. The ship, with its bulk cut in half by the engines had never been designed for comfort. There was enough room for flight operations, but little privacy. Besides the five small cabins on the upper level there was a series of equipment lockers and the larger navigation and control room.

Below, the gallery and the laboratory were set forward of the air lock. Another small room where waste could be jettisoned out, broke up the pattern of equipment that was braced sideways for landing. Adequate space, if not ample, but Karen presented a problem. Scientist or not, she was a woman who hadn't realized that privacy would be hard to achieve aboard the ship.

We changed our comfortable attire for uniforms from the clothing locker, and tried to ignore Karen's brief costume. At the start of my third watch I met Paul coming out of Karen's room.

"Paul, you and John better get some rest. I'll call you in six hours if nothing comes up."

"Okay sir. I was just looking in on her."

I met his glance, knowing how he had felt about her back at the base.

"I wasn't checking on you. We all feel badly about Dr. Thiesen. Has she made any progress?" I asked.

"No," he said flatly. "Whatever it is, we'll have to wait and hope she gets better. I've tried talking to her." His face was set in hard lines as he spoke. "She doesn't know me. Talks a little about the field at El Paso. Not much sense to it."

"Why did she have to come?" I asked. It had bothered me since I first placed my background. I hadn't known her very well at the base. There had been conferences we attended together, but her clinical attitude and the shapeless white uniform she wore gave her a neutral quality. I had never seen what she was like physically until now. I sat with her and Paul at a night club one night, staring across a table at a tanned goddess in a low cut gown that shimmered in the candlelight. She had spoiled the moment when she laughed and teased me about taking time out for a drink. Later there had been a few dances, brief conversations about people and events. Nothing on a personal basis. I had been in love with her for months but preparations for the trip kept me too busy to do anything about it. Now she was here.

"You asked me that several times," Paul said. "She's a trained technician. Isn't that enough?"

"You knew her better than anyone at the base, didn't you?"

"Better than most guys. There were always plenty of guys who asked her out. I knew she could only see one guy. That's all we ever talked about."

"I'm sorry I mentioned it."

"Forget it. He didn't give her a tumble."

"Real brainy guy, I'll bet."

Paul changed the subject. "Anything of interest yet. We didn't pick up a thing."

"Carl is checking again. If we don't hit it we'll have to go farther out," I said.

"It may be out there, but the chances get down to infinitesimal percents," he said wearily.

"You said it was possible."

"Anything is possible. Find a mass that has cooled sufficiently to provide the right temperature for the accomplishment of chemical processes, maybe you'll find a system capable of supporting life."

"We may not find it, but I had to see what was this close."

Paul smiled briefly. "Whither thou goest ... I can't get sympathetic about an overcrowded condition on Earth. Hell, birth control could have helped the balance of nature, but this--this is worth looking for."