Chapter IV

Night. Benton Allan beckoned Winthrop to his side.

"You're familiar with Einstein's math, George. What do you think of this?"

Winthrop studied the recorded results with mounting trepidation. "Similar processes. The end result will probably be E equals MC^{2}!"

"Which explains the reactor and the fission bomb. We've cracked their math, George!"

Lizio came in at a half-run then, his eyes excited, proud with discovery.

"Gentlemen," he said quickly, "we could duplicate everything electronic if the ship soared away this minute! I guess we all thought we'd come across a product of a vastly more intelligent race. But their science is not superior to ours except in application. It found anti-gravity, for one thing!"

He nodded, then went on quickly. "Something, however, puzzles us. There's either a draftsman's error, or a technician's error. One circuit leading forward should be connected to a junction box on the main power dynamo. Instead, it's connected to one of the gyro assemblies. Its function was undoubtedly intended to transmit a pulse to activate some mechanism forward, probably to arouse the crew. It probably acted on the anti-gravity apparatus instead, slowing the ship practically to a standstill and letting it drift in with the crew unawakened.

"The circuit's forward connections are in the bulkhead instrument which is in part an autopilot/computer. We found a punched tape which we believe spelled _Destination: Earth_, and should also have led to activation of the awakening apparatus.

"Allan can work on the related math. I've identified it with the schematics. Then perhaps we'll be convinced that we must correct the wiring and arouse the crew."

General Hill snapped from the doorway, "Lizio, we can't be hasty. We must not only correlate everything you electronics men find and everything the computers reveal, but re-check our findings ten times over. Incidentally, copies of the book and details of our findings have been flown to the Bureau of Standards. They're busy on it, too.

"If the crew is dead, delay won't matter. If they've been in suspended animation across eight plus light years, delay shouldn't matter either--to them or to us! We can't try to be rescuers and wind up murderers by mistake!"

Three hours later Benton Allan came again from the computers.

"It's undoubtedly anti-gravity," he announced. "I've done considerable work on magnetic lines of force and theoretical work on possible creation of force fields for use as meteor screens. This math weaves in and out of mine like a pulse across a synchroscope. I'd been incredibly close to anti-gravity myself! That one blasted equation! Amazing!

"Lizio has been working with others on the autopilot computer. They suspected it was oriented off the galactic hub and the math verifies it. Doctor Englander from Palomar plotted courses to various star systems with the hub as reference point, and Lizio had the instrument punching tape from Englander's data.

"The unit not only plots courses to any star system in the galaxy, but apparently to any planet of any system! How could the memory bank have been developed? Have they better equipment for probing and photographing distant space? Have they known space travel for millennia and explored and catalogued the galaxy?

"Now, gentlemen, I hate to provoke a heated discussion but the computers back me up. The amount of anti-gravitational energy produced should drive the ship at over twenty times light-speed!"

"Wait, Al," Winthrop said. "Certainly Einstein's whole theory of--"

"You wait," Allan said with tired exasperation. "This math doesn't parallel Einstein's as we first thought! The differences I haven't determined. _The_ computers have done that. They do in minutes what it would take years for me to compute. Perhaps you're faster!"

General Hill said sharply, "No arguments, please! Standards will double check. All the computers won't err, if these do. Let's assume these haven't erred. What does it mean, then?"

"That the ship came from Sirius in about half an Earth year," Winthrop said. "That it may have departed after _they_ realized from visually observing our first atomic blast that there must be life here, probably a haven for _them_."

Englander laughed. "So they fled the beasties! Don't take your comics so seriously, George!"

"Are you sure it's a comic?" Winthrop snapped back. "Ask Rabin what _he_ thinks!"

And Rabin screamed--

Shocked, the memory of the little girl's hysteria strong in him, Winthrop spun toward Rabin, and found the man's dark face suddenly vacuous. Rabin's hands were spread out, clutching the table's edge. His eyes were blank, blind.

"_Rabin!_" Winthrop yelled. He slapped the man's face stingingly. The dark head rocked, but the expression did not change.

A doctor administered a sedative and took Rabin away, silent, stumbling in a trance provoked, it seemed, by concentrated study of pictures too vividly drawn in some extra-solar abyss of depravity.

Benton Allan returned to the computers. Winthrop followed. There was much in Winthrop's mind then that he had still to rationalize.

At length he whispered, "_Al_--" and it was urgent then. "There's more to the ship than we suspect. To the books, too. I'm not sure about Rabin. He may have been on the verge of a breakdown. The book may have simply contributed. I don't know. It's hard to be sure.

"I'm just getting over a breakdown myself. I studied the book, and I haven't had a decent moment's rest since the ship came. But I haven't cracked. Be that as it may, there's something wrong in all this, Al. Whatever you find from this point on, let me know about it first, _please_!"

Allan turned quickly from the computer, peering owlishly over his glasses. "Why, George?" He searched Winthrop's tense face.

"A crazy hunch, Al. Just let me know."

"I will," Allan promised. "But, damn it, man, stop giving me the creeps!"