Subspace Encounter Part 3

"Yes," Cecily said, positively.

"We're one. In sync to the skillionth of a whillionth of a nanosecond. And we've got it. More of it than the Pacific Ocean has water. Besides, you others will have jobs of your own, won't you."

"You're not just... chomping... your choppers... Doll," Deston said slowly, and Barbara put in.

"But can we do it at all? Would we live through it? Uncle Andy, what will the effect be on human bodies? Especially on those who aren't psychic."

"I don't know." Adams frowned in thought.

"My a.n.a.lysis does not cover the point and can not be made to cover it... There is no present applicable theory... and very, very little pertinent data." Wherefore all eight of those heavy-duty psiontists bent their every energy to the task of acquiring additional pertinent data. The problems were many. The zeta field was bad, but it could be neutralized by mechanical generators. But what was it? If it was a subs.p.a.ce phenomenon, generated in subs.p.a.ce and therefore consistent with it-that was one thing. If it was merely a leakage from something built in and native to Second s.p.a.ce, that would be something else entirely. What would such a construction be and how could it be handled? Second s.p.a.ce was different from First s.p.a.ce; its properties and nontemporal constants could be different. How different? In what way? By how much? Adams did the theoretical work and the a.n.a.lyzing and the synthesizing; the seven others, straining their psionic powers to the utmost, observed everything they could reach and reported and recorded their findings and their conclusions. The work was not done in a day-nor in a week. There were fumblings and stumblings and setbacks galore. New psionic techniques had to be developed, practically from scratch. Hitherto undreamed-of machines had to be designed and built and tested-machines that burned out; machines that blew up; machines that misfunctioned; machines that did not function at all. And much of the project depended-had to depend-upon machinery. The zeta field was only one of many things that could not be handled by psionic ability alone. The job was finally done. That is, all they could do had been done. No one was completely satisfied with it, but no one could point out anything more that could or should be done. No one suggested staying in their home s.p.a.ce. All eight psiontists sat in the Destons' office, in a silence that could have been carved with a knife. Deston finally broke that silence.

"Us eight," he said, tensely ungrammatical.

"All of us or none. I wish... but you all do, too, of course... so skip it. Let's get at it; the sooner we try it the quicker we'll know."

"Not tonight," Adams said, definitely, shaking his head.

"We must be fresh-rested. Shall we meet here again, say at eight." At eight as arranged a quiet group met in the office. Now that they actually faced the venture into the completely unknown, none had much to say.

"Any last minute ideas?" Adams asked. Jones spoke somewhat hesitantly.

"What about the possibility of our making the first crossing in Lifecraft Number One before going in the Explorer? I don't think we should involve the others aboard until we know what we face."

"My idea, precisely," Adams agreed.

"I was about to suggest it. Though we won't have the benefit of all we've worked on so long, we should be able to make the round tripover, back, almost instantly-without it." Quick a.s.sent came from the others, followed by silence. Then Train put his arm around Cecily.

"Shall we go."

"Not quite yet," Deston said, and turned to Jones.

"You're the skipper, Here. Get on the com."

"Not the com, Babe." Jones called in his First Officer, Lieutenant Meng Chi, and told him, "We are going through subs.p.a.ce in Lifecraft One. Not into subs.p.a.ce, but through it, to see what's on the other side. We don't expect to be gone long, but give us a week. If you haven't heard from me in seven standard days from now"-both men glanced at their chro- noms." flit for the Galaxian Science Inst.i.tute and turn everything over to Doctor Adams's first a.s.sistant."

"Very well, sir." The officer saluted smartly, his broad face expressionless, turned, and strode away.

"Now we can go," Deston said; and in Lifecraft One, "Not too long, you two, remember," he cautioned, looking at the Trains' faces. Train's jaw-muscles were lumped and Cecily's freckles were more apparent than usual; otherwise they showed no emotion.

"This is it!" the Trains said as one, and the torture began. It was just that-indescribable torture, as though every cell in their bodies tried to repel, or absorb, every other cell- violently, achingly in a twisting, rending, vertiginous nervous nightmare. Only a fraction of a second in duration, it seemed eternal. All six, however, came through the ordeal not only alive, but not permanently damaged. They found that Second s.p.a.ce, itself, felt normal. It was pa.s.sing from one s.p.a.ce to the other that was so bad. The second experience was no easier than the first. Back in the Explorer, they gathered by common consent in the lounge. Deston said feelingly, "A little of that goes a long way. I for one am not ready for another trip without a bit of mental adjusting." There was silent acquiescence from the rest; all were pale and drawn.

"Was it worth it'?" Barbara finally asked.

"Did we learn anything." Doctor Andrews answered quickly.

"Indeed we did! That trip wasn't-pleasant-but there was no reason for my ceasing observing or thinking because of discomfort. Actually we learned much.

"Second s.p.a.ce, whose coordinates"-he gave them." are implicit in my a.n.a.lysis of the zeta field and which I now fully believe is only one of an infinite number of such s.p.a.ces possible, does in fact exist. Most important, psionics is in fact the all-embracing science. Out of our total thinking experience, we are able to formulate four hypotheses which may be among the basic laws of the science. Before we take the Explorer across, however."

"Wait up, Uncle Andy!" Barbara exclaimed.

"What are those laws of psionics? I'm very much interested."

"Hypotheses merely, please. I make no claim...

"Hypotheses, then. Go ahead with 'em."

"If you insist. First, the map is the territory. Second, the clarity of perception of any future event varies directly as its inevitability. Third, subjective time is measured by the number of learning events experienced. Fourth, communications concerning reality are neither accurate nor complete." A brief but animated discussion followed as the import of these tremendous-albeit confusing-generalizations made their impact; following which Deston cut in on all speakers of the s.h.i.+p. He explained briefly what they had done, then went on.

"We are going to take the Explorer across. I can give you no a.s.surance of safety. The worst part of it, the crossover, is worse torment than anything I ever felt before. Imagine yourselves with the worst toothaches you ever had and the sickest you ever were. Boil it down, heap it up, and double it, and you'll have a faint-a very faint-idea of what it'll be like. The fact that eight of us came through alive doesn't mean that all of you can or that any of you want to chance it. So it'll be an all-volunteer project and all volunteers will be screened hard and fine." The screening was done. A third of the great stars.h.i.+p's population went back to civilization. The Explorer made the BIG JUMP and after a very short time indeed in Second s.p.a.ce jumped right back. n.o.body died. Many were sure they were going to; several almost did; but no one actually died. Men yelled and swore; women shrieked and fainted; children screamed and howled and went into hysterics. But they made it!

5 - LIVES ARE JOINED.

After THE first meeting of the Inst.i.tute for Advanced Study, days pa.s.sed, and a couple of weeks, and still nothing happened; but there was of course a great deal to do. Knuaire and Marrjyl worked together on the all-but-impossible theory of the fourth dimension, Rodnar and Marrlyl-she with her unsurpa.s.sed talent for design and he with his unsurpa.s.sed knowledge of and ability at subs.p.a.ce technology-worked together with everything they had at reducing that theory to practice. And, as time went on, Marrjyl found more and more occasion to work with Knuaire and less and less with Rodnar Theory, she said, was a lot tougher than technology and was getting farther and farther behind-but neither man believed that that was the reason for the switch. As soon as it became certain that there would be no more real shortage of money, Rodnar retired from gamesmans.h.i.+p as the undefeated champion bladesman of Meetyl. He did not surrender the t.i.tle immediately. It would have smelled to high heaven. Four matches were arranged by Sonfayand Baylor, only two of them unlimited, ending in the death of Rodnar's opponents. He suffered no serious injury in any of these bouts. He was good. With the four victories on his belt, and with no logical contender in sight at the moment, he announced his retirement. He turned in the diamond-studded gold belt of champions.h.i.+p to Games-master Baylor, who thereupon happily announced a whole new series of games for its possession. Very shortly thereafter Rodnar dug out, from the very bottom of his bureau's bottom drawer, the heavily-jeweled two ounce platinum flask that he had not carried for so long. He filled it with the hard-hitting aromatic compound he had never stopped craving, and whiffed a deep inhalation-which of course brought tears to his eyes and made him cough. Nevertheless, it felt and smelled and tasted so wonderful that he could not help but emulate the storied fillamalloo bird in crying "ka-pooh-pooh, ka-pooh-pooh! "-which translated from the vernacular means, "Great Guns, how good!" (Ill.u.s.trated Lectures, Series F, Slide 92, somewhat condensed and more than somewhat cleaned up.) Marrjyl, however, would not stop fighting; nor would she tell either man why she kept on with it... and of course neither man would try to probe her mind... especially since both knew her mental s.h.i.+elds were as impenetrable as their own. She kept on fighting until she met a woman who came within a fraction of a split red hair of being her match. Marrjyl won, after almost forty minutes of desperate effort; but at fight's end she wasn't in much better shape than was her opponent-who was dead. Realizing foggily that she had at long last won, Marrjyl dropped her knife, slumped down, and sprawled out flat on her back, bleeding from a score of wounds; the goriest and last-received of which was a deep and savage slash that went from her left hip down almost to the knee. Rodnar and Knuaire, her seconds, rushed to her aid; as did her surgeon and his team of top-bracket nurses.

"Grab some of those pads-hold them there and there and there and there-we've got to stop this bleeding!" the doctor snapped at Rodnar and Knuaire, while he himself was going to work on the big one and while the nurses, working with the smooth, fast precision of their highly-skilled craft, set up and tubed in gravity-feed bottles of everything from Type O whole blood to normal saline solution. There never had been any question whatever of moving the patient until a great deal of preliminary work had been done. They could not possibly have got her off the fighting-table alive. And, by some freak of chance, the crowd did not bellow and scream for her blood, too, and howl for action and riot at the delay. Instead, enthusiastic gamblers all over the place made noisy book as to whether or not the desperately-wounded gladiator would live-and if so, how long! She lived, however, to reach the ambulance; and she was still alive just barely-when they got her into an intensive care room in Meetyl's finest hospital; and she stayed in that room for four days before she began really to mend. Once over the hump, however-with her physical condition and the care she was getting-she gained strength very rapidly. Wherefore, a few days later, the doctors yielded to her demands to let Knuaire of Spath come in to see her. He came in and for a few minutes nothing was said; scarcely anything was thought. He sat beside her bed and they held hands. Gently. And for the moment that was enough. Her blocks were up, full strength; but for a time that didn't matter, either... but finally he spoke aloud.

"Don't you think it's a little on the silly side, my dear, blocking me out now." She flushed, and softened her guard a little, but not very much-not enough to permit exchange of thought.

"I suppose it is, at that," she agreed, aloud.

"I suppose I was broadcasting everything all over the place... and I know I owe you my life. Without you to hang onto, when I was low, and you holding on to me so, I couldn't possibly have come through... but listen, Knu!" Her grip tightened in his.

"I can't ask you to join me until I win six more status points-I won't have those noisome knangs gabbling behind my back that all I joined you for was to make your status." As has been said, it was the woman's right-her inalienable right, her sole and exclusive privilege and prerogative-to take the lead in all matters s.e.xual; however serious or however trivial. For a man even to try to do so branded him as inurbane, uncouth, and a loutish oaf. But Marryl-deliberately or not, and it had been deliberate, Knuaire thought, that was why she was blocking so hard-had left the door wide open for even a most meticulous gentleman to walk right in. So Knuaire did.

"The trouble with you is, Marr, you aren't thinking straight. As long as you and I both know better, what difference does that make? Besides, I can't see you making six more points on the table. You're now the challenger-but even if you can take the champion, that'll give you only two-and it'll be a h.e.l.l of a long time before you're back into good enough shape for a champions.h.i.+p fight. Also..." he paused, then went on, "... I hate to say this, Marr, but whether you know it or not, you left something behind you on that table."

"I know I did," she said, somberly.

"You can't come that close to the big one without losing some of your fine edge... and a bladesman with her mind full of question marks as to whether she's going to make it or not isn't worth a d.a.m.n... can't cut her way out of a paper bag... I've seen too many of 'em get it... but Knu."

"But nothing, Marr," he broke in, pressing his point.

"And there's another thing. Even if you were a high-stat, so that I'd be the one getting elevated, don't you think those same stinking gossipy b.i.t.c.hes would be carving you up the back for joining lives with me for my money."

"Money!" She snorted.

"Who cares about money? I can make my own mon..." She broke off in the middle of the word; her face took on a thoughtful expression.

"I knew you were well padded, of course-they don't give yachts like yours-that s.p.a.ce going palace-away as premiums or door prizes-but that much? Honestly." His answering grin was more than a little wry.

"More than that. Enough more so you'll never realize how glad I am that you were never interested enough in that angle to look me up in the Green Book. You're the only woman I know who hasn't. The question is, does that make the situation better, or worse? Better, I think... definitely, much better."

"Huh?" she demanded.

"How do you figure that?"

"Because status is out." He ticked off the point on one of her fingers.

"You know most women think vastly more of money than of status, or think they go together; therefore you now realize that those women are not going to accuse you of tying me up for my status, but for my money. Therefore you will retire from gamesmans.h.i.+p and keep on living; and you'll have to admit that a dead Daughtmarja Marrjyl wouldn't be in any position to do either one of us a bit of good." She grinned in spite of herself.

"You've got a point there, Knu, I concede."

"Thank you, hon. Now. You have such a thoroughgoing contempt for any woman who would join lives for money that any remarks about you on that score, unlike those concerning status, wouldn't bother you at all. They'd simply bounce off like."

"Heavens!" she broke in.

"If a girl wants to keep any secrets at all she shouldn't team up with a theoretician, should she? But you know something?" She sobered quickly.

"I simply don't care a lick if I never have a secret from youKnu, sweetheart, will you join lives with me."

"Will I? Cut your s.h.i.+elds and come in and see." She did so; and the kiss that followed-in which his lips barely touched hers, with scarcely any pressure at all, since they both knew exactly the shape she was in and what she could do and and what she must not do-was as meaningful as it was gentle. After an interval of bliss, she said, "Oh, that's wonderful, sweetheart-I love you so incredibly much!" She picked up the pendant-switch of her bedside com, pushed its red b.u.t.ton, and went on, "Will you have a public recorder come in as soon as he can, please." He looked at her in surprise, but didn't say anything, and she laughed.

"Uh-huh," she said, gleefully.

"The sooner the quicker, ain't it?" and they held hands and exchanged thoughts (that need not be detailed here) until the head nurse of the floor, frowning her disapproval of the whole procedure, ushered the official into the sickroom.

"Cheer up, chum," Marrjyl grinned unabashedly at the nurse.

"It isn't going to be nearly as bad as you think. Nothing at all strenuous. No rough stuff, I promise-I'm just nailing him down before he changes his mind or some other harpy gets her hooks into him."

"I understand." The nurse smiled a little in spite of herself.

"With Songladen Knuaire of Spath up for grabs that might be top technique at that. But I should have put him out five minutes ago, so as soon as this is over out he goes... Here, I'll help you roll over and get your number into sight." The visitor-a public servant something like an a.s.sistant county clerk and something like a notary public and something like a justice of the peace, but not very much like any one of the three-was a small, bird-quick, fussy type. Taking his "gun" out of his case, he aimed it at Knuaire's broad bare back, thus putting his number on imperishable film. Then, while the nurse supported her patient in position for her number to be plainly visible, he did the same for Marrjyl. Then, after gabbling a burst of gibberish that sounded very much like the oratory of a Tellurian tobacco auctioneer, he said distinctly and almost slowly.

"Repeat in unison after me-'We, Songladen Knuaire of Spath and Daughtmarja Marrjyl of Orm..." and they repeated after him, phrase by phrase, "... declare that there is no reason... known to either of us... why we should not join lives... and we go on record that... we are now joining lives." The official put his instrument back into its case and Knuaire reached for his wallet.

"I thank..." the little man began. Then, as he saw the size of the bill the bridegroom was handing him-it was a hundred instead of the customary three or five junex to cover the legal registry fee-he stopped talking for a moment and goggled. Then he went on, in a markedly different tone, "Oh, thank you, sir, very much indeed."

"Okay, Gladen's son," the nurse said then.

"You can kiss her once-an easy one-then out you go until tomorrow. This gal's just about to fall completely apart."

6 - CATASTROPHE.

Lifecraft Number ONE was small. Its energies were small. Moreover; it had emerged into Second s.p.a.ce so far away from any inhabited planet that it was not detected. Thus nothing happened that was not due to the intrinsic differences between the two incongruent s.p.a.ces. And because of the vastness of Second s.p.a.ce, like any other s.p.a.ce, the first brief crossover of the Explorer, not too surprisingly, also went undetected. The case of the Explorer's second visit to Second s.p.a.ce, however, was an entirely different matter. Fortunately, because of the extreme discomfort of the first crossing, and because they expected to do some exploring, the crew had been cut to a minimum, only very essential staff and the top-psiontists remaining aboard for the trip. The Explorer was the biggest, heaviest, most powerful, most heavily armed and armored superdreadnought of her time. And this time, on the way to emergence into Second s.p.a.ce, she went through the Slaar-Orm mine field. Mines designed, built, powered, triggered, and placed by Rodnar of Slaar Manjyl of Orm, and Knuaire of Spath, three of the universe's best. When the Explorer immerged, Deston sat tense at his board. His eyes were tightly shut; his ears were closed to any sound. He was deliberately blind and deaf; for in that job his banked and tiered instruments were completely useless. Electricity was far, far too slow. Its pace was a veritable crawl. Crawl? Just that, yes. In subs.p.a.ce the tern "speed" is meaningless, and the velocity of thought has never been determined. While it may not be infinite, or even transfinite, it is a quant.i.ty with which no instrumentation has as yet been able to cope. And anything that happened in the zeta sector of activity would be Deston's dish. His alone. No one could help him; there would not be time enough. There would be almost exactly no time at all. And besides, the others had their own jobs to do. Barbara sat behind Deston, mentally backing up her Carl with all the power that was uniquely hers. Here and Bernice in complete synchronization were scanning subs.p.a.ce, tensely alert for the first indication of Second s.p.a.ce, seeking with all they had for anything inimical before it materialized. The Adams fusion, of course, was observing and mentally recording all that took place. The Trains, needless to say, were waiting as one, if need be, to move! Carlyle Deston had been just as tense and just as watchful in the earlier venture, and nothing had happened, but he did not relax. He knew subs.p.a.ce as few other men knew it. And Carlyle Deston, as has been intimated, was a full-fledged precog, and the Second Law of Psionics is, THE CLARITY OF PERCEPTION OF ANY FUTURE EVENT VARIES DIRECTLY AS ITS INEVITABILITY Thus, any event only a few museconds ahead was sharp and clear; but one a few milliseconds in the future, under conditions such as these, was not. For it must be remembered that the third Law of Psionics is, SUBJECTIVE TIME IS MEASURED BY THE NUMBER OF LEARNING EVENTS EXPERIENCED. Thus, in a state of such terrifically high tension as Deston's mind then was, he could and did experience a large number of learning events, and perform a very large number of acts of thought, in a very short s.p.a.ce of time; and his subjective time rate adjusted itself accordingly. Thus Deston perceived, a millisecond or so before it happened, the triggering of the counter-generators, and thus he energized, in the merest flick of objective time, the mighty Explorer's every defense against those ravening fields.

His engines and generators-Chaytors and Wesleys and Grahams and Q-converters-had been designed and built to carry frightful loads, and they carried enough of that super-frightful initial load so that those fiercely-driven probes, bolts, beams, and floods of energy touched the huge subs.p.a.cer's Leybyrdite armor only lightly and only here and there. Then, almost simultaneously with the energization of his defense, Deston yelled his mental warning and launched his counter-attack. His Z-guns, designed specifically for this sort of emergency, were operated by thought and hurled bolts of energy so devastatingly disruptive as to convert any matter they struck into subatomic debris at thermonuclear temperatures. Thought is superfast. The pa.s.sage through subs.p.a.ce of a bolt from Z-gun to inimical generator took, as nearly as makes no difference, no time at all. Thus, fifty-nine Slaar-Orm generators were blown into superheated subatomic pseudovapor in a s.p.a.ce of subjective time so short as to be scarcely measurable. Deston, however, furiously and obliviously concentrated upon destruction, had not considered one supremely vital fact. The source of the power of the Chaytors-the total kinetic energy of the entire macrocosmic universe-was practically infinite; but the ability of the Chaytors to deliver power was very strictly limited. No Chaytor had ever before burned out; but no bank of engines had ever before been called upon to deliver the starkly incredible myriakilowattage of energy Deston used. Fortunately, he did not have control of all the Chaytors aboard, for all of his blew out at once. Thus, when he triggered a bolt at the sixtieth generator, nothing happened. He came back to his surroundings, opened his eyes and ears, and gasped. Half of the bells, buzzers, and whistles on his board were yelling their warnings of disaster most dire; more than half of the lights were glaring red. He braced himself and scanned-he didn't know what he could do, but he'd do something-but the fullest stretch of his sense of precognition could perceive nothing of danger The Explorer was through subs.p.a.ce and into Second s.p.a.ce; and the crossover back into First s.p.a.ce was uneventful. The Trains had seen to that. They both knew that something extraordinary was going on, but they had no idea what it was. Nor did they scan. They couldn't. Every iota of their fused minds was supremely busy at their own job of handling the huge subs.p.a.cer in its interspatial jump; an operation that had pa.s.sed the point of no return in the instant of its beginning. They knew without consultation that the Explorer's stay in Second s.p.a.ce was to be cut short. Wherefore they held her in Second s.p.a.ce only long enough to make a lightning-fast mental computation, then hurled her back into First s.p.a.ce along a path very widely different from the path of entry. The five other Prime Psiontists also knew that something very serious was going on, but no one of them knew anything more about it than did the Trains. Like each of the Trains, each of the others had his own fish to fry; and the fact that his particular fish did not appear-that timedid not set him free. Captain Jones's board was noisier and redder than Deston's; and he was of course the first to scan the s.h.i.+p. He and his vessel were one, in a real, true sense; and what had happened to her almost broke his tough and burly heart. She was an outand-out mess. Half of the engine-rooms were junk. Copper and silver had run like water What had been beautifully-fabricated steel was now pools and blobs and partially-melted lumps. The air was still a translucent fog of vaporized metal and smoke from smoldering and sputtering and flaming insulation. Chaytors, Wesleys, and Q-converters were starkly unrecognizable. If Jones had not known exactly where each machine had been, he could not have identified any one of them.

What had been Grahams could be recognized; but only because nine-tenths of their ma.s.s was made up of ultra-high-tensile-alloy wire. And all that wire was now an obscenely tangled and interwoven engineer's nightmare. That horrible snarl's bottom was still quivering in a pool of molten metal on the floor; its top was jammed solidly against the ceiling. Nor was the s.h.i.+p herself unharmed. No zeta stuff had penetrated into her interior, which was why no lives had been lost and why she had not gone the way of the Procyon; but wherever those viciously destructive fields had touched, frenzied damage had been done. The Explorer's armor was three inches of Leybyrdite. Nevertheless, in many places that armor was split and rent and chewed and weirdly torn. Nor was any area of damage like any other. Strips of armor were curled up like shavings from a carpenter's plane, spiralled like turnings from a Gargantuan lathe, twisted and power-formed grotesquely into shapes defying geometry or description. And in dozens of places cleanly-, sharply-bitten-out chunks of various shapes and sizes had simply disappeared. She still held air, of course. If she had lost all of her armor she would still have been an airtight and completely navigable subs.p.a.ces Deston and Jones stared at each other somberly. Barbara and Bernice stood together, arms around each other, silvery-white hair close to hair of brilliant yellow. The Adams and Trains were elsewhere, inspecting damage. Deston spoke aloud.

"We sent a boy to do a man's job, Hers. More accurately, a baby to do a giant's job. But who in all h.e.l.l would have thought..." His voice died away. Jones's hard, craggy face could not get any gloomier than it was, but it tried.

"You can play that clear across the board... so it's back to the salt mines... He paused, then uttered a blistering deep-s.p.a.ce oath that was actually more prayer than profanity.

"And I'd give my right leg to the hip and my immortal soul to keep on going." Bernice sat down beside him and reached for his hand.

"Well, none of us got hurt, and that's all that really matters," she said, as cheerfully as she could.

"'Smatter, you two!" Deston snapped.

"You don't think we're licked, do you." The big captain's expression did not lighten.

"I don't think it, no. I know it. So will you, as soon as you start using that half-pint of blue mush you call a brain."

"The h.e.l.l I will. We'll rebuild-or rather, build a...

"How?" Jones growled.

"Don't kid yourself, Babe."

"I'm not. How? Easy. She didn't have enough oomf, is all. Next time we'll have enough. What we know will be enough. Standbys on everything. Reserves. Overload cut-ins. The works."

"I didn't mean that, meathead. You know how much this s.h.i.+p cost and now every dime of it is down the drain. This thing you're dreaming up will be a new cla.s.s of vessel; brand new from the drawing boards up. MetEnge is run for profit by moneymen who think more of a buck than they do of their right eyes. They don't pour money down rat-holes, especially the megabucks your dreams.h.i.+p would cost. After this sh.e.l.lacking the first jump across and with nothing to show for it? Get conscious, chum. What Phelps says, moneywise, goes; and he'll simply have a litter of lizards."

"I don't give a c.o.c.keyed tinker's d.a.m.n if she costs billbucks. D'you think we're going to quit now? If you do you're crazy in the head. I think Maynard will still go alongpretty sure of it. But if Phelps can talk him out of it, Deston and Deston..." He broke off sharply and looked at Barbara.

"Of course we will!" She nodded vigorously.

"After all, that is exactly what we've been heaping it up for, isn't it?"

"Huh?" Jones's jaw dropped an inch.

"I knew you two were rolling in it, but... but have you actually that kind of money to pour down the drain."

"And then some. We're going on with it, Here," Deston said flatly.

"You can paste that right in the crown of your iron hat. As has been made clear, Captain Theodore Jones was not the excitable type, but at that emphatic statement of fact his face lit up like a sunburst. He leaped to his feet, whirled around, and began to bellow orders before he got halfway to his board.

"But what can we do, Babe?" Barbara wailed.

"You know what just one of those frightful things will do to any other subs.p.a.cer ever built and we won't be ready again for positively months! And they won't stop all s.h.i.+pping-they can't-what will we do."

"I don't know." Deston frowned in thought.

"I can think of only one thing-Doc. Probably he can locate the things and hang OFF LIMITS signs around where they are, so our s.h.i.+ps can give 'em a far miss."

"Oh, wonderful! I'm sure he can!" then, on a tight beam of thought, "Uncle Andy, where are you." Some six weeks after Knu and Marr had joined lives, Rodnar, wounds completely healed and back to normal in fitness and condition, was working in his laboratory when every piece of apparatus went dead all at once. At the same instant all the lights went out-an event that had never happened before-plunging the entire laboratory into the absolute darkness of a sealed subterranean vault. Even the red trouble-lamps failed to light up. And in the same instant a silent shriek resounded throughout every chamber of his mind.

"Rod! Rod! I'm scared! ROD!"