The cabin door opened. Commander Laurance entered, followed by Clive and Nakamura.
“What’s been going on back here?” Laurance asked. “I heard wild shouting…”
“Havig went off his rocker,” Dominici said.
“What?”
“It’s not quite that desperate,” Bernard said quickly. “He was simply having a fit of despondency. The universe suddenly became too much for him all at once, or something, and his control snapped.”
“He do any damage?”
“No,” Bernard said. “We got him down on his bunk fast enough. He’s conked out under sedatives now, and I think he’ll be okay when he wakes.”
“It sounded like a riot from up front,” Clive said. “We thought you were murdering each other back here.”
Not that you’d mind if we did, Bernard thought. So long as we didn’t jeopardize your safety.
“He’ll be okay,” Bernard said again. “What’s the news from up front? Have you figured out where we are yet? Or is it classified information?”
Laurance looked sharply at him and said, “Greater Magellanic Cloud.”
Dominici glanced up. “Is that definite?”
“About as definite as it’s going to get,” Laurance said flatly. “We’ve found S Doradus, bright as a beacon. And some RR Lyrae variables that we’re pretty sure of. The way the stellar population scans out—plenty of Cepheids, lots of O and B stars and K-type supergiants, it fits the Magellanics, all right.”
“But how about Sol-type suns?” Stone asked anxiously. “Have you found any of those yet? These other kinds aren’t any good for landings, are they?”
“I don’t think we have to worry much about that,” Laurance said with a tight little nervous smile.
“What do you mean?” Dominici asked.
“I mean that matters don’t seem to be in our hands any longer,” Laurance said.
For the first time, Bernard realized what should have been immediately obvious to him—except that it was the sort of thing nobody would expect to look for. He became aware that all five of the crewmen had left the control cabin at the same time. That had never happened before on the voyage. Yet Laurance, Clive, and Nakamura were in here, and Peterszoon and Hernandez were waiting just outside. And if no one were in the control cabin…
“What’s happening?” Bernard demanded in sudden panic. “Who’s piloting the ship?”
“I wish I knew,” Laurance said. He walked to the vision screen. “About half an hour ago some external force seized control of us. We’re powerless to move of our own free volition. We’re being dragged down as if by an invisible hand— toward a yellow sun right up here.”
TWELVE
Down, down, dropping through the blackness past glittering suns, pulled like a helpless plaything—and there was nothing any of them could do about it. Aboard the XV-ftl nine men waited impotently.
The controls were jammed; the plasma jets would not fire; the stabilizer rockets were out of commission; the velocity indicators did not register. It was not even possible to switch to the Daviot-Leeson drive and convert into no-space.
Nothing to do but wait.
Silently. What could be said? This was beyond comprehension, beyond reason. And beyond control.
“Postulate an enormous magnetic field,” Dominici suggested. “Something like fifty trillion gauss—a field of an intensity we can’t even begin to imagine. The magnetic field of the entire cluster, maybe. And we’re caught in it. Being dragged down.”
“Magnetic fields don’t interfere with a spaceship’s rocket tubes,” Bernard said. “They don’t freeze the controls. Not even a hyper-zillion gauss field of the kind you’re trying to postulate. There’s intelligence behind this, I say—and maybe it’s intelligence as far ahead of ours as your imaginary magnetic field is beyond anything we’ve ever measured.”
In his bunk, Havig stirred, moaning incoherently. He slumped back without breaking through the threshold of consciousness. “How fast are we moving?” Stone asked.
Commander Laurance looked up, a taut, white-lipped figure. “I can’t tell. We’re going plenty fast. The boys are trying to draft some doppler measurements up front. I’d say we’re going pretty close to light velocity.”
“Without accelerating,” Nakamura said dolefully. “Right from a standing start to C, without acceleration. You figure it out. I give up.”
The conversation petered out. In the vision screen, the stars rushed blindingly toward them, their disks streaking and changing color, and sped past. Laurance’s vectors had been accurate: they were heading toward a yellowish sun that grew by gigantic bounds with each passing instant.
Onward and onward they sped. An hour of this involuntary journey had passed; a second came, went, and a third. Hernandez reported that he estimated their velocity, reckoning by observed doppler ships, at about nine and six nines out of ten that of light. Which meant that they were traveling at virtually the ultimate speed of the normal universe—with no apparent source of velocity.
It was incredible.
It made no sense.
It continued to make no sense for the next three hours. By that time, Havig had awakened. The linguist sat up with a start, shaking his head.
“What…”
“Feeling better, Havig?”
“What’s been going on? You’re all looking at me so strangely. What’s happened?”
“Nothing much,” Bernard said. “You got a little upset; we had to dope you up with an ampoule of quicksleep. Are you feeling calmer now?”
Havig passed a quivering hand over his forehead. “Yes—yes, the terror came over me. I want to apologize. And— Bernard, I’ve got to thank you for trying to comfort me. It was a generous thing to do, and I admire the effort it cost you. The Job analogy—yes, that was it exactly…”
“It seemed that way to me, too,” Bernard said.
Havig smiled. “I suppose one can hold one’s self under control only so long, and then one’s strength gives out—even if one is strong, or thinks he is. I behaved like a weakling, a coward. But it was an important experience for me. It showed me that my faith can still be shaken. Shaken, though not destroyed. Do you see, now, as I do, that God may sometimes withdraw His gifts and grace for our best interests—though we may not see His purpose clearly? Job did not understand, but he obeyed. As I should have done, but for my moment of weakness—but now I have come through the trial stronger than ever. It is the test of faith which confirms…” Havig stopped and smiled sheepishly. “But I mustn’t spoil my thanks by turning them into a lecture. I beg your indulgence for the scene I created.”
“Forget it, Havig,” Dominici said. “We’ve all been taking turns at having tantrums. You’ve been holding everything in, and it all exploded at once.”
Havig nodded. “Yes. But thank you, thank you so much. However—there’s something you’re keeping from me, something new that happened while I slept. I see it in your faces. You all look so pale, so frightened…”
“We better tell him,” Dominici said.
“Go on,” Stone urged.
As concisely as he could, Bernard explained the situation as it now stood. Havig listened gravely, frowning more deeply with each sentence.
“So we’re out of control,” Bernard finished bluntly. “That’s the long and short of it. We just have to sit tight. There’s not a damned thing we can do otherwise but wait and see what’s going to happen to us. If there ever was a time for your Neopuritan brand of stoicism, this is it.”
“Now we must all be courageous,” Havig said firmly. “We must all of us realize that what is destined for us is destined for our good, and we must not fear it.”