The change came.
The first hint was the flickering of the lights, only momentarily, as the great power surge drained the dynamos. The only other immediate effect was a psychological one: Bernard felt cut loose, severed from all he knew and trusted, cast into a darkness so mighty it was beyond comprehension by mortal man.
The feeling passed. Bernard took a deep breath. Nothing was different, after all. The sensation of loneliness, of separation, that had been nothing but the trick of an overeager imagination.
“Look at the vision port,” Stone breathed. “The stars—they aren’t there!”
Bernard spun around. It was true. A moment before, the port, a three-by-four television screen that gave direct pickup from the skin of the ship, had been dazzling with the glory of the stars. Unending cascades of brightness had glinted against the airless black. Some of the planets had been visible against the backdrop of the Milky Way: red Mars, gem-like Venus.
Now all that was gone. Stars, planets, cascades of bright glory. The screen showed a featureless gray. It was as though the universe had been blotted out.
Once again the bulkhead light flashed. Stone pushed the switch to admit, this time, John Laurance himself.
“We’ve made the conversion successfully, gentlemen. What you see on the screen is a completely empty universe in which we’re the only bit of matter.”
Stone said, “In that case, what do you steer by?”
Laurance shrugged. “Rule of thumb. The unmanned ships were sent into no-space; they travelled along certain vectors that we’ve charted, and they came out someplace else. For lack of landmarks we just follow our noses.”
“It doesn’t sound like a very efficient way of getting places,” Dominici said.
“It isn’t,” Laurance admitted. “But we don’t happen to have any other choice.”
Bernard studied the spaceman closely. Fatigue was evident in every line of Laurance’s craggy face. The oddly soft eyes were red with shattered capillaries. They said that Laurance needed no more than three hours of sleep out of each twenty-four; but it would seem, just to look at him, that he had not even been getting his normal minimum.
“You look tired, Commander,” the sociologist said.
Again Laurance shrugged. “I am, Dr. Bernard. All of my men are tired. Again—we don’t have any other choice.”
“Is it safe to operate a complicated ship like this if you’re overtired?”
“The Technarch seemed to think so,” replied Laurance with what seemed a lingering trace of bitterness. “The Technarch was in an almighty hurry to get this ship back out into space again.”
“We have faith in the Technarch,” said Dominici. “McKenzie’s got as good a head on his shoulders as old Bengstrom ever had. He must have some reason for wanting the hurry-up.”
“Technarch McKenzie is but a mortal man,” Havig remarked. “He’s subject to error.”
Dominici lifted an eyebrow. “There are people who’d fall down in catatonic shock if you ever said anything like that about an Archon in their hearing, Havig.”
“I have no exaggerated awe for these men. They were chosen from among mankind,” the Neopuritan went on.
“Yes,” Bernard said. “Chosen in their teens and trained for decades in the art of ruling, before they eventually take over their Archonates. It’s obviously a good system, the first really workable system of government Earth as a whole has ever had. But Commander Laurance didn’t come in here to discuss the Technarch’s qualifications with us, I imagine.”
“No, I didn’t,” Laurance said with a grave smile. “I came in to tell you that all was well with the ship, that we’ll be eating in half an hour, and that we expect to be in the neighborhood of Star NGCR 185143 in, oh, about seventeen hours plus or minus a few seconds.” Laurance paused just a moment, long enough to consolidate his dominance in the little group. Then he said, “Ah—Mister Clive tells me you’re all a bit edgy back there. That you’ve even been doing some bickering.”
Bernard reddened. He was positive that there was the beginning of contempt in Laurance’s eyes, contempt of the hardbitten spaceman for the soft academics in the cabin.
Out of the embarrassed silence came, as usual, Stone’s mollifying voice. “We’ve had our little disagreements, yes, Commander. Minor differences of opinion…”
“I understand, gentlemen,” Laurance said blandly—but behind the blandness lay solid steel. “May I remind you that you’ve been entrusted with a very great responsibility. I hope you’ll have settled your—ah—’minor differences’ before we reach your destination.”
“Matter of fact, we just about have them under control now,” Stone said.
“Good.” Laurance moved toward the door. “You’ll find a packet of relaxotabs in the medical supply cabinet over there to my left, just in case your ‘edginess’ should continue and become a serious problem. I’ll expect you in the fore galley in half an hour.”
There was a moment of awkward silence after Laurance had gone. Then Dominici said, “That fellow’s almost as regal as the Technarch, you know? They’re of the same breed. ‘May I remind you that you’ve been entrusted with a very great responsibility,’ ” he mimicked. “The Commander’s got the same lordly way of telling you off and making you feel three feet high that McKenzie has.”
“Maybe Laurance is a trainee who didn’t quite make the grade for the Archonate,” Stone suggested quietly. As a trainee himself—for the Archonate of Colonial Affairs—he might be expected to know something of the inside story of maneuvering for high office.
But Bernard said, “It just isn’t likely, really. McKenzie wouldn’t trust a runner-up with anything as big as this; too much rivalry involved. But it’s always possible that Laurance is one of the next generation of trainees. For all we know, he’s been picked to succeed McKenzie some day.”
“Would McKenzie risk losing his hand-picked successor in a dangerous flight like this?” Dominici asked.
“A Technarch must be forged in the crucible of danger,” Havig observed. “If Laurance could not survive a voyage in space, how would he survive the pressures of office? This may be a testing flight.”
“You may have something there,” Stone admitted.
There were no further speculations. The tension and uncertainty of the job that lay ahead of them dulled conversation, made them all jumpy and restless.
When a half hour had elapsed, the four went up front for the meal. The menu was an array of synthetics, of course—but synthetics lovingly prepared by Nakamura and Hernandez, who approached the job of meal-making the way other men might approach the writing of poetry. After the meal, the four passengers made their way rearward to their cabin.
More than sixteen hours remained to the no-space leg of their journey. Time was crawling; it might just as well have been sixteen years of traveling ahead.
Bernard settled into his acceleration cradle and tried to read; but it was no use. Obtrusive thoughts of danger got between his mind and his book. The words danced on the page, and the delicate imagery of Suyamo’s classic verse blurred into hopeless confusion. In complete disgust, Bernard slammed the book shut.
He closed his eyes. After a while, the babel of thought slackened, and he fell into a light, uneasy sleep that gradually deepened.
Some time later, he groped his way back to wakefulness. A glance at the cabin clock told him that only four hours yet remained till transition, so he had been asleep nearly twelve. It surprised him. He had not thought he was as fatigued as that, to let twelve hours slip away almost instantaneously in sleep.
He looked around the cabin. Dominici was fast asleep, his eyes screwed shut, his mouth contorted in a peculiar grimace. He was twisting and turning as he slept; obviously he was having a bad dream. Bernard wondered if he had looked as restless and troubled in his sleep.