She gave him an excited smile. "This is what it must have been like for those first voyagers," she said, her eyes alight with excitement. The only response she re ceived were groans from Ellen and Richard.
Within minutes Richard noticed that the half planet of Earth was noticeably receding, so that the entire planet occupied less than half the screen. The Brasilia terminus was still visible, looking more like a jewel in a spider's web than a complex structure that housed half a thousand workers and docking ports for a hundred ships.
Stasz slowly throttled them up to 3.5 G and held the rate there for several long minutes. Ian knew it was simply a matter of showmanship on Stasz's part. They could just as easily have accelerated at 1 G as they cleared near- Earth space-and the ultimate effect would have been no different-but Stasz, like most pilots, wanted to "hot trail" it out and feel the pleasure of raw power under his control.
Let him have his fun, Ian thought. He was surprised to realize that he was enjoying himself. The historian in him was fantasizing, as well-just as Shelley was doing- imagining the feel of an old shuttle or HBV at lift-off. He settled into his couch and let the pulsing roar engulf him in a drowsy state. Suddenly the pressure intensified and he heard a muffled cry of dismay from Richard. Looking across to Stasz, Ian saw that the pilot had slammed the throttle to the wall. Stasz's eyes were wide and betrayed a maniacal gleam: he was getting off on the power.
They inched up past 4 and then started toward 4.5, and Stasz laughed with a high-pitched keen.
Great, the pilot was crazy!
The Discovery thundered away, slashing across space on its outward trajectory. And suddenly the rockets winked off.
A deep rolling sensation rose from lan's stomach as they went from 4.5 to 0 in an instant. He had the unpleas ant sensation that he was tumbling head over heels, and from her low, gasping groan he knew that Ellen Redding was already experiencing the worst of it. Stasz merely laughed.
"And into the universe!" he cried.
The disk of the Moon soon matched the Earth's in size, as Stasz called them to the forward cabin where they strapped themselves back into their cushioned couches.
"I've reviewed it with you once, but for one last time, here we go. We've cleared the major shipping lanes of near-Earth environment, and our nav system has come up clean, but to be on the safe side I've positioned our initial path five degrees of arc off the asteroid belt and will compensate once we've cleared that region. Remember, the translight jump will cause a momentary blackout and all of you will experience some degree of nausea, so have those damn bags ready. After the initial jump the ship's gravity inertia system will kick on, so remember that there will be one G aligned toward the long axis of the ship.
"Are you ready?"
They all nodded bleakly. Ian shot one final look at the small blue-green disk just barely visible on the video dis play. This great adventure was already starting to pale. Just what the hell was he doing there?
"Oh, by the way," Stasz shouted out with a laugh, "in one out of every ninety-seven point four jumps, the ship breaks up. We've never figured out why. Just thought you might like to know."
Ian looked at Ellen. She was tight-lipped but managed a cold grimace of a smile. He wasn't sure if it was a smile of genuine fear or one of resentment at the crazy scheme that had dragged her into space. Shelley, however, had a look of joyous anticipation. Richard was strangely quiet, and Ian suddenly realized that the doctor had narced him self out with a tranq shot.
"Here we go," Stasz shouted. "Crazy Stasz plays with light speed-and don't say I didn't warn you!" He pulled the lever that punched them into star drive. lan's vision blurred. He tried to focus on the disk of the Earth, but it was already lost to view. The sun shot into range of the camera focused astern, its once-yellow disk shifting through the lower end of the visual spectrum to infrared. The darkness of space around it distorted in a hazy shimmer. He could hear Stasz's high-pitched laugh ter and, as if triggered by it, experienced a swirling black ness of nightmarish dreams.
Chapter 4
The shipboard routine was soon established. Ellen avoided Ian and Richard and to their surprise soon fas tened her attention onto Stasz, even though he was, in her own words, "merely a ship's driver, and not a very well-educated driver at that."
They were grateful for the respite. The vessel was small enough, as it was, but hidden in an aft storage compartment Ian soon found a quiet retreat where he could be alone with his thoughts. And it was there, several weeks after Discovery's departure, that Richard came to him, bottle in hand.
"Ah, my good friend and fellow wizard," Richard in toned softly, holding up the precious bottle of gin for lan's examination. "Come, my morose and melancholy col league, life could be worse. You could be back at that damnable college with that thrice-damned Chancellor breathing down your neck. So come drain this precious liquid with me and rejoice that fortune has thus smiled upon us."
Ian smiled wanly and pushed aside a couple of crates to widen his little nook so Richard could crawl in.
Richard squirmed into the cubbyhole, uncorked the bottle, and offered it to him straight.
Ian screwed up his face and, with a quick tilt of the head, gulped down the scalding liquid. His eyes streamed rivers of tears; he coughed convulsively and struggled for breath, but soon the warming glow spread through his body.
Richard looked around the retreat and shook his head. He knew Ian to be a fairly typical intellectual neurotic, but the man was head of the project and their lives could depend on this neurotic's decisions. "Must say that you've got a nice little fortress here." He took the bottle from Ian, drained off a mouthful, and smacked his lips. "You certainly picked a nice place to hide out."
Ian gave Richard a twisted smile, already knowing what he was driving at. "You mean, retreat from reality."
"Now did I say that, my good man?"
"No, but we've known each other for twenty years. I can already tell you what you've been thinking about. Shall I?"
"By all means, second guess me."
"You're thinking that Ian Lacklin is a good enough sort of fellow to play a round of chess with, to talk a little historical bullshit with, to knock a drink down with on a rainy winter evening, but let's not push it beyond that.
"Yes, beyond that," Ian interjected, waving his arms, "beyond your typical foggy history teacher who spends most of his waking hours dreaming of a history he never could, or never will, interact with. Hell, man, a history teacher by his very nature avoids the reality of his own time by escaping into the past. Just think, Richard, just think for one minute, did you ever meet a history teacher who had both feet on the ground?"
"Well, I can think of-"
"Just a minute," Ian interrupted, "I mean a real history teacher, not some smashball coach disguised as a history teacher."
"Well, in that case, I guess…" His voice trailed off.
"Point proved! My colleagues and I are paid to examine that which can no longer be touched. History, the past. Oh, sure, we all dream at times of walking into that past and being one of the heroes. I know a skinny, gawky runt of a history prof who would give ten years off his life just to ride with Ghenghis Khan for one day. But really, if old Ghenghis ever showed up in his office, that guy would need a new set of underwear in ten seconds flat. That's my point: We're fine at examining a dead past, but to be part of the living present with its realities and dangers is another story."
"What are you driving at, Ian?"
"Look at us!" Ian shouted, and taking the bottle from Richard he popped off another gulp. "We've got a crazy as a pilot, a pimply grad-ass, and, God help us, old C.C. Then there's you. Pardon me, but you know your short comings as well as I do. A doctor in the college clinic with a good grasp of pre-Holocaust medicine and a great grasp on the bottle. Finally there's me. Richard, we've been dumped, and you know and I know that if we ever get back, it will be a miracle. And I am not merely head of a project-I am in command!"