Presently, he called his son on the intercom. The two men -the son was forty-five years of age at this time – agreed that the father's judgment was correct. At the older man's suggestion, the younger Browne returned to his own room.
But he was not surprised to hear his father report at the end of the sleep period that the wounded councillor was dead.
And that there was no one left aboard entitled to demand an election.
12
One hundred and nine years after leaving Earth, the spaceship, Hope of Man, went into orbit around Alta III, the only inhabited and habitable planet they had found in the system.
The following 'morning,' Captain Browne informed the shipload of fourth– and fifth-generation colonists that a manned lifeboat would be sent to the planet's surface.
'Every member of the crew must consider himself expendable,' he said earnestly. 'This is the day that our great-grandparents, our forefathers, who boldly set out for the new space frontier so long ago, looked forward to with unfaltering courage. We must not fail them.'
He concluded his announcement over the speaker system of the big ship by saying that the names of the crew members of the lifeboat would be given out within the hour, 'And I know that every real man aboard will want to see his name there.'
John Lesbee, the fifth of his line aboard, had a sinking sensation as he heard those words – and he was not mistaken in his sudden premonition.
Even as he tried to decide if he should give the signal for a desperate act of rebellion, Captain Browne made the expected announcement.
The commander said, 'And I know you will all join him in his moment of pride and courage when I tell you that John Lesbee will lead the crew that carries the hopes of man in this remote area of space. And now the others -'
He thereupon named seven of the nine persons with whom Lesbee had been conspiring to seize control of the ship.
Since the lifeboat would only hold eight persons, Lesbee recognized that Browne was dispatching as many of his enemies as he could. He listened with developing dismay, as the commander ordered all persons on the ship to come to the recreation room. 'Here I request that the crew of the lifeboat join me and the other officers. Their instructions are to surrender themselves to any craft which seeks to intercept them. Their scanners will relay all observed events to us here, and enable us to determine the level of scientific attainment of the dominant race on the planet below.'
Lesbee hurried to his room on the technicians' deck, hoping that perhaps Tellier or Cantlin would seek him out there. He felt himself in need of a council of war, however brief. He waited five minutes, but not one member of the conspiratorial group showed.
Nonetheless, he had time to grow calm. Peculiarly, it was the smell of the ship that soothed him most. From the earliest days of his life, the odor of ozone and the scent of metal at high temperature had been perpetual companions. At the moment, with the ship in orbit, there was a letting up of stress. The smell was of old energies rather than new. But the effect was similar.
He sat in the chair he used for reading, eyes closed, breathing in that complex of odors, product of so many titanic energies. He felt the fear leave his mind and body. He grew brave again, and strong.
Lesbee recognized that his plan to seize power had involved risks. Worse, no one would question Browne's choice of him as the leader of the mission. 'I am,' thought Lesbee, 'probably the most highly trained technician ever to be on this ship.' Browne III had taken him when he was ten, and started him on the long grind of learning that led him to master, one after the other, the skills of the various technical departments. And Browne IV had continued his training.
He was taught how to repair control systems. He gradually came to understand the interrelated cybernetic functions. Long ago, the colossal cobweb of electronic circuitry behind the many panels had become almost an extension of his own nervous system.
He never did find time to learn the basic theory of the ship's main drive. This information was contained in a course of study to which Browne had provided access, and so a little knowledge had come through to him and stayed with him. But in these advanced realms, he actually knew less than his father.
His father had made numerous attempts to pass his knowledge on to his son. But it was as hard to teach complexities to a tired and sleepy boy as it had been for the older man to learn those complexities himself under similar circumstances. Lesbee even felt slightly relieved when his parent died. It took the pressure off him. Since then, however, he had come to realize that the Browne family, by forcing a lesser skill on the descendant of the original commander of the ship, had won their greatest victory.
As he finally headed for the recreation room, Lesbee found himself wondering: Had the Brownes trained him with the intention of preparing him for such a mission as this?
His eyes widened. If that were true, then his own conspiracy was merely an excuse. The decision to kill him might actually have been made more than a decade ago, and light-years away...
As the lifeboat rocketed toward Alta III, Lesbee and Tellier sat in the twin control chairs and watched on the forward screen the vast, misty atmosphere of the planet. Dr. Tellier had never understood why spaceships could not attain even a quarter of the speed of light. His records showed that he had hoped to reach velocities greater than light, but his death had occurred too soon for him to train his son to carry on after him. No one since had had the necessary knowledge to continue his work.
It was vaguely believed by the scientists who succeeded Dr. Tellier that the ship had run into one of the paradoxes implicit in the Lorentz-Fitzgerald Contraction Theory.
Whatever the explanation, it was never solved.
Watching Tellier, Lesbee wondered if his companion and best friend felt as empty inside as he did. Incredibly, this was the first time he – or anyone – had been outside the big ship. 'We're actually heading down,' he thought, 'to one of those great masses of land and water, a planet.'
As he watched, fascinated, the massive ball grew visibly bigger.
They came in at a slant, a long, swift, angling approach, ready to jet away if any of the natural radiation belts proved too much for their defense systems. But as each stage of radiation registered in turn, the dials showed that the lifeboat machinery made the proper responses automatically.
The silence was shattered suddenly by an alarm bell.
Simultaneously, one of the screens focused on a point of rapidly moving light far below. The light darted toward them.
A missile!
Lesbee caught his breath.
But the shining point of light veered off, turned completely around, took up position several miles away, and began to fall with them.
His first thought was: 'They'll never let us land,' and he experienced intense disappointment.
Another signal sounded from the control board.
'They're probing us,' said Tellier, tensely.
An instant after the words were uttered, the lifeboat seemed to shudder and to stiffen under them. It was the unmistakable feel of a tractor beam, probing from the other craft. Its field clutched the lifeboat, drew it, held it.
The science of the Alta III inhabitants was already proving itself formidable.
Underneath him, the lifeboat continued its movement.
The entire crew gathered around and watched as the point of brightness came closer, resolved into an object, which rapidly grew larger. It loomed up close, bigger than they.
There was a metallic bump. The lifeboat shuddered from stem to stern.
Even before the vibrations ceased, Tellier said, 'Notice they put our airlock against theirs.'