And this was his first time near the controls since Lesbee's take-over. He studied the dials on the big board with genuine interest. It did not take him long to decide that the engines were operating perfectly. In fact, remembering some old manuals that showed theoretical optimums, he had the feeling that on the whole, for a reason that was not clear, the drive was working more smoothly than at any previous time that he had seen it.
Realizing this, he deduced with the contempt of the engineer for the technician that Lesbee had somehow misread the data. His dilemma was: how could he utilize his superior knowledge to get back into a position of greater importance? Should he back Lesbee and get in on the unnecessary repair job? Or should he here and now begin a struggle for position with that individual?
He decided on the struggle. 'After all,' he thought, 'this is every man for himself.',
At the precise moment that he made this decision, his roving glance lighted on the velocity indicators, which were on a separate instrument board to one side. The needles showed an extreme configuration that he had never seen before. Frowning, Miller walked over, mentally calculating a rough approximation of what the figures meant. His puffy face quivered. He turned.
'Captain Gourdy,' he said, 'a lot of things are suddenly beginning to make sense to me.'
Afterward, when he had explained to Gourdy what he meant, and after he had finally been returned below, Miller sought out the unsuspecting Lesbee, and said cockily, 'Captain Gourdy just had me look at the engines.'
Lesbee silently absorbed the terrible shock of that and, being acutely conscious of being spied on, said in a steady voice, 'I was thinking of asking the captain to have you verify my findings.'
Miller's response was rough-toned. 'O.K., if you want to pretend. Let me tell you, all kinds of things fell into place when I saw those velocity indicators. I never did understand, when Browne was killed.' He smiled knowingly. 'Pretty smart, getting almost up to the speed of light, never letting on.'
It seemed to Lesbee that his face must be the color of lead. He could have hit the other man, standing there with his round brown eyes full of foolish triumph. He stepped close to Miller, said in a low, vicious voice. 'You stupid fool! Don't you realize that Gourdy can't go to Earth? We're all dead men!'
There was brief satisfaction, then, in seeing the expression of horrible awareness take form on Miller's face. Lesbee turned away, sick at heart. And he was not surprised a few minutes later when he received a call to report to the captain's cabin.
As it developed, he didn't get all the way there. En route he was arrested and placed in one of the ship's prison cages. It was there that Gourdy came to him. His coal-black eyes stared at Lesbee through the bars. He said grimly, 'All right, Mr. Lesbee, tell me all about the speed of this ship.'
Lesbee took the chance that his conversation with Miller had not been monitored – and pretended to be totally unaware of what Gourdy was talking about. It seemed to him that his only hope was to convince this terrible little man that he was absolutely innocent.
Gourdy was taken aback. And because the entire situation was so fantastic, he was half-inclined to believe Lesbee. He could imagine that a technician had simply not grasped what had happened.
But he also found himself inexorably analyzing the other possibility: that Lesbee had known the facts and had planned to stop the ship, get off, and leave those who remained aboard to solve the mystery for themselves. The mere contemplation of it enraged him.
'O.K. for you!' he said balefully. 'If you won't talk, I have no alternative but to treat you like a liar and a saboteur.'
But he returned to his cabin, shocked and unhappy, no longer a well and confident man, conscious that the new development threatened him only and that he must act quickly.
With his strong sense of personal danger, Gourdy let his feelings guide him. The need to take all necessary precautions – that was first. And so, as the sleep period began, he led an expedition down to the lower decks and arrested eighteen persons, including Miller and Tellier. All eighteen were placed under separate lock and key.
Gourdy spent the second hour of the sleep period in a sleepless soul-searching, and there was presently no doubt in his mind that his actions – particularly the executions – had been geared to a thirty-year journey.
'I might as well face the truth,' he thought. 'I can't take the chance of returning to Earth.'
As he planned it then, he would have Lesbee slow the ship to a point where it would require thirty years to get to the solar system. Then, when he had worked out a good propaganda reason for doing so, he would execute Lesbee, Miller, Mindel, and the other real suspects. The reason, of course, would be basically that they were plotting to take over the ship, but the details needed to be carefully thought about so that people would either believe the story or at least be half-inclined to believe it.
He was still lying there an hour later, considering exactly what he would do and say when, under him, the ship jumped as if it had been struck. There followed the unmistakable sensation of acceleration.
Lesbee had been tensely awake as the fateful hour approached. On the dot the forward surge caught him and pressed him back against the belt that partly encased his body. According to his programming, the preliminary gap between acceleration and artificial gravity would be three g's, enough to hold everyone down until they crossed light-speed.
He felt a sickening fear as he realized that at this very instant time and space must already be telescoping at an astronomical rate.
'Hurry, hurry!' he thought weakly.
Although there was no way of sensing it that he knew of, since both acceleration and artificial gravity were increasing together, he braced himself for the fantastically compressed period light-inches before and beyond light-speed. His hope was that it would pass by in a tiny fraction of an instant.
The bracing action was like a signal. As he lay there, expecting agony, he had a fantasy that was gone so quickly that he forgot what it was. Then another fantasy, a face – never seen before – instantly gone. Then he began to see images. They were all going backward: himself and other people aboard, actually walking backward as on a film in reverse. The scenes were fleeting; thousands streamed by and, presently, there were images from his childhood.
The pictures faded into confusion. He was aware of a floating sensation, not pleasant, but not the agony he had expected. And then -
He must have blacked out.
22
Averill Hewitt hung up the phone, and repeated aloud the message he had just been given: 'Your spaceship, Hope of Man, is entering the atmosphere of Earth.'
The words echoed and re-echoed in his mind, a discordant repetition. He staggered to a couch and lay down.
Other words began to join the whirlpool of meaning and implication that was the original message: After six years... the Hope of Man... after six years, when by even his minimum estimates he had pictured it a good fifth of the way to the Centaurus suns... re-entering the atmosphere of Earth...
Lying there Hewitt thought: 'And for ten years I've accepted Astronomer John Lesbee's theory that our sun is due to show some of the characteristics of a Cepheid Variable – within months now!'