'It'll certainly take longer to slow down in the lifeboat than in the ship,' said Lesbee. 'But we've got to do it.'
'Oh!' Then: 'What about our wives?'
Lesbee was startled. He had not anticipated such near twelfth-hour objections. Impatient, tense, he caught Tellier's arm, pulled him. 'We can't wait!'
Tellier held back. 'I hate to leave Lou.'
'She'll lose you one way or the other. If you stay, you'll be killed-'
'She won't understand.'
So much concern over a woman was alien to Lesbee. 'Since when has a woman ever understood anything!' he said irritably.
There must have been some sensibleness in that for Tellier, for he abandoned that line of resistance. Yet he still hesitated. He looked very downcast. 'I guess I just can't bring myself to leave the ship,' he confessed. 'Why don't you stay and fight Gourdy scientifically?'
'Because the mass of the people aboard are for Gourdy,'
'You could kill him outright. After all, he took the ship from you.'
'Then I'd have to fight it out with his henchmen. Besides, if I killed him, then I might be subject to trial on Earth. I don't want to risk that. I've had my fill of being out in space.'
'But there must be something we can do against an ignoramus like Gourdy, with all the power equipment on this ship!'
'Look!' said Lesbee, 'you can't do anything, not anything, without support. My rebellion against Browne had almost everybody's sanction. Gourdy's rebellion against me was a surprise. But people were relieved and accepted it when Gourdy announced Earth was our destination. They still haven't realized that he can't go there, and we have no quick way of convincing them. Until they understand that, they'll never back another rebellion -'
'You make it all sound as if what that mob down there thinks or feels actually has some influence.'
'When they know what they want, it makes all the difference.'
'Then how come they stood for all this nonsense all these years?'
'Because they didn't think of it as nonsense – that's why.'
'Then they're not very bright.'
'True. But now they want to go to Earth and nothing can stop them. I don't want to be in the middle when the man who can't go – Gourdy – tries to hold them back. Smart as he is, he's so suspicious he won't think of it as a mass movement. And so, if he hasn't already killed us for other reasons – he'll kill us then because he'll think we're inciting the crowd against him. So let's go, man!'
The expression on Tellier's face had been softening for some seconds. Suddenly, the admiration was back. He grabbed Lesbee's arm in a spontaneous gesture of affection. 'You really have thought everything out,' he said. 'John, you're a marvel.'
He hesitated no longer but began to walk toward the door. 'After all,' he said, 'if you're right, they'll be landing on Earth and I'll see Lou then.'
Out in the corridor, Lesbee caught Tellier's sleeve, urging him forward. The two men broke into a run. They ran all the way to the airlock and climbed into the landing craft that Lesbee had surreptitiously readied. The machine, like the others, was fitted into a compartment in one of the walls. They settled breathlessly into the twin control chairs, and Lesbee pressed the switch that triggered the launch sequence.
The outer door of the big ship began to unscrew. Simultaneously, the inner door opened. The small craft slid out of its cradle and was propelled forward into the airlock. The inner door closed behind it. The air pumps started and swiftly sucked the air out of the lock.
As the outer door swung open a minute later, a powerful spring mechanism catapulted the small craft with the two men in it into space. When they had drifted several miles, Lesbee started the forward drives. Instantly, they began to decelerate. Off to one side, the Hope of Man visible only by the dark shadow it made against the stars – seemed to forge ahead.
Lesbee knew that automatic warning lights were flickering on the big ship's two control boards. But he knew also that no person – at least, no person who understood – would be looking at the flashing signals.
Beside him, Tellier broke the silence. 'Look at those stars,' he said in a hushed tone. 'We must be spinning.'
Lesbee's gaze flashed to the stabilizer needles. They were steady. Frowning, he stared into the viewplate. And there was no doubt that something was wrong. The 'fixed' stars seemed to be moving.
Gently, he took hold of the controls, gingerly moved them -first one way, then the other. The small ship responded perfectly, tilted to the left, then to the right. He brought the control back to dead center. The lifeboat came smoothly back into its electronically stabilized position.
Outside, the stars continued their slow movement. In all his years in space, Lesbee had never seen anything like it. In fact, one of the psychologically numbing realities of being out in space was that, almost literally, nothing ever changed position. As the years went by, a few 'near' stars gradually shifted a few degrees. Only when the ship rotated did the stars seem to move at all.
Now, the entire stellar universe was visibly in motion. At least, that was his first impression. As he watched the fantastic scene, Lesbee slowly grew aware that the great nebulae, the distant star clouds, were as steady as ever.
That proved the movement of the stars was real. Even if the distant nebulae were in motion that equaled the speed of the nearer stars, it wouldn't show. They were simply too far away. Even if they should start to move at scores of light-years a second, it would not be immediately detectable.
And since an instrument defect would show all the stars moving, not merely those that were close, the fact that those remote galaxies appeared to be stable proved that the star motion was not such a defect but a genuine event in space time.
'But,' Lesbee wondered uneasily, 'how can such a movement be explained?'
The only possibility – or so it seemed – was that the stars were actually speeding up in relation to the lifeboat -
He dared not utter that terrifying possibility to Tellier.
An hour went by. Two. Many.
In the darkness ahead was a star, which Lesbee believed was Earth's sun. What disturbed him was that the star began to dim. Although they were presumably approaching it, it grew smaller. And what confused Lesbee for a while was that even as it shrank it kept moving slowly across the face of their viewing lens. Each time he would bring it back into focus -and the creeping action would occur again.
Lesbee was baffled. According to the figures on the velocitor needles, they were going toward the solar system at a speed that was still almost light-speed.
Yet the sun was visibly receding, as if it were speeding away from them faster than they were approaching it.
If that were true, then the cross-movement meant that the solar system was receding at an angle away from their craft.
Each passing minute, as Lesbee watched, the stars moved faster in their already accelerated courses. Since they were not all going in the same direction, they presented more and more the appearance of chaos.
Minute by minute by minute, the scene grew wilder.
33
Gourdy had invited Hewitt to join him on the bridge.
With them were several of Browne's former officers, including Miller, Selwyn, and Mindel, and several scientists. Two astronomers, Clyde Josephs who was chief of the astronomical staff, and his chief assistant, Max Hook, were among the latter.
In the background, five of Gourdy's henchmen stood. Each of these five was armed with two blasters.