"Shut up!" Chuck hissed, holding a hand over Ross's mouth. "Do you want to get us all in real trouble? Some of these guys would rat to the guards for an extra hunk of bread! The judges never make a mistake." And his lips formed the silent word: "Officially."
He let go of Ross and stood back, but didn't walk away. He scratched his head. "Say," he said, "you ask some stupid questions. Where are you from, anyhow?"
Ross said bitterly, "What's the use? You won't believe me. I happen to be from a place called Halsey's Planet, which is a good long distance from here.
About as far as light will travel hi two hundred years, if that gives you an idea. I came here in an F-T-L—that is, a faster-than-light ship. You don't know what that is, of course, but I did. It was a mistake, I admit it. But here I am."
Somewhat to Ross's surprise, Chuck didn't laugh again. He looked dubious, and he scratched his head some more, but he didn't laugh. To the other prisoner he said, "What do you think, Sam?"
Sam shrugged. "So maybe we were wrong," he observed.
Ross demanded, "Wrong about what?"
"Well," Chuck said hesitantly, "there's a guy here named Flarney. He's a pretty old son-of-a-gun by now, must be at least ninety, and he's been here a good long tune. Dunno how long. But he talks crazy, just like you. No offense," he added, "it's just that we all thought he'd gone space-happy.
But maybe we're wrong. Unless——" his eyes narrowed "unless the two of you are both space-happy, or trying to kid us, or something."
Ross said urgently, "I swear, Chuck, there's no such thing. It's true. Who's this Flarney? Where does he say he came from?"
"Who can make sense out of what tie says? All I know is, he talked a lot about something faster than light. That's crazy; that's like saying slower than dark, or bigger than green, or something.
But I don't know, maybe it means something."
"Believe me, Chuck, it does! Where is this man—can I see him?"
Chuck looked uncertain. "Well, sure. That is, you can see him all right. But it isn't going to do you a whole hell of a lot of good, because he's dead. Died yesterday; they're going to pitch him out into space sometime today."
Sam said, "This is when Whitker flips. One week without his old pal Flarney and he'll begin to look funny. Two weeks and he starts acting funny. Three and he's talking funny and the guards begin to crack down. I give him a month to get shot down and heaved through the locker."
Old pal? Ross demanded, "Who's this Whitker? Where can I get in touch with him?"
"Him and Flarney were both latrine orderlies. That's where they put the feeble old men, mopping and polishing. Number Two head, any hour of the day or night. Old buzzard has his racket—we're supposed to get a hank of cellosponge per man per day, but he's always 'fresh out'— unless you slip him your saccharine ration every once in a while."
Ross asked the way to Number Two head and the routine. But it was an hour before he could bring himself to ask the hulking guard for permission.
"Sure, sonny," she boomed. "I'll show you the way. Need any help?"
"No, thanks, ma'am," he said hastily, and she roared with laughter. So did the members of the construction gang; it must have been an ancient gag. He hurried on his way thinking dark and bloody thoughts.
"Whitker?" he asked a tottering ancient who nodded and drowsed amid the facilities of the head.
The old man looked up Wearily and squeaked: "Fresh out. Fresh out. You should've saved some from yesterday."
"That's all right. I'm a new man here. I want to ask you about your friend Flarney——"
Whitker bowed his head and began to cry noiselessly.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Whitker. I heard. But there's something we can do about it—maybe. Flarney was a faster-than-light man. He must have told you that. So am I. Ross, from Halsey's Planet."
He hadn't the faintest idea as to whether any of this was getting through to the ancient.
"It seems Flarney and I were both on the same mission, finding out how and why planets were dropping out of communication. You and he used to talk a lot, they tell me. Did he ever tell you anything about that?"
Whitker looked up and squeaked dimly. "Oh, yes. All the tune. I humored him. He was an old man, you know. And now he's dead." The tears leaked from his rheumy eyes and traced the sad furrows beside his nose.
Was he getting through? "What did he say, Mr. Whitker? About faster-than-light?"
The old man said, "L-sub-T equals L-sub-zero e to the minus T-over-two-N."
That damned formula again! "But what does it mean, Mr. Whitker? What did he say it meant?" Ross softly urged.
The old man looked surprised. "Genes?" he asked himself hazily. "Generations? I don't remember.
But you go to Earth, young man. Flarney said they'd know, and know what to do about it, too, which is more than he did. His very words, young man!"
Ross didn't dare stay longer. Furthermore he suspected that the old man's attention span had been exhausted. He started from the room with a muttered thanks, and was stopped at the door by Whitker's hand on his shoulder.
"You're a good boy," Whitker squeaked. "Here."
Ross found himself walking down the corridor with an enormous wad of cellosponge in his hand.
The bunks were hard, but that didn't matter. Dormitories were the outermost layer of the hulk, pseudogravity varies inversely as the fourth power of the distance, and the field generator was conventionally located near "Minerva's" center. When your relative weight is one-quarter normal you can sleep deliciously on a gravel driveway. This was the dormitory's only attractive feature.
Otherwise it was too many steel slabs, tiered and spotted too close, too many unwashed males, too much weary snoring. The only things in short supply were headroom and air.
Not everybody slept. Insomniacs turned and grunted; those who had given up the struggle talked from bunk to bunk in considerately low tones.
Bernie muttered from a third-tier bunk facing Ross's: "I wonder if she made it."
Ross knew what he meant. "Unlikeliest thing in the world," he said. "But I think she went fast and never knew what hit her." He thought of the formula and "They'd know on Earth—and know what to do about it too." Earth the enigma, from which all planetary peoples were supposed to be derived.
Earth—the dot on the traditional master charts, Earth—from which and to which no longliners ever seemed to travel. Haarland had told him no F-T-L ship had in recent centuries ever reported again after setting out for Earth. Another world sunk in barbarism? But Flarney had said—no; that was not data. That was the confused recollections of a very old man, possibly based on the confused recollections of another very old man. Perhaps it had got mixed up with the semilegendary origin story.
Poor sweet Helena! He hoped it had happened fast, that she had been thinking of some pleasant prospect on Hal-sey's Planet. In her naive way she'd think it just around the corner, a mere matter of following instructions. . . .
So thought Ross, the pessimist.
In his gloom he had forgotten that this was exactly what it was. In his snobbishness he never realized that he was guilty of the most frightful arrogance hi assuming that what he could do, she could not. In his ignorance he was not aware that since navigation began, every new instrument, every technique, has drawn the shuddery warnings of savants that uneducated skippers, working by rote, could not be expected to master these latest fruits of science—or that uneducated skippers since navigation began have cheerfully adopted new instruments and techniques at the drop of a hat and that never once have the shuddery warnings been justified by the facts.
Up the aisle somebody was saying in a low, argumentative tone, "I saw the drum myself. Naturally it was marked Dulsheen Creme, but the guards here never did give a damn whether then- noses were dull or bright enough to flag down a freighter and I don't think they've suddenly changed. It was booze, I tell you. Fifty liters of it."