The slicing of the heavy plates and beams had been necessary for two reasons. One requirement was that of giving Aesop’s long-range microscopes an unimpeded view of the imaginary point which was the ship’s centre of gravity, and which also corresponded with its original location in the universe. The other requirement was for extra masses of material which could be moved quickly and conveniently to one side of the hangar deck, thus changing– however minutely– the centre of gravity of the entire ship. Most of the mass shifting, however, had been done by driving two of the survey modules out of their stalls under Aesop’s precise and precisely timed instructions.
Surgenor had little knowledge of advanced maths, but he had a feeling that Mike Targett– young hero of the hour– had been overly confident and now was overly complacent about what they had achieved. They had allowed the ship to complete the dwindlar’s contraction–expansion cycle once to give Aesop a practice run at orienting himself among the profusion of galaxies which made up the universe, and at performing the computations which would determine the new centre of gravity. This time, at the instant of reversal, they had known not to look outside the ship, but had instead congregated around the tool store and had seen a point of searing brilliance– the universe– springing into existence on the cross-hairs which had been rigged up at the centre of the gaping hole.
The awe Surgenor had experienced at that moment returned to him, reinforcing his conviction that the Sarafand and its crew had, in the last extremity, been lucky. They had been caught in a dangerous mathematical pincer movement. So massive was the ship that it had been possible to shift its centre of gravity only by a scant two centimetres on the normal scale of size– but at one stage in the dwindlar cycle this would have been enough to deposit them a hundred times farther from their home galaxy than the original thirty million light-years they had been unable to cross. And at a later stage it would simply have dropped them into a different region of the same alien galaxy, or even back into the edge of the dwindlar zone itself. With little more than instinct to go on, Surgenor was left with a feeling that– despite the fantastic powers of Aesop’s processing units– the outcome could have been disastrous.
He shrugged his shoulders, ridding himself of an invisible burden, crossed to the hangar deck entrance and walked down the long ramp to a familiar sunlit field. In twenty years he had driven down that same ramp hundreds of times, with the horizons of an unknown planet rising to enfold him, yet on this occasion the sense of strangeness was greater. He had a fair idea of what lay ahead– and the unknown quantity was within himself. He had retired from the Service, and because of the special circumstances was being allowed out almost at once, which faced him with the problem of not having any problems, of having to live as other men lived, of no longer being a wilful stranger…
“Hi, Dave!” Al Gillespie was meticulously polishing the windshield of a rented car, and he looked up at Surgenor with a smile. “Do you want a ride into town?”
“Thanks, but I’d rather walk.” Surgenor shaded his eyes from the sun and scanned a range of blue hills that lay to the east. “I’m going to start walking to the places I want to reach.”
“You’ll soon get tired of that.”
“Think so?”
Gillespie gave the car a final unnecessary dab. “I’ll bet on it. Remember all that stuff the Commissioner said on TV this morning about universe ships designed with special big movable weights inside them? The ones he said will deliberately head for the dwindlar to give science teams a proper look at the universe? I’ll bet that when they’ve got one built you’ll volunteer for the trip.”
Surgenor felt a touch of coldness along his spine, but it faded immediately and he smiled. “You might be on that trip, Al– but I won’t.”
“See you around, Dave,” Gillespie said knowingly. He lowered himself into the car and drove away in the direction of the distant administrative buildings, which glowed with pastel colours in the afternoon sunshine.
Surgenor watched him depart, then turned his attention to the mountainous hulk of the ship rising above him. Work had already begun on stripping off the four triangular fairings which housed part of the drive machinery. Mobile robocranes surrounded the Sarafand, like insects dismembering a much larger but helpless victim, and the air was filled with their hydraulic chirpings. Surgenor found the sight distasteful. He had hoped the ship would be preserved intact, perhaps as a museum piece, but that would have meant transporting it closer to the centre of the Bubble, and the Space Safety Board had declared it unfit to fly.
Feeling very much out of place amid the wrecking crews and the technicians who were ascending and descending the ramp, Surgenor loitered on the ferrocrete apron until he saw what he had been waiting for– the tall, straight-backed figure of Christine Holmes emerging from the shadows of the hangar deck. He had seen very little of her in the crowded week that had passed since the touchdown on Delos, but he knew she had taken advantage of special rulings and was quitting the Service. She came down the ramp with a jaunty stride– cigarette angled between her lips, flight bag slung on her shoulder– looking competent and self-possessed, and he felt a sudden trepidation about what he had planned.
“Still here, Dave?” Christine paused beside him and inclined her head towards the nearest crane. “You shouldn’t watch this stuff, you know.”
“It doesn’t bother me. Anyway, I was waiting for you.”
She narrowed her eyes in appraisal. “Why?”
“Thought we might have a drink together.”
“Oh? Do you know any good spots?”
“Lots of them. On Earth.”
“Thanks for the offer, Dave– but no thanks.” She hitched the flight bag higher on her shoulder and stepped past him. “I’m not as thirsty as I thought I was.”
Surgenor moved quickly to bar her way. “It was a genuine offer, Chris, and at least it deserves a genuine answer.”
“I gave you one– no is an answer.” Christine sighed, dropped her cigarette and ground it under heel. “Look, Dave, I’m not trying to be bitchy– I really do thank you for the offer– but isn’t this a bit silly? Shipboard romances always fizzle out when you get to port, and when you have a shipboard nothing…’
Surgenor was aware of bystanders beginning to take an interest in the confrontation, but he pressed on. “It wasn’t a nothing when you came to my room that night.”
“Wasn’t it?” Christine gave a sarcastic laugh. “Don’t tell me you took advantage when I was…’
“Don’t talk to me that way,” Surgenor snapped, gripping her shoulders, determined to hurl his message across the gulf of lost years that separated their lives. “I’ll tell you what happened that night, and I know better because I’m a bigger expert on loneliness than you are. You were faced with something you didn’t know how to handle alone, and you came to me for help. Now I’m faced with something I don’t know how to handle alone, and…’
“And you’re coming to me for help?”
“Yes.”
Christine caught hold of Surgenor’s wrists and slowly disengaged his hands from her shoulders. “You’re crazy, big Dave.” She turned and walked away across the dusty ferrocrete.
“And you,” Surgenor called after her, “are…stupid!”
Christine continued walking for perhaps ten paces, then halted and stared at the ground for a moment before walking back to him. “You’ve some nerve calling me stupid– have you any idea what you’d be taking on if I went with you?”
“No, but I’m prepared to find out.” Surgenor strove for the right words, the best words. “It’ll be a new kind of trip for me.”
Christine hesitated, and he saw her lips were trembling. “All right,” she said soberly. “Let’s go.” Surgenor picked up his own case, and he and Christine– separated from each other by a short distance– walked towards the field’s far-off perimeter. The sudden warmth of the sun on his back told Surgenor when he had emerged from the shadow of the ship, but he did not look back.