“I know. But I’ve got engineering training. Maybe they would use me on the matter transmitters. Or as an outposter-a trader.”
“Oh, for the love of Pete! Logger, what are you talking about? A-trader? A filthy outposter? You’re a hyper ship man!”
“In twenty years there won’t be a hyper ship running,” Hilton said.
“You’re a liar. There’ll be one.”
“She’ll fall apart in a couple of months!” Hilton said angrily. “I’m not going to argue. What are we after on Fria, the fungus?”
After a pause Danvers answered.
“What else is there on Fria? Sure, the fungus. It’s pushing the season a little. We’re not due there for three weeks Earth-time, but Christie always keeps a supply on hand. And that big hotel chain will pay us the regular cut. Blamed if I know why people eat that garbage, but they pay twenty bucks a plate for it.”
“It could mean a profit, then,” Hilton said. “Provided we land on Fria without falling apart.” He tossed the repaired suit on the bunk beside Danvers. “There you are, skipper. I’d better get back to controls. We’ll be hitting hyper pretty soon.”
Danvers leaned over and touched a button that opened the deadlight. He stared at the star screen.
“You won’t get this on a matter transmitter,” he said slowly. “Look at it, Logger.”
Hilton leaned forward and looked across the Captain’s shoulder. The void blazed. To one side a great arc of Jupiter’s titan bulk blared coldly bright. Several of the moons were riding in the screen’s field, and an asteroId or two caught Jupiter’s light in their tenuous atmospheres and hung like shining veiled miniature worlds against that blazing backdrop. And through and beyond the shining stars and moons and planets showed the Big Night, the black emptiness that beats like an ocean on the rim of the Solar System.
“So it’s pretty,” Hilton said. “But it’s cold, too.”
“Maybe. Maybe it is. But I like it. Well, get a job as a trader, you jackass. I’ll stick to La Cucaracha.
I know I can trust the old lady.”
For answer the old lady jumped violently and gave a wallowing lurch.
Chapter 2. Bad News
Hilton instantly exploded out of the cabin. The ship was bucking hard. Behind him the mate heard Danvers shouting something about incompetent pilots, but he knew it probably wasn’t the Selenite’s fault. He was in the control cabin while La Cuearacha was still shuddering on the downswing of the last jump. Ts’ss was a tornado of motion, his multiple legs scrabbling frantically at a dozen instruments.
“I’ll call the shot!” Hilton snapped, and Ts’ss instantly concentrated on the incredibly complicated controls that were guiding the ship into hyper.
The mate was at the auxiliary board. He jerked down levers.
“Hyper stations!” he shouted. “Close helmets! Grab the braces, you sun-jumpers! Here we go!”
A needle swung wildly across a gauge, hovering at the mark. Hilton dropped into a seat, sliding his arms under the curved braces and hooking his elbows around them. His ankles found similar supports beneath him. The visor screens blurred and shimmered with crawling colors, flicking back and forth, on and off, as La Cuearacha fought the seesaw between hyper and normal space.
Hilton tried another mike. “Captain Danvers. Hyper stations. All right?”
“Yeah, I’m in my suit,” Danvers’ voice said. “Can you take it? Need me? What’s wrong with Ts’ss?”
“The vocor at my board blew out, Cap’n,” Ts’ss said. “I couldn’t reach the auxiliary.”
“We must need an overhaul bad,” Danvers said, and cut off.
Hilton grinned. “We need a rebuilding job,” he muttered, and let his fingers hang over the control buttons, ready in case Ts’ss slipped.
But the Selenite was like a precision machine; he never slipped. The old Cuearacha shook in every brace. The atomic engines channeled fantastic amounts of energy into the dimensional gap. Then, suddenly, the see-saw balanced for an instant, and in that split second the ship slid across its powerbrldge and was no longer matter. It no longer existed, in the three-dimensional plane. To an observer, it would have vanished. But to an observer in hyperspace, it would have sprung into existence from white nothingness.
Except that there were no hyperspatial observers. In fact, there wasn’t anything in hyper-it was, as some scientist had once observed, just stuff, and nobody knew what the stuff was. It was possible to find out some of hyper’s properties, but you couldn’t go much further than that. It was white, and it must have been energy, of a sort, for it flowed like an inconceivably powerful tide, carrying ships with it at speeds that would have destroyed the crew in normal space. Now, in the grip of the hyper current, La Cucaracha was racing toward the Big Night at a velocity that would take it past Pluto’s orbit in a matter of seconds.
But you couldn’t see Pluto. You had to work blind here, with instruments. And if you got on the wrong level, it was just too bad-for you!
Hastily Hilton checked the readings. This was Hyper C-758-R. That was right. On different dimensional levels of hyper, the flow ran in various directions. Coming back, they’d alter their atomic structure to ride Hyper M-75-L, which rushed from Fria toward Earth and beyond it.
“That’s that,” Hilton said, relaxing and reaching for a cigarette. “No meteors, no stress-strain problems-just drift till we get close to Fria. Then we drop out of hyper, and probably fall apart.”
An annunciator clicked. Somebody said: “Mr. Hilton, there’s some trouble.”
“There is. Okay, Wiggins. What now?”
“One of the new men. He was out skinside making repairs.”
“You had plenty of time to get back inside,” snapped Hilton, who didn’t feel quite as sure of that as he sounded. “I called hyper stations.”
“Yes, sir. But this fella’s new. Looks like he never rode a hyper ship before. Anyhow, his leg’s broken. He’s in sick bay.”
Hilton thought for a moment. La Cucaracha was understaffed anyway. Few good men would willingly ship on such an antique.
“I’ll come down,” he said, and nodded at Ts’ss. Then he went along the companionway, glancing in at the skipper, who had gone to sleep. He used the handholds to pull himself along, for there was no accelerative gravity in hyper. In sick bay he found the surgeon, who doubled in brass as cook, finishing a traction splint on a pale, sweating youngster who was alternately swearing feebly and groaning.
“What’s the matter with him?” Hilton asked.
Bruno, the sawbones, gave a casual soft salute. “Simple fracture. I’m giving him a walker splint, so he’ll be able to get around. And he shot his cookies, so he can’t be used to hyper.”
“Looks like it,” Hilton said, studying the patient. The boy opened his eyes, glared at Hilton.
“I was shanghaied!” he yelped. “I’ll sue you for all you’re worth!”
The first officer was unperturbed.
“I’m not the skipper, I’m mate,” Hilton said. “And I can tell you right now that we’re not worth much. Ever hear about discipline?”
“I was shanghaied!”
“I know it. That’s the only way we can get a full crew to sign articles on La Cucaracha. I mentioned discipline. We don’t bother much with it here. Just the same, you’d better call me Mister when people are around. Now shut up and relax. Give him a sedative, Bruno.”
“No! I want to send a spacegram!”
“We’re in hyper. You can’t. What’s your name?”
“Saxon. Luther Saxon. I’m one of the consulting engineers on Transmat.”
“The matter-transmission gang? What were you doing around the space docks?”
Saxon gulped. “Well-uh-I go out with the technical crews to supervise new installations. We’d just finished a Venusian transmission station. I went out for a few drinks-that was all! A few drinks, and—”