As a matter of safety he kept the Stellaris in other-space for twelve hours. If the aliens had a defense against his weapon they'd expect the Stellaris to reappear immediately the weapon was used. But if twelve full hours elapsed they would think the human ship had fled. So he waited.
But time passed very slowly until what might be termed social life within the ship began. The four girls who'd tended the air-purifier system had been classed officially as assistants in biology, and were more or less inclined to feel superior to mere painters and arc-welders and electricians. Some of the men, too, were middle-aged and obviously family men.
But one of the arc-welders was good looking and one of the painters displayed virtuosity on the mouth-organ. Also there was some food aboard ship and there was at least a precedent for expecting to set foot again on a planet with breathable air.
Also there were the lurid tales of riches and jewels and incredible luxury in the empty cities of the planet to which they were still anchored. So, during the tedious wait, barriers broke. Music began somewhere off in the ship. There were voices. There was even laughter.
Kit went to see while Rod sweatingly tried to make calculations and draw diagrams on a memo-pad which had no weight—and while be himself floated head-down in relation to a normal position in the control-room. Kit drew herself lightly along the hand-rails which ran on floors and ceilings and side-walls alike. She came back smiling, floating with extraordinary grace in mid-air.
"Rod! You ought to see!" she told him. "One of the painters has tied himself in place with string. He's playing the mouth-organ and they're having a dance! It's like a Virginia reel in three dimensions! Everybody's got pieces of cardboard and they're using them like wings to fan themselves around with in the craziest set-to you ever saw!"
Uproarious laughter sounded in the ship, which floated in an illimitable emptiness of darkness—in a universe in which no living thing could dwell—alone as surely no human ship was ever alone before—in a cosmos without a single star.
Rod said restlessly, "That's good, Kit. Go and watch if you like. I'd better not. Anyhow, I'm going to try something."
There was reason for his reserve. He was, perforce, the captain of the Stellaris. As such he could join in difficult labor and should share in any danger. But he must remain remote if all his decisions were to go unquestioned. And it was necessary for him to make the decisions. If he relaxed to mere sociable behavior his leadership would no longer be based upon the mystery of commissioned authority. He would have become merely another man.
He pulled himself to the engine-room. Restlessly he set the tractor-beams—those not in use for anchorage—to fan out in all directions through this other-space. Practically nothing was known as yet about the dark universe. Light traveled faster there and inertia was less. Incredible speeds were possible.
So much was known, and nothing else. The other-space could be a mere incalculable emptiness, without the most minute particle of substance anywhere in it Yet in theory a cosmos without mass could not exist A closed universe could not be closed without substance to make the gravitational warp that would close it. So there must be matter of some sort.
But Rod turned on the tractor-beams and fanned them out, merely to be doing something. The odds against any solid object within the distance the tractor-beams would cross within a few hours—even at the tremendous speed of radiation here were enormous.
He went back to the control-room, looking at his watch. Kit rested lightly in a screwed-down chair, staring at nothing. Her face was utterly dismal.
"I—er—I put on the tractor-beams to see if there could be anything solid around," he told her, pretending not to see her expression.
She did not answer.
"I'm hoping," he said awkwardly after a moment, "that we've wiped out those pyramid-makers and that we'll be able to go through one of their ships and pick up some of their stuff. In this space those projectors of theirs that shoot beams of light should be handy. I'd like to know what kind of drive they have—and they've got a sort of flame-pistol that could be useful."
Kit's lips trembled. A tear appeared at the corner of her eye and did not run down her cheek because there was no gravity to draw it. It blurred all her vision and she shook her head to clear it. The tear-drop flew off into the air as a tiny round globule. She gulped.
Rod said helplessly, "I feel like a scoundrel, Kit. I act as if I didn't think about you at all."
"You don't think of me," said Kit "And—and we're likely to be killed any time and—"
"If you looked happy," said Rod doggedly, "as if we were being romantic, the four other girls would envy you. And if romance breaks out in this ship it will be bad! There are ten men and only five girls. Right now it doesn't look as if we've much chance of getting back and if ten men get romantic over five girls—"
"S-some of the men are m-married," said Kit.
"It'll be hard for them to bear that in mind after they give up hope of getting back home and know they're some thousands of light-years away."
Then Rod said grimly, "I look at it this way—we're in the position of people who were shipwrecked in the olden days. But we've no hope of being rescued. No friendly space-ship will ever run across us! So we've got to load up with food. We've got to get weapons. We've got to get tools.
"And if we can't find our way back to Earth—the chance is slim—we've got to find a planet these space-murderers aren't interested in, one that we can settle on. We may have to turn ourselves into a colony and spend all our lives somewhere we can't even guess at yet Right now we've got to keep from doing anything that will start dissension on board."
"You could say something nice once in a while," said Kit miserably.
"If I did," said Rod, "I wouldn't want to stop at that"
The ship stirred—slightly but definitely.
Rod dived for the corridor to the engine-room. The movement of the ship could mean but one thing. The tractor-beam had touched something solid. Even hurtling through the air he glanced at his watch. The beam had been on for fourteen minutes. That would mean a hundred and sixty million miles in normal space. It might mean ten or twenty or a hundred times that here. It might mean anything or nothing whatever.
He reached the beam-projectors. Again carefully leaving the anchor-tractors untouched, Rod cut down the power of one after another of the rest. Another stirring. The beam which had struck something was identified. He put pressors in parallel and sent them out to cover the direction.
It was again fourteen minutes before a pressor hit the unseen object the tractor tugged at Rod took a deep breath. It wasn't coming this way, then. Not fast at any rate.
He settled down to finicky, delicate manipulation. It was, in a way, ridiculous for him to try to locate and focus a beam on something of unknown size—an unguessable but enormous distance away—when it was somewhere in a fifteen-degree-square arc of space.
It took fourteen minutes to discover whether an individual beam was even pointed in the right direction. But he had a dozen beams he could use, adjusting them in sequence, and he could shift the unfocused beams to find when they slid off the object.
The three-dimensional dance ended when the painter ran out of breath with which to blow the harmonica. An impromptu theatrical performance began. There was a painter who fancied himself as a tap-dancer. He essayed to demonstrate. With no weight to hold him anywhere his antics were unpredictable even to himself.
The spectators held fast to handrails on walls and floor and ceiling. The girls shrieked with laughter. The men howled. Somebody essayed to juggle. It was impossible. Nothing came back to his hands. The laughter tended to grow hysterical.