The Crack in Space

  The doors of the jet-bus slid back as the bus rolled to a halt.

  ‘Here we are,’ Sal Heim said, and got quickly to his feet. ‘And here we go.’ Along with the party volunteers he moved towards the nearest exit. Jim Briskin, after a moment, followed.

  At the entrance gate the pretty, dark-haired, unclad attendant on duty smiled a white-tooth smile at them and said, ‘Your tickets, please.’

  ‘We’re all new here,’ Sal Heim said to her, getting out his wallet. ‘We’ll pay in cash.’

  ‘Are there any girls you wish to visit in particular?’ the attendant asked, as she rang the money up on her register.

  Jim Briskin said, ‘A girl named Sparky Rivers.’

  ‘ALL OF YOU?’ The attendant blinked, then shrugged her bare shoulders urbanely. ‘All right, gentlemen. De gustibus non disputandum est. Gate three. Watch your step and don’t jostle, please. She’s in room 395.’ She pointed toward gate three and the group moved in that direction.

  Ahead, beyond gate three, Jim Briskin saw rows of gilded, shining doors; over some lights glowed and he understood that those were empty at the moment of customers. And, on each door, he saw the curious animated pic of the girl within; the pics called, enticed, whined at them as they approached each in turn, searching for room 395.

  ‘Hi there!’

  ‘Hello, big fellow.’

  ‘Could you hurry? I’m waiting . . .’

  ‘Well, how are you?’

  Sal Heim said, ‘It’s down this way. But you don’t need her, Jim; I can take you to their office.’

  Can I trust you? Jim Briskin asked himself silently. ‘All right,’ he said. And hoped it was a wise choice.

  ‘This elevator,’ Sal said. ‘Press the button marked C.’ He entered the elevator; the rest of the group followed, crowding in after him, as many as could make it. More than half the group remained outside in the corridor. ‘You follow us,’ Sal instructed them. ‘As soon as you can.’

  Jim- touched the C button and the elevator door shut soundlessly. ‘I’m depressed,’ he said to Sal. ‘I don’t know why.’

  ‘It’s this place,’ Sal said. ‘It isn’t your style at all, Jim. Now, if you were a necktie or a flatware or a poriferous vobile salesman, you’d like it. You’d be up here every day, health permitting.’

  ‘I don’t believe so,’ Jim said. ‘No matter what line of work I was in.’ It went against everything ethical—and esthetic—in his makeup.

  The elevator door slid back.

  ‘Here we are,’ Sal said. ‘This is George Walt’s private office.’ He spoke matter of factly. ‘Hello, George Walt,’ he said, and stepped out of the elevator.

  The two mutants sat at their big cherrywood desk in their specially constructed wide couch. One of the bodies sagged like a limp sack and one eye had become fused-over and empty, lolling as it focussed on nothing.

  In a shrill voice the head said, ‘He’s dying. I think he’s even dead; you know he’s dead.’ The active eye fixed malignantly on Tito Cravelli, who stood with his laser rifle, on the far side of the office. In despair, one of the living hands poked at the dangling, inert arm of its companion body. ‘Say something!’ the head screeched. With immense difficulty the living body struggled to its feet; now its silent companion flopped against it and in horror it pushed the burdening lifeless sack away.

  A faint spasm of life stirred the dangling sack; it was not quite dead. And, on the face of the uninjured brother, wild hope appeared. At once it tottered grotesquely toward the door.

  ‘Run!’ the head bleated, and clumsily groped for escape. ‘You can make it!’ it urged its still-living companion. The four-legged, scrambling joint creature bowled over the surprised volunteers at the door; together they all went down in a floundering heap, the mutant among them, squealing in panic as the injured body buried the other beneath it, struggling to rise.

  Jim Briskin, as George Walt lurched upright, dived at them. He caught hold of an arm and hung on.

  The arm came off.

  He held onto it as George Walt stumbled up to their four feet and out the office door, into the corridor beyond.

  Staring down at it, he said, ‘The thing’s artificial.’ He handed it to Sal Heim.

  ‘So it is,’ Sal agreed, stonily. Tossing the arm aside he hastily ran after George Walt; Jim accompanied him and together they followed the mutants along the thick-carpeted corridor. The three-armed organism moved badly, crashing into itself as its twin bodies swung first wide apart and then stunningly together. It sprawled, then, and Sal Heim seized the righthand body around the waist.

  The entire body came loose, arm and legs and trunk. But without the head. The other body—and single head—managed, incredibly, to get up and continue on.

  George Walt was not a mutant at all. It—he—was an ordinarily-constituted individual. Jim Briskin and Sal watched him go, his two legs pumping vigorously, arms swinging.

  After a long time Jim said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Right.’ Nodding in agreement, Sal turned to the party volunteers who had trickled out into the corridor behind them. Tito Cravelli emerged from the office, rifle in hand; he saw the severed one-armed trunk which had been half of the two mutants, glanced up swiftly with perceptive understanding as the remaining portion disappeared from view past a corner of the corridor.

  ‘We’ll never catch them now,’ Tito said.

  ‘Him,’ Sal Heim corrected bitingly. ‘I wonder which one of them was synthetic, George or Walt. And why did he do it? I don’t understand.’

  Tito said, ‘A long time ago one must have died.’

  They both stared at him.

  ‘Sure,’ Tito said calmly. ‘What happened here today must have happened before. They were mutants, all right, joined from birth, and then the one body perished and the surviving one quickly had this synthetic section built. It couldn’t have gone on alone without the symbiotic arrangement because the brain—’ He broke off. ‘You saw what it did to the surviving one just now; he suffered terribly. Imagine how it must have been the first time, when . . .’

  ‘But he survived it,’ Sal pointed out.

  ‘Good for him,’ Tito said, without irony. ‘I’m frankly glad he did; he deserved to.’ Kneeling down, he inspected the trunk. ‘It looks to me as if this is George. I hope he can get it restored. In time.’ He rose, then. ‘Let’s get upstairs and back to the field; I want to get out of here.’ He shivered. ‘And then I want a glass of warm, non-fat milk. A big one.’

  The three of them, with the party volunteers struggling behind, made their way silently back to the elevator. No one stopped them. The corridor, mercifully, was empty. Without even a pic to leer and cajole at them.

  When they arrived back in Chicago, Patricia Heim met them and at once said, ‘Thank God.’ She put her arms around her husband, and he hugged her tight. ‘What happened? It seemed to take so long, and yet it actually wasn’t long at all; you’ve only been gone an hour.’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Sal said shortly. ‘Right now I just want to take it easy.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll cease advocating shutting the Golden Door satellite down,’ Jim said suddenly.

  ‘What?’ Sal said, astonished.

  ‘I may have been too hard. Too puritanical. I’d prefer not to take away his livelihood; it seems to me he’s earned it.’ He felt numb right now, unable really to think about it. But what had shocked him the most, changed him, had not been the sight of George Walt coming apart into two entities, one artificial, one genuine. It had been Lurton Sands’ disclosure about the mass of maimed bibs.

  He had been thinking about this, trying to see a way out. Obviously, if the maimed bibs were to be awakened at all they would have to be last in sequence. And by then perhaps replacement organs would be available in supply from the UN’s organ bank. But there was another possibility, and he had come onto it only just now. George Walt’s corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs. And in this Jim Briskin
saw hope for Lurton Sands’ victims. Possibly a deal could be made with George Walt; he—or they—would be left alone if they would reveal the manufacture of their highly sophisticated and successful artificial components. It was, most likely, a West German firm; the cartels were most advanced in such experimentation. But it could of course be engineers under contract to the satellite alone, in permanent residence there. In any case, four hundred lives represented a great number, worth any effort at saving. Worth any deal, he decided, with George Walt which could be brought off.

  ‘Let’s get something warm to drink,’ Pat said. ‘I’m freezing.’ She started toward the front door of Republican-Liberal party headquarters, key in hand. ‘We can fix some synthetic non-toxic coffee inside.’

  As they stood around the coffee pot waiting for it to heat, Tito said, ‘Why not let the satellite decline naturally? As emigration begins it can serve a steadily dwindling market You implied something along those lines in your Chicago speech anyhow.’

  ‘I’ve been up there before,’ Sal said, ‘as you know. And it didn’t kill me. Tito’s been there before, too, and it didn’t warp or kill him.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Jim said. ‘If George Walt leaves me alone, I’ll leave them alone. But if they keep after me, or if they won’t make a deal regarding artif-org construction—then it’ll be necessary to do something. In any case the welfare of those four hundred bibs comes first.’

  ‘Coffee’s ready.’ Pat said, and began pouring.

  Sipping, Sal Heim said, ‘Tastes good.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jim Briskin agreed. In fact the cup of hot coffee, synthetic and non-toxic as it had to be (only low-stratum dorm-housed Cols drank the genuine thing) was exactly what he needed. It made him feel a lot better.

  Although the time was dreadfully late at night, Myra Sands had made up her mind to call Art and Rachael Chaffy at their dorm. She had reached a decision regarding their case, and the moment had arrived to tell them.

  When the vidphone connection had been made to their public halt booth, Mrs Sands said, ‘I’m sorry to bother you so late, Mr Chaffy.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Art said, sleepily. Obviously, he and his wife had gone to bed. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think you should go ahead and have your baby,’ Myra said.

  ‘You do? But . . .’

  ‘If you had listened to Jim Briskin’s Chicago speech, you would know why,’ Myra said. ‘There’ll soon be a need for new families; everything has changed. My advice to you and your wife is to apply to Terran Development for permission to emigrate by means of their new system. You might as well be among the first. You deserve to be.’

  Bewildered, Art Chaffy said, ‘Emigrate? You mean they finally found a place? We don’t have to stay here?’

  ‘Buy a homeopape,’ Myra said patiently. ‘Go out now and get it; find a vending machine, read about the speech. It’ll be on the front page. And then start packing your things.’ TD will have to accept you, she knew. Because of Jim Briskin’s speech. They’ve been deprived of a choice.

  ‘Gee, thanks, Mrs Sands,’ Art Chaffy mumbled, dazed. ‘I’ll tell Rachael right away; I’ll wake her up. And—thanks for calling.’

  ‘Good night, Mr Chaffy,’ Myra said. ‘And good luck.’ She hung up, then, satisfied.

  Too bad, she thought, that there’s no way I can celebrate. Unfortunately no one else is up this late. Because that’s what this calls for: some kind of a party.

  But at least she could go to bed tonight with a clear conscience.

  For perhaps the first time in years.

  EIGHT

  For seventy years Leon Turpin had ruled the great industrial syndrome which comprised the enterprise Terran Development. A jerry, Turpin was now one hundred and two years old and still vigorous mentally, although physically frail. The problem for a man of his age lay in the area of the unforeseen accident; a broken hip would never mend and would put him permanently in bed.

  However, no such accident had yet occurred to him, and, as was his custom, he arrived at the central administrative offices of TD, located in Washington, D.C., at eight in the morning. His chauffeur let him off at his own entrance, and from there he was raised by special lift to his floor of the building and his constellation of offices, through which he moved during the working day by three-wheeled electric cart.

  Today the elderly chief of TD twitched with ill-concealed nervousness as his lift raised him to floor twenty. Last night he had heard someone, a political candidate of some sort, discussing what up to then Turpin had imagined to be his corporation’s top secret. Now TD’s hand was tipped. Anxiously, Leon Turpin tried to picture to himself the possible means by which the news had leaked out. Politics is the enemy of a sound economic entity, he mused. New laws, harsher tax rates, meddling . . . and now this. When, as a matter of fact, he himself had not even had an opportunity to inspect this new development.

  Today he would visit the scene of the technological break-through. Possibly, if it was safe, he would pass over to the other side.

  Turpin liked to see these things with his own eyes. Otherwise he could not quite grasp what was happening.

  As he stepped cautiously from the lift, he made out the sight of his administrative assistant, Don Stanley, coming toward him. ‘Can we go over?’ he asked Don Stanley. ‘Is it safe? I want to see it.’ He felt eager desire rising up inside him.

  Stanley, a portly man, bald with heavy-rimmed glasses, said, ‘Before we do that, Mr Turpin, I’d like to show you the stellar shots they took over there.’ He took hold of Leon Turpin’s arm, supporting him. ‘Let’s sit down, sir, and discuss this.’

  Disappointed, Turpin said, ‘I don’t want to see any charts; I want to go there.’ However, he seated himself with Stanley beside him opening a large manila envelope.

  ‘The stellar charts show,’ Stanley said, ‘that our initial appraisal of the situation was incorrect.’

  ‘It’s Earth,’ Leon Turpin said. He felt keenly discouraged.

  ‘Yes,’ Stanley said.

  ‘Past or future?’

  Stanley, rubbing his lower lip, said, ‘Neither. If you’ll look at the star chart, which . . .’

  ‘Just tell me,’ Turpin said. He could not decipher the star chart; his eyes were not that good any more.

  ‘Suppose we go over there now,’ Stanley said, ‘and I’ll do my best to show you. It’s perfectly safe; our engineers have shored up the nexus, expanded and reinforced it, and we’re experimenting with the idea of a broader power supply.’

  ‘You’re really sure we’ll get back?’ Turpin asked querulously. ‘I understand there’s a girl over there who killed somebody.’

  Don Stanley said, ‘We’ve caught her. A group of company police went across; she didn’t try to fight it out with them, fortunately. She’s in N’York now. Held by the New York state police.’ He assisted Turpin in rising to his feet. ‘Now, as to the stellar chart: I feel like a Babylonian when I start talking about "celestial bodies" and their positions, but . . .’ He glanced at Turpin, ‘There’s nothing to distinguish it from a sky-shot taken on this side of the tube.’

  What that signified, Leon Turpin could not tell. However, he said, ‘I see,’ and nodded soberly. Eventually, he knew, his vice presidents and executive staff, including Stanley, would explain it to him.

  ‘I’ll tell you who we’ve got to conduct you across,’ Don Stanley said. ‘To be entirely on the safe side we’ve hired Frank Woodbine.’

  Impressed, Leon Turpin said, ‘Good idea. He’s that famous deep-space explorer, isn’t he? The one who’s been to Alpha Centaurus and Proxima and . . .’ He could not recall the third star-system which Woodbine had visited; his memory was just not what it once had been. ‘He’s an expert,’ Turpin finished lamely, ‘in visiting other planets.’

  ‘You’ll be in good hands,’ Stanley agreed. ‘And I think you’ll like Woodbine. He’s competent, integrated, although you never know what he’s going to say. Woodbine sees the world in his own creat
ive way.’

  ‘I like that,’ Turpin said. ‘You’ve notified our PR people that we have Woodbine on the payroll, of course.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Stanley said. ‘There’ll be teams from all the media along, catching everything you and Woodbine do and say. Don’t worry, Mr Turpin; your trip across will be well-covered.’

  Tickled, Leon Turpin giggled in glee. ‘Terrific!’ he exclaimed. ‘I think you’ve done a good job, Don. It’ll be an adventure, going over there to . . .’ He broke off, again puzzled. ‘Where did you say it is? It’s Earth; I understand that. But . . .’

  ‘It’ll be easier to show you than to tell you,’ Stanley said ‘So let’s wait until we’re actually there.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Leon Turpin said. He had always found that it paid to do what Don Stanley told him; he trusted Stanley’s judgment completely. And, as he aged, he trusted Don more and more.

  On the second subsurface level of TD’s Washington plant, Leon Turpin met the deep-space explorer Frank Woodbine, about whom he had heard so much. To his vast surprise, he found Woodbine to be dainty and slight. The man was dapper, with a tiny waxed mustache and rapidly blinking eyes. When they shook, Woodbine’s hand was soft and a little damp.

  ‘How’d you ever get to be an explorer?’ Turpin asked bluntly; he was too old, too experienced, to beat around the bush.

  Stammering slightly, Woodbine said, ‘Bad blood.’

  Turpin, amused, laughed. ‘But you’re good. Everybody knows that. What do you know about this place we’re going to?’ He had spied the Jiffi-scuttler within which the break-through had occurred; it was surrounded by TD researchers and engineers—and armed company guards.

  ‘I know very little,’ Woodbine said. ‘I’ve studied the star charts that have been taken, and I don’t argue the fact that it’s Earth on the other side; that’s certain.’ Woodbine had on his heavy trouble-suit, with helmet, supply of oxygen, propulsion jets, meters and atmosphere analysis gear, and, of course, two-way com system. Always he was pictured gotten up this way; everyone expected it of him. ‘It’s not my job to make a decision in this matter; that’s up to your company geologists.’