cent, sir."
"Close enough. Your first job will be to build some kind of abrute-force, belt-or-gear thing to act as a clock. You will really work.Any more insubordination or any malingering at all and I'll put you intoa lifecraft and launch you into space, where you can make your own lawsand be monarch of all you survey. Dismissed! Now--flit!"
* * * * *
Newman flitted--fast--and Barbara, turning to her husband, opened hermouth to speak and shut it. No, he would have killed the man; he wouldhave _had_ to. He still might have to. Wherefore she said instead:"Why'd you let him keep his pistol? The ... the _slime_! And after youactually saved his life, too!"
"With some people what's past doesn't count. The other was just agesture. Psychology. It'll slow him down, I think. Besides, he'd haveanother one as soon as we get back into the _Procyon_."
"But you can lock up _all_ their guns, can't you?" Bernice asked.
"I'm afraid not. How about the other three, Herc?"
"With thanks to you, Barbara, for the word; slime. If Lopresto is afinancier, I'm an angel, with wings and halo complete. Gangsters;hoodlums; racketeers; you'd have to open every can of concentrate aboardto find all their spare artillery."
"Check. The first thing to do is----"
"One word first," Bernice put in. "I want to thank you, First Off--no,not First Officer, but I could hardly----"
"Sure you can. I'm 'Babe' to us all, and you're 'Bun'. As to the other,forget it. You and I, Herc, will go over and----"
"And I," Adams put in, definitely. "I must photograph everything, beforeit is touched; therefore I must be the first on board. I must do someautopsies and also----"
"Of course. You're right," Deston said. "And if I haven't said itbefore, I'm tremendously glad to have a Big Brain along ... oh, excusethat crack, please, Dr. Adams. It slipped out on me."
Adams laughed. "In context, I regard that as the highest compliment Ihave ever received. To you youngsters my advanced age of fifty-tworepresents senility. Nevertheless, you men need not 'Doctor' me. Either'Adams' or 'Andy' will do very nicely. As for you two young women----"
"I'm going to call you 'Uncle Andy'," Barbara said, with a grin. "Now,Uncle Andy, you being a Big Brain--the term being used in its mostcomplimentary sense--and the way you talked, one of your eightdoctorates is in medicine."
"Of course."
"Are you any good at obstetrics?"
"In the present instance I am perfectly safe in saying----"
"Wait a minute!" Deston snapped. "Bobby, you are _not_----"
"I am too! That is, I don't suppose I _am_ yet, since we were marriedonly last Tuesday, but if he's competent--and I'm _sure_ he is--I'mcertainly _going_ to! If we get back to Earth I _want_ to, and if wedon't, both Bun and I have _got_ to. Castaways' Code, you know. So howabout it, Uncle Andy?"
"I know what you two girls are," Adams said, quietly. "I know what youtwo men must of necessity be. Therefore I can say without reservationthat none of you need feel any apprehension whatever."
Deston was about to say something, but Barbara forestalled him. "Well,we can _think_ about it, anyway, and talk it over. But for right now, Ithink it's high time we all got some sleep. Don't you?"
* * * * *
It was; and they did; and after they had slept and had eaten "breakfast"the three men wafted themselves across a couple of hundred yards ofspace to the crippled starship. Powerful floodlights were rigged.
"What ... a ... mess." Deston's voice was low and wondering. "The wholeTop looks as though she'd crash-landed and spun out for eight miles. Butthe Middle and Tail look untouched."
Inside, however, devastation had gone deep into the Middle. Bulkheads,walls, floors, structural members; were torn, sheared, twisted intoweirdly-distorted shapes impossible to understand or explain. And, muchworse, were the _absences_; for in dozens of volumes, of as many sizesand of shapes incompatible with any three-dimensional geometry, everysolid thing had vanished--without leaving any clue whatever as to whereor how it had gone.
After three long days of hard work, Adams was satisfied. He had takenpictures as fast as both officers could process the film; he had coveredmany miles of tape with words only half of which either spaceman couldunderstand. Then, finally, he said:
"Well, that covers the preliminary observations as well as I know how todo it. Thank you, boys, for your forbearance and your help. Now, ifyou'll help me find my stuff and bring some of it--a computer and soon--up to the lounge?" They did so; the "and so on" proving to be abewildering miscellany indeed. "Thank you immensely, gentlemen; now Iwon't bother you any more."
"You've learned a lot, Doc, and we haven't learned much of anything."Deston grinned ruefully. "That makes you the director. You'll have totell us, in general terms, what to do."
"Oh? I can offer a few suggestions. It is virtually certain: One, thatno subspace equipment will function. Two, that all normal-spaceequipment, except for some items you know about, will function normally.Three, that we can't do anything about subspace without landing on aplanet. Four, that such landing will require extreme--I might almost sayfantastic--precautions."
Although both officers thought that they understood Item Four, neitherof them had any inkling as to what Adams really meant. They didunderstand thoroughly, however, Items One, Two, and Three.
"Hell's jets!" Deston exclaimed. "Do you mean we'll have to blast_normal_ to a system?"
"It isn't as bad as you think, Babe," Jones said. "Stars are muchthicker here--we're in the center somewhere--than around Sol. Theprobability is point nine plus that any emergence would put us less thanpoint four light-years away from a star. A couple of them show disks. Ihaven't measured any yet; have you, Doc?"
"Yes. Point two two, approximately, to the closest."
"So what?" Deston demanded. "What's the chance of it having anEarth-type planet?"
"Any solid planet will do," Adams said. "Just so it has plenty of mass."
"That's still quite a trip." Deston was coming around. "Especially sincewe can't use more than one point----"
"One point _zero_ gravities," Jones put in.
"Over the long pull--and the women--you're right," Deston agreed, andtook out his slide rule. "Let's see ... one gravity, plus and minus ...velocity ... time ... it'll take about eleven months?"
"Just about," Jones agreed, and Adams nodded.
"Well, if that's what the cards say, there's no use yowling about it,"and all nine survivors went to work.
Deston, besides working, directed the activities of all the othersexcept Adams; who worked harder and longer than did anyone else. Hebarely took time out to eat and to sleep. Nor did either Deston or Jonesask him what he was doing. Both knew that it would take five years ofadvanced study before either of them could understand the simplestmaterial on the doctor's tapes.
III.
The tremendous engines of the _Procyon_ were again putting out theirwonted torrents of power. The starship, now a mere spaceship, was oncourse at one gravity. The lifecraft were in their slots, but the fiveand the four still lived in them rather than in the vast and oppressiveemptiness that the ship itself now was. And socially, outside of workinghours, the two groups did not mix.
Clean-up was going nicely, at the union rate of six hours on andeighteen hours off. Deston could have set any hours he pleased, but hedidn't. There was plenty of time. Eleven months in deep space is afearfully, a tremendously long time.
"Morning," "afternoon," "evening," and "night" were, of course, purelyconventional terms. The twenty-four-hour "day" measured off by thebrute-force machine that was their masterclock carried no guarantee,expressed or implied, as to either accuracy or uniformity.
One evening, then, four hard-faced men sat at two small tables in themain room of Lifecraft Three. Two of them, Ferdy Blaine and MooseMordan, were playing cards for small stakes. Ferdy was of medium size;compact rather than slender; built of rawhide and spring steel. Litheand poised, he was the epitome of
leashed and controlled action. Moosewas six-feet-four and weighed a good two-forty--stolid, massive, solid.Ferdy and Moose; a tiger and an elephant; both owned _in fee simple_ byVincent Lopresto.
The two at the other table had been planning for days. They had had manyvitriolic arguments, but neither had made any motion toward his weapon.
"Play it my way and we've