Authors choice v1 0, p.9
Authors Choice (v1.0), page 9
“Wind’s blowing them toward the edge of the plateau,” said. “Better pull ’em back.”
Everybody looked. High over their heads, the two seven-foot manikins were canted slightly, their blank heads pointed toward the distant Killhope range. “Wind’s pretty strong up there,” Chapelin said uncomfortably. “You might as well bring them down, Laura.”
Niki said: “That’s better, dear. You’re so much nicer when you’re not stubborn.”
Chapelin turned back to her. “Wait a minute,” he said, “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m going to do it anyhow,” Laura said clearly, “whether you let me or not.” Her lips compressed. She watched the dummies and said: “Right. Right—enough. Down.”
“Well,” Chapelin said, “be careful.”
Hal felt the surge of hatred again. Chapelin, can’t you see she loves you? Won’t you put up any kind of fight, make her see that you’re worried about her? If you’d show the slightest interest, you could persuade her not to try it— The dummies floated down until the tips of their legs touched the ground. They hung there, swaying gently. Laura said: “Stop,” and they sat down abruptly as if their strings had been cut, then flopped over and lay sprawled on the sun-caked turf.
Chapelin had drawn his wife a couple of meters away and was talking to her earnestly. Niki was listening to him with no sign of impatience, which meant that she was amused.
Hal choked and walked over to the dummies. Laura was kneeling beside one of them, taking off its belt. She got up as he approached, her bare knees dusty.
“Let’s have a look at it,” Hal said. “That landing was a little rough.”
She put the articulated silver band around her waist, leaving the one she’d been wearing on the ground. “Let me alone just now, Hal,” she said in a barely audible voice. She stepped away and said: “Up.”
The belt took her up.
Hal watched her go, squinting his eyes against the lemon-yellow sky. She went straight up, with a halo of saffron light on the top of her blond head, and stayed there until he was beginning to wonder if she was ever coming down again. Then she dropped swiftly, turned, and swooped over their heads.
Hal swore. Laura didn’t know what “careful” meant. He was angry at himself for failing to try to stop her, and angry at her for taking out her feelings about Chapelin on them all. If that governor cut out, they might all die—the whole crazy solar system, the whole ridge of stars could be annihilated under certain conditions.
She was up high again now, so high she could barely be seen. Despite the hot sun on the plateau, it was cold that high up, cold and blustery with the ceaseless blast of this planet’s rapid revolution. Then she began to drop again, faster than she should, as if under power.
At the lip of the plateau, Laura seemed to see that she was going to miss it, and reversed the controls. The belt jerked her slantwise back toward them, and burned out in a flare of copper-colored energy. Everyone but Hal hit the ground and waited for the world to end.
Hal stayed on his feet, his mind a well of horror. Laura’s body tumbled over their heads and struck just beyond them.
Then everyone was running.
Oh, yes; we buried old Jonas today. He was a quiet, pathetic little guy, but he wanted to go home like the rest of us; I wish we could have had his body shipped back, but twenty-five thousand volts doesn’t leave much to ship. Besides, the accident with Laura rather took our mind off him.
In the shack Hal shifted his weight uncomfortably on a drum. Mike Cohen was talking quietly, but Hal only half heard him. Laura lay on one of the cots, seemingly without a single bruise; but she was not breathing. Chapelin sat beside her, wringing his hands in a blind, stupid way. Niki had the good sense to be absent, out in the generator shed, congratulating herself, Hal supposed…
“I still think she’s alive,” Mike Cohen went on. “We know so little about ultronics—every accident’s a freak at this stage.”
Hal stirred. “The belt wasn’t hurt,” he said numbly. “At first I thought it’d sliced her right in two.” He looked at the gleaming, jointed thing, still clasping Laura’s waist. They had been afraid to touch it—if there were still a residue of energy in there, and the governor gone—
“That’s right. And the fall should have broken all her bones. She hit hard. But…I don’t think she really hit at all. Something took up the shock.”
“What, then?”
A strangled sound came from the cot. Hal started and stood up, his heart thudding under his breastbone. The sound, however, had come from Chapelin, who was also standing, bending over Lama.
“Chapelin? What is it?”
“She’s breathing. She started, all of a sudden. I—” His voice broke, and he stood silent, hands working at his sides.
But it was true. Laura’s breast was rising and falling regularly, naturally. There was still no color in her face.
Even as Hal noted that, a faint tinge of pink crept in over her cheekbones.
“Thank God,” Chapelin muttered. “She’s coming around.” He looked at Hal and at Mike Cohen, meeting their eyes for the first time since the accident. “It was funny.
I heard a sort of sigh, and when I looked, she was breathing just as if she’d been asleep. Shall we try to get the belt off now?”
“I don’t think we should,” Mike said. “It may still be in operation, and it’s tuned to her. Best wait till she tells it to turn off.”
“How do you know it’s still on?”
“It must be. That flash of copper light—it was only an electrical short, or we’d none of us be here now. We’ve never been able to overload an ultronic field before, and something must have shielded her during that fall.”
On the cot, Laura whispered, quite clearly: “Is that you, Mike? Where are you? I can’t see you.”
Chapelin bent over her. “Laura,” he said huskily. “How do you feel? Can you move a little?”
“I’m all right, but it seems so dark. I can just barely make you out.”
Mike Cohen chuckled, a small, joyous sound. “You’re OK, Laura. We were too busy to remember about such little things as sunset.” He trotted quickly across the room and turned on the lights. Laura sat up in the fluorescent glow and blinked at them.
For a moment no one could speak. Then, from the doorway, Niki Chapelin’s voice said: “Why darling! What a relief!”
2/5/2121
Laura’s not hurt, but naturally somewhat shocked emotionally. We were all anxious to look at the innards of the belt, but she won’t give it up; claims that it saved her life and that it goes with her uniform. In her present state of mind we dare not argue with her.
It was very quiet in the little laboratory; only the sound of Hal’s breathing and the minute-ticking of the device upon which he was working broke the stillness. Outside the window, a silent landscape lay bathed in deep blue-green, like a vision of the bottom of a sea.
There was a modest knock on the door, and a dial on the table moved slightly. That, Hal knew, would be Laura; no one else would be carrying or wearing anything which would disturb an ultrometer, especially not at this hour. If only she’d surrender that belt! He wondered what she wanted of him.
The knock sounded again. “Come in,” Hal said. The girl slipped past the door and closed it carefully.
“Hello, Hal.”
“Hi. What can I do for you?”
“I got to feeling a little depressed and wanted company. Do you mind?”
“Chapelin’s still up, I saw the light in the shack,” Hal said sullenly. The next instant he could have bitten off his tongue; but Laura did not seem to react at all.
“No, I wanted to talk to you. What are you doing?”
He said wonderingly: “The same as always—trying to get enough of a grip on the ultronic flow to disrupt it. The little ticker here records the energy flux. If I can cause it to miss a beat now and then, I’ll know I’ve managed to interfere. So far, no soap; we can direct the flow, but not modify it.”
“Watch the blast limit.”
Hal shrugged. That was the problem, of course. This energy was strictly sub-subatomic; somewhere nearby there was a nexus where the fields met, a nexus where cosmic rays were created, out of some ground energy called ultronic as a handy label. Chapelin thought there must be billions of such nexi in every galaxy, but they had been indetectable by their very nature until just recently. The Earth Council had been scared to death when Chapelin had reported the results of his first investigations, and had quarantined the whole group. Unless they could learn how to modify the forces involved—
“We’ve done well so far, all things considered,” Hal said. “The moment we do badly, it’ll be all up for us, and this whole comer of the universe.”
Laura nodded seriously. Hal looked at her. As always, her loveliness hurt him, made it difficult for him to concentrate on what he was saying.
“But you didn’t come here to talk ultronics, surely. Isn’t there—”
She smiled, a little wistfully. “I don’t care what we talk about, Hal. That accident—you don’t go through a thing like that without being forced to think about things. I remembered your asking to see the belt before I went up, and how you tried to look out for me, and a lot of things you’ve done for me—and I knew all of a sudden that I owed you a lot more than I’d been ready to admit.”
Hal made an awkward gesture. “It’s nothing, Laura. I’ve made no secret of how I feel. If you don’t share the feeling, those little attentions can become a nuisance, I know.” “That’s true,” Laura said. “And I realize now how careful you were not to…to force anything on me. Not everybody would be that considerate, so many parsecs from any sort of civilization. It’s given me a chance to find out how I really do feel—that, and the accident.”
Hal felt his heart begin to thunder against his ribs, but he kept seated by sheer willpower. “Laura,” he said, “please don’t feel that you have to commit yourself. It’s ready the parsecs that count the most. When six people—five, now—are marooned, in close quarters, for so long, all kinds of unnatural emotional tensions develop. It’s best not to add to them if there’s any way to avoid it.”
Laura nodded. “I know. But most of the tensions that are already here are my fault. Oh, don’t deny it, it’s true. Niki wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me, and the way I felt about Chapelin. I’ve been a useful lab technic, but emotionally I’ve always been in the way. It’s different now. Chapelin—he’s a sort of timid moose, isn’t he? I’ve been pretty blind. I flatter myself that I can see, now.” She toyed with an amber-handled, tiny screwdriver on the workbench. “That’s—why I’m here.”
The blood roared in Hal’s temples. He said: “Laura—” After that it was very quiet in die little shack.
2/8/2121
The Council survey ship came by yesterday, and we had a good report to make; if they could have landed, we’d have been able to show them things that would have made their eyes bug. But they weren’t going through our area, and only inquired in a routine way; Earth’s still scared green of ultronics. One funny business: when I reported Jonas’s death—expecting all kinds of hows and whens and whys—the Ship’s Recorder didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. “Jonas who?” he said. “Did you have a stowaway?” Evidently Earth has already forgotten us, and can’t be bothered over whether there were five or six or thirteen in the group.
For a while things seemed to go along well enough; but Hal could not rid himself of the sensation that somewhere there was something radically wrong, if only he could find it. Oh, there was Chapelin to account for some of it. The accident, for which he could not help but hold himself responsible, seemed to have jarred some long-dormant cells to activity in Chapelin’s mind. For the first time he seemed to be looking at Laura as something besides a competent laboratory assistant. They were all aware of it, Niki most of all, of course—for Niki had suspected it even when it didn’t exist—but it was marked enough to worry even Mike Cohen.
That caused tension, but it was the old, familiar kind of tension. This other thing was—strange. Hal couldn’t pin it down; it was a general uneasiness, strongest when he saw the belt gleaming enigmatically about Laura’s slim waist, and when he reviewed certain entries in his journal. It was as if he were awaiting some disaster he could not describe, and it kept him up late every night, crouched over the ticking little modulator.
Even there, he had enough success to make him hopeful; within three nights he was able to modulate the steady ul-tronic flow, and on the fourth night he discovered, all at once, a chain of improbable formulas describing the phenomenon—a chain which showed him that his next step would have triggered the blast whose echoes they all heard in nightmares.
It was as if there was a silent conspiracy afoot, a conspiracy to convince Hal that Everything was going to be All Right. He looked at the equations again; they were new, a brand of math he seemingly had invented on the spot—and he had “discovered” them about ten minutes before he would have set off an interstellar catastrophe.
There was one kind of math Hal knew as well as he knew his own name: permutations and combinations. A few sheets of paper later, he had worked out the chances against his making this particular discovery at this particular time. The result: 3xl018. Such coincidences did occur, but—
He shut off the detectors, and discovered that his hand was shaking a little. If only he could pin down this irrational dread! WeU, if he were that unsteady, he’d better cut the generator that fed his lab, or there’d really be a blowup, miracle or no miracle. He stood up, stretching cramped muscles. The modulator glimmered up at him from the bench. He put it in his pocket and went out into the green gloom.
The spongy, elaborately branched moss effectively silenced his footsteps. When he jerked open the door of the generator shed, Chapelin and Laura were still locked together.
Hal gagged and tried to step out again, but they had heard the door open. Chapelin broke away, his big face turning the color of old turnips in the greenish light. Laura did not blush, but she looked—miserable.
“Sorry,” Hal said, his voice as harsh as a rasp. “However, as long as I’m here—”
He strode past them and yanked the big switch from its blades. Laura said: “Hal…it isn’t quite what—”
He spun on her. “Oh, it isn’t, eh?” he said grimly. “I suppose Everything is really All Right?”
“Now, wait a minute,” Chapelin blurted. “I don’t know what right you have to be taking that tone—”
“Of course you don’t. Probably Laura just said she’s been thinking and wanted to talk to somebody—or don’t you use the same line on us all, Laura?”
Laura raised her hand as if to ward off a blow. Hal’s heart stopped. He said: “You’re on the spot now, Laura. You can be all things to all men if you try, but not to more than one man at a time! Your story can satisfy either Chapelin or me—but not both of us at once. Want to try?” Laura’s lips thinned a little. “I don’t think I’ll bother,” she said, walking toward the door. “I don’t like taking orders.”
Hal caught her wrist and forced her back against the now-silent generator. “Clever,” he said, “I forgot the outraged-virtue act; it’s good—almost good enough. But it won’t work with me, Laima. I think I know the story now.”
“What’s going on here?” Mike Cohen’s voice said from the doorway. “If you’d open a window, they could hear you all the way back on Earth.”
“Hello, Mike,” Hal said, without turning. “Stick around. I’m either making an ass of myself or staging a showdown, one or the other. Niki with you?”
“Naturally,” Niki’s voice said. The cold fury in it was appalling; Niki did not yet know what had happened, but in any such situation she had only one guess to make.
“What’s the story?” Mike said.
“You know most of it. The crux of it is that belt of Laura’s. It’s still in operation, we know that; and I think it’s somehow invaded her mind. The way she’s been acting since the accident isn’t like her. And the effect she’s had on events outside her own personal interests has been too great to shrug off. It includes creating a body out of nothing.”
“A body?” Niki said. “You mean—she killed Jonas? But we all saw him electrocuted while we were a long way away from the generators—”
“You’re close, Niki, I think she created Jonas—or the belt did.”
Chapelin said: “Maybe you’d better go to bed, Hal.”
“Maybe. First, you can explain to me why we haven’t a single record in this camp which mentions ’old Jonas’ before the accident happened. Check me if you like. Odd, isn’t it? The first time he’s mentioned is when we buried him. And the Council ship had never heard of him. To top it off—there are only five acceleration hammocks in the stores. Where’s Jonas’s? Did he come here in a bucket?” “We buried him in his hammock,” Laura said in a small voice.
“Did we? We only had five hammocks to begin with, the QM record shows it. It also shows rations for only five.
With one less person, we should be accumulating an overstock of food, but we aren’t, though we’re eating exactly the same menus we’ve always eaten.”
“Suppose it’s so,” Mike Cohen said. “Suppose there never was any such person as Jonas—it’s a fantastic assumption, but your evidence seems to prove it—what’s the point of such a deception?”
“That,” Hal said, “is what I mean to find out. I also want to find out why I got about a century’s worth of advanced ultronic math shoved into my cranium tonight, all at once, just at the moment when I would have blown us to kingdom come without it.” He took the modulator out of his pocket. “This is the result. Knowing how not to blow us up fortunately includes knowing how to. Hand over that belt, Laura—or I’ll disrupt it!”
Laura said, “I…I can’t. You’re right, Hal. I can’t make everyone happy at once, so I have to admit it. But I can’t give up the belt.”
