E c tubb, p.8
E C Tubb, page 8
of Earth were as void of human activity as they had been since the pre-D probes had made their voyages, as empty as they had been before rockets had burst free of Earth's gravity.
The stars shone like a nacreous cloud, billions of suns and multibillions of worlds. Why waste time on Mars and Venus and balls of freezing gas when fertile worlds were waiting to be found for the looking?
And it was so easy: Locate a G-type star and, almost invariably, it would be attended by planets.
Pick one not too far out and not too far in, one with a moon and exposed seas, and simply take over.
The chances were high that it would hold only beasts or the traces of a long-vanished civilization. There would be minerals and arable soil and fecund vegetation. Harvests would be big, and if there were any troublesome life forms, gas and guns and flame would take care of them. If they were too tough, then move on. If the place got too crowded, then move on.
Mankind was always on the move.
Varl blinked as the stars began to blur and closed his eyes to rest with the heels of his hands pressed against them. The pressure caused flares of color and bright swirls which persisted even when he lowered his hands, as ghost images dancing against the stars.
"Kurt? You all right?"
"Yes."
"Sure? You look -- " Machen broke off, shaking his head.
"Like what?" Varl pressed for an answer. "Like what, Piers?"
"Hell," Machen said. "You look like hell."
Like a man who had not slept for too long; like a man who had not eaten. Varl looked at his reflection in the crystal cover of a dial and ran his hand over his chin. Starlight shone in his eyes with dulled reflection.
"You need a steak, a bottle, and a bed," the navigator said. "Why don't you give yourself a treat, Commander?"
Instead, he went to see a man who believed in ghosts.
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*CHAPTER 12*
BEN Lydon had a bleeding nose. He looked at Varl from over the edge of a handkerchief, the once-spotless fabric now dappled with crimson. "An accident, Commander. I was trying to help when I was hit."
"What with? A fist?"
"The back of a hand. The man didn't know I was behind him."
"Where?"
"The passage leading to the lower hold. I'm detailed to check for leaks and seal any I find. I was careless and didn't look where I was going."
The smack in the nose could have been the accident Lydon claimed, but Varl sensed another explanation: a burst of irritation from someone more efficient or a spiteful man taking a sneaky revenge.
He decided to find the one responsible. A slap could turn into a punch, which could lead to something more violent. If a potential sadist was aboard, Varl wanted to know it. "Come to the sick bay," he said.
"You're messing up the ship."
Stacey was apparently asleep when they entered the compartment, sitting slumped against the bulkhead, eyes closed, breathing ragged. Varl crossed toward him, stooped, smelled his breath. The doctor opened his eyes as the commander lifted his hand.
"No need for that," he said. "1 was just resting my eyes."
"With the help of brandy?"
"One drink -- medically prescribed." Stacey looked at Lydon. "Trouble?"
"Just a nosebleed. It isn't important."
"Maybe not, but let's have a look at it just the same." The doctor pursed his lips as he kneaded the cartilage. "It's broken. I'll set, freeze, and staunch it. You won't need more than a scrap of tape to hold it, but don't emulate trumpets when you blow it. In fact, try not to blow it at all." He worked with brisk
efficiency. "That should do it. Try not to run into any more doors."
"What?"
"A joke." Stacey shook his head at Lydon's expression. "You haven't had to treat women with heavy-handed boyfriends. Broken noses, blacked eyes -- all the result of walking into doors." He turned to Varl. "Am I on a charge?"
"Not this time." Varl wondered if Erica had known when she had cleared the doctor of his weakness for alcohol.
"And not a casualty either." Stacey rubbed his cheek where Varl's hand would have landed.
Back in the engine room, Varl watched Lydon check out his machine. The dials with their esoteric markings meant nothing to him, and neither did the antenna and projections, the spinning discs, the peculiarly shaped grids and rhomboids. Lydon claimed this machine generated psychic power, emulating the emanations of the human psyche, amplifying and projecting them far beyond the confines of the vessel.
"Is it in operation?"
"No." Lydon's bandaged nose gave a clownish touch to the austere lineaments of his face. "I've balanced the various components but have not been able to make the final tests as yet. The engineer ordered me not to," he explained. "Not until he was satisfied there could be no interference with the hydee. And not until calibration was completed."
"And now?"
"It's ready for testing."
And, Van thought, Lydon's reputation with it. Lydon was an expert in a field in which there were no grades, no honors, no neatly printed diplomas. How could the value of a ghost hunter be assessed? By his bag?
Varl studied the machine. The principle of the PEAP was simple, its operation something else.
Lydon explained. "A person, any person, is a biological machine. Every cell carries an electrical charge and can be affected by a magnetic field. This has been proved again and again in the field of radiation-assisted therapeutic medicine. Bones knit faster when exposed to an electrical induction field.
Tissue reacts more strongly. And there can be no doubt as to the electrical nature of the brain --
electroencephalograrns proved that centuries ago. So we have a radiating mesh of energy generated by cellular current. One which can be measured and duplicated."
"Copied?"
"Not exactly." Lydon sounded regretful. "If that could be done a new era would be open to us. If we could make an exact facsimile of a person's energy field then that person could be frozen in time and later duplicated in an artificial body of an organic nature. No, what I have done is to devise a means of radiating the aura of a crowd. Of, if you like, creating ghosts."
Energy fields were created, shaped, transmitted -- if such fields were released from their cellular prisons at death, what else were ghosts? Energy imprints on the fabric of time.
"Are you ready to test?" Varl asked.
"Yes, but -- "
"We are at rest relative to the asteroids. The hydee isn't working, and if ghosts can harm the _Odile_
it's time we found out. Run your test."
Lydon hesitated, dabbing at his nose, then seemed to come to a decision. "Turn away from me.
Close your eyes. Concentrate on your surroundings."
"A trick?"
"No, how can there be? But you, yourself, are a detector of the energies I am about to release. I don't want you to be affected by anything I may do or your eyes should witness. Please, Commander, bear with me."
Varl turned and looked at the expanse of the engine room, the sheen of machines, the lights that provided that reflected illumination. The compartment had been cleared by his order and, aside from Lydon and himself, was deserted.
"Ready, Commander?"
Varl obediently closed his eyes. "Ready."
Nothing.
Nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the soft rustle of clothing as his companion moved toward the machine. But what had he said? To concentrate on the surroundings. To think of the bleakness of metal and reflected light. Of the vast emptiness of space, the vacuum beyond the hull, the infinite void. Of his own youth and early manhood. Of the bleakness of command. The loneliness of a cell.
Then, suddenly, he was in a crowd.
"What -- " He jerked to his feet, eyes opened, head moving as he stared from side to side. He saw nothing but the empty compartment and yet he knew, he _knew,_ he was not alone, that around him, filling the engine room, was a host of people.
Ghosts.
The emanations created by the machine aped the attributes of real people. Closing his eyes, Varl could imagine them laughing, smiling, moving about -- a busy, bustling throng. He knew they were there as a blind man would know of the presence of others, as a primitive savage crouching in a cave would know of the presence of enemies.
The crowd vanished as quickly as it had come.
"Well, Commander?" Lydon smiled with a quiet triumph. "Is that what you wanted?"
Varl drew in his breath. "Were you operating at maximum?"
"No. Low register only. I can increase the amplification to a far higher level and, of course, the projection. Do you want a further demonstration?"
"No."
"Then what about more tests? I'd like to -- "
"Later." The crew were under enough tension without having to suffer more -- ghostly presences were something they could do without. "Could such a device work in reverse?" Varl asked with genuine interest.
"Catch and amplify the fading energies of a person who has died?" Lydon glanced at his invention.
"That's what so interested the media when I was foolish enough to admit the possibility to a news hound.
He didn't listen to anything but one item of speculation, and the story cost me my position with Ohio University."
"I'm not interested in headlines. Will it?"
"Resurrect the dead? No."
"That wasn't what I asked."
"No," Lydon admitted. "It wasn't. Well, to answer your question, the possibility exists but is extremely remote. Theoretically it should be possible to capture the energy web, boost it, condense it, and achieve the original pattern. In which case we should have a scientific contradiction -- a disembodied person."
"A ghost?"
"Something which would be aware but unable to make contact on the physical plane. Which would be unaffected by material barriers. Which would be invisible to all but those few with supranormal abilities or those able, if only for a brief moment, to sense other planes and dimensions. Yes, Commander, as you said -- a ghost."
The dissolving fragment of a life and all that would be left of the struggle and achievement, the hope, the love and tenderness, the sadistic indulgence, the blend of angel and devil which made up a normal human being.
And after?
"Nothing ever really dies," Lydon said when Varl asked. "The law of the conservation of energy proves that. Burn a stick and you get ash and smoke and heat. Things change but never vanish, and the electrical field which once constituted the ego of a man, his individual awareness, that also must continue to exist."
Those who feared extinction might draw comfort from such thoughts, but Varl was not one of them.
From the engine room, he made his way through the ship, checking, lingering to examine installations, moving like a restless shadow to the operations room, where Erica sat at a table littered with papers, graphs, and printouts.
If he looked like hell she looked like heaven.
Varl stood looking at her, at the golden hair and the contours beneath her blouse, the long curve of her thighs and the delicate arch of her brows. A Valkyrie, a warrior-queen, or the high priestess of an esoteric god. Then she sighed and rubbed her brows and was just an ordinary woman gifted with a beautiful face and figure. She looked up as he moved closer to the table.
"Kurt! You look -- "
"Awful," he said. "I know. It'll pass." He pulled out a chair and sat. "Any results?"
"As yet all negative." Her voice was dull, betraying her own fatigue. "The figures should give us some kind of an answer, but if it's there I can't see it. Neither can the computer. No pattern, damn it! There's just no pattern!"
"Or one you can't recognize?"
"That could be true," she admitted. "But I'm beginning to think it's a matter of random selection. If so
-- " She broke off and shook her head. "There has to be something."
"You'll find it. Maybe tomorrow after you've had a rest."
"Maybe." She took a small box from her pocket, opened it, selected a pod, and crushed it between finger and thumb. She inhaled, her chest swelling as she drew the tingling aroma of ka'sence into her lungs. "When are we starting out?"
''When we're ready."
"A week? Two? A month?"
"As long as it takes. Why? Are you in a hurry?"
"Kalif's getting anxious. Two more ships have been reported as missing." She rummaged among the papers and found the message slip. "Here. I've decoded it."
"Both ships were big ones, right?" Van asked.
"Both had total complements of over four hundred. How did you know?"
Varl took the slip without answering and read the details. The message which followed held the usual platitudes and exhortations, promises, and fulsome praise, and he wondered why the Comptroller thought they would do any good. Habit, he guessed, and the detachment of age. He crumpled the slip in his hand.
"Heroes," Varl said. "Who the hell is he talking about?"
"Us," Erica said. "We're meeting the challenge, facing the danger, protecting mankind. We're crusaders venturing into the dark to face the great unknown. To fight it and beat it and return victorious.
Heroes, Kurt, you see?"
Varl had a better word -- bait!
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*CHAPTER 13*
SHIP'S council was held in the operations room, not the largest compartment but the most convenient, and from his seat at the head of the table Varl glanced at each officer in turn. Cole had a plaster on one temple, the result of a careless step while on suit drill -- he had been lucky the impact with asteroidal mass had not cracked his faceplate. Asner had a seared hand, burned while adjusting a machine; like Cole, he had been careless because of fatigue. Others had suffered similar injuries.
Varl spoke. "We're about ready to start out, and this meeting is to put you all in the picture. You all know what we're looking for. Any ideas on how to find it?"
"Trace the paths of the lost ships," Owen suggested. "Keep it up long enough and what hit them will hit us."
"And, when it does, we'll be ready for them, eh, Dan?" Stacey said.
"That's right." Owen missed the sarcasm. "We'll blast it with everything we have."
"Do we know the path the lost ships took, Commander?" Mboto asked.
"No." Varl anticipated the next question. "There is no discernible pattern to the missing vessels, and I don't think one can be found. Erica?"
"I've checked and rechecked, and the answer is zero. It's a random happening. Ships have been reported lost from all regions of the known galaxy." She leaned back, eyes shadowed by dark circles.
"So we've nothing to go on?" Mboto wanted to make the point clear for his record. "Then -- "
"No one said we have nothing to go on," Varl snapped. "Only that we have discovered no regular flight pattern the victims followed. But we do have similarities and points the ships had in common." He reached for a list and began to read details. "The _Virilian_ -- a total complement of around four hundred and fifty. The _Entarra_ -- five hundred. The _Beagle -- _three-fifty. The _Mary Rose_ -- almost six hundred. The _Snark_ -- five-fifty. You notice anything?"
"Big," Machen said. "They were all big."
"And carrying a lot of people." Mboto frowned. "Cargo ships are big too -- have they been vanishing?"
"Ships have always vanished for one reason or another and we can guess why -- navigational error, natural hazards, all the rest of it. But the reported incidence of loss is way below that of passenger-carrying vessels." Varl glanced at Stacey. "Doctor?"
"Just a thought: Has the fact the ships were carrying people anything to do with what happened to them?" If the doctor had been drinking, it did not show.
"Yes, I think it does," Van said. "I noticed the correlation almost from the first, possibly because it was the one fact most repeated to me. Big ships, large complements -- always the emphasis was on the number of people lost. I began to wonder if there wasn't a critical factor at work somewhere."
"Is there?"
"Maybe, but I don't know what it is. The reported losses range from ships carrying as low as fifty passengers and crew to as high as almost seven hundred." Varl paused. "I know there are larger ships carrying over a thousand, but they are mostly used on relatively short and regular runs."
"So we have another factor." Irene sat upright in her chair. "Large ships containing high numbers of people together with long journeys. So?"
"We're safe." Owen sounded regretful. "If fifty is the lower limit, we're way under that. We don't carry more than thirty."
"But -- " Mboto broke off as he saw Varl looking at him and recognized that his timing was wrong.
"But what shall we do?" he ended, lamely.
"Find a large ship and run along close to it," Cole said. "If it's attacked we'll be on hand."
"To do what?" Stacey asked acidly. "And how the hell will we know if it's being attacked? Run a wire from hull to hull? That won't work in hydee -- even I know that."
"I was thinking of short hops and regular rendezvous," Cole said stiffly. "We can keep relatively close. The _Lewanna_ could only have recently been hit -- some were still alive, remember? A companion ship might have been in time to join the action."
Even Cole knew such a desperate plan would not work; only stubbornness had made him improvise on his first, thoughtless suggestion.
"From the look of it, we're on a wild goose chase. Before we can even hope to hit what it is that is attacking the ships we have to find it," Asner said.
"Or attract it to us," Mboto said. "What we need is to make it seem that we are carrying far more people than we are. If a large complement is a factor, then we have to emulate it."
"How?" Machen snapped impatiently. "You can't turn thirty into three hundred. Not unless you use magic or -- " He blinked, finally understanding. "Of course! The PEAP!"
Varl stepped in. "It will work -- tests have already been completed. Once the PEAP is in operation, the _Odile_ will have the radiation index of a ship carrying hundreds. Any questions?"
Some questions were inevitable, but he was pleased how few there were.
Mboto summed it up again -- for the sake of the record, Van suspected. "So we head out under hydee with Lydon's machine working. And if we're attacked?"
