Godspeed (13 page)

"Use your brains, Jay. If they had
already
been to Godspeed Base, they would know where it is. So then they wouldn't need to
find out
where it was from Paddy Enderton. So then they'd not have been searching and smashing and threatening at your mother's house. By the way, the location of
Paddy's Fortune
is one thing I don't want you discussing with anyone. I'd hate to get there, then find someone else had beaten us to it."

If my suggestion that Dan, the armless half of the two-half-man, might have grown back his limbs made no sense, it seemed to me that Doctor Eileen's notion of a
race
to get to
Paddy's Fortune
was just as wild. From everything that I could see we were the only people in the whole of Muldoon Spaceport preparing for a winter trip out. But she had mostly quieted my worries about Shaker.

He completed that process himself when he came to see us late in the afternoon, with our launch to space scheduled for the same evening. Doctor Eileen's two scientists had arrived a few hours earlier, carrying even less in the way of luggage than the skimpy bag that I had brought.

("They're
theorists,
Jay," Doctor Eileen said to me, as though that explained everything. "Not experimenters.")

I had never seen a scientist before, so I stared at the two men with a good deal of interest. They apparently had little in common. Walter Hamilton was tall and blond and pudgy, with a long, long chin and a little wispy beard that looked ready to fall off the end of it. He had a pale, unhealthy face adorned with a lifetime supply of pimples, as though he'd never been out in the sun in his whole life. If I had a face like that I'd consider suicide. But Walter Hamilton seemed pretty pleased with himself.

James Swift, standing awkwardly next to him, had flaming-red hair, bright enough to make Tom Toole's look drab. He was thin and no taller than me. He was also clean shaven, with more freckles than I had ever seen. He somehow seemed younger than he looked, if that makes any sense.

At the time I found it impossible to imagine either one of them standing up for two seconds to somebody like Tom Toole. Later I learned that when James Swift got his temper up—which was rather often—he wasn't afraid of anything.

Maybe Danny Shaker shared my first opinion. Certainly, he gave them no more than a glance when he walked into the room. He came right up to Doctor Eileen in his direct way and stood calmly in front of her.

"Tom Toole says you want to bring more passengers."

"I do. Two of them." She turned, to draw the other men into the conversation. "Dr. Hamilton, Dr. Swift, this is Captain Daniel Shaker, master of the
Cuchulain
." And then to Shaker: "As you can see, Captain, neither one resembles an armed bandit or a destroyer of ships. I cannot understand Mr. Toole's reluctance to give his approval."

"It's natural enough." Danny Shaker pointed to the unoccupied chair at our table and sat down in it opposite Doctor Eileen when she nodded her agreement. "Tom Toole is a solid, experienced spacer. He and I have been together on a score of trips out. But never one like this. Let me tell you what worries us." He tapped his index finger on the table. "First, we've got a woman on board. You."

"An old woman, Captain. Well past childbearing, and not with the age or appearance for men to fight over."

"True." Shaker made no attempt at polite disagreement. "Otherwise you can be sure I'd never have gone along with it. I did, but all the same it's a departure from custom that leaves Tom Toole uncomfortable. The other crew members won't like it any better than he does. But that's not the main thing that worries Tom—and me. Let me go on. Second"—another finger came tapping down on the table—"there's the fact that I don't know our destination, so I can't tell it to Tom or the rest of the crew."

"I explained that to you. If the crew knows it before we go to space, others may learn it, too. You'll be told our destination as soon as we're all aboard the
Cuchulain
and have left Erin orbit. You have my word on that."

"I appreciate it. But it doesn't tell me
why
you care if people know where you're going. And that leads me straight to my third point. The crew members aren't even on board yet, but already they're muttering that we are going out to the Forty Worlds to seek a great treasure."

I don't know how I looked, but my face felt as though it was burning up. A great treasure—
Paddy's Fortune.
But how could anyone else know that?

Doctor Eileen didn't blink an eye. "I don't know what your crew thinks a 'great treasure' might be, but I'll tell you this: I'll be amazed if we find anything on this trip that the average spacer would consider valuable."

"All that gives me is your opinion of an 'average spacer.' But I'm telling you what my crew is thinking. And anything that worries my crew worries me—and it ought to worry you. An unhappy crew is an inefficient one, maybe a dangerous one. Anyway, fourth and finally, you came along this morning and dropped another surprise on Tom Toole: You want to take along these gentlemen"—Shaker's smile to James Swift and Walter Hamilton somehow said that he at least had nothing personal against them—"without giving Tom or me one word of explanation as to who they are. That's a good way to start any crew muttering and grumbling."

"I didn't talk about this, because I didn't think you or the crew would care or understand. But I'll stop the muttering, right now." Doctor Eileen swung around in her chair. "Dr. Swift, will you please tell Captain Shaker exactly who you are, and what you do."

I have known Eileen Xavier's habits all my life, so what she had just done came as no surprise to me. But it certainly startled James Swift when he was suddenly called onstage. As he was facing Danny Shaker he had his profile to me, and I saw a pink flush creep all the way out to the tip of his ear.

"I'm—er—I'm James Swift." He glared accusingly at Doctor Eileen, and ducked his chin. "I am a professor—a
full
professor—in the Physics Department at Belfast University."

"And what do you do?" prompted Doctor Eileen. James Swift seemed reluctant to continue. "Do you teach?"

"Not usually. I do research. Into massive free fields. And the breaking of conformal invariance."

The prompting this time came from Danny Shaker, as a laugh and a rueful shake of his head. "Run that by me one more time, professor. In simpler words, if you can find them."

"I specialize in field theory. Some classical fields, but mostly quantum fields." James Swift raised his head, so he could look down his nose at Danny Shaker. "Actually, I'm particularly interested in certain formulations of quantum gravity. The theories lead to a group of bubble models, and some of those offer a number of different possible structures for space-time. All of them are fully covariant, even with third-order quantization. But none of them has ever actually been tested, because the energies are extremely high, while the distances involved are very short. That's why everything so far has been pure theory—but it is very promising theory."

He didn't sound as though he had finished, but he did pause for breath. That was space enough for Doctor Eileen to raise her hand and say, "Stop it right there for the moment. Captain?"

James Swift's words had all been gibberish to me, and I could very well see how Danny Shaker might think they had been designed to confuse him deliberately. But all he said was, "Quite right, Doctor Xavier. I won't be passing any of that on to the crew. If they want it, which I doubt, they can get it from Dr. Swift directly. But
two
scientists—"

Eileen Xavier nodded. "You'll see. Dr. Hamilton, if you would be so kind—"

The other man had had time to prepare himself. He nodded and began smoothly, in a loud, lecturing voice. "My name is Walter Hamilton. I also am on the faculty of Belfast University. My original degrees were in physics, biology, and communications, but for the past seven years I have specialized in the history of science. In particular, I have specialized in the period immediately after the Isolation."

He paused for effect, long enough for me to decide that he sounded pompous and probably was. "It may sound like a purely academic activity," he continued, "but it is actually highly practical. Following the Isolation, the near-collapse of Erin civilization was so severe that an enormous amount of scientific and technical knowledge was lost. It has never been regained. I seek to define that loss as completely as possible, with the final objective of re-creating what was once known."

In the past few days I had heard more talk of the Isolation and its effects than ever before. But little of what Walter Hamilton had to say seemed to be any surprise to Danny Shaker. He was nodding.

"Some spacers explore the Forty Worlds, professor, with similar objectives. Though I must be honest, and admit that most of us are after things that bring a quicker profit. Technology is interesting, but light metals are
sure.
" Danny Shaker turned to Doctor Eileen. "I accept that these scientists are really scientists—something that Tom Toole was inclined to doubt. But I have not the slightest idea why you would want to bring them with you on board the
Cuchulain.
"

"I don't believe that, you know." Doctor Eileen stared right back at Danny Shaker. "Unless I misjudge you, Captain, you have a good idea what I'm about. But I'll say no more on the subject—until we're all in the
Cuchulain
and on our way."

Shaker's response was very strange. He didn't give a real reply at all. He simply shook his head, sighed, and said, "Thank God you're not one of my crew, doctor."

"Thank God I'm not," Doctor Eileen agreed. She and Danny Shaker were suddenly grinning at each other like lunatics.

"So that's it," said Shaker. Then he looked at me, winked, and added, "Three more hours, Jay. Just three more hours, and you'll be in the ferry ship, and off to space."

Baffling!

That was the first time I realized that you could hear every word of a conversation—and at the end of it have no idea what had happened.

CHAPTER 12

The ferry ship took off with six of us on board: Doctor Eileen, Danny Shaker, Duncan West, Walter Hamilton, James Swift, and me. Mother made a special trip all the way around the south end of Lake Sheelin, just to say good-bye. She upset me by giving me a big hug and kiss, in front of just about everybody. Danny Shaker, thank Heaven, had vanished away into the ferry vessel before her arrival, or my embarrassment would have been even worse.

Tom Toole stayed behind, to bring the rest of the crew as soon as they arrived at Muldoon. He said they would be up later in the day. They were squeezing out a last few hours of home leave. At the time I saw no reason to question that explanation.

It also never occurred to me that a launch at night might be quite different from a daytime liftoff. But it was. For one thing, I felt a powerful acceleration holding me down in my seat, in place of yesterday's gentle float upward. For another, during the day the bright sunlight had overwhelmed everything else. But at night, with only dark lake and countryside below us, the ionization produced by the lift system could be seen all around the lower part of the ship as a ghostly violet fire. It made me aware of the searing energy just beneath my feet.

That led to another thought: Suppose that the power applied by the launch grid
failed,
as we were rising toward orbit? The ferry ship was not built to glide. It would plummet back to the ground like a falling rock.

I don't think I was the only one with worries. In fact, the other passengers—even Doctor Eileen and Uncle Duncan, who usually never seemed bothered by anything—sat fidgeting in their seats and shooting nervous glances at the display screens. Walter Hamilton and James Swift appeared absolutely petrified. I wondered what Doctor Eileen had told them, to lure the learned professors into space. Only Danny Shaker sat calmly in front of the controls. He did not touch the switches once, and when he noticed my eyes on him he gave a little jerk of his head toward the others and winked.

Downsiders,
his expression said.
Look at them!

It was exactly what I needed. I stopped thinking of falling and dying, and began to take notice of what was happening around me.

The view below the ship was nothing more than a pale violet glow of ionized gases, but other screens set higher in the control room walls showed what lay above us or far off to the side. We were already a few miles up, beyond the deepest part of the atmosphere. I had a quick view of familiar stars, brighter than I had ever seen them. Then they vanished as the screen filled with dazzling light.

Danny Shaker glanced across at me again, but I realized what was happening and spoke before he did.

"Sunrise!"

He nodded approvingly. It was sunrise, or more accurately it was sunset in reverse. We had risen far enough that Maveen had become visible again in the western sky, no longer shielded by the dark curve of Erin's surface.

I realized for the first time that far out in space the sun would never be hidden; a spacer would enjoy perpetual day.

But we were not yet that far out. Under the urging of the launch grid, the ferry ship began to tilt and accelerate toward the east, picking up speed to move us to orbit. After a few minutes Maveen slid back below the horizon and we were flying again in darkness.

It was my second surprise. Danny Shaker had told me that we were going to Upside, which was in stationary orbit somewhere far above Muldoon. I had imagined that the ferry ship would simply fly straight up until we were there. Instead I now learned that we would spiral our way outward, passing through half a dozen brief days and nights before we finally came to rendezvous with the space docks.

As we rose higher I peered at the displays that pointed out and down to the surface of Erin. Where were the great towns, the cities that I had read about in my school lessons? I saw no sign of them. They were not even dark dots or points of light on the mottled surface. From this height the world below could have been a planet on which humans had never set foot.