Picnic on Nearside (5 page)

“No, and I haven’t the time now. Where’s the captain? There are some things he should—”

“Two old flat movies,” she went on, oblivious to his protests. “Have you ever seen one? They’re very interesting and entertaining.
A Night to Remember
and
The Poseidon Adventure
. I’ll make a reservation for you.”

Quester called out to her as she was leaving.

“I’m trying to tell you, there’s something badly wrong on this ship. Won’t anybody listen?”

But she was gone, vanished into the crowd of merrymakers. She was busy enough without taking time to listen to the wild tales of a nervous passenger.

Quester was not quite right in thinking of
Hell’s Snowball
as a ship. The official welcoming pamphlet referred to it as an asterite, but that was advertising jargon. Anyone else would have called it a comet.

Icarus Lines, Inc., the owners, had found it drifting along at a distance of 500 AU. It had been sixty kilometers in diameter, weighing in at about one hundred trillion tons.

Fortunately, it was made up of frozen liquids rich in hydrogen. Moving it was only a matter of installing a very large fusion motor, then sitting back for five years until it was time to slow it down for orbit in the umbra of Mercury.

The company knew they would not get many passengers on a bare snowball. They tunneled into the comet, digging out staterooms and pantries and crew’s quarters as they went. The ship-fitters went in and paneled the bare ice walls in metal and plastic, then filled the rooms with furniture. There was room to spare, power to spare. They worked on a grand scale, and they had a grand vision. They intended to use the captive comet for sightseeing excursions to the sun.

Things went well for fifty years. The engine would shove the
Snowball
out of the protective shadow and, with the expenditure of ten million tons of ice and ammonia for reaction mass, inject it into a hyperbolic orbit that would actually brush the fringes of the solar corona. Business was good.
Hell’s Snowball
became the vacation bonanza of the system, more popular than Saturn’s Rings.

But it had to end. This was to be the last trip. Huge as it is, there comes a time when a comet has boiled off too much of its mass to remain stable in a close approach to the sun.
Hell’s Snowball
was robbed of a hundred million tons with each trip. The engineers had calculated it was good for only one more pass before it cracked apart from internal heating.

But Quester was beginning to wonder.

There was the matter of the engines. Early on the fourth day of the excursion, Quester had gone on a guided tour of the farside of the comet to see the fusion engines. The guide had quoted statistics all the way through the tunnel, priming the tourists for the mind-wrenching sight of them. They were the largest rocket engines ever constructed. Quester and everyone else had been prepared to be impressed.

He
had
been impressed; first at the size of the pits that showed where the engines had been, then at the look of utter amazement on the face of the tour guide. Also impressive had been the speed with which the expression had been masked. The guide sputtered for only a moment, then quickly filled in with a story that almost sounded logical.

“I wish they’d tell me these things,” he laughed. Did the laugh sound hollow? Quester couldn’t tell for sure. “The engines weren’t due for removal until tomorrow. It’s part of our accelerated salvage program, you see, whereby we remove everything that can be of use in fitting-out the
Icarus
, which you all saw near Mercury when
you boarded. It’s been decided not to slow
Hell’s Snowball
when we complete this pass, but to let it coast on out where it came from. Naturally, we need to strip it as fast as possible. So equipment not actually needed for this trip has been removed already. The rest of it will be taken off on the other side of the sun, along with the passengers. I’m not a physicist, but evidently there is a saving in fuel. No need to worry about it; our course is set and we’ll have no further need of the engines.” He quickly shepherded the buzzing group of passengers back into the tunnel.

Quester was no physicist, either, but he could work simple equations. He was unable to find a way whereby Icarus Lines would save anything by removing the engines. The fuel was free; by their own admission whatever was left on the comet was to be discarded anyway. So why did it matter if they burned some more? Further, ships removing passengers and furnishings from the
Snowball
on the other side would have to match with its considerably velocity, then expend even more to slow down to solar system speeds. It sounded wasteful.

He managed to put this out of his mind. He was along for the ride, to have fun, and he wasn’t a worrier. He had probably dropped a decimal point somewhere in his calculations, or was forgetting a little-known fact of ballistics. Certainly no one else seemed worried.

When he discovered that the lifeboats were missing, he was more angry than frightened.

“What are they doing to us?” he asked the steward who had come when he pressed the service bell. “Just because this is the last trip, does that mean we’re not entitled to full protection? I’d like to know what’s going on.”

The steward, who was an affable man, scratched his head in bewilderment as he once more examined the empty lifeboat cradle.

“Beats me,” he said, with a friendly grin. “Part of the salvage operation, I guess. But we’ve never had a spot of trouble in over fifty years. I hear the
Icarus
won’t even carry lifeboats.”

Quester fumed. If, sometime in the past, an engineer had decided
Hell’s Snowball
needed lifeboats, he’d have felt a damn sight better if the ship still
had
lifeboats.

“I’d like to talk to someone who knows something about it.”

“You might try the purser,” the steward ventured, then quickly
shook his head. “No, I forgot. The purser didn’t make this trip. The first mate . . . no, she’s . . . I guess that leaves the captain. You might talk to him.”

Quester grumbled as he swam down the corridor toward the bridge. The company had no right to strip the ship before its final cruise. On the way there, he heard an announcement over the public address system.

“Attention. All passengers are to report to A Deck at 1300 hours for lifeboat drill. The purser . . . correction, the second officer will call the roll. Attendance is required of all passengers. That is all.”

The announcement failed to mollify him, though he was puzzled.

The door to the bridge was ajar. There was a string spanning the open doorway with a hand-lettered sign hanging from it.

“The captain can be found at the temporary bridge,” it read, “located on F Deck aft of the dispensary.” Inside the room, a work crew was removing the last of the electronic equipment. There was the smell of ozone and oil, and the purple crackle of sparks. The room was little more than an ice-walled shell.

“What . . .?” Quester began.

“See the captain,” the boss said tiredly, pulling out one of the last memory banks in a shower of shorting wires. “I just work here. Salvage crew.”

Quester was reminded more of a wrecking crew. He started back toward F Deck.

“Correction on that last announcement,” the PA said. “Lifeboat drill has been cancelled. The social director wishes to announce that he is no longer taking reservations for tours of the engine room. The second officer . . . correction, the third officer has requested all personnel to stay clear of the reactor room. There has been a slight spillage during the salvage program. Passengers are not to worry; this incident presents no danger to them. The power requirements of the ship are being taken over by the auxiliary reactor. The social director wishes to announce that tours of the auxiliary reactor are suspended. That is all.”

“Is it just me?” Quester asked himself as he drifted by the groups of other passengers, none of whom seemed upset by any of this.

He located the temporary bridge, at the end of a little-used corridor that was stacked high with plastic crates marked “Immediate Removal—Rush, Urgent, Highest Priority.” He insinuated his way past them with difficulty and was about to knock on the door when he was stopped by the sound of voices on the other side. The voices were angry.

“I tell you, we should abort this trip at once. I’ve lost the capability to maneuver the ship in the event of an emergency. I told you I wanted the attitude thrusters to remain in place until after perihelenion.”

“Captain, there is no use protesting now,” said another voice. “Maybe I agree with you; maybe I don’t. In any case. the engines are gone now, and there’s no chance of installing them again. There is to be no argument with these orders. The company’s in bad shape, what with outfitting the new asterite. Can you picture what it would cost to abort this trip and refund the fares to seven thousand passengers?”

“Hang the company!” the captain exploded. “This ship is
unsafe!
What about those new calculations I gave you—the ones from Lewiston? Have you looked them over?”

The other voice was conciliatory. “Captain, Captain, you’re wasting energy worrying about that crackpot. He’s been laughed out of the Lunar Academy; his equations simply do not work.”

“They look sound enough to me.”

“Take it from me, Captain, the best minds in the system have assured us that the
Snowball
will hold together. Why, this old hunk of junk is good for a dozen more trips, and you know it. We’ve erred, if at all, on the conservative side.”

“Well, maybe,” the captain grumbled. “I still don’t like that lifeboat situation, though. How many did you say we had left?”

“Twenty-eight,” the other soothed.

Quester felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

He peeked into the room, not knowing what he would say. But there was no one there. The voices were coming from a speaker on the wall. Evidently the captain was in another part of the ship.

He considered going to his cabin and getting drunk, then decided it was a bad idea. He would go to the casino and get drunk.

On the way he passed a lifeboat cradle that was not empty. It was the site of bustling activity, with crews hurrying up and down
ramps into the ship. He stuck his head in, saw that the seats had been stripped and the interior was piled high with plastic crates. More were being added every minute.

He stopped one of the workers and asked her what was going on.

“Ask the captain,” she shrugged. “They told me to stack these boxes in here, that’s all I know.”

He stood back and watched until the loading was complete, then was told to stand clear as the nullfield was turned off to allow the boat to drift clear of the
Snowball
. At a distance of two kilometers, the engines fired and the boat was away, blasting back toward the inner planets.

“Twenty-seven,” Quester mumbled to himself and headed for the casino.

“Twenty-seven?” the woman asked.

“Probably less by now,” Quester said with a broad shrug. “And they only hold fifty people.”

They were sitting together at the roulette table, pressed into close company by the random currents of humanity that ebbed and flowed through the room. Quester was not gambling; his legs had just happened to give out, and the nearest place to collapse had been the chair he was sitting in. The woman had materialized out of his alcoholic mist.

It was nice to get back to gravity after the weightless levels of the
Snowball
. But, he discovered, getting drunk in a weightless state was less hazardous. One needn’t worry about one’s balance. Here in the casino there was the problem of standing. It was too much of a problem for Quester.

The casino was located at one end of a slowly rotating arm, which was mounted horizontally on a pivoted mast that extended straight up from
Hell’s Snowball
. On the other end of the arm were the restaurants that served the passengers. Both modules were spherical; the structure resembled an anemometer with silver balls instead of cups on the ends. The view was tremendous. Overhead was the silver sphere that contained the restaurants. To one side was the slowly moving surface of the comet, a dirty gray even in the searing sunlight. To the other side were the stars and the main attraction: Sol itself, blemished with a choice collection
of spots. The viewing was going to be good this trip. If anyone was alive to view it, Quester added to himself.

“Twenty-seven, you say?” the woman asked again.

“That’s right, twenty-seven.”

“One hundred Marks on number twenty-seven,” she said and placed her bet. Quester looked up, wondering how many times he would have to repeat himself before she understood him.

The ball clattered to a stop, on number twenty-seven, and the croupier shoveled a tottering stack of chips to the woman. Quester looked around him again at the huge edifice he was sitting in, the incalculable tonnage of the spinning structure, and laughed.

“I wondered why they built this place,” he said. “Who needs gravity?”

“Why did they build it?” she asked him, picking up the chips.

“For him,” he said, pointing to the croupier. “That little ball would just hang there on the rim without gravity.” He felt himself being lifted to his feet, and stood in precarious balance. He threw his arms wide.

“For that matter, that’s what all the gravity in the system’s for. To bring those little balls down to the number, the old wheel of fortune; and when they’ve got your number, there’s nothing you can do because your number’s up, that’s all there is, twenty-seven, that’s all . . .”

He was sobbing and mumbling philosophical truths as she led him from the room.

The ride in the elevator to the hub of the rotating structure sobered Quester considerably. The gradually decreasing weight combined with the Coriolis effect that tended to push him against one wall was more than an abused stomach could take. The management knew that and had provided facilities for it. Quester vomited until his legs were shaky. Luckily, by then he was weightless and didn’t need them.