CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The form that had occupied the body of Judith Niles had left unspecified the “small favor” being done on behalf of the crew of the Argo. Even when the nature of the favor, as an accelerated return to Gulf City, was recognized, its magnitude had yet to be measured.
The result, reported by Eva Packland and Gus Eldridge, staggered everyone — even the phlegmatic Sy.
“Ninety-nine point nine nine seven percent of light-speed,” he said. “Let’s see now.” He entered a couple of numbers into his own hand-held. “That gives us a time dilation factor of almost a hundred and thirty. Shipboard travel time back to Gulf City will be less than seventeen years. Which means just three days in S-space. We’ll be there before we know it.”
“And then what?” Dan Korwin seemed in a state of permanent rage. The loss of Judith Niles had left a leadership gap, which Korwin obviously felt best qualified to fill. That others, such as Libby Trask, Emil Garville, Charlene Bloom, and Alfredo Roewen, seemed much more ready to assign that role to a reluctant Sy, did nothing to make Korwin less angry. He went on, “You keep insisting, based on no evidence whatsoever, that the aliens will stop the Argo for us when we get to Gulf City. I hope so. Because I’ll tell you now, I don’t know how to stop this ship.”
“That, I can easily believe.” Sy did not let himself be drawn. “I still say that the aliens will do it.”
“How?”
“I have no idea. The same way they’re protecting us on the way. Do you realize what should be happening to us at this speed? Individual atoms of interstellar hydrogen ought to blast through the Argo like bullets, riddling our bodies and equipment. But everything and everyone is just fine.”
“You have a damned sight more faith in alien goodwill than I do.” Korwin glared at Sy, spun around on his heel, and walked out.
“He’s right, you know,” Emil said. “We are taking an awful lot on faith.” “Not true.” Sy considered for a moment, then went on, “I have made not one decision or taken a single action that depends in any way on an assumption as to the benign nature of alien intentions. Judith Niles was removed, and her body used, independent of anything I might have thought or wished. I did nothing to increase the speed of this ship to its present value. Nor could I have done so, even if I wished to. I merely point out that if the aliens had wanted to destroy us, they could have done it very easily. Simply allowing the Argo to continue on its course toward the intense fields around Urstar would have accomplished that. Why would they save us then, in order to destroy us now?”
Emil had shoulders as wide as a door, and now he shrugged them. “You would be the first to tell us not to make assumptions about alien motives.” “I would. I do. I don’t know how aliens think. All I am asking is a certain consistency to their behavior. Admit that, and you will conclude that if they did not stand by and permit us to destroy ourselves then, they will not permit it now. In any case, we will know soon enough if I am right. In three S-days, we will either be stationary at Gulf City and ready to dock the Argo there; or we will be racing past at so close to the speed of light that Gulf City will come and go before we know it.”
Sy left, heading in the same direction as Dan Korwin. Charlene doubted that his objective was continued polite conversation. Sy didn’t allow his feelings to show, but there was no doubt about Korwin’s intense dislike for him. She glanced at Emil. He rubbed his cratered skull and said, “Just three more days, dear. We waited long enough to get to Urstar. I guess we can stand to wait a little longer to see what happens when we get home.”
Maybe he could. Charlene couldn’t. What was apparently true for everyone else on the Argo was not true for her. She could not get over the loss of Judith Niles. She had never really liked the Director, in the usual meaning of that word, but her respect for JN had been enormous. To see her gone, so suddenly and finally, the dominant force on the Argo — and before that on Gulf City, and long before that on and around Earth — was too much. JN had been changed in a moment, from the living, breathing legend who embodied human endurance and determination, to a dried husk of dead tissue. The body was in cold storage, pending a full autopsy by medical and state-change specialists back on Gulf City. That was almost worse than if she had disappeared entirely.
It was all too much for Charlene. No matter what JN might have become in a new incarnation, her vanishing from this one was a break with eighty millennia of work together. No one else on board shared that long history, but to Charlene the separation came as a gigantic shock.
Emil was eager for her company, and he wanted to discuss with her everything that had happened since their progress toward Urstar had been abruptly terminated. But for Charlene, even Emil’s easy company and conversation were too much to take. She fled forward to where the state-change tanks were housed, and placed herself in cold sleep pending the ship’s arrival at Gulf City. As the cold blue mist swirled about her, she was filled with a sense of old loss and new foreboding.
Progress. There had been progress. The return from cold sleep, once a procedure that left the subject shaky and uncertain, had become quick and easy. Charlene opened her eyes in what felt like the middle of a continued thought, and saw Emil staring down at her.
“Did I? — “ she began.
“You did. We’re at Gulf City, and it’s not at all the way we expected. Can you walk?”
“Of course I can.”
“Then let’s go.” He lifted her effortlessly from the tank and led the way out of the tank room and out of the ship.
The Argo was sitting in one of Gulf City’s monster docking stations. Charlene and Emil were in N-space, not S-space. She knew that at once, not because they were moving in a field that was a substantial fraction of a gee, but because the robots around them trundled along slowly enough to be visible at all times. “Where are the others?” she asked, meaning the others of the Argo’s crew. Emil misunderstood the question. “I wish I could tell you,” he said. “All we know at the moment is that the whole place seems to be deserted. Abandoned.” Charlene stared at the busy robots. “But there are scores of these, all over the place.”
“I meant empty of people. We’re scattering through Gulf City, looking for humans, but so far no one has reported finding any. We’re also checking the data banks, to learn what happened here. Come on.”
Over the centuries and millennia, Gulf City had grown from a docking port and temporary facility to an extended space city. Charlene, carried to any preferred destination by service robots when in S-space, had never had a feeling for Gulf City’s swelling dimensions. Now, walking along corridors and through chambers in N-space, she became aware of the city’s size and complexity. Without the guidance robots, she and Emil would have been helpless. The idea of a systematic search of the whole of Gulf City for possible human presence was unthinkable. “Won’t be necessary,” Emil said in answer to her question. His tone was grim. “We have reason to believe that we will find no other humans anywhere on Gulf City.”
“Everyone left?”
“They did; but they also left messages.”
“What did they say?”
“Better if you see for yourself, rather than my trying to summarize. We’re there.”
The robot guide was leading them into a place that seemed oddly familiar. It was the old control center for Gulf City, but a control center that had been modified by the addition of arrays of unfamiliar equipment. Most of the crew of the Argo slumped in chairs around the periphery of the chamber, with expressions ranging from suspicion to despair.