VII - Detour

Immediately after the destruction of Circum-Terra the ship's warning signal howled and loudspeakers bellowed, ordering all hands to acceleration stations. The Nautilus blasted away, shaping her orbit for the weary trip to Venus. When she was up to speed and spin had been placed on her to permit sure footing the control room secured from blast stations. Don unstrapped and hurried to the radio room. Twice he had to argue to get past sentries.

He found the door open; everyone inside seemed busy and paid him no attention. He hesitated, then stepped inside. A long hand reached out and grabbed him by the scruff. "Hey! Where the deuce do you think you're going?"

Don answered humbly, "I just want to send a message."

"You do, eh? What do you think of that, Charlie?" His captor appealed to a soldier who was bending over a rig.

The second soldier pushed one earphone up. "Looks like a saba-toor. Probably an A-bomb in each pocket."

An officer wandered out of an inner room. "What goes on here?"

"Sneaked in, sir. Says he wants to send a message."

The officer looked Don up and down. "Sorry. No can do. Radio silence. No traffic outgoing."

"But," Don answered desperately, "I've just got to." Quickly he explained his predicament. "I've got to let them know where I am, sir."

The officer shook his head. "We couldn't raise Mars even if we were not in radio silence."

"No, sir, but you could beam Luna, for relay to Mars."

"Yes, I suppose we could - but we won't. See here, young fellow, I'm sorry about your troubles but there is no possibility, simply none at all, that the commanding officer will permit silence to he broken for any reason, even one much more important than yours. The safety of the ship comes first."

Don thought about it. "I suppose so," he agreed forlornly.

"However, I wouldn't worry too much. Your parents will find out where you are."

"Huh? I don't see how. They think I'm headed for Mars."

"No, they don't-or won't shortly. There is no secret now about what has happened; the whole system knows it. They can find out that you got as far as Circum-Terra; they can find out that the Glory Road did not fetch you back. By elimination, you must be on your way to Venus. I imagine that they are querying Interplanet about you right now."

The officer turned away and said, "Wilkins, paint a sign for the door saying, `Radio Silence-No Messages Accepted.' We don't want every civilian in the ship barging in here trying to send greetings to Aunt Hattie."

Don bunked in a third-class compartment with three dozen men and a few boys. Some passengers who had paid for better accommodations complained. Don himself had had first-class passage booked for the Valkyrie and Marsbut he was glad that he had not been silly enough to object when he saw the disgruntled returning with their tails between their legs. First-class accommodations, up forward, were occupied by the High Guard.

His couch was comfortable enough and a space voyage, dull under any circumstances, is less dull in the noise and gossip of a bunkroom than it is in the quiet of a first-class stateroom. During the first week out the senior surgeon announced that any who wished could avail themselves of cold-sleep. Within a day or two the bunkroom was half deserted, the missing passengers having been drugged and chilled and stowed in sleep tanks aft, there to dream away the long weeks ahead.

Don did not take cold-sleep. He listened to a bunkroom discussion, full of half facts, as to whether or not cold-sleep counted against a man's lifetime. "Look at it this way," one passenger pontificated. "You've got so long to live-right? It's built into your genes; barring accidents, you live just that long. But when they put you in the freezer, your body slows down. Your clock stops, so to speak. That time doesn't count against you. If you had eighty years coming to you, now you've got eighty years plus three months, or whatever. So I'm taking it."

"You couldn't be wronger," he was answered. "More wrong, I mean. What you've done is chop three months right out of your life. Not for me!"

"You're crazy. I'm taking it."

"Suit yourself. And another thing-" The passenger who opposed it leaned forward and spoke confidentially, so that only the entire bunkroom could hear. "They say that the boys with the bars up front question you while you are going under. You know why? Because the Commodore thinks that spies slipped aboard at Circum-Terra."

Don did not care which one was right. He was too much alive to relish deliberately "dying" for a time simply to save the boredom of a long trip. But the last comment startled him. Spies? Was it possible that the I.B.I. had agents right under the noses of the High Guard? Yet the I.B.I. was supposed to be able to slip in anywhere. He looked around at his fellow passengers, wondering which one might be traveling under a false identity.

He put it out of his mind-at least the I.B.I. was no longer interested in him.

Had Don not known that he was in the Nautilus headed for Venus he might well have imagined himself in the Valkyrie headed for Mars. The ships were of the same class and one piece of empty space looks like another. The Sun grew daily a little larger rather than smaller-but one does not look directly at the Sun, not even from Mars. The ship's routine followed the same Greenwich day kept by any liner in space; breakfast came sharp on the bell; the ship's position was announced each "noon"; the lights were dimmed at "night."

Even the presence of soldiers in the ship was not conspicuous. They kept to their own quarters forward and civilians were not allowed there except on business. The ship was forty-two days out before Don again had any reason to go forward-to get a cut finger dressed in sick bay. On his way aft he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.

He recognized Sergeant McMasters. The sergeant was wearing the star of a master-at-arms, a ship's policeman. "What are you doing," he demanded, "skulking around here?"

Don held up his damaged digit. "I wasn't skulking; I was getting this attended to."

McMasters looked at it. "Mashed your finger, eh? Well, you're in the wrong passageway. This leads to the bomb room, not to passengers' quarters. Say, I've seen you before, haven't I?"

"Sure."

"I remember. You're the lad who thought he was going to Mars."

"I'm still going to Mars."

"So? You seem to favor the long way around-by about a hundred million miles. Speaking of the long way around, you haven't explained why I find you headed toward the bomb room."

Don felt himself getting red. "I don't know where the bomb-room is. If I'm in the wrong passage, show me the right one."

"Come with me." The sergeant led him down two decks where the spin of the ship made them slightly heavier and conducted Don into an office. "Sit down. The duty officer will be along."

Don remained standing. "I don't want to see the duty officer. I want to go back to my bunkroom."

"Sit down, I said. I remember your case. Maybe you were just turned around but could be you took the wrong turn on purpose."

Don swallowed his annoyance and sat. "No offense," said McMasters. "How about a slug of solvent?" He went to a coffee warmer and poured two cups.

Don hesitated, then accepted one. It was the Venerian bean, black and bitter and very strong. Don found himself beginning to like McMasters. The sergeant sipped his, grimaced, then said, "You must be born lucky. You ought to be a corpse by now."

"Huh?"

"You were scheduled to go back in the Glory Road, weren't you? Well?"

"I don't track you."