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place, or those little conveniences that go along with bathrooms. Sure, we're
being taken care of - but good?"
The voice that interrupted Donovan's tirade was not Powell's. It was
nobody's. It was there, hanging in open air - stentorian and petrifying in its
effects.
"GREGORY POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN! GREGORY POWELL!
MICHAEL DONOVAN! PLEASE REPORT YOUR PRESENT POSITIONS. IF
YOUR SHIP ANSWERS CONTROLS, PLEASE RETURN TO BASE. GREGORY
POWELL! MICHAEL DONOVAN!-"
The message was repetitious, mechanical, broken by regular, untiring
intervals.
Donovan said, "Where's it coming from?"
"I don't know." Powell's voice was an intense whisper, "Where do the
lights come from? Where does anything come from?"
"Well, how are we going to answer?" They had to speak in the intervals
between the loudly echoing, repeating message.
The walls were bare - as bare and as unbroken as smooth, curving metal
can be. Powell said, "Shout an answer."
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They did. They shouted, in turns, and together, "Position unknown!
Ship out of control! Condition desperate!"
Their voices rose and cracked. The short businesslike sentences became
interlarded and adulterated with screaming and emphatic profanity, but the
cold, calling voice repeated and repeated and repeated unwearyingly.
"They don't hear us," gasped Donovan. "There's no sending mechanism.
Just a receiver." His eyes focused blindly at a random spot on the wall.
Slowly the din of the outside voice softened and receded. They called
again when it was a whisper, and they called again, hoarsely, when there was
silence.
Something like fifteen minutes later, Powell said lifelessly, "Let's go
through the ship again. There must be something to eat somewheres." He did
not sound hopeful. It was almost an admission of defeat.
They divided in the corridor to the right and left. They could follow one
another by the hard footsteps resounding, and they met occasionally in the
corridor, where they would glare at each other and pass on.
Powell's search ended suddenly and as it did, he heard Donovan's glad
voice rise boomingly.
"Hey, Greg," it howled, "the ship has got plumbing. How did we miss
it?"
It was some five minutes later that he found Powell by hit-and-miss. He
was saying, "Still no shower baths, though," but it got choked off in the
middle.
"Food," he gasped.
The wall had dropped away, leaving a curved gap with two shelves. The
upper shelf was loaded with unlabeled cans of a bewildering variety of sizes
and shapes. The enameled cans on the lower shelf were uniform and Donovan
felt a cold draft about his ankles. The lower half was refrigerated.
"How... how-"
"It wasn't there, before," said Powell, curtly. "That wall section dropped
out of sight as I came in the door."
He was eating. The can was the preheating type with enclosed spoon
and the warm odor of baked beans filled the room. "Grab a can, Mike!"
Donovan hesitated, "What's the menu?"
"How do I know! Are you finicky?"
"No, but all I eat on ships are beans. Something else would be first
choice." His hand hovered and selected a shining elliptical can whose flatness
seemed reminiscent of salmon or similar delicacy. It opened at the proper
pressure.
"Beans!" howled Donovan, and reached for another. Powell hauled at
the slack of his pants. "Better eat that, sonny boy. Supplies are limited and we
may be here a long, long time."
Donovan drew back sulkily, "Is that all we have? Beans?"
"Could be."
"What's on the lower shelf?"
"Milk."
"Just milk?" Donovan cried in outrage.
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"Looks it."
The meal of beans and milk was carried through in silence, and as they
left, the strip of hidden wall rose up and formed an unbroken surface once
more.
Powell sighed, "Everything automatic. Everything just so. Never felt so
helpless in my life. Where's your plumbing?"
"Right there. And that wasn't among those present when we first
looked, either."
Fifteen minutes later they were back in the glassed-in room, staring at
each other from opposing seats.
Powell looked gloomily at the one gauge in the room. It still said
"parsecs," the figures still ended in "1,000,000" and the indicating needle
was still pressed hard against the zero mark.
In the innermost offices of the U. S. Robot & Mechanical Men Corp.
Alfred Lanning was saying wearily, "They won't answer. We've tried every
wavelength, public, private, coded, straight, even this subether stuff they have
now. And The Brain still won't say anything?" He shot this at Dr. Calvin.
"It won't amplify on the matter, Alfred," she said, emphatically. "It says
they can hear us... and when I try to press it, it becomes... well, it becomes
sullen. And it's not supposed to- Whoever heard of a sullen robot?"
"Suppose you tell us what you have, Susan," said Bogert.
"Here it is! It admits it controls the ship itself entirely. It is definitely
optimistic about their safety, but without details. I don't dare press it.
However, the center of disturbance seems to be about the interstellar jump
itself. The Brain definitely laughed when I brought up the subject. There are
other indications, but that is the closest it's come to an open abnormality."
She looked at the others, "I refer to hysteria. I dropped the subject
immediately, and I hope I did no harm, but it gave me a lead. I can handle
hysteria. Give me twelve hours! If I can bring it back to normal, it will bring
back the ship."
Bogert seemed suddenly stricken. "The interstellar jump!"
"What's the matter?" The cry was double from Calvin and Lanning.
"The figures for the engine The Brain gave us. Say... I just thought of
something."
He left hurriedly.
Lanning gazed after him. He said brusquely to Calvin, "You take care of
your end, Susan."
Two hours later, Bogert was talking eagerly, "I tell you, Lanning, that's
it. The interstellar jump is not instantaneousnot as long as the speed of light
is finite. Life can't exist... matter and energy as such can't exist in the space
warp. I don't know what it would be like - but that's it. That's what killed
Consolidated's robot."
Donovan felt as haggard as he looked. "Only five days?"
"Only five days. I'm sure of it."
Donovan looked about him wretchedly. The stars through the glass
were familiar but infinitely indifferent. The walls were cold to the touch; the
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lights, which had recently flared up again, were unfeelingly bright; the needle
on the gauge pointed stubbornly to zero; and Donovan could not get rid of the
taste of beans.
He said, morosely, "I need a bath."
Powell looked up briefly, and said, "So do I. You needn't feel
selfconscious. But unless you want to bathe in milk and do without drinking"
"We'll do without drinking eventually, anyway. Greg, where does this
interstellar travel come in?'
"You tell me. Maybe we just keep on going. We'd get there, eventually.
At least the dust of our skeletons would - but isn't our death the whole point
of The Brain's original breakdown?"
Donovan spoke with his back to the other, "Greg, I've been thinking. It's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]