E. E. Smith

“ All ships' officers from First to Fifth had to be. And, as long as they lived or until the Procyon made port, all responsibility rested: First, upon First Officer Deston; and second, upon Second Officer Jones. Therefore Theodore and Bernice Jones came aboard Lifecraft Two, and Deston asked Newman to flit across to Lifecraft Three.
"Not me; I like the scenery here better." Newman's eyes raked Bernice's five-feet-eight of scantily-clad sheer beauty from ankles to coiffure. "If you're too crowded—I know a lifecraft carries only fifty people—go yourself." ”

“ We aren't what you'd call a happy family. She's been trying to make me marry an old goat of a prince and I finally told her to go roll her hoop—to get a divorce and marry the foul old beast herself. And to consolidate two empires, he's been wanting me to marry a multi-billionaire—who is also a louse and a crumb and a heel. ”

“ Your first job will be to build some kind of a brute-force, belt-or-gear thing to act as a clock. You will really work. Any more insubordination or any malingering at all and I'll put you into a lifecraft and launch you into space, where you can make your own laws and be monarch of all you survey. ”

“ Newman flitted—fast—and Barbara, turning to her husband, opened her mouth to speak and shut it. No, he would have killed the man; he would have had to. He still might have to. Wherefore she said instead: "Why'd you let him keep his pistol? The ... the slime! And after you actually saved his life, too!"
"With some people what's past doesn't count. The other was just a gesture. Psychology. It'll slow him down, I think. Besides, he'd have another one as soon as we get back into the Procyon."
"But you can lock up all their guns, can't you?" Bernice asked. ”

“ In?"
"Oh, bars, trapeze, ground-and-lofty tumbling, acrobatics, aerialistics, high-wire, muscle-control, judo—all that kind of thing."
"Ouch! So if you ever happen to accidentally get mad at me you'll tie me right up into a pretzel?"
"I doubt it; very seriously. I've tossed lots of two-hundred-pounders around, of course, but they were not space officers." She laughed unaffectedly as she tested his musculature much more professionally and much more thoroughly than he had tested hers. "Definitely I couldn't. A good big man can always take a good little one, you know." ”

“ Deston exclaimed. "Do you mean we'll have to blast normal to a system?"
"It isn't as bad as you think, Babe," Jones said. "Stars are much thicker here—we're in the center somewhere—than around Sol. The probability is point nine plus that any emergence would put us less than point four light-years away from a star. A couple of them show disks. I haven't measured any yet; have you, Doc?"
"Yes. Point two two, approximately, to the closest."
"So what?" Deston demanded. "What's the chance of it having an Earth-type planet?"
"Any solid planet will do," Adams said. "Just so it has plenty of mass." ”

“ You're either psychic or the biggest wolf in the known universe, and I know you aren't a wolf. If you hadn't been as psychic as I am, you'd've jumped clear out into subspace when a perfectly strange girl attacked you. ”

“ The big man could very well have been dying on his feet. To make sure, however—or to keep the girl from knowing that she had killed a man?—Deston and Jones each put a bullet through the falling head before it struck the rug. ”

“ Eddie demanded. "D'you think I'd even try to play footsie with Barbara Warner?"
"You'd play footsie with the Archangel Michael's sister if she'd let you; and she probably would. So who's Barbara Warner?"
Eddie Thompson gazed at his superior pityingly. "I know you're ten nines per cent monk, Babe, but I did think you pulled your nose out of the megacycles often enough to learn a few of the facts of life. Did you ever hear of Warner Oil?"
"I think so." Deston thought for a moment. "Found a big new field, didn't they? In South America somewhere?"
"Just the biggest on Earth, is all. ”

“ Adams explained, unmoved. "This material is new. There are many extremely difficult problems involved, and I have less than a year to work on them. Less than one year; and it is a task for a team of specialists and all the resources of a research center."
To the officers, however, Adams went into more detail. "Considering the enormous amounts of supplies carried; the scope, quantity, and quality of the safety devices employed; it is improbable that we are the first survivors of a subspace catastrophe to set course for a planet." ”

“ No other lifecraft had escaped. A conference was held.
Weeks of work would be necessary before Deston and Jones could learn even approximately what the damage to the Procyon had been. Decontamination was automatic, of course, but there would be literally hundreds of hot spots, each of which would have to be sought out and neutralized by hand. The passengers' effects would have to be listed and stored in the proper cabins. Each body would have to be given velocity away from the ship. And so on. Every survivor would have to work, and work hard. ”

“ At the time of this chronicle the status of interstellar flight was very similar to that of intercontinental jet-plane flight in the nineteen-sixties. Starships were designed by humanity's best brains; carried every safety device those brains could devise. ”

“ Shoot him through the right elbow if he makes one sour move."
"I get you, boss."
A couple of evenings later, in Lifecraft Two, Barbara said: "You're worried, Babe, and everything's going so smoothly. Why?"
"Too smoothly altogether. That's why. Newman ought to be doing a slow burn and goldbricking all he dares; instead of which he's happy as a clam and working like a nailer ... and I wouldn't trust Vincent Lopresto or Ferdinand Blaine as far as I can throw a brick chimney by its smoke. This whole situation stinks. There's going to be shooting for sure." ”

“ On one hand, I have had real hunches all my life. On the other, the signal doesn't carry much information. More like hearing a siren when you're driving along a street. You know you have to pull over and stop, but that's all you know. It could be police, fire ambulance—anything. Anybody with any psionic ability at all ought to do a lot better than that, I should think."
"Not necessarily. You've been fighting it. Ninety-nine per cent of your mind doesn't want to believe it; is dead set against it. ”

“ Now, Uncle Andy, I want the truth. Are we in for a lot of trouble?" [Pg 131]
"Trouble? Of course not. Certainly not. No trouble at all, my dear. Why, you've seen the pictures—here, look at them again ... see? Absolutely normal fetus—yours, too, Bernice. Perfect! No malformations of any kind."
"Yes, but for what age?" Bernice asked, pointedly. "Four months, say? I see, I was exposed to a course in embryology myself, once."
"But that's the interesting part of it!" Adams enthused. "Fascinating! And, indubitably, supremely important. ”

“ And in their "spare" time they enjoyed themselves tremendously in becoming better and better acquainted with their wives. For Bernice and Jones, like Barbara and Deston, had for each other an infinite number of endless vistas of personality ”

“ Deston said again. His voice was not quite steady this time; both girls were crying openly and joyfully. "How do you read me, Frenchy old horse?"
"It is Procyon One—the Runt himself—Hi, Babe!" the new voice roared, then quieted to normal volume. "I read you eight and one. Survivors?"
"Five. Second Officer Jones, our wives, and Dr. Andrew Adams, a Fellow of the College of Advanced Study. He's solely responsible for our being here, so——"
"Skip that for now. In a lifecraft? No, after this long, it must be the ship. Not navigable, of course?"
"Not in subspace, and only so-so in normal. ”

“ You wouldn't stand the chance of a snowflake in hell, and if you've got the brains of a louse you know it."
"O. K., we'll let Ferdy have him. Me and you will match draws to see who——"
"I can draw twice to your once, but I suppose I'll have to prove it to you. I'll take Jones; you will gun the professor; Moose will grab the dames, one under each arm, and keep 'em out of the way until the shooting's over. The only thing is, when? The sooner the better. Tomorrow?"
"Not quite, Vince. Let 'em finish figuring course, time, distance, all that stuff. ”

“ They were maintained and serviced by ultra-skilled, ultra-trained, ultra-able crews; they were operated by the creme-de-la-creme of manhood. Only a man with an extremely capable mind in an extremely capable body could become an officer of a subspacer.
Statistically, starships were the safest means of transportation ever used by man; so safe that Very Important Persons used them regularly, unthinkingly, and as a matter of course. Statistically, the starships' fatality rate per million passenger-light-years was a small fraction of that of the automobiles' per million passenger-miles. ”

“ Deston, besides working, directed the activities of all the others except Adams; who worked harder and longer than did anyone else. He barely took time out to eat and to sleep. Nor did either Deston or Jones ask him what he was doing. Both knew that it would take five years of advanced study before either of them could understand the simplest material on the doctor's tapes.
III.
The tremendous engines of the Procyon were again putting out their wonted torrents of power. The starship, now a mere spaceship, was on course at one gravity. ”

“ He operates in all the systems for a hundred parsecs around, and he never sinks a dry hole. Every well he drills is a gusher that blows the rig clear up into the stratosphere. Everybody wonders how he does it. ”

“ Just once is all anybody can do, but that's enough. And don't fight. Any ordinary woman I could handle, but I can't handle you fast enough. So if you don't inhale deep I'll have to knock you cold. Otherwise you die of lung cancer. ”

“ In a for-real battle I'd prefer ... chairs, I think. Flying chairs are really hard to cope with. Knives are too ... uh-uh, I'd much rather have you fellows do the actual executing. I'll start wearing a couple of knives in leg-sheaths, [Pg 127] but I won't throw 'em or use 'em unless I absolutely have to. So who will I knock out with the first chair?"
"I'll answer that," Barbara said, quietly. "If it's Blaine against Babe, it'll be Lopresto against Herc. So you'll throw your chairs or whatever at that unspeakable oaf Newman." ”

“ But tell me—am I correct in saying that none of you were in direct contact with the metal of the ship when it happened?"
"We avoid it in case of trouble. You? Name and job?" Deston jerked his head at the younger stranger.
"I know that much. Henry Newman. Crew-chief, normal space jobs, unlimited."
"Your passengers, Herc?"
"Vincent Lopresto, financier, and his two bodyguards. They were sleeping in their suits, on air-mattresses. Grounders. Don't like subspace—or space, either." ”

“ Their biggest chore, [Pg 129] however, was to see to it that Adams got sleep, food, and exercise. For, if left to his own devices, he would never have exercised at all, would have grabbed a bite now and then, and would have slept only when he could no longer stay awake.
"Uncle Andy, why don't you use that Big Brain of yours?" Barbara snapped at him one day. "For a man that's actually as smart as you are, I swear you've got the least sense of anybody I know!" ”

“ Bernice, grinning openly now, stopped Deston's floundering. "It's high time you fellows told each other the truth. Bobby and I let our back hair down long ago—we were both tremendously surprised to know that both you boys are just as strongly psychic as we are. Perhaps even more so."
"Oh ... so you get hunches, too?" Jones demanded. "So you'll have plenty of warning?" ”

“ Square between the eyes. Do you want a hundred limit at ten bucks a millimeter on how far the hole is off dead center?"
The two girls gasped; stared at each other and at the two officers in horror; but Jones said calmly, without losing any part of his smile: "I don't want a dime's worth of that. I've lost too much money that way already." At which outrageous statement both girls knew what was going on and smiled in relief.
And Newman misinterpreted those smiles completely; especially Bernice's. The words came hard, but he managed to say then. "I crawl." ”

“ You're that good? Really?"
"Especially against a man-mountain like that. I'm that good. Really," and both Joneses began to realize what Deston already knew—just how deadly those harmless-seeming weapons could be.
Barbara went on: "We should have a signal, in case one of us gets warning first. Something that wouldn't mean anything to them ... musical, say ... Brahms. That's it. The very instant any one of us feels their intent to signal their attack he yells 'BRAHMS!' and we all beat them to the punch. O. K.?"
It was O. K., and the four—Adams was still hard at work in the lounge—went to bed. ”

“ SUBSPACE SURVIVORS
By EDWARD E. SMITH, Ph. D.
Illustrated by van Dongen
There has always been, and will always be, the problem of surviving the experience that any trained expert can handle ... when there hasn't been any first survivor to be an expert! When no one has ever gotten back to explain what happened....
I.
"All passengers, will you pay attention, please?" All the high-fidelity speakers of the starship Procyon spoke as one, in the skillfully-modulated voice of the trained announcer. ”

“ Deston was coming around. "Especially since we can't use more than one point——"
"One point zero gravities," Jones put in.
"Over the long pull—and the women—you're right," Deston agreed, and took out his slide rule. "Let's see ... one gravity, plus and minus ... velocity ... time ... it'll take about eleven months?"
"Just about," Jones agreed, and Adams nodded. ”

“ Too many planets listening in—verbum sap. Anyway, THE PRESS smells something, too, and they're screaming their lungs out, especially the sob-sisters. Now, Herc, on the air, you're orbiting the fourth planet of a sun. What sun? Where?"
"I don't know. Unlisted. We're in completely unexplored territory. Standard reference angles are as follows"—and Jones read off a long list of observations, not only of the brightest stars of the galaxy, but also of the standard reference points, such as S-Doradus, lying outside it. "When you get that stuff all plotted, you'll find a hell of a big confusion ”

“ Deston's voice now had all the top-deck rasp of his rank. "Or crawl!"
The First Officer had not moved; his right hand still hung quietly at his side. Newman glanced at the [Pg 120] girls, both of whom were frozen; at Jones, who smiled at him pityingly; at Adams, who was merely interested. "I ... my ... yours is right where you can get at it," he faltered.
"You should have thought of that sooner. But, this once, I won't move a finger until your hand is in your pocket."
"Just wing him, Babe," Jones said then. "He looks strong enough, except for his head. ”