John Barrett

“ Carl leaned back in the pilot's chair and scratched his head. "First of all he said the universe must be finite, because it's made up of the sum of its parts, and as its parts are units, you could never add up finite units and get infinity. Then he took the other side of the argument and pointed out that if it was finite, it must have limits, and if it has limits, it has limits in relation to something beyond it. And the universe is everything that is, so there couldn't be anything beyond, except more universe, and if it keeps on going like that, it isn't finite. ”

“ He shook his head and stared at the table. Suddenly he began to laugh. "Automatic control," he yelled, pointing to the letters that were flashing on and off. "It says automatic control. What a joke. There isn't any control."
He saw the girl watching him, saw the fear in her eyes, the tight line of her lips. It sobered him instantly. He struggled to his feet. "Let's get out of this racket," he yelled.
They crossed the alleyway to a little cabin, and Carl closed the airtight door. The reducer was still screaming, but it sounded far away. Carl leaned against the door, listening. ”

“ Carl turned back. He studied the topography unreeling itself on the visiplate, and eased back the accelerator lever a trifle.
"The way I see it, if light comes back to its starting point, there is no infinitely distant place. In the same way there would be no infinitely small size. There's no end or beginning to anything, and if you travel far enough in any one direction, you always come back to where you started from. ”

“ Carl said. "Everything seems to be standard except for one thing." He pointed to the square box on the table by the panel. "There's a mess of tubes and coils in there that don't make any sense. They must be important. They're connected by wires to the cables that run down the ridges in the hull."
"If it doesn't have anything to do with the controls, why can't you just forget about it," the girl said.
Carl frowned at the box. Above the twisted lever was the word Reduction. There was an arrow showing which direction the lever should be moved. ”

“ If he said he was broadcasting from the Lusarian Desert on Mars, that's where he was."
"Then why didn't he say something about the net?"
"They said his broadcast was cut off right after it started."
"If he was smart enough to get a ship through the net, why couldn't he get a visaphone signal through it?"
Carl felt the anger swell up in his throat. He stood up. "All right then. Have it your way. It was all a hoax, and Brainard didn't see a ship, and maybe we're going to fry out here in this desert. What of it? Is it a crime to be an optimist? Just because—" He stopped. She was sobbing. ”

“ Carl had to raise his voice above the throb of the Reducer. "Everything inside the ship gets smaller proportionately. The ridges on the outside of the hull must create a field." He turned back to the panel. "And I've got a hunch this is going to get us through the net."
He leaned over to the table and moved the lever down another notch. The girl came over beside him.
"Look," Carl said. "The net acts on big things. If we were reduced to the size of bacteria, there wouldn't be enough power concentrated in one spot to affect the controls. ”

“ Carl caught her as her knees buckled. He found a cabin with a couch and then hunted for the ship's stores. There was water, gallons of it, and he found some biscuits. For the next half hour they sat in the cabin sipping water and gnawing at the biscuits. The girl kept looking out of the port.
"How could anything as big as that live out here?" she asked. "There's so little food, so little water."
"I've heard reports of these snakes in the Lusarian desert," Carl said. "The biologists say they're a hangover from an old type of animal. They don't have a carbon system metabolism. ”

“ When he walked back to the control cabin he was whistling. The girl came and stood in the doorway.
"Are you going to try and get through the net?" she asked in a nervous voice.
"Now don't get worried," he said. "If Dekmar got through, the ship must have some protection around the hull."
He started up the rockets and boosted the ship gently off the sand. After two wide circles over the desert to get the feel of the controls, he pointed her up and turned on the power. The girl moved over into the acceleration seat. Out of the corner of his eye Carl saw her strap herself in. ”

“ And as he circled the field and brought the ship down on the runway, it dawned on him that she really did look wonderful, and in two minutes she would be stepping out of this ship, and maybe out of his life for keeps.
He got up from the pilot's chair, and caught her before she reached the hatch.
"Thela," he said. "There's a crowd of people out there. I'll be taken to the director's office right away to answer questions about this ship, and the government officials will be quizzing you all night about everything we found out and—"
"Yes?" She moved away from him, eyes narrowing. ”