The Corianis Disaster

I

When the Corianis vanished in space between Kholar and Maninea, she was missed at once, which was distinctly unusual. Jack Bedell was aboard her at the time, but his presence had nothing to do with it; it was pure chance. Ordinarily a ship is missed only when her follow-up papers, carried from her port of departure by another ship, arrive at her port of destination and say that she left at such-and-such a time, bound for the place where she didn't arrive. This can be a surprisingly long time later.

But in the case of the Corianis, there was no time lost. The Planetary President of Maninea had paid a state visit to Kholar for the beginning of negotiations for a trade-treaty between the two neighbor worlds. Now he headed back home on the Corianis, which was chartered for the trip. Important political figures of Kholar accompanied him to try to finish the trade-treaty job on Maninea. It was a charming picture of interplanetary political cordiality, and Jack Bedell got passage by accident. It was a short hop anyhow-barely six light-years- calling for two days in overdrive. Then, the day after the Corianis' departure, a political storm blew up in the Planetary Congress of Kholar, and a second ship was chartered to follow and give new and contradictory instructions to the Kholarian negotiators. So the second ship arrived less than two days after the Corianis should have touched ground. Only, the Corianis hadn't; it had vanished in space.

From any viewpoint, it was a nasty business. There was a limit to the distance at which ships could communicate in space, and there was a limit to the speed of radiation by which a distress signal could be sent; the combination was depressing. Call a light-second an inch: then six light years is thirty-six miles. In this frame of reference, a ship like the Corianis-a big one-is smaller than a virus particle; and if something happens to it on the two-day run, the job of finding it is strictly comparable to finding one lost virus-particle on several dozen miles of highway, with only a very few other motes able to move around and look for it.

It was an extra-nasty bit of business, too, because the Planetary President of Maninea was on board, accompanied by the Minister of State of Kholar; the Minister of Commerce of Kholar; the Speaker of the Planetary Senate of Maninea; the Chairman of the Lower House Committee on Extra-Planetary Affairs of Kholar; and a thronging assortment of assistants, aides, secretaries, wives, children, and servants. They were ah1 settled down for the journey when Jack Bedell diffidently applied for passage. Somebody misunderstood, and thought him part of the two official parties; he got on board less than ten minutes before take-off.

He wasn't important; he was only a mathematical physicist. When the Corianis was realized to be missing, people worried about the more important people and felt badly about the women and children. Nobody was disturbed about Bedell, but the Corianis needed to be found and helped in her emergency. Nobody had ever yet located a ship once vanished in space, but the Corianis was remarkably well-found, with special devices for distress signals. She might be located.