The Voyage of the Space Beagle

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“How in the name of all the hells can anything live in intergalactic space?” The voice, strained and unrecognizable, came through the communicator of Grosvenor’s space suit as he stood with the others near the air lock. It seemed to him that the question made the little group of men crowd closer together. For him, the proximity of the others was not quite enough. He was too aware of the impalpable yet inconceivable night that coiled about them, pressing down to the very blazing portholes.

Almost for the first time since the voyage had begun, the immensity of the darkness struck home to Grosvenor. He had looked at it so often from inside the ship that he had become indifferent. But now he was suddenly aware that man’s farthest stellar frontiers were but a pin point in this blackness that reached billions of light-years in every direction.

The voice of Director Morton broke through the scared silence. “Calling Gunlie Lester inside the ship…. Gunlie Lester….”

There was a pause; then, “Yes, Director?”

Grosvenor recognized the voice of the head of the astronomy department.

“Gunlie,” Morton went on, “here’s something for your astro-mathematical brain. Will you please give us the ratio of chance that blew out the drivers of the Beagle at the exact point in space where that thing was floating? Take a few hours to work it out.”

The words brought the whole scene into even sharper focus. It was typical of mathematician Morton that he let another man have the limelight in a field in which he himself was a master.

The astronomer laughed, then said in an earnest tone, “I don’t have to do any figuring. One would need a new system of notation to express the chance arithmetically. What you’ve got… out there can’t happen, mathematically speaking. Here we are, a shipload of human beings, stopping for repairs, halfway between two galaxies — the first time we’ve ever sent an expedition outside our own island universe. Here we are, I say, a tiny point intersecting with pre-arrangement, exactly the path of another tinier point. It’s impossible, unless space is saturated with such creatures.”

It seemed to Grosvenor that there was a more likely explanation. The two events could conceivably be in the simple relationship of cause and effect. A huge hole had been burned in the engine-room wall. Torrents of energy had poured out into space. Now they had stopped to repair the damage. He parted his lips to say as much, and then closed them. There was another factor, the factor of the forces and probabilities involved in that assumption. Just how much power would be needed to drain the output of a pile of a few minutes? Briefly, he considered the formula applicable, and shook his head slightly. The figures that came through were so enormous that the hypothesis he had intended to offer seemed automatically ruled out. A thousand coeurls amongst them couldn’t have handled energy in such quantities, which suggested that machines, not individuals, were involved.

Someone was saying, “We ought to turn a mobile unit on anything that looks like that.”

The shudder in his voice stirred a like emotion in Grosvenor. The reaction must have run along the communicators, because, when Director Morton spoke, his tone indicated he was trying to throw off the chill of the other man’s words. Morton said, “A regular blood-red devil spewed out of a nightmare, ugly as sin — and possibly as harmless as our beautiful pussy a few months ago was deadly. Smith, what do you think?”

The gangling biologist was coldly logical. “This thing, as far as I can make it out from here, has arms and legs, a development of purely planetary evolution. If it is intelligent, it will begin to react to the changing environment the moment it is inside the cage. It may be a venerable old sage, meditating in the silence of space where there are no distractions. Or it may be a young murderer, condemned to exile, consumed with desire to get back home and resume life in his own civilization.” “I wish Korita had come out with us,” said Pennons, the chief engineer, in his quiet, practical fashion. “His analysis of pussy on the cat planet gave us an idea of what we had to face and—”

“Korita speaking, Mr. Pennons.” As usual, the Japanese archaeologist’s voice came over the communicators with meticulous clarity. “Like many of the others, I have been listening to what is happening, and I must admit I am impressed by the image I can see of this creature on the vision plate before me. But I’m afraid analysis on the basis of cyclic history would be dangerous at this factless stage. In the case of pussy, we had the barren, almost foodless planet on which he lived, and the architectural realities of the crumbled city. But here we have a being living in space a quarter of a million light-years from the nearest planet, existing apparently without food, and without means of spatial locomotion. I suggest the following: Keep the screen up, except for an opening for the cage to be taken out. When you have your creature actually in the cage, study him — every action, every reaction. Take pictures of his internal organs working in the vacuum of space. Find out everything about him, so that we shall know what we are bringing aboard. Let us avoid killing, or being killed. The greatest precautions are in order.”

“And that,” said Morton, “is sense.”

He began to issue orders. More machines were brought up from inside the ship. They were set up on a smooth, curving expanse of the outer surface, except for a massive fluorite camera. That was attached to the mobile cage.

Grosvenor listened uneasily while the Director gave final instructions to the men guiding the cage. “Open the door as wide as possible,” Morton was saying, “and drop it over him. Don’t let his hands grab the bars.”

Grosvenor thought, It’s now or never. If I have any objections, I’ve got to offer them.

There seemed nothing to say. He could outline his vague doubts. He could carry Gunlie Lester’s comment to its logical conclusion and say that what had happened could not be an accident. He might even suggest that a shipload of the red, devil-like beings was probably waiting in the distance for their fellow to be picked up.

But the fact was that all the precautions against such eventualities had been taken. If there were a ship, then by opening the protective screen only enough to admit the cage, they were offering a minimum target. The outer skin might be seared, the men on it killed. But the vessel itself would surely be safe.

The enemy would find that his action had served no useful purpose. He would find arrayed against him a formidable armed and armoured vessel, manned by members of a race that could pursue a battle to a remorseless conclusion.

Grosvenor reached that point in his speculation, and decided to make no comment. He would hold his doubts in reserve.

Morton was speaking again. “Any final remarks from anyone?”

“Yes.” The new voice belonged to von Grossen. “I’m in favour of making a thorough examination of this thing. To me, thorough means a week, a month.”

“You mean,” said Morton, “we sit here in space while our technical experts study the monster?”

“Of course,” said the physicist.

Morton was silent for several seconds, then he said slowly, “I’ll have to put that up to the others, von Grossen. This is an exploratory expedition. We are equipped to take back specimens by the thousand. As scientists, all is grist for our mill. Everything must be investigated. Yet I feel sure that the objection will be made that if we sit out in space an entire month for each specimen we plan to take aboard, this journey will take five hundred years instead of five or ten. I do not offer that as a personal objection. Obviously, every specimen must be examined and dealt with on its own merits.”

“My point,” said von Grossen, “is let’s think it over.” Morton asked, “Any other objections?” When none was made, he finished quietly, “All right boys, go out and get him!”