CHAPTER
4
DISORIENTATION,. NAUSEA...
The stars were different for the fifth time. Acceleration hit
like a tree trunk ramming into Jim's chest. His fingers danced
on the sub-light conltrol buttons. The voice of Raoul Penard
was howling his battle song again-
… When you come drive de beeg saw log,
You got to jump jus' lak de frog!
De forenian come, he say go sak!
You got in de watair all over your .......
Time passed....
"Check Ten!" shouted Jim once again. "All ships Check
Ten. Transmit in three seconds. Three. Two-"
No Laagi ships in the telltale sphere again this time. And
the next. And the next-
Suddenly AndFriend bucked and slammed. Flame flickered
for a fraction of a second through the cabin. The telltale was
alive with green lights, closing fast.
Fifteen of them or more... Directly ahead of AndFriend
were three of them in formation, closing on her alone. In
Jim's ears rang the wild voice of Penard..
P'ras's you work on drive, tree four day-
You find dat drive dat she don' pay….
"Gunner!" cried Jim, seeing the peen lights almost on top
of him. It was a desperate cry for help. In a moment-
Two of the green lights flared suddenly and disappeared.
The third flashed and veered off.
"Mary!" yelped Jim, suddenly drunk on battle adrenaline.
"You're a gunner! A real gunner!"
“More to the left and up-sector ten-" said a thin, calm
voice, a voice he could hardly recognize as Mary's, in his ear.
He veered, saw two more green lights. Saw one flare and
vanish-saw suddenly one of his own white lights flare and
vanish as the scream of torn metal sounded from one of the
screens before him. Glancing at the screens, he saw for the
moment the one picturing Fourth Helen's cabin, showing the
cabin split open, emptied and flattened for a second before the
screen went dark and blank.
Grief tore at him. And rage.
"Transmit now!" he howled at the other ships. "Check Ten!
checkTen-"
He slapped a magnetic on the battered cone shape that fled
by a miracle still beside him and punched for the jump-
Disorientation. Nausea. And-
The stars of the Frontier were ahead of them. Jim stared
into his screens. They floated in empty space, three gray-
white dart shapes and the ravaged shape of La Cnasse Gal-
lerie. Lela rode level with Jim's ship, but Swallow was slowly
turning sideways like a dying fish drifting in the ocean cur-
rents. Jim stared into the small screen showing the Swallow's
interior. The two suited figures sat in a blackened cabin, un-
moving.
"Swallow!" said Jim hoarsely. "Are you all right? Ac-
knowledge. Acknowledge!"
But there was no answer from the two figures, and the
Swallow continued to drift, turning, as if she was sliding off
some invisible slope into the endless depths of the universe.
Jim shook with a cold, inner sickness like a chill. They're just
unconscious, he thought. They have to be just unconscious.
Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to make the jump to
here.
"-Bngadier!" the voice of Penard WM singing with
strange softness-
…repondit Pandore
Brigadier! Vous avez raison.
Brigadier! repondit Pandore
Brigadier! Vous avez raison!-
Jim turned slowly to look into the screen showing La
Chasse Gallerie. He stared at what he saw. If the old ship had
been badly slashed before, she was a ruin now. Nothing could
be alive in such a wreck. Nothing. But the voice of Penard
sang on.
"No…” muttered Jim out loud, unbelievingly. "Not even
a semianimate control center could come through that. It
couldn't-" He stirred himself and shifted once more, push-
ing for speed by settling for any location in the general direc-
tion of the Frontier's other side....
“Identify yourself!" crackled a voice suddenly on Jim's
ears. "Identify yourself! This is Picket Six, B Sector, Frontier
area.”
"Wander Section-" muttered Jim, still staring at the tat-
tered form of La Chasse Gallerie. He remembered the original
legend about the return of the dead voyageurs in their ghost
canoes, and a shiver went down his back. "Wander Section,
returning from deep probe and rescue mission into Laagi terri-
toty. Five ships with two lost and one sent wide and home,
separately. Wander Leader, speaking."
"Wander Leader!" crackled the voice fiom Picket Six.
"Alert has been passed all along the Frontier for you and your
ships and orders issued for your return. Congratulations,
Wander Section, and welcome back."
"Thanks, Picket Six," said Jim wearily. "It's good to be
back, safe on this side of the Frontier. We had half the laaagi
forces breathing down our-"
A siren howled from the control board, cuuting him off.
Unbelieving, Jim jerked his head about to stare at the telltale
sphere. It was tilled with the white lights of the ships of Picket
Six in formation spread Out over a half light-year of distance.
But, as he watched, green lights began to wink into existence
all about his own battered Section. By sixes, by dozens, they
were jumping into the area of Picket Six on the human side of
the Frontier.
"Formation B! Formation B!" Jim found hinsself shouting
at the Lela and the Swallow. But he'd forgotten that Swallow
had fallen away on the other side of the Frontier, and only the
Lela was here to respond. The Swallow, he knew, was still on
its long, drowning fall into nothingness. "Cancel that. Lela,
follow me. Help me carry La Chasse-"
His voice was all but drowned out by transmissions fiom
Picket Six.
"Alert General! Alert General! All Pickets, all Sectors!"
Picket Six was calling. "Full fleet Laagi attack. Three Wings
enemy forces already in this area. We are overmatched! Re-
peat. We are overmatched! Alert General-"
At maximum normal acceleration, AndFriend and Lela,
with La Chasse Gallerie caught in a magnetic grip between
them, were running from the enemy ships, while Jim com-
puted frantically for a jump to any safe area, his fingers danc-
ing on the black buttons.
"Alert General! All ships Picket Six hold until relieved. All
ships hold! Under fire here at Picket Six. We are under-"
The voice of Picket Six went dead. There was a moment's
silence and then a new voice broke in.
"-This is Picket Five. Acknowledge, Picket Six. Ac-
knowledge!" Another moment of silence, then the new voice
went on. "All ships Picket Six. This is Picket Five taking
over. Picket Five taking over. Our ships are on the way to you
now, and the ships fr"m other Sectors. Hold until relieved!
Hold until relieved-"
Jim fought the black buttons, too busy even to swear.
"Wander Section! Wander Section!" shouted the voice of
Picket Five. "Acknowledge!"
"Wander Section. Acknowledging!" grunted Jim.
"Wander Section! Jump for home. Wander Leader, key for
data. Key to receive data, and Check Ten. Check Ten."
"Acknowledge!" snapped Jim, dropping his own slow
computing. He keyed for data, saw the data light flash and
knew he had received into his computing center the informa-
tion for the jump back to Earth. "Hang on Lela!" he shouted.
"Here we go-
He punched for jump.
Disorientation. Nausea. .....
Peace.
AndFriend lay without moving under the landing lights of a
doncrete
pad in the open, under the nighttime sky and the stars
Earth. The daylight hours had passed while Wander Section
had been gone. Next to And~~~nend lay the dark, torn shape of
La Chasse Gallerie, and beyond the ancient ship lay Lela. A
hundred light-years away the Frontier battle would still be
raging. laaagi and men were out there dying, and they would
go on dying until the laaagi realized that Wander Section had
finally made good its escape. Then the Laagi ships would
withdraw from an assault against a Frontier line that well over
a hundred years of fighting had taught was permanently un
breachable by either side. But how many, thought Jim with a
dry and bitter soul, would die before the withdrawal was
made?
He punched the button to open the port of AndFriend and
got clumsily to his feet in the bulky suit. During the hours just
past, he had forgotten he was wearing it. Now, it was like
being swaddled in a mattress. He was as thoroughly soaked
with sweat as if he had been in swimming with his clothes on.
There was no sound coming from La Chasse Gallerie. Had
the voice of Raoul Penard finally been silenced? Sodden with
weariness, Jim could not surnmon up the energy even to
wonder about it. He turned clumsily around and stumbled
back tirrough the ship four steps and out the open port,
vaguely hearing Mary Gallegher rising and following behind
him.
He stumped heavy-footed across the concrete toward the
lights of the Receiving Section, lifting like an ocean liner out
of a sea of night. It seemed to him that he was a long titne
reaching the door of the Section, but he kept on stolidly, and
at last he passed through and into a desuiting room. Then
attendants were helping him off with his suit.
In a sort of dream he stripped off his soaked clothing and
showered, and put on a fresh jumper suit. The cloth felt
strange and harsh against his arms and legs as if his body, as
well as what was inside him, had been rubbed raw by what he
had just been through. He walked heavily on into the debrief-
ing room, and dropped heavily into one of the lounge chai,rs.
A debriefing officer came up to him and sat down in a
chair opposite, turning on the little black recorder pickup he
wore at his belt. The debriefing officer began asking questions
in the safe, quiet monotone that had been found least likely to
trigger off ernotional outbursts in the returned pilots. Jim an-
swered slowly, too drained for emotion.
"... No," he said at last. "I didn't see SwatIow again. She
didn't acknowledge when I called for Formation B, and I had
to go on without her. No, she never answered after we reached
the Frontier."
"Thank you, Major." The debriefing officer got to his feet,
clicking off his recorder pickup, and went off. An enlisted
man came around with a tray of glasses half-filled with brown
whisky. He offered it first to the pilot and the gunner of the
Lela, who were standing together on the other side of the
room with a debriefing officer. The two men took their glasses
absentmindedly and drank from them without reaction, as if
the straight liquor was water. The enlisted man brought his
tray over to where Jim sat.
Jim shook his head. The enlisted man hesitated.
"You're supposed to drink it, sir," he said. "Surgeon's
orders."
Jim shook his head again. The enlisted man went away. A
moment later he came back followed by a major with the
caduceus of the Medical Corps on his jacket lapel.
"Here, Major," he said to Jim, taking a glass from the tray
and holding it out to Jim. "Down the hatch."
Jim shook his head, rolling the back of it against the top of
the chair he sat in.
"It's no good," he said. "It doesn't do any good."
The Medical Corps major put the glass back on the tray and
leaned forward. He put his thumb gently under Jim's right eye
and lifted the lid with his forefinger. He looked for a second,
then let go and turned to the enlisted man.
"That's all right," he said. "You can go on."
The enlisted man took his tray of glasses away. The doctor
reached into the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and took
out a small silver tube with a button on its side. He rolled up
Jim's right sleeve, put the end of the tube against it and
pressed the button.
Jim felt what seemed like a cooling spray against the sliin
of his arm. And something woke in him after all.
"What're you doing?" he shouted, struggling to his feet.
"You can't knock me out now! I've got two ships not in yet.
The Fair Maid and the Swallow-" The room began to tilt
around him. "You can't-" His tongue thickened into unintel-
ligibility. The room swung grandly around him and he felt the
medical major's arms catching him. And unconsciousness
closed upon him like a trap of darkness.
He slept, evidently for a long time, and when he woke he
was not in the bed of his own quarters but in the bed of a
hospital room. Nor did they let him leave it for the better part
of a week. He had had time, lying there in the peaceful, un-
eventful hospital bed, to come to an understanding with him-
self. When he got out he went looking for Mary Gallegher.
He located the geriatrics woman finally on the secret site
where La Chasse Gallerie was being probed and examined by
the Geriatrics Bureau. Mary was at work with the crew that
was doing this, and for some little time word could not be
gotten to her; and without her authorization, Jim could not be
let in to see her.
Jim waited patiently in a shiny, unlit lounge until a young
man came to guide him into the interior of a vast building
where La Chasse Gallerie lay dwarfed by her surroundings
and surrounded by complicated items of equipment. It was
apparently a break peflod for most of the people working on
the old ship, for only one or two figures were to be seen doing
things with this equipment outside the ship. The young man
shouted in through the open port of La Chasse Galierie, and
left. Mary came out and shook hands with Jim.
There were dark circles under Mary's eyes and she seemed
thinner under the loose shirt and slacks she wore.
"Sorry to hear about Swallow," she said.
"Yes," said Jim, a little bleakly. "They think she must have
drifted back faitner into Laagi territoty. The unmanned probes
couldn't locate her, and the Laagi may have taken her in."
Mary looked steadily at him.
"That's what chews on you, isn't it?"~she said. “Not know-
ing if her pilot and gunner were dead or not. If they were, then
there's nothing to think about. But if they weren't... we
never know what becomes of them-"
He shook his head at her in a silent plea and she broke off.
"Fair Maid made it in, safely," he said hoarsely. "Anyway,
it wasn't about the Section I came to see you.
"No." Mary looked at him with a gentleness he had not
seen in her before. "It was about Raoul Penard you came,
wasn't it?"
"I couldn't find out anything. Is it-is he alive?"
"Yes," said Mary. "He's alive."
"Can you get through to him?-What came to me," said
Jim quickly, "while I was resting up in the hospital, was that I
finally began to understand the reason behind all his poetry-
quoting, and such. It struck me he must have started all that
deliberately. To remind himself of where he was trying to get
back to. To make it sharp and clear in his mind so he couldn't
forget it."
"Yes," said Mary nodding. "You're right. He wanted insur-
ance against quitting, against giving up."
"I thought so. You were right." Jim grinned with a slight
grimness at her. '~I'd been trying to quit myself. Gr find some-
thing that could quit me. You were right all the way down the
line. I'm a dragon-slayer. I was born that way, I'm stuck with
it and I can't change it. I want to go through the Laagi, or
around them and end this damn murderous stalemate. But I
can't live long enough. None of us can. And so I wanted to
give up."
"And you don't now?"
"No," said Jim slowly. "It's still no use, but I'm going to
keep hoping-for a miracle."
"Miracles are a matter of time," said Mary. "To make
yourself a millionaire in two minutes is just about impossible.
To make it in two hundred years is practically a certainty.
That's what people like me are after. If we could all live as
long as Penard, all sorts of things could be possible."
"And he's alive!" said Jim, shaking his head slowly. "He's
really alive! I didn't even want to believe it, it was so far-
fetched." Jim broke off. "Is he-"
"Sane? No," said Maiy. "And I don't think we'll ever be
able to make him so. But maybe I'm wrong. As I say, with
time, most near-impossibilities become practicabilities." She
stepped back from me open port of La Chasse Gallerie, and
gestured to the interior. "Want to come in?"
Jim hesitated.
"I don't have a Secret clearance for this project-" he
began.
"Don't worry about it," interrupted Mary. "That's just to
keep the news people off our necks until we decide how to
handle this. Come on."
She led the way inside. Jim followed her. Within, the an-
cient metal corridor leading to the pilot's compartment seemed
swept clean and dusted shiny, like some exhibit in a museum.
The interior had been hung with magnetic lights, but the gaps
and tears made by Laagi weapons let almost as much light in.
pilot's compartment was a shambles that had been tidied
and cleaned. The instruments and control panel were all but
obliterated and the pilot's com-chair half gone. A black box
stood in the center of the floor, an incongruous piece of mod-
ern equipment, connected by a thick, gray cable to a bulkliead
behind it.
"I wasn't wrong, then," said Jim, looking around him. "No
human body could have lived through this. It was the semian-
imate control center that was running the ship as Penard's alter
ego, then, wasn't it? The man isn't really alive?"
"Yes," said Mary, "and no. You were right about the con-
trol center somehow absorbing the living personality of Pen-
ard. -But look again. Could a control center like that,
centered in living tissue floating and growing in a nutrient
solution with no human hands to care for it-could something
like that have survived this, either?"
Jim looked around at the slashed and rained interior. A
...
Januszek66