Rogue Ship, page 19
The voice was that of William Lawrence, and his tone was so suggestive that Hewitt was startled. Without another word, suddenly uneasy, he backed up, turned around, and drove out into the main room.
A dozen men lay sprawled in various positions on the floor.
There was something about the way the bodies lay – so still – that chilled Hewitt. 'Lawrence,' Hewitt said into his mike, and his voice had a high-pitched quality, 'the agreement was -'
Lawrence's voice in his earphones had a grim chuckle in it. 'I'm afraid, Mr. Hewitt, that quite accidentally we gave them a lethal dosage. Too bad.'
Rage surged through Hewitt, as much at the tone of voice as at the meaning. He yelled, 'You're just another murderer!'
Lawrence was cool. 'You're overexcited, Mr. Hewitt. But it's all right. We won't hold anything you say right now against you.'
Hewitt fought for self-control. But his next words still had bitterness in them. 'I suppose what you've done has its good side,' he said. 'Just as you unthinkingly conformed to the old system, so now you're unthinkingly responding to the new one.'
'You don't think we were going to let him get away!' said Lawrence, suddenly angry, his voice high-pitched.
'All right, all right,' Hewitt soothed. 'Let's clean up and go to sleep. I'm exhausted.'
He had caught a glimpse of a woman in the doorway behind him. He activated his speaker. 'Ladies,' he commanded, 'stay in that bedroom and close the door, please!'
A moment later, the door shut softly, but not before he heard someone start to sob.
Hewitt was awakened by the ringing of his door buzzer. Hastily, he slipped into his robe and opened the door. The visitor who stood outside in the corridor was Roscoe, the young scientist.
'We're gathering in the main assembly room, sir,' Roscoe said, 'and we want you there. Men only.'
Hewitt stared at him, his smile fading. But all he said was, 'I'll be there in ten minutes.'
He shaved and dressed hurriedly, partly resigned to the implications of Roscoe's words. It was possible that what could be done swiftly on the ship was done. The rest would require education over a period of time, and the interaction of many people, who had yet to become aware of all of the potentialities of the new system.
...He had set up a self-perpetuating program. In such a framework, each person was motivated in a strict, selfish way to maintain the frame. Such a system had flexibility. It didn't, for instance, need a particular moral code or a particular leader. That was what he now faced, a people who were free to do as they wanted.
As Hewitt appeared in the doorway of the assembly hall, several people saw him. A man leaped to his feet, yelled: 'Here he is!'
It was an unexpected greeting. On hearing the words, Hewitt stopped.
As he stood there, uncertain, the several hundred men in the hall rose to their feet and, to his amazement, cheered him wildly. He grew aware that William Lawrence, a broad grin on his face, was on the stage... waving for him to come forward.
Hewitt walked forward gingerly. He sensed that he was by no means out of trouble, but he was beginning to feel a lot better.
As soon as Hewitt was on the stage, Lawrence held up a hand for silence. When he had it, he addressed Hewitt in a loud, clear voice.
'Mr. Hewitt, as you may have gathered, you have only friends here. The way you came aboard, the system you set up, your motives for all that you have done, have convinced us that you operate from the highest ethical considerations. For these and other reasons, this assembly wishes to go on record as saying that it believes you to be the natural leader of this expedition.'
He had to pause, to wave down an audience that began to clap and yell. When he had silence once more, he continued.
'However, there are special problems in running this ship, and before we accept you as captain, we want to make certain that you don't interfere in areas that are no concern of yours. Mr. Hewitt, this assembly would like to inquire, what are you going to do with the captain's wives?'
The switch from the general to the particular came so swiftly that Hewitt stood blank for a moment. It took a few moments longer for him to grasp that he was actually being asked a direct question on such a matter.
Slowly, he walked forward, and it was evident to him that a great deal depended on his answer. He wondered if he could back down from truth. He could not.
'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I don't know how long we shall continue out here in space. But I'm assuming that considerable time will go by while we do experiment, research, and correlation of data in the vast laboratory of the space-time continuum. Naturally, the human life aboard must and will go on in human terms during that period. There will be marriages, the births of children, educational programs, and other important matters.'
He stopped, suddenly embarrassed. What he had to say was not for a roomful of men in an auditorium. Nonetheless, after a moment, he went on firmly.
'I feel a strong attraction for the oldest of the four women you refer to, and I hope she feels the same for me. It is my intention to ask her to marry me.'
Something of his profound sincerity must have penetrated to his listeners as he spoke the simple words. For, after he had finished, there was dead silence. On the platform, William Lawrence stroked his jaw and looked at the floor.
It was Roscoe who stood up. 'Mr. Hewitt,' he said, 'during all my life and all my father's life, the captain of the Hope of Man has been a man with more than one wife. Are you telling us that you are going to change this, that you are going to limit yourself to one wife?'
Hewitt stood quietly staring out at an audience that had remained silent and expectant. Everybody seemed to be gazing at him intently. He felt it was ridiculous, that these foolish men were going to try to hold him to the tradition of more than one wife. He surmised that conforming would be proof to them that he would maintain male hegemony aboard the Hope of Man.
Whatever their motive, he rejected the reasoning behind it, and he said, 'Yes – one wife.'
All over the auditorium, grins suddenly showed on the upturned faces.
Then Lawrence came over and shook Hewitt's hand.
From the floor, Roscoe said, 'Well, Captain Hewitt, you've passed our tests. We're for you. We'll trust you. Right, men?'
Hewitt received his second ovation.
41
Eight years went by on the ship.
The scientists aboard learned by trial and error what John Lesbee V had divined in a flash of insight. But they rejected his description of it. The universe was not a 'lie.' It was what it was. There had been an 'apparency' perceived by the highly evolved nervous system of man and animals. Evidently – it was postulated – life had required a unique stability and had therefore created brain mechanisms that limited perception to the apparent stable condition. Within this 'solid' frame, life lived its lulled existence, evolving painfully, constantly adjusting at some unconscious level to the real universe.
And so here was man, through his scientifically trained senses, able to examine the truth at last.
...They measured that truth, discovered basic principles, made predictions, verified them. Control of time was achieved through a gradational, mechanical manipulation of the light-speed conditions.
Originally, the Hope of Man had slipped back in time accidentally. Now, the great ship was manipulated through the timeless universe of translight-speeds.
Although over four hundred weeks had gone by aboard, it came to a one-to-one ratio in the solar system one week, Earth time, after the Molly D had cast loose and started back to Earth.
The two vessels went into orbit around the planet within a day of each other. For the salvage ship, seven days had gone by; for the interstellar ship, nearly three thousand days -
There followed an emergency meeting of the cabinet, consultation with the Asian bloc, and widespread intercommunication among scientists.
Then, and not till then, Peter Linden and Averill Hewitt addressed the world.
The physicist spoke first and gave the scientific information. In sum, this was: the Hope of Man had gone into the future of the solar system and had observed the sun briefly assume some of the characteristics of a Cepheid Variable.
As he made these statements, the television showed motion pictures of that future event: the sudden flare-up, the heat wave striking one side of the Earth -
The scientist was careful to explain many times that what they were seeing on their television was something that had actually been photographed in the future. It was – or would be when it happened – the result of a translight-speed condition of basic matter. Moving faster than light, on a front of many light-years, this condition – which resembled in shape a ripple in space – would shortly envelop the solar system.
Traveling faster than light, the ripple would pass through the sun in about four seconds and would traverse the ninety-three million miles from the sun to Earth in six and a half minutes.
All the damage would be caused by the heat transported by the ripple from its four-second contact with the sun.
'Mercury,' said Peter Linden, 'will be horribly scorched, but all the planets, including Earth, will survive.'
Nevertheless, shelters must be dug. During the period of flare-up, the people on the side of the Earth exposed to the sun must be underground... Fortunately, the huge Pacific Ocean would bear the brunt -
When his turn came before the cameras and microphones, Hewitt said, 'I have happier news.'
During its period of translight-speed cruising, the Hope of Man had visited scores of other sun systems. They had found three other available planets that men could live on. Many colonists were needed to augment those who were already there.
'Right now,' said Hewitt, 'my own family – my wife, Ruth, and our four children – are on one of those planets. It will be our permanent home.'
Those words were the beginning of the sales talk he made as the world listened in.
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A. E. Van Vogt, Rogue Ship
