Starman's Quest Read online

  _Chapter Three_

  The _Valhalla_ touched down on Earth at 1753 on the nose, to nobody'svery great surprise. Captain Mark Donnell had not missed schedule oncein his forty ship years in space, which covered a span of over athousand years of Earth's history.

  Landing procedure was rigidly set. The Crew debarked by family, in orderof signing-on; the only exception to the order was Alan. As a member ofthe Captain's family--the only other member, now--he had to wait tillthe rest of the ship was cleared. But his turn came eventually.

  "Solid ground again, Rat!" They stood on the jet-fused dirt field wherethe _Valhalla_ had landed. The great golden-hulled starship was rearedup on its tail, with its huge landing buttresses flaring out at eachside to keep it propped up.

  "Solid for _you_, maybe," Rat said. "But the trip's just as wobbly asever for me, riding up here on your shoulder."

  Captain Donnell's shrill whistle sounded, and he cupped his hands tocall out, "The copters are here!"

  Alan watched the little squadron of gray jetcopters settle to theground, rotors slowing, and headed forward along with the rest of theCrew. The copters would take them from the bare landing field of thespaceport to the Enclave, where they would spend the next six days.

  The Captain was supervising the loading of the copters. Alan saunteredover to him.

  "Where to, son?"

  "I'm scheduled to go over in Copter One."

  "Uh-uh. I've changed the schedule." Captain Donnell turned away andsignalled to the waiting crew members. "Okay, go ahead and fill upCopter One!"

  They filed aboard. "Everyone get back," the Captain yelled. A tentative_chugg-chuff_ came from the copter; its rotors went round and it lifted,stood poised for a moment on its jetwash, and shot off northward towardthe Starmen's Enclave.

  "What's this about a change in schedule, Dad?"

  "I want you to ride over with me in the two-man copter. Kandin took yourplace aboard Copter One. Let's go now," he shouted to the next group."Start loading up Number Two."

  The Crewmen began taking their places aboard the second copter, and soonits pilot signalled through the fore window that he was loaded up. Thecopter departed. Seeing that he would be leaving the field last, Alanmade himself useful by keeping the younger Crew children from wandering.

  At last the field was cleared. Only Alan and his father remained, withthe little two-man copter and the tall gleaming _Valhalla_ behind them.

  "Let's go," the Captain said. They climbed in, Alan strapping himselfdown in the co-pilot's chair and his father back of the controls.

  "I never see much of you these days," the Captain said after they werealoft. "Running the _Valhalla_ seems to take twenty-four hours a day."

  "I know how it is," Alan said.

  After a while Captain Donnell said, "I see you're still reading thatCavour book." He chuckled. "Still haven't given up the idea of findingthe hyperdrive, have you?"

  "You know I haven't, Dad. I'm sure Cavour really did work it out, beforehe disappeared. If we could only discover his notebook, or even a letteror something that could get us back on the trail----"

  "It's been thirteen hundred years since Cavour disappeared, Alan. Ifnothing of his has turned up in all that time, it's not likely ever toshow. But I hope you keep at it, anyway." He banked the copter and cutthe jets; the rotors took over and gently lowered the craft to thedistant landing field.

  Alan looked down and out at the heap of buildings becoming visiblebelow. The crazy quilt of outdated, clumsy old buildings that was thelocal Starmen's Enclave.

  He felt a twinge of surprise at his father's words. The Captain hadnever shown any serious interest in the possibility of faster-than-lighttravel before. He had always regarded the whole idea as sheer fantasy.

  "I don't get it, Dad. Why do you hope I keep at it? If I ever find whatI'm looking for, it's going to mean the end of Starman life as you knowit. Travel between planets will be instantaneous. There--there won't bethis business of making jumps and getting separated from everyone youused to know."

  "You're right. I've just begun thinking seriously about this businessof hyperdrive. There wouldn't be any Contraction effect. Think of thechanges it would mean in Starman society! No more--no more permanentseparations if someone decides to leave his ship for a while."

  Alan understood what his father meant. Suddenly he saw the reason forCaptain Donnell's abrupt growth of interest in the development of ahyperdrive.

  _It's Steve that's on his mind_, Alan thought. _If we had had ahyperspace drive and Steve had done what he did, it wouldn't havemattered. He'd still be my age._

  Now the _Valhalla_ was about to journey to Procyon. Another twenty yearswould pass before it got back, and Steve would be almost fifty by then.

  That's what's on his mind, Alan thought. He lost Steve forever--but hedoesn't want any more Steves to happen. The Contraction took one of hissons away. And now he wants the hyperdrive as much as I do.

  Alan glanced at the stiff, erect figure of his father as they clamberedout of the copter and headed at a fast clip toward the AdministrationBuilding of the Enclave. He wondered just how much pain and anguish hisfather was keeping hidden back of that brisk, efficient exterior.

  _I'll get the Cavour drive someday_, Alan thought suddenly. _And I'll begetting it for him as well as me._

  The bizarre buildings of the Enclave loomed up before him. Behind them,just visible in the purplish twilight haze, were the tips of the shiningtowers of the Earther city outside. Somewhere out there, probably, wasSteve.

  _I'll find him too_, Alan thought firmly.

  * * * * *

  Most of the _Valhalla's_ people had already been assigned rooms in thequarantine section of one of the Enclave buildings when Alan and hisfather arrived.

  The bored-looking desk clerk--a withered-looking oldster who wasprobably a retired Starman--gave Alan his room number. It turned out tobe a small, squarish room furnished with an immense old pneumochair longsince deflated, a cot, and a washstand. The wall was a dull green, withgaping cracks in the faded paint, and cut heavily with a penknife intoone wall was the inscription, BILL DANSERT SLEPT HERE, _June 28 2683_ insturdy block letters.

  Alan wondered how many other starmen had occupied the room before andafter Bill Dansert. He wondered whether perhaps Bill Dansert himselfwere still alive somewhere between the stars, twelve centuries after hehad left his name in the wall.

  He dropped himself into the pneumochair, feeling the soggy squish of thedeflated cushion, and loosened the jacket of his uniform.

  "It's not luxurious," he told Rat. "But at least it's a room. It's aplace to stay."

  The medics started coming around that evening, checking to see that noneof the newly-arrived starmen had happened to bring back any strangedisease that might cause trouble. It was slow work--and the _Valhalla_people were told that it would take at least until the following morningbefore the quarantine could be lifted.

  "Just a precautionary measure," said the medic apologetically as heentered Alan's room clad in a space helmet. "We really learned ourlesson when that shipload from Altair came in bearing a plague."

  The medic produced a small camera and focused it on Alan. He pressed abutton; a droning sort of hum came from the machine. Alan felt a curiousglow of warmth.

  "Just a routine check," the medic apologized again. He flipped a leverin the back of the camera. Abruptly the droning stopped and a tapeunravelled out of the side of the machine. The medic studied it.

  "Any trouble?" Alan asked anxiously.

  "Looks okay to me. But you might get that cavity in your upper rightwisdom tooth taken care of. Otherwise you seem in good shape."

  He rolled up the tape. "Don't you starmen ever get time for a fluorinetreatment? Some of you have the worst teeth I've ever seen."

  "We haven't had a chance for fluorination yet. Our ship was built beforethey started fluorinating the water supplies, and somehow we never findtime to take the treatment while we're on Earth. B
ut is that all that'swrong with me?"

  "All that I can spot just by examining the diagnostic tape. We'll haveto wait for the full lab report to come through before I can pass youout of quarantine, of course." Then he noticed Rat perched in thecorner. "How about that? I'll have to examine it, too."

  "I'm not an _it_," Rat remarked with icy dignity. "I'm an intelligentextra-terrestrial entity, native of Bellatrix VII. And I'm not carryingany particular diseases that would interest you."

  "A talking rat!" The medic was amazed. "Next thing we'll have sentientamebas!" He aimed the camera at Rat. "I suppose I'll have to record youas a member of the crew," he said, as the camera began to hum.

  After the medic had gone, Alan tried to freshen up at the washstand,having suddenly recalled that a dance was on tap for this evening.

  As he wearily went through the motions of scrubbing his face clean, itoccurred to him that he had not even bothered to speak to one of theseven or eight Crew girls he had considered inviting.

  He sensed a curious disturbed feeling growing inside him. He feltdepressed. Was this, he wondered, what Steve had gone through? The wishto get out of this tin can of a ship and really see the universe?

  "Tell me, Rat. If you were me----"

  "If I were you I'd get dressed for that dance," Rat said sharply. "Ifyou've got a date, that is."

  "That's just the point. I _don't_ have a date. I mean, I didn't botherto make one. I know all those girls so well. Why bother?"

  "So you're not going to the dance?"

  "Nope."

  Rat clambered up the arm of the pneumochair and swivelled his headupward till his glittering little eyes met Alan's. "You're not planningto go over the hill the way Steve did, are you? I can spot the symptoms.You look restless and fidgety the way your brother did."

  After a moment of silence Alan shook his head. "No. I couldn't do that,Rat. Steve was the wild kind. I'd never be able just to get up and go,the way he did. But I've got to do _something_. I know what he meant. Hesaid the walls of the ship were pressing in on him. Holding him back."

  With a sudden impatient motion he ripped open the magnesnaps of hisregulation shirt and took it off. He felt himself changing, inside.Something was happening to him. Maybe, he thought, he was catchingwhatever it was Steve had been inflamed by. Maybe he had been lying tohimself all along, about being different in makeup from Steve.

  "Go tell the Captain I'm not going to the dance," he ordered Rat."Otherwise he'll wonder where I am. Tell him--tell him I'm too tired, orsomething. Tell him anything. But don't let him find out how I feel."