Robert Silverberg - Starman's Quest

3884 slipped past. Now the time was drawing near. Alan spent virtually all his hours at the research center, aiding in the successive tests.

On March 11, 3885, the final test was accomplished satisfactorily. Alan’s ship, the Cavour , had been completely remodeled to accommodate the new drive; every test but one had been completed.

The final test was that of actual performance. And here, despite the advice of his friends, Alan insisted that he would have to be the man who took the Cavour on her first journey to the stars.

Nine years had passed, almost to the week, since a brash youngster named Alan Donnell had crossed the bridge from the Spacer’s Enclave and hesitantly entered the bewildering complexity of York City. Nine years.

He was twenty-six now, no boy any more. He was the same age Steve had been, when he had been dragged unconscious to the Valhalla and taken aboard.

And the Valhalla was still bound on its long journey to Procyon. Nine years had passed, but yet another remained before the giant starship would touch down on a planet of Procyon’s. But the Fitzgerald Contraction had telescoped those nine years into just a few months, for the people of the Valhalla .

Steve Donnell was still twenty-six.

And now Alan had caught him. The Contraction had evened out. They were twins again.

And the Cavour was ready to make its leap into hyperspace.

It was not difficult for Alan to get the route of the Valhalla , which had been recorded at Central Routing Registration. Every starship was required by law to register a detailed route-chart before leaving, and these charts were filed at the central bureau. The reason was simple: a starship with a crippled drive was a deadly object. In case a starship’s drive conked out, it would keep drifting along toward its destination, utterly helpless to turn, maneuver, or control its motion. And if any planets or suns happened to lie in its direct path—

The only way a ship could alter its trajectory was to cut speed completely, and with the drive dead there would be no way of picking it up again. The ship would continue to drift slowly out to the stars, while its crew died of old age.

So the routes were registered, and in the event of drive trouble it was thus possible for a rescue ship to locate the imperilled starship. Space is immense, and only with a carefully registered route could a ship be found.

Starship routes were restricted information. But Alan had influence; he was easily able to persuade the Routing Registration people that his intentions were honorable, that he planned to overtake the Valhalla if they would only let him have the coordinates. A bit of minor legal jugglery was all that was needed to give him access to the data.

It seemed there was an ancient regulation that said any member of a starship’s crew was entitled by law to examine his ship’s registered route, if he wanted to. The rule was intended to apply to starmen who distrusted their captains and were fearful of being shipped off to some impossibly distant point; it said nothing at all about starmen who had been left behind and were planning to overtake their ships. But nothing prohibited Alan from getting the coordinates, and so they gave them to him.

The Cavour was ready for the departure. Alan elbowed his way through the crowd of curious onlookers and clambered into the redesigned control chamber.

He paused a moment, running his fingers over the shiny instrument panel with its new dials, strange levers, unfamiliar instruments. Overdrive Compensator. Fuel Transmuter. Distortion Guide. Bender Index. Strange new names, but Alan realized they would be part of the vocabulary of all future spacemen.

He began to work with the new controls, plotting his coordinates with extreme care and checking them through six or seven times. At last he was satisfied; he had computed a hyperdrive course that would loop him through space and bring him out in only a few days’ time in the general vicinity of the Valhalla , which was buzzing serenely along at near the speed of light.

That was practically a snail’s pace, compared with hyperdrive.

The time for the test had come. He spoke briefly with his friends and assistants in the control tower; then he checked his figures through one last time and requested blastoff clearance.

A moment later the count-down began, and he began setting up for departure.

A tremor of anticipation shot through him as he prepared to blast off on the first hyperdrive voyage ever made. He was stepping out into the unknown, making the first use ever of a strange, perhaps dangerous means of travel. The drive would loop him out of the space-time continuum, into— where? —and back again.

He hoped.

He punched down the keys, and sat back to wait for the automatic pilot to carry him out from Earth.

Somewhere past the orbit of the moon, a gong told him that the Cavour drive was about to come into play. He held his breath. He felt a twisting sensation. He stared at the viewscreen.

The stars had vanished. Earth, with all its memories of the last nine years, was gone, taking with it Hawkes, Jesperson, York City, the Enclaves—everything.

He floated in a featureless dull gray void, without stars, without worlds. So this is hyperspace , he thought. He felt tired, and he felt tense. He had reached hyperspace; that was half the struggle. It remained to see whether he would come out where he expected to come out, or whether he would come out at all.

Four days of boredom. Four days of wishing that the time would come to leave hyperspace. And then the automatic pilot came to life; the Cavour generator thrummed and signalled that it had done its work and was shutting down. Alan held his breath.

He felt the twisting sensation. The Cavour was leaving hyperdrive.

Stars burst suddenly against the blackness of space; the viewscreen brightened. Alan shut his eyes a moment as he readjusted from the sight of the gray void to that of the starry reaches of normal space. He had returned.

And, below him, making its leisurely journey to Procyon, was the great golden-hulled bulk of the Valhalla , gleaming faintly in the black night of space.

He reached for the controls of his ship radio. Minutes later, he heard a familiar voice—that of Chip Collier, the Valhalla’s Chief Signal Officer.

“Starship Valhalla picking up. We read you. Who is calling, please?”

Alan smiled. “This is Alan Donnell, Chip. How goes everything?”

For a moment nothing came through the phones but astonished sputtering. Finally Collier said thickly, ” Alan? What sort of gag is this? Where are you?”

“Believe it or not, I’m hovering right above you in a small ship. Suppose you get my father on the wire, and we can discuss how I’ll go about boarding you.”

Fifteen minutes later the Cavour was grappled securely to the skin of the Valhalla like a flea riding an elephant, and Alan was climbing in through the main airlock. It felt good to be aboard the big ship once again, after all these years.

He shucked his spacesuit and stepped into the corridor. His father was standing there waiting for him.

“Hello, Dad.”

Captain Donnell shook his head uncomprehendingly. “Alan—how did you—I mean—and you’re so much older, too! I—”

“The Cavour Drive, Dad. I’ve had plenty of time to develop it. Nine good long years, back on Earth. And for you it’s only a couple of months since you blasted off!”

Another figure appeared in the corridor. Steve. He looked good; the last few months aboard the Valhalla had done their work. The unhealthy fat he had been carrying was gone; his eyes were bright and clear, his shoulders square. It was like looking into a mirror to see him, Alan thought. It hadn’t been this way for a long time.