Pohl, Frederik - Beyond the Blue Event Horizon

When Wan at last wrenched open the metal wire and pulled at her arm, she lay there staring at him. She did not have the strength to rise, or the desire. He had to help her up, and she leaned on his shoulder as they started back.

They were less than halfway back to the Herter-Hall ship when the other members of the family interrupted them, and they were furious. “Stupid little brat!” Paul raged. “You ever do anything like that again and I’ll paddle your pink little ass for you!”

“She won’t!” her father said grimly. “I will see to that, right now; and as to you, little miss, I will see to you later.”

They had all become so quarrelsome! No one paddled Janine’s bottom for trying out the dreaming couch. No one punished her at all. They all punished each other, instead, and did it all the time. The truce that had held for three and a half years, because each of them enforced it for himself, the alternative being mutual murder, dissolved. Paul and the old man did not speak for two days, because Peter had dismantled the couch without consultation. Lurvy and her father spat and shouted at each other because she had programmed too much salt in their meal, and then again, when it was his turn, because he had programmed too little. And as to Lurvy and Paul-they no longer slept together; they hardly spoke; they would surely not have stayed married, if there had been a divorce court within 5,000 A.U.

But if there had been a source of authority of any kind within 5,000 A.U., at least the disputes could have been resolved. Someone could have made their decisions. Should they return? Should they try to overpower the Food Factory’s guidance? Should they go with Wan to explore the other place-and if so, who should go and who should remain behind? They could not agree on grand plans. They could not even agree on the decisions of every hour, to take a machine apart and risk its destruction, or to leave it alone and give up the hope of some wonderful discovery that could change everything. They could not agree on who should talk to the Dead Men by radio, or what to ask them. Wan showed them, willingly enough, how to try to tempt the Dead Men into conversation, and they put Vera’s sound system in linkage with the “radio”. But Vera could not handle much give and take; and when the Dead Men did not understand her questions, or did not want to participate, or were simply too insane to be of any use, Vera was beaten.

All this was awful for Janine, but worst of all was Wan himself. The squabbling made him confused and indignant. He stopped following her around. And after one sleep, when she sat up and looked around for him, he was gone.

Fortunately for Janine’s pride, everyone else was gone, too-Paul and Lurvy outside the ship to reorient the antennae; her father asleep, so that she had time to deal with her jealousy. Let him be a pig! she thought. It was stupid of him not to realize that she had many friends, while he had only her; but he would find out! She was busy writing long letters to her neglected correspondents when she heard Paul and her sister returning; and when she told them that Wan had been gone for at least an hour she was unprepared for their reaction. “Pa!” Lurvy cried, rattling at the curtain of her father’s private. “Wake up! Wan’s gone!”

As the old man came blinking out, Janine said disagreeably, “Now, what’s the matter with all of you?”

“You don’t understand, do you?” Paul asked coldly. “What if he’s taken the ship?”

It was a possibility that had never occurred to Janine, and it was like a blow in the face. “He wouldn’t!”

“Would he not?” snarled her father. “And how do you know that, little minx? And if he does, what of us?” He finished zipping his coverall and stood up, glowering at them. “I have told you all,” he said-but looking at Lurvy and Paul, so that Janine understood she was not a part of their “all”-“I have told you that we must find a definite solution. If we are to go with him in his ship, we must do it. If not, we cannot take the risk that he will take it into his foolish little mind to go back without warning. That is assuredly certain.”

“And how do we do that?” Lurvy demanded. “You’re preposterous, Pa. We can’t guard the ship day and night.”

“And your sister cannot guard the boy, yes,” the old man nodded. “So we must either immobilize the ship, or immobilize the boy.”

Janine flew at him. “You monsters!” she choked. “You’ve been planning this all out when we weren’t around!” Her sister caught and held her.

“Calm down, Janine,” she ordered. “Yes, it’s true we’ve talked about it-we had to! But nothing’s settled, certainly not that we will hurt Wan.”

“Then settle it!” Janine flared. “I vote we go with Wan!”

“If he hasn’t gone already, by himself,” Paul put in.

“He hasn’t!”

Lurvy said practically, “If he has, it’s too late for us to do anything about it. Outside of that, I’m with Janine. We go! What do you say, Paul?”

He hesitated. “I-guess so,” he conceded. “Peter?”

The old man said with dignity, “If you are all agreed, then what does it matter how I vote? There is only the question remaining who is to go and who is to stay. I propose-“

Lurvy stopped him. “Pa,” she said, “I know what you are going to say, but it won’t work. We need to leave at least one person here, to keep in contact with Earth. Janine’s too young. It can’t be me, because I’m the best pilot and this is a chance to learn something about piloting a Heechee ship. I don’t want to go without Paul, and that leaves you.”

They took Vera apart, component by component, and redistributed her around the Food Factory. Fast memory, inputs, and displays went into the dreaming chamber, slow memory lining the passageway outside, transmission still in their old ship. Peter helped, silent and taciturn; the meaning of what they were doing was that further communications of interest would come from the exploring party, via the radio system of the Dead Men. Peter was helping to write himself off, and knew it. There was plenty of food in the ship, Wan told them; but Paul would not be satisfied with the automatic replenishment of God knew what product of the Food Factory, and he made them carry aboard rations of their own, as much as they could stow. Whereupon Wan insisted that they stock up with water, and so they depleted the recycling stocks in the ship to fill his plastic bags and loaded them, too. Wan’s ship had no beds, None were needed, Wan pointed out, because the acceleration cocoons were enough to protect them during maneuvers, and to keep them from floating around while they slept in the rest of the voyage-suggestion vetoed by both Lurvy and Paul, who dismantled the sleeping pouches from their private and reinstalled them in the ship. Personal possessions: Janine wanted her secret stash of perfume and books, Lurvy her personal locked bag, Paul his cards for solitaire. It was long and hard work, though they discovered they could ease it by sailing the plastic waterbags and the softer, solider other stores along the corridors in a game of slow-motion catch; but at last it was done. Peter sat sourly propped against a corridor wall, watching the others mill about, and tried to think of what had been forgotten. To Janine it seemed as though they were already treating him as though he were absent, if not dead, and she said, “Pop? Don’t take it so hard. We’ll all be back as soon as we can.”

He nodded. “Which comes to,” he said, “let me see, forty-nine days each way, plus as long as you decide to stay in this place.” But then he pushed himself up, and allowed Lurvy and Janine to kiss him. Almost cheerfully, he said, “Bon voyage. Are you sure you have forgotten nothing?”