“Excellent! Now, what is Mach’s Hypothesis?”
He licked his lips. “I am not really comfortable with speculative discussions about quantum mechanics, Mrs. Broadhead. I have difficulty believing that God plays dice with the universe.”
“Have not asked for belief! Keep to rules, Albert. Am only asking for definition of widely used technical term.”
He sighed and shifted position. “Very well, Mrs. Broadhead, but allow me to put it in tangible terms. There is reason to believe that some sort of very large-scale tampering is going on with the expansion-contraction cycle of the universe. The expansion is being reversed. The contraction is being made to proceed, it would appear, to a single point-the same as before the Big Bang.”
“And what was that?” Essie demanded.
He shuffled his feet. “I really am getting quite nervous, Mrs. Broadhead,” he complained.
“But you can answer the question-in terms of what is generally believed.”
“At what point, Mrs. Broadhead? What is believed now? What was believed, let us say, before the days of Hawking and those other quantum people? There is one definite statement about the universe at its very beginning, but it is a religious one.”
“Albert,” said Essie warningly.
He grinned weakly. “I was only going to quote St. Augustine of Hippo,” he said. “When he was asked what God was doing before He created the universe, he replied that He was creating Hell for people who asked that question.”
“Albert!”
“Oh, very well,” he said irritably. “Yes. It is thought that prior to some very early time-no later than the fraction one over 10” of a second before it-relativity can no longer account for the physics of the universe and some sort of ‘quantum correction’ must be made. I am getting quite tired of this schoolboy quiz, Mrs. Broadhead.”
I have not often seen Essie shocked. “Albert!” she cried again, in a quite different tone. Not warning. Astonished, and disconcerted.
“Yes, Albert,” he said savagely, “that is who you created and who I am. Let us stop this, please. Have the goodness to listen. I do not know what happens before the Big Bang! I only know that there is someone somewhere who thinks he does know and can control it. This frightens me very much, Mrs. Broadhead.”
“Frightens’?” gasped Essie. “Who has programmed to be ‘frightened’ in you, Albert?”
“You have, Mrs. Broadhead. I can’t live with that. And I do not wish to discuss it further.”
And he winked out.
He didn’t have to do that. He could have spared our feelings. He could have pretended to exit through a door, or disappeared when we were looking the other way. He didn’t do either of those things. He just vanished. It was just as though he were a truly real human being in just such a spat, finishing it off by flouncing out and slamming the door in anger. He was too angry to be careful of appearances.
“Is not supposed to lose temper,” said Essie dismally.
But he had; and the shock of that was not nearly as great as the shock that came when we discovered that the viewscreen still would not respond to its controls, and neither would the piloting board.
Albert had locked them both. We were heading at a steady acceleration toward we did not know what.
20 Unwanted Encounter
The phone was ringing in Wan’s ship. Well, it was not really a phone, and it certainly wasn’t ringing; but there was the signal to show that someone was directing a message to the ship on the FTL radio. “Off!” shouted Wan, waking up indignantly from his sleep. “I will speak to no one!” And then, somewhat more awake, he looked not only angry but puzzled. “It has been turned off,” he said, staring at the FTL radio, and the look on his face went the rest of the way across the spectrum to fear.
What makes Wan less than loathsome to me, I think, is that ulcer of fear that ate away at him always. Heaven knows he was a brute. He was surly; he was a thief he cared for nothing but himself. But that only means that he was what we all once were, but we are socialized out of it by parents and playmates and school and police. No one had ever socialized Wan, and so he was still a child. “I will speak to no one!” he shouted, and woke Klara.
I can see Klara as she was then, since now I can see so much that was hidden. She was tired, she was irritable, and she had had all of Wan any person could be expected to stand. “You might as well answer it,” she said, and Wan glared at her as though she were insane.
“Answer? Of course I shall not answer! It is only at most some interfering bureaucrat to complain that I have not followed the exact proper procedures-“
“To complain that you stole the ship,” she corrected mildly, and crossed to the FFL radio. “How do you answer it?” she asked.
“Do not be foolish!” he howled. “Wait! Stop! What are you doing?”
“Is it this lever?” she asked, and his yell was answer enough. He leaped across the tiny cabin, but she was larger than he and stronger. She fended him off. The signal chirp stopped; the golden light went off; and Wan, suddenly relaxing, laughed out loud.
“Ho, what a fool you are! There is no one there,” he cried.
But he was wrong. There was a hissing sound for a moment, then recognizable words-almost recognizable, at least. A shrill and queerly stressed voice said:
“I fill to you no harrum.”
For Klara to understand what had been said took considerable thought, and then when she had understood it, it did not achieve its desired effect. Was it what it sounded like? Some stranger, with a terrible hissing speech impediment, trying to say “I will do you no harm”? And why would he say that? To be reassured that you are not in danger at a time when you had no reason to think you were is not reassuring.
Wan was scowling. “What is it?” he cried sharply, beginning to sweat. “Who is there? What do you want?”
There was no answer. The reason there was no answer was that Captain had used up his entire vocabulary and was busy rehearsing his next speech; to Wan and Klara, however, the silence had more meaning than the words. “The screen!” Wan cried. “Foolish woman, use the screen, find out what this is!”
It took time for Klara to work the controls; the use of the Heechee vision screen was a skill she had only begun to acquire on this voyage, since no one in her time had known how to operate it. It clarified to display a ship, a big one. The biggest Klara bad ever seen, far larger than any of the Fives that had operated out of Gateway in her time. “What- What-What-“ whimpered Wan, and only on the fourth try managed to complete it: “What is it?”
Klara didn’t try to answer. She didn’t know. She feared, though. She feared that it was the sight every Gateway prospector had both longed for and dreaded, and when Captain finished rehearsing and delivered his next speech she was sure:
“I … cummin … a-bore-ud … tchew.”
Coming aboard! For one ship to dock with another in full drive was not impossible, Klara knew; it had been done. But no Earthly pilot had had much practice in doing it.
“Don’t let him in!” shrieked Wan. “Run away! Hide! Do something!” He glared at Klara in terror, then made a lunge for the controls.
“Don’t be a fool!” she yelled, springing to intercept him. Klara was a strong woman, but he was all she could handle just then. Mad fear made him strong. He flailed out at her and sent her reeling and, weeping with fear, leaped at the controls.
In the terror of this unexpected contact, Klara nevertheless had room for another stabbing fear. Everything she had learned about Heechee ships had taught her that you never, never tried to change course once it was established. Newer skills had made it possible to do it, she knew; but she also knew that it was not to be done lightly, only after careful calculation and planning, and Wan was in no shape for either of those.
And even so-it made no difference. The great shark-shaped ship moved closer.
In spite of herself Klara watched admiringly as the pilot of the other ship matched course change and velocity increment without difficulty. It was a technically fascinating process. Wan froze at the controls, watching it, mouth open, slobbering. Then, when the other ship loomed large and disappeared below the view of the scanners, and there was a grating sound from the lander hatch, he bellowed in fear and dove for the toilet. Klara was alone as she saw the lander hatch open and fall back; and so it was Gelle-Klara Moynlin who was the first human being to stand in the presence of a Heechee.