Subspace Explorers
First published, 1965, Canaveral Press
By E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith
Chapter 1
CATASTROPHE
At time zero minus nine minutes First Officer Carlyle Deston, Chief Electronicist of the
starliner Procyon, sat attentively at his board. He was five feet eight inches tall and
weighed one hundred sixty two pounds. just a little guy, as spacemen go. Although
narrow-waisted and, for his heft, broad-shouldered, he was built for speed and
maneuverability, not to handle freight.
Watching a hundred lights and half that many instruments; listening to four telephone
circuits, two with each ear; hands flashing to toggles and buttons and knobs; he was
completely informed as to the instant-by-instant condition of everything in his department
during countdown. Everything had been and still was in condition GO.
Nevertheless, he was bothered; bothered as he had never been bothered before in all his
three years of subspacing. He had always had hunches and they had always been right,
but this one was utterly ridiculous. It wasn’t the ship or the trip-nothing was yelling “DAN-
GER!” into his mind-it was something down in the Middle that was pulling at him like a cat
tractor and it didn’t make sense. He never went down into passenger territory. He had no
business there and flirting with vacskulled girls was not his dish.
So he fought his hunch down and concentrated on his job. Lift-off was uneventful; so was
the climb out to a safe distance from Earth. At time zero minus two seconds Deston
poised a fingertip over the red button, but everything stayed in condition GO and
immergence into subspace was perfectly normal. All the green lights except one went
out; all the needles dropped to zero; all four phones went dead; all signals stopped. He
plugged a jack into the socket under the remaining green light and said: “Procyon One to
Control Six. Flight eight four nine. Subspace radio test number one. How do you read
me, Control Six?”
“Control Six to Procyon One. I read you ten and zero. How do you read me, Procyon
One?”
“Ten and zero. Out.” The solitary green light went out and Deston unplugged.
Perfect signal and zero noise. That was that. From now until Emergence-unless some
robot or computer called for help-he might as well be a passenger. He leaned back in his
seat, lit a cigarette, and began really to study this wild hunch, that was getting worse all
the time. It was all he could do to keep from calling his relief and going down there right
then; but he couldn’t and wouldn’t do that. He was on until plus three hours. He couldn’t
possibly explain any such break as that would be, so he stuck it out.
At time zero plus one hundred seventy nine minutes his relief appeared. “All black,
Babe?” the newcomer asked.
“As the pit, Eddie. Take over. You’ve picked out your girl-friend for the trip, I suppose?”
While taking the bucket seat, Eddie said, “Not yet. I got sidetracked watching Bobby
Warner. . .”
A wave of psychic force hit Deston’s mind hard enough almost to turn it inside out; but he
clenched his teeth and held his pose.
. . . and after seeing her just walk across the lounge once, all the other women looked
like a clime’s worth of catmeat. Talk about poetry in motion!” Eddie rolled his eyes, made
motions with his hands, and whistled expressively. “Oh, brother!”
“Okay, okay, don’t blow a fuse,” Deston said, in what he hoped was his usual tone and
manner. “I know. You’ll love her undyingly-all this trip, maybe.”
“Huh? How dumb can you get? D’you think I’d even try to play footsie with Barbara
Warner?”
“You play footsie with the pick of the passenger list, so who’s Barbara Warner, to daunt
Don Juan Eddie Thompson, the Tomcat of Space?”
“I thought you knew some of the facts of life, Babe. She’s Warner’s only child, is all.
Warner of WarnOil; the biggest in all space. Operates in every solar system known to
man and never puts down a dry hole. All gushers that blow their rigs clear up into the
stratosphere. Everybody wonders how come. The poop is, his wife’s an oil-witch, is why
he lugs her around with him all the time. Why else would he?”
“Maybe be loves her. It happens, you know.”
“Huh? After twenty-some years of her? Comet-gas! Anyway, would you have the sublime
gall to make a pass at WarnOil’s heiress, with more millions in her own sock than you’ve
got dimes? If you ever made passes, I mean.” “Uh-uh. Negative. For sure.”
“You nor me neither. But what a dish! Brother, what a lovely, luscious, toothsome dish!”
“Cheer up; you’ll be raving about another one tomorrow,” Deston said callously, turning
away.
“I don’t know . . . maybe; but even if I do, she won’t be anything like her,” Eddie
mourned, to the closing door. Deston didn’t go to his cabin; didn’t take off his sidearm.
He didn’t even think of it; the .41 automatic at his hip was as much a part of his uniform
as his pants.
Entering the lounge, he did not have to look around. She was playing contract, and as
eves met caves and she rose to her feet a shock-wave went through him that made him
feel as though every hair he had was standing straight on end.
She was about five feet four. Her hair was a startlingly brilliant artificial yellow; her eyes
a deep, cool blue. She could have made the Miss Western Hemisphere finals.
Deston, however, did not notice any of these details then.
“Excuse me, please,” she said to the other three at her table. “I must go now.” She
tossed her cards down onto the table and walked straight toward him; eyes still holding
eyes.
He backed hastily out into the corridor, and as the door closed behind her they went
naturally and wordlessly into each other’s arms. Lips met lips in a kiss that lasted for a
long time. It was not a passionate embrace passion would come later-it was as though
each of them, after endless years of bootless, fruitless longing, had come at long last
home.
“Come with me, dear, where we can talk,” she said finally, eyeing with disfavor the
half-dozen spectators; and, in her suite a few minutes later, Deston said:
“So this is why I had to come down into passenger territory. You came aboard at exactly
zero seven forty three.”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “A few minutes before that; that was when I read your
name on the board. First Officer, Carlyle Deston. It simply unraveled me; I came
completely unzipped. It’s wonderful that you’re so strongly psychic, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said, thoughtfully. “Psionics says that that the map is the
territory, but all my training has been based on the axiom that it isn’t. I’ve had hunches all
my life, but the signal doesn’t carry much information. Like hearing a siren while you’re
driving a ground-car. You know you have to pull over and stop, but that’s all you know. It
could be police, fire, ambulance-anything. Anybody with any psionic ability at all ought to
do a lot better than that, I should think.”
“Not necessarily. You don’t want to believe it, so you’ve been fighting it, beating it down.
So it has to force its way through whillions and skillions of ohms of resistance to get
through to you at all. But I know you’re very strongly psychic, or you wouldn’t’ve come
down here . . .”
she giggled suddenly “. . . and you’d’ve jumped clear out into subspace when a perfectly
strange girl attacked you. So … aren’t you going to ask me to marry you?”
“Of course I am.” He blushed hotly. “Will you? Right now?”
“You can’t without resigning, can you? They’d fire you?”
“What of it? I can get a good ground job.” “But you wouldn’t like a ground job!”
“What of that, too. A man grows up. Between you and any job in the universe there’s no
choice.”
“I knew you’d say that, Cari.” She hugged his elbow against her side. “I’d love to get
married right now. . . .” She paused.
“Except for what?” he asked.
“I thought at first I’d tell my parents first-they’re aboard, you know-hut I won’t. Shed
scream and he’d roar and neither of them could make me change my mind, so we will do
it right now.”
He looked at her questioningly; she shrugged and went on, We aren’t what you could call
a happy family. She’s been trying to make me marry an old goat of a prince and I finally
told her to go roll her hoop-to get a divorce and marry the foul old beast herself. And he’s
been pushing me to marry an oil-man-to consolidate two empires-that it makes me sick
at the stomach just to look at! Last week he insisted on it and I blew an atomic bomb. I’d