Sciro of Sarlon!”
“So be it,” Skandos One murmured gently, and took up the life and work of Skandos Four.
Ultimate catastrophe was five hundred twenty-nine years away.
SUBSPACE SURVIVORS
There has always been, and will always be, the problem of surviving the experience that any trained expert
can handle … when there hasn’t been any first survivor to be an expert! When no one has ever gotten back to
explain what happened. . . .
“All passengers, will pay attention” please?” All the high-fidelity speakers of the starship Procyon spoke as one” in
the skillfully-modulated voice of the trained announcer. “This is the fourth and last cautionary announcement. Any
who are not seated will seat themselves at once. Prepare for take-off acceleration of one and one-half gravities;
that is” everyone will weigh one-half again as much as his normal Earth weight for about fifteen minutes. We lift in
twenty seconds, I will count down the final five seconds . . . Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Lift!”
The immense vessel rose from her berth; slowly at first, but with ever-increasing velocity; and in the main lounge,
where many of the passengers had gathered to watch the dwindling Earth, no one moved for the first five minutes.
Then a girl stood up.
She was not a startlingly beautiful girl; no, more so than can be seen fairly often” of a summer afternoon, on
Seaside Beach. Her hair was an artificial yellow. Her eyes were a deep, cool blue. Her skin, what could be seen of
it-she was wearing breeches and a long-sleeved shirt-was lightly tanned. She was only about five-feet three, and her
build was not spectacular. However, every ounce of her one hundred fifteen pounds was exactly where it should
have been.
First she stood tentatively, flexing her knees and testing her weight. Then, stepping boldly out into a clear space”
she began to do a high-kicking acrobatic dance; and went on doing it as effortlessly and as rhythmically as though
she were on an Earthly stage.
“You mustn’t do that, Miss!” A stewardess came bustling up. Or” rather, not exactly bustling. Very few people, and
almost no stewardesses” either actually bustle in or really enjoy one point five gees, “You really must resume your
seat” Miss. I must insist . . . Oh” you’re Miss Warner . . .”
She paused.
“That’s right. Barbara Warner. Cabin two eight one.” “But really” Miss Warner, it’s regulations” and if you should
fall . . .”
“Foosh to regulations” and pful on ’em. I won’t fall. I’ve been wondering” every time out, if I could do a thing, and
now I’m going to find out.”
Jack-knifing double” she put both forearms flat on the carpet and lifted both legs into the vertical. Then, silver
slippers pointing motionlessly ceiling-ward, she got up onto her hands and walked twice around a vacant chair. She
then performed a series of flips that would have done credit to a professional acrobat; the finale of which left her
sitting calmly in the previously empty seat.
“See?” she informed the flabbergasted stewardess. “I could do it, and I didn’t . . .”
Her voice was drowned out in a yell of approval as everybody who could clap their hands did so with enthusiasm.
“More!” “Keep it up, gal!” “Do it again!”
“Oh” I didn’t do that to show off!” Barbara Warner flushed hotly as she met the eyes of the nearby spectators.
“Honestly I didn’t-I just had to know if I could.” Then” as the applause did not die down, she fairly scampered out of
the room.
For one hour before the Procyon’s departure from Earth and for three hours afterward, First Officer Carlyle Des-
ton, Chief Electronicist, sat attentively at his board. He was five-feet-eight inches tall and weighed one hundred
sixty-two pounds net. Just a little guy” as spacemen go. Although narrow-waisted and for his heft” broad-shoul-
dered, he was built for speed and maneuverability, not to haul freight.
Watching a hundred lights and half that many instruments, listening to two phone circuits, one with each ear” and
hands moving from switches to rheostats to buttons and levers, be was completely informed as to the instant-
by-instant status of everything in his department.
Although attentive, he was not tense, even during the countdown. The only change was that at the word “Two” his
right forefinger came to rest upon a red button and his eyes doubled their rate of scan. If anything in his department
had gone wrong the Procyon’s departure would have been delayed.
And again, well out beyond the orbit of the moon, just before the starship’s mighty Chaytor engines hurled her out
of space as we know it into that unknowable something that is hyperspace, he poised a finger. But Immergence,
too, was normal; all the green lights except one went out, needles dropped to zero, both phones went dead” all
signals stopped. He plugged a jack into a socket below the one remaining green light and spoke:
“Procyon One to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio Test 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.” Deston flipped a toggle and the solitary green light went out.
Perfect signal and zero noise. That was that. From now until Emergence-unless something happened-he might as
well be a passenger. Everything was automatic, unless and until some robot or computer yelled for help. Deston
leaned back in his bucket seat and lighted a cigarette. He didn’t need to scan the board constantly now; any trouble
signal would jump right out at him.
Promptly at Dee plus Three Zero Zero-three hours” no minutes, no seconds after departure-his relief appeared.
“All black, Babe?” the newcomer asked.
“As the pit, Eddie. Take over.” Eddie did so. “You’ve picked out your girl friend for the trip, I suppose?” “Not yet. I
got sidetracked watching Bobby Warner.
She was doing handstands and handwalks and forward and back flips in the lounge-under one point five gees yet.
Wow! And after that all the other women looked like a dime’s worth of catmeat. She doesn’t stand out too much
until she starts to move, but then-Oh, brother!” Eddie rolled his eyes, made motions with his hands, and whistled
expressively. “Talk about poetry in motion! Just walking across a stage, she’d bring down the house and stop the
show cold in its tracks.”
“OK, OK, don’t blow a fuse,” Deston said, resignedly. “I know. You’ll love her undyingly; all this trip, maybe. So
bring her up, next watch” and I’ll give her a gold badge. As usual.”
“You . . . how dumb can you get?” Eddie demanded. “D’you think I’d even try to play footsie with Barbara
Warner?”
“You’d play footsie with the Archangel Michael’s sister if she’d let you; and she probably would. So who’s Barbara
Warner?”
Eddie Thompson gazed at his superior pitingly. “I know you’re ten nines per cent monk, Babe, but I did think you
pulled your nose out of the megacycles often enough to learn a few of the facts of life. Did you ever hear of
Warner Oil?”
“I think so.” Deston thought for a moment. “Found a big new field, didn’t they? In South America somewhere?” “Just
the biggest on Earth” is all. And not only on Earth. He operates in all the systems for a hundred parsecs around, and
he never sinks a dry hole. Every well he drills is a gusher that blows the rig clear up into the stratosphere.
Everybody wonders how he does it. My guess is that his wife’s an oil-witch, which is why he lugs his whole family
along wherever he goes. Why else would he?”
“Maybe he loves her. It happens, you know.” “Huh?” Eddie snorted. “After twenty years of her? Comet-gas! Anyway,
would you have the sublime gall to make passes at Warner Oil’s heiress, with more millions in her own sock than
you’ve got dimes?”
“I don’t make passes.”
“That’s right, you don’t. Only at books and tapes, even on ground leaves; more fool you. Well” then, would you
marry anybody like that?”
“Certainly, if I loved . . .” Deston paused, thought a moment, then went on: “Maybe I wouldn’t, either. She’d make me
dress for dinner. She’d probably have a live waiter; maybe even a butler. So I guess I wouldn’t” at that.”
“You nor me neither, brother. But what a dish! What a lovely, luscious, toothsome dish!” Eddie mourned. “You’ll
be raving about another one tomorrow,” Deston said, unfeelingly, as he turned away.
“I don’t know; but even if I do, she won’t be anything like her,” Eddie said, to the closing door.
And Deston, outside the door, grinned sardonically to himself. Before his next watch, Eddie would bring up one of
the prettiest girls aboard for a gold badge; the token that would let her-under approved escort” of course-go