TUCK BENEDICT AND David Torm stared at the ship in the gloomy crevice, stared speechless at the long, slender form as the implication sank in. And then they were both talking at once, forgetting where they were in their amazement at the ship in the crevice before them. A thousand questions roared through Tuck’s brain, a thousand pressing questions, questions that came out with incredible, staggering answers.
“But where could they have gotten it? There’s never been a ship like this on Titan for anything except regular cargo runs — and how could it be a star-ship? How could it take five hundred people — ”
“I don’t know, but this is the plan — it must be.” David stared up at the long, slender, finger-like structure. “It must be the Earth ship that crashed. That was a troop-ship — built to carry three or four hundred men — ”
“But that was lost clear around on the other side of the planet!”
“I know. But the Security Patrol never found it, did they?”
“No — it was an impossible task. Titan is almost half as big as Earth. What chance would a search party have? The ship may have fallen into one of those gorges, and covered over with frost so it was completely invisible from above.”
David Torm nodded. “But everyone knew a ship had crashed. There was no colony here then — but when the colonists first worked out the plan, they knew there was a ship — somewhere — ”
“And they must have found it.” Tuck’s voice was filled with awe. “They must have torn it apart, bit by bit, hull plate by hull plate, tube by tube — and brought it here.”
David jumped up, excitedly. “That’s right! Just a few men, working in secret, dragging all that metal clear around from the other side. And then they found this crevice here to reassemble it — and it’s taken them a hundred years.”
Tuck shook his head, still incredulous. “And the tunnel?”
“They must have built it in secret, and then made up a story about a vein of radioactives to keep the other colonists — and the Earthmen — away.” He stared down the black hole where the jet tubes disappeared, and the fins on which the ship rested.
“It still doesn’t add up!” Tuck burst out. “Where did they get an interstellar drive for it? The greatest minds in the world have been working on Earth for two hundred years to find a drive that would take a ship to the stars. They’ve had laboratories, money, government support — and they’ve never found it. They say it’s theoretically impossible.” He turned to David, his eyes wide. “How could the colonists have found something that all Earth’s technology couldn’t find?”
David shrugged. “I couldn’t even guess.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing — I want to see those engines!”
“I don’t know if we should go on board her or not — ” All of a sudden David was trembling. “I don’t like this, Tuck — I’m scared of what’ll happen if they find us — ”
“If the colonists have developed an interstellar drive, it’s in that ship. You can stay here if you want. I’m going in.” Tuck started up the ramp toward the dark port in the ship’s side. David hesitated, then started up after him. “Look,” he said, pointing upward at the scaffolding. “They’re still finishing the hull plates. They must have built it from the inside out. And it looks almost finished — ”
They stepped from the ramp into the ship, and Tuck felt a thrill unlike anything he had ever experienced. Here was the adventure he had dreamed of all his life; here was the ship that was built to go to the stars, built to leave Earth and Earth’s puny Solar System light-years behind, built to speed straight as an arrow — where? Alpha Centaurus? Cygni? Arcturus? Here was the greatest frontier of all, the frontier that had never been crossed — the frontier physicists on Earth had said could never be crossed —
Because there was no drive for an interstellar ship. The weeks and months in transit between Earth and Mars or Venus or Titan on fast Interplanetary Atomics were insignificant compared to the years — the centuries — that would be required to travel with them to the stars. Man’s life was too short to make such a trip possible without an interstellar drive.
And yet, in the bowels of this strange secret ship — was the drive there? Could the colonists, in their desperation, have discovered genius in their midst, genius to solve the immense mathematical and technical impossibilities of a space-warp, of faster-than-light motion? The boys made their way along the narrow dark corridor of the ship, moving downward, still downward to the rear of the ship. They passed a huge room, and stopped, peering through the hatch at the tier upon tier of soft, curved mattresses, set at 45° angles from the floor — the acceleration cots. This was the troop hold, the quarters that had been built to carry the Security Patrol troops, over a century ago — how many were there? The boys stopped, and counted the cots on the first row, and counted the number of tiers. Five hundred. The ship was to carry the entire colony. There was no doubt of it.
Then in another room a bright light shone, and when they walked in, they found a sealed lock and an inner hatch. They moved curiously into the lock, and sealed the door behind them, heard the automatic pumps whir, until the inner hatchway sprang open, and they walked into a brilliant flare of lights. It was a large room, lined with mercury vapor lamps and carbon arcs, a room so damp and hot that their cold suits were drenched with water, and they stood in little individual rainstorms, until they could peer through their dripping helmets at the row upon row of green things, growing plants in huge tanks. The hydroponic tanks — to provide growing food, to cleanse the great ship of carbon dioxide and to replenish the feeble stores of oxygen the ship could carry for five hundred people. They wiped the water from their suits in sheets, and moved back through the lock. Out once again in the icy corridor the water froze in solid sheets upon them, and tinkled and crashed to the floor as they broke it off. But still they moved to the rear, on toward the wonderful engines that lay in the bowels of the ship.
Tuck knew the layout of the ship; he had explored the Earth ship in minute detail during the passage out to Titan, and was familiar with what to expect of such ships. But David had never before traveled on a rocket ship; his acquaintance had been confined to a brief visit now and then, and he followed Tuck with open mouth and wide eyes, finding amazement in every turn of the passageway, excitement in every compartment. And when they opened the hatch that led to the engine rooms and generators David could hardly believe that a single ship could carry propelling engines so huge.
But Tuck didn’t wait for his friend. In an instant he was down among the generators, examining the engines, moving swiftly from one great pile of machinery to another, eyes growing wider, more incredulous by the minute. And when David finally caught up with him, he found the Earth boy sitting stunned on an auxiliary generator, staring about in bewilderment. “What’s wrong, boy? Are you sick?”
“Sick? No — no. I’m — I’m fine. I — I just can’t understand it — ”
David glanced around nervously. “Understand what?”
Tuck stared up at him, hollow-eyed. “The engines!”
“What’s wrong with the engines?”
“There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re perfectly good, common, ordinary, everyday interplanetary atomics. There isn’t any interstellar drive on this ship!”
David sat down heavily. “I thought not. Because if there were, it would be easy for them to escape. And my father thought it would be suicide for them — ”
Tuck nodded, speaking almost as if he were in an unbelievable dream. “It would be suicide. They would have to make this ship a colony — a permanent colony, drifting endlessly in space. They would have to take their bearings, and head out into deep space until their power gave out — and then they would have to drift. They would keep going, and they would reach their star — someday. But it would take three hundred years.” He looked up at David. “Do you realize what that would mean? That would be twelve generations to live and die aboard this ship before it reached its destination! And what might they find, even if they reached it? A planet they could live on? Who knows? There might not be any planets in the system they reached — or there might not be any oxygen, any food. They would never know until they got there — and they might never even survive to reach it — it would be almost hopeless to try and support five hundred people, and their children, and their children’s children, on a ship like this for three hundred years.”
David nodded. “But there would be a chance.”
“A chance? What kind of a chance? A billion to one?”
“More chance than staying here. Because at least the colony would be free.”
Tuck stared at the engines about them. “Do you think that they would actually try it?”
David nodded, very slowly. “I know my people,” he said. “Even a billion-to-one chance at freedom would be better, to them. But only if there was no hope here.”
“But Cortell is urging them into it now!”
“Cortell is a fool. He wants to lead, and he hates Earth — more than anything else in his life, he hates Earth. He wants to stop the mines, destroy Earth’s power, no matter what the cost. And this is the way he can do it.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Tuck said, “There’s still time to stop him. The ship isn’t loaded completely; there is still the whole colony and their clothes and supplies to load. We’ve still got a little time.” He started up the ladder to the corridor. “Come on — we can go out where we came in. We can get the Snooper and go get dad at the Earth ship. And then we can get your father, and they’ll have to listen to reason.” He stopped suddenly, cocking his ear. “Listen! Do you hear something?”
David listened, and his face went white. The sound was clear now, a thin, high whistling note, with a strange throbbing undertone. “That’s a pump,” David whispered. “We’d better hurry!”
They rushed upward, reaching the port completely out of breath. The whine was louder now, and the throbbing had become a clearly distinguishable pom-pom-pom of pumping pistons. They scanned the outside of the ship carefully, then slipped down the gangway, dousing their lights as they went. Once back in the tunnel they walked slowly, flicking their lights briefly every ten steps or so. “We’ll have to dodge the Murexide,” David whispered, “but it sounds like the pumps are nearby. That cave-in must have been very recent. It may have been the thing that was holding Cortell up all along.”
“But how would they get to this side of the cave-in to set the pumps in motion?”
“They must have tunneled around the cave-in. It would have taken them two or three days, and that’s about right — ” He stopped short, and stepped gingerly across the deadly gray strips in their path, then moved quickly along. They reached the Y, and still saw no one, but the sound of the pumps was imminent now. Carefully they crept along the wall, keeping the curve of the wall between them and the pumps — and then, almost on top of them, they heard voices, and froze against the wall —
“ — still think there’s something fishy about it,” a voice was shouting above the pumps. “Don’t have cave-ins like this just out of a clear blue sky. Especially when we’re ready to get going — ”
“Come on, get the bags in there and shut up,” another voice snarled. “We got enough to do without crying about everything.”
“Yeah, but why do they gotta make us do it?” There was a dull thump as another sandbag was slammed into place. “Who do they think we are, anyway? And it couldn’t be a little break, nothin’ like that. Oh, no. Gotta be four feet high — ”
“All right, all right. Stop whining! Did you bring the sealer?”
There were more sounds, interspersed with grunts, and a hiss of the sealer pump as one of the men squirted the airtight plastic caulking over the sandbags. Tuck poked David, eyes wide with alarm. “They’re closing up the opening!” he whispered hoarsely.
“I know it. Think I’m blind?”
“But the Snooper! It’s outside! How’ll we get back?”
David waved him to silence. One of the men was walking down the tunnel toward them. They shrank against the wall, hardly daring to breathe —
“Now where are you going, for the love of mike?”
The footsteps halted. “I thought I heard something — ”
“Say, what are you afraid of — spooks?”
“Well, I don’t like this. They might at least have given us guns — ”
“Look, get back here and lend a hand, huh?” Or maybe you’d rather just sit and listen for bogeymen.”
They heard the footsteps shuffle back again. Slowly David dropped to his belly, began slithering along the wall toward the voices. He moved very slowly, then suddenly motioned to Tuck. Tuck dropped too, and moved clumsily along the rough ground until he was very close. “Right behind you,” he whispered.
“Good. The tunnel they dug through opens into this one about fifty feet from where they’re working. They haven’t got much light — if we move slow and quiet we might get past them. Careful!’
He started moving again, inching across the tunnel toward the black, raw hole that had been dug into the tunnel, around the cave-in. Tuck sneaked a look at the two burly workmen, toiling to get the sandbags thrown up to completely block the opening to the outside. Both were working in light, close-fitting pressure suits. They worked swiftly, grunting and cursing as they struggled with the bags. Tuck moved slowly, very slowly, desperately afraid some scratch, some joggled stone would rattle and betray them. But he suddenly saw David’s feet disappear into the darkness of the tunnel, and with his heart racing, he eased himself up over the lip of the newly dug hole, slithered through, and lay panting, his heart pounding in his throat.
“Made it!” David was on his feet, crouched over in the narrow cut. “We’d better make speed.”
“Where?”
We can go back to the colony. There’s probably a sealed entrance to this tunnel, coming off one of the main tunnels. If we can get into a main tunnel, we’re all right — nobody can touch us. But if they catch us in here — ” He solemnly drew his finger across the throat of the helmet. “Keep your fingers crossed.”
They moved slowly, using their lights only when they needed to. “I don’t think we need to worry about more Murexide,” David whispered. “The stuff is too dangerous to mess around with, if they’ve had men moving supplies through here. Probably the one booby trap was considered protection enough.” They hurried along as the tunnel started upgrading, winding slightly as they moved. Several times they passed through widened vaults, with cargo packed high against the walls; once they thought they heard steps ahead of them, and froze against the wall, only to realize that it was only rocks breaking loose from the roof and crunching down to the floor. Time passed, and still they walked, until Tuck began to doubt if they would ever reach the main tunnel. And then, like a flash, David dove for the floor. “Down, Tuck!”
Tuck fell like a poleaxed mule. He lay, face down, panting. Then he lifted his head, to confirm the glimpse of light that had struck his eyes a moment before.
There was no mistake. Ten feet ahead was a room, one of the widened vaults through which the tunnel passed. It had been dark, and then a light had suddenly gone on, almost in their faces. And in the room a man was pacing to and fro, his face lighted by the battle lamps in the vault, and he was talking in a loud, sharp, nasal voice that Tuck had heard once before, once too often.
The man was John Cortell.