Gilpin's Space Read online

  “Owl looks like the better bet,” he answered; and I knew that the same thoughts had been running through his mind. “I’d say Tammy Uemura for a starter, definitely. I’ve been drinking with him and playing go and chess with him for a year, so I know how he thinks—and his wife, too, which is something else to think about. Then there’s Jamie Macartney, but we’d have to get him back from Ireland. He’s as solid as Tammy, and he’s a genius at planning for the unexpected.”

  “Which is something we’re really liable to need.”

  “Like never before!”

  As I did every morning, I drove slowly through the yard. Saul’s old Dodge was parked in the messy lot behind the machine shop, as he said it would be, between a disabled pickup and a rig I didn’t even recognize. When it was new, Saul had had it gaily painted with curlicues and diddlies. Now it was ancient and dusty and scarred with souvenirs of his dreadful driving. There were two ragged stickers on the rear bumper: EAT AMERICAN LAMB—TWENTY MILLION COYOTES CAN’T BE WRONG and

  LEMMINGS OF THE WORLD—U

  N

  I

  T

  E

  !

  “There’s your new car,” I told Franz. “After a bit, why don’t you wander down this way, look things over at the shop, and then casually take possession?” I handed over the papers andthe keys. “If, as I suspect, it’s full of all sorts of interesting gadgets, just drive it over to the warehouse loading bay. I’ll join you there.”

  At the office, we told Laure about it, then waited half an hour. Finally, Franz went off, stopping to board both Owl and Pussycat for his regular nukepak inspections on the way, then taking a look-see through the shop. We saw him get into the van and, with what seemed to be a lot of backfiring and smogmaking, started what remained of its engine. He waved cheerfully to a couple of the hired hands as he backed it jerkily off the lot and headed for the warehouse.

  I met him there, and waited while he let the engine gasp itself to death. The warehousemen were all inside the building, and no other vehicles were in the bay.

  “Well?” I said.

  He was wrestling his moustache in his excitement. “It’s full of stuff!” He pointed back over his shoulder. “Cartons. One of ’em says its a Sears-Roebuck freezer, but I don’t believe it—it’s just about the right size and shape for Saul’s drive. Then there are three or four more, one squarish and the rest wide and flat or flat and long. What do you want done with ’em?”

  “Let’s get them aboard Owl as soon as possible. Is there anything more ready to load on her today?”

  “There’s always something. Shall I ask the warehouse foreman?”

  “Do that, Franz. I think there’s still some of her galley equipment to go aboard, so I guess the freezer carton will be especially plausible. Get two or three of the men to help you move it, and if they get curious tell them some damn fool of a truck driver dumped it at the office. I’ll join you on Owl when the job’s been done.”

  “Where on Owl do you want it?”

  “In the galley. Obviously. Besides, it’s just forward of the engine room and under the command center.”

  I walked back to the office as casually as I could, and presently I heard Saul’s van snorting and farting its way out to the pier.

  We watched the unloading with a little apprehension, Laure and I, wishing the warehousemen hadn’t had to be brought in, wondering if any of the cartons would treacherously break open, and congratulating ourselves that nothing, not even the freezer carton, turned out to be too heavy to move by muscle power and a large dolly. It took only twenty minutes—very long ones—after which Franz locked up Owl and drove the men back to their jobs.

  Presently he joined us, and he and I walked back to Owl—walked when what we wanted to do was cover the distance in one leap. Laure, smiling, had shaken her head at our suggestion that she come with us. “It’d be too conspicuous after all the activity,” she said. “Besides, I can wait. Women are so much more patient.”

  We boarded Owl, locking the entry hatch behind us. We went down to the galley. Franz had left the lights on, and there the cartons were.

  “Which one first, Commander?”

  “The freezer,” I replied.

  It looked new, as though it never had been opened—and for a moment I wondered whether Saul was playing a gigantic practical joke on us. I watched Franz taking out the heavy staples with a pry-bar, ripping the thick cardboard open.

  It was not a freezer. It was exactly what Saul had said it would be—about five feet by three by two, fabricated of dull gray metal, with eight massive terminals and a score of smaller ones glaring from a deep recess along its top.

  “That’s it!” Franz cried.

  “And what’s that?” I pointed to one of Saul’s big manila envelopes scotch-taped beside the terminals.

  Franz pulled it off, took out a thirty-page computer printout. I read over his shoulder:

  OWNER’S MANUAL

  Instructions for the Simple Installation and Everyday Operation of Your New

  Gilpin Star-Drive

  Then,

  Dear Consumer (it began),

  You are now the fortunate possessor of a genuine Gilpin Star-Drive. In installing and operating it you must observe certain precautions:

  1. You must not install it in any vessel not designed expressly for extended undersea operation—motor cruisers, fishing trawlers, campers, destroyers, or whatever. The results would be disastrous.

  2. Because of Mr. Gilpin’s unique abilities, you must follow his instructions to the letter. (If you fail to understand any of the terms he uses, look them up in a good dictionary.)

  Franz grinned at me. “He isn’t giving us too much credit for intelligence.”

  “He’s crediting us with a Gilpinesque sense of humor. Let’s keep going—a few more insults aren’t going to hurt us.”

  3. Please understand that Mr. Saul Gilpin, as a mere child, learned to speak (and to think in) the Hopi language before he even began to prattle English. That is why no one else can understand his view of the Universe and of the Natural Laws said to govern it. Therefore:

  4. You must NEVER attempt to repair or in any way adjust your Gilpin Star-Drive. It is guarranteed never to require repair or adjustment, and is so perfectly designed that it can readily be installed with a few simple tools by any home handyman or nuclear engineer—

  “Ouch!” said Franz.

  “Hush! There’s more to come.”

  These features have been adhered to throughout, so that anyone who has ever run an outboard motorboat can supervise its practical operation. (Former naval officers, however, are warned that they should read this handbook with special care. The Navy way so often just isn’t the right way.)

  “Shall I say ouch for you?” offered Franz.

  “You shall not. Saul may have a point there. But before we dig any further into Saul’s verbosities, let’s sit down.”

  We pulled two chairs up to a galley table and went through the rest of Saul’s Owner’s Manual hastily. He had thought everything out clearly, and beautifully. The first thing we learned was that th^ other three cartons, completely forgotten in our excitement, contained the computer elements he had designed to mate into the ship’s ordinary computer system, extending many of its functions and performing others it never could perform. He also pointed out that, because computers were by no means as perfect as Gilpin Star-Drives, he was providing us with a superfluity of spares just in case.

  Finally we came to the section on actual operation, light-heartedly headed: AND AWAY WE GO!

  1. The Gilpin Star-Drive transfers your vessel and all it may contain (including you) into another aspect of our Universe. It will appear to you, not that the normal Universe has ceased to exist, but that it has died suddenly and that you are now seeing, all around you, its very tenuous ghost. There will be no real light as we know it, but you will see the ever-present ghosts of sunlight (when you’re close enough), of moonlight, of starlight,

  - of every nebula and galaxy. You will be in a ghost-universe. (The Hopi, God bless them, would understand. How else do you think kachinas travel?)

  2. In this ghost-universe, where you will seem to be the only real and living things, there will be no gravity as we know it, but there will be the ghost of gravity, and it is this ghost that your Gilpin Star-Drive and its computer will sense even when you cannot, so that you may traverse the ghost-distances between star and star.

  3. Attendez, mes enfants! Distance is not a function of”empty space,” for if there were such a thing as truly empty space, it would be non-dimensional. No, distance is a function of the forces of which space is woven. In Gilpin’s Space, these forces are mere ghosts. In its drive mode, your space-driver can and will perceive these ghosts and respond to them, so that you will never have to run the risk of transferring into normal space at any dangerous speed.

  4. Your Gilpin Space-Drive’s several modes are: a. Primary warm-up. (This is the mode Franz has witnessed.) b. Idling. c. Transfer, which is almost instantaneous. d. Drive: forward, left, right, “up” and “down,” and what for lack of a better term we can call braking or reverse. When the ghost-forces do not dictate otherwise, you will have full control over your vessel’s speed. Gravity, in your vessel, will remain at one-half Earth-normal at all times (a service no other star-drive can provide). e. Retransfer mode, which throws your vessel back into normal space.

  Ashamed at keeping Laure waiting, we leafed through the rest of it: detailed instructions for installing the drive and its computers—the drive in a compartment somebody had thoughtfully engineered into the forward bulkhead of the ship’s engine room; the computers in the control center, where there was just enough room for them.

  Finally, I put it all back
in its envelope. “Let’s go back and show it to the Boss Lady,” I said. “If she’s mad at us, I don’t blame her.”

  “I have the damnedest feeling,” Franz answered as he locked up Owl behind us, “that none of us is going to waste any time getting mad at one another. Tammy Uemura and I can get that drive in and fastened down in half a day, I think, and I’ll bet the computers won’t be more difficult. We’d better fly Macartney over.”

  My mind threw questions at me as we walked. What preparations do you make for a sudden star flight? How do you provision your ship? What about simple things—like nuts and bolts? What about weapons? I thought of all the lurid covers on years of science-fiction magazines and paperbacks. What about stored information—science and technology, music and art and literature, all inherited treasures of our past?

  I said, “We’ll get Macartney. I’ll phone Ireland and tell him he’s being promoted because Laure’s changing company policy, and to get his tail over here as fast as possible.”

  Then I began to wonder how big a crew we’d really need. Though Owl and Pussycat and Cupid’s Arrow could each sleep fourteen or more comfortably, Saul hadn’t hesitated to put to sea—or put to space—with, unless he had left some out in the telling, a complement of only four.

  When we got back to the office, Laure had scarcely missed us.

  “We’re getting Saul’s material ready for publication,” she told us. “Some of it’s going to be on paper, but most of it’ll be computerized—sent out on satellite autofax. And we’re going to make sure of total international news coverage. Trying to stop it is going to be like trying to kill dandelions or starlings. I’m pretty sure the way I’ve set it up is foolproof, and anyway, Saul says he’s made enough copies to make sure it’ll come out no matter what.”

  “I know,” I said, and wondered for a second whether he’d told us that just to make sure none of us would ever rat out to the IPP.

  Then I told her about the equipment Saul had given us, and what Franz had said about getting it installed.

  Laure gave it thirty seconds’ thought. “Very well, Franz can get hold of Tammy Uemura, and you two can brief him. Then they can set to work. As soon as all that stuff’s out of Owl’s galley and installed, we can finish up what’s to be done on both Owl and Pussycat. There’s still quite a bit to be loaded before their final trials, and we will have to get Macartney over right away. Don’t forget—it’s not just a matter of setting ourselves up with our private lifeboat…”

  No one commented. We all knew that the term was apt.

  “…We’ll also have to get things started so that any general exploitation of Saul’s material will be as simple and certain as possible. He’s actually included a list of firms that built the individual pieces of the drive to his instructions, and another list of the cover descriptions—very ingenious ones—he used so that they’d not suspect what they were making. There’s nothing more believable than the rich, oddball inventor of a perpetual motion machine! And once the cat is out of the bag, any information is going to be a help to star-drive builders. In the meantime, we’ll give it out that something’s wrong with Owl’s power plant—that’ll explain Franz and his friends’ backing and forthing. What are you going to do, Geoff?”

  I told her I was going to get in touch with one or two Navy friends, like Garvey, to get a line on what Borg might be up to, and, in a pinch, see what help we might expect.

  What the impact of instantly available star-drives on the world would be was simply mind-boggling, but that was not central to my worries. First, we had to get our own escape vehicle ready against the odds. How much might Whalen Borg suspect? How much might he already have found out? Yes, we could count on Franz, on Tammy Uemura, on Macartney and Dan Kellett, on Janet, and of course on Rhoda—unless a cunning enemy found points of vulnerability. But how could we be sure of other wives and other girlfriends, of bosom friends and beloved relatives? Just the fear of a star voyage might be enough to purchase our betrayal, let alone the rewards the betrayer could expect from the Individualist People’s Party.

  I sought out Dan, and gave him the whole picture; and he—bless him! gave me common sense. “Commander,” he said, “just leave the local security end up to me. You’re going to have enough to do, what with planning and coordinating—and practicing how to be a spaceship skipper.”

  5

  I don’t know how Franz broke the news to Tammy Uemura, but he told me later that they were at work on Owl within an hour. They let the word get out that she’d been having trouble with her nukepak, so no one asked questions when die preparatory work aboard her was suspended. I myself took Dan’s advice. 1 knew how to get through to Garvey and one or two others who were sure, for the time being, at least, to have protected phones; and the office phone of a retired CPO, Paddy Garrison, an old friend of the admiral’s now happily running a raunchy bar, gave me just what I wanted. He and I had four or five drinks together; then he went out to keep an eye on his topless-bottomless hired help. I made my calls collect, knowing that the phone company’s records would be blank where Garvey’s number was concerned.

  “It’s about the monster,” I told him. “He’s surfaced, and he’s zeroing in on Laure.”

  “No surprise,” he answered. “I read the papers. That sub of yours disappearing was made to order for that bastard. He’s been looking for any way to get back at the admiral—you know it; I know it. Okay, I’ll tell you what I can…”

  He made it short and simple. Whalen Borg was very close to the top echelon of the IPP—but his position was precarious. Two men were struggling for second-place supremacy in the party: “Ham” Smithfield, who was Good Ol’ Breck’s Secretary of Defense, and Mort Marrone, who wanted to be. Smithfield had been Breck’s buddy since the beginning, but for an IPP honcho he was cautious and pretty colorless, and lately Marrone, who headed a barely legal outfit called Individual Activists—funny uniforms and all—had been coming up fast. The word was out that before long there’d be a showdown. “And when that happens,” Garvey told me, “chances are the loser’s going down the drain like Herr Roehm—you’ve heard of him? Anyhow, Borg is Marrone’s boy, and he’s been promised—among other things—that if his boss gets Defense he’ll be back in uniform with all honors and his fourth stripe at least. At least, Geoff. Just what this Navy needs.”

  “Jesus!” I said.

  “Exactly. For now, and as long as this Marrone-Smithfield thing is up for grabs, he’ll probably be on sort of a tight leash—if he tries anything too raw, it’ll be on his own hook. But if Smithfield tumbles, that’ll be a different matter. Some other big wheels—Interior, for one, and the Attorney General—are going to tumble with him, and then Marrone and his faction will be in with all four feet. They won’t even wait till the elections before they start. There’ll be nothing left holding Borg. And I mean nothing.”

  “You’ll let us know at the first rumble?”

  “At the first whisper,” he promised me; and I thanked him and hung up, praying that “Ham” Smithfield would live and prosper and confound his enemies—at least his enemies in the IPP.

  After that, I called one or two other old friends, and heard pretty much the same story. Then I drove back to the yard, and told Laure and Dan and Rhoda what I’d learned. “At least we may have a little warning if and when.”

  Laure smiled. “Geoff, it’s good to know, but we can’t count on it. Let’s just pretend we don’t have any friends, and keep things rolling as fast as possible. Then, if Borg strikes suddenly and we’re warned in time, fine—and if not, well, we won’t feel our legs have been kicked out from under us.”

  “Yes, Auntie Laure.” I laughed and so did she. “Sorry you caught me whistling in the dark.”