The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories Read online

  “Yes, sir.”

  “One more matter. You will notice that the sail is slightly bellied by the continual radiation pressure. It therefore acts as a focusing device, the focal point presumably occurring behind the cab. But this is not a matter to be taken for granted. I have seen a man burnt to death in such a freak accident. Bear this in mind.”

  For two hours the cadets drifted through space, propelled by tanks of gas and thrust tubes. All enjoyed the experience except Sutton, who found himself appalled by the immensity of his emotions. Probably least affected was the practical Verona, who inspected the sail with a care exacting enough even to satisfy Henry Belt.

  The next day the computer went wrong. Ostrander was in charge of the watch and knocked on Henry Belt’s door to make the report.

  Henry Belt appeared in the doorway. He apparently had been asleep. “What is the difficulty, Mr. Ostrander?”

  “We’re in trouble, sir. The computer has gone out.”

  Henry Belt rubbed his grizzled pate. “This is not an unusual circumstance. We prepare for this contingency by schooling all cadets thoroughly in computer design and repair. Have you identified the difficulty?”

  “The bearings which suspend the data separation disks have broken. The shaft has several millimeters play and as a result there is total confusion in the data presented to the analyzer.”

  “An interesting problem. Why do you present it to me?”

  “I thought you should be notified, sir. I don’t believe we carry spares for this particular bearing.”

  Henry Belt shook his head sadly. “Mr. Ostrander, do you recall my statement at the beginning of this voyage, that you six gentlemen are totally responsible for the navigation of the ship?”

  “Yes, sir. But—”

  “This is an applicable situation. You must either repair the computer, or perform the calculations yourself.”

  “Very well, sir. I will do my best.”

  V

  Lynch, Verona, Ostrander and Sutton disassembled the mechanism, removed the worn bearing. “Confounded antique!” said Lynch. “Why can’t they give us decent equipment? Or if they want to kill us, why not shoot us and save us all trouble?”

  “We’re not dead yet,” said Verona. “You’ve looked for a spare?”

  “Naturally. There’s nothing remotely like this.”

  Verona looked at the bearing dubiously. “I suppose we could cast a babbitt sleeve and machine it to fit. That’s what we’ll have to do—unless you fellows are awfully fast with your math.”

  Sutton glanced out the port, quickly turned away his eyes. “I wonder if we should cut sail.”

  “Why?” asked Ostrander.

  “We don’t want to build up too much velocity. We’re already going 30 miles a second.”

  “Mars is a long way off.”

  “And if we miss, we go shooting past. Then where are we?”

  “Sutton, you’re a pessimist. A shame to find morbid tendencies in one so young.” This from von Gluck, speaking from the console across the room.

  “I’d rather be a live pessimist than a dead comedian.”

  The new sleeve was duly cast, machined and fitted. Anxiously the alignment of the data disks was checked. “Well,” said Verona dubiously, “there’s wobble. How much that affects the functioning remains to be seen. We can take some of it out by shimming the mount…”

  Shims of tissue paper were inserted and the wobble seemed to be reduced. “Now—feed in the data,” said Sutton. “Let’s see how we stand.”

  Coordinates were fed into the system; the indicator swung. “Enlarge sail cant four degrees,” said von Gluck, “we’re making too much left concentric. Projected course…” he tapped buttons, watched the bright line extend across the screen, swing around a dot representing the center of gravity of Mars. “I make it an elliptical pass, about twenty thousand miles out. That’s at present acceleration, and it should toss us right back at Earth.”

  “Great. Simply great. Let’s go, 25!” This was Lynch. “I’ve heard of guys dropping flat on their faces and kissing Earth when they put down. Me, I’m going to live in a cave the rest of my life.”

  Sutton went to look at the data disks. The wobble was slight but perceptible. “Good Lord,” he said huskily. “The other end of the shaft is loose too.”

  Lynch started to spit curses; Verona’s shoulders slumped. “Let’s get to work and fix it.”

  Another bearing was cast, machined, polished, mounted. The disks wobbled, scraped. Mars, an ocher disk, shouldered ever closer in from the side. With the computer unreliable the cadets calculated and plotted the course manually. The results were at slight but significant variance with those of the computer. The cadets looked dourly at each other. “Well,” growled Ostrander, “there’s error. Is it the instruments? The calculation? The plotting? Or the computer?”

  Culpepper said in a subdued voice, “Well, we’re not about to crash head-on, at any rate.”

  Verona went back to study the computer. “I can’t imagine why the bearings don’t work better…The mounting brackets—could they have shifted?” He removed the side housing, studied the frame, then went to the case for tools.

  “What are you going to do?” demanded Sutton.

  “Try to ease the mounting brackets around. I think that’s our trouble.”

  “Leave them alone! You’ll bugger the machine so it’ll never work.”

  Verona paused, looked questioningly around the group. “Well? What’s the verdict?”

  “Maybe we’d better check with the old man,” said Ostrander nervously.

  “All well and good—but you know what he’ll say.”

  “Let’s deal cards. Ace of spades goes to ask him.”

  Culpepper received the ace. He knocked on Henry Belt’s door. There was no response. He started to knock again, but restrained himself.

  He returned to the group. “Wait till he shows himself. I’d rather crash into Mars than bring forth Henry Belt and his red book.”

  The ship crossed the orbit of Mars well ahead of the looming red planet. It came toppling at them with a peculiar clumsy grandeur, a mass obviously bulky and globular, but so fine and clear was the detail, so absent the perspective, that the distance and size might have been anything. Instead of swinging in a sharp elliptical curve back toward Earth, the ship swerved aside in a blunt hyperbola and proceeded outward, now at a velocity of close to fifty miles a second. Mars receded astern and to the side. A new part of space lay ahead. The sun was noticeably smaller. Earth could no longer be differentiated from the stars. Mars departed quickly and politely, and space seemed lonely and forlorn.

  Henry Belt had not appeared for two days. At last Culpepper went to knock on the door—once, twice, three times: a strange face looked out. It was Henry Belt, face haggard, skin like pulled taffy. His eyes were red and glared, his hair seemed matted and more unkempt than hair a quarter-inch long should be.

  But he spoke in his quiet clear voice. “Mr. Culpepper, your merciless din has disturbed me. I am quite put out with you.”

  “Sorry, sir. We feared that you were ill.”

  Henry Belt made no response. He looked past Culpepper, around the circle of faces. “You gentlemen are unwontedly serious. Has this presumptive illness of mine caused you all distress?”

  Sutton spoke in a rush, “The computer is out of order.”

  “Why then, you must repair it.”

  “It’s a matter of altering the housing. If we do it incorrectly—”

  “Mr. Sutton, please do not harass me with the hour-by-hour minutiae of running the ship.”

  “But, sir, the matter has become serious; we need your advice. We missed the Mars turn-around—”

  “Well, I suppose there’s always Jupiter. Must I explain the basic elements of astrogation to you?”

  “But the computer’s out of order—definitely.”

  “Then, if you wish to return to Earth, you must perform the calculations with pencil and paper. Why is
it necessary to explain the obvious?”

  “Jupiter is a long way out,” said Sutton in a shrill voice. “Why can’t we just turn around and go home?” This last was almost a whisper.

  “I see I’ve been too easy on you cads,” said Henry Belt. “You stand around idly; you chatter nonsense while the machinery goes to pieces and the ship flies at random. Everybody into space-suits for sail inspection. Come now. Let’s have some snap. What are you all? Walking corpses? You, Mr. Culpepper, why the delay?”

  “It occurred to me, sir, that we are approaching the asteroid belt. As chief of the watch I consider it my duty to cant sail to swing us around the area.”

  “You may do this; then join the rest in hull and sail inspection.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The cadets donned space-suits, Sutton with the utmost reluctance. Out into the dark void they went, and now here was loneliness indeed.

  When they returned, Henry Belt had returned to his compartment.

  “As Mr. Belt points out, we have no great choice,” said Ostrander. “We missed Mars, so let’s hit Jupiter. Luckily it’s in good position—otherwise we’d have to swing out to Saturn or Uranus—”

  “They’re off behind the sun,” said Lynch. “Jupiter’s our last chance.”

  “Let’s do it right then. I say, let’s make one last attempt to set those confounded bearings…”

  But now it seemed as if the wobble and twist had been eliminated. The disks tracked perfectly, the accuracy monitor glowed green.

  “Great!” yelled Lynch. “Feed it the dope. Let’s get going! All sail for Jupiter. Good Lord, but we’re having a trip!”

  “Wait till it’s over,” said Sutton. Since his return from sail inspection, he had stood to one side, cheeks pinched, eyes staring. “It’s not over yet. And maybe it’s not meant to be.”

  The other five pretended not to have heard him. The computer spat out figures and angles. There was a billion miles to travel. Acceleration was less, due to the diminution in the intensity of sunlight. At least a month must pass before Jupiter came close.

  VI

  The ship, great sail spread to the fading sunlight, fled like a ghost—out, always out. Each of the cadets had quietly performed the same calculation, and arrived at the same result. If the swing around Jupiter were not performed with exactitude, if the ship were not slung back like a stone on a string, there was nothing beyond. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto were far around the sun; the ship, speeding at a hundred miles a second, could not be halted by the waning gravity of the sun, nor yet sufficiently accelerated in a concentric direction by sail and jet into a true orbit. The very nature of the sail made it useless as a brake, always the thrust was outward.

  Within the hull seven men lived and thought, and the psychic relationship worked and stirred like yeast in a vat of decaying fruit. The fundamental similarity, the human identity of the seven men, was utterly canceled; apparent only were the disparities. Each cadet appeared to others only as a walking characteristic, and Henry Belt was an incomprehensible Thing, who appeared from his compartment at unpredictable times, to move quietly here and there with the blind blank grin of an archaic Attic hero.

  Jupiter loomed and bulked. The ship, at last within reach of the Jovian gravity, sidled over to meet it. The cadets gave ever more careful attention to the computer, checking and counterchecking the instructions. Verona was the most assiduous at this, Sutton the most harassed and ineffectual. Lynch growled and cursed and sweated; Ostrander complained in a thin peevish voice. Von Gluck worked with the calm of pessimistic fatalism; Culpepper seemed unconcerned, almost debonair, a blandness which bewildered Ostrander, infuriated Lynch, awoke a malignant hate in Sutton. Verona and von Gluck on the other hand seemed to derive strength and refreshment from Culpepper’s placid acceptance of the situation. Henry Belt said nothing. Occasionally he emerged from his compartment, to survey the wardroom and the cadets with the detached interest of a visitor to an asylum.

  It was Lynch who made the discovery. He signaled it with an odd growl of sheer dismay, which brought a resonant questioning sound from Sutton. “My God, my God,” muttered Lynch.

  Verona was at his side. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Look. This gear. When we replaced the disks we de-phased the whole apparatus one notch. This white dot and this other white dot should synchronize. They’re one sprocket apart. All the results would check and be consistent because they’d all be off by the same factor.”

  Verona sprang into action. Off came the housing, off came various components. Gently he lifted the gear, set it back into correct alignment. The other cadets leaned over him as he worked, except Culpepper who was chief of the watch.

  Henry Belt appeared. “You gentlemen are certainly diligent in your navigation,” he said presently. “Perfectionists, almost.”

  “We do our best,” grated Lynch between set teeth. “It’s a damn shame sending us out with a machine like this.”

  The red book appeared. “Mr. Lynch, I mark you down not for your private sentiments, which are of course yours to entertain, but for voicing them and thereby contributing to an unhealthy atmosphere of despairing and hysterical pessimism.”

  A tide of red crept up from Lynch’s neck. He bent over the computer, made no comment. But Sutton suddenly cried out, “What else do you expect from us? Do you think we’re fish or insects? We came out here to learn, not to suffer, or to fly on forever!” He gave a ghastly laugh. Henry Belt listened patiently. “Think of it!” cried Sutton. “The seven of us. In this capsule, forever!”

  “All of us must die in due course, Mr. Sutton. I expect to die in space.”

  “I’m not afraid of death.” But Sutton’s voice trailed off as he glanced toward the port.

  “I am afraid that I must charge you two demerits for your outburst, Mr. Sutton. A good space-man maintains his dignity at all costs, and values it more than his life.”

  Lynch looked up from the computer. “Well, now we’ve got a corrected reading. Do you know what it says?”

  Henry Belt turned him a look of polite inquiry.

  “We’re going to miss,” said Lynch. “We’re going to pass by just as we passed Mars. Jupiter is pulling us around and sending us out toward Gemini.”

  The silence was thick in the room. Sutton seemed to whisper something, soundlessly. Henry Belt turned to look at Culpepper, who was standing by the porthole, photographing Jupiter with his personal camera.

  “Mr. Culpepper?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You seem unconcerned by the prospect which Mr. Sutton has set forth.”

  “I hope it’s not imminent, sir.”

  “How do you propose to avoid it?”

  “I imagine that we will radio for help, sir.”

  “You forget that I have destroyed the radio.”

  “I remember noting a crate marked ‘Radio Parts’ stored in the starboard jet-pod.”

  “I am sorry to disillusion you, Mr. Culpepper. That case is mislabeled.”

  Ostrander jumped to his feet, left the wardroom. There was the sound of moving crates. A moment of silence. Then he returned. He glared at Henry Belt. “Whiskey. Bottles of whiskey.”

  Henry Belt nodded. “I told you as much.”

  “But now we have no radio,” said Lynch in an ugly voice.

  “We never have had a radio, Mr. Lynch. You were warned that you would have to depend on your own resources to bring us home. You have failed, and in the process doomed me as well as yourself. Incidentally, I must mark you all down ten demerits for a faulty cargo check.”

  “Demerits,” said Ostrander in a bleak voice.

  “Now, Mr. Culpepper,” said Henry Belt. “What is your next proposal?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Verona spoke in a placatory voice. “What would you do, sir, if you were in our position?”

  Henry Belt shook his head. “I am an imaginative man, Mr. Verona, but there are certain leaps of the mind which are beyond my
powers.” He returned to his compartment.

  Von Gluck looked curiously at Culpepper. “It is a fact. You’re not at all concerned.”

  “Oh, I’m concerned. But I believe that Mr. Belt wants to get home too. He’s too good a space-man not to know exactly what he’s doing.”

  The door from Henry Belt’s compartment slid back. Henry Belt stood in the opening. “Mr. Culpepper, I chanced to overhear your remark, and I now note down ten demerits against you. This attitude expresses a complacence as dangerous as Mr. Sutton’s utter funk. You rely on my capabilities; Mr. Sutton is afraid to rely on his own. This is not the first time I have cautioned you against this easy vice.”

  “Very sorry, sir.”

  Henry Belt looked about the room. “Pay no heed to Mr. Culpepper. He is wrong. Even if I could repair this disaster, I would not raise a hand. For I expect to die in space.”

  VII

  The sail was canted vectorless, edgewise to the sun. Jupiter was a smudge astern. There were five cadets in the wardroom. Culpepper, Verona, and von Gluck sat talking in low voices. Ostrander and Lynch lay crouched, arms to knees, faces to the wall. Sutton had gone two days before. Quietly donning his space-suit, he had stepped into the exit chamber and thrust himself headlong into space. A propulsion unit gave him added speed, and before any of the cadets could intervene he was gone.

  He had left a short note: “I fear the void because of the terrible attraction of its glory. I briefly felt the exaltation when we went out on sail inspection, and I fought it back. Now, since we must die, I will die this way, by embracing this black radiance, by giving myself wholly. Do not be sorry for me. I will die mad, but the madness will be ecstasy.”

  Henry Belt, when shown the note, merely shrugged. “Mr. Sutton was perhaps too imaginative and emotional to make a sound space-man. He could not have been relied upon in any emergency.” And his sardonic glance seemed to include the rest of them.

  Shortly thereafter Lynch and Ostrander succumbed to inanition, a kind of despondent helplessness: manic-depression in its most stupefying phase. Culpepper the suave, Verona the pragmatic and von Gluck the sensitive remained.