Subspace Survivors | Page 7

a switch. The communicator came on. Since everything aboard a starship is designed to fail safe, they were, of course, in normal space. On the visiplates hundreds of stars blazed in vari-colored points of hard, bright light.
"Baby Two acknowledging," Deston said. "First Officer Deston and three passengers. Deconned to zero. Report, please."
"Baby Three. Second Officer Jones and four passengers. Deconned to----"
"Thank God, Herc!" Formality vanished. "With you to astrogate us, we may have a chance. But how'd you make it? I'd've sworn a flying saucer couldn't've got down from the Top in the time we had."
"Same thing right back at you, Babe. I didn't have to come down. We were in Baby Three when it happened." Full vision was on; a big, square-jawed, lean, tanned face looked out at them from the screen.
"Huh? How come? And who's 'we'?"
"My wife and I." Second Officer Theodore "Hercules" Jones was somewhat embarrassed. "I got married, too, day before yesterday. After the way the old man chewed you out, though, I knew he'd slap irons on me without saying a word, so we kept it dark and hid out in Baby Three. These three are all we could find before our meters went high red. I deconned Bun, then----"
"Bun?" Barbara broke in. "Bernice Burns? How wonderful!"
"Formerly Bernice Burns." The face of a platinum-blonde beauty appeared on the screen beside Jones'. "And am I glad to see you, Barbara, even if I did just meet you yesterday! I didn't know whether I'd ever see another girl's face or not!"
"Let's cut the chat," Deston said then. "Herc, give me course, blast, and time for rendezvous ... hey! My watch stopped!"
"So did mine," Jones said. "So just hold one gravity on eighteen dash forty-seven dash two seventy-one and I'll correct you as necessary."
After setting course, and still thinking of his watch, Deston said; "But it's nonmagnetic. It never stopped before."
The gray-haired man spoke. "It was never in such a field before. You see, those two observations of fact invalidate twenty-four of the thirty-eight best theories of hyper-space. But tell me--am I correct in saying that none of you were in direct contact with the metal of the ship when it happened?"
"We avoid it in case of trouble. You? Name and job?" Deston jerked his head at the younger stranger.
"I know that much. Henry Newman. Crew-chief, normal space jobs, unlimited."
"Your passengers, Herc?"
"Vincent Lopresto, financier, and his two bodyguards. They were sleeping in their suits, on air-mattresses. Grounders. Don't like subspace--or space, either."
"Just so." The gray-haired man nodded, almost happily. "We survivors, then, absorbed the charge gradually----"
"But what the----" Deston began.
"One moment, please, young man. You perhaps saw some of the bodies. What were they like?"
"They looked ... well, not exactly as though they had exploded, but----" he paused.
"Precisely." Gray-Hair beamed. "That eliminates all the others except three--Morton's, Sebring's, and Rothstein's."
"You're a specialist in subspace, then?"
"Oh, no, I'm not a specialist at all. I'm a dabbler, really. A specialist, you know, is one who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing at all. I'm just the opposite. I'm learning less and less about more and more; hoping in time to know nothing at all about everything."
"In other words, a Fellow of the College. I'm glad you're aboard, sir."
"Oh, a Theoretician?" Barbara's face lit up and she held out her hand. "With dozens of doctorates in everything from Astronomy to Zoology? I've never met ... I'm ever so glad to meet you, Doctor----?"
"Adams. Andrew Adams. But I have only eight at the moment. Earned degrees, that is."
"But what were you doing in this lifecraft? No, let me guess. You were X-ray-eying it and fine-toothing it for improvements made since your last trip, and storing the details away in your eidetic memory."
"Not eidetic, by any means. Merely very good."
"And how many metric tons of apparatus have you got in the hold?" Deston asked.
"Less than six. Just what I must have in order to----"
"Babe!" Jones' voice cut in. "Course change. Stay on alpha eighteen. Shift beta to forty-four and gamma to two sixty-five."
* * * * *
Rendezvous was made. Both lifecraft hung motionless relative to the Procyon's hulk. No other lifecraft had escaped. A conference was held.
Weeks of work would be necessary before Deston and Jones could learn even approximately what the damage to the Procyon had been. Decontamination was automatic, of course, but there would be literally hundreds of hot spots, each of which would have to be sought out and neutralized by hand. The passengers' effects would have to be listed and stored in the proper cabins. Each body would have to be given velocity away from the ship. And so on. Every survivor would have to work, and work hard.
The two girls wanted to be together. The two officers almost had to