Subspace Survivors | Page 9

two young women----"
"I'm going to call you 'Uncle Andy'," Barbara said, with a grin. "Now, Uncle Andy, you being a Big Brain--the term being used in its most complimentary sense--and the way you talked, one of your eight doctorates is in medicine."
"Of course."
"Are you any good at obstetrics?"
"In the present instance I am perfectly safe in saying----"
"Wait a minute!" Deston snapped. "Bobby, you are not----"
"I am too! That is, I don't suppose I am yet, since we were married only last Tuesday, but if he's competent--and I'm sure he is--I'm certainly going to! If we get back to Earth I want to, and if we don't, both Bun and I have got to. Castaways' Code, you know. So how about it, Uncle Andy?"
"I know what you two girls are," Adams said, quietly. "I know what you two men must of necessity be. Therefore I can say without reservation that none of you need feel any apprehension whatever."
Deston was about to say something, but Barbara forestalled him. "Well, we can think about it, anyway, and talk it over. But for right now, I think it's high time we all got some sleep. Don't you?"
* * * * *
It was; and they did; and after they had slept and had eaten "breakfast" the three men wafted themselves across a couple of hundred yards of space to the crippled starship. Powerful floodlights were rigged.
"What ... a ... mess." Deston's voice was low and wondering. "The whole Top looks as though she'd crash-landed and spun out for eight miles. But the Middle and Tail look untouched."
Inside, however, devastation had gone deep into the Middle. Bulkheads, walls, floors, structural members; were torn, sheared, twisted into weirdly-distorted shapes impossible to understand or explain. And, much worse, were the absences; for in dozens of volumes, of as many sizes and of shapes incompatible with any three-dimensional geometry, every solid thing had vanished--without leaving any clue whatever as to where or how it had gone.
[Illustration]
After three long days of hard work, Adams was satisfied. He had taken pictures as fast as both officers could process the film; he had covered many miles of tape with words only half of which either spaceman could understand. Then, finally, he said:
"Well, that covers the preliminary observations as well as I know how to do it. Thank you, boys, for your forbearance and your help. Now, if you'll help me find my stuff and bring some of it--a computer and so on--up to the lounge?" They did so; the "and so on" proving to be a bewildering miscellany indeed. "Thank you immensely, gentlemen; now I won't bother you any more."
"You've learned a lot, Doc, and we haven't learned much of anything." Deston grinned ruefully. "That makes you the director. You'll have to tell us, in general terms, what to do."
"Oh? I can offer a few suggestions. It is virtually certain: One, that no subspace equipment will function. Two, that all normal-space equipment, except for some items you know about, will function normally. Three, that we can't do anything about subspace without landing on a planet. Four, that such landing will require extreme--I might almost say fantastic--precautions."
Although both officers thought that they understood Item Four, neither of them had any inkling as to what Adams really meant. They did understand thoroughly, however, Items One, Two, and Three.
"Hell's jets!" Deston exclaimed. "Do you mean we'll have to blast normal to a system?"
"It isn't as bad as you think, Babe," Jones said. "Stars are much thicker here--we're in the center somewhere--than around Sol. The probability is point nine plus that any emergence would put us less than point four light-years away from a star. A couple of them show disks. I haven't measured any yet; have you, Doc?"
"Yes. Point two two, approximately, to the closest."
"So what?" Deston demanded. "What's the chance of it having an Earth-type planet?"
"Any solid planet will do," Adams said. "Just so it has plenty of mass."
"That's still quite a trip." Deston was coming around. "Especially since we can't use more than one point----"
"One point zero gravities," Jones put in.
"Over the long pull--and the women--you're right," Deston agreed, and took out his slide rule. "Let's see ... one gravity, plus and minus ... velocity ... time ... it'll take about eleven months?"
"Just about," Jones agreed, and Adams nodded.
"Well, if that's what the cards say, there's no use yowling about it," and all nine survivors went to work.
Deston, besides working, directed the activities of all the others except Adams; who worked harder and longer than did anyone else. He barely took time out to eat and to sleep. Nor did either Deston or Jones ask him what he was doing. Both knew that it would take five years of advanced study before either of them could understand the simplest material on the doctor's