The Crack In Space (10 page)

Picking up the photo of the compressor, Jim Briskin studied it. ‘The homeopapes thought you’d found something like this, when you hauled that object back. According to the rumor, you’ve actually  . . .’

‘Yes,’ Woodbine said. ‘The rumor’s correct. Here’s a pic of it.’ He showed Jim the photograph of the power glider. ‘It’s in TD’s basement. They’re smart, and yet they’re dumb—the people on the other side, I mean. Come on along with me tomorrow; we’re going to set down exactly here.’ He laid out a sequence of shots taken by the QB satellite. ‘Recognize the terrain? It’s the coast of France. Over here  . . .’ He pointed. ‘  . . . Normandy. A town of theirs. You can’t call it a city, because it’s simply not that large. But it’s the largest one the QB has been able to detect. So we’re going there to confront them in their own bailiwick. By doing so, we get a direct confrontation vis-à-vis their culture, the totality of what they’ve managed to develop. TD is supplying linguistics machines; we’ve got anthropologists, sociologists  . . .’ He broke off. ‘Why are you looking at me like that, Jim?’

Jim Briskin said, ‘I thought it was a planet in another star system. Then the hints in the media were right, after all. But I’ll come with you; I’m glad to. Thanks for letting me.’

‘Don’t take it so hard,’ Woodbine said.

‘But it’s inhabited,’ Jim said.

‘Not entirely. My god, look on the bright side. This is a tremendous event, an encounter with another civilization entirely, what I’ve been searching for over three star-systems and a time-period of four decades. You’re not going to begrudge us that, are you?’

After a pause Jim said, ‘You’re right, of course. I’m just having trouble adjusting to this. Give me a little time.’

‘Are you sorry now that you made that Chicago speech?’

‘No,’ Jim said.

‘I hope your attitude doesn’t have to change. There’s one more thing we found: no one at TD has so far been able to make out what it signifies. Look at this pic.’ He placed the glossy print before Jim. ‘It was in the glider, poked down out of sight, obviously deliberately concealed. In a little leather bag.’

‘Rocks?’ Jim said, scrutinizing the pic.

‘Diamonds. Rough, not cut. Just as they come out of the ground. The inference is that these people prize precious stones but don’t know how to cut or polish them. So, in this one respect at least, they’re some four or five thousand years behind us. What would you say about a culture that can build a power glider, including piston engine and compressor, but hasn’t learned to cut and polish gems?’

Jim said, ‘I—don’t know.’

‘We’re taking some cut stones with us tomorrow. Couple of diamonds, opals, a gold ring set with a nice fat ruby donated by the wife of one of TD’s vice presidents. And we’re also taking this.’ He tossed a sheet of rolled-up paper before Jim. ‘A schematic of a very simple, efficient turbine. And this.’ He bounced another tube of paper onto the table. ‘A schematic of a medium-size steam engine, circa 1880, used as a donkey engine in mine work. But, of course, our main effort will be directed toward ferrying a few of their technological experts, if there are any, over here. Turpin wants to show them around TD, for example. And after that, probably N’York City.’

‘Has the government made an effort to get involved in this?’

‘Schwarz, I understand, has asked Turpin if a mixed bag of specialists from various bureaus can accompany us tomorrow. I don’t know what the old man has decided; it’s up to him. After all, TD can shut down the nexus any time it so desires. Schwarz knows that.’

Jim said, ‘Would you hazard any kind of estimate as to the level of their culture in terms of chronology relative to ours?’

‘Sure,’ Frank Woodbine said. ‘Somewhere between 3000 B.C. and A.D. 1920. Does that answer your question?’

‘So it can’t be graded on a time-scale which compares it to us.’

‘We’ll know tomorrow,’ Frank said. ‘Or rather—and I fully expect this, Jim—we’ll know that they’re so damn different from us that they might as well live on a planet in some other star system, as you’d like them to be. A non-terrestrial race entirely.’

‘With six legs and an exoskeleton,’ Jim murmured.

‘If not worse. Something that would make George Walt look perfectly ordinary. You know, that’s what we ought to do: take George Walt over with us tomorrow. Tell these people on the other side that George Walt is our god, that we worship him and they’d better, too, or he’ll make the bad atoms rain down on them and cause them to die of leukemia.’

‘Probably,’ Jim said, ‘they’ve not reached the level of developing atomic power. Either for industry or warfare.’

‘For all I know,’ Frank said quietly, ‘they’ve got an atomic tactical bomb made out of wood.’

‘That’s impossible. It’s a joke. You’re kidding.’

‘I’m not kidding—I’m just terribly upset. Nobody in our world ever knew that you could build complex modern machinery out of wood, as these people have. If they can manage to do that, although God knows how long it took them to do it, they can do anything. At least, that’s the way it strikes me. I’m going to set the jet-hopper down in Normandy tomorrow with my heart in my mouth, and I’ve been to more star-systems than any other human being; don’t forget that. I’ve seen a lot of alien worlds.’

Somberly, Jim Briskin picked up the photo of the wooden engine and once more studied it.

‘Of course,’ Frank added, ‘I keep saying to myself, "Look what we can learn." And look what they can learn from us.’

‘Yes,’ Jim agreed, ‘we have to look on this as an opportunity.’ His tone, however, was grave.

‘You know, just as I know, that something is awfully wrong.’

Jim Briskin nodded.

In the middle of the night Don Stanley, administrative assistant to Leon Turpin, was awakened by the ringing of his vidphone.

Sitting up groggily, he managed to locate the receiver in the dark. ‘Yes?’ he said, switching on the light. In the bed, his wife slept on.

On the vidscreen the physiognomy of a top-level TD researcher came into view. ‘Mr Stanley, we’re calling you instead of Mr Turpin. Somebody at policy has to know this.’ The researcher’s voice was jumpy with tension. ‘The QB is down.’

‘Down what?’ Stanley could not focus his faculties.

‘They shot it down. God knows how. Just now, not ten minutes ago. We don’t know whether we should try to put up another one to replace it or just wait.’

Stanley said, ‘Maybe the QB merely malfunctioned. Maybe it’s up there coasting around dead.’

‘It’s not up there at all; we’ve got a number of instruments capable of registering that. You know, bringing down an orbiting satellite requires a pretty exact science of weapons development; it’s not easy to do.’

Still half-asleep, Don Stanley had a momentary hypnogogic vision of an enormous crossbow with a cord capable of being stretched back a mile. He shook the vision off and said, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t send Woodbine over there tomorrow. We don’t want to lose him.’

‘Whatever you and Mr Turpin decide,’ the researcher said. ‘But sooner or later we have to make formal contact with them, don’t we? So why not right away? It seems to me that, in view of their maneuver against the QB, we can’t afford to wait. We’ve got to know what they possess.’

‘We’ll go ahead,’ Stanley decided, ‘but we’ll see that Woodbine is accompanied by company police. And we’ll keep in constant radio contact with him all the time he’s there.’

‘’’Company police," ‘ the researcher said in disgust. ‘What Woodbine needs is the United States Army.’

‘We don’t want the government meddling into this,’ Stanley said sharply. ‘If TD can’t handle this, we’ll shut down the ‘scuttler and abolish the nexus. Forget the entire matter.’ He felt irritable. This puts an entirely new light on everything, this about the QB, he realized. In no way—or at least in no important way—are these people lagging behind us. We’re not going to be able to get away with trading them a basketful of glass beads in exchange for North America. He recalled the leather bag of uncut diamonds found in the glider. They may not be able to finish up stones, he thought, but at least they know what’s really valuable. There’s a crucial difference between carrying around a bagful of rough diamonds and, say, a bagful of seashells.

‘You’ve still got a team on the other side, don’t you?’ Stanley said. ‘You didn’t pull them back over here.’

‘They’re there,’ the researcher said, ‘but they’re just standing by, waiting for dawn and the party of university professors and the linguistics machines, all that stuff that’s been promised.

‘We don’t want to get into a brawl with these people,’ Stanley said, ‘even if they did get to our satellite. TD wants industrial techniques from them, wants their know-how hardwarewise. Let’s not spoil that. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ the researcher agreed, ‘and lots of luck.’

Don Stanley hung up, sat for a time, then rose and walked to the kitchen of his conapt to fix himself something to eat.

Tomorrow’s going to be quite a day, he said to himself. I wish I was going along, but, in view of this, I think I ll stay on this side. After all, I’m a desk man, not a leg man; let somebody else do it. Somebody like Woodbine who’s paid to take risks. This is exactly why we hired him.

He did not envy Woodbine.

And then all at once it occurred to him that old Leon Turpin might order him to go along. In which case he would have to—or lose his job. And losing one’s job, these days, was no joke.

His appetite was gone. Leaving the kitchen, Don Stanley returned to his bed, gloomily aware that with such thoughts on his mind he would probably be unable to get back to sleep.

It turned out that he was right.

TEN

Because the defective Jiffi-scuttler technically belonged to him, Darius Pethel could not effectively be denied permission to cross over, along with the group of top scientific and linguistic experts leaving in the morning. Wearing a carefully ironed and starched white shirt and new tie, he arrived at TD’s central administrative offices in Washington, D.C., at exactly eight a.m. He felt confident. TD employees had treated him with deference ever since he had turned the defective ‘scuttler over to them. After all, he could take it back . . . or, at least, so Pethel reasoned.

Two officials of the company, both of them tense, accompanied him to Mr Turpin’s office on the twentieth floor, depositing him there, and at once hurrying off. Now he was on his own.

The board chairman of TD did not awe Darius Pethel. ‘Morning, Mr Turpin,’ he said in greeting. ‘I hope I’m not late.’ He was not sure where the group was assembling. Probably down in the subsurface labs near the ‘scuttler.

‘Ump,’ the old man said, glancing at him sideways, the wrinkled neck twisting like a turkey’s. ‘Oh, yes. Pedal.’

‘Pethel.’

‘So you want to be in on things, do you?’ Leon Turpin studied him, smiling a thin, gleeful smile.

‘I want to keep in touch,’ Pethel said. He pointed out, ‘After all, it is my, property.’

‘Oh, yes, we’re very conscious of that, Pethel. You’re a highly important figure in all that’s going on. Being a businessman, you’ll no doubt be useful on this mission; you can establish trade relations with these people. In fact, we expect you to start selling them ‘scuttlers.’ Leon Turpin laughed. ‘All right, Mr Pethel. You go ahead downstairs to the labs and join the group; make yourself at home here at TD. Do whatever you feel like. I myself—I’m staying here. One trip across is enough for a man of my age; I’m sure you can appreciate that.’

Conscious that he had been made fun of, Darius Pethel left Mr Turpin’s office and took the elevator down. Smouldering, he said to himself, I can be important in this. The people on this alternative Earth or whatever it is can probably use an improved method of transportation even better than we can. After all, from what the TV newsman said, they seem to be backward, compared to us. There was something about a primitive ship or airplane. Something obsolete in our world several centuries ago.

The elevator let him off at the guarded lower floors of the building, and he made his way down the corridor, following the instructions painted on the walls, to the main lab proper.

When he opened the lab door he found himself facing a man whom he had seen many times on TV. It was the Republican-Liberal candidate for president, James Briskin, and Pethel halted in awe and surprise.

‘Let’s get a shot of you standing at the entrance hoop,’ a photographer was saying to Briskin. ‘Could you move over there, please?’

Obligingly, Briskin walked to the ‘scuttler.

This is the big time, Pethel realized. Our next president is here along with me. I wonder what would happen if I said hello to him, he wondered. Would he answer back? Probably would because he’s campaigning; after he gets into office, he won’t have to.

To Jim Briskin, Pethel said humbly, ‘Hello, Mr Briskin. You don’t know me, but I’m going to vote for you.’ He had just made up his mind; seeing Briskin in real life had decided him. ‘I’m Darius Pethel.’

Glancing at him, Briskin said, ‘Hello, Mr Pethel.’

‘This Jiffi-scuttler belongs to me,’ Pethel explained. ‘I discovered the rent in it, the doorway to the other universe. Or rather, my repairman Rick Erickson did. But he’s dead now.’ He added, ‘Very tragic; I was there when it happened.’

A TD official, appearing beside Jim Briskin, said, ‘We’re ready to get started, Mr Briskin.’

A small, rather handsome man strolled up, and Darius, with a start, recognized him, too. This was Frank Woodbine, the famous deep-space explorer. Good lord, Pethel said to himself, and I’m going with them!

‘Jim,’ Woodbine said to Jim Briskin, ‘we’re all carrying laser pistols except you. Don’t you think you’re making a mistake?’

‘Hey,’ Pethel said tremulously, ‘nobody gave me a pistol.’

A TD employee passed a pistol, in its holster, over to him. ‘Sorry, Mr Pethel.’

‘That’s more like it,’ Dar Pethel said, wondering if he was supposed to hold the thing in his hands or strap it on somehow.

‘I don’t need a gun,’ Jim Briskin said.

‘Of course you do,’ Woodbine said. ‘You want to come back, don’t you?’ To Pethel, Woodbine said, ‘Tell him he needs a gun.’

‘You ought to have one, Mr Briskin,’ Pethel said eagerly. ‘No one knows what we’ll run into over there.’

At last, with massive reluctance, Briskin accepted a gun. ‘This is not the way,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this, going to meet them armed like this.’ He looked melancholy.

‘What choice have we got?’ Woodbine said and disappeared through the entrance hoop of the Jiffi-scuttler.

‘I’ll go in with you, Mr Briskin,’ Pethel said. ‘Instead of with those scientists.’ He indicated the group which had formed behind them. ‘I can’t talk their language; I’ve got nothing in common with them.’

A man whom he recognized as Briskin’s campaign manger, Salisbury Heim, hurried up to join Briskin. ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Quickly, he made note of the news photographers, TV cameras, the gang of media people. ‘You fellows get every step of this,’ he called to them. ‘You understand?’

‘Yes, Mr Heim,’ they murmured, moving forward.

‘The time is now,’ Salisbury Heim said, and gave Jim Briskin a small push in the direction of the entrance hoop. ‘Let’s go, Jim.’

‘Are you ready, Mr Pethel?’ Jim Briskin asked.

‘Oh, thanks; I am, yes,’ Pethel answered hurriedly. ‘This is certainly a fascinating journey, isn’t it?’

‘Momentous,’ Salisbury Heim said.

‘In fact even historical,’ Briskin said, with a faint smile.

‘Entering the Jiffi-scuttler now,’ a TV newsman was saying into his lapel mike, ‘the possible future president of the United States reveals no indication of concern for his personal safety. Solicitous of the welfare of the others surrounding him, he makes certain that they understand the gravity or—as James Briskin himself just now put it—the historical significance of this body of persons passing across into a situation fraught with possible peril. But the stakes in this are vast, and no one has forgotten that, least of all James Briskin. Another world, another civilization  . . . what will this come to mean in future centuries to mankind? Undoubtedly, James Briskin is asking himself that at this very instant as he crosses the threshold of the rather plain, almost ordinary-appearing Jiffi-scuttler.’

Jim Briskin winked at Darius Pethel.

Startled, Pethel attempted to wink back, but he was too tense.

‘Hey, just a moment, Mr Briskin!’ a homeopape photographer called. ‘We want to be sure we catch you going through the rent. Could you kindly retrace your steps back to the hoop, please? Those last four steps?’

Obligingly, Jim Briskin did so.

The TV newsman was saying, ‘So now in only a matter of seconds presidential candidate James Briskin will be passing through the connecting link into a universe whose very existence was not even suspected two days ago. Authorities seem pretty well to agree now, on the basis of stellar charts taken by the no longer functioning Queen Bee satellite  . . .’

I wonder why it’s no longer functioning, Pethel mused. Has something gotten fouled up, over there? It didn’t sound like a good omen; it made him uncomfortable.

On the other side, amid a meadow of excellently green grass and small white flowers, they, now a party of thirty, boarded an express jet-hopper which TD engineers had somehow managed to disassemble, pass through the rent, and then reassemble. Almost at once the ‘hopper rose and soared out over the Atlantic, toward the northern coast of France.

Watching a flight of gulls, Jim Briskin thought: From this vantage point, it appears no different from our own world. The gulls disappeared behind them as the jet-hopper hurried on. Will we see ships of any sort on this ocean? he wondered.

Fifteen minutes later, by his wristwatch, he saw a ship below.

It did not seem to be large. But it was ocean-going, and that, he decided, was something. Of course it was wooden; he took that for granted, as did the others in the ‘hopper, all of whom were pressed against the windows, peering out. The ship, did not have sails, but it also lacked a stack. What propels it? he wondered. More nonsense machinery. If not the expansion of ice, then by all means the popping of paper bags.

The pilot of the jet-hopper swooped low over the ship; they were treated to a thorough look, at least momentarily. Figures on the deck scampered about in agitation, then disappeared down below, lost from sight. The ship continued on. And, presently, the ‘hopper left it behind.

‘We didn’t learn much,’ Dillingsworth, the anthropologist, said in disappointment. ‘How long before we reach Normandy?’

‘Another half hour,’ the pilot said.

They saw, then, a collection of small boats, perhaps a fishing fleet; the boats were anchored, and they did have sails. Aboard, the sailors gaped up at the sight of the ‘hopper, frozen in their positions as if carved there. Again the ‘hopper dipped low.

The anthropologist, staring down, said, ‘Lower.’

‘Can’t,’ the pilot answered. ‘Too dangerous; we’re overloaded.’

‘What’s the matter?’ the sociologist from the University of California, Edward Marshak, asked Dillingsworth. ‘What did you see?’

After a time Dillingsworth said, ‘As soon as we reach the European landmass, as soon as we can land, let’s do so. Let’s not wait to seek out their centers of concentration; I want to have us set down by the first one of them we spot.’

The fishing boats disappeared behind them.

With shaking hands, Dillingsworth opened a textbook which he had brought, began turning pages. He did not allow anyone else to see its title; he sat off by himself in a corner of the ‘hopper, a brooding, dark expression on his face.

Stanley, the senior official from TD, said inquiringly, ‘Do you think we should turn back?’

‘Hell no,’ Dillingsworth rasped. And that was all he said; he did not amplify.

Next to Jim Briskin, the round, heavy-set little businessman from Kansas City leaned over and said, ‘He makes me nervous; he’s found something and he won’t say what it is. It was when he saw those fishermen. I was watching his face, and he almost fainted.’

Amused, Jim said, ‘Take it easy, Mr Pethel. We still have a long way to go.’

‘I’m going to find out what it was,’ Pethel said. He scrambled to his feet and made his way over to Dillingsworth. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Why keep it quiet? It must have been pretty bad to make you clam up like this. What could you possibly have seen in those few seconds that would make you react this way? Personally, I don’t think we should go on until . . .’

‘Look at it this way,’ Dillingsworth said. ‘If I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter. If I’m right  . . .’ He looked past Pethel to Jim Briskin. ‘We’ll know all about it before we make our return trip, later today.’

After a pause, Jim said, ‘That’s good enough. For me, at least.’

Fuming, Darius Pethel returned to his seat. ‘If I had known it’d be like this  . . .’

‘Wouldn’t you have come?’ Jim asked him.

‘I don’t know. Possibly not.’

Stirring restlessly, Sal Heim said, ‘I didn’t realize there was going to be any hazard involved in this.’

‘What did you think,’ one of the newsmen asked him, ‘when they took our QB satellite out?’

‘I just learned about that,’ Sal snapped back, ‘as we were entering the damn ‘scuttler.’

A photographer for one of the big homeopapes said, ‘How about a game of draw? Jacks or better to open, penny a chip but no table limit.’

Within a minute, the game had started.

Ahead, on the horizon, Sal Heim thought he saw something and he took a quick look at his wristwatch. That’s Normandy, he realized. We’re almost there. He felt his breath stifle in his throat; he could hardly breathe. God, I’m tense, he decided. That anthropologist really shook me. But too late to turn back now. We’re fully committed; and anyhow it would look bad, politically-speaking, if Jim Briskin backed out. No, for our own good we have to continue whether we want to or not.

‘Set us right down,’ Dillingsworth instructed the pilot in a clipped, urgent tone of voice.

‘Do so,’ Don Stanley of TD chimed in. The pilot nodded.

They were over open countryside, now; the coastline had already fallen behind them, the wave-washed shore. Sal Heim saw a road. It was not much of a road, but it could hardly be mistaken for anything else, and, looking along it, he made out in the distance a vehicle, a sort of cart. Somebody going uneventfully along the road, on his routine business, Sal realized. He could see the wheels of the cart, now, and its load. And, in the front, the driver, who wore a blue cap. The driver did not look up. Evidently he was not aware of the ‘hopper. And then Sal Heim realized that the pilot had cut the jets. The ‘hopper was coasting silently down.

‘I’m going to place it on the road,’ the pilot explained. ‘Directly in front of his cart.’ He snapped on a retrojet, briefly, to brake the ‘hopper’s fall.

Dillingsworth said, ‘Christ, I was right.’

As the ‘hopper struck, almost all of them were already on their feet, peering at the cart ahead, trying to discover what it was that the anthropologist saw. The cart had stopped. The driver stood up in his seat and stared at the jet-hopper, at them inside it.

Sal Heim thought, There’s something wrong with that man. He’s—deformed.

A homeopape reporter said gruffly, ‘Must be from war-time radiation, from fallout. God, he looks awful.’

‘No,’ Dillingsworth said. ‘That’s not from fallout. Haven’t you seen that before? Where have you seen it before? Think.’

‘In a book,’ the little businessman from Kansas City said. ‘It’s in the book you have there.’ He pointed at Dillingsworth. ‘You looked it up after we passed those fishing boats!’ His voice rose squeakily.

Jim Briskin said, ‘He’s one of the races of pre-humans.’

‘He’s of the Paleoanthropic wing of primate evolution,’ Dillingsworth said. ‘I’d guess Sinanthropus, a rather high form of Pithecanthropi, or Peking man, as he is called. Notice the low vault of the skull, the very heavy brow ridge which runs unbroken across the forehead above the eyes. The chin is undeveloped. These are simian features, lost by the true line of Homo sapiens. The brain capacity, however, is reasonably large, almost as great as our own. Needless to say, the teeth are quite different from our own.’ He added, ‘In our world, this branch of primate evolution came to an end in the Lower Pleistocene, about a million and a half years ago.’