The Forever Man (46 page)

“We already have, naturally,” said ?1. “We also ordered them not to do anything unfriendly to your ship.”

“Thank you,” said Jim.

“You are, as you say, entirely welcome. Now, do you intend to make your own way home with this companion ship, or shall we assist you in that action, also?”

Jim thought. It had not occurred to him before, but getting safely out around Laagi territory and back to Base might be greatly helped by having ?1 and his people along as guardians. On the other hand, sheer luck had given him a considerable prize in the mind-people's reaction to seeing the phase-shift in action. It might be better to act as if he did not need any help. An idea occurred to him.

“What we're going to have to do,” Jim said, “is go at right angles to the direction by which we came here, until we're clear out of Laagi territory. Then we'll turn and head straight out from the center of the galaxy again until we get level with our area of space, which is beyond the Laagi territory. If you and your friends would stay with us on the first leg of the trip, at least until we were out of Laagi territory, then if a number of their ships find us, you people could command them to leave us alone.”

There was a moment's pause, which Jim had come to understand indicated that ?1's people were talking the matter over.

“Why don't you just reposition yourself directly at your home planet?” ?1 asked.

“Well,” said Jim, “you see, there's a drawback to the phaseshifting system, so far. Holes of all kinds have their limitations, as you know—"

“Oh, yes indeed,” said ?1.

“Yes. Well, one of the limitations in this instance is that the mathematics required to figure out our destination point, even using the best of hole-type means we can put in these ships to figure it out, has a built-in percentage of error. The farther we have to go to a new position in one shift, the greater that error becomes; until at a repositioning of much over fifteen light-years the possible error becomes as large as the distance to the new position. That means, in practice, that if we shift a distance of fifteen light-years in one jump, we could end up in a position that would be as much as fifteen light-years off from where we want to be. The result is that we move in shifts, normally, of no more than five light-years at a jump.”

“It seems so clumsy and ridiculous,” said ?1.

“It's both,” put in Mary unexpectedly, “but there's nothing we can do about it.”

“I really don't understand. Why should there be error? If you can see your destination out there, why not go straight to it?”

“Well, the fact is, we can't see it,” said Jim. “We find it by using a theoretical line running from our star to the center of the galaxy—”

Jim tried to explain human methods of navigation and found himself back in the same tangle of misunderstandings and inability to understand on ?1's part that he had encountered in trying to explain phase-shifting.

“Nevermind!” said ?1 at last. “Just tell me this. You can't see your star, you say?”

“See it? Of course not,” said Jim. “It's somewhere between a hundred and two hundred light-years from here.”

“I can't believe such limitation in a people who can do what you do,” said ?1. “I was simply going to ask you to point it out to me, and then I'd tell you how to follow the pattern of forces that would lead you most directly to it. But how do you intend to get to it if you can't see it?”

“That's what I was trying to explain to you just now,” said Jim. “The direct route would be up the line from our star to the center of the galaxy-and the ship's instruments, which have kept track of each movement and change of position it's made, can tell me where that is from here. But if we find that and follow the direct line of it up-galaxy, we'll have to run right through the center of Laagi space; and they'll be sure to find us. So we want to go out and around.”

“Please,” said ?1, “take your ship to this centerline and I'll accompany you.”

“That's back to where we might nun into other Laagi ships,” said Jim.

“If you do, we will protect you,” said ?1. “Please, just take this hole and your captive one to this line you talk about.”

“All right,” said Jim.

He made the calculations and the shift.

“Now,” he said to ?1, when they had arrived, “we're on the line. Straight out away from the galactic center, straight through the heart of Laagi territory, brings us eventually to human space and about fifty light-years farther on we come to our sun, a G0-type star.”

“Can you indicate the line?”

“I can orient our ship along it.”

Jim did.

“All right,” said ?1, “looking out along the line the long axis of your ship now indicates, I can see a G0-type star directly in line with it at a distance of roughly—what is that barbarous form of measurement you use—a hundred and twenty-three times the distance light travels in what you concept as a ‘year'.”

“A year is the amount of time it takes for our planet to orbit its star.”

“I see. That's a rather important planet you seem to inhabit if you're planning on measuring the galaxy in terms of one motion of its local dance—but, forgive me, as holes I mustn't hold you too accountable.”

“We have other measurements. A parsec—”

“Please. One such clumsiness is enough. Moreover, it's beside the point. Your ship is now pointed at your destination and you know how far away it is. Make one shift to that destination. That will put you past and out of Laagi space.”

“And we'll probably,” said Jim, “find ourselves a hundred and twenty-three light-years away from that destination in some other direction—or perhaps a multiple of a hundred and twenty-three light-years—and possibly lost.”

“If you do, I will direct you back to your star, helping you correct your errors until you finally reach it. Do as I say. Shift a hundred and twenty-three light-years.”

“Too close,” said Jim. “If by sheer bad luck we happen to end up right on target, we could land in the center of the star itself.”

“The center of a star has its interesting points. I have examined several at odd times. You might find the center of this one worth looking at—this once, anyway.”

“No doubt,” said Jim. “But our ship wouldn't; and the Laagi ship, to say nothing of the Laagi inside her, wouldn't. I'll shift one hundred and twenty-two lightyears. Then we'll only run the random risk of error putting us in the center of some other star.”

He set the ship's equipment to calculating the jump.

“What are we waiting for?” asked ?1.

“The ship has to…” Jim found himself on the edge of another discussion in which he would not possibly be able to explain mechanics to ?1. “… get itself ready before it shifts. It just takes a matter of minutes.”

“I see. I am missing out on a considerable amount of dancing, with all these delays. Forgive me. It's uncharitable of me to mention it.”

“You're forgiven.”

“Never in the history of our people has anything outside our own pursuits been allowed to use up so much of our valuable time and attention.”

“Sorry.”

“One can hardly blame you. You're only holes after all; and your understanding of the importance of dancing is limited—”

“We're ready to go,” said Jim.

“Then by all means do so.”

Jim shifted. This time ?1 stayed with him, but the Laagi ship disappeared.

“We've lost them—” he was beginning, when they suddenly appeared alongside.

“It slipped my mind to tell them where you were going, so they would go, too,” said ?1. “A minor oversight, which might have been complicated by the fact that it was only I, speaking to them, alone. The error has now been rectified.”

Jim looked out from the hull. Sure enough, there—and larger to be seen on his screens inside the ship—was a beautiful yellow sun.

“Home! And we hit it right on the nose!” he said happily. “I don't know how to thank you, ?1.”

“You can thank me and all of us by getting into communication with these Laagi right away and explaining to them what they should do,” said ?1. “You've been… let us say, interesting—for two people who are essentially no more than living holes. We may meet in the future. Meanwhile, farewell!”

He disappeared.

“Jim!” It was Mary speaking urgently to him. “Look at the instruments!”

Jim looked. He stared.

“Laagi ships!” he said. “Two coming up at a hundred and forty by thirty-two degrees from down-galaxy—and one coming from sixty-one by ninety-seven degrees, from up-galaxy? How can that be, here in our own territory? What's happened? Wait—”

He hastily checked the instruments.

“The spectrum's not right!” he burst out. “That's the wrong sun! And ?1's already left us. ?1! ?1! Answer me, will you? Come back, ?1! You took us to the wrong sun!
?1
!!!”

An invisible firefly appeared in the center of
AndFriend
's cabin space.

“What do you mean, calling me back after all this?” demanded ?1. “And what do you mean, I took you to the wrong star? I told you where the star was on the line you gave me to look along, and that's the one you went to.”

“Well, it's not our sun. We had an error, just the way I warned you we might!” said Jim. “It just happened we landed near a sun that's almost a duplicate of our own.”

“Nonsense!” said ?1. “We went right out the line you indicated. I can assure you of that, since, unlike you holes, I know where I am by reference to the galactic pattern.”

“Well, it's the wrong star, all the same,” said Jim. “Not only that, but there's three—no, there's four now, according to the instruments—Laagi ships closing in on us fast. If you don't want to see all our plans aborted, you'd better get your people here to command the Laagi aboard those incoming ships to turn around and go away, before you do anything else.”

“Oh, my!” said ?1. “I can't—I absolutely can't intrude on the dance time of so many of our people to help you again, after all the attention they've already given you. Even if I did, most of them would probably refuse to let themselves be interrupted like that once more.”

“Then get us out of here, fast!”

“Why don't you just get out on your own?” demanded ?1.

“Because I don't know which way to go!” shouted Jim—or at least he would have shouted, if he had had a voice to shout with. “All right, if you won't help us, we'll simply make a blind jump away from here of at least five lightyears and try to figure how to get home after this. Obviously your pattern-sensing can't be right, since this definitely is not Sol—our star!”

“I tell you,” said ?1 exasperatedly, “it's impossible for anyone not to know where that person is by reference to the pattern. If you only had a decent capability for sensing it, yourself, you'd see how ridiculous it is to think you could get lost, anywhere in the galaxy—”

“No time to talk anymore,” said Jim. “I'm programming the shift!”

“Very well. Act in a completely foolish manner—just a moment,” said ?1, “you did say your sun was a yellow G0-type star, on this line?”

“Yes! But so what, now? Those Laagi ships'll be in firing range in seconds; and, judging by the way they're acting, whatever your people told whoever's aboard our captive ship, it didn't stop them from letting these others know they were being held prisoner, as soon as the others got into instrument communication range. Those ships coming at us are out for blood—”

“Ah, as it turns out,” said ?1, “another sixty-one of your light-years farther out this line of yours there just happens to be another G0 star very much like this one…”

“What? Where? How far?”

“Sixty—”

“Nevermind. I heard you the first time. I'm setting up a shift for another sixty light-year jump straight ahead, right now. In fact, we'll jump it on rough calculations. Better to be in larger error at the far end than take any more timeow—”

They shifted.

This time the Laagi ship that was their prisoner came with them. So did ?1. But this time Jim paid neither of them any attention. His view was on the instruments panel, examining the spectra of the new yellow star that now lay before them at a distance of less than a light year. ?1 had evidently been rather cursory in his estimate of the distance; but once again they had shifted to what, for practical purposes, was their exact aiming point—which was something to think about when there should be time to think about it. Two miracles of phase-shifting in a row became suspiciously something more than miracles.

“It's all right,” Jim announced. “Thank God. The spectrum checks. We're home.”

He spoke to an empty cabin. ?1 had not even stayed to say farewell, this time, before departing.

Jim checked his instruments.

“There's Earth,” he said. “Alarms'll be sounding all over the world right now, seeing we've got a Laagi ship beside us. I'll give them a call.”

Mary said nothing. Tine, what he had just said, himself, did not particularly ask for comment, but he would have welcomed a word or two, from which perhaps he might have judged how she was feeling. Evidently, she was still angry with him for some reason—if angry was the word for it. Oh, well…

“Base,” he said through the ship's equipment in broadcast to that location, “this is ship XN413, your lost baby from a far country. I'll leave our location sounder on, so you can send out an escort to bring us in. We've got a prisoner—he's harmless, so don't come loaded for bear—and he'll need an escort. Also I need to talk to Louis One. Repeat… “

He ran through the broadcast several times. He had barely finished before the first half-dozen fighter ships began to appear around him and began to englobe
AndFriend
and her Laagi prisoner.