Vectors (6 page)

The tension was unbearable. Finally, after a few seconds that lasted forever, zero hour came. And went. Nothing. The test package sat there in the Link transfer zone, unmoved. I sat and shredded paper towels as the minutes ticked by. Nothing. When I was ready to run screaming round the room, Mattin came on the screen.

"Something's wrong," he said. I could have told him that. He didn't seem as worried as I felt, not by a long shot. "It's almost certainly in the phase control. Tell the backers we'll have to come back to Earth so I can take a good look at it."

I may have been less smart than Mattin in some ways, but I was way ahead of him in others. One thing I had been careful
not
to do was tell our sponsors when the test would be made. I sat there and congratulated myself on my foresight.

"How long before you're ready to try again?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Month, maybe, two months—hard to say."

That was the beginning of the worst time of my life. Seven failures, Professor Benson.
Seven!
Every one of them a cliff-hanger. Each countdown in my office was like the moments before an execution. By the third test we were sending things through the Link—but the test equipment would arrive inside out, melted, reduced to powder (tests three, four and five respectively). On the sixth test, the equipment got through in one piece—a bit battered, but not bad. Unfortunately we had promised our backers that the Mattin Link could be used to transport people as well as objects, and that's what they were expecting to see.

On the seventh test, Mattin seemed very pleased with the results. This time he was on the cargo hull where the test equipment was arriving. He came on to the video link and gave me a thumbs-up sign.

"The equipment came through fine, meters all working properly. Still needs work, though."

"Why does it need work, if the Link did its stuff correctly?" I looked at the video and could see the test equipment, apparently in good shape. Then I looked more closely. Next to the equipment were a big grey pancake and what seemed to be a long hairy worm. "What are those things?"

"Well, I said it needs a bit more work," Mattin said defensively. "I think the phasing is still a touch off. See what it did to the rats we sent through this time."

I looked again at the hairy shapes, then had to run across my office to vomit into the only available container, which was unfortunately my long-suffering pot of prize begonias.

"No big problem," said Mattin cheerfully. "A week's work should fix it."

Before he could get his week, we had a new problem. We were running out of money, and our backers were running out of patience. I was summoned to a chilling meeting, behind the stage at the opera house in Mexico City. One of our backers was big on opera. The message I got was brief but precise. There was no more money in the pipeline, but there was big trouble in it unless we had instant success. I talked—for my life.

We were almost there, I swore, another few weeks would do it, one last test was all we needed.

I had to wait three hours in the cold, empty backstage. Finally the word came down. Two weeks to prove ourselves. No more money. We had to find our own. I knew what came next if we failed and took the gloomy news back to Mattin. We considered our limited options.

"Look what we need," he said. "First, we have to rent another cargo hull and power plant. One of the four we got has an expired lease and we can't renew it. So we need money for that. We have to have it. But we don't really need crews on all the hulls. They never do anything anyway, and it's all computer-controlled to switch on the Links at the right time. We could manage the whole thing."

My insides did a rapid cartwheel. "What do you mean, we? You're not trying to get me up into space, are you? You know I've got a weak stomach."

"Look here, Carver, are you absolutely convinced this test will work?" he replied. "I am, but are you?"

I thought about that, then shook my head. "It'll flop; ten-to-one odds."

"Then where would you rather be if it flops—here to face the backers, or up there with a decent chance to escape to the Lunar Base or the Venus terra-forming project?"

Mattin was odious, but supremely logical. I scraped up what was left of our meager finances and went off to bargain with the friendly discount spaceship company.

We managed to get a cargo hull and a power unit, but so cheaply that I knew there had to be something wrong with them. I just had no alternatives. I signed a short-term lease and called Mattin. He was ready. I had no excuses left. The next morning we were off to pick up the cargo hull from parking orbit and load the power unit on board it.

If you've never been in space, Professor Benson, take my advice and don't go. Free fall is constant nausea, a sort of static seasickness. After we were installed in the cargo hull with our equipment, I had nothing to do but think of my general misery and the unknown dangers of space travel. While I was doing that, Mattin was frowning over the rented power unit.

"How much did you pay for this thing?" he finally asked.

"All we had."

"Well, it's all set to blow, looking at these readings. As soon as we complete the Link transfer, it has to be shut down—it's not safe."

A power unit running amok was all I needed.

"What happens if it blows before we complete the Link?" I asked.

"We get into the shielded compartment," Mattin replied. "It's intended for use in bad solar flares, but it works just as well if a power unit goes wild."

I took a look at the shielded compartment. Ample room for one, but a tight squeeze for two.

At the other end of the ship the Mattin Link area was set up, with a blue line drawn by Mattin at the active area where the transfer took place. The test equipment was carefully placed there. Then Mattin fed in the programs for the final orbit adjusts of each cargo hull, ours and the three unmanned ones. While he was doing that, I had another secret worry. The Mattin Link drew a lot of power. It seemed to me that might be the thing that would push our power unit into a final blow-up. I was supposed to be watching the dials, but I didn't know what any of them meant. It did seem to me that a lot of them were way up in the red zone.

Mattin finished the set-up and came over to me again. "How's it holding up? We've less than a minute and a half to go to transfer," he said, then bent over the power unit dials. He turned to me immediately, his eyes bulging.

"I thought you were keeping an eye on this. It's way out of tolerance. I don't think it will even hold together until the Link activates—it could go up any second."

Mattin's evaluation was good enough for me. Without taking a second look at the power unit dials I turned and began my drive for the shielded compartment.

I'll never deny that Mattin always thought a lot faster than I did. By the time I began he was halfway there, and my lack of experience in free fall slowed me down. When I approached he had already crowded into the compartment, then turned with his back braced against its rear. As I floated nearer, instead of squeezing to the wall to let me in too he lifted his feet up and gave me a great kick in the chest. It reversed me and I started to spin back along the length of the hull, unable to make contact with anything solid.

One of the things they don't bother to tell you before you go into space is how slowly things can happen. I floated along the hull towards the Mattin Link transfer area, but I did it incredibly slowly. I was quite active, spinning end over end, shouting and screaming and waving my arms and legs, but none of that affected my forward motion at all. When my body had turned to face Mattin again, I saw that the door of the shielded compartment was firmly closed. I didn't imagine Mattin would open it voluntarily to see how I was doing until after the power unit had done its worst. I tried to get a look at the digital countdown display to see how long it would be before the Link transfer took place, but I couldn't see it from the angle I had.

When I finally collided with the bulkhead at the far end, I had no idea how much time I had left. Subjectively, I had spent the better part of my adult life drifting down that steel hull. Actually it was probably a minute at most. I held the bulkhead and did a quick review of my options. In a few seconds I would be a big pink pancake or a long pink sausage if I didn't get out of the Link transfer area. Or I could be fried purple when the power unit blew. Or—a long shot—I could get back to the shielded area in time, open the door somehow, and squeeze in with that swine Mattin.

I set my legs against the bulkhead and took off with a mighty spring for the other end of the hull. I had been on the way for a second or less when three things happened. First, everything flashed a mother-of-pearl pink. Then I received a tremendous bang on the head. Finally I was given an even bigger smash on my chest and ears. Then I passed out and had a little peace.

Things were not much better when I came to again. The pain in the head and chest were still there, and I had aching eyeballs—I didn't know that was possible. But at least I seemed to be in a bed and I didn't feel either pancake or sausage shaped. My ears didn't feel right but I could hear faint voices somewhere near me.

"I think he's recovering consciousness. Get one of the doctors in here."

I forced my sticky eyes open and tried to sit up.

"Don't try and move, Mr. Carver." I turned to face the speaker by my bedside, a man in the uniform of the Space Rescue Service. "You've had a very tough time and you're lucky to be alive. You somehow suffered explosive decompression from atmospheric pressure to three pounds per square inch, and you almost cracked your skull ramming it into a steel wall. It looked as though you'd jumped straight at it head first. You're lucky that the emergency life support signal tripped on and alerted us. Just lie there and rest."

I lay back and closed my eyes. Unbelievably, the Mattin Link had worked. I must have transferred with all the force of my jump from the bulkhead intact and run straight into another one on the ship I'd linked in to. Why hadn't that idiot Mattin thought to make sure that the two ships were at equal air pressure well in advance of the transfer?

My thoughts turned again to Mattin. That cowardly, cold-hearted monster! Leaving me outside while he sat safe and snug in the radiation-shielded compartment. My anger slowly grew and finally gave me the strength to sit up again and open my eyes.

"Where's Gerald Mattin?" I asked. My voice came out squeaky and hoarse. "He was on the other ship."

I looked around the room for Mattin. I badly wanted to give him a piece of my mind. The three men in the room with me exchanged glances and I could sense an awkwardness and reluctance to speak.

"His very first words," said one of them in a whisper. "They must have been very close."

Finally the Space Rescue man spoke. "We wish we had better news for you, Mr. Carver. The ship Mr. Mattin was on had a power unit failure and he went into the shielded compartment. For some reason we don't understand, the shielding material was completely missing. Your friend died when the power unit blew."

I sank back on the pillow and closed my eyes again. Serves the bastard right. At least I knew now why the price I got from my discount spaceship friends had been so low for the last cargo hull we bought. Radiation shielding was expensive stuff and somebody no doubt had got a good price for it. Mattin had fried and there was no doubt he had earned it.

Before there was any chance for my satisfaction to show on my face, I had another thought. Mattin was dead! The Link must have operated successfully
before
Mattin died, or I would have fried too when the power unit failed. That meant his document at Central Bank took over. The Government owned all rights to the Mattin Link and I—and our backers—were out in the cold. They couldn't take their revenge on Mattin, but I was still around without two credits to spend on self-protection—the last test had taken every asset I'd owned. Suddenly the aches and pains of the present were insignificant compared to the ones I could imagine in my future.

I wondered if there were any way I could get onto the Venus terra-forming project, without having to go back to Earth.

My anguish must have shown clearly on my face. When I opened my eyes again I found that the young nurse had tears on her cheeks. The doctor leaned over me and patted me consolingly.

"It's a very hard thing to lose a close friend and colleague, Mr. Carver," he said. "But you must try and be strong. Think about your own future."

I did. Everyone was conscious of my strong emotion. There was a hint of moisture in many eyes. But of all the people in the room, Professor Benson, you may be assured that there was not one who was anything like as sad as—

Yours truly,
Henry Carver.

 
Afterword.

If comedians long to play Hamlet, just as many science fiction writers would like to write humorous stories. It's a dangerous desire. Funny stories don't win Nebulas and Hugos, and no humor appeals to everyone. Besides which, writing humor is
hard
—there is less latitude than in the serious forms, and a miss tends to be a total miss.

I knew all that before I began this story. It was supposed to be a simple tale of a new transportation system, but somewhere in the middle it took an odd turn. I let it go where it wanted to, then went back and rewrote the beginning. You have just read the result.

Worse than that, I find that when my mind is idle other stories germinate about Henry Carver and his business partner (Waldo Burmeister—you'll meet him later). I now have seven stories in what I think of as my "sewage series." The only thing I can say in my defense is that my children like them.

This story has one other claim to fame. Jim Baen, when he was editor of Galaxy, only once encountered something in a story that he felt was too gross to offer his readers. It was a comment that my narrator made about the eponymous Mattin.

Now I'll bet you're eager to know what it was. It's a quote from Catullus, and it runs as follows:

"quem siqua attingit, non illam posse putemus aegroti culum lingere carnificis?"