If Moose Mordan had had time to get set, he might have had a chance. His thought processes, however, were lamentably slow; and Barbara Deston was very, very fast. She reached him before he even realized that this pint-sized girl actually intended to hit him; thus his belly- muscles were still completely relaxed when her left fist sank half-forearm-deep into his solar plexus.

With an agonized "WHOOSH!" he began to double up, but she scarcely allowed him to bend. The fingers of her right hand, tightly bunched, were already boring savagely into a spot at the base of his neck. Then, left hand at his throat and right hand pulling hard at his belt, she put the totalized and concentrated power of her whole body behind the knee she drove into his groin.

That ended it. To make sure, however-or to keep Barbara from knowing that she had killed a man?-Deston and Jones each put a bullet through the falling head before it struck the floor.

Both girls flung themselves into their husbands' arms. "Oh, I killed him, Carl!" Barbara sobbed. "And the worst of it is, I really meant to! I never did anything like that before in..."

"You didn't kill him, Barbara," Adams said.

"Huh?" She raised her head from Deston's shoulder; the contrast between streaming eyes and dawning relief was almost funny. "Why, I did too! I know I did!"

"By no means, my dear. Nor did Bernice kill Newman. Fists and knees and chairs do not kill instantly; bullets through the brain do. The autopsies will show, I'm quite certain, that these four men died instantly of gunshot wounds."

With the gangsters out of the way, life aboardship settled down, but not into a routine. When two s.p.a.cemen and two grounder girls are trying to do the work of a full crew, no routine is possible. Adams, much older than the others and working even longer hours, became haggard and thin.

"But this work is necessary, my dear children," he informed the two girls when they remonstrated with him. "This material is all new. There are many extremely difficult problems involved and I have less than a year left to work on them. Less than one year, and it is a task for many men and all the resources of a research center."

To the officers, however, he went into more detail. "Considering the enormous amounts of supplies carried; the scope, quant.i.ty, and quality of the devices employed; it is highly improbable that we are the first survivors of this type of catastrophe to set course for a planet."

After some discussion, the officers agreed with him. "While I can not as yet a.n.a.lyze or evaluate it, we are carrying an extremely heavy charge of an unknown nature; the residuum of a field of force which is possibly more or less a.n.a.logous to the electromagnetic field. This residuum either is or is not dischargeable to an object of planetary ma.s.s. I am now virtually certain that it is; and I am of the opinion that its discharge is ordinarily of such violence as to destroy the starship carrying it.".

"Good G.o.d!" Deston exclaimed. "Oh-that was what you meant by fantastic precautions'?"

"Precisely."

"Any idea of what those precautions will have to be?" "No. This is all so new... and I know so little... and am working with pitifully inadequate instrumentation... however, we have months of time yet, and if I an unable to derive a solution before arrival-I don't mean a rigorous a.n.a.lysis, of course; merely a method of discharge having a probability of success of at least point nine-we will remain in orbit around that sun until I do."

The Procyon bored on through s.p.a.ce at one gravity of acceleration; and one gravity, maintained for months, builds up to an extremely high velocity. And, despite the Einstein Effect, that acceleration was maintained, for there was no lack of power. The Procyon's uranium driven Wesleys did not drive the ship, but only energized the Chaytor Effect engines that tapped the total energy of the universe.

Thus, in seven months of flight, the s.p.a.ceship had probably attained a velocity of about six-tenths that of light.

The men did not know the day or date or what their actual velocity was, since the brute-force machine that was their only clock could not be depended upon for either accuracy or uniformity. Also, and worse, there was of course no possibility of determining what, if anything, the Einstein Effect was doing to their time rate.

At the estimated midpoint of the flight the Procyon was turned end for end; and, a few days later, Barbara and Deston cornered Adams in his laboratory.

"Listen, you egregious clam!" she began. "I know that Bun and I both have been pregnant for at least eight months and we ought to be twice as big as we are. You've been studying us constantly with a hundred machines that n.o.body ever heard of before and all you've said is blah. Now, Uncle Andy, I want the truth. Are we in a lot of trouble?"

"Trouble?" Adams was amazed. "Of course not. None at all. Perfectly normal fetuses, both of them. Perfectly." "But for what age?" she demanded. "Four months, maybe?"

"But that's the crux!" Adams enthused. "Fascinating; and indubitably supremely important. A key datum. If this zeta field is causing it, that gives me a tremendously powerful new tool, for certain time vectors in the generalized matrix become parameters. Thus certain determinants, notably the all-important delta-prime-sub-mu, become manipulable by... but you aren't listening!"

"I'm listening, pops, but nothing is coming through. But I'm awfully glad I'm not going to give birth to a monster," and she led Deston away. "Carl, have you got the foggiest idea of what he was talking about?"

"Not the foggiest-that was over my head like a cirrus cloud-but if you gals' slowness in producing will help the old boy lick this thing I'm all for it, believe me."

Months pa.s.sed. Two perfect babies-Theodore Warner Deston and Barbara Bernice Jones-were born, four days apart, in perfectly normal fashion. Adams made out birth certificates which were unusual in only one respect; the times, dates, and places of the births were to be determined later.

A couple of weeks before arrival Adams rushed up to Deston and Jones. "I have it!" he shouted, and began to spout a torrent of higher-very much higher-mathematics.

"Hold it, Doc!" Deston protested. "I read you zero and ten. Can't you delouse your signal?"

"W-e-I-I." The scientist looked hurt, but did abandon the high math. "The discharge is catastrophic; energy of the order of magnitude of ten thousand average discharges of lightning. I do not know what it is, but it is virtually certain that we will be able to discharge it, not in the one tremendous blast of contact with the planet, but in successive decrements by the use of long, thin leads extending downward toward a high point of the planet." "Wire, you mean? What kind?"

"The material is unimportant except in that it should have sufficient tensile strength to support as many miles as possible of its own length."

"We've got dozens of coils of hook-up wire," Deston said, "but not too many miles and it's soft stuff."

Jones snapped his finger. "Graham wire!"

Of course,' Deston agreed. "Hundreds of miles of it aboard. We'll float the censer down on a Hotchkiss..." "Tear-out," Jones objected.

"Bailey it-and spider the. Bailey out to eighteen or twenty pads. We can cannibal the whole Middle for metal."

"Sure. But surges-backlash. We'll have to remote it." No, problem there; servos all over the place. To Baby Two."

"Would you mind delousing your signal?" Adams asked caustically.

" Scuse, please, Doc. A guy does talk better in his own lingo, doesn't he? Graham wire is used for re-wrapping the Grahams, you know."

"No, I don't know. What are Grahams?"

"Why, they're the intermediates between the Wesleys and the Chaytors... okay, okay; Graham wire is one-point-three-millimeter-diameter ultra-high-tensile alloy wire. Used for re-enforcing hollow containers that have to stand terrific pressure."

"Such wire is exactly what will be required. Note now that our bodies will have to be grounded very thoroughly to the metal of the ship."

"You're so right. We'll wrap up to the eyeb.a.l.l.s in silver mesh and run leads as big as my arm to the frame." They approached their target planet. It was twice as ma.s.sive as Earth; its surface was rugged and jagged; its mountain ranges had sharp peaks over forty thousand feet high.

"There's one more thing we must do," Adams said. "This zeta field may very well be irreplaceable. We must therefore launch all the lifecraft except Number Two into separate orbits, so that a properly-staffed and properly-equipped force may study that field."

It was done; and in a few hours the Procyon hung motionless, a thousand miles high, directly above an isolated and sharp mountain peak.

The Bailey boom, with its spider-web-like network of grounding cables and with a large pulley at its end, extended two hundred feet straight out from the Procyon's side. A twenty-five-mile coil of Graham wire had been mounted on the remote-controlled Hotchkiss reel. The end of the wire had been run out over the pulley; a fifteen-pound weight, to act both as a "sensor" and to keep the wire from fouling, had been attached; and the controls had been tested.

Now, in Lifecraft Two-as far away from the "business district" as they could be.-the human bodies were grounded and Deston started the reel. The whole coil ran out, as expected, with no action. Then, slowly and carefully, Deston let the big ship float straight downward. Until, suddenly, it happened.

There was a blast beside which the most terrific flash of lightning ever seen on Earth would have seemed like a firecracker. Although she was in what was almost a vacuum, the Procyon was hurled upward like the cork of a champagne bottle. And as for what it felt like-the sensation was utterly indescribable. As Bernice said, long afterward, when she was being pressed by a newsman, "Just tell 'em it was the living end."

The girls were unwrapped and, after a moment of semi-hysteria and after making sure that the babies were all right, were as good as new. Then Deston aimed his plate and gulped. Without saying a word he waved a hand and the others looked. The sharp tip of the mountain was gone: it had become a seething, flaming lake of incandescent lava.

"And what," Deston managed, "do you suppose happened to the other side of the ship?"

The boom was gone. So were all twenty of the grounding cables that had fanned out in all directions to anchorages welded to the vessel's skin and frame. The anchorages, too, were gone; and tons upon tons of steel plating and of structural members for many feet around where each anchorage had been. Many tons of steel had been completely volatilized; other tons had run like water.

"Shall I try the subs.p.a.ce radio now, Doc?" Deston asked.

"By no means. This first blast would of course be the worst, but there will be several more, of decreasing violence."

There were. The second, while it volatilized the boom and its grounding network, merely fused small portions of the anchorages. The third took only the boom itself; the fourth, only the dangling miles of wire. At the fifth trial nothing-apparently-happened; whereupon the wire was drawn in and a two-hundred-pound ma.s.s of steel was lowered into firm contact with solid rock.

"Now you may try your radio," Adams said.

Deston flipped a switch and spoke into his microphone. "Procyon One to Control Six. Flight eight four nine.

Subs.p.a.ce radio test number nine five-I think. How do you read me, Control Six?"

The reply was highly unorthodox. It was a wild yell, followed by words not addressed to Deston at all. "Captain Reamer! Captain French! Captain Holloway! ANYBODY! It's the Procyon, that was lost over a year ago! IT'S THE PROCYON!"

"Line it up! If it's some d.a.m.n fool's idea of a joke..." a crisp authoritative voice grew louder as its source approached the distant pickup "... he'll rot in jail for a hundred years!"

"Procyon One to Control Six," Deston said again. His voice was not quite steady this time; both girls were crying openly and joyfully. "How do you read me, Frenchy old horse?"

"It is the Procyon-that's the Runt himself-hi, Babel I read you nine and one. Survivors?"

"Five. Second Officer Jones, our wives, and Doctor Andrew Adams, a fellow of the College of Study."

"It can't be a lifecraft after this long-what shape is the bulk in?"

"Bad. Can't immerge. The whole Top is an unG.o.dly mess and some of the rest of her won't hold air-air, h.e.l.l! Section Fourteen won't hold shipping crates! The Chaytors are okay, but five of the Wesleys arc shot, and all of the Q-converters. Most of the Grahams are leaking like sieves, and..."

"Hold it, Babe. They want this on a recorder downstairs, too. The newshawks are knocking the doors down. This marriage bit. The brides-who are they?"

Deston told him. Just that; no more.

"Okay. They want a lot more than that; especially the sobbers, but that can wait. What happened?"

"I don't know. You'd better fly a Fellow of the College over there to talk to Doc Adams. Maybe he can explain it to another Big Brain, but I wouldn't bet, even on that."

"Okay. Downstairs is hooked in and so is Bra.s.s. Give us everything you know or can guess at."

Deston spoke steadily for thirty minutes. He did not mention the gangsters, nor psionics, nor the extraordinarily long periods of gestation; otherwise his report was accurate and complete. When it was done, French said: "Mark off. Off the air, Babe-nice job. Now, Here, on the air. Mark on. Second Officer Theodore Jones reporting. You're orbiting the fourth planet of a sun. What sun? Where?"

"I don't know. Unlisted; we're in unexplored territory. Standard reference data as follows," and Jones read off a long list of observations; not only of the brightest stars of the galaxy, but also of the standard reference points, such as S-Doradus, lying outside it. "When you get that stuff all plotted you'll find a h.e.l.l of a big confusion, but I hope there aren't enough stars in it but what you'll be able to find us sometime."

"Mark off. Don't make me laugh, Here; your probable center will spear it. If there's ever more than one star in any confusion you set up I'll eat all the extras. But there's a dozen Big Brains, gnawing their nails off to the elbows to talk to Adams. So put him on and let's get back to sleep, huh? They're cutting this mike now."

"Hold it!" Deston snapped. "I want some information too, dammit! What's your Greenwich?"

"Zero seven one four plus thirty seven seconds. So go to bed, you night-prowling owl."

"Of what day, month, and year?" Deston insisted. "Friday, Sep..." French's voice was replaced by that of a much older man; very evidently that of a Fellow of the College.

After listening for less than a minute, Barbara took Deston's arm and led him away. "Any at all of that gibberish is exactly that much too much, husband mine. So I think we'd better take Captain French's advice, don't you?"

Since there was only one star in Jones' "confusion" (by the book, "Volume of Uncertainty") finding the Procyon was no problem at all. High Bra.s.s came in quant.i.ty and the whole story, except for one bit of biology, was told. Two huge subs.p.a.ce going machine-shops also came, and a battalion of mechanics, who worked on the crippled liner for over three weeks.

Then the Procyon started back for Earth under her own subs.p.a.ce drive, under the command of Captain Theodore Jones. His first and only command for the Interstellar Corporation, of course, since he was a married man. Deston had tendered his resignation while still a First Officer, but his superiors would not accept it until after his promotion "for outstanding services" had come through. Thus Captain Carlyle Deston and his wife and son were dead-heading, not quite back to Earth, but to the transfer point for Newmars.

Just before that transfer point was reached, Deston went "up Top" to take leave of his friend, and Jones greeted him with: "I've been trying to talk to Doc again; but wherever he starts or whatever the angle of approach he always boils it down to this: Subjective time is measured by the number of learning events experienced.' I ask you, Babe, what in h.e.l.l does that mean? If anything?"

"I know. Me, too. It sounds like it ought to mean something, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I know what. However, if it makes the old boy happy and gives the College a toehold on subs.p.a.ce, what do we care?"

And at this same time Barbara had been visiting Bernice. They had of course been talking about the babies, and an awkward silence had fallen.

"Oh," Barbara licked her lips. "So you get those feelings too."

"Too?" Bernice's face paled. "But they're absolutely normal, Bobby. Perfect. Absolutely perfect in every respect."

"I know... but once in a while... an aura or something... it scares me simply witless."

"I have them too. Not often, but... well, they began even before she was born."

"Oh? So did mine! But they aren't monsters, Bun! I just know they aren't!"

"So do I. Of course they aren't. They aren't even mutants. Look, Bobby, let's think instead of emoting. All four of us are very strongly psychic, but each of us got it from only one side of the family. With both parents psychic the effect would have to be intensified, wouldn't it?"

"It would, at that. That's the answer, Bun, you solved the mystery. They have the same thing we have, except more of it. But they can't have real powers without experience or knowledge, so when they grow up they'll be stronger than we are and we'll learn from them."

"That's the way it is. I'm sure of it."

"So am I, now. I feel a lot better, Bun. I've got to gallop. This isn't goodbye, dear-I'll see you soon and often-it's just so long."

Chapter 3 DESTON THE DOWSER.

For a week the Destons were busy settling down in their low, sprawling home on Newmars. Deston had not had time to think about a job, and Barbara did not intend to let him think about one. Wherefore, the first free evening they had, while they were sitting close together on a davenport near the fireplace in their living-room, she said: "I know how much you really want to explore deep s.p.a.ce. I do, too. I'm sure we could accomplish something worth while, and I'd like very much to leave a size five-bee footprint on the sands of time, too. There's a way we can do it."

Deston stiffened. "I'd like to believe that, pet. I'd give my right leg to the hip and one, eye-but what's the use of kidding ourselves? Your last buck, even if I'd lay it on that kind of a line, wouldn't cover the nut."

"The way things are now, no. But listen. What is the one single thing that all civilization needs most desperately?"

"Uranium. You know that as well as I do."

"I know; but I want you to think very seriously about the reality, the intensity, and the importance of that need. So elucidate."

"Okay." Deston shrugged his shoulders. "It's the sine qua non of interstellar flight; of running the Chaytor engine. While all the uranium does is trigger the power intake, the bigger the Chaytor the bigger its Wesley has to be and the faster the uranium gets used up. Uranium's so scarce that except for controls its price would be fantastic. Hence the black market, where its price is fantastic. Hence bribery, corruption, and so forth. Half of the deviltry and skulduggery on all ninety six planets is due to the hard fact that the supply of uranium cannot be made to equal the demand. Sufficient?" "Sufficient. Now for it. I've been hinting, but you've been shying away from psionics as though it were some- thing to be ashamed of, and it isn't. In s.p.a.ce we were all too horribly busy to do anything about it, but now I'm going to slug you with it. Carl, I know that you're the first real metal-dowser that ever lived. Don't ask me how I know; I just know. If you'll just get serious and really work on your latent abilities you'll be able to find any metal you please as easily as I can find oil."

Tightening his arm, he swung her around and stared into her eyes. "I know all about things that way. Hunches. So how do I go about learning to dowse metal?"

"Like I did. I started on coal, holding a lump in my hand. I concentrated on it until I could sense everything about it, clear down to its atomic structure. Then, looking at a map and spreading it out, I could see every coal deposit on the planet. So here's a piece of copper tube and a blueprint of this house. Concentrate as hard as you possibly can; then you'll know what I mean."

"Oh-so you've been laving for me."

"Of course I have. This is the first time we've had any time."