Dark Star (16 page)

"Oh . . . good."

So much for pre-dinner conversation. They began peeling the foil from the tops of the metal containers. Each tray-shape held four transparent plastic packages of concentrated liquid food.

Doolittle tried to open his own without looking at the contents. A man could lose all his teeth in space—through calcium loss, say—and still survive in excellent health, thanks to this diet. But you wanted something to sink your teeth into after a while. They had experienced no calcium loss and had perfect artificial gravity. Therefore Doolittle felt he had a reasonable complaint. There was no reason why the corps could not have provided them with some real food.

But the astronauts had all asked that before, and the reply was always the same: It was wasteful. Crumbs always got lost. Bones were sheer space-takers, as were skin and fat and gristle—except in proper liquid portions. On the other hand, the concentrated liquids were neat, there was virtually no waste except for occasional spilled drops—and even these were recoverable—and they could be rapidly and easily recycled. Furthermore, they were exceedingly simple to prepare.

All of which Doolittle recognized and none of which he agreed with. Had there actually been a time when he had felt that the overflavored concentrates tasted good? Or had that, too, been another lie to get him on the mission?

Now more than ever he regretted the explosion which had cost them Boiler's supply of real food. "Swiss cheese and knockwurst and thick gooey peanut butter," Boiler had said, and more. Doolittle suddenly, surprisingly, found his mouth watering.

That was it—think about Boiler's lost cache while slurping down this oily mess. Think about rye bread and onion rolls, and hot corned beef with mustard.

He tore the corner off one of the plastic tubes, dropped it in the proper recycling receptacle (inorganic), and began sucking at the liquified vegetable inside.

The thoughts seemed to help a little . . . split pea soup and crab gumbo and turkey gravy . . . though he would have traded his next week's rations for a single thick, greasy salami.

"Hey, Doolittle." Pinback was sucking on a tube of blue fluid.

"Yeah?"

"Think we'll ever find any
real
intelligent life out there? I mean, the Beachball had something, but it wasn't real intelligence." At least I don't think it was . . . I hope it wasn't, he thought silently.

"Out where?" Doolittle didn't look up.

"Oh, you know . . . where we're heading now. The Veil Nebula region."

The frustration and boredom and reality of twenty long years in empty space found expression in Doolittle's terse reply. If someone back at Earth Base had told him he would have felt this way, been capable of voicing such words at any time during the mission, Doolittle would have laughed at him.

But the sentiment came easily now, with a casual bitterness he barely noted.

"Who cares . . ."

T
ALBY STEPPED CAREFULLY
down the ladder and headed purposefully toward the seldom-used corridor deep in the center of the
Dark Star
. The green glow of the lights set in the walls and ceiling marked the way to central computer.

He could have gone forward to the control room-bridge and used the annex there, but he wanted to check out something on the main computer itself. Besides, the central computer room was actually closer to the dome than the bridge. And he didn't see the need to alarm the others. Besides, they were enjoying their dinners now. No point in disturbing them unless the problem turned out to require their help. He was uncomfortable down here. Odd how nervous he became these days, away from the friendly stars. There had been a time when he'd felt perfectly at home within the ship. A long time ago.

"
Back, Talby
," the heavens whispered. "
Come back
."

"It's just for a couple of minutes, that's all," he murmured to himself, "Only a couple of minutes. But if there's a possibility of a serious malfunction, then I have to check it out. You understand that, don't you?"

"
Come back, Talby
. . ."

"I have to . . . because I don't think Doolittle or the others will. They don't care anymore."

"
Back, Talby
," a red giant whispered, a titantic voice roaring in his brain. "
Back to us, Talby
," replied a mild sun not unlike old Sol.

A ghostly quartet moaned at him with a combined voice like rising wind over a lake—a remarkable quaternary system of four stars circling about one another.

He
had
to check out the indicated malfunction. A switch, and the double-shielded door slid aside.

"Hey," said Pinback, pausing in the middle of a tube of dessert, "did I ever tell you guys how I got on this mission? Did I ever tell you?"

Doolittle indicated the tiny bottle on the table, and Boiler passed it to him. It consisted of auxiliary flavoring, and the meals computer changed its contents daily. He tried it in one tube. Vanilla today—interesting, even with the potatoes.

"Yes, you did, Pinback," he replied.

But the sergeant was off, and nothing short of catastrophe could stop him.

"It's very strange, you know, how it happened, but—"

Boiler groaned softly. "There he goes again."

"Don't get excited, Boiler," Doolittle advised. "It won't do any good and it won't shut him up. He's got to finish."

Boiler turned away.

"I wasn't an astronaut to begin with, see."

Wait a minute—what was he saying? Of course he had been an astronaut! Then Pinback smiled inside. Might as well get the crazy story out. It was only a dream, of course. Just a weird dream that had been repeating itself over the years. It seemed very real, but naturally most dreams did.

Still, it was peculiar that he should find himself repeating so many times. At least it was amusing. And he seemed to be having it less and less now.

"See, to qualify for astronaut rating, you had to score at least seven hundred on the Officer's Corps SARE's," he explained. "And I made fifty-eight . . . but I wanted to stay in the program. So they put me into liquid-fuel maintenance on the launch pad, working with the boosters for the starship.

"The boosters were liquid fueled, of course, since the
Dark Star
couldn't use its overdrive field within the Earth's gravitational influence. It was an important job and—"

Boiler glared back at him, but this time it failed to intimidate Pinback, just as Doolittle had indicated.

"Ah, naturally I was . . ." Pinback was aware of Boiler's unpleasant scrutiny and strove not to look at him, ". . . ah, really disappointed. I wanted to be an astronaut in the worst way, and I don't think those tests ever really measure your capability . . ."

"He told us this," Boiler mused while Pinback rambled on, "four years ago last, didn't he?"

"I mean, you know, I'd always had this urge to help push back the frontiers of space, get habitable systems ready for the colony ships. Anyway, I was on duty on the pad when they were getting ready to launch the ship . . . the
Dark Star
."

Doolittle sipped at the last of his dinner. "No, I think it was four years ago."

". . . I was checking out the fuel lines on the big KG tanks at the time . . ."

"That's what I said," a puzzled Boiler commented. Doolittle looked over at him and frowned slightly.

". . . And this astronaut came running out from behind the crew-isolation shed. He was stark naked, and he had his starsuit in one hand and, well, I evaluated the situation and immediately surmised that he was insane.

"He threw his starsuit on the ground. Then he saw me and gave me this really funny look, you know, and then I was
sure
he was insane, which really bothered me, because those guys are supposed to be about the stablest people there are. Then he opened the lid on the KG tank and jumped in." Pinback's tone turned earnest. "He was holding his nose, but I was sure that wouldn't make much difference, guys, because as you probably know, liquid KG is kept at about minus two hundred and twenty degrees Centigrade and is pretty corrosive stuff besides.

"Well, I was pretty surprised, I can tell you. I didn't know what to make of it. Like I said, astronauts are supposed to be super stable, and here this guy comes running along stark naked and jumps into my KG tank."

"Can I have some of that?" Boiler pointed to an unopened packet still resting in Doolittle's tray.

Doolittle nodded and handed the corporal the plastic container. He didn't care much for liquid rolls and butter.

"Well, naturally," Pinback continued relentlessly, "I was gonna try and save him . . . even though by that time, what with the super cold and corrosiveness and all, there probably wasn't much left of him . . . but I mean, what's a guy gonna do? I couldn't just stand around and do nothing, could I?"

He shrugged off the nagging feeling that he shouldn't be saying all this, that he'd gone through this insane dream too many times already. The feeling stayed with him, but he continued.

"So I put on his starsuit for protection, and I'm getting ready to go in after him . . . right, you guys? So what happened was that before I could leap into the vat . . ."

Doolittle gave him a sad look.

". . . this other fella came running along. He took a fast look at the name on the starsuit and says, 'Hey, Sergeant Pinback, you've gotta board immediately because we're gonna launch in twenty minutes.' "

Doolittle's patience was just about exhausted. "You told us this four years ago."

"And I tried to tell him," Pinback continued, ignoring the lieutenant's comment, "that I wasn't really astronaut Sergeant Pinback."

What was that? Hold on there . . . you gone bananas or something, Pinback? Of course you're Sergeant Pinback. Who else could you be but Sergeant Pinback?

". . . but I couldn't figure out how to make the helmet radio work . . ."

"It's funny, you know," Boiler said, trying hard to remember exactly and rubbing his chin, "but I'm sure it was four years ago."

"Maybe," Doolittle admitted. It was beginning to bother him now. At first he had shrugged off these trivial lapses of memory. After all, in twenty years it was hardly reasonable to expect that you'd be able to recall every tiny little thing that happened.

But the lapses seemed to be increasing. And he wasn't alone in forgetting things. Boiler, too, was having trouble with the same memories—memories of things not directly connected with the operation of the ship. Pinback, poor Pinback, had problems of his own, as did Talby.

Doolittle could remember everything about his personal life before starting the mission, and everything necessary to the
Dark Star
's operation—but anything in between gave him increasing trouble. It was beginning to be as if he had had no personal life at all in the past twenty years. As though nothing had happened not involving the mission.

As though his mind now as well as his body was be coming an extension of the ship. A voice screamed inside him.

One more bomb!
One more drop, and they could start home.

But would they get there in time . . .?

Talby was seated before the computer keyboard. He blended neatly into the machinery. The main computer screen faced him, illuminated from within, framed by the green glow of the computer-chamber lighting.

At the moment the screen was flashing an ultrarapid series of mathematical symbols and words for Talby's perusal. As usual, he had better luck following the symbols than the words.

It gave him some idea of where to look for the trouble. The computer's own tracing circuits had apparently been damaged. That accounted for its failure to locate and announce the trouble. It needed help—Talby's.

Repunching orders via the keyboard, he called up a chart of the
Dark Star
. More buttons pushed, more detailed graphs appeared.

He was clearly going to have to pinpoint the problem himself. More requests were fed into the ship's electronic ganglion. The area of the ship under consideration was patiently reduced as one section after another checked out clean.

Finally an intermittent red flash appeared on the screen, accusing the rearmost section of the ship's schematics.

He immediately punched out a request for that area, then saw it appear obediently on screen. The red flash was still there. He punched for an enlargement of the damaged area. It expanded tremendously. A final enlargement, and the bright red warning light turned into a winking arrow jabbing at a back section of the emergency airlock. And at last, words appeared underneath the diagram.

COMMUNICATIONS LASER NO
. 17—
EMERGENCY AIRLOCK

Talby's thoughts moved one step ahead of the series of repair-and-realignment orders that followed. He thumbed the intercom switch to one side without even looking at it and spoke toward the mike.

"Lieutenant Doolittle, this is Talby. Please reply, Lieutenant, wherever you are."

"I'm here, Talby," came Doolittle's voice. "What is it?"

The astronomer considered his words carefully. He had to impress the importance of the situation on Doolittle without necessarily alarming him. He didn't want the lieutenant to send Boiler or Pinback back to help him—they made him nervous. He was pretty sure he could handle it alone, without having to look at another human being.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your evening meal, sir, but I'm in the computer room. I've located the malfunction."

"Malfunction? What malfunction?"

"You remember, sir. The one that the computer couldn't locate. You were in the dome with me when it came in."

"Oh . . . sure," Doolittle replied in a tone that hinted he was anything but.

"The scanner shows it to be a breakdown in the number seventeen communications laser, down in the emergency airlock. I can't tell exactly what's wrong with the laser, except that it has something to do with alignment. That could be dangerous, but since nothing disastrous has happened since the malfunction first occurred, I tend to think it's okay . . . I'm going to put on a starsuit in a little while just in case, and go back and see if I can't fix the trouble."