The Planet Mappers by E. Everett Evans (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

"Don't try too short a turn," his father warned.

"OK, I'll let up a bit. I was figuring on a two million radius."

"Better make it three for safety."

In time their circling was completed, the new homeward bound course figured. For days the little ship and its anxious crew were on their way. Three times each day their acceleration was stepped up to two Earth-gravities for a period of four hours, then back to one and a quarter for the same period—four on and four off continually, to give them a rest from the burden of doubled weight, and to make it easier to prepare and eat their meals, and to do what personal and ship's chores had to be done. In between times, as they could, they slept.

Jon had set their receptor and analyzer to react to atomics. It was now fanning out behind them in a cone-shaped funnel of force. He hoped by this to be able to tell if Bogin began overtaking them.

Of course, space was so vast, and the distance to Sol and Terra so great, and their points of trajectory so different, that the pirate ship might be taking an entirely different course, and not come anywhere near them until the two ships were almost home. On the other hand, Jon was taking the most direct route—and he was sure Bogin would undoubtedly do the same—so they were quite apt to converge sooner or later.

And since Jon's receptors covered an ever-larger sphere of space the farther away they reached, he and his father hoped they would be able to tell if and when their enemy began catching up with them.

Meantime, the two studied almost continuously together the problem of that supposedly new fuel-metal they had discovered on the planet Marci—hoping it could be used in their engines. They were sadly handicapped, both because neither was an atomic physicist, and because their little ship—well-stocked and provided with many instruments as it was—did not contain anywhere near all the testing equipment needed for such a delicate and complex and dangerous task.

Yet they learned much.

Jak took over the routine duties of their flight, after some additional instruction on points about which he was not sure. In between times, as the lessened pressure allowed, he studied the new specimens he had collected, saw to it that the ship's hydroponics kept operating correctly, and did whatever he could to relieve his brother and his father of their ordinary duties so they could devote all their waking time to study and experiment.

Their mother attended to her housekeeping, and saw to the comfort and well-being of her menfolk.

Mr. Carver knew, deep within himself, that he was overdoing, considering his illness. His partially-healed broken leg so often pained and throbbed that he had difficulty concealing his hurt from the sharp eyes of his family. But he loved his wife and sons so greatly that their future well-being was far more important to him than his own, and so he never mentioned these things.

The sturdy little yacht had covered almost half the tremendous distance back to Sol. The Carvers were beginning to let up a bit in their anxiety and fears. Surely, each one felt, they were winning the race.

Then suddenly their alarm rang.

Three of them found themselves on their feet, rushing toward the control panel.

"How close are they, Jon?" their father yelled from his co-pilot's couch.

"Mmmm. I've stepped this up about two hundred per cent.... I figure it about half a billion miles."

"Not very far—in space. They must have lots more speed than we do to have caught up with us like that."

"What shall we do?" Mrs. Carver grabbed her husband's arm with trembling fingers.

He turned his head and smiled up at her. "We'll figure out some way to beat them, Honey," he soothed. "There's lots more can be done yet."

"Sure, Mom, they're still a long way behind us." Jon tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "And you know the old saying, 'a stern chase is a long chase.'"

"Can't we increase our acceleration and so our speed?" Jak asked.

"Yes, we'll have to do that, at least." Mr. Carver's voice was grim. He looked at Jon. "Step it up to two and a half, as soon as you're all in your seats. We'll stay there more of the time from now on, and we'll change the period to six in and two up."

"How about one and a half for the two hours?"

"We'll try it. If we sleep or nap more while we're at max, we ought to be able to stand it."

"We're still almost ..." Jon figured rapidly at the computer, "... three weeks out of Terra, even at that increased speed."

His father grimaced, while his wife and elder son uttered gasps of dismay. "I know. It'll be tough, but we've got to win."

But after a moment he looked first at his wife, than at Jak. "This is an order," he said seriously. "The minute any of you feel you can't take it any more, say so and we'll cut down, even if we do lose speed. I guess I went off half-cocked just now in saying that we had to win. Our health is more important...."

"Except yours, you're trying to say," Jak broke in. "You haven't been sparing yourself any, I notice, and I know enough doctoring to know you're not getting well as fast...."

"Pooh, I'm all right, and I'm used to ship accelerations." Mr. Carver turned his head toward his son and made himself grin. "Even under these three G's, I can still get up and lick you, even with a half-healed leg."

Jon realized at once that his father was warning him not to worry their mother any more, and forced himself to reply, pretending to be shamefaced, "Yes, sir, you could at that. I'll be good."

But the next morning, by the ship's chronoms, after they had fully awakened from a night of tortured sleep, Jon studied his instruments for some time, then reported to his father, "Bogin's still catching up. He's only about four hundred million behind us now."

"But how can he possibly be?" Jak demanded.

"Probably staying on three G's or better all the time," Jon answered.

"Or else he has a different means of propulsion than we have that affects his whole ship and contents, including crew," his father said slowly. "I don't know what it could be. But theoretically there are a lot of different ways of traveling faster than any we've learned how to use yet."

"But how could they, Mr. C.?" his wife gasped. "I don't pretend to know much about such things, but I thought that better fuels merely meant increased efficiency in the use of the engines, not an increase of speed. Isn't it acceleration that makes the speed faster?"

He turned his head with difficulty—at three gravities acceleration their apparent weight was tripled, and his body now "weighed" over five hundred and fifty pounds, instead of its normal one eighty plus!

"You're both right and wrong, Honey," he explained. "The better the fuel, the less we have to carry for the same distance traveled, and that makes our thrust-to-mass ratio less. We can go home faster than we came out here, because some of our fuel is gone and we have less mass. But that's not what I'm talking about. Theoretically, as I said, there are other ways, none of which our scientists have yet figured out how to use, as far as I know. There could be a complete or partial nullification of gravity or of inertia. Or some type of space warp. Or some method of 'cutting through' the other dimensions, so we could go almost instantly from one point in space to another."

Jak gasped. "Why, how's that possible, Father?"

Jon answered quickly. "I can illustrate, I think. Imagine a sheet of paper, with a dot near either end. The normal way to connect them would be a straight line drawn from one to the other—which is analogous to the way we travel in space now. What Pop's talking about would be the same as if we folded the paper so the two dots touched, and moved from one to the other direct."

"That wouldn't be...."

"That's silly."

The two phrases came simultaneously from Jak and his mother.

"It's not silly, Honey. We merely haven't figured out how to do it yet. But theoretical science knows that there are 'folds' in space. We just haven't learned how to use them yet."

"No," Jak snorted, "and I'll bet you never do."

"And I'll bet they will," Jon blazed. "You just don't realize how wonderful science is—in other lines than your own, I mean. You think it's perfectly natural that medical science has made such tremendous advances in the past couple of centuries. Why shouldn't other branches make just as great strides?"

"Because the advances in medicine and surgery have been logical," his brother began hotly, but their father interrupted.

"Whoa now, boys, don't get started on an endless argument. You're both right—and both wrong. I'll admit that the three methods I mentioned are pretty far-fetched. But after all, science is always doing the unexpected and the impossible. There's no telling what they'll do next—not even of telling what they may have done while we've been gone."

"I'd read about that 'simultaneity' thing," Jon stated. "It was a concept about being able to reproduce the exact nucleonic pattern of some other space and thus being able to transfer to it instantly."

"Another idea is of a 'tube' or 'vortex' method of transversing space at almost instantaneous speeds—and many other such," Mr. Carver declared. "But it's a cinch none of us have brains enough to figure out any of them before we reach Terra. And that Bogin's not using any of them, either, since he's so apparently on a straight-line flight like we are. He may have better engines, or better fuel, but to overtake us like he is—now that I've stopped to think about it—can only be done by using greater acceleration than we are, and for a longer time. So while those other ideas are interesting conjectures, they won't help us out of our present predicament."

"That's right, Pop." Jon wrenched his mind back to their immediate problem. "We've got to figure out what we can do right now to beat Bogin."

They all lapsed into silence then, partly to think of their problem, and partly because their personal energy was weakened by the tremendous pressures they were undergoing.

Their new schedule was hard on them all—none of them were really rested, even though they now slept or dozed most of the time. But they were keeping more nearly ahead, although when Jon took his next readings, Bogin's ship had crept up another third of a hundred million miles.

"That means he'll catch up with and pass us in about eleven days, and we're still almost twenty out of Terra." Jon could not entirely keep the worry out of his voice.

During the noon respite, according to ship's time, they cut their acceleration to one and a half, and Mrs. Carver prepared a hot meal, and cold lunches for the balance of that day.

While they were eating, there in the control room, Jak suddenly looked up at his father. "I just wondered, sir. How much pressure could a person stand for long periods, if he was unconscious under some kind of an anaesthetic?"

"Why," the elder hesitated, "I don't know exactly. I imagine around five gravities or so, if it was to be for some time, especially if one was in a pressure pack. Why do you ask?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I remembered reading about a series of experiments a Swedish scientist has been making about putting animals—even people—into an unconscious state. It's in one of my reelbooks. Seems to me I remember its saying he has found he could keep them there for several days at a time without any sign of permanent harm."

"How'd he do it?" Jon dropped his fork to lean forward.

"With a drug he invented. Wait, I'll go get the book." Jak jumped up from the table, but his mother's voice stopped him.

"We're not going to try anything like that," she said worriedly. "Not even to beat Bogin."

Mr. Carver reached out from his recline seat to lay a hand soothingly on his wife's. "Wait, now, Marci, let's find out first what this is all about. Maybe the boy has something, maybe not. But let's examine it before we decide, shall we?"

Her eyes still held the worried look, but she returned the pressure of his hand. "Well, I guess there's no harm in that, Mr. C. But I just don't like taking dangerous chances, that's all."

He smiled at her fondly. "Pioneers always have to take chances, Honey," he said gently. "Men would never have gotten anywhere if they hadn't. But we'll make sure we know all about what we're getting into before we leap, you can bet."

"Besides," Jon tried