Address: Centauri by F. L. Wallace (best books to read txt) 📕

that could take bodies apart and put them together with a skill once reserved for machines had made beauty commonplace. There were no more sagging muscles, discolored skin, or wrinkles. Even the aged were attractive and youthful seeming until the day they died, and the day after too. There were no more ill-formed limbs, misshapen bodies, unsightly hair. Everyone was handsome or beautiful. No exceptions.

The accidentals didn't belong, of course. In another day most of them would have been employed by a circus—if they had first escaped the formaldehyde of the specimen bottle.

And Nona didn't belong—doubly. She couldn't be called normal, and she wasn't a repair job as the other accidentals were. Looked at closely she was an original as far from the average in one direction as Anti was in the other.

"What's she staring at?" asked Anti as the others slipped past her into the compartment. "Is there something wrong with the little dial?"

"That dial has a curious history," said Docchi. "It's not useless, it just isn't used. Actually it's an indicator for the gravity drive which at one time was considered fairly promising. It hasn't been removed because it might come in handy during an extreme emergency."

"But all that extra weight——"

"There's no weight, Anti. The gravity drive is run from the same generator that supplies passenger gravity. It's very interesting that Nona should spot it at once. I'm certain she's never been in a control room before and yet she went straight to it. She may even have some inkling of what it's for."

Anti dismissed the intellectual feat. "Well, why are you waiting here? You know she can't hear us. Go stand in front of her."

"How do I get there?" Docchi had risen a few inches now that Jordan had released his grip. He was free floating and helpless, sort of a plankton of space.

"A good engineer would have sense to put on magnetics. Nona did." Anti grasped his jacket. How she was able to move was uncertain. The tissues that surrounded the woman were too vast to permit the perception of individual motions. Nevertheless she proceeded to the center of the compartment and with her came Docchi.

Nona turned before they reached her. "My poor boy," sighed Anti. "If you're trying to conceal your emotions, that's a very bad job. Anyway, stop glowing like a rainbow and say something."

It was one time Anti missed. He almost did feel that way and maybe if she weren't so competent in his own specialty he might have. It was irritating to study and work for so many years as he had—and then to be completely outclassed by someone who did neither, to whom certain kinds of knowledge came so easily it seemed to be inborn. She was attractive but for him something was missing. "Hello," he said lamely.

Nona smiled at him though it was Anti she went to.

"No, not too close, child. Don't touch the surgery robe unless you want your pretty face to peel off when you're not looking."

Nona stopped; she was close but she may as well have been miles away. She said nothing.

Anti shook her head hopelessly. "I wish she'd learn to read lips or at least recognize words. What can you say to her?"

"She knows facial expressions and actions, I think," said Docchi. "She's pretty good at emotions too. She falls down when it comes to words. I don't think she knows there is such a thing."

"Then how does she think?" asked Anti, and answered her own question. "Maybe she doesn't."

"Let's not be as dogmatic as psychologists have been. We know she does. What concepts she uses is uncertain. Not verbal, nor mathematical anyway—she's been tested for that." He frowned puzzledly. "I don't know what concepts she uses in thinking. I wish I did."

"Save some of the worry for our present situation," said Anti. "The object of your concern doesn't seem to need it. At least she isn't interested."

Nona had wandered back to the instrument panel and was staring at the gravity drive indicator again. There was really nothing there to hold her attention but her curiosity was insatiable and childlike.

And in many ways she seemed immature. And that led to an elusive thought: what child was she? Not whose child—what child. Her actual parents were known, obscure technicians and mechanics, descendants themselves of a long line of mechanics and technicians. Not one notable or distinguished person among them, her family was decently unknown to fame or misfortune in every branch—until she'd come along. And what was her place, according to heredity? Docchi didn't know but he didn't share the official medical view.

With an effort Docchi stopped thinking about Nona. "We appealed to the medicouncilor," he said. "We asked for a ship to go to the nearest star, a rocket, naturally. Even allowing for a better design than we now have the journey will take a long time—forty or fifty years going and the same time back. That's entirely too long for a normal crew, but it wouldn't matter to us. You know what the Medicouncil did with that request. That's why we're here."

"Why rockets?" interrupted Jordan. "Why not some form of that gravity drive you were talking about? Seems to me for travel over a long distance it would be much better."

"As an idea it's very good," said Docchi. "Theoretically there's no upper limit to the gravity drive except the velocity of light and even that's questionable. If it would work the time element could be cut in fractions. But the last twenty years have proved that gravity drives don't work at all outside the solar system. They work very well close to the sun, start acting up at the orbit of Venus and are no good at all from Earth on out."

"Why don't they?" asked Jordan. "You said they used the same generator as passenger gravity. Those work away from the sun."

"Sure they do," said Docchi impatiently. "Like ours is working now? Actually ship internal gravity is more erratic than we had on the asteroid, and that's hardly reliable. For some reason the drive is always worse than passenger gravity. Don't ask me why. If I knew I wouldn't be on Handicap Haven. Arms or no arms, biocompensator or not, I'd be the most important scientist on Earth."

"With multitudes of women competing for your affections," said Anti.

"I think he'd settle for one," suggested Jordan.

"Poor unimaginative man," said Anti. "When I was young I was not so narrow in my outlook."

"We've heard about your youth," said Jordan. "I don't believe very much of it."

"Talk about your youth and love affairs privately if you want but spare us the details. Especially now, since there are more important things to attend to." Docchi glowered at them. "Anyway the gravity drive is out," he resumed. "At one time they had hopes for it but no longer. The present function of the generator is to provide gravity inside the ship, for passenger comfort. Nothing else.

"So it is a rocket ship, slow and clumsy but reliable. It'll get us there. The Medicouncil refused us and so we'll have to go higher."

"I'm all for it," said Anti. "How do we get higher?"

"We've discussed it before," answered Docchi. "The Medicouncil is responsible to the Solar Government, and in turn Solar has been known to yield to devious little pressures."

"Or not so devious great big pressures. Fine. I'm in favor," said Anti. "I just wanted to be sure."

"Mars is close," continued Docchi. "But Earth is more influential. Therefore I recommend it." His voice trailed off and he stopped and listened, listened.

Anti listened too but the sound was too faint for her hearing. "What's the matter?" she said. "I think you're imagining things."

Jordan leaned forward in his seat and examined the instrument panel carefully before answering. "That's the trouble, Anti. You're not supposed to hear it, but you should be able to feel vibrations as long as the rocket's on."

"I don't feel it either."

"I know," said Jordan, looking at Docchi. "I can't understand. There's plenty of fuel."

The momentum of the ship carried it along after the rockets stopped firing. They were still moving but not very fast and not in the direction they ultimately had to go. Gingerly Docchi tried out the magnetic shoes. He was clumsy but no longer helpless in the gravityless ship. He stared futilely at the instruments as if he could wring out more secrets than the panel had electronic access to.

"It's mechanical trouble of some sort," he said uneasily. "I don't know where to begin."

Before he could get to it Anti was in the passageway that led from the control compartment. "Course I'm completely ignorant," she said. "Seems to me we ought to start with the rocket tubes and trace the trouble from there."

"I was going to," said Docchi. "You stay here, Anti. I'll see what's wrong."

She reached nearly from the floor to the ceiling. She missed by scant inches the sides of the corridor. Locomotion was easy for her, turning around wasn't. So she didn't turn. "Look, honey," her voice floated back. "You brought me along for the ride. That's fine. I'm grateful but I'm not satisfied with just that. Seems to me I've got to earn my fare. You stay and run the ship. You and Jordan know how. I don't. I'll find out what's wrong."

"But you won't know what to do."

"I don't have to. You don't have to be a mechanic to see something's broken. I'll find it, and when I do you can come and fix it."

He knew when it was useless to argue with her. "We'll both go," he said. "Jordan will stay at the controls."

It was a dingy poorly lighted passageway in an older ship. Handicap Haven didn't rate the best equipment that was being produced, and even when it was new the ship had been no prize. On one side of the corridor was the hull of the ship; on the other a few small cabins. None were occupied. Anti stopped. The long hall ended in a cross corridor that led to the other side of the ship where a return passage led back to the control compartment.

"We'll check the stern tubes," he said, still unable to see around her. "Open the door and we'll look in."

"Can't," said Anti. "Tried to but the handle won't turn. There's a red light too. Does it mean anything?"

He'd expected something like this but nevertheless his heart sank now that he was actually confronted with it. "It does. Don't try again. With your strength you might be unlucky enough to open the door."

"There's a man for you," said Anti. "First you tell me to open it and then you don't want me to."

"There's no air in the rear compartment, Anti. The combustion chamber's been retracted—that's why the rockets stopped firing. The air rushed out into space as soon as it happened. That's what the red light means."

"We'd all die if I opened it now?"

"We would."

"Then let's get busy and fix it."

"We will. But we've got to make sure it doesn't happen again. You see, it wasn't accidental. Someone, or something, was responsible."

"Are you sure?"

"Very sure. Did you see anyone while we were loading your tank in the ship?"

"Nothing. How could I? I heard Cameron shouting, other noise. But I couldn't see a thing that wasn't directly overhead, and there wasn't anything."

"I thought so. A geepee could have got in without anyone seeing him. I didn't count them but I was certain all of them had dropped outside. I was mistaken; one of them didn't."

"Why does it have to be a geepee?"

"It just does, Anti. The combustion chamber was retracted while we were all in the control compartment. We didn't do it and therefore it had to be someone back here.

"No man is strong enough to retract the cap, but if he somehow exerted superhuman effort, as soon as the chamber cleared the tubes rocket action would cease and the air in the compartment would exhaust into space."

"So we have a dead geepee in the rocket compartment."

"A geepee doesn't die or even become inactive. Lack of air doesn't hinder it in the least. Not only that, a geepee might be able to escape from the compartment. It's strong and fast enough to open the door against the pressure and get out and close it again in less than a second. We wouldn't notice it because the ship would automatically replenish the small amount of air that would escape."

Anti settled down grimly. "Then there's a geepee on the loose, intent on wrecking us?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Then what are we standing around for? All we have to do is go back to the controls and pick up the robot on the radio. We'll make it go in there and repair the damage it's done."

She partly turned around and saw Docchi's face. "Don't tell me," she said, "I should have thought of