The Other Side of Nowhere

The Rim Star swam on magnificently through space. She was an enormous hollow steel shape. Her holds comprised all but a tiny fraction of her volume. They were packed with cargo intended for Handel's Planet. The invoice would begin with some thousands of tons of fabricated steel, designed to be erected as a landing-grid. But the rest of the cargo was varied. There were hundreds of tons of food and drinkables. There were cranes and jungle plows and bulldozers. Roofing and a smelter and antiseptics. A plastic-making unit and machine tools, and antibiotics expressly prepared for the microscopic flora and fauna of a colony in a new world, and metal billets and explosives. The Rim Star carried all the ten thousand and two different kinds of objects and supplies needed to set up a self-supporting city on a brand new world no less than scores of light-years from its nearest sister-city.

The ship drove on, and nothing happened. Nothing. In overdrive it was necessary only that somebody be in the control-room prepared to meet an unimaginable emergency, plus someone at this place and that, in case an unpredictable event required the kind of decision that any man can make, but no computer can possibly arrive at. The steward prepared the meals and delivered them to the passengers and the forecastle and to the skipper and to Braden. Braden did his work - kept watch in the control room, and checked with the passengers to make sure that nothing in the least out of ordinary had taken place. The members of the crew stood watch in turn, as required. They behaved with exemplary docility. Once, to be sure, the steward reported with extreme deference that there had been some discussion among them. Were they actually being credited with the pay due them because the crew was one man short?

They were.

Two days passed. Four. Six. Seven. The Rim Star would be eighty-two light-years from her port of departure if she broke out of overdrive and viewed the stars that would then surround her. She did not break out. She remained in overdrive. The steward was brightly and cheerfully obsequious. It was impossible to discover from anything in his manner that he had stolen a blaster from Braden's ship-bag and hidden it under his pillow, and that it had been taken away and Braden apparently had it again. Braden observed nothing in the actions of the crewmen to show that they remembered he'd roughed up the lot of them in the forecastle and taken away from them the weapons illegally in their possession. Each of them was liable to a prison term because of the blasters and sheath knives in the ship-bags. They might have been expected to be sullen, or else to be extra alert and attentive to duty in an effort to wipe out the offense.

They didn't. The ship ran smoothly and orders were obeyed with precision, but it was a precision that was almost mocking. The routine and tedium went on for watch after watch and day after day, but in the eyes Braden felt upon him derisive anticipation was the least unpleasant of the emotions they expressed. Face to face, naturally, no man looked other than blank and entirely impersonal. But sometimes Braden noticed far different expressions.

On the eighth day, loud speakers throughout the ship made a warning din, and a booming voice said:

"Attention! Breakout coming! Breakout coming! Prepare to come out of overdrive in five seconds. Five - four - three - two - one..."