The Other Side of Nowhere
- Автор: Лейнстер Мюррей
- Год: 1964
- Язык: английский
- Год: Berkley Medallion
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Other Side of Nowhere». Краткое содержание книги:
For centuries space travelers had dreaded a place they called the Other Side of Nowhere — a place in the universe where up was down, where right was wrong, and where all direction was lost...
To save the RIM STAR Braden had to bring the ship to the place of nightmare, the Other Side of Nowhere...
Braden thought of Diane, as she stood looking after him in the doorway. He suddenly realized, grimly, that if he had been the skipper, he might have killed the steward when he was first sure of him. But that would have been unwise. He'd have been imprisoned for the steward's death, and the other five men would remain unpunished.
It was no easy problem to solve, and this was no time to be trying to solve it. The skipper had planned his vengeance and he'd have it even if it meant the destruction of the ship. Furthermore, if harm came to the skipper, there would be no more than twenty-four hours of life left for anybody on the Rim Star. There was nothing to be done but work with the skipper, for the passengers' sake. And already that meant Diane.
At this moment, the crew was waiting eagerly for assurance that everyone but themselves - the skipper, and Braden, and all the passengers - were unconscious and completely incapable of offering resistance. It wasn't likely that they intended simply to cut the throats of these others. At least five of the men had reason to dislike Braden, and they'd gleefully anticipated expressing that dislike at some future time. And now was the time. The steward would want, at the very least, to gloat over the skipper's folly in putting himself at the mercy of men who'd shown no mercy to his wife and daughter. And there were the passengers... and the crewmen's glee when they saw that some of the passengers were women...
This piracy would not be a simple case of murder and theft. It would be more - and worse. Braden felt a wave of pure rage sweep over him - rage so monstrous that he seemed entirely calm.
It was just as well. He was about to pass his cabin when he saw that the door was open. He looked inside. The steward was there. He looked up. He'd been regarding the apparently untouched meal.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said unhappily. "You haven't eaten your dinner, sir. Was anything wrong with it?"
Braden considered. It was startling that the steward was acting as if nothing were wrong, as if nothing were known. But... so far, nothing was! And in the icy fury that gripped Braden, it was somehow worth while to let things stay that way for the moment. The steward had doubtless come here expecting to find him unconscious in his chair, ready for a negligent murder or for more diverting activities later.
"There's nothing wrong with the meal," said Braden in a voice so natural that it astonished him. "But going into overdrive always upsets my stomach. I have to skip a meal after it. It doesn't matter."
He entered the cabin and sat down in his armchair.
"By the way," he said conversationally, "things seem to be going along all right. You said you were suspicious of the crew. But you seem to have been mistaken. They have done their work well enough."
The steward smiled brightly.
"So they have, sir. But I'm not satisfied even yet. Of course I've complete confidence in the skipper, sir. I've told him what I thought, and he told me I was a fool. But I'm sure he's taken precautions."
Braden nodded. It was ironic. In an unfunny way it was amusing to talk to the steward like this, when murder was in the air and Braden knew that the steward was debating whether a blaster shot would be premature. He could see a small bulge in the steward's pocket. It would be a blaster. The steward had expected to find Braden unconscious, and now he had to kill him. But he thought Braden didn't know. Braden, though, was sure he could kill the steward first.
"May I ask, sir," said the steward, "if you've ever talked to the passengers about the Other Side of Nowhere? It seems they plan to do a tape play about it, sir."
"I know that much," Braden said. "Sit down. I'm off-watch."
The fact that one of them must presently kill the other at a signal of disturbance from outside, made it fascinating for Braden to watch the steward seat himself a bit deferentially, as if he were happily aware of the honor done him.
"I've been wondering, sir," he said with relish ' "if you've noticed that they have it all wrong. It's actually a sort of fourth dimension, sir, but they have the idea it's simply fantastic - whatever they choose to put into it."
Braden made himself comfortable. His blaster, he decided, was handier than the steward's.
"The story varies," he observed. The fury he felt was so intense that it numbed him. "Some of it's nonsense," he said. "A place where all physical laws operate in reverse... That's hard to believe."
"I don't know, sir," said the steward sagely - and this within minutes of a murder - "I'm not so sure it's nonsense. The scientists, sir, say that there's such stuff as contraterrene matter. They've made atoms of it in cyclotrons and such, sir. It has neutrons and negatrons in the nuclei, and positrons in orbit outside."
Braden nodded. He would have heard any sound anywhere in the ship. His ears had never been so keen.
"You see, sir," said the steward eagerly, "a planet of matter like that couldn't be landed on. It's the opposite of normal matter. It wouldn't attract a ship of normal matter. It would have anti-gravity! It would repel it! And if a ship drove against this anti-gravity to make contact with a world like that... why... when it reached atmosphere the contraterrene air would cancel out the normal matter and the ship would vanish in a monstrous explosion with all its matter- energy freed!"
Braden nodded.
"You should have been a scientist," he said as if admiringly, while he thought that shortly the steward would be a corpse.
"And it would not only have anti-gravity, sir," the steward went on enthusiastically, "but it wouldn't have the same time-direction. What's the future to us, sir, would be the past on a contraterrene planet! On such an anti-world, sir, time would run backward! And it's all so logical! There's matter, sir, here in our space. It's little knobbles of energy, as we know. You might call it plus energy. But if there's plus energy here, sir... why... somewhere there must be minus energy, to make things balance! Every action has its reaction, sir, of equal moment and opposite sign. So every atom must have its anti-atom, of equal charge and opposite sign! There's talk about it, sir, in forecastles. Some men say that a ship of normal matter couldn't be operated in contraterrene space. They say that her controls would all work backward. But I say, sir, that normal matter will always obey normal laws!"
The steward beamed at Braden. Braden was strangely amused at being lectured on the physics of hypothetical anti-matter by a man who intended to murder him at the first convenient and safe moment. But he did not smile.
The steward said apologetically:
"I didn't mean to take up your time, sir. Mayn't I fix you something to eat that would be more to your taste than this, sir?"
He gave every evidence of regret.
"Truly I'm sorry, sir! If your stomach's upset from going into overdrive, perhaps some fruit juice, sir? Or perhaps a really hot cup of coffee?"
Braden heard something. He could not make out what it was, but it seemed like voices. And it was not normal for there to be the sound of voices in the corridors of the Rim Star. She was too big a ship, and there were too few people on board.
He stood up slowly. The steward got to his feet instantly.
"I really think, sir, that a fine cup of coffee..."
"I think not."
Then Braden heard the rasping bellow of a blaster. A voice - a man's voice - shouted. A woman screamed.
Braden whirled and struck out savagely at the steward. He literally did not think of his blaster. Diane was in danger, and he struck out brutally at the man who at that moment stood between him and the door that led to her.