The Other Side of Nowhere

The universe went on about its businesses, which were many and extremely varied. Nobody thought about the Rim Star - or anyhow, only very few. Other and more important matters filled men's minds.

For example, there was a shortage of available capital on Halli IV, so shrewd businessmen on Timbuk bought drafts on Klit, which were paid by drafts on Chagan, which were met out of funds on Tralee, which could be transferred to Halli IV. Thus an economic crisis was solved by shifting written numerals from this column to that on ruled paper pages, a juggling that yielded admirable profits to the shrewd businessmen who arranged it.

There were other important matters. There were gigantic engineering projects involving moving parts of mountains on Lhassa III; economic systems were in process of change in the Nurmi Cluster worlds. There was the discovery of frozen, once-living organisms on Lithian VI, which was proof that in past ages the sun Lithian had been a brilliant star and life had begun even on its outermost planet, where now there were only frozen wastes of nitrogen snow. Expeditions were being organized with feverish haste to study the deep-frozen organisms in situ, to settle again the question of how life began, and why.

Orators made strident speeches, offering themselves for public offices. A sun with three occupied worlds, in Andromeda, began to show signs of instability, which meant that the planets would have to be evacuated. On a world in Cetis there was a collapse of public confidence, and the average price index of sixty standard stocks dropped from a prosperous 698 to a catastrophic 473; supposedly sane businessmen committed suicide in consequence.

And nobody thought of the Rim Star. Anyhow, almost nobody.

Of course the people on Handel's Planet hoped that she would arrive, for things would be easier for them if she did. They'd been brought to Handel's Planet in the mother ships of drone fleets, and they'd been landed by space-boat - at enormous costs in destruction - and the drones with supplies and equipment had followed them down. They'd hacked out a clearing in the planet's jungles, and they had wrestled with various local problems. They were poorly fed, and there was considerable danger. It was to be expected that several standard years must pass, and some hundreds of millions of credits be expended, before they could receive the material for a landing-grid aground and erect it, largely by hand. But then a reasonably comfortable life would begin, and colonists would come and settle down to a heavily mortgaged future.

If the Rim Star arrived and managed to land in one piece, though, the prospects would be brighter for everybody. Equipment that it would take years to land by rocket-driven drones could come down in the Rim Star on one journey. There was some doubt about it, to be sure. Rockets were not gentle propulsion systems. Many drone ships made crash landings, and much equipment was lost. And the Rim Star was to try to land on rockets. There was no other way. Even a space-boat, coming to ground on Lawlor drive, created hurricanes of considerable proportions. A ship like the Rim Star would wreck hundreds of square leagues. So the big ship must balance herself down on jets of rocket-flame that would incinerate only forty or fifty acres. But it would be risky. Hence the few hundreds of people on Handel's Planet were not too optimistic.

If very few people not on the ship thought about the Rim Star, though, those on board did not think about anybody else. Before the Checkpoint Carol incident, the steward and his followers may have dreamed fondly of the riotous debauchery to follow the completed looting of the ship. But they must travel a long way yet to where it would be safe and easy to get to ground with their booty, while the Rim Star floated on, dead and forever a derelict. So they continued without haste to shift the cargo in No. 2 hold. They found some mild pleasure in smashing shipping cases in their search, wasting what was needed by others. Eventually they would find a certain unmarked box that would make them all millionaires. Before the broadcast cry of "Mutiny!" they'd felt perfectly secure. It had been amusing, too, to think about the officers and passengers on the ship being cooped up hopelessly in a lifeboat with no real hope of ever touching ground again.

But then came the control-room incident, revealing the continued existence of at least the skipper. Everything was changed. One enemy aboard any spacecraft can destroy it if he is willing to be destroyed with it. The skipper was an enemy. Definitely! He was aboard. Definitely! He'd concealed himself nearly all the way between Checkpoint Alyx and Checkpoint Carol; apparently he'd gone but actually he was preparing some monstrous disaster for the former crew of the Melpomene. What? He had to be found and killed. Instantly!