The Other Side of Nowhere

The steward chattered, his eyes fixed and glassy; he struck this control, and that. There was a sudden violent jolting - something the gravity could not adjust to quite in time. The ship's giant rockets, intended to be used for the first time in history to land the heaviest burden against the gravity of Handel's Planet, now burned furiously to try to hurl the ship away from that hideous ball of flame. But their pencil-thin flames did not spurt out astern. Inconceivably, they appeared at the bow, pushing the Rim Star back so that the swelling solar photosphere could reach out and lick at her.

Braden stepped over what should have been the top of the control-room doorframe. He walked across what should have been the ceiling. The man with the battered features moved blindly about, his eyes blank, his mouth open, making meaningless noises. Braden hit him, with precision. The man with the birthmark on his cheek that looked like a recent bruise pawed at Braden imploringly, babbling incoherencies. Braden hit him too.

There was the steward, his eyes insane, his face purple with fury. He shouted unspeakable things. He suddenly bent down and snatched up a blaster, to destroy with it everything that would not do what he wanted.

Braden hit him with all his strength. He could not hold himself back. He felt toward the steward as one would feel about a demon - such impassioned hatred and revulsion and horror that it was impossible to limit the violence he used against him. Braden felt something give, in his fist, but could not bother about it.

He said aloud, to the four walls and the instrument boards and the reversed floor and ceiling:

"All right, Diane. Put things back to normal. We don't have to stay in the Other Side of Nowhere any longer."

The gravity weakened and went to zero, and from there came on very gently; and for the second or fifth or tenth time since Braden went into the control-room up was up and down was down and left was left and ahead was ahead. But the screens still showed madness.

But then they shifted. The magnification changed; and what had appeared to be the nearby topographic detail of the sun's photosphere smoothed out as the magnification which had made the sun seem so close was cut back and back; the sun dwindled to a more nearly normal sort of object. The stars multiplied too, and the small and rocky planet shrank remarkably. The mere fact of extreme magnification on all the screens had made this solar system look strange, with all motions magnified as the local objects were. But still things did not look normal. The black nebula of the Horse's Head was turned about; it faced in the wrong direction. The striations of the stars in the Milky Way turned backward. The universe still did not look right.

The skipper came crawling along the curved corridor from below. His eyes blazed.

"No!" said Braden grimly, "and I mean no! They're out cold. You can tie them up if you like, but we're too close to port for what you have in mind... Even if I'd permit it!"

The skipper, crawling and grotesque, looked in the doorway. Braden suddenly realized the state he was in. He had become aware of it when he first realized the nature of Diane's danger at the mutineers' hands. It was rage so terrible and fury so vast that his feeling ceased to be either rage or fury. It was an unnatural cold calmness that was utterly implacable.

As the skipper looked in, his features went set and composed.

Braden held out the fist he'd hit the steward with.

"I smashed my hand against his jaw," he said.

The skipper reached out and grasped the doorframe, using it to pull himself erect.

"Ah, yes!" he said with terrifying composure. "But I do not think it would be wise for me to touch any of them. I do not trust myself, Mr. Braden."

He partly hopped and partly hitched himself to the upholstered control-board chair and let himself down into it. He looked at the three unconscious mutineers with distended nostrils and utter ferocity in his eyes.

"You had better call your passengers out of wherever they are, Mr. Braden," he said with the same peculiar composure. "Let them attend to these..." He stopped. "I'll take over the ship. You have done very well, Mr. Braden. I will ask you to make a report, for the log, in a moment or two. But call your passengers now. I... do not like to see these men. The boasting..."

He turned his eyes away. He looked at the screens.

"What is the matter with the stars, Mr. Braden?"

"The leads are changed in the communicator room, sir," said Braden. "They're giving mirror images. Change back in a few moments, sir." He pressed the general communicator button, and his voice came over the loudspeakers all over the ship. "Diane, it's all over. Let Hardy finish getting things back to normal. The rest of you come up to the control-room. Everything's all right. We're stopped within a day or so of normal drive of Handel's Planet. Come up."

He went professionally to make the normal check-over of the meteor scanners to make sure they were functioning. They had not been touched, in the process of contriving an Other Side of Nowhere for the Rim Star to break out into; nevertheless it was wise to check them.