The Other Side of Nowhere

It was not wise, though, to go into overdrive in the ecliptic plane of a solar system. A ship had to get well away from the most probable orbit of celestial debris before building up to so high a velocity.

The Rim Star drove on and on and on. Since she had aimed herself to leave the plane populated by comets and celestial debris, she seemed to be imbued with purpose. She still did not look like anything man had created, but rather like some monster creature swimming abstractly toward some destination of its own choosing.

It was two hours out from lift-off before Braden had completed the check of those last items he should have seen to before leaving ground. He'd found each member of the crew at his post. He regarded each one with a bristling disapproval which was expected. Each one answered such questions as Braden put with precision and apparent respect, but the feel of things was wrong. The five blank-faced crewmen said nothing and did nothing that he could cavil at, but they shared an air as of hidden amusement, of secret laughter. Braden suspected that they knew about the theft of his blaster, but didn't know he knew it yet.

He'd left the last of them and was on his way to the passengers' quarters when he realized what was really basically wrong about the way the crew acted. A ship's crew scatters when she ends her voyage. Men do not sign on together for long voyages out of friendship. When a ship leaves port, the members of her crew are usually strangers, bringing neither personal hatreds nor personal loyalties to their joint imprisonment in a spaceship's metal hull.

But these men were difterent. If they were the same ones who'd jumped him in the spaceport, they formed a unit - organized and tested and confident of each other. Their solidarity did not come from membership in the same ship's crew. They'd waylaid Braden by mistake - it was almost certain - and then waylaid another man but not by mistake, after him. That man was now in the hospital instead of aboard the Rim Star. Somebody, too, had jumped the man who'd been mate before Braden. Probably these same men.

When Braden went into the passengers' quarters he'd added things up. He looked like a thundercloud. The passengers weren't yet as settled as they'd be presently. The steward smiled brightly at Braden when he walked into the passengers' saloon.

"Ah, Mr. Braden!" he said warmly. "The passengers want to talk to you, sir! I told them my authority is limited to doing things to make them comfortable. But you can pass on their idea, sir."

Braden said unpleasantly:

"What is the idea?"

"Just a moment, sir. You'll want to talk to... Ah, here he is! Mr. Duckworth, this is Mr. Braden, mate of our ship. Second in command, you'd say. He'll hear your request, Mr. Duckworth, and at least take it up with the captain."

The man called Duckworth was small and bustling, with an air of fretful impatience. He gave Braden a professional smile.

"We want to take pictures on the Rim Star, Mr. Braden," he said crisply. "While we're traveling. That is, we are a production unit going on location to Handel's Planet to take background shots and some action, set-pictures and so on, for a broadcast tape story about the Other Side of Nowhere. Miss Derr Carmody is the star. Mr. Fortescue plays opposite her. And the Rim Star's a splendid set. We can use her interiors for a good many scenes before we get to Handel's Planet and have a good lot of footage all wrapped up. I asked the steward to explain this to the captain and arrange things so I can look the ship over and plan my shots. I might want members of the crew - off duty-time, of course - to act as extras. Possibly we could work you and the skipper in."

His manner was assured, confident. There was a stirring, and one of the two women passengers came out of a cabin. Braden recognized her. There'd been a pin-up of her long ago in the Hansford's control-room. But that was a picture of her when she was young. Now, Braden knew detachedly, she'd had a rejuvenation job and probably persuaded herself that nobody guessed it. It wouldn't show under tape make-up, though.

"Derr," said Duckworth confidently, "meet Mr. Braden. He's first officer of the ship. He'll arrange for us to shoot the scenes we need on the ship. Mr. Braden, Miss Carmody."

Braden nodded acknowledgement. Derr Carmody gave him a warm and luminous but completely professional smile.

"Oh, yes!" she said. She tended to coo. "It's so good of you, Mr. Braden!"

Another passenger popped into view - a middle-aged man with a harried look and disconsolate expression. Still another young man, with the expression of someone who knows he will take a good picture if somebody aims a camera at him. Then a girl - quiet, not happy, not glamorous. At another time Braden would have excepted her from the category of women he'd rather not bother to talk to. Now, though, he had a lot on his mind. He nodded curtly when introduced to the disconsolate middle-aged man, a cameraman named Hardy. He nodded again, impatiently, when the young man who looked like an actor was introduced. His name was Fortescue. The quiet girl's name was Diane. She wasn't an actress, but a cameraman, like the harried Hardy, and Duckworth explained proudly that they were specialists of a very high order in camera work. They could get incredible pictures under conditions most cameramen would find impossible. They could make tape cameras sit up and beg. Hence the small location-party for a big picture. But they needed to make some scenes on the Rim Star.