Subspace Survivors | Page 2

didn't--I just had to
know if I could." Then, as the applause did not die down, she fairly
scampered out of the room.
* * * * *
For one hour before the Procyon's departure from Earth and for three
hours afterward, First Officer Carlyle Deston, Chief Electronicist, sat
attentively at his board. He was five feet eight inches tall and weighed
one hundred sixty-two pounds net. Just a little guy, as spacemen go.
Although narrow-waisted and, for his heft, broad-shouldered, he was
built for speed and maneuverability, not to haul freight.
Watching a hundred lights and half that many instruments, listening to
two phone circuits, one with each ear, and hands moving from switches
to rheostats to buttons and levers, he was completely informed as to the
instant-by-instant status of everything in his department.

Although attentive, he was not tense, even during the countdown. The
only change was that at the word "Two" his right forefinger came to
rest upon a red button and his eyes doubled their rate of scan. If
anything in his department had gone wrong, the Procyon's departure
would have been delayed.
And again, well out beyond the orbit of the moon, just before the
starship's mighty Chaytor engines hurled her out of space as we know it
into that unknowable something that is hyperspace, he poised a finger.
But Immergence, too, was normal; all the green lights except one went
out, needles dropped to zero, both phones went dead, all signals
stopped. He plugged a jack into a socket below the one remaining green
light and spoke:
"Procyon One to Control Six. Flight Eight Four Nine. Subspace Radio
Test One. How do you read me, Control Six?"
"Control Six to Procyon One. I read you ten and zero. How do you read
me, Procyon One?"
"Ten and zero. Out." Deston flipped a toggle and the solitary green
light went out.
Perfect signal and zero noise. That was that. From now until
Emergence--unless something happened--he might as well be a
passenger. Everything was automatic, unless and until some robot or
computer yelled for help. Deston leaned back in his bucket seat and
lighted a cigarette. He didn't need to scan the board constantly now;
any trouble signal would jump right out at him.
Promptly at Dee plus Three Zero Zero--three hours, no minutes, no
seconds after departure--his relief appeared.
"All black, Babe?" the newcomer asked.
"As the pit, Eddie. Take over." Eddie did so. "You've picked out your
girl friend for the trip, I suppose?"

"Not yet. I got sidetracked watching Bobby Warner. She was doing
handstands and handwalks and forward and back flips in the
lounge--under one point five gees yet. Wow! And after that all the other
women looked like a dime's worth of catmeat. She doesn't stand out too
much until she starts to move, but then--Oh, brother!" Eddie rolled his
eyes, made motions with his hands, and whistled expressively. "Talk
about poetry in motion! Just walking across a stage, she'd bring down
the house and stop the show cold in its tracks."
"O. K., O. K., don't blow a fuse," Deston said, resignedly. "I know.
You'll love her undyingly; all this trip, maybe. So bring her up, next
watch, and I'll give her a gold badge. As usual."
"You ... how dumb can you get?" Eddie demanded. "D'you think I'd
even try to play footsie with Barbara Warner?"
"You'd play footsie with the Archangel Michael's sister if she'd let you;
and she probably would. So who's Barbara Warner?"
Eddie Thompson gazed at his superior pityingly. "I know you're ten
nines per cent monk, Babe, but I did think you pulled your nose out of
the megacycles often enough to learn a few of the facts of life. Did you
ever hear of Warner Oil?"
"I think so." Deston thought for a moment. "Found a big new field,
didn't they? In South America somewhere?"
"Just the biggest on Earth, is all. And not only on Earth. He operates in
all the systems for a hundred parsecs around, and he never sinks a dry
hole. Every well he drills is a gusher that blows the rig clear up into the
stratosphere. Everybody wonders how he does it. My guess is that his
wife's an oil-witch, which is why he lugs his whole family along
wherever he goes. Why else would he?"
"Maybe he loves her. It happens, you know."
"Huh?" Eddie snorted. "After twenty years of her? Comet-gas! Anyway,
would you have the sublime gall to make passes at Warner Oil's heiress,

with more millions in her own sock than you've got dimes?"
"I don't make passes."
"That's right, you don't. Only at books and tapes, even on ground leaves;
more fool you. Well, then, would you marry anybody like that?"
"Certainly, if I loved...." Deston