Tales of Pirx the Pilot Read online

  No time to think about such things now. Better to flip on the emergency transmitter.

  “Patrolship AMU-111 to Base,” he said. “AMU-111 to Base. Present reading: sector boundary one-zero-zero-nine-dash-one-zero-one-zero, equatorial zone. Have located trouble, am coming home…”

  Pirx landed some six hours later, at which time a full-scale inquiry was launched, the investigation lasting an entire month. The first thing to be overhauled was the scanner. It was a new, improved model, installed on all the AMU ships the year before and until now having a perfect performance record. Not a single malfunction had been reported.

  After laborious testing, the electronics engineers finally discovered the cause of the light. After several thousand hours of testing, the vacuum in the cathode-ray tube developed a leak, causing a loose charge to appear on the screen’s inner surface, observable on the outer screen as a milky-white spot. The movements of the charge were governed by a set of complicated laws. During periods of acceleration, the charge would become distended over a broad area, as if flattened against the inside glass, making it appear as if the speck were approaching. When reverse thrust was applied, the charge would withdraw deeper into the tube. Zero and constant acceleration brought the charge slowly back into the center of the screen. It was capable of unlimited movement, but its favorite resting position, during stationary orbit or periods of unpowered flight, was front center. Research on the charge continued, and its dynamics were represented by a sixth-order differential equation. It was also demonstrated that the charge tended to disperse in response to strong light impulses, and to become more concentrated only when the intensity of impulses received by the CRT was extremely low—such as in space, for example, when a ship was farthest from the Sun. If as much as a ray of sunlight brushed the screen, the charge would vanish for several hours.

  The findings of the electronics experts filled an entire volume, copiously laced with mathematical formulas. The next to tackle the case was a team of doctors, psychologists, and specialists in astroneurosis and astropsychosis. And again, after many hours of investigation, it was shown that the loose charge pulsated, which to the naked eye manifested itself as tiny dark squiggles creeping across the luminous disk. The frequency of these pulsations, too brief to be recorded individually by the eye, affected the so-called theta rhythm of the brain’s cortex, intensifying the oscillation potential to such a degree that it could induce a seizure identical to an epileptic fit. Other contributing factors were the state of absolute inertia and the absence of any external stimuli, except for prolonged and uninterrupted exposure to a pulsating light.

  The experts credited with these discoveries became internationally famous. Today electronics experts the world over are conversant with the Ledieux-Harper effect, caused by the formation of loose charges in high-vacuum cathode-ray tubes, whereas astrobiologists are familiar with Nuggelheimer’s atactic-catatonic-clonic syndrome.

  Pirx remained an unknown in the world of science. Only the most assiduous readers could infer, from remarks printed in fine type in some of the evening editions, that, thanks to Pirx, pilots of the future would be spared the fate of Thomas and Wilmer, those two unfortunate victims who perished in the outer regions of space after losing consciousness in a high-speed chase after an illusory light.

  The denial of fame did not bother Pirx in the slightest. Nor did he mind having a new tooth put in to replace the one demolished by his knee, nor even the fact that he had to pay for it out of his own pocket.

  THE

  ALBATROSS

  It was a six-course meal—not counting the trimmings. Wine carts rolled noiselessly up and down the glass aisles. Spotlights illuminated the tables from above: lemon-yellow for the turtle soup, bluish-white for the fish dish, the roast chicken entrée being bathed in a rosy-pink, tinged with a warm, silky gray. Fortunately, there was no dimming of the lights with the espresso—because Pirx’s mood was somber enough as it was. The dinner had sapped all his energy. He swore that from now on he’d stick to the snack bar on the lower deck. Too swanky in here for his taste, too much time spent worrying about his elbows. And what a fashion show!

  A sunken dining room, with the floor half a flight below level and a circular landing: an enormous, creamish-gold plate, arrayed with the world’s most sumptuous appetizers. The rustling of stiff, semitransparent gowns at his back. A gay and festive crowd. Live dance music … and live waiters, each decked out like a philharmonic conductor. “The Transgalactic offers you nonautomated service, cordial and intimate surroundings, genuinely human hospitality, and a completely live crew, each a master of his trade…”

  Over coffee and a cigarette, Pirx tried to find a corner, some quiet place of refuge, to rest his eyes, A woman seated at a nearby table caught his fancy. Her neckline was shaded by a flat but rough stone. Not chrysoprase or chalcedony—most likely a souvenir from Mars. Must have cost a fortune, he thought, even though it looked like little more than a chunk of asphalt. Women shouldn’t have so much money.

  He wasn’t overwhelmed. And he wasn’t appalled—just observant. Gradually he felt an urge to stretch his limbs. A stroll on the promenade deck, maybe?

  He got up from the table, made a slight bow, and left the dining room. As he passed between some reflecting polygonal columns, he caught a glimpse of himself: a button was showing beneath the knot in his tie. Honestly, nobody wore these kinds of neckties anymore! In the corridor he paused to straighten his collar, stepped into the elevator, and zoomed up to the prom deck. The elevator door slid open without a sound. A sigh of relief: not a living soul in sight. One third of the vaulted ceiling, its glassed roof arching over several rows of deck chairs, resembled a gigantic eye fixed on the stars. The chairs were stacked with blankets, but were otherwise quite empty. Only one was occupied, at the very back—by an elderly eccentric, bundled to the neck, whose habit it was to dine an hour after everyone else, alone, in an empty dining room, veiling his face with a napkin if anyone so much as glanced in his direction.

  Pirx settled himself in one of the chairs. Intermittently the deck was fanned by an undulating breeze that seemed to have its origin in the darkest recesses of space but was, in fact, pumped out by the ship’s invisible air-conditioning outlets. The engineers on the Transgalactic staff knew their stuff, all right. The deck chair was comfortable, more comfortable even than a pilot’s electronically designed contour couch. Pirx felt a slight chill, remembered the blankets, and bundled himself up as if making himself snug in a comforter.

  Someone was coming. By way of the stairs—not the elevator. His dining-room neighbor. He tried to guess her age—no luck. She had on another dress, and he wondered whether it was the same woman. She stretched herself out, three chairs away from him, and opened a book. The artificial breeze ruffled the pages. Pirx looked straight ahead. The Southern Cross was palpably visible, as was the tail end of the Little Dipper, truncated by the window frame: a luminous speck against a black backdrop. A seven-day flight cruise. Hm. A lot could happen in a week’s time. He stirred deliberately, causing the thickish, neatly folded document in his inner pocket to crinkle softly. A surge of contentment: waiting for him on the other end was a second navigator’s berth. He knew his itinerary—the plane ride from North Land to Eurasia, then on to India. In his voucher were enough tickets to make a book, each blank a different color and in duplicate, stubs, coupons, gold trim—indeed, everything that belonged to the Transgalactic’s package deal fairly oozed with gold and silver. The woman sitting three chairs away from him was good-looking, very good-looking. The same, all right. Should he strike up a conversation? Introduce himself, at least? What a drag having such a short name—a name that was almost over before it began. And then, “Pirx” often came out sounding like something else. Talking on the telephone was the worst. Come on, say something. Fine, but what?!

  He felt enervated again. From Mars the cruise had looked altogether different. Luckily for him, the shipowners on Earth were footing the bill—less out of gener
osity than for purely business reasons. He had logged nearly 3 billion kilometers, but this was his first trip on anything like a Titan. And what a far cry from a freighter! A rest mass of 180,000 tons; four main thrust reactors; a cruising speed of 65 kilometers per second; living accommodations for 1,200 passengers, with a choice of singles, doubles, or suites, all with private bath; guaranteed stable gravitation except during takeoff and landing; maximum safety conditions; all the modem conveniences; a 40-man crew, plus a staff of 260. Ceramite, steel, gold, palladium, chrome, nickel, iridium, plastic, Carrara marble, oak, mahogany, silver, crystal. Two swimming pools. Four movie theaters. Eighteen direct hookups with Earth—for the passengers alone! A concert hall. Six main decks, four promenade decks, automatic elevators, on-board booking on any ship in the fleet—a year in advance. Bars. Casinos. A department store. An artisans’ row—a true facsimile of an old-fashioned city lane, complete with wine cellars, gas lanterns, a moon, and a back-alley wall traversed by genuine back-alley cats. A greenhouse. And God knows what else. It would have taken a good month to make the grand tour, and then only one way!

  The woman was still reading. Why do women have to dye their hair like that? That color was enough to turn… But on her it worked, somehow. Now, if he just had a cigarette in his hand, he thought, the right words would pop into his mouth automatically. He reached into his pocket.

  The moment he whipped out the cigarette case—a present from Boman, which he kept out of friendship, never having owned one before in his life—it felt a little heavier than usual. Just a shade. But heavier it was. Was the ship accelerating, or what?

  He strained his ears. Sure enough, the engines were pulling at greater thrust. An ordinary passenger might not have noticed; a series of four-ply insulating bulkheads separated the Titan’s engine room from the ship’s living quarters.

  Singling out a pale star in one corner of the window frame, Pirx kept a watchful eye on it. If they’re accelerating, he thought, the star will stay put. But if it so much as jiggles…

  It jiggled, drifting slowly, but ever so slowly, to one side.

  It’s turning along its longitudinal axis, he reckoned.

  The Titan was flying through a “cosmic tunnel,” unobstructed by any dust or meteorites—nothing but empty space. The pilot of the Titan, whose job it was to make sure the giant ship had clear passage, flew on ahead at a distance of 1,900 kilometers. The reason? For safety’s sake—even though, under the terms of an agreement negotiated by the United Astronavigation Association, the Transgalactic Line was granted undisputed right-of-way along its segment of the parabola. And ever since unmanned space probes were used to patrol thousands of transuranic sectors, making it possible for meteorite warnings to be issued as much as six hours in advance, the threat of any external hazards had been all but eliminated. The belt—those billion or so meteorites orbiting between Earth and Mars—was kept under special surveillance, whereas the remnants of any vehicles were bound to pass beyond the ecliptic plane. The progress achieved in this area, even since the time Pirx had been flying patrol, was staggering.

  With no obstacles to avoid, the Titan had no reason to alter course. But veering off course it was—Pirx no longer had to verify it by the stars, he could feel it in his bones. So confident was he that he could easily have plotted the ship’s trajectory, knowing as he did its velocity, mass, and the rate of stellar displacement.

  Something’s up, he thought.

  There were no public announcements. Why all the secrecy? A layman when it came to the customs observed aboard luxury liners, he had enough savvy about engine rooms and cockpits to know there were only two courses of action: in the event of an emergency a ship could either maintain its previous velocity … or cut its engines. But the Titan was doing neither…

  The whole maneuver lasted a total of four seconds. That meant a forty-five-degree turn. Hm.

  The stars once again assumed a stationary position.

  They were back on a straight course; yet the cigarette case in Pirx’s hand kept getting heavier.

  Steering a straight course and gaining speed at the same time… That cinched it. For a moment he sat perfectly still, then rose to his feet, now feeling the effects of the increased gravitation. The gray-eyed beauty was watching his every move.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing to worry about, ma’am.”

  “Something feels different. Do you notice it, too?”

  “It’s nothing. Just a little increase in velocity.” Now was his chance to strike up a casual conversation. He gave her the once-over, no longer disturbed by the color of her hair. A real doll.

  He shuffled off, leisurely at first, but with each step gradually quickening his pace. She must take me for a mental case, he thought. Colorful wall paintings ran the length of the deck. He passed through a door marked OFF LIMITS and headed down a long, deserted corridor, flooded with a bright electric glare. A row of numbered doors. He kept going, relying more on his sense of hearing. Some stairs brought him out on a landing, face-to-face with a metal door.

  STELLAR PERSONNEL ONLY read the sign. Wow, nothing like having fancy names!

  No doorknob—by special key only. Which key he lacked. He rubbed his nose in a moment of concentration.

  Tap … tap … tatatap … tap … tap…

  He waited. The door opened slightly, and a surly, ruddy-complexioned face showed in the crack.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m from Patrol.”

  The door opened wide enough to admit him, and he entered what looked to be an auxiliary control room: double row of steering controls, video screens lining the opposite wall, facing which were several vacant chairs. A small, squat-looking unit was monitoring the pulsating dials. Standing on a narrow side table by the wall were some half-empty cups and saucers. The air was redolent of freshly brewed coffee, and of something that smelled vaguely like heated plastic laced with a whiff of ozone. Another door stood slightly ajar, emitting the purring drone of a transformer.

  “An SOS?” he inquired of the man who had let him in. Stocky, with a slight swelling on one side of his face: a toothache kind of swelling; headset band creasing the hair; gray, partially unbuttoned Transgalactic uniform emblazoned with lightning insignia. Shirttail hanging out.

  “Yes.” A moment’s hesitation. “From Patrol, you say?”

  “From the Base. Just back from a two-year tour on the Transuran. I’m a navigator. Pirx is the name.”

  A handshake.

  “Mindell’s mine. Nucleonics.”

  Without exchanging another word, the two moved into the adjoining room. It was the communications room. Very big. Ten or more people were huddled around the main transmitter. Two radiotelegraph operators, each equipped with earphones, wrote continuously against a background of clicking instruments, electrical humming, and an incessant, below-decks whine. Swarms of control lights on every wall: the place looked the inside of a trunk exchange. The two radiomen were almost prostrate over their desks; both in shirt sleeves, both with drenched faces—one pale, the other older and more average-looking, with a head scar plainly visible in the place where the headset band made a parting in his hair. Two men were seated a little distance away, one of whom Pirx recognized as the commander.

  They were already mildly acquainted. The commander of the Titan was a short, grizzly-haired man with a small poker face. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, seemingly distracted by one of his shoe tips.

  Pirx treaded softly up to the radiomen, craned his whole body, and began reading over the shoulder of the man with the head scar.

  “…six-eighteen-point-three proceeding at full thrust time of arrival eight-zero-twelve. Out.”

  The radioman slid a blank over with his left hand and kept on writing.

  “Luna Base to Albatross-4 Aresluna. Check on-board contamination stop answer in Morse stop too far out of range for radio stop how many hours can you maintain emergency thrust stop estimated dri
ft zero-six-point-twenty-one stop. Over.”

  “Dasher-2 Aresterra to Luna Base. Am proceeding at full thrust destination Albatross sector sixty-four have overheated reactor but proceeding on course anyway stop am now six milliparsecs away from designated point of SOS. Out.”

  The second operator, the more pallid-looking of the two, let out a muffled groan. Immediately everyone leaned over his shoulder. Mindell, the man who had met Pirx at the door, relayed the recorded messages back to the commander while the operator went on transcribing.

  “Albatross-4 to all ships. Am lying in orbit, drift ellipsis T-341 sector sixty-five stop breach in hull widening stop leakage in stern bulkheads stop emergency thrust at 3g stop reactor going out of control stop multiple damages to main bulkhead stop third-degree on-board contamination and rising in response to emergency thrust stop will attempt to seal leaks am transferring crew to bow. Out.”

  As he wrote, the operator’s hands trembled. One of the crew grabbed him by his shirt collar, yanked him to his feet, and rushed him out the door. A short while later he came back—alone—and took the other man’s place.

  “He has a brother aboard the Albatross,” he said by way of explanation, addressing no one in particular.

  Pirx peered over the older man’s shoulder.

  “Luna Base to Albatross-4 Aresluna. The following ships have been dispatched stop Dasher from sector sixty-four Titan from sector sixty-seven Ballistic-8 from sector forty-four Sprite-702 from sector ninety-four stop seal breach in bulkhead stop wear pressure suits behind air locks stop report present course stop.”

  “The Albatross!” exclaimed the young operator’s replacement, and everyone craned to read the message:

  “Albatross-4 to all ships. Uncontrolled drifting stop leakage in hull stop losing atmosphere stop crew in pressure suits stop engine room flooded with coolant stop screens punctured stop temperature sixty-three degrees in control room stop initial breach in control room sealed stop coolant boiling stop main transmitter flooded stop switching over to radio stop we’ll be waiting for you fellows. Out.”