A moment later the count-down began, and he began setting up for departure.
A tremor of antic.i.p.ation shot through him as he prepared to blast off on the first hyperdrive voyage ever made. He was stepping out into the unknown, making the first use ever of a strange, perhaps dangerous means of travel. The drive would loop him out of the s.p.a.ce-time continuum, into--_where?_--and back again.
He hoped.
He punched down the keys, and sat back to wait for the automatic pilot to carry him out from Earth.
Somewhere past the orbit of the moon, a gong told him that the Cavour drive was about to come into play. He held his breath. He felt a twisting sensation. He stared at the viewscreen.
The stars had vanished. Earth, with all its memories of the last nine years, was gone, taking with it Hawkes, Jesperson, York City, the Enclaves--everything.
He floated in a featureless dull gray void, without stars, without worlds. _So this is hypers.p.a.ce_, he thought. He felt tired, and he felt tense. He had reached hypers.p.a.ce; that was half the struggle. It remained to see whether he would come out where he expected to come out, or whether he would come out at all.
Four days of boredom. Four days of wishing that the time would come to leave hypers.p.a.ce. And then the automatic pilot came to life; the Cavour generator thrummed and signalled that it had done its work and was shutting down. Alan held his breath.
He felt the twisting sensation. The _Cavour_ was leaving hyperdrive.
Stars burst suddenly against the blackness of s.p.a.ce; the viewscreen brightened. Alan shut his eyes a moment as he readjusted from the sight of the gray void to that of the starry reaches of normal s.p.a.ce. He had returned.
And, below him, making its leisurely journey to Procyon, was the great golden-hulled bulk of the _Valhalla_, gleaming faintly in the black night of s.p.a.ce.
He reached for the controls of his ship radio. Minutes later, he heard a familiar voice--that of Chip Collier, the _Valhalla"s_ Chief Signal Officer.
"Starship _Valhalla_ picking up. We read you. Who is calling, please?"
Alan smiled. "This is Alan Donnell, Chip. How goes everything?"
For a moment nothing came through the phones but astonished sputtering.
Finally Collier said thickly, "_Alan?_ What sort of gag is this? Where are you?"
"Believe it or not, I"m hovering right above you in a small ship.
Suppose you get my father on the wire, and we can discuss how I"ll go about boarding you."
Fifteen minutes later the _Cavour_ was grappled securely to the skin of the _Valhalla_ like a flea riding an elephant, and Alan was climbing in through the main airlock. It felt good to be aboard the big ship once again, after all these years.
He shucked his s.p.a.cesuit and stepped into the corridor. His father was standing there waiting for him.
"h.e.l.lo, Dad."
Captain Donnell shook his head uncomprehendingly. "Alan--how did you--I mean--and you"re so much older, too! I----"
"The Cavour Drive, Dad. I"ve had plenty of time to develop it. Nine good long years, back on Earth. And for you it"s only a couple of months since you blasted off!"
Another figure appeared in the corridor. Steve. He looked good; the last few months aboard the _Valhalla_ had done their work. The unhealthy fat he had been carrying was gone; his eyes were bright and clear, his shoulders square. It was like looking into a mirror to see him, Alan thought. It hadn"t been this way for a long time.
"Alan? How did you----"
Quickly Alan explained. "So I couldn"t reverse time," he finished. "I couldn"t make you as young as I was--so I took the opposite tack and made myself as old as you were." He looked at his father. "The universe is going to change, now. Earth won"t be so overcrowded. And it means the end of the Enclave system, and the Fitzgerald Contraction."
"We"ll have to convert the _Valhalla_ to the new drive," Captain Donnell said. He looked still stunned by Alan"s sudden appearance. "Otherwise we"ll never be able to meet the compet.i.tion of the new ships. There will be new ships, won"t there?"
"As soon as I return to Earth and tell them I"ve been successful. My men are ready to go into immediate production of hypers.p.a.ce vessels. The universe is going to be full of them even before your ship reaches Procyon!" He sensed now the full importance of what he had done. "Now that there"s practical transportation between stars, the Galaxy will grow close together--as close as the Solar System is now!"
Captain Donnell nodded. "And what are you planning to do, now that you"ve dug up the Cavour drive?"
"Me?" Alan took a deep breath. "I"ve got my own ship, Dad. And out there are Rigel and Deneb and Fomalhaut and a lot of other places I want to see." He was speaking quietly, calmly, but with an undercurrent of inner excitement. He had dreamed of this day for nine years.
"I"m going to take a grand tour of the universe, Dad. Everywhere. The hyperdrive can take me. But there"s just one thing----"
"What"s that?" Steve and the Captain said virtually in the same moment.
"I"ve been practically alone for the last nine years. I don"t want to make this trip by myself. I"m looking for a companion. A fellow explorer."
He stared squarely at Steve.
A slow grin spread over his brother"s face. "You devil," Steve said.
"You"ve planned this too well. How could I possibly turn you down?"
"Do you want to?" Alan asked.
Steve chuckled. "Do you think I do?"
Alan felt something twitching at his cuff. He looked down and saw a bluish-purple ball of fur sitting next to his shoe, studying him with a wry expression.
"Rat!"
"Of course. Is there room for a third pa.s.senger on this jaunt of yours?"
"Application accepted," Alan said. Warmth spread over him. The long quest was over. He was back among the people he loved, and the galaxy was opening wide before him. A sky full of bright stars, growing brighter and closer by the moment, was beckoning to him.
He saw the Crewmen coming from their posts now; the rumor had flitted rapidly around the ship, it seemed. They were all there, Art Kandin and Dan Kelleher and a gaping Judy Collier and Roger Bond and all the rest of them.
"You won"t be leaving right away, will you?" the Captain asked. "You can stay with us a while, just to see if you remember the place?"
"Of course I will, Dad. There"s no hurry now. But I"ll have to go back to Earth first and let them know I"ve succeeded, so they can start production. And then----"
"Deneb first," Steve said. "From there out to Spica, and Altair----"
Grinning, Alan said, "More worlds are waiting than we can see in ten lifetimes, Steve. But we"ll give it a good try. We"ll get out there."
A mult.i.tude of stars thronged the sky. He and Steve and Rat, together at last--plunging from star to star, going everywhere, seeing everything.
The little craft grappled to the _Valhalla_ would be the magic wand that put the universe in their hands.
In this moment of happiness he frowned an instant, thinking of a lean, pleasantly ugly man who had befriended him and who had died nine years ago. This had been Max Hawkes" ambition, to see the stars. But Max had never had the chance.
_We"ll do it for you, Max. Steve and I._