CHAPTER 8
At midnight I stood on the front porch of our house and stared across the quiet lake.
"Go to bed, now," Mother had told me a few minutes before. "You've had a full day. You need your sleep."
She was probably right, but I knew it would be pointless to lie down. Not with the inside of my head still running wild. Instead I went outside. Mother and Doctor Eileen must have been almost as wound up as I was, because when I left they went on talking to each other as though I did not exist.
Godspeed Base.
"If you admit that the Godspeed Drive once existed," Doctor Eileen had said, "then logically Godspeed Base had to exist, too, somewhere in the Maveen system."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because every machine needs repairs sometime. The Godspeed ships must have had a place in each star system, somewhere they could go for refitting or maintenance work. And the Base wouldn't have disappeared when the ships stopped coming here."
"Why did they stop coming?"
"Nobody knows. I've heard scientists say that the whole Godspeed Drive system contained the seeds of its own destruction, something to do with the nature of space and time, and it should never have been built. I've heard religious leaders say that the isolation of Maveen and the Forty Worlds is a punishment for our sins on Erin. And of course, I've heard a thousand times that there never was a Godspeed Drive, that it's only an old legend." She looked directly at Mother. "You can point out to those people that humans clearly didn't evolve on Erin, and ask how we got here. But you won't get anywhere. Because most of them don't believe in evolution, either. Any more than they'll believe that what Jay has sitting in front of him is important."
I had a suspicion that Doctor Eileen was taking a dig at Duncan West, without mentioning his name. In any case, it was obvious how she regarded all such people. I stared at the little plastic wafer, switched off now on the table. We still didn't know why anyone would kill for it. But if it had come from Godspeed Base, that seemed to make it important enough to Doctor Eileen, if not yet to me.
"Do you think that Paddy Enderton had been to the base?" I asked.
"I doubt it. There would have been other evidence."
"There is." I told them about the telecon, and the little direction finder that he had given me.
"I'd like to take a look at those tomorrow," Doctor Eileen said, casually condemning me to another blood-chilling climb up the water tower. "But I mean more direct evidence. If he'd actually been there, he'd have come home with proof. And he'd not have kept that a secret when he reached Erin. But from what you've told me, he was convinced that he knew where Godspeed Base was. And he was definitely planning a trip there. That's why he wanted you take him to Muldoon Port, before he collapsed. And those other men knew that he knew. That's why they came after him yesterday."
I still had a basic question. "If the Godspeed ships don't come here any more, why is Godspeed Base so important?"
"Jay, you can ask more questions than any sane woman can answer," Mother said sharply. "Go to bed."
But Doctor Eileen was answering: "Because there's a chance that a complete Godspeed ship, with a full Godspeed Drive, is sitting out there at the base. It would have been there as a backup. Otherwise a Godspeed crew would have risked being stranded if the ship they came in was destroyed, or if there were major problems with the Godspeed Drive."
If she had wanted to choose words to guarantee that I would be unable to sleep, she could hardly have done better. Two months ago, exploration of the Forty Worlds with the spacers had been my great dream. Now Doctor Eileen was telling me that somewhere out there, within reach of our ships, might be something to take us to the stars.
But mother was saying again, "Go to bed, Jay. Eileen and I have other things to talk about."
I picked up Paddy Enderton's device and left the room. A minute later I was outside, staring across at the distant lights of Muldoon Port. My thoughts about it had changed since yesterday. Enderton had wanted to go there. The men who had hurt Mother and killed Chum had left by water. They were spacers. Chances were, they had gone to Muldoon. The spaceport was the road out, the way to the Forty Worlds, and now to Godspeed Base.
But the men had left without the information that they came for. That was in my hand, locked away, waiting for someone to find the key.
Voice-activated, Doctor Eileen had said. Well, I had a voice, as good as anyone else's.
I went back indoors and up to my bedroom. But not to sleep.
It took a few minutes to get to the place where I had been stuck earlier, with a single flashing green spark that I could move around among the other lights of the display.
If I had to choose words that would make a display do more than just sit there, what would they be?
"Godspeed Base." No response.
"Godspeed. Godspeed Drive. Godspeed crew. Forty Worlds. Paddy Enderton. Er, information. Data. Position. Location. Input. Output."
Nothing. Either the device was as stupid as it seemed, or I was missing the point.
I sat and frowned down at the innocent-looking little wafer. Stupid, stupid. Unless . . . Suppose, just suppose, that it was the other way round? Suppose that I was dealing with something very smart?
Then I ought to be asking questions or giving commands, instead of offering one word at a time that it would not know what to do with.
"I want access to data associated with the display that is now being shown."
The response was immediate. An open box appeared in the air below the main display. To its left-hand side glowed three words: First Data Level. The box itself was empty.
"That doesn't tell me anything!" I protested. "I want to know more. Tell me something else about the display."
Nothing new appeared.
I talked on and on, without being able to produce any change in what I was seeing. It was only when I ran out of things to say that I realized that the voice commands and the flashing point of green might be related. At the moment, the green spark sat in an empty area of space. If the problem was that I was asking for information about nothing . . .
I pressed zero, to freeze the moving set of colored lights. Then I used the controls to move the flashing green spark to coincide with one rustily glowing point.
At last!
The open box was no longer empty. It contained a word, Liscarroll. Beneath that were six nine-figure numbers. Five of them changed not at all, or slowly in their final digits, but the sixth one changed all the time, increasing steadily.
I found my piece of paper, and wrote Liscarroll. Then I said, "Give me the second data level."
If there is such a thing as too little information, there is also such a thing as too much. Words began to stream through the open box, line after line of them. I read, with little understanding: . . . primary assay obtained as extrapolation of surface spectra, composition as mass fraction: hydrogen, 0.44; helium, 0.20; lithium, 0.00; beryllium, 0.01; boron, 0.00; carbon, 0.06; nitrogen, 0.05; oxygen, 0.08;fluorine, 0.01; neon, 0.00 . . .
The list went on and on. I did not attempt to write everything down, but instead moved the green pointer to a new light. This one was of pale amber. I said, "First data level."
The box emptied. And refilled.
Corofin was the first word. Below it, as before, were six new nine-digit numbers, five of them again close to unchanging and the sixth steadily increasing.
I had learned my lesson, and I did not ask for any second data level. Instead I began to move the green point systematically through the display, recording the names that popped into the open data box. Kiltealy, Timahoe, Moynalty, Clareen, Oola, Drumkeerin . . .
No two words were the same. Every one had its own string of six nine-digit numbers. I settled down, determined to record a complete list. I would begin with the topmost point of the display and move the green marker systematically down through the whole thing, light by light.
I was becoming very tired, and maybe what I was doing was my way of avoiding further real thinking. But I went on, through name after meaningless name. Rockcorry, Ardscull, Timolin, Ballybay, Culdaff Annoy, Tyrella, Moira . . .
And then, almost without realizing it, I found that I was copying the words, Paddy's Fortune.
I stopped, tingling all over. It could be a name, no different from any other. The usual six nine-digit numbers that sat below it supported that idea.
Or Paddy might be Paddy Enderton. Paddy's Fortune might be his own words to describe what was shown in the data box.
It was the middle of the night, but that made no difference. I went through to Mother's room with the display still on, intending to wake her up. She was not there.
She was downstairs. The three guards were in the living-room, sound asleep—so much for their value as protectors. Mother and Doctor Eileen were sitting facing each other at the kitchen table, glasses and an open bottle between them.
It was the first time that I had seen Mother drinking wine when we did not have one of her spacer visitors. I suddenly realized that I might not be the only one having trouble sleeping. Although my own past couple of days had been hard, Mother's had been far more filled with stress. She had been questioned, and beaten, and threatened with worse. She had been the one who had to sit with Paddy Enderton's corpse, and dispose of poor Chum's body.
"What woke you up?" she said, when I approached the table.
"I never went to sleep. I couldn't." I put the wafer onto the table along with my written list, and pointed at the displayed data.
"That green point is on something called Paddy's Fortune. Do you think it means Paddy Enderton?"
Mother stared at the glowing nimbus of lighted points, but Eileen Xavier seemed more interested in the data box and the list that I had written.
"Where did you get this from?" she asked.
"It's the words that the calculator seems to give to the points. Each one has a different name."
"Just a name? Nothing else?"
"Lots and lots more. I just didn't know what it meant, so I didn't write it all down."
Doctor Eileen put down the paper. Her eyes were gleaming as she turned to the display. "Show me."
I moved the green pointer to a glowing red point that I had looked at before, and said, "First data level."
Ardscull, read the data box. Beneath that, as before, were the usual six mysterious numbers.
Mysterious to me, I should have said. Because Doctor Eileen exhaled her breath, as though she had been holding it for the past minute, and gasped, "Jay, you've done it! Molly, you ought to be proud of him."
"I am proud of him," Mother said. "Most of the time. But I don't know what he did."
"Those little sparks of light." Doctor Eileen pointed. "They represent places. Those names that Jay wrote down are the names of some of the bigger worldlets, out in the Maze. I think the whole display is of the Maze. And Paddy's Fortune, for a bet, is the place where Paddy Enderton believed you'd find Godspeed Base."
"But that doesn't tell you how to get anywhere," Mother protested. "It's just a picture."
"It would be—if it weren't for these." Doctor Eileen indicated the six nine-figure strings of digits below the word, Ardscull. "I'm no spacer, and I don't know that much about planets and moons. But six numbers are enough to fix the location and speed of any object in space. I'll bet that five of them, the ones that hardly change, describe the form of the orbit. And this sixth one, the one that keeps increasing, tells the object's position in its orbit. It's all you need to reach a place."
"There's other information, too." I returned the green marker to coincide with the point of Paddy's Fortune. After the name and the usual six numbers had been displayed again, I intoned clearly: "Second data level."
The display box became annoyingly empty. "That's funny," I said. "It worked for the others I tried. Why doesn't it work for this one?"
"Because Paddy's Fortune is different from all the natural worlds of the Maze." Doctor Eileen stood up and began to walk round and round the table. "My God, Molly, do you know what this means? No wonder the men last night were willing to beat you and smash your house to pieces to get this. We have to tell everybody what we've found. Then we have to hire a ship and go there."
"Just a minute." Mother held up her hand, stopping Doctor Eileen in midstride. "You're doing what you accuse me of—-jumping to conclusions. First, you're assuming that Paddy's Fortune has to be the same thing as Godspeed Base."
"That thing Jay is holding was never made in the Forty Worlds."
"Maybe not. But you were the one who insisted that Paddy Enderton had not been to Godspeed Base. If that's true, where did he get the calculator and display?"
"I don't know. You're worrying over details. There's one good way to settle everything—go and see."
"All right. But the last thing you can afford to do is let a lot of other people know you're going." Mother glanced around and lowered her voice—though it would have taken a lot more than ordinary speech to wake up the snoring louts in the next room. "Let people learn where you've been and what you've found, after you come back. The more we keep this to ourselves, the less trouble we'll risk. The bruisers who were here last night would love to know your travel plans."
Doctor Eileen flopped down again on her chair. "Well, somebody has to know. You have to help me find a ship, and a few reliable spacers."
"All right. We'll find a ship. But I can't be directly involved, Eileen."
"Why not?"
"The men who were here last night. I would recognize them—and they'd recognize me. If they saw me, you might as well hang out a sign saying where you are going."
"Then I'll find a ship for myself."
"That's nearly as bad. You need a man to do it, Eileen, if you don't want to be conspicuous. Whoever heard of a woman going to space?"
"That's for quite different reasons, and you know it."
Mother might know it. I didn't, and at the moment I didn't care.
"They didn't see me!" I said. "They wouldn't recognize me. I'm a man. Let me help find a ship."
Mother shook her head. "You've done wonderfully well, Jay. But you're much too young."
Too young, after everything that I had done and been through! I grabbed Paddy Enderton's calculator and held it close to my chest.
"Too young to find a ship," said Doctor Eileen. "Yes, I agree. But is Jay too young to go? Look at his face, Molly. He's earned the right, if anyone has."
Mother did look at my face, and I at hers. It was the longest few seconds of my whole life, until finally she nodded.
"All right," she said slowly. "You have earned it, Jay. You truly have. You can go with Doctor Eileen—if she goes."
"I'm going," Doctor Eileen said firmly.
"All right," repeated Mother. "And now get to bed, Jay," she added automatically. "It's far too late for you to be awake."