An hour later ten men smashed a half-ton cylinder of ice against the corroded junction of the two gears. Following Candle’s instructions, they next applied the ram to the door itself, which smoothly swung open. “You’ll find,” Candle explained, “that the only damage will be the two missing teeth on the aluminum gear. Since only two teeth are ever in contact at any time, you can simply slide the gear forward and engage it at a point where the teeth are intact. You’ll find, I’m quite sure, that your door will function properly. Also, Captain, don’t pull out of here until I’m aboard. I think I’d like to bring an assistant along, too.”
“An assistant?” Hansen asked.
Candle twirled the ends of his long white moustache. “You, my lad, if you’d like to go along.” He pulled a letter from his pocket and fanned the air with it. “I’m in complete command of this expedition—at least until His Exalted Excellency gets home to plant his seed.”
Hansen’s face glowed. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. Let’s get a couple of messages off to Sector Headquarters and get on board ship.”
“It may not be any joy ride,” Candle said thoughtfully. “You probably haven’t heard about it, but there’ve been a number of ship emergencies in the past few weeks.”
“Door failures?”
“No. At least none that I’ve heard of. But at least two Hegler drives have stopped working in mid space.”
“But, but there’s nothing to stop working—”
Candle’s eyes twinkled. “No moving parts, eh?”
Hansen reddened. “I hope I’ve outgrown that silly notion.”
Candle peered into Hansen’s eyes. “I’m sure you have. I’m sure that you will find out a lot more things for yourself. You’re the kind. And we’re going to need a lot of your kind, because failures—failures of so-called perfect mechanisms—are becoming more and more commonplace.” Candle pointed to the emergency light on the traffic control panel. “That light will be flashing with more and more frequency in the months to come. But not just to signal trouble in space. If I were a superstitious man, I’d think that the age of the perfect machine is about to be superseded by the age of the perfect failure—mechanical failures that can’t be explained on any level. I have several friends who’ve been in touch with me recently about—”
“You think that it’s time for a change?”
Candle smiled quickly. “That’s the idea. And the truth of the matter is that I am a superstitious man. I really believe, childishly, that the mechanics and motions of the galaxy may turn themselves upsidedown just to snap man out of his apathy and give him some work to do.”
Upsidedown turned out to be a good word. They boarded the big ship an hour later and were respectfully ushered into the presence of Captain Fromer and his staff.
“We’re underway,” Captain Fromer said. “We’ll be landing in nine days to deliver R’thagna Bar home.”
“How is he?” Hansen asked.
Fromer shrugged. “He’s been thawed out, frozen, and thawed out so many times, it’s anybody’s guess. Take a look for yourself.”
Someone pulled back a curtain to expose the recumbent, thawing, steamy form of His Exhalted Excellency R’thagna Bar.
“Why’s he undressed?” Hansen asked.
“Funny, now that you mention it,” Fromer said, puzzled, “why is he undressed?”
“Fascinating! Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Candle said.
“What’s so fascinating?” Fromer asked suspiciously, moving closer.
“His belly. Never saw anything like it. Those black squares keep appearing and disappearing. If I’ve ever seen a truly random pattern—”
“It started right after they froze him the first time,” Fromer said disconsolately.
“Fascinating, by Heaven,” said Candle, who was now down on his hands and knees. “Look at that top sequence! Random, yet physiological. I’ve got a friend on Bridan III who’d trade anything for some photos of this. Get me some photo equipment, will you?”
Captain Fromer ran his hands through what was left of his hair. “Get him some photo equipment,” he said to no one in particular, “and somebody make a truce with that idiot doctor long enough to get me a sedative.” About this time the ship turned upsidedown.
“But there’s no reason for it!” the chief engineer said, running alongside Hansen and Candle. “The ship can’t turn upsidedown. Everything is functioning perfectly!”
“Really not interested,” said Candle, running down the corridor’s mile-long ceiling. “Figure something out for yourself for a change.”
“But what I can’t understand,” said Hansen, dutifully trotting alongside, “is how you knew with such certainty how the door mechanism was made. Even if submarines were built like that, you’d have no way of knowing. There haven’t been any submarines in centuries.”
“The hell you say,” said Candle, increasing his pace, “I built one five years ago.”
“Built one! What for?”
“For the hell of it, and it was a damned good outfit, too. I found plans in an old museum, and had the good sense not to improve on ’em. Always remember, boy, that something that really works can’t be improved. That’s why the submarine mechanism was adopted—not adapted—for space. The so-called ’better way’ they’re building ’em today is simply a disguise for the fact that most of the gas is gone from our technology.”
“What happened to the submarine?”
“Oh, I traded it to a friend for some falcons. You interested in falconry by any chance?”
“Er, no. Can’t say that I am.”
“You will be,” Candle said prophetically, “you’ll succumb to every enthusiasm man has ever been deviled with. You’re the type. It’s a disease, boy, and the big symptom isn’t just curiosity, but the kind of intense curiosity that turns you inside out, devours you and ruins you for orthodoxy.”
Hansen had stopped listening. He was absorbed in trying to recall the pattern he had pressed on his radio belt—a pattern never taught to him—when the ship had suddenly turned upsidedown. Hesitantly, he played with the notion that he had been thinking of the ship traveling upsidedown at the time he impressed the novel pattern on the belt. Now, could that have possibly…?
The man and the boy disappeared down the ceiling, running at top speed to catch up as the rapidly vanishing form of R’thagna Bar was dragged and pulled relentlessly toward the refrigerator in a tug of war between the ship’s wild, divided crew.
“Fascinating!” said Candle. His eyes, glittering with their own peculiar madness, remained riveted on the distant imperial belly. “Never saw anything like it!”
AN EMPTY BOTTLE
by Mari Wolf
Hugh McCann took the last of the photographic plates out of the developer and laid them on the table beside the others. Then he picked up the old star charts—Volume 1, Number 1—maps of space from various planetary systems within a hundred light years of Sol. He looked around the observation room at the others.
“We might as well start checking.”
The men and women around the table nodded. None of them said anything. Even the muffled conversation from the corridor beyond the observation room ceased as the people stopped to listen.
McCann set the charts down and opened them at the first sheet—the composite map of the stars as seen from Earth. “Don’t be too disappointed if we’re wrong,” he said.
Amos Carhill’s fists clenched. He leaned across the table. “You still don’t believe we’re near Sol, do you?
