Van Noon sat up painfully. ‘I’m not sure that two hundred years passed for
‘He’s a little bruised and dazed, but nothing serious. Apparently the implosive blast shot him out of the pipe like a cork out of a bottle. He swears you did it on purpose.’
Fritz rubbed his hands over his eyes. ‘Do you suppose we’ll ever know why they were here?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Courtney. ‘And even if they’d tried to tell us, we may not have been capable of understanding. Try explaining the uses and construction of a starship to an ant…’
Getaway from Getawehi
One
‘Colonel Nash has just checked out of the spaceport, sir. Says he’ll be with you in about half an hour. He’s bringing a Commander Brumas with him.’
‘Coming to see me?’ Colonel Belling cast a thoughtful glance at the wall clock. ‘He didn’t happen to say what he wanted?’
‘No, sir.’ The Port Liaison Officer was apologetic. ‘But he was in one hell of a hurry. The Navy virtually commandeered the field to give the ship priority clearance to land. Looks like some sort of emergency. It’s not often they risk landing a heavy cruiser at a metropolitan spaceport.’
‘A heavy cruiser?’
‘Navy craft. The Labship
Was it in trouble?’
‘Not apparently. But I think Colonel Nash was. When . the Port Marshal went out to meet him off the tender the Colonel shouted ‘Get away!’, or something like that, and ran up the walkway like he was jet assisted.’
Thanks for calling.’ Belling cut the connection to the spaceport and turned back to the wall clock speculatively. Then he picked up the handset again.
‘Duty room… Is Lieutenant Van Noon still in the depot?’
‘Yes, sir. But he’s due to check out in a few minutes on twenty-one days’ leave.’
‘Stop him. He’s not to leave without my personal authority. Put him under arrest if necessary, but don’t let him go.’
‘Understood, Colonel. What’s the charge this time?’
‘No charge. Just hold him until I send for him. I have a feeling that Colonel Nash isn’t the only one who’s going to be in trouble.’
‘Glad to see you, Ivan!’ Belling held out his hand. ‘You know, I haven’t seen you since you went to Tazoo.’
‘Tazoo?’ Nash mopped his perspiring brow. ‘I wish to hell I was still on Tazoo.’
‘Oh? I gathered it was a bit of a hell-hole.’
‘The galaxy’s worst—or so. I thought at the time. But that was before I came across Getawehi.’
‘Getawehi? What’s wrong with Getawehi?’
‘That’s just the problem,’ said Nash, with a look of resignation. ‘I’m damned if I
‘You have me intrigued,’ said Belling. ‘The entire resources of the General Engineering Reserve are at your service. If you can broadly define your problem, I’ll call up one of our specialists who may be able to assist.’
‘Forget your specialists,’ said Nash heavily. ‘Get that nutter Van Noon up here. This is the type of outwards- facing-interior problem that only he knows how to handle.’
‘You know,’ said Belling, ‘I had the feeling this was going to be one of those days as soon as I heard you were coming.’ He reached for the handset again.
‘Duty room… Is Van Noon available?’
‘Yes, sir. Under close arrest. He had to be restrained from leaving. Do you wish to enter a charge sheet?’
‘No, no. Just get him up here fast. And while you’re at it, drop a noose over Sergeant Hine .and the rest of the UE squad. I have a feeling we may be lucky enough to be rid of the whole damn lot by morning.’
‘You sent for me, sir?’ Lieutenant Fritz Van Noon entered the office cautiously.
‘Yes, Fritz.’ Colonel Belling motioned Van Noon towards a chair. ‘Sorry to have to cancel your leave, but something very important has come up. Colonel Nash you already know, but I want you to meet Commander Brumas, currently heading the Navy’s Space-Engineering Research team. He has an emergency on his hands.’ He turned to his visitor. ‘Commander, this is Fritz Van Noon, who runs our Unorthodox Engineering group.’
Despite his obvious agitation, the naval officer relaxed somewhat at Fritz’s entry. He had evidently found Colonel Belling’s approach to his problems no more comforting than those of his own Service authorities.
‘What’s on your mind, Commander?’ asked Van Noon.
‘Getawehi.’ Brumas said it with the air of a man who has repeated a story so many times that he is sure that by now the whole world must be familiar with its details.
‘Getawehi? Sounds like an insect repellent.’
‘No such luck. It’s a planet and one of the most Godlost territories in space. We’ve a twenty-man construction team trapped down there, and we can’t lift them off.’
‘And you think the Engineering Reserve might be able to help you?’ Van Noon shot a quick look at Colonel Belling—who was apparently finding some innocent amusement in the ceiling to judge from the expression on his face and the elevation of his eyeballs.
‘Not the Engineering Reserve,’ corrected Brumas sharply. ‘Specifically the Unorthodox Engineers. The other kind we already have, but after exposure to Getawehi problems they tend to go down with nervous breakdowns like they were infectious. No, this is a far-out situation, and it’s going to take some intensely screwball ideas to solve it.’
‘Then you’re on to the right person,’ said Belling maliciously.
‘Exactly what’s so special about Getawehi?’ asked Fritz.
Brumas sat forward in his chair. ‘Let me give you the background first. There’s a big joint-service science project called Ixion on at the moment. The Navy’s part was to land and assemble an equipment project on Getawehi. Superficially it seemed a simple job. It proved to be the biggest balls-up in Naval history. Not only have we been unable to complete the assignment, but we’ve also lost most of our equipment and left our construction team stranded on Getawehi. If we can do nothing else, we have at least to find a way to get the team off.’
‘I don’t quite see what the UE group can do that Space Rescue can’t.’
No—but then you haven’t been to Getawehi. The whole planet’s a rotten cosmological joke. Everything about Getawehi is sideways-up. From its orbital velocity and apparent mass it has no business even being in its present orbit around its primary, Geta. And not content with being a complete mathematical absurdity, its own rotation is subject to such peculiar perturbations and variations that its progress can only be described as lolloping. It doesn’t even have a stable period of rotation.’
‘You must appreciate I’m supposed to be on leave,’ said Van Noon warily.
Brumas was unswerving. ‘But it’s only when you take a closer look at Getawehi that the real peculiarities of the planet begin to emerge. Take, for instance, the dance of the drunken lander.’
Van Noon looked appealingly towards Colonel Belling, but the latter avoided meeting his eyes and busied himself with loading the video projector.
The screen brightened to show a stereo close-up of the planet’s surface, a view obviously taken from a spacecraft in a precarious synchronous orbit. Under the cameras the terrain of Getawehi was nothing remarkable.
