Chapter 4

Jordan caught up before Docchi reached the cargo hold. In lesser gravity he was more active and could move freely. Now his handicap was almost unnoticeable, seemed to have disappeared. The same was not true of Docchi. It required less effort to walk but there was also a profound unsettling effect that made him cautious and uncertain.

Docchi heard him coming and waited, bracing himself against the wall in case the gravity should momentarily change. Jordan still carried the weapon he’d taken from the pilot. It was clipped to the sacklike garment, dangling from his midsection which, for him, was just below his shoulders. Down the passageway he came, swinging from the guide rails with easy grace though the gravity on the ship was as erratic as on the asteroid.

Jordan halted, hanging on with one hand. “We have a passenger. Someone we didn’t know about.”

Docchi stiffened. “Who?” he asked. But the answer was already on Jordan’s face. “Nona,” he said in relief. He slumped forward. “How did she get on?”

“A good question,” said Jordan. “But there isn’t any answer and never will be. It’s my guess that after she jammed the lights and scanners in the rocket dome she went to the ship and it looked inviting. So she went in. She wouldn’t let a little thing like a lock that couldn’t be opened stop her.”

“It’s a good guess,” agreed Docchi. “She’s exceedingly curious.”

“We may as well make the picture complete. Once in the ship she felt tired. She found a comfortable cabin and fell asleep. She can’t hear anything so our little skirmish with the geepees didn’t bother her.”

“I can’t argue with you. It’ll do until a better explanation comes along.”

“But I wish she’d waited a few minutes to take her nap. She’d have saved us a lot of trouble. She didn’t know you’d be able to crawl through the tubes--and neither did you until you’d actually done it.”

“What do you want?” said Docchi. “She did more than we did. We depend too much on her. Next thing we’ll expect her to escort us personally to the stars.”

“I wasn’t criticizing her,” protested Jordan.

“Maybe not. You’ve got to remember her mind works differently. It never occurred to her that we’d have difficulty with something that was so simple to her. At the same time she’s completely unable to grasp our concepts.” He straightened up. “We’d better get going if we don’t want Anti to start yelling.”

The cargo hold was sizable. It had to be to hold the tank, which was now quite battered and twisted. But the tank was sturdily built and looked as if it would hold together for ages to come. There was some doubt as to whether the ship would. The wall opposite the ramp was badly bent where the tank had plowed into it and the storage racks were demolished. Odds and ends of equipment lay in scattered heaps on the floor.

“Anti,” called Docchi.

“Here.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Never felt a thing,” came the cheerful reply. It was not surprising; her surplus flesh was adequate protection against deceleration.

Jordan began to scale the side of the tank, reaching the top and peering over. “She seems to be all right,” he called down. “Part of the acid’s gone. Otherwise there’s no damage.”

“Of course not,” replied Anti. “What did I say?”

It was perhaps more serious than she realized. She might personally dislike it, but acid was necessary to her life. And some of it had been splashed from the tank. Where it had spilled metal was corroding rapidly. By itself this was no cause for alarm. The ship was built for a multitude of strange environments and the scavenging system would handle acid as readily as water, neutralizing it and disposing of it where it would do no harm. But the supply had to be conserved. There was no more.

“What are you waiting for?” Anti rumbled with impatience. “Get me out of here. I’ve stewed in this disgusting soup long enough.”

“We were thinking how we could get you out. We’ll figure out a way.”

“You let me do the thinking. You just get busy. After you left I decided there must be some way to live outside the tank and of course when I bent my mind to it there was a way. After all, who knows more about my condition than me?”

“You’re the expert. Tell us what to do.”

“Oh I will. All I need from you is no gravity and I’ll take care of the rest. I’ve got muscles, more than you think. I can walk as long as my bones don’t break from the weight.”

Light gravity was bad, none at all was worse for Docchi. Having no arms he’d be helpless. The prospect of floating free without being able to grasp anything was terrifying. He forced down his fear. Anti had to have it and so he could get used to null gravity.

“We’ll get around to it,” he promised. “Before we do we’ll have to drain and store the acid.”

“I don’t care what you do with it,” said Anti. “All I know is that I don’t want to be in it.”

Jordan was already working. He swung off the tank and was busy expelling water from an auxiliary compartment into space. As soon as the compartment was empty he led a hose from it to the tank. A pump vibrated and the acid level in the tank began to fall.

Docchi felt the ship lurch familiarly. The ship was older than he thought, the gravity generator more out of date. “Hurry,” he called to Jordan.

In time they’d cut it off. But if gravity went out before they were ready they were in for rough moments. Free floating globes of highly corrosive acid, scattered throughout the ship by air currents, could be as destructive as high velocity meteor clusters.

Jordan tinkered with the pump and then jammed the lever as far as it would go, holding it there. “I think we’ll make it,” he said above the screech of the pump. The machinery gasped, but it won. The throbbing broke into a vacant clatter that betokened the tank was empty. Jordan had the hose rolled away before the gravity generator let the feeling of weight trickle off into nothingness.

As soon as she was weightless Anti rose out of the tank.

In all the time Docchi had known her he had seen no more than a face framed in blue acid. Where it was necessary periodic surgery had trimmed the flesh away. For the rest, she lived submerged in a corrosive fluid that destroyed the wild tissue as fast as it grew. Anyway, nearly as fast.

“Well, junkman, look at a real freak,” snapped Anti.

He had anticipated--and he was wrong in what he thought. It was true humans weren’t meant to grow so large, but Jupiter wasn’t repulsive merely because it was the bulging giant of planets. It was unbelievable and overwhelming when seen close up but it was not obscene. It took getting used to but he could stand the sight of Anti.

“How long can you live out of the acid?” he stammered.

“Can’t live out of it,” said Anti loftily. “So I take it with me. If you weren’t as unobservant as most men you’d see how I do it.”

“It’s a robe of some kind,” said Docchi carefully after studying it.

“Exactly. A surgical robe, the only thing I have to my name. Maybe it’s the only garment in the solar system that will fit me. Anyway, if you’ve really examined it you’ll notice it’s made of a spongelike substance. It holds enough acid to last at least thirty-six hours.”

She grasped a rail and propelled herself toward the passageway. For most people it was spacious enough but not for Anti. However she could squeeze through. And satellites, one glowing and the other swinging in an eccentric orbit, followed after the Jupiter of humans.

Nona was standing in front of the instrument panel when they came back. It was more or less like all panels built since designers first got the hang of what could really be done with seemingly simple components. There was a bewildering array of lights, levers, dials, and indicators in front of her but Nona was interested in none of these. There was a single small switch and dial, separate from the rest, that held her complete attention. She seemed disturbed by what she saw or failed to see. Disturbed or excited, it was difficult to guess which.

Anti stopped. “Look at her. If I didn’t know she’s as bad as the rest of us, in fact the only one who was born that way, it would be easy to hate her. She’s disgustingly normal.”

There was truth in what Anti said--and yet there wasn’t. Surgical techniques that could take bodies apart and put them together with a skill once reserved for machines had made beauty commonplace. There were no more sagging muscles, discolored skin, or wrinkles. Even the aged were attractive and youthful seeming until the day they died, and the day after too. There were no more ill-formed limbs, misshapen bodies, unsightly hair. Everyone was handsome or beautiful. No exceptions.

The accidentals didn’t belong, of course. In another day most of them would have been employed by a circus--if they had first escaped the formaldehyde of the specimen bottle.

And Nona didn’t belong--doubly. She couldn’t be called normal, and she wasn’t a repair job as the other accidentals were. Looked at closely she was an original as far from the average in one direction as Anti was in the other.

“What’s she staring at?” asked Anti as the others slipped past her into the compartment. “Is there something wrong with the little dial?”

“That dial has a curious history,” said Docchi. “It’s not useless, it just isn’t used. Actually it’s an indicator for the gravity drive which at one time was considered fairly promising. It hasn’t been removed because it might come in handy during an extreme emergency.”

“But all that extra weight----”

“There’s no weight, Anti. The gravity drive is run from the same generator that supplies passenger gravity. It’s very interesting that Nona should spot it at once. I’m certain she’s never been in a control room before and yet she went straight to it. She may even have some inkling of what it’s for.”

Anti dismissed the intellectual feat. “Well, why are you waiting here? You know she can’t hear us. Go stand in front of her.”

“How do I get there?” Docchi had risen a few inches now that Jordan had released his grip. He was free floating and helpless, sort of a plankton of space.

“A good engineer would have sense to put on magnetics. Nona did.” Anti grasped his jacket. How she was able to move was uncertain. The tissues that surrounded the woman were too vast to permit the perception of individual motions. Nevertheless she proceeded to the center of the compartment and with her came Docchi.

Nona turned before they reached her. “My poor boy,” sighed Anti. “If you’re trying to conceal your emotions, that’s a very bad job. Anyway, stop glowing like a rainbow and say something.”

It was one time Anti missed. He almost did feel that way and maybe if she weren’t so competent in his own specialty he might have. It was irritating to study and work for so many years as he had--and then to be completely outclassed by someone who did neither, to whom certain kinds of knowledge came so easily it seemed to be inborn. She was attractive but for him something was missing. “Hello,” he said lamely.

Nona smiled at him though it was Anti she went to.

“No, not too close, child. Don’t touch the surgery robe unless you want your pretty face to peel off when you’re not looking.”

Nona stopped; she was close but she may as well have been miles away. She said nothing.

Anti shook her head hopelessly. “I wish she’d learn to read lips or at least recognize words. What can you say to her?”

“She knows facial expressions and actions, I think,” said Docchi. “She’s pretty good at emotions too. She falls down when it comes to words. I don’t think she knows there is such a thing.”

“Then how does she think?” asked Anti, and answered her own question. “Maybe she doesn’t.”

“Let’s not be as dogmatic as psychologists have been. We know she does. What concepts she uses is uncertain. Not verbal, nor mathematical anyway--she’s been tested for that.” He frowned puzzledly. “I don’t know what concepts she uses in thinking. I wish I did.”

“Save some of the worry for our present situation,” said Anti. “The object of your concern doesn’t seem to need it. At least she isn’t interested.”

Nona had wandered back to the instrument panel and was staring at the gravity drive indicator again. There was really nothing there to hold her attention but her curiosity was insatiable and childlike.

And in many ways she seemed immature. And that led to an elusive thought: what child was she? Not whose child--what child. Her actual parents were known, obscure technicians and mechanics, descendants themselves of a long line of mechanics and technicians. Not one notable or distinguished person among them, her family was decently unknown to fame or misfortune in every branch--until she’d come along. And what was her place, according to heredity? Docchi didn’t know but he didn’t share the official medical view.

With an effort Docchi stopped thinking about Nona. “We appealed to the medicouncilor,” he said. “We asked for a ship to go to the nearest star, a rocket, naturally. Even allowing for a better design than we now have the journey will take a long time--forty or fifty years going and the same time back. That’s entirely too long for a normal crew, but it wouldn’t matter to us. You know what the Medicouncil did with that request. That’s why we’re here.”

“Why rockets?” interrupted Jordan. “Why not some form of that gravity drive you were talking about? Seems to me for travel over a long distance it would be much better.”

“As an idea it’s very good,” said Docchi. “Theoretically there’s no upper limit to the gravity drive except the velocity of light and even that’s questionable. If it would work the time element could be cut in fractions. But the last twenty years have proved that gravity drives don’t work at all outside the solar system. They work very well close to the sun, start acting up at the orbit of Venus and are no good at all from Earth on out.”

“Why don’t they?” asked Jordan. “You said they used the same generator as passenger gravity. Those work away from the sun.”

“Sure they do,” said Docchi impatiently. “Like ours is working now? Actually ship internal gravity is more erratic than we had on the asteroid, and that’s hardly reliable. For some reason the drive is always worse than passenger gravity. Don’t ask me why. If I knew I wouldn’t be on Handicap Haven. Arms or no arms, biocompensator or not, I’d be the most important scientist on Earth.”

“With multitudes of women competing for your affections,” said Anti.

“I think he’d settle for one,” suggested Jordan.

“Poor unimaginative man,” said Anti. “When I was young I was not so narrow in my outlook.”

“We’ve heard about your youth,” said Jordan. “I don’t believe very much of it.”

“Talk about your youth and love affairs privately if you want but spare us the details. Especially now, since there are more important things to attend to.” Docchi glowered at them. “Anyway the gravity drive is out,” he resumed. “At one time they had hopes for it but no longer. The present function of the generator is to provide gravity inside the ship, for passenger comfort. Nothing else.

“So it is a rocket ship, slow and clumsy but reliable. It’ll get us there. The Medicouncil refused us and so we’ll have to go higher.”