Lord of a Thousand Sun: Space Stories of Poul Anderson (Illustrated). Poul Anderson
other planets. The only thing that's held them back so far is the difficulty of interplanetary logistics. But when you have ships that can cross the orbit of Pluto in a matter of hours or minutes that isn't a problem any longer."
"Tat would be unfortunate, yes. But I am in te midst of a bery new and important train of tought. It would be more unfortunate if tat were lost tan if a few ephemeral Jobians conquered te System. Tey wouldn't last a tousand years, but a genius like me is born once in a million."
Dyann hefted her sword. "Do as Ray says," she advised.
"You dare not hurt me," said Urushkidan with a smug expression, "or you will neber get away."
He went over to the desk and began investigating the drawers again. "Where do tey keep teir tobacco? I cannot work witout my pipe."
"Jovians," said Ray glumly, "don't smoke. They consider it a degenerate habit."
"What?" The Martian's howl rattled the coffeepot on the hotplate. "No tobacco?"
"Only your own supply, back in Ganymede City, and I daresay the Jovians have confiscated and destroyed it by now. That puts the nearest cigar store somewhere in the Asteroid Belt."
"Oh, no! Te new cosmology ruined by tobacco shortage." Urushkidan stood thinking a moment, then came to a sudden decision. "Tere is no help for it. If te nearest tobacco is millions of miles away we must build te faster-tan-light engine at once."
* * * * *
Ray made no attempt to follow the Martian's long-winded equations in detail. What he was interested in was making use of them, and he proceeded with slashing approximations that brought screams of almost physical agony from Urushkidan.
Essentially, though, he recognized that the scientist's achievement lay in making what seemed to be a final correlation of relativity and wave mechanics, something which even the Goldfarb-Olson formulas had not fully reached.
Relativity deals with solid bodies moving at definite velocities which cannot exceed that of light, but in wave mechanics the particle becomes a weird and shadowy psi function and is only probably where it is. In the latter theory, point-to-point transitions are not velocities but shifts in the node of a complex wave. It turned out that the electronic wave velocity—which, unlike the group velocity, is not limited by the speed of light—could be imparted to matter under the right conditions, so that the most probable position of the electron went from point to point at a bewildering rate. The trick was to create the right conditions.
"A field of nuclear space-strain is set up by the circuit, and the ship, reacting against the entire mass of the universe, moves without need of rockets—right?" asked the Earthman.
"Wrong," said Urushkidan.
"Well, we'll build it anyway," said Ray. "Here, Dyann, bring that generator over this way, will you?"
"I vant to go monster-huntin," she sulked.
"Bring—it—over, you lummox!"
Dyann glared, but stooped over the massive machine and, between Ganymedean gravity and Varannian muscles, staggered across the floor with it. Ray was checking circuits on the oscilloscope. Urushkidan sat grumbling about heat and humidity and fanning himself with his ears. The lab was a mess of tubes, condensers, rheostats, and tangled wire.
"I'm stuck," wailed Ray. "I need a resistor having so and so many ohms along with such-and-such a capacitance. Find me one, quick."
"If you would specify your units more precisely—" began Urushkidan huffily.
Ray pawed through the litter on the floor, putting one object after another into his testing circuit, glancing at the meters, and throwing it across the room. "It's vital," he said.
"Vill this do, maybe?" asked Dyann innocently, holding out the ship's one and only frying pan.
"Get out!" screamed Ray.
"I go monster-huntin," she pouted.
Absent-mindedly, Ray tested the frying pan. It was nearly right. By Luna, if he sawed off the handle—
"Hey!" yelped Urushkidan.
"I don't like the thought of eating cold beans, cold canned meat, and raw eggs any better than you," said Ray. "But damn it, we've got to get out of here." He soldered the emasculated pan into his circuit. "Starward the course of human empire," he muttered viciously.
"Martian empire," corrected Urushkidan.
"It'll be Jovian empire if we don't clear out of here. Okay, big brain, what comes next?"
"How should I know? How can you expect me to tink in tis foul tick air, and witout tobacco?" Urushkidan turned his back. Dyann clumped in, spacesuited, sword in one hand and rifle in the other. "I saw monsters out there," she said. "I'm goin out to kill them."
"Oh, yeah, sure," muttered Ray without looking up from his slide rule. "Urushkidan, you've got to calculate the resonant psi function for me."
"Won't," said the Martian.
"By Heaven, you snake-legged bagpipe, I'm the captain here and you'll do as I say."
"Up your rectifier." Urushkidan was emptying his ash tray in search of tobacco shreds.
The airlock clanged behind Dyann. "I'll be damned," murmured Ray. "She really is going out after them."
"It is a good idea," said Urushkidan, a trifle more amiably. "Tey habe sensed te radiations of our ship and are probably coming to crack it open."
"Oh, well, if that's all—Huh?" Ray sprang to the nearest port and looked out.
"Gannydragons," he groaned. "I thought they'd been exterminated."
"Tose two don't seem to know it," said Urushkidan uneasily. "All right, I'll calculate your function for you."
* * * * *
There were two of the monsters moving toward the boat. They looked like thirty feet of long-legged alligator, but the claws and beaks had ripped metal in earlier days of colonization. Dyann lifted her rifle and fired.
A dragon screamed, thin and faint in the wispy atmosphere, and turned his head and snapped. Dyann laughed and bounded closer. Another shot and another....
Something hit her and the gun flew from her hand. The dragon's tail smote again and Dyann soared skyward. As she hit the ground the two monsters leaped for her.
"Ha, Ormun!" she yelled, shaking her ringing head till the ruddy hair flew within the helmet. She crouched low and then sprang.
Up—over the fanged head—striking down with her sword as she went by. The monster whirled after her, greenish blood streaming from the cut and freezing.
Dyann backed against a looming rock, spread her feet and lifted the sword. The first dragon struck at her, mouth agape. Dyann hewed out again, the sword a leaping blaze of steel, the blow smashing home and exploding its force back into her own muscles. The dragon's head sprang from the neck. She rolled under the lashing claws and tail to get free. The headless body struck the other dragon which promptly began to fight it.
Dyann circled warily about the struggle, breathing hard. The live dragon trampled its opponent underfoot, looked around, and charged her. The ground shuddered under its galloping mass. Dyann turned and fled.
The dragon roared hollowly as she went up the long slope of the nearest hill. She saw a high crag and scrambled to its top, the dragon rampaging below her.
"Nyaaah!" She thumbed her faceplate. "Come and get me."
The monster's dim brain finally decided that the ship was bigger and easier prey. Turning, it lumbered down the hillside. Dyann launched herself into the air and landed astride its neck.
The dragon hooted and snapped after her. She climbed higher, grabbed its horn with one gauntleted hand, and hung on for her life. The steed began to run.
Hoo, bang, away over the hills with the moonscape blurring in speed. Wind shrieked thinly about Dyann's