Shetland whirled, paying no more attention to Beeton. He galloped headlong down the corridor, blood pounding in his ears. The shortness of his breath, he knew, was not entirely due to the exertion.
He burst into Somnanda's cabin. And stopped, appalled. The miniature candle, symbol of Earth-contact, was a towering column of fire. Orange light flooded the room, flickering off the walls and illuminating Somnanda's twisted face with demoniac intensity.
Shetland knew instinctively what to do. Terror was destruction to the beacon. He stood there, suppressing every vestige of feeling, quelling his own throbbing pulse with hypnotic waves of peace and security. Members of the crew had fears; these were groundless, based on ignorance. Only the captain had authority to know, and he was not afraid. Not afraid.
Not afraid.
Gradually he extended the oily calm outward. Somnanda was not afraid. No one was afraid. A temporary shock, no more. To be forgotten.
The fearsome color faded. The column dwindled reluctantly, down, down, until it returned to its normal pinpoint above the table.
Somnanda's countenance relaxed. Apparently a disturbance in the beacon represented physical pain to him. His hands remained above the table, fingers splayed, their backs an angry red. His forehead was shining, and rivulets of perspiration were draining down the side of his neck.
"My strength has been overextended," Somnanda said, his words slurred, voice pitched too high. "I can not protect the beacon again. From that."
So formal, even after this, Shetland thought. Yet I must talk to him. As Beeton is to me, so am I to this man of the candle. The tension is within me, and it must come out. And when my brain has translated itself into nervous impulses, and these pulses become the atmospheric vibrations which are meaningful speech sounds, and those sounds have been lost in entropy, then will my problem be over?
"A farmer once lost a sum of money," Shetland said. "He suspected a neighbor's boy of having stolen it, but had not proof. So the farmer went and studied the boy as he went about his chores, trying to determine by observation whether he was in fact the culprit. Though the lad performed his duties in the prescribed manner, there did appear to be something surreptitious in his attitude, as though he were trying to conceal guilt. The farmer returned home convinced. Later he discovered the money where he had forgotten it, in his own home. It had never been stolen. He went again to look at the neighbor's boy, but this time the lad had no guilty look about him."
"The young cartographer looks guilty," Somnanda said.
"He looks guilty," Shetland agreed. "He seemed almost normal until I challenged his evolutionary theory of the universe. Then—this. But I can not condemn a person on such circumstantial evidence. I too, in the last analysis, am afraid."
Somnanda's brow wrinkled. "I am not entirely familiar with this theory. Is there something about it that affects the nature of our voyage?"
Shetland smiled inwardly. In Somnanda's view the purpose of this journey was merely to test the beacon. The validity of one theory of the universe or another would have little bearing on that, unless one theory embodied an inherent threat to the beacon. That threat was real enough—but it stemmed from internal problems, not external.
"The evolutionary theory is one of several evolved—again, no pun—to explain the observed state of the universe," Shetland explained. "There are numberless clusters of galaxies in view from Earth, each retreating from every other one. The situation can only be explained by postulating a general expansion of the entire cosmos. But the nature of this expansion is open to doubt. This particular theory has all matter originating in a gigantic nucleus five billion years ago. When it exploded—"
"Now I understand," Somnanda said. "That would make every galaxy approximately the same age. I had assumed that the more distant ones were older."
"They may well be," Shetland said. "The information we are gathering now may answer that question when we return to Earth. But it is my conjecture that this theory is invalid, because we have already passed the farthest limit the evolutionary universe could have reached, and the pattern has not changed."
"Would this be reason to frighten the cartographer?"
Shetland paced the floor. "I don't understand why. That's what holds me back. The elimination of a single theory should be of no more consequence than the elimination of an invalid strategy in the course of a chess game. An inconvenience, certainly. But hardly frightening."
"Unless the alternative is more dangerous."
"The obvious alternative at this point would be the 'Steady State' theory, which has galaxies continuously forming and being formed outward by the constant appearance of new matter. Since there is no 'beginning' the universe is steady in space and time and does not evolve. Individual galaxies, however, would evolve, and we should discover old ones as well as new ones. And the universe would be somewhat larger."
"Larger?"
"Because the evolutionary universe would be in its infancy, limited by the five-billion-year span since the explosion. But the average galaxy will survive for ten times that length of time, and if we assume the expansion to be exponential, the universe could eventually attain a radius of ten thousand teraparsecs, give or take a decimal or two."
Somnanda digested this. "One teraparsec is—"
"A million megs. But our drive will take us there in just thirty hours."
"That would be the size of the steady state universe, since it is not in its... infancy?"
"If my conjecture is correct. The cartographer, actually, should understand such things better than I. He is attempting to map the universe."
"Perhaps he knows something that we do not."
Shetland paced the floor again. "He never mentioned steady state. It was as though it didn't exist for him."
"Possibly he has reason for his fear. This should be ascertained."
What decision had the captain of the Meg I made? Had he waited until thirty hours to question his "Beeton?" Or had some unthinkable menace consumed his ship at the rim of the steady state cosmos?
The decision of the prior captain had been wrong. How could Shetland improve upon it, in his ignorance?
The ship's clock stood at 25 when Beeton entered the beacon room. "Reporting as directed, sir."
Shetland was afraid to waste time. He watched the candle as he spoke. "I believe you are afraid of something, Beeton, and it is important for me to understand. Such emotion affects the beacon."
Beeton met him with a steady gaze in which there was not a trace of fear. "May I speak frankly, sir?"
When a crewman felt it necessary to address that question to the captain, the result was seldom pleasant. "You are directed to do so."
"I'd like to rephrase the question," Beeton said, dropping the "sir." He was intelligent and had probably anticipated this session. "I think I'm afraid of the same thing you are. Will you admit that much?"
"I am afraid of many things. Continue."
"We fear a very real danger, and it has nothing to do with the beacon. You and I know that there is death waiting for us at the edge of the universe. One ship has already been taken, perhaps others."
Somnanda looked up but held his peace.
"The important thing to realize is that this was no freak accident. We face the same demise, unless we reverse the drive."
"No," Shetland said simply.
Johns poked his head in the entrance. "Am I interrupting something?" he inquired. "My assistant took over long enough for me to inquire—"
"You should listen to this," Beeton said with authority. Somnanda nodded.
Shetland glanced from one to the other. Was there a mute agreement between them? How many were anxious to abort the mission? The situation was uncomfortable.