He applied the notes to the game in his mind. They checked. But the moves were not as he would have made them. They started at the present position, but the style was radically different. Beeton had said he could win with White—and these notes, incredibly, proved it. Beginning with a highly questionable queen sacrifice, White forged to a forced advantage in the game's thirtieth move. The series violated many of the tenets of good positional play—yet, he saw now, was quite valid.
He would not use it, of course; the genius was not rightfully his. But he would show this interesting lesson to Somnanda: how independent and bold foresight could convert a certain loss into victory. Book play was not always valid.
By the thirtieth move.
Coincidence?
Or a message that his stupidity had prevented Beeton from delivering? Was it natural to assume that such a brilliant mind had been mistaken, in the one case that counted? Or had the cartographer's terrible fear been based on fact, not fancy—while the distortion merely prevented him from making himself sufficiently clear?
Had Johns also, finally, responded to the actual message, seen its validity?
Assume, for the sake of argument, that Beeton had been right. That death did wait at the thirtieth hour. That the situation was hopeless because the man in charge refused to deviate from the book, from his orders, no matter what.
In chess, the answer had been a total revision of strategy. The book had to be thrown away. In life—
The chessboard image in his mind faded into a figurative map of the universe. Galaxies of the steady state hurtled outward, born in the center as pawns, dying of old age at the rim as kings.
And then, as it were, the pieces came to life. The pawns were babies, the kings old men. The board, which was the universe, became a city without buildings. The babies were born spontaneously in the center and crawled busily in all directions. As they made their way outward they grew into children, and some had bishop's hats and some had horse's heads. Farther out they developed into men and women, and the men were castles and the women queens.
Finally the old kings staggered to the rim to die. The size of this city was governed by the age of the inhabitants. Where they became too old to go out farther, the city ended. Most of them died at fifty moves. The rim was a desolate grave. There was no one to bury the bodies; where they fell, they lay, they rotted, and the white bones guarded the memory of what had been.
Then, incredibly, a child appeared at the rim. By some freak it had by-passed age and entered the domain of death long before its time. A child named "Meg."
The ancient bones quivered with rage. No living thing should be allowed to desecrate the mighty graveyard. The angry spirits gathered their forces, concentrated their ghastly energies, opened their ponderous jaws and said:
"Captain! Captain!"
It was Somnanda. Shetland shook himself awake to see the beacon room. The yellow light was rampaging again, and this time he himself was the cause.
"Reverse the drive!" he shouted into the intercom.
Now it was 16.49—but it was speed, not time. Once more the captain of the Meg II stood behind the pilot, pretending that nothing had happened.
"Captain," Johns said. "Captain—I want to say something."
What was there for this man to say? That he resented being gassed, then revived to learn that his assistant had reversed the drive at 29.34, on the orders of that same captain who had shot the pilot down for urging this?
"Captain, I just wanted to apologize. I don't know what came over me. I never lost my head like that before. I don't believe in ghosts. I just—somehow I couldn't—what I mean is, you did the only thing you could do, and I can see that you were right all the time. I'm sorry I forgot."
Johns was apologizing for his own distortion, now that it had abated with the speed of the ship, and he was able to see it for what it was. A distortion that was not his own fault.
"We were all a little on edge," Shetland said, discovering that his dislike of the pilot was gone. Was there any point in trying to explain?
16.36. Thirteen hours of deceleration, with the Meg II traveling at only a tenth its former speed with every hour that the clock subtracted. And still approaching a rendezvous of terror with fantastic velocity. Twenty-nine hours of deceleration would bring it to a halt in space, at almost the exact spot they would have passed in the thirtieth hour of acceleration. The exponential series that was the drive was a remarkable thing.
16.34. Only when they came to a dead halt, relative to their starting point, could they release the drive and apply the chemical maneuvering rockets, in order to turn the ship around and begin the home journey. Then back, accelerating once more to—
Hell broke loose.
The ship bucked violently, flinging Shetland to the far wall. Shooting pains went through his left shoulder as another upheaval bounced him on the floor. An agonized keening sounded in his ears, and a red fog clouded his brain, seeming to obscure all vision above the horizontal. Dimly he saw the pilot's legs wrapped around the bolted-down stool; Johns, more alert than his captain, had held his position. There was the smell of burning insulation in the air.
"Cut the drive!" Shetland roared. He tried to stand up, but the heaving room brushed him aside. The clamor of the suit-alert began; the hull had been pierced.
"Captain," Johns' voice drifted back from a far distance: "We're in FTL. We can't—"
"CUT THE DRIVE!"
Johns moved his hand, and miraculously the ship was quiet. Shetland lurched to his feet, heedless of the pain.
The alarm had ceased. Someone must have repaired the damage already. That man would get a commendation. Shetland's hands, of their own volition, groped for and found the archaic regulation fire extinguisher, not obsolete after all, as smoke curled up from the panel. Suddenly the unit was blasting noxious foam all over his boots. He turned it, already feeling the biting cold; crystals of ice flew off like broken glass as he tramped toward the control panel.
"Stop, Captain!" Johns cried. "No need, no need. The power is off."
Shetland lowered the extinguisher. Now he had time to assess his injuries. Pain, for the moment, was masked; it was there, but the enormity of it would only be felt later. He was surprised to discover no blood. He felt along his left arm, realizing that the trouble with the extinguisher had been due to his one-handed control. The left hand was useless, though there were no breaks.
"Captain." Why did he always drift into contemplation, even in a crisis? "Captain—" the pilot's voice was shocked. "The instruments are registering!"
"That's what they're for," Shetland said shortly.
"But we're in FTL!" Johns, so capable in the crisis, was now falling apart. "The drive is off. The shield is down. Why aren't we dead?"
Shetland had understood the situation the moment the ship bucked. But he was not certain he could explain it to the pilot readily. Johns might have difficulty accepting the truth.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" he inquired. Johns stiffened. He had already denied superstition. Shetland sympathized; but this was necessary.
"No, sir," the pilot said.
"Look at your instruments," Shetland commanded. "Tell me what's out there."
Johns looked. "We're approaching an object of galactic scope at just under the speed of light. Approximate mass—" He faltered.
"Go on, Pilot."
"Sir, I think the instrument is broken."
Shetland replied with deliberate cruelty. "Do I have to teach you elementary navigation? Where are the warning lights? You know the instrument is not broken."