Equation of Doom Read online

got to be rational. You're ascientist. You've been trained as a scientist. This is their barrier,erected against you, against all humanoids, a million years ago. Itisn't real. It's all in your mind.

  "Do you want me to follow them down?" Ramar Chind asked.

  Garr Symm envied the policeman. Naturally, Ramar Chind did not share histerror. You didn't know the terror until you learned about proto-man;then the response seemed to be triggered in your brain, as if it hadbeen passed to you through the genes of your ancestors, waiting amillion years for release....

  Fear, a guardian.

  Of what? Garr Symm asked himself. Think of that, fool. Think of what itguards.

  Power--

  Teleportation or its equivalent.

  Gone the subjective passage of hours in hyper-space.

  Earned--if you were strong enough or brave enough to earn it--theability to travel instantly from one humanoid world to another.Instantly. Perhaps from any one point on any humanoid world to any onepoint, precise, specific, exact, on another world.

  To plunder.

  Or assassinate.

  Or control the lives of men, everywhere.

  _Sans_ ship.

  _Sans_ fear.

  _Sans_ the possibility of being caught or stopped.

  Sweating, Garr Symm said: "Bring the _Dog Star_ down after them, RamarChind."

  * * * * *

  Ramsey smiled without humor. "What now, little lady?" he said mockingly.

  "Shut up. Oh, shut up!"

  "What are you going to do now?"

  "I told you to shut up. I have to think."

  "I didn't know a gorgeous tri-di actress ever had to think."

  "Let me see those figures again," Margot said.

  Ramsey handed her the tapes from the _Enterprise's_ environment-checker.

  Temperature: minus two hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit.

  Atmosphere: none.

  Gravity: eight-tenths Earth-norm.

  "And we don't have a spacesuit aboard," Ramsey said.

  "But it can't be. It can't. This is the home of proto-man. I know it is.But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of airin minutes."

  "That's right," Ramsey said almost cheerfully. "So do I take the shipback up?"

  "I hate you, Jason Ramsey. Oh, I hate you!" Margot cried. Then suddenly:"Wait! Wait a minute! What was that you were thinking? Tell me! You musttell me--"

  Ramsey shook his head and tried to force the thoughts from his mind withdoggerel. Ben Adam, he thought. Abou Ben Adam, Humpty Dumpty, hurry,hurry, hurry, the only two headed get yours here the sum of the squareof the sides is equal to the square of the hyper-space, no, mustn'tthink that mimsy were the borogroves and the momraths now what the heckdid the momraths do anyhow absolute zero is the temperature at whichall molecular activity....

  "What were you thinking, Ramsey?"

  His mind was a labyrinth. There were thousands of discrete thoughts, ofcourse. Millions of them, collected over a lifetime. But all at once hedid not know his way through that labyrinth and his thoughts keptwhirling back to the one Margot Dennison wanted as if, somehow, shecould pluck it from his mind.

  She stood before him, her brow furrowed, sweat beading her pretty face.

  And she was winning, forcing the thought to take shape in Ramsey'smind--

  _But if I went out there I'd perish from cold in seconds and lack of airin minutes._

  _Cold_, came the known and unbidden thoughts to Ramsey's strugglingmind. _And lack of air. Attributes of extension, of space_, but measuredby duration, by time. _And since time does not exist in hyper-space, thevacuum out there and the terrible, killing cold, could have no effect onyou. You could go out there perfectly protected from the lethalenvironment by the absence of the time dimension._

  Margot smiled at him. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Ramsey."

  He was about to speak, but she added: "And don't give me that stuffabout a power we shouldn't tamper with. I'm going out there. Now."

  Ramsey nodded slowly. "I won't stop you."

  "But just so you don't get any ideas of stranding me here--Vardin.Vardin's going with me."

  The Vegan girl looked at Ramsey mutely.

  * * * * *

  Ramsey said: "What makes you think I'll let you take her?"

  Margot smiled again. "The m.g. gun makes me think so."

  "The heck of it is, you're not really bad, Margot. This thing's got you,is all. You're not essentially evil."

  "Thank you for the thrilling compliment. I'm delighted," Margot saidsarcastically.

  "Vardin stays with me."

  Margot reminded him of the lethal m.g. gun by showing it to him,muzzle-first.

  He laughed in her face. "Go ahead and shoot."

  She stared at him.

  "There isn't a lethal weapon'd do you any good here in a timelesscontinuum. Take an m.g. gun. It induces an artificial breakdown ofradioactive fuel in its chamber, firing an instantly lethal dose ofradiation. But in order for radioactive breakdown to occur, time mustpass. Even if it's only milliseconds, as in the case of an m.g. gun.There aren't any milliseconds on this world, Margot. There isn't anytime. So go ahead and pull the trigger."

  Margot frowned and pointed the gun to one side and fired.

  Nothing happened. Margot almost looked as if her hard shell had beensundered by the impotence of the m.g. gun. She pouted. Her eyes gleamedmoistly.

  Then Ramsey said: "O.K. Let's go."

  "What--what do you mean?"

  "Out there. All of us."

  "But I thought you said--"

  "Sure, I'm scared stiff. A normal man would be. It's in our genes,according to your father. But I'm also a man. What the devil d'you thinkit was first got man out of his cave and started along the road tocivilization and the stars? It was curiosity. Fear restraining him, andcuriosity egging him on. Which do you think won in the end?"

  "Oh, Ramsey, I could kiss you!"

  "Go right ahead," Ramsey said, and she did.

  They opened the airlock. They went outside smiling.

  But Vardin, who went with them, wasn't smiling. There was sadnessinstead.

  * * * * *

  In cumbersome spacesuits, the five Irwadians made their way from the_Dog Star_ to the _Enterprise_. Ramar Chind and his three policemencarried m.g. guns; Garr Symm was unarmed. Chind used a whorl-neutralizerto force the pattern of the lock on the outer door of the _Enterprise's_airlock. Then the five of them plunged inside the ship.

  The inner door was not closed.

  The _Enterprise_ was empty.

  Garr Symm looked doubtfully at the gray murkiness behind them. Althoughthe _Dog Star_ stood out there less than a quarter of a mile away, theycouldn't see it through the murk.

  "Where did they go?" Ramar Chind asked.

  Symm waved vaguely behind them.

  Chind and his men turned around.

  Gritting his teeth against the fear which welled up like nausea from thepit of his stomach, Garr Symm went with them.

  At that moment they all heard the music.

  "You hear it?" Ramsey asked softly. His voice did not carry on theairless world, of course. But he spoke, and the words were understood,not merely by Margot, who could read his mind, but by Vardin as well.

  "Music," said Margot. "Isn't it--beautiful?"

  * * * * *

  Ramsey nodded slowly. He could barely see Margot, although he held herhand. He could barely see Vardin although they stood hand in hand too.The music was un-Earthly, incapable of repetition, indescribably theloveliest sound he had ever heard. He wanted to sink down into theobscuring gray murk and weep and listen to the haunting, sad, lovelystrains of sound forever.

  "What can it possibly be?" Margot asked.

  Surprisingly, it was Vardin who answered. "Music of the Spheres," shesaid. "It's a legend on Vega III, my world."

  "And on Earth," Rams
ey said.

  Vardin told them: "On all worlds. And, like all such legends, it has abasis in reality. This is the basis."

  That didn't sound like timid little Vardin at all. Ramsey listened inamazement. He thought he heard Vardin laugh.

  Music. But didn't the notes need the medium of time in which to beheard? How could they hear music here at all? Or were they hearing it?Perhaps it merely impinged on their minds, their souls, just as theywere able to hear one another's thoughts as words....

  They'd never understand fully, Ramsey knew suddenly. Perhaps they couldgrasp a little of the nature of this place, a shadow here, thehalf-suggestion of the substance of reality there, a stillborn thoughthere, a note of celestial music there, the timeless legacy of