The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iii Part 30

"Wait a minute." He looked wildly about him. Valier hadn't been built with a view toward stowaways; and every cubic inch of s.p.a.ce was crammed with something, except for the pa.s.sageway with its ladder, leading up from the main motor section. Well, if it wasn't over a "g," he could hang on to the ladder. Suit weighs another fifty pounds, though. My weight plus fifty, he thought. "Give me a chance to get set," he said aloud. He hooked one bulbous leg over a ladder rung and braced the other against a lower rung, hugging the ladder with both arms. "Any time you say, but kill it if you hear me holler!"

"Then five seconds from my mark-mark!" Mac tightened his grip, and then sagged backward as the main motors fired. The vibrations shook him slightly but deeply, and he fought to keep his hold. He felt his back creak and pop with the sudden surge of weight. Then the motors shut off, and Mac skidded several feet up the ladder. No matter how fast a man's reactions were, they couldn't be applied quickly enough to keep him from starting an involuntary leap after bracing against a suddenly removed gravity load. "All over, Mac. You O.K.?"

"Guess so, but I feel like a ping-pong ball. How're we sittin'?"

"Just fine," Ruiz cut in. "Find anything?"

"Not yet." Mac started his search anew. Everything seemed in perfect order up to the turbine pumps. Then, he feared, the trouble was near the little motors. That was tough, really tough. With the motors retracted it was next to impossible to get to them, past their hydraulically operated booms and actuators. Extended, he'd have to go outside. He cringed from the thought, although he knew that there was little to fear if he linked himself to the s.h.i.+p.

He peered along the beam of light, searching for some telltale discoloration in wiring, or a gleaming icy patch which would indicate a fuel leak. "Might be the firing plugs," he muttered.

"Let's hope not. Where are you, Mac? Maybe you better give us a blow-by-blow." Logan sounded worried.

"Good idea. Right now I'm at the nine o'clock actuator. Nothing so far." He looked around himself, forgetting for the moment how he was supposed to get past the equipment to the other auxiliary motor stations.

"Johnny," he said slowly, "I think you'd best break out the tapes. Auxiliary motor system; you'll find them under power plant." Months before, MacNamara had made a complete set of tape recordings of his own voice, recorded as he made a thorough-going rundown of every system and its components. This was a personal innovation which his fellow flight engineers considered folly. Extra weight, they scoffed. Undue complication. Mac nodded and went on with his impromptu speechmaking; a professional psychiatrist might have said, correctly, that Mac felt an unconscious need for supervision, a forgivable deficiency dating back to his cadet days. Mac simply claimed that the best of men could forget or omit when alone with a few million dollars' worth of Uncle's equipment. This way he could remind himself of each step to be taken ahead of time, in his own way.

The co-pilot rushed to comply. Mac, waiting, suddenly remembered how to get past his obstacle. Internal braces which helped keep the tanks rigidly in place on Earth were of little use while in "freeloading," or gravity-less, state. The braces were removable, and Mac had loosened a single wing-nut to let the brace swing loose when he heard Johnny Ruiz's answer.

"Ready with your tape, Mac. Where shall I start it?"

"Run it through 'til you get to a blank spot, then another, then stop it." He was certain he didn't really need the tape, but it was a maintenance aid and he was determined to use it.

He heard a click, then a hum, as the recorder was jacked into his headset circuit. Immediately, a familiar voice began a slow dissertation on power leads from the dome, speeded up in the s.p.a.ce of a second or two to a high-pitched alien gibberish, then to a faint scream. He began squirming around the turbine tanks, got past the first brace, and turned to attach it again. Of course it wasn't necessary, but-"PLAY IT SAFE" was embroidered on his brain by years of maintenance experience; back in his old maintenance squadron, he'd been called "the old lady" instead of "the old man," due to his insistence on precautions.

Ruiz slowed the tape suddenly, on cue, and Mac heard himself saying, "... Brace back in its slot and pin it. Be careful of those linkages on the turbine pumps. Now crawl around to the next brace and unpin it." Pause, sc.r.a.ping noises, and a muttered oath. "Pin sticks, but it won't without a load on it." It didn't.

He worked slower than he had on the ground, fumbling with the heavy gloves and cursing mightily. His voice rambled on, warning him of obstacles and reminding him about minor points that could give trouble. He listened carefully, discarding each suggestion.

Floating near the twelve o'clock auxiliary, Mac peered at each tubing connection, tugging and twisting. "Wait a minute," he said. His light flashed out at the motor, riding perched on its swivel, limned against cold, hard points of light that were the stars. His heart gave a bound. "I think I've found it!" His other voice droned on morbidly. "Turn that thing off a minute, Johnny. Listen; there's a lead to the twelve o'clock fuel valve solenoid that looks like ... yes, I'm sure of it. It's pulled away from a bracket and looks like it might be charred." Mac twisted around to view the wiring better.

"Can you fix it?"

"Oh, sure, if that's all there is wrong. But I'd rather do the work with the motors retracted. Tell you what; retract them about forty-five degrees when I give the word."

Mac judged the distance the booms would cover during semiretraction and half floated, half crawled out of the way. He found himself breathing heavily, despite the freeload conditions. His suit was simply too c.u.mbersome. The thought came to him that he didn't even know how long he'd been out of the dome. His breathing oxygen gauge showed half empty, so he must have been on the job for around a half hour. He rationed his supply a bit, hoping he could finish the job without a refill.

"O.K., Johnny, you can run the tape again. And retract the motors while you're at it." He heard the tape start again on its course, watching the booms.

They leaped inward, then, and Mac felt a crus.h.i.+ng blow across his back. He shook his head groggily and yelled.

He tried to scramble from his place between motor and turbine fuel lines without success; he was trapped like a wild animal by the heavy actuator which had swung past his head. He heard himself say, "And be sure to stay clear of the actuator. It swings through a ninety-degree arc when it's operated."

"Oh, shut up! I know it; I just judged it wrong." The tape moved on unperturbedly, reminding him to inspect the actuator bearings and extension rods.

"Mac," came Logan's voice, "you might try to hurry it. If you can't get it fixed in an hour or two, we'll have to try rolling Valier down to the doughnut. But it's up to you, fella. Take your time."

"Well, you might help me a bit by raising this hydraulic unit offa my shoulders. Lucky it didn't squash me." The actuator stayed where it was. "Johnny! Carl! Do you read me?" No answer. Obviously, the actuator had smashed his transmitter, but left the receiver section intact. Then all he could hope for would be a suspicion from one of the others that all was not well. If they asked him any questions and he failed to reply, they'd figure something was wrong. Well, he couldn't count on that.

He struggled with his vulcanized suit, trying to squeeze from under the actuator. If I'd had them retract it completely, he thought, I'd be a dead man. It was a tight squeeze, but he inched his way out of the trap by using every ounce of strength at his command. If his suit tore, he'd know it in a hurry.

Gasping for breath, Mac drew himself into a crouch and regarded the offending wire. His flashlight still operated, and he could see the heavy insulation which had been sc.r.a.ped away. No charring; then it must have been the extension rods that had scissored through the insulation. The wire hung together by a thread, the strands of metal severed completely. He groped for his tool kit, trying to ignore the voice in his headset.

"Well, that takes care of the actuators. Now for these d.i.n.ky motors. The swivel mounts have to work without any lubricant, so look for indications of wear and-"

Mac cursed under his breath. He sounded so c.o.c.ksure, so all-knowing. He felt like beating himself. His earlier self, who had blithely toured Valier trailing the microphone wires without any real premonition of trouble. It always happens to the other guy-Not this time, chum, he reminded himself.

The gloves were systematically foiling his attempts to withdraw the coil of wire at his side. The tool kit was the ultimate in maintenance work, compact and complete with extension handles for the cutters and wrenches. Everything was there, but practically impossible to use. His fingers finally closed over the wire; he jerked it out and with it the splice tool. The little pliers caromed from the brace above him and sailed out toward the motor, beyond the s.h.i.+p. He watched, horrified, as the tool slowly cartwheeled away into s.p.a.ce.

"All right," he muttered, "scratch one splice tool. It was also my only pair of pliers, but I'll manage." He knew he could use the wire cutters in a pinch. "In a pinch," he repeated. "Oh, that's a hot one. That's about all that's happened this trip, so far. Pinch me, pinch the wiring-What a pinch!"

Holding the roll of wire tightly in one hand, he grasped the cutters and pulled them from the kit with utmost care. He unrolled a foot-long section of wire and clipped it off, laying his flashlight in the tool kit so that it would s.h.i.+ne out in front of him. He managed to attach the tiny splice lugs by pinching them with the cutters, then moved cautiously to the wire which still drooped from the jumble of machinery. "Drooped" wasn't precisely the word; actually the wire had been bent into its position and stayed that way.

As the harried major reached for the brace on which the wire had been bracketed, his tool kit vomited flashlight, wrenches and screwdrivers, leaving him in total darkness. His cursing was regular, now, monotonous and uninspired. There was another pencil light in the kit, snapped tightly to the case, and Mac reached for the whole business. The spare light was a maintenance problem in itself. Question: How to retrieve a fountain pen sized object, when it's held by a small snap and the retriever is enc.u.mbered by three pairs of arctic mittens?

Mac saw his errant flashlight out of the corner of his eye, its beam fastened on a collapsed screw driver while both swam sluggishly toward the inspection ladder. He located the pencil light and jerked it loose, holding the short wire and cutters in his other hand.

This, Mac knew, was the crucial point. If he could splice the wire hanging in front of him, Valier would once more be in perfect shape. He would have welcomed an extra hand or two, as he straddled a brace and shoved the tiny flash between his headpiece and shoulder fabric. The wire should be stripped, he knew, but he hadn't the tools. They were scarcely ten feet from him, but could have rested atop the Kremlin for all the good they did him. He got most of the strands of one end of wire shoved into a splice lug, and called it good enough. It was like trying to thread a needle whose eye was deeper than it was wide, while in a diving suit, using the business end of a paintbrush to start the thread.

He withdrew one hand and searched the kit for friction tape. It might be mentioned that an insulating tape which would be adhesive at minus two hundred degrees centigrade yet keep its properties at plus one thousand, was the near culmination of chemical science. Silicon plastic research provided the adhesive, an inert gum which changed almost none through a fantastic range of temperatures and pressures. The tape Mac used to insure his connection had an asbestos base, with adhesive gum insinuated into the tape. He wrapped the wire tightly, then bound it to the brace. He noticed his visor fogging up and felt a faint, giddy sensation. Anoxemia! He let the tape drift as he reached for his regulator dial. What a fool he was, he thought, to starve his lungs. He turned the dial to emergency maximum and gulped precious liters of oxygen-helium mixture. The gauge showed a store of the gas which might possibly be enough to last him, if nothing else went wrong; perhaps ten minutes.

The pencil flash, mercifully, still rested in a fold of his shoulder joint fabric. The insulation tape floated near his waist; he grabbed it and stowed it between his knee and the brace, then reached once again for the wiring.

This time the splice went on without a hitch. He pinched the splice lug and taped the whole works feverishly. It was done; he had won. The trip back should take only a couple of minutes. Replacing the wire cutters in his kit, he held the pencil flash before him and started retracing his route.

He pa.s.sed the twelve o'clock brace, pinned it in place again and saw one of his tools floating to the right of his head. He gathered it in and swept his tiny flash around in search of other jetsam from his tool kit. He collected a wrench and the skittish flashlight, started toward the last brace between him and the ladder, and felt his legs go limp. He wasn't particularly alarmed about it; his arms and vision failed him too, but his brain hadn't enough incoming oxygen to care much, one way or the other. The few remaining feet seemed to lengthen into a sewerlike pa.s.sageway, then vanished as did all else as his perceptions died.

MacNamara was not the sort to wonder about heaven or h.e.l.l when he first awoke. He saw a faintly rounded ceiling, a soft yellow tint accentuating its featurelessness. "How the devil-", he began. His voice failed him.

"Hi, Mac." Logan's beaming face loomed over him. "You rugged character, you. Cold as a pickle an hour ago, and already you're askin' silly questions." He held up his hand as Mac started to speak. "I hear you thinkin'. 'How the devil did I get here, and where is here?' In reverse order, this is the most comfortable berth in the doughnut's facilities, and you got here courtesy of one Johnny Ruiz. Myself, I wouldn't have taken the trouble."

Mac grinned back at his pilot and cleared his throat. "Well, where is he? I wanta shake his hand, or give him half my kingdom, or something."

"You know Johnny; the shy type. He'll be along after a while. You know, I think he kinda likes you; when you quit transmitting out there, Johnny was like a cat on a hot skillet. Finally decided to go back and have a look for himself, but I told him you probably had a hot game of solitaire going. Anyway, he went back and found you asleep on the job, and lost a good ten pounds getting your fat carca.s.s through the air lock." That was a job that must have taxed both Ruiz and Logan, but Mac held his silence. "And that was about the size of it. Valier's parked outside with some of the boys, good as ever. Come on, we'll sop up some coffee."

Mac swung himself up to a sitting position and realized dizzily that he was mother-naked. His ribs felt pulverized. "You guys sure mauled me up," he said accusingly.

"Unavoidable, my dear grease-monkey. You needed a little artificial respiration; I never was too good at that."

"Well, whoever did the job rates a prize of some sort," Mac answered, "but my ribs tell me he had more enthusiasm than practice."

Logan smiled his old familiar smile, relieved to find his engineer in joking spirits. "The credit again goes to Johnny. But," he added, "try not to be too hard on him. Try giving artificial respiration to a big lump like yourself sometime, without any gravity."

Mac digested this tidbit as he pulled on a fresh pair of coveralls. "O.K.," he said, standing on the foamex "floor." "How did he do it?"

"Strapped you into your couch face down and locked his legs around it. I didn't dare apply any g's. Come on," he finished, "you've managed to upset every timetable in the project. Johnny's shaking like a leaf, or was when I left him. A bulb of coffee will do us both a world of good."

"I'm sold," Mac grunted, zipping up a flight boot. "But there's something I'd like to do, first chance I get."

"Which is?"

"Which is jettison every last strip of tape I have in Valier. I tell you, Logan," he went on as they entered the recreation bar, "you'll never know how degrading it is to hear useless, insipid information offered to you when you're in a tight spot, knowing full well the voice is your own!"

THE END.

Contents

THE JAMESON SATELLITE.

By NEIL R. JONES

The mammoths of the ancient world have been wonderfully preserved in the ice of Siberia. The cold, only a few miles out in s.p.a.ce, will be far more intense than in the polar regions and its power of preserving the dead body would most probably be correspondingly increased. When the hero-scientist of this story knew he must die, he conceived a brilliant idea for the preservation of his body, the result of which even exceeded his expectations. What, how, and why are cleverly told here.

PROLOGUE.

The Rocket Satellite In the depths of s.p.a.ce, some twenty thousand miles from the earth, the body of Professor Jameson within its rocket container cruised upon an endless journey, circling the gigantic sphere. The rocket was a satellite of the huge, revolving world around which it held to its...o...b..t. In the year 1958, Professor Jameson had sought for a plan whereby he might preserve his body indefinitely after his death. He had worked long and hard upon the subject.

Since the time of the Pharaohs, the human race had looked for a means by which the dead might be preserved against the ravages of time. Great had been the art of the Egyptians in the embalming of their deceased, a practice which was later lost to humanity of the ensuing mechanical age, never to be rediscovered. But even the embalming of the Egyptians--so Professor Jameson had argued--would be futile in the face of millions of years, the dissolution of the corpses being just as eventual as immediate cremation following death.

The professor had looked for a means by which the body could be preserved perfectly forever. But eventually he had come to the conclusion that nothing on earth is unchangeable beyond a certain limit of time. Just as long as he sought an earthly means of preservation, he was doomed to disappointment. All earthly elements are composed of atoms which are forever breaking down and building up, but never destroying themselves. A match may be burned, but the atoms are still unchanged, having resolved themselves into smoke, carbon dioxide, ashes, and certain basic elements. It was clear to the professor that he could never accomplish his purpose if he were to employ one system of atomic structure, such as embalming fluid or other concoction, to preserve another system of atomic structure, such as the human body, when all atomic structure is subject to universal change, no matter how slow.

He had then soliloquized upon the possibility of preserving the human body in its state of death until the end of all earthly time--to that day when the earth would return to the sun from which it had sprung. Quite suddenly one day he had conceived the answer to the puzzling problem which obsessed his mind, leaving him awed with its wild, uncanny potentialities.

He would have his body shot into s.p.a.ce enclosed in a rocket to become a satellite of the earth as long as the earth continued to exist. He reasoned logically. Any material substance, whether of organic or inorganic origin, cast into the depths of s.p.a.ce would exist indefinitely. He had visualized his dead body enclosed in a rocket flying off into the illimitable maw of s.p.a.ce. He would remain in perfect preservation, while on earth millions of generations of mankind would live and die, their bodies to molder into the dust of the forgotten past. He would exist in this unchanged manner until that day when mankind, beneath a cooling sun, should fade out forever in the chill, thin atmosphere of a dying world. And still his body would remain intact and as perfect in its rocket container as on that day of the far-gone past when it had left the earth to be hurled out on its career. What a magnificent idea!

At first he had been a.s.sailed with doubts. Suppose his funeral rocket landed upon some other planet or, drawn by the pull of the great sun, were thrown into the flaming folds of the incandescent sphere? Then the rocket might continue on out of the solar system, plunging through the endless seas of s.p.a.ce for millions of years, to finally enter the solar system of some far-off star, as meteors often enter ours. Suppose his rocket crashed upon a planet, or the star itself, or became a captive satellite of some celestial body?

It had been at this juncture that the idea of his rocket becoming the satellite of the earth had presented itself, and he had immediately incorporated it into his scheme. The professor had figured out the amount of radium necessary to carry the rocket far enough away from the earth so that it would not turn around and crash, and still be not so far away but what the earth's gravitational attraction would keep it from leaving the vicinity of the earth and the solar system. Like the moon, it would forever revolve around the earth.

He had chosen an orbit sixty-five thousand miles from the earth for his rocket to follow. The only fears he had entertained concerned the huge meteors which careened through s.p.a.ce at tremendous rates of speed. He had overcome this obstacle, however, and had eliminated the possibilities of a collision with these stellar juggernauts. In the rocket were installed radium repulsion rays which swerved all approaching meteors from the path of the rocket as they entered the vicinity of the s.p.a.ce wanderer.

The aged professor had prepared for every contingency, and had set down to rest from his labors, reveling in the stupendous, unparalleled results he would obtain. Never would his body undergo decay; and never would his bones bleach to return to the dust of the earth from which all men originally came and to which they must return. His body would remain millions of years in a perfectly preserved state, untouched by the h.o.a.ry palm of such time as only geologists and astronomers can conceive.

His efforts would surpa.s.s even the wildest dreams of H. Rider Haggard, who depicted the wondrous, embalming practices of the ancient nation of Kor in his immortal novel, "She," wherein Holly, under the escort of the incomparable Ayesha, looked upon the magnificent, lifelike masterpieces of embalming by the long-gone peoples of Kor.

With the able a.s.sistance of a nephew, who carried out his instructions and wishes following his death, Professor Jameson was sent upon his pilgrimage into s.p.a.ce within the rocket he himself had built. The nephew and heir kept the secret forever locked in his heart.

Generation after generation had pa.s.sed upon its way. Gradually humanity had come to die out, finally disappearing from the earth altogether. Mankind was later replaced by various other forms of life which dominated the globe for their allotted s.p.a.ces of time before they too became extinct. The years piled up on one another, running into millions, and still the Jameson Satellite kept its lonely vigil around the earth, gradually closing the distance between satellite and planet, yielding reluctantly to the latter's powerful attraction.

Forty million years later, its...o...b..t ranged some twenty thousand miles from the earth while the dead world edged ever nearer the cooling sun whose dull, red ball covered a large expanse of the sky. Surrounding the flaming sphere, many of the stars could be perceived through the earth's thin, rarefied atmosphere. As the earth cut in slowly and gradually toward the solar luminary, so was the moon revolving ever nearer the earth, appearing like a great gem glowing in the twilight sky.

The rocket containing the remains of Professor Jameson continued its endless travel around the great ball of the earth whose rotation had now ceased entirely--one side forever facing the dying sun. There it pursued its lonely way, a cosmic coffin, accompanied by its funeral cortege of scintillating stars amid the deep silence of the eternal s.p.a.ce which enshrouded it. Solitary it remained, except for the occasional pa.s.sing of a meteor flitting by at a remarkable speed on its aimless journey through the vacuum between the far-flung worlds.

Would the satellite follow its...o...b..t to the world's end, or would its supply of radium soon exhaust itself after so many eons of time, converting the rocket into the prey of the first large meteor which chanced that way? Would it some day return to the earth as its nearer approach portended, and increase its acceleration in a long arc to crash upon the surface of the dead planet? And when the rocket terminated its career, would the body of Professor Jameson be found perfectly preserved or merely a crumbled mound of dust?

CHAPTER I.

40,000,000 Years After Entering within the boundaries of the solar system, a long, dark, pointed craft sped across the realms of s.p.a.ce towards the tiny point of light which marked the dull red ball of the dying sun which would some day lie cold and dark forever. Like a huge meteor it flashed into the solar system from another chain of planets far out in the illimitable Universe of stars and worlds, heading towards the great red sun at an inconceivable speed.

Within the interior of the s.p.a.ce traveler, queer creatures of metal labored at the controls of the s.p.a.ce flyer which juggernauted on its way towards the far-off solar luminary. Rapidly it crossed the orbits of Neptune and Ura.n.u.s and headed sunward. The bodies of these queer creatures were square blocks of a metal closely resembling steel, while for appendages, the metal cube was upheld by four jointed legs capable of movement. A set of six tentacles, all metal, like the rest of the body, curved outward from the upper half of the cubic body. Surmounting it was a queer-shaped head rising to a peak in the center and equipped with a circle of eyes all the way around the head. The creatures, with their mechanical eyes equipped with metal shutters, could see in all directions. A single eye pointed directly upward, being situated in the s.p.a.ce of the peaked head, resting in a slight depression of the cranium.

These were the Zoromes of the planet Zor which rotated on its way around a star millions of light years distant from our solar system. The Zoromes, several hundred thousand years before, had reached a stage in science, where they searched for immortality and eternal relief from bodily ills and various deficiencies of flesh and blood anatomy. They had sought freedom from death, and had found it, but at the same time they had destroyed the propensities for birth. And for several hundred thousand years there had been no births and few deaths in the history of the Zoromes.

This strange race of people had built their own mechanical bodies, and by operation upon one another had removed their brains to the metal heads from which they directed the functions and movements of their inorganic anatomies. There had been no deaths due to worn-out bodies. When one part of the mechanical men wore out, it was replaced by a new part, and so the Zoromes continued living their immortal lives which saw few casualties. It was true that, since the innovation of the machines, there had been a few accidents which had seen the destruction of the metal heads with their brains. These were irreparable. Such cases had been few, however, and the population of Zor had decreased but little. The machine men of Zor had no use for atmosphere, and had it not been for the terrible coldness of s.p.a.ce, could have just as well existed in the ether void as upon some planet. Their metal bodies, especially their metal-encased brains, did require a certain amount of heat even though they were able to exist comfortably in temperatures which would instantly have frozen to death a flesh-and-blood creature.

The most popular pastime among the machine men of Zor was the exploration of the Universe. This afforded them a never ending source of interest in the discovery of the variegated inhabitants and conditions of the various planets on which they came to rest. Hundreds of s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps were sent out in all directions, many of them being upon their expeditions for hundreds of years before they returned once more to the home planet of far-off Zor.

This particular s.p.a.ce craft of the Zoromes had entered the solar system whose planets were gradually circling in closer to the dull red ball of the declining sun. Several of the machine men of the s.p.a.ce craft's crew, which numbered some fifty individuals, were examining the various planets of this particular planetary system carefully through telescopes possessing immense power.

These machine men had no names and were indexed according to letters and numbers. They conversed by means of thought impulses, and were neither capable of making a sound vocally nor of hearing one uttered.

"Where shall we go?" queried one of the men at the controls questioning another who stood by his side examining a chart on the wall.

"They all appear to be dead worlds, 4R-3579," replied the one addressed, "but the second planet from the sun appears to have an atmosphere which might sustain a few living creatures, and the third planet may also prove interesting for it has a satellite. We shall examine the inner planets first of all, and explore the outer ones later if we decide it is worth the time."

"Too much trouble for nothing," ventured 9G-721. "This system of planets offers us little but what we have seen many times before in our travels. The sun is so cooled that it cannot sustain the more common life on its planets, the type of life forms we usually find in our travels. We should have visited a planetary system with a brighter sun."

"You speak of common life," remarked 25X-987. "What of the uncommon life? Have we not found life existent on cold, dead planets with no sunlight and atmosphere at all?"

"Yes, we have," admitted 9G-721, "but such occasions are exceedingly rare."

"The possibility exists, however, even in this case," reminded 4R-3579, "and what if we do spend a bit of unprofitable time in this one planetary system--haven't we all an endless lifetime before us? Eternity is ours."