Next Door, Next World Part 3

After the s.h.i.+p reverted to normal s.p.a.ce in the vicinity of Groombridge 34, Lance hovered about it exactly twelve hours, following all the instructions in his manual to the letter. He started up the cameras and other recording instruments. All went well, there were no incidents, no vessels disturbed him; though had the two components of the binary been at periastron, it would have simplified the work with the position micrometer. If anything else of interest had been detected, it would have to be deciphered from the film and tapes later. You can get as close as four billion miles to an Earth-sized planet in s.p.a.ce--and it'll still show up fainter than a fourteenth magnitude star.

Somewhere in the galaxy, Lance supposed, there must be other races building s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps and guiding them from sun to sun. But thus far, the scout s.h.i.+ps from Terra--for all their magnified caution--had never run into signs of any.

The old veteran hype-pilots had the best philosophy after all. Earth was the choicest hunk of mud you were going to find. _Enjoy it, brethren._

Well, he would certainly live it up when he got back, Lance swore. He would have his wedding; import Casey from the Club to spike the punch; and, perhaps after he'd gotten in his required number of scout-missions, he might even settle for a chair-borne exec's billet, himself.

Exactly twenty-eight days and twelve hours from the time of his departure from Earth, Lance Cooper was back home again. The _Cosmos XII_ re-materialized out of hypers.p.a.ce in the neighborhood of the Solar System with its fuel tanks scarcely a third depleted, but its pilot a drained man. Lance, truthfully, not only felt weary and torpid, but a great deal disappointed.

He contacted Traffic, asked for and got a landing trajectory. A few hours later, he had coasted home and the trip was over.

He scrambled down out of the s.h.i.+p, hungry for Carolyn.

The base hadn't changed any in a month, that he could see. A couple of new floodlights put in, perhaps. Some bra.s.s were emerging from the control bunker. Colonel Sagen, several others. He recognized them all.

Two were SSP's--s.p.a.ce Service Police.

When the colonel got close, Lance tossed off a salute and an insouciant grin: "Well, the Prodigal made it back home, sir. Hope that pessimistic daughter of yours is stashed around somewhere. Otherwise--"

"Otherwise, what?" returned the colonel, unsmiling.

"Why I'm liable to go busting right through that fence," said Lance.

"And say, if anybody's worrying about the _Cosmos XII_, she flew like a dream, colonel. Matter of fact, she--"

Colonel Sagen's jaws snapped together. Wheeling, he barked at the two SSP's: "s.p.a.cemen, arrest this officer! Immediately!"

Lance couldn't believe his ears.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he protested. "What have I done?"

n.o.body answered. Not at first.

"Well?" Lance asked again, a little more uneasy this time.

"I have no daughter, major," Hard-Head Sagen growled, standing with his legs braced apart and his ramrod shoulders looking businesslike. "I never have had."

The s.p.a.ce cops sprang forward. One drew a pistol, held it on the returned pilot, while the other quickly moved behind Lance and pinioned his arms back.

"Is this a joke, colonel?" Lance demanded, struggling. "If it is, I don't appreciate it. You know you've got a daughter, and I'm going to marry her!"

The colonel's jaws clamped tight; and he shook his head from side to side, as if he were dealing with a person suddenly out of his mind. Then he acted.

"Put this man under close confinement," he ordered Lance's guards.

"Allow no visitors of any kind." The colonel's tone was harsh and worried. "I've got to buck this matter to HQ. We can't have it blow up right now, G.o.d knows."

The s.p.a.ce police nudged Lance. "All right, major. Let's go."

Lance's anger seethed to a boil. Hunching his shoulders, he rammed back against the guard holding him, sending him tumbling. What was inside his mind to do if he managed an escape, he couldn't have told. He only knew he had to get away. The colonel had flipped.

And where, by the way, was Carolyn? It seemed impossible she could be in on it, too.

He stood free for a moment, watching warily.

"Hold him!" shouted Colonel Sagen. "Don't let him run loose."

"We got gas pills, colonel," suggested the s.p.a.ce cop Lance had bowled over. The man was rising to his feet.

"Use them."

Lance started to run. Over his shoulder, he saw the guard reach inside a small pocket in his webbed pistol belt. The man gestured to the others to duck back out of harm's way. Then, his throwing arm reared back and sent a pellet sailing in a high arc. It landed at Lance's feet and burst instantly. Yellowish gas billowed out. Its acrid fumes penetrated Lance's throat and nostrils. He began coughing. Then, all the fight suddenly ebbed from him. His knees buckled. He was stumbling, falling.

The sky reeled.

And very indistinctly, from far away, came the colonel's voice, barking: "Put him in the brig until he recovers. I repeat, let n.o.body see him.

And another thing--I declare everything that's happened here today cla.s.sified information. If a single word leaks out, I'll have every man-jack among you placed in solitary and held for court-martial."

Then, Lance knew nothing more.

When at last he recovered consciousness and was able to sit up in a kind of groggy stupor, Lance found himself, for the first time in fifteen service-devoted years, on the inside of a guardhouse looking out.

With sardonic melancholy, he recalled times on his O.D. and O.G. tours when he had inspected various prison areas, peered into the cells, and often felt mildly sorry for some poor s.p.a.ceman doing time for some minor infraction. There had never been very many offenders. Discipline on s.p.a.ce bases was not a pressing problem: the corps was an elite branch and intransigent candidates were weeded out quick.

Well, now he was a prisoner, himself. He, Lance Cooper, Major, s.p.a.ce Service, stood behind bars. And no matter how hard his face pressed against those bars, he could only see as far as the corridor extended in either direction.

It wasn't far enough.

Nor would anybody talk to him. He couldn't even get the time of day.

Not since his probation as a plebe, had he consorted with such a bunch of "hush-mouths." Had he no rights as a commissioned officer and a world citizen? He still didn't know why he was incarcerated, or what regulation he had broken.

But that wasn't his most nagging worry.

What preyed on his mind most was Carolyn.

_Where was she?_

_Where? Where? WHERE?_

He could have lowered his head and pounded it to a pulp against the wall, in his rage and frustration at being confined. But banging his brains out wouldn't help. Besides, he was going to stand deeply in need of his gray matter, if he hoped to get out of this one.

At evening time, a guardhouse trusty brought him his supper on a tray.

Also, the man tossed him half a pack of cigarettes when Lance sought to b.u.m just one. But when the pilot started pitching questions back, the trusty looked scared and unhappy and quickly limped away.

The night dragged on, as unending seemingly as one of Luna's two-week darkouts. Lance smoked, paced the cell from wall to wall, occasionally plopped down on his cot and went over everything that had happened, trying to find some pattern to it.

But there was no pattern.