Rocket to Limbo

Then Lars was scrambling into the upper acceleration cot. Thickly padded straps closed around his arms, shoulders, hips and legs as he gulped the green capsules and waited, listening to the steady thrum-thrum-thrum of the idling motors far below.

It seemed like hours before the wall-speaker began a broken signal in a slow monotonous rhythm. Beep—beep—beep— The lights flickered and went out, and still they waited.

Suddenly Lars realized that he was frightened. Sweat stood out on his forehead; every muscle in his body was tense. This was no jaunt to the Moon, no quick run to Mars or Titan. This was a Star-jump, the moment he had waited for since he was a little boy watching the flare of rockets rising from the southern sky. His mind was whirling with wonder and excitement. To the stars, he thought, and the thought echoed back in the darkness with a sharp chill of apprehension: To what star?

Vega?

Or somewhere else?

Suddenly the thrum-thrum-thrum rose in pitch, growing rapidly faster, louder. At first Lars thought he was suddenly sleepy as he sank back into the soft bunk padding. His body was heavy, his eyelids sagged, his face— But it wasn’t sleep. A huge, unbearable feathery weight was pressing him down, crushing him, smothering him. He could hardly draw air into his lungs.

There was a shift, a jolt, as the pressure eased momentarily, then slammed him harder yet. We’re aloft, he thought wildly. On atomics now. Too late to go back. He felt the powerful thrust of the engines driving through him until his whole body was vibrating with the ship.

Minutes passed. The pressure grew. He tried to move his head, but it was pressed with the terrible weight of acceleration against the headrest. I can’t breathe, he thought. How long—?

Then, suddenly, the pressure was gone and a new sensation replaced it. He felt himself growing big, huge, mammoth as the room and bunk around him seemed to shrink away. He had a sensation of falling steeply, giddily away, away from himself, away from everything. A rhythmic vibrato had begun, deep within his body and mind, growing faster, shaking him, frightening and deadly in its intensity. He tried to scream, but no sound came from his throat, only the silent vibration growing stronger every instant.

And then he knew what it was: the Koenig drive, thrusting the ship out into space with incredible speed, peeling light years away, shearing out beyond the bounds of light-speed and dimension, ramming the ship through a distortoin of space itself.

To the stars—

They were aloft. Outside was nothingness. For two months their ship would be enclosed in a protective cocoon of energy, shielding them from forces beyond it that could wrench them into shapeless atoms. They were in space, en route at last.

As Lars sank back into the darkness of first-stage reaction to the drive, the thought drifted hazily through his mind. To where? If not Vega, what star? For what purpose? With what strange cargo in the hold, wrapped snugly in six inch blankets of lead What conceivable cargo—

Vaguely the thought drifted from his grasp as he tried to find an answer, then slammed back sharply into focus. His eyes flew open and he stared into the darkness.

He knew the answer. There was only one thing the cargo could be. The ship was carrying bombs. Thermonuclear bombs, outlawed on Earth for centuries.

But why?

As he sank helplessly into sleep, no answer came to that question.

Chapter Three Rocket To Limbo

He was neither asleep nor awake. For eons it seemed that he lay still, enveloped in softness, yearning for sleep that did not quite come. The thunder and thrum of engines had taken on a musical quality, a militant beat repeated over and over and over like an ancient disc record caught in a groove.

Around him was blackness, impenetrable space blackness, but there were no stars, no planets. Muffled sounds came to him that he could not identify, and he felt waves of nausea passing through him. Then, with incredible suddenness the blackness was shattered by a piercing light as a first-magnitude star burst into violent flame, sending out streamers of color.

Lars opened his eyes, and the immensity of space collapsed around him, shrinking into the tiny bunk compartment, and the star became the wall light. John Lambert was standing by his bunk, swabbing his arm with alcohol.

“What—?”

“Just lie still and try to relax,” Lambert said gently. “You’ll be out of it.”

Lars tried to sit up, but the straps still held him down. “Out of it? Out of what?”

“Reaction, of course.” Lampert swabbed his arm again and set the syringe aside. “Koenig drive sets up some very odd sensations, particularly if you’ve never been through it before. Feeling better now?”