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23 chapters
STARMAN'S QUEST
STARMAN'S QUEST
The Lexman Spacedrive gave man the stars—but at a fantastic price. Interstellar exploration, colonization, and trade became things of reality. The benefits to Earth were enormous. But because of the Fitzgerald Contraction, a man who shipped out to space could never live a normal life on Earth again. Travelling at speeds close to that of light, spacemen lived at an accelerated pace. A nine-year trip to Alpha Centauri and back seemed to take only six weeks to men on a spaceship. When they returned
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ROBERT SILVERBERG
ROBERT SILVERBERG
Copyright 1958 by Robert Silverberg First Edition. All Rights Reserved This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission, except for brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-8767 MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A....
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Author's Preface
Author's Preface
This was my second novel, which I wrote when I was 19, in my junior year at Columbia. I've written better ones since. But readers interested in the archaeology of a writing career will probably find much to explore here. Robert Silverberg 17 May 2008 FOR BILL EDGERTON 1933-1956...
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Prologue
Prologue
The Lexman Spacedrive was only the second most important theoretical accomplishment of the exciting years at the dawn of the Space Age, yet it changed all human history and forever altered the pattern of sociocultural development on Earth. Yet it was only the second most important discovery. The Cavour Hyperdrive unquestionably would have held first rank in any historical assessment, had the Cavour Hyperdrive ever reached practical use. The Lexman Spacedrive allows mankind to reach Alpha Centaur
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Chapter One
Chapter One
The sound of the morning alarm rang out, four loud hard clear gong-clangs, and all over the great starship Valhalla the men of the Crew rolled out of their bunks to begin another day. The great ship had travelled silently through the endless night of space while they slept, bringing them closer and closer to the mother world, Earth. The Valhalla was on the return leg of a journey to Alpha Centauri. But one man aboard the starship had not waited for the morning alarm. For Alan Donnell the day had
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Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Alan dumped his breakfast dishes into the hopper and walked briskly out of the mess hall. His destination was the Central Control Room, that long and broad chamber that was the nerve-center of the ship's activities just as the Common Recreation Room was the center of off-duty socializing for the Crew. He found the big board where the assignments for the day were chalked, and searched down the long lists for his own name. "You're working with me today, Alan," a quiet voice said. He turned at the
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Chapter Three
Chapter Three
The Valhalla touched down on Earth at 1753 on the nose, to nobody's very great surprise. Captain Mark Donnell had not missed schedule once in his forty ship years in space, which covered a span of over a thousand years of Earth's history. Landing procedure was rigidly set. The Crew debarked by family, in order of signing-on; the only exception to the order was Alan. As a member of the Captain's family—the only other member, now—he had to wait till the rest of the ship was cleared. But his turn c
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Chapter Four
Chapter Four
The next morning, Roger Bond told him all about the dance. "It was the dullest thing you could imagine. Same old people, same dusty old dances. Couple of people asked me where you were, but I didn't tell them anything." "Good." They wandered on through the heap of old, ugly buildings that composed the Starmen's Enclave. "It's just as well they think I was sick," Alan said. "I was, anyway. Sick from boredom." He and Roger sat down carefully on the edge of a crumbling stone bench. They said nothin
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Chapter Five
Chapter Five
He reached the end of the walkway and paused, a little stunned, staring at the incredible immensity of the city spread out before him. "It's a big place," he said. "I've never been in a city this big." "You were born here," Rat reminded him. Alan laughed. "But I only stayed here a week or two at most. And that was three hundred years ago. The city's probably twice as big now as it was then. It——" "Hey, you! Move on!" a harsh voice from behind snapped suddenly. "What's that?" Alan whirled and saw
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Chapter Six
Chapter Six
"I guess I owe you thanks," Alan said. "If they had hauled me off I'd be in real trouble." Hawkes nodded. "They're very quick to lock people up when they don't have work cards. But police salaries are notoriously low. A five-credit bill slipped to the right man at the right time can work wonders." "Five credits, was it? Here——" Alan started to fumble in his pocket, but Hawkes checked him with a wave of his hand. "Never mind. I'll write it off to profit and loss. What's your name, spacer, and wha
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Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
The sign over the office door said REGISTRY OF FREE-STATUS LABOR FORCE, and under that ROOM 1104. Hawkes nudged the door open and they went in. It was not an imposing room. A fat pasty-faced man sat behind a scarred neoplast desk, scribbling his signature on forms that he was taking from an immense stack. The room was lined with records of one sort or another, untidy, poorly assembled. There was dust everywhere. The man at the desk looked up as they entered and nodded to Hawkes. "Hello, Max. Mak
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Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
They ate in a dark and unappealing restaurant three blocks from the Central Directory Matrix Building. The place was crowded, as all Earth places seemed to be. They stood on line for nearly half an hour before being shown to a grease-stained table in the back. The wall clock said 1732. A robowaiter approached them, holding a menu board in its metal hands. Hawkes leaned forward and punched out his order; Alan took slightly longer about it, finally selecting protein steak, synthocoffee, and mixed
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Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Hawkes took a coin from his pocket and dropped it in a slot at the side of the board. It lit up. A crazy, shifting pattern of colored lights passed over it, restless, never pausing. "What happens now?" "You set up a mathematical pattern with these keys," Hawkes said, pointing to a row of enamelled studs along the side of the machine. "Then the lights start flashing, and as soon as they flash—at random, of course—into the pattern you've previously set up, you're the winner. The skill of the game
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Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Alan woke early the next morning, but it was Rat, not Hawkes, who pulled him out of sleep. The little extra-terrestrial was nibbling on his ear. Bleary-eyed, Alan sat up and blinked. "Oh—it's you. I thought you were on a silence strike." "There wasn't anything I wanted to say, so I kept quiet. But I want to say some things now, before your new friend wakes up." The Bellatrician had been silent all the past evening, tagging along behind Alan and Hawkes like a faithful pet, but keeping his mouth c
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Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
They adjourned to a small tavern three doors down 68th Avenue from the games parlor, an old-fashioned tavern with manually operated doors and stuffed moose heads over the bar. Alan and Hawkes took seats next to each other in a booth in back; Steve sat facing them. The barkeep came scuttling out—no robot in here, just a tired-faced old man—and took their orders. Hawkes called for beer, Steve for whiskey; Alan did not order. He sat staring at his brother's oddly changed face. Steve was twenty-six.
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Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
He felt a little emotional pang, something like nostalgia, as the Valhalla came into sight, standing by itself tall and proud at the far end of the field. A cluster of trucks buzzed around it, transferring fuel, bringing cargo. He spotted the wiry figure of Dan Kelleher, the cargo chief, supervising and shouting salty instructions to the perspiring men. Alan tightened his grip on Steve's arm and moved forward. Kelleher shouted, "You men back there, tighten up on that winch and give 'er a hoist!
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Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Things were not quite so easy in the Class B games parlors. Competition was rough. Some of the players were, like Alan, sharp newcomers just up from the bottom of the heap; others were former Class A men who were sliding down again, but still did well enough to hang on in Class B. Every day, some of the familiar faces were gone, as one man after another failed to meet the continuing qualifications for the intermediary class. Alan won fairly steadily—and Hawkes, of course, was a consistent winner
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Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Hawkes took over, explaining the proposition to a now very much awake Alan. "There's going to be a currency transfer at the World Reserve Bank downtown next Friday. At least ten million credits are going to be picked up by an armored truck and taken to branch banks for distribution. "Hollis, here, happens to have found out the wave-patterns of the roboguards who'll be protecting the currency shipment. And Al Webber has some equipment that can paralyze roboguards if we know their operational wave
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Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Alan sat very quietly in the empty apartment that had once belonged to Max Hawkes, and stared at nothing in particular. It was five hours since the abortive robbery. He was alone. The news had been blared out over every form of communication there was; he knew the story by heart. A daring robbery had been attempted, but police detection methods had yielded advance warning, and the robbers had been frustrated. The roboguards had been specially equipped ones which could shift to an alternate wavel
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Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
At the time, he had been much too excited and flustered to answer anything. But, as the next twelve months went by, he learned that being a millionaire was quite pleasant indeed. There were headaches, of course. There was the initial headache of signing his name several hundred times in the course of the transfer of Hawkes' wealth to him. There were also the frequent visits from the tax-collectors, and the payment to them of a sum that staggered Alan to think about, in the name of Rotation Tax.
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Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
The old man's diary was a curious and fascinating document. Alan never tired of poring over it, trying to conjure up a mental image of the queer, plucky fanatic who had labored so desperately to bring the stars close to Earth. Like many embittered recluses, Cavour had been an enthusiastic diarist. Everything that took place in his daily life was carefully noted down—his digestion, the weather, any stray thoughts that came to him, tart observations on humanity in general. But Alan was chiefly int
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Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
Alan brought the Cavour down less than a mile away from the scene of the wreckage—it was the best he could do, computing the landing by guesswork—and climbed into his spacesuit. He passed through the airlock and out into the windswept desert. He felt just a little lightheaded; the gravity was only 0.8 of Earth-norm, and besides that the air in his spacesuit, being perpetually renewed by the Bennerman re-breathing generator strapped to his back, was just a shade too rich in oxygen. In the back of
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Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
It was not difficult for Alan to get the route of the Valhalla , which had been recorded at Central Routing Registration. Every starship was required by law to register a detailed route-chart before leaving, and these charts were filed at the central bureau. The reason was simple: a starship with a crippled drive was a deadly object. In case a starship's drive conked out, it would keep drifting along toward its destination, utterly helpless to turn, maneuver, or control its motion. And if any pl
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