Home is the Spaceman

Enright set the interstellar spacecraft down on the runway without a bump and rode the brakes to a stop. With a resentful flourish he parked his hat at an angle on his skull, ironed his cheerful features into a mirthless stoneface, and left his ship. He sealed the spacelock carefully. Then he dropped to the concrete parking block and waited for the official spaceport car to come along the taxiway for him.

The driver greeted him with a grin. "Glad to see you back, Captain." He held out a hand which Enright shook firmly. "How was it--out There?"

The other man in the car frowned and snapped, "Captain Enright, do not answer! Mister Forrester, you will open and show me your right hand!"

Enright grunted. He knew the other man and so he said, "Look, Tom, I'm not playing any games. Or should I address you as Executive Horne? I did not pass Ed Forrester any notes, data, or pictures. I was merely shaking hands."

"We're all under orders," said Horne. "And your orders are to say nothing to anybody. Even me."

"Call me Captain Clam," said Billy Enright. "Is there any ruling against you passing me a cigarette?"

"Er--Mister Forrester, you will witness this. I have been asked for a cigarette. I am going to comply. However, you will note carefully that Captain Enright did light this cigarette and smoke it, thus burning its contents and obviating any possible exchange of information from me to him. Agreed?"

Enright blurted: "What the hell am I, a prisoner of war?"

"No comment. Please follow your orders," said Executive Horne. He did hold out a lighter for Enright, who puffed deeply with appreciation. The car delivered them to the Administration Building of Mojave Spaceport by the time Enright finished his smoke. He snubbed the butt carefully and handed it to the driver, along with a small pile of gray ash. "Preserve these remains, Mister Forrester. At least until I have been paroled. Affirmed, Executive Horne?"

"Affirmed. Now, come along, Captain."

He led Billy Enright into the building and upstairs, along a corridor and into a large conference room. Enright looked at a long table, around which were most of the big gold braid of Mojave Spaceport, a couple of space admirals from his project--Operation Interstellar--and three men in conservative business dress. The man at the head of the table was Space Admiral Meldrum, who had been the first man to set a foot on the Moon some forty years ago.

"Gentlemen, this is Captain William Enright, test pilot of the Interstellar Spacecraft One, Operation Interstellar. Captain Enright, the Board of Inquiry." The admiral named them around the table. The only one Billy knew was Commodore Hogan; the rest he only recognized by name, other than the top brass of his own project. He nodded affably, then Billy frowned and asked:

"This looks formidably formal, sir. Am I to be represented by someone appointed in my favor?"

Admiral Meldrum shook his head. "This is no Court Military," he said. "This is a Court of Inquiry. You would have faced this court if you had returned home on schedule, to deliver your report. There have been no charges made formally. If your explanation is adequate, there will be none. This meeting will be informal. If you can show just cause for returning eighteen months late from a twelve-hour mission, no charges will be made. Now, Captain Enright, please deliver your report, beginning at the beginning?"

"Certainly. At 1200 hours, on 4 March 2014, I took off from the Earth in the first spacecraft capable of driving faster than the velocity of light. I--"

"One moment, Captain," asked one of the men in civilian dress. Enright blinked and saw that the man's name was Harness. E. D. Harness, Senator, Chairman of the Committee on Special Affairs and so forth. Enright nodded, and the senator went on: "My scientific knowledge is sketchy. I was taught that nothing can exceed the speed of light."

"You were taught prior to Bergenholm's discovery of the nullification of mass," smiled Enright. "Mass increases, in accordance with Einstein's equations, as the velocity approaches the speed of light, so that the mass becomes infinite when the velocity of light is reached. But when mass is nullified, or reduced to zero--" Billy Enright spread his hands amusedly, "--you can multiply it all night and a hundred billion times zero is still zero."

"And the drive?"

"A standard reaction motor of the rocket type. Since the ship's mass is zero, its inertia is also zero and therefore the thrusting force of an infant can move zero mass and inertia if need be."

Senator Harness nodded. "Then with any kind of reaction thrust you could achieve infinite velocity because the mass and inertia are zero?"

"If we were passing through a completely unresisting medium, what you say would be true. But even the deepest part of interstellar space still contains a good many atoms per cubic centimeter. We found this almost-perfect vacuum a resisting medium to a spacecraft going faster than light."

"And so what was your estimated velocity?"

"About sixty-three light years per hour," replied Billy Enright.

The senator nodded as though he were satisfied, but he asked one more question: "Captain Enright, do you know the main purpose of your mission?"

"Certainly. Until the discovery of the faster than light drive, mankind was forever trapped on the Earth. One by one we have landed on the several planets and their satellites only to find them hopelessly airless, poisonous of atmosphere, utterly cold and inhospitable, or deadly to human life in other ways. The explosive increase of Earth's population made it necessary to find another frontier, another hope for colonization and expansion. The massless space drive offered this hope to us. My mission was to test the drive, to test the crossing of interstellar space, and if at all possible return with some tale of hope."

Admiral Meldrum rapped the gavel on the table. "Please. No personalities, Commodore. Why do you take that sarcastic tone? Captain Enright may have good reason for his delay, you know."