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  Then there was Lieutenant Colonel McCullough, of course, a complex personality whose motivations McCullough had thought he understood until he found himself volunteering for this job. He had been undergoing training for MOL service, the idea being to have him share one of the orbiting laboratories with a number of lab animals and make a study of life processes in the weightless condition. Like the others he was unmarried and this was probably a good thing, despite the generally held belief that marriage gave added strength and emotional stability to an astronaut, because Prometheus might very well become a suicide mission.

  McCullough wriggled in his couch, even though all positions were equally comfortable in the weightless condition. Beyond the port, Earth was in darkness with the moon just about to slip over the sharply curved horizon. Cloud masses and continental outlines were gray and indistinct, with the stars above the horizon and the cities below it shining with the same intensity so that the whole planet seemed transparent and insubstantial, like a world of ectoplasm.

  It was as if the final war had started and finished while he wasn't looking and the whole world had died, McCullough thought rather fancifully as he slipped over the edge of sleep, and a planet-sized ghost eternally pursued its orbit around the Sun . . .

  But when he awakened some hours later, the Earth was again solid and condensed into a bright sphere which was just small enough to fit within the rim of the port. Berryman and Walters were already awake and when they saw that McCullough had joined them, the command pilot passed out breakfast. They were squeezing the last of it from their tubes when there was an interruption.

  "This is Prometheus Control. Good morning, gentlemen! If you have nothing better to do, and we are sure you haven't, we would like you to take your first lecture. We have now decided to increase the frequency of these lectures from two to three per day. The first one, which should prove very helpful when you reach the Ship, deals with multidimensional geometry . . ."

  "Ugh," said Berryman.

  "Drop dead," said Walters.

  "No comment," said McCullough.

  "Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen. If you will have pencils and paper ready . . ."

  "Negative, negative!" the voice of Colonel Morrison broke in. "P-One to Prometheus Control and P-Two. I advise against taking written notes. Paper is limited and may be needed for purposes of communications and supplementary sketches for the photographs taken at the Ship."

  "A good point, Colonel. Very well, mental notes only until a decision has been taken in this matter. And now, if you're ready to begin . . ."

  There was a short silence broken by two bursts of static and an apologetic cough, then a new voice said, "Well now, the subject of this lecture may itself need an explanation and it is this. From our observations of the approach, physical mass and general appearance of the alien ship, we are convinced that some method of faster-than-light propulsion is being used. Since Einsteinian math holds FTL travel to be impossible in this spacetime continuum, we must fall back on those vaguer theories which suggest that the physical laws governing this continuum may be in some fashion sidestepped by traveling along or within some highly speculative hyperdimension. But as things stand you would very probably not know a hyperdimensional propulsion device if it stood up and bit you, and neither in all probability would I . . ."

  There was a small, dry, academic cough, then the voice went on, "So the purpose of this lecture is, by outlining current thinking on this subject together with our speculations and supporting math, to give you a slightly better chance of recognizing a hyperdimensional generator if you should happen to see one.

  "Subsequent lectures on a wide range of subjects are expected to include . . ."

  McCullough was beginning to feel concern for a future which now promised to be positively rather than negatively boring. He hoped the Prometheus people knew what they were doing and had taken pains to pick the right kind of lecturer. When the idea had been first mentioned they had agreed that without visual aids or textbooks, the process of learning new and difficult subjects would be anything but easy. If handled properly, the lectures would help negate boredom by engendering a competitive spirit among the two ships' crews. This would be a very good thing provided it did not cause some people to appear less bright than their fellows, a situation which could open the way to all sorts of conflicts and emotional disturbances. But all this had been taken into consideration, the Prometheus astronauts had been told, and any harmful side effects would be guarded against.

  Probably time alone would tell, McCullough thought. At least this lecturer possessed a rudimentary sense of humor.

  He was saying, ". . . To give you an example, our knowledge of extraterrestrial biology, physiology and sociology is nil. But in future lectures we will prepare you to a certain extent for whatever you may meet by considering in detail the sexual mores of certain isolated cultures on our own planet and the exotic reproductive mechanisms of our more alien terrestrial animals, insects and plants, and by formulating the type of social system these creatures might be expected to develop were they to rise to a human level of intelligence.

  "All this is simply an indication of what you may expect from the various specialist lecturers who will follow me.

  "Before I commence my series of lectures it might be better if I introduced myself. I am Doctor -- of Philosophy, not Medicine -- Edward Ernest Pugh, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Coleraine, and Director of its Department of Extramural Studies . . ."

  Berryman turned to stare very solemnly out of the Earth-side port. He said, "Just how extramural can a student get . . ."

  Walters and McCullough laughed and Professor Pugh asked them to begin by considering a tesseract.

  chapter three

  Time passed.

  Their education grew while Earth and the apparent size of their vehicle shrank. When the bulkheads pressed in on them too closely, they took turns going outside, treating incipient claustrophobia with threatened agoraphobia. At least that was how Berryman described the process. But he talked that way, as they all did, to hide his real feelings. The simple truth was that on the end of a long safety line, with their vehicle looking like some surrealistic toy five hundred yards away, the whole of Creation was spread out around them in sharp focus and perfect 3-D and it was not a sight which could be easily talked about.

  With the increased distance from Earth and Prometheus Control, communication difficulties also grew. Not only did periodic solar interference make incoming messages barely intelligible, the time lag between outgoing questions and incoming answers was more than eight minutes. When it became necessary to turn up the gain on their receiver because a whisper of intelligence was trying to fight its way through a thunder of mush, the time lag was more than simply irritating. Finally even the colonel could stand it no longer.

  "You may be transmitting a lecture on production methods in the aircraft industry," Morrison enunciated slowly and with sarcasm, "but it sounds like a tape of Omaha Beach on D-Day. You are fighting a losing battle. Give up until these blasted sunspots have gone back to sleep, at least!"

  Eight minutes later a tiny voice fought its way through a barrage of static to say, ". . . Your message incompletely received . . . do not have battle tactics . . . Operation Overlord immediately available . . . loss to understand this request . . ."

  "You misunderstood my message, Prometheus Control," the colonel's voice returned, louder but with less clarity of diction. "I requested that you cease transmission . . .

  ". . . a lecture scheduled on Games Theory, but must warn you . . . Alien conception of military tactics may not agree . . . Eisenhower . . ."

  "Don't talk when I'm interrupting, dammit . . . !"

  For perhaps five minutes Control battled against the static with a complete lack of success, then the colonel's voice came again.

  "P-One to P-Two. You may break contact with Control without their permission. I take full responsibility."

  For a long time th
ey simply luxuriated in the peace and quiet, then Walters said angrily, "You know, that noise was bad. You, sir, were practically tying yourself in knots and the doctor had his eyes squeezed shut and all his teeth showing. This is not good. Noise, any loud or unnecessary or unpleasant noise, especially in a confined space like this, makes me irritable. I'm beginning to dread these lectures three times a day. Somebody should do something about them. Somebody with authority!"

  "I agree," said McCullough.

  "Of course you agree!" Walters' voice was high-pitched, almost shrewish. "You always agree, but that's all you do . . .!"

  "I think Morrison intends doing something," Berryman said quickly. He looked worriedly from Walters to McCullough and back, then went on. "And the doctor is a rather agreeable man, if a little hard to pin down at times. Myself, I expected him to look clinical occasionally and perhaps talk a bit dirty. At very least he should have spent a few days mentally dissecting us, explaining the real truth about our relationship with our first Teddy bear, and generally showing us what monstrous perverts we are under our warm, friendly exteriors. But he doesn't talk like a psychologist, or look like one or even admit to being one."

  Berryman was trying hard to smooth things down and he was succeeding, but with his eyes he was asking the doctor for a little help.

  "Well now," said McCullough gravely, "you must understand first that, if anything, I would be an Eysenckian rather than a Freudian psychologist and so would never have had an occasion to use a couch professionally. But there was one period when I did some valuable research, if I do say so myself, on the behavior and psychology of worms.

  "There were some quite intriguing incidents," McCullough went on. "They had numbers instead of names, so there is no question of an unethical disclosure of privileged information, and they had such a low order of intelligence that to get through to them at all we had to stimulate the clitellum with a mild electric . . ."

  Berryman shook his head.

  "Well, I did try," said McCullough, projecting a hurt expression. He went on, "As for making noises like a psychologist and pushing your mental buttons, this would be a waste of time. You are both well adjusted, self-aware, intellectually and emotionally honest and already well versed in the terminology, so that any problem which arises is immediately recognized, classified and dealt with by the person concerned. So there isn't anything for me to do even if I was supposed to do it."

  For perhaps a minute there was silence, then Walters said, "I'm sorry I blew up at you, Doctor. If I'd been using my head at all, I should have realized that anyone who turns nasty with a psychologist ends up being flattered to death."

  "My point exactly!" said McCullough to Berryman. "He can even see through my subtle attempts at manipulation by flattery!"

  Berryman nodded and said, "Now if only the aliens on the Ship are worms . . ."

  The crew of P-Two were back to normal.

  But on a wider, more objective level the situation was definitely not normal. The space inside P-Two not taken up with control, communications and life-support systems, left very little room for either movement or privacy. Their total living space was a hollow cylinder seven feet in diameter and four deep, and this was further reduced by couches, control consoles and instrumentation which projected into it. Nobody could move more than a few inches without sticking an elbow or a knee in someone's face or stomach. Even the sanitary arrangements gave visual privacy only. And because their tanked oxygen was restricted, trips outside the ship were kept down to a total of two hours per week, and they just could not be alone for the length of time required by normal introverts. Instead they lay strapped loosely into their couches for an hour or so each day, pitting one muscle against another, talking or not talking, listening to incoming signals and smelling to high heaven.

  In living quarters which compared unfavorably with the most unenlightened penal institutions, the crew of P-Two -- and P-One, presumably -- shared a not always peaceful coexistence. They tried to be polite and considerate to each other, but not too much so. The effort of guarding one's tongue continually, of always being polite, would have been so much of a strain that the emotional backlash would have led inevitably to violence.

  Instead they were normally bad-tempered or sarcastic, while remaining at all times sensitive to potentially dangerous changes of atmosphere. If they sensed that the subject of their displeasure or sarcasm was becoming too strongly affected by it, the remarks were allowed to grow to ridiculous and laughable proportions. They became adepts at walking this psychological tightrope. But they were subject to severe external pressures as well.

  Earth had decided to investigate the Ship with a group of trained astronauts rather than a cross-section of the best scientific brains, and all things considered, it had been a sound decision. But Earth desperately wanted things to go right at the Ship. They wanted a smooth social and cultural contact and they badly wanted to find out everything they possibly could about alien science and technology. As a result, they were trying to cover themselves both ways by doing everything possible to make scientific investigators out of their astronauts.

  The low signal to noise ratio during some of the lectures was merely an added irritant. The real trouble was that the lectures themselves were a constant reminder to every one of them of what lay at the end of the trip.

  Any well-adjusted person could face up to a problem once it was defined. But when nothing at all was known about it other than that it is in the life-and-death category and that it must somehow be solved, even the sanest personality could show signs of strain.

  They were now three weeks away in time from the alien Ship . . .

  After one lecture so speculative that it was almost pure science fiction, Walters said, "It would be nice if we could simply hold our hands out in the universal gesture of peace. But what is the universal gesture of peace to an octopus or an intelligent vegetable?"

  McCullough said, "We don't usually make gestures of peace at animals or vegetables, so their gestures toward us are either defensive or hostile. Tortoises retreat under their shells, octopuses squirt ink at us, and plants grow thorns if they are able. Offhand I'd say that if an animal or being behaves normally when it is approached by a stranger -- that is, if it doesn't take any offensive or defensive action -- then it is either peacefully inclined, or suffering from an impairment of sensory equipment or brainpower. But this is an unsatisfactory answer, since it may involve a being whose normal reactions will be just as strange to us as its abnormal ones. I don't know."

  "Let us suppose," Berryman said, "that the Ship is solidly packed with a vitamin-enriched sandy substance -- except for certain hollowed-out areas for power and control systems -- with provision made for renewing the food element and eliminating wastes. Furniture, bedding and so on would be virtually nonexistent, and control levers and -- and push pads they would have to be, rather than push buttons -- would be positioned all the way around and perhaps inside the mechanism they were designed to control. This being would curl itself around and insinuate itself into the machine it was operating . . ."

  "Not worms again," said Walters.

  "I'm talking about an intelligent, wormlike life-form," the Command Pilot went on. "A worm who stayed out of its burrow long enough to look up and wonder at the stars . . ."

  "Oh, very poetic," said Walters.

  "Shuddup you . . . A worm who developed intelligence and the degree of cooperation which made possible civilization and technological progress. And now, Doctor, suppose you were confronted by a member of such a species. With your specialist knowledge of the physiology and motivations of what amounts to the aboriginal ancestors of these beings, could you arrive at an understanding with them?"

  McCullough thought for a moment, then said, "An analogy would be an alien able to understand a human being from data gained while examining a baboon. I don't think it is possible. In any case the intellectual and evolutionary gap between your star-traveling worms and mine is much greater than that betwe
en a man and a baboon. This is why we are being subjected to these lectures on the mating habits of armadillos and things . . ."