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Updated: June 24, 2025
"But " Bart's lips were dry "didn't he die in the warp-drive?" Slowly, Raynor Three shook his head. "No, he didn't. No drugs, no cold-sleep but he didn't die. Don't you see, Bart?" He leaned forward, urgently. "It's all a fake! The Lhari have just been saying that to justify their refusal to give us the secret of the catalyst that generates the warp-drive frequencies!
He said woozily, "How long was I out?" "The usual time," Ringg said briskly, "about three seconds just while we hit peak warp-drive. Feels longer, so they tell me, sometimes time's funny, beyond light-speeds. The medic says it's purely psychological. I'm not so sure. I itch, blast it!" He moved his shoulders in a squirming way, then bent over Rugel, who was moaning, half insensible.
But first of all are you all right, Meta?" Her chin went up, defiantly. "Yes. And why have you lied to us all these years all of you?" Vorongil looked mildly startled. "It wasn't exactly a lie. Nine out of ten Lhari captains believe it with all their heart that humans die in warp-drive. I wasn't sure myself until I heard the debates in Council City, last year." "But why?" Vorongil sighed.
On a sudden hope, Bart asked, "Was he, by any chance, named Rupert Steele?" Raynor One made a suspicious movement. "I can't imagine why you think so," he said guardedly. "Especially if you've just come in from Earth. It was never very widely known. He only changed the name to Eight Colors a few weeks ago. And it's for sure that your ship didn't get any messages while the Lhari were in warp-drive.
"It's only eight hours away, and Cottman's thirty. Bartol, plot us a warp-drive shift that will land us in that system, and on the inner of the two planets, within nine hours. If it's a type Q star, that means dim illumination, and no spaceport mercury-vapor installations. We'll need as much sunlight as we can get."
Bart fought to keep his face perfectly straight. "Did anyone come into your cabin?" The Lhari asked in Universal. "Only the steward. Why? Is something wrong?" "There iss some thought that a stowaway might be on boarrd. Of courrrse we could not allow that, anyone not prrroperly prrotected would die in the first shift into warp-drive." "Just the steward," Bart said again. "A Mentorian."
Bart, a Lhari ship can't get along in our galaxy without Mentorians any more! It may be slower than trying to take the warp-drive by force, or stealing it by spying, but when we learn to endure it, I have faith that we'll get it!" Bart, although moved by Meta's philosophy, couldn't quite share it. It still seemed to him that the Mentorians were lacking in something independence, maybe, or drive.
Bart had had the best education on Earth, but he didn't know precisely how the Lhari warp-drive worked. He'd been told that only a few of the Lhari understood it, just as the man who flew a copter didn't need to understand Newton's Three Laws of Motion in order to get himself back and forth to work.
"But don't you understand, Meta?" he exclaimed, "Humans can live through the warp-drive! No drugs, no cold-sleep Meta, I've done it dozens of times!" "But you're a Lhari!" It burst from her, uncontrollable. She stopped, looked at him in consternation. He smiled, bitterly. "No, Meta, they didn't do a thing to my internal organs, to my brain, to the tissues of my body.
Now we know we can use it without dying in the warp-drive.... Think of this: to be human again, yet to travel the stars with men of my own race! It's worth a few deaths! Even Vorongil? Standing here, talking to him, he might say it! You talked to him as if he'd been your father! Oh, Dad, Dad, what would you do?
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