The Lost Warship, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  When the Sun Jumped

  "The captain wishes to see you, sir," the sailor said.

  Craig snubbed the cigarette and rose to his feet. He had eaten and dranksparingly, very sparingly indeed. They had tried to take him to thehospital bay with the others, but he had gruffly refused. There wasnothing wrong with him that a little food and water wouldn't cure.

  He followed the sailor to the captain's quarters. Unconsciously he notedthe condition of the ship. She was a battleship, the Idaho, one of thenew series. Craig guessed she was part of a task force scouting thesouth Pacific. She was well kept and well manned, he saw. The men wentabout their tasks with a dash that was heartwarming.

  The captain was a tall man. He rose to his feet when Craig entered hisquarters, smiled, and held out his hand, "I'm Captain Higgins," he said.

  Craig looked at him, blinked, then grinned. He took the out-stretchedhand.

  "Hi, Stinky," he said. "It's good to see you again."

  "Stinky!" Higgins choked. "Sir--"

  "Don't get stuffy," Craig said, laughing.

  Higgins stared at him. Little by little recognition began to dawn on thecaptain's face. "Craig!" he whispered. "Winston Craig! This calls for adrink."

  "It does, indeed," Craig answered.

  Captain Higgins provided the whiskey. It was Scotch. They drank itstraight.

  "Where on earth have you been?" Higgins asked.

  "Gold," Craig said. "Borneo." A frown crossed his face. "Our littlebrown brothers came down from the north."

  "I know," said Higgins grimly. "They came to Pearl Harbor too, thelittle--. They ran you out of Borneo, eh?"

  "I got out," Craig said.

  "But this life-boat you were in? What happened?"

  "Jap bombers happened. They caught the ship I was on. Luckily we managedto get a few boats away--"

  "I see. Where are the other boats?"

  "Machine-gunned," Craig said. "A rain squall came along and hid us sothey didn't get around to working on the boat I was in." He shrugged."We were ten days in that boat. I was counting the jewels in the PearlyGates when your task force came along. But enough about me. What aboutyou?"

  Higgins shrugged. "What you can see," he said.

  Craig nodded. He could see plenty. The boy who had been known as"Stinky" in their days at Annapolis was boss of a battle wagon.

  "I heard you resigned your commission within a year after we hadfinished at the Academy," Higgins said.

  "Yes," Craig answered.

  "Mind if I ask why?"

  "Not at all. I just wanted some action and it didn't look as if I couldget it in the Navy. So--"

  * * * * *

  It was not so much what Craig said as what he left unsaid that wasimportant. He was a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He andStinky Higgins had finished in the same class. Higgins had stayed withthe Navy. Craig had not been able to endure the inactivity of belongingto a fighting organization when there was no fighting to be done. He wasborn with the wanderlust, with itching feet, with the urge to see whatlay beyond the farthermost horizon.

  "So you were prospecting for gold?" Captain Higgins asked.

  "Yes."

  "What are you going to do now, if I may ask?"

  "Well," Craig said, "I was on my way back to the States, to join upagain, if they would take me."

  Higgins grinned. "If they would take you? They will grab you with openarms. They could use a million like you."

  "Thanks," Craig said.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  "What is it?" Higgins said to the aide who entered.

  "One of the men we picked up in the life-boat wants to see you, sir."

  "What about?"

  "He would not say, sir. He insists it is of the utmost importance. Hisname is Michaelson, sir. Shall I show him to your quarters?"

  "Very well. I'll see him immediately."

  The aide saluted smartly and left.

  "Who is this Michaelson?" Higgins said to Craig.

  "I don't know," Craig shrugged. "Just one of the passengers in thelife-boat. We didn't ask each other for pedigrees. About all I can sayabout him is that he is a queer duck." Craig explained how Michaelsonhad been constantly studying the contents of the notebook he carried.

  The captain frowned. "There is a Michaelson who is a world-famousscientist," he said. "I don't suppose this could be he."

  "Might be," Craig said. "This is the south seas. You never know who isgoing to turn up down here or what is going to happen." Abruptly hestopped speaking. A new sound was flooding through the ship.

  It had been years since he had heard that sound yet he recognized itinstantly. The call to action stations! It could have only one meaning.The Idaho was going into action. Something thrilled through Craig'sblood at the thought. He turned questioning eyes toward the captain.

  Higgins was already on the phone.

  "Flight of Jap bombers approaching," he said, flinging the phone back onits hook. "Come on."

  This was probably the first time in naval history that a bare-footed,bare-headed man, whose sole articles of clothing consisted of a pair ofdirty duck trousers, joined the commanding officer of a battleship onthe captain's bridge. Captain Higgins didn't care what Craig waswearing, and his officers, if they cared, were too polite to show it.They didn't really care anyhow. They had other things on their minds.

  Far off in the sky Craig could see what the officers had on their minds.A series of tiny black dots. They were so far away they looked likegnats. Jap bombers. Big fellows. Four-engined jobs.

  The notes of the call to action stations were still screaming throughthe ship. The Idaho, at the touch of the magic sound, was coming tolife. Thirty-five thousand tons of steel was going into action. Craigcould feel the pulsation as the engines kicked the screws over faster.The ship surged ahead. Fifteen hundred men were leaping to theirstations. The guns in the big turrets were poking around, hoping thatsomewhere off toward the horizon there was a target for them. The Idahowas a new ship. She was lousy with anti-aircraft. The black muzzles ofmultiple pom-poms were swinging around, poking toward the sky.

  An officer was peering through a pair of glasses. "Seventeen of them,sir," he said. "I can't be certain yet, but I think there is anotherflight following the first."

  * * * * *

  The Idaho was part of a task force that included a carrier, cruisers,and several destroyers. Craig could see the carrier off in the distance.She had already swung around. Black gnats were racing along her deck andleaping into the sky. Fighter planes going up. Cruisers and destroyerswere moving into pre-determined positions around the carrier and theIdaho, to add the weight of their anti-aircraft barrage to the gunscarried by the big ships.

  "Three minutes," somebody said in a calm voice. "They've started ontheir run."

  The anti-aircraft let go. Craig gasped and clamped his hands over hisears. He had left the Navy before the advent of air warfare. He knew theroar of the big guns in their turrets but this was his first experiencewith the guns that fought the planes. The sound was utterly deafening.If the fury of a hundred thunder-storms were concentrated into a singlearea, the blasting tornado of sound would not be as great as the thunderof the guns. The explosions beat against his skull, set his teethpounding together. He could feel the vibrations with his feet.

  High in the sky overhead black dots blossomed like death flowersblooming in the sky.

  The bombers kept coming.

  The anti-aircraft bursts moved into their path. Death reached up intothe sky, plucking with taloned fingers for the black vultures racingwith the wind. Reached and found their goal. One plane mushroomedoutward in a burst of smoke.

  Craig knew it was a direct hit, apparently in the bomb bay, explodingthe bombs carried there. Fragments of the plane hung in the sky, fallingslowly downward.

  Up above the anti-aircraft, midges were dancing in the sun--fighterplanes. They dived dow
nward.

  Abruptly a bomber fell out of formation, tried to right itself, failed.A wing came off. Crazily the bomber began spinning.

  Black smoke gouted from a third ship. It began losing altitude rapidly.

  The others continued on their course.

  Michaelson suddenly appeared on the bridge.

  How he got there, Craig did not know, but he was there, jumping aroundand waving his notebook in the air. Michaelson was shouting at the topof his voice.

  "--Danger!--Must get away from here--"

  Craig caught the shouted words. The thundering roar of the anti-aircraftbarrage drowned out the rest.

  No one paid any attention to Michaelson. They were watching the sky.

  The planes had released their bombs.

  For some reason they were not attacking their normal target, thecarrier. Perhaps a second flight was making a run over the carrier. Thefirst flight was bombing the battleship.

  The Idaho was their target.

  * * * * *

  Craig could feel the great ship tremble as she tried to swerve to avoidthe bombs. A destroyer would have been able to spin in a circle but35,000 tons of steel do not turn so easily.

  The bombs were coming down. Craig could see them in the air, littleblack dots growing constantly larger. Fighter planes were tearing greatholes in the formation of the bombers. Few of the Jap ships would everreturn to their base. But their job was already done.

  The bombs hit.

  They struck in an irregular pattern all around the ship. Four or fivewere very near misses but there was not one direct hit. Greatwaterspouts leaped from the surface of the sea. A sheet of flame seemedto run around the horizon. It was a queer, dancing, intensely brilliant,blue flame. It looked like the discharge from some huge electric arc.

  Even above the roar of the barrage, Craig heard the tearing sound.Somehow it reminded him of somebody tearing a piece of cloth. Only, tomake a sound as loud as this, it would have to be a huge piece of clothand the person tearing it would have to be a giant.

  The blue light became more intense. It flared to a brilliance that wasintolerable.

  At the same time, the sun jumped!

  "I'm going nuts!" the fleeting thought was in Craig's mind. He wonderedif a bomb had struck the ship. Was this the nightmare that comes withdeath? Had he died in the split fraction of a second and was hisdisintegrating mind reporting the startling fact of death by telling himthat the sun was jumping?

  The sun couldn't jump.

  It _had_ jumped. It had been almost directly overhead. Now it was twohours down the western sky.

  Tons of water were cascading over the bow of the ship. Waves wereleaping over the deck. The Idaho seemed to have sunk several feet. Nowher buoyancy was asserting itself and she was trying to rise out of thesea. She was fighting her way upward, rising against the weight of thewater.

  A wind was blowing. There had been almost no wind but now a gale ofhurricane proportions was howling through the superstructure of theship.

  A heavy sea was running. The sea had been glassy smooth. Now it wascovered with white caps.

  The bombs had exploded, a blue light had flamed, a giant had ripped thesky apart, a gale had leaped into existence, the sea had covered itselfwith white capped waves, and the sun had jumped.

  Craig looked at the sky, seeking the second flight of bombers. The airwas filled with scudding clouds. There were no bombers in sight.

  The anti-aircraft batteries, with no target, suddenly stopped firing.

  Except for the howl of the wind through the superstructure, the ship wassilent. The silence was so heavy it hurt the ears. The officers on thebridge stood without moving, frozen statues. They seemed paralyzed.

  The ship was running herself.

  "W--what--what the hell became of those Jappos?" Craig heard a dazedofficer say.

  "Yeah, what happened to those bombers?"

  "Where did this wind come from?"

  "There wasn't any wind a minute ago."

  "Look at the sea. It's covered with white caps!"

  "Something happened to the sun. I--I'm almost positive I saw it move."

  Dazed, bewildered voices.

  "What the devil became of the carrier?" That was the voice of CaptainHiggins.

  "And the rest of the force, the cruisers and destroyers--what became ofthem?"

  Craig looked toward the spot where he had last seen the carrier. She hadbeen launching planes.

  He did not believe his eyes.

  The carrier was gone.

  The cruisers and destroyers that had been cutting foaming circles aroundthe carrier and the battleship--were gone.

  The surface of the sea was empty. There weren't even any puffs ofexploding shells in the sky.

  * * * * *

  The Idaho plunged forward through strange seas. From horizon to horizonthere was nothing to be seen. The task force to which the ship belongedand the attacking Jap planes had both vanished. The group of officersresponsible for the ship were dazed. Then, little by little, their longtraining asserted itself and they fought off the panic threatening them.Captain Higgins ordered the ship slowed until she was barely moving.This was to protect them from the possibility of hitting submerged reefsor shoals. The first question was--what had happened? Captain Higginsordered radio silence broken. The ship carried powerful wirelessequipment, strong enough to reach to the mainland of America, andfarther.

  The radio calls brought no response. The radio men reported all theycould get on their receivers was static. No commercial and no radiosignals were on the air. This was impossible.

  In growing bewilderment, Captain Higgins ordered a plane catapulted intothe air, to search the surrounding sea. Meanwhile routine reports fromall parts of the ship showed that the Idaho had suffered no damage ofany kind from the bombing. She was in first-class shape. The only thingwrong with her was the men who manned her. They were bewildered. Defeatin battle they would have faced. They would not have flinched if theship had gone down before superior gun power. They would have fought herfearlessly, dying, if need be, in the traditions of their service.

  Craig was still on the bridge with Captain Higgins and the otherofficers. Although he did not show it, he was scared. Right down to thebottoms of his bare feet, he was scared. He watched the scouting planecatapulted into the air, and the grim thought came into his mind thatNoah, sending forth the dove from the ark, must have been in a similarposition. Like Noah, Captain Higgins was sending forth a dove to searchthe waste of waters.

  Besides Craig, there was another civilian on the bridge, Michaelson.Nobody was paying any attention to him. Normally, if he had intrudedwithout invitation to this sacred spot, he would have been bounced offso fast it would have made his head swim. But the officers had otherthings to think about besides a stray civilian who had popped out ofnowhere. Michaelson, after fluttering vainly from officer to officer andgetting no attention, turned at last to Craig. Michaelson was waving hisnote book.

  * * * * *

  "These men will pay no attention to me," Michaelson complained, noddingtoward the officers.

  "They got troubles," Craig said. "They've run into a problem that isdriving them nuts."

  "But I could help them solve their problem!" Michaelson said, irritationin his voice.

  "Aw, beat it--Huh? What did you say?" Craig demanded.

  "I can tell them what happened, if they will only listen. I was tryingto warn them, before it happened, but I was unable to reach the bridgein time."

  "You--_you know what happened_?" Craig choked.

  "Certainly!" Michaelson said emphatically.

  Craig stared at the little man. Michaelson did not look like he had muchon the ball but he spoke excellent English, and even if he was a queerduck, he seemed to be intelligent. Craig remembered that Michaelson hadbeen trying to reach the bridge just before the bombers struck, alsothat the man had been trying to get in touch with t
he captain justbefore the warning sounded that the bombers were approaching. Craigturned to the officers.

  "Captain Higgins," he said.

  "Don't bother me now, Craig," the captain snapped.

  "There's a man here who wants to talk to you," Craig said.

  "I have no time--" For the first time, the captain saw Michaelson. "Whothe devil are you?" he snapped. "What are you doing on my bridge?"

  "He's the man who wants to talk to you," Craig explained. "His name isMichaelson."

  Michaelson smiled shyly. "You may have heard of me," he said.

  "Are you Michaelson the scientist, the man who is called the secondEinstein?" Higgins demanded.

  Michaelson blushed. "I am a scientist," he said. "As for being a secondEinstein, no. There is only one Einstein. There can be only one. But itmay be that I can help you with your problem."

  Craig saw the attitude of the officers change. They had heard ofMichaelson. It was a great name. Until then they had not known that hewas on their bridge. They became respectful.

  "If you can help us, shoot," Higgins said bluntly.

  "I will try," the scientist said. He pursed his lips and lookedthoughtful. "If you are familiar with geology you unquestionably knowsomething about 'faults'. 'Faults' are unstable areas on the surface ofthe earth, places where, due to joints or cracks in the underlyingstrata of rocks, slippage is likely to take place. There is, forinstance, the great San Andreas Rift, in California, which is a'fault'."

  "Sorry, Mr. Michaelson," Higgins interrupted. "If you've got somethingto say, say it, but don't start giving us a lecture on geology."

  "In explaining the unknown, it is best to start with what is known," thescientist answered. "Earth faults are known. When I talk about them, youwill understand me. However, there is another kind of fault that is asyet unknown, or known only to a few scientists who suspected itsexistence--" He paused. "I am referring to the space-time fault."

  * * * * *

  The faces of the officers registered nothing. Craig frowned, butlistened with quickened interest. A space-time fault! What wasMichaelson talking about?

  "You will not find a space-time fault mentioned in any scientifictreatise," Michaelson continued. "There is no literature on the subject,as yet. Certain erratic phenomena, of which the apparent slowing of thespeed of light in certain earth areas was the most important, led a fewscientists to speculate on the existence of some strange condition ofspace and time that would account for the observed phenomena. The speedof light is regarded as being constant, yet in certain places on earth,for no apparent reason, light seemed to move slower than it didelsewhere. What was the reason for this strange slow-down? Investigationrevealed the existence of what I have called a space-time fault."

  "Please, Mr. Michaelson," Captain Higgins spoke. "We are not scientists.With all respect to your ability, I must request you to come directly tothe point."

  "Very well," the scientist said. "We have fallen into a space-timefault. I have been conducting certain researches in and near this areain an effort to locate the boundaries of what I had hoped would becalled--since I discovered it--the Michaelson Fault. Under ordinarycircumstances the ship would, in all probability, have passed directlythrough the fault, though I suspect, from certain data of ships thathave disappeared mysteriously, that _all_ ships have not always passedthrough the fault. In our case, the explosion of the bombs wassufficient to cause a momentary dislodgment of the space-time balance inthis area, with the result that we were precipitated through the fault."

  He paused and looked expectantly at his audience. It was his impressionthat he had made a complete explanation of what had happened. Heexpected the officers to understand. They didn't understand.

  Craig, watching in silence, caught a vague glimpse of what the scientistwas saying. He felt a cold chill run up and down his spine. If heunderstood Michaelson correctly--

  "We were precipitated through the fault?" a lieutenant spoke. "I don'tfollow. What do you mean, sir?"

  "Mean?" Michaelson answered. "I mean we passed through the fault."

  "But what does that mean?"

  "That we have passed through time!"

  Craig was aware of a mounting tension when he heard the words. Then hehad understood Michaelson correctly! He had been afraid of that. He sawfrom the faces of the officers that they either did not comprehend whatthe scientist had said, or comprehending, were refusing to believe.

  "Passed through time!" somebody said. "But that is ridiculous."

  Michaelson shrugged. "You are thinking with your emotions," he said."You are thinking wishfully. You hope we have not passed through time.Therefore you say it is not true."

  "But," Captain Higgins spoke, "if we have passed through time, how farhave we gone, and in what direction?"

  "How far I cannot say," Michaelson answered. "There is little questionof the direction: We have gone back. A space-time fault can only slipback. It cannot slip forward, or I cannot conceive of it slippingforward. As to the distance we have gone, in space, a few feet. In time,the distance may be a hundred thousand years. It may be a million years,or ten million." He tapped his notebook. "I have much data here, but notenough data to determine how far we have gone."

  * * * * *

  Craig was cold, colder than he had ever been in all his life. They hadpassed through time! Desperately he wanted to doubt that the scientistknew what he was talking about. His eyes sought the reassurance of thebattleship. Surely such a mass of steel could not pass through time!But--the sun had jumped, a hurricane of wind had roared out of nowhereand was still roaring through the rigging of the ship. The calm sea hadbecome storm-tossed. And--the radio was silent.

  Was Michaelson right? Or was he a madman? Craig could not graspcompletely the reasoning of the scientist. A space-time fault soundedimpossible. But there was no question about the existence of earthfaults. Craig had seen a few of those areas where the foundations of theearth had crumpled. If the inconceivable pressures of the planet couldcrush miles of rock like he could crush a playing card in his hands, whycould not the more tenuous fabric of space-time be crushed also?

  The faces of the officers reflected doubt. Craig saw them steal uneasyglances at each other, saw them glance at the bulk of the battleship forreassurance. The ship was their world.

  Out of the corner of his eyes Craig saw something coming across the sea.At the same time, in the forepeak, a lookout sang out.

  "I'm afraid," Craig said, pointing, "that now there is no doubt that Mr.Michaelson is right. Look there."

  Sailing down the wind was a gigantic bird-lizard. With great fanged beakout-stretched, it was flapping through the air on leathery wings. It wasa creature out of the dawn of time.

  It proved, by its mere existence, that Michaelson was right.

  The Idaho, and all her crew, had passed through a space-time fault intoan antediluvian world!