The space ships were miracles of power and precision;the men who manned them, rich in endurance and courage.Every detail had been checked and double checked; everydetail except—
THE NOTHING EQUATION
By TOM GODWIN
The cruiser vanished backinto hyperspace and hewas alone in the observationbubble, ten thousand light-yearsbeyond the galaxy'soutermost sun. He looked outthe windows at the giganticsea of emptiness around himand wondered again what thedanger had been that had soterrified the men before him.
Of one thing he was alreadycertain; he would findthat nothing was waitingoutside the bubble to kill him.The first bubble attendanthad committed suicide andthe second was a mindlessmaniac on the Earthboundcruiser but it must have beensomething inside the bubblethat had caused it. Or elsethey had imagined it all.
He went across the smallroom, his magnetized solesloud on the thin metal floorin the bubble's silence. He satdown in the single chair, hisweight very slight in thefeeble artificial gravity, andreviewed the known facts.
The bubble was a projectof Earth's Galactic ObservationBureau, positioned thereto gather data from observationsthat could not be madefrom within the galaxy.Since metallic mass affectedthe hypersensitive instrumentsthe bubble had beenmade as small and light aspossible. It was for that reasonthat it could accommodateonly one attendant.
The Bureau had selectedHorne as the bubble's firstattendant and the cruiserleft him there for his sixmonths' period of duty. Whenit made its scheduled returnwith his replacement he wasfound dead from a tremendousoverdose of sleepingpills. On the table was hisdaily-report log and his lastentry, made three monthsbefore:
I haven't attended to theinstruments for a long timebecause it hates us anddoesn't want us here. It hatesme the most of all and keepstrying to get into the bubbleto kill me. I can hear it wheneverI stop and listen and Iknow it won't be long. I'mafraid of it and I want to beasleep when it comes. But I'llhave to make it soon becauseI have only twenty sleepingpills left and if—
The sentence was neverfinished. According to thetemperature recording instrumentsin the bubble hisbody ceased radiating heatthat same night.
The bubble was cleaned,fumigated, and inspected insideand out. No sign of anyinimical entity or force couldbe found.
Silverman was Horne's replacement.When the cruiserreturned six months laterbringing him, Green, to beSilverman's replacement, Silvermanwas completely insane.He babbled about somethingthat had been waitingoutside the bubble to killhim but his nearest to a rationalstatement was to sayonce, when asked for thehundredth time what he hadseen:
"Nothing—you can't reallysee it. But you feel it watchingyou and you hear it tryingto get in to kill you. Onetime I bumped the wall and—forGod's sake—take meaway from it—take me backto Earth ..."
Then he had tried to hideunder the captain's desk andthe ship's doctor had led himaway.
The bubble was minutelyexamined again and thecruiser employed every detectordevice it possessed tosearch surrounding space forlight-years in all directions.Nothing was found.
When it was time for thenew replacement to be transferredto the bubble he reportedto Captain McDowell.
"Everything is ready,Green," McDowell said. "Youare the next one." His shaggygray eyebrows met in a