Into the Sea of Stars Page 11

  Floating up out of his chair, he gently pushed off to­ward the doorway and beckoned for Ian to follow.

  They passed out of the docking and reception areas and finally entered the main living area of the sphere.

  The smell of antiseptic was overwhelming, and with it that faint, unpleasant scent Ian could not quite place. There was a silence to the colony, as if they were in the realm of the dead.

  Occasional white-robed figures would float by, and some would nod a greeting to Joshua. Ian soon noticed that very few of the ghostlike people displayed what he thought should be a natural curiosity over a stranger. The colony's inhabitants drifted by as if lost in a dream.

  Joshua finally led the way out of the free-float envi­ronment, and, boarding an elevator, they rode down to the one-third-gravity level at the base of the sphere.

  Joshua walked with obvious discomfort and unstea­diness. This section was almost entirely empty. They slowly walked along a white corridor that looked to Ian to be typical of some early hospital ward.

  "Where is everyone?" Ian asked. "I haven't seen any­one since we've come down."

  "I'll show you," Joshua replied as they came to a dou­ble door that opened silently at their approach.

  Ian felt a sudden uneasy compulsion. He wanted to break away from this skeletal figure and run. Run out of the hospital with its nightmarish feel of infirmity and death.

  He saw Richard, Ellen, and Shelley standing on the other side of the door, the three of them obviously sub­dued.

  "Ahh, your friends," Joshua said softly. "Dr. Croce, I hope you've found our technology to be of some interest."

  Richard nodded slowly but was silent.

  lan's eyes gradually adjusted to the low level of blue lighting, and he recoiled with horror. The nightmare flashed back for a second and he wanted to scream.

  They were standing in a long corridor that curved up ward and away, and he suddenly realized that this hallway completely circled the ship. And it was packed with bod­ies.

  They were suspended from the ceiling, each one wrapped in a see-through sarcophagus; each sarcophagus was linked with several tubes and monitors to a biosensor.

  "Here is our sleep," Joshua whispered, as if afraid that too loud a voice might awaken the sleepers.

  "When something finally strikes us that we cannot cure, we take the hormonal injections that trigger our hiber­nation. Thus we shall ride out the millennium until at last the cures are found, until rejuvenation itself can be re­created, until even we can be made young again."

  Ian walked away from Joshua. And stared off aim­lessly. The bodies hung around him on either side. All of them old, old and shriveled, yet still alive in their endless sleep journey. To each was affixed a data card, and he quickly scanned some.

  JOHN KEENE b. 5-3-1965 HIB. 7-11-2238. ALZHEIMERS, RECURRING MALIGNANCY.

  ANDREW BARRY b. 7-17-1964 HIB. 8-1-2718. INSANITY.

  WILLIAM WEBSTER b. 8-18-1945 HIB. 4-4-2110. INSANITY.

  Ian looked back at Joshua. All of them born a hundred years before the Holocaust! In their minds were locked the memories. And such memories—memories of a grand and heroic age that he thought was lost. How they must have felt to have been part of the great epic. How they must have been enthralled. But as he looked back at them he also felt a growing sense of uneasiness. And Joshua stood quiet. Watching.

  "How many like this?" Ian asked.

  "As of yesterday's accounting, 28,455."

  Ian turned and started to walk down the corridor, casually glancing at each nameplate.

  INSANITY

  ALZHEIMERS

  ATTEMPTED SUICIDE

  SENILITY

  INSANITY

  "What is happening here?" Ian whispered, as if to himself.

  "You know," Joshua said, coming up alongside of Ian, "there are only one thousand fifty of us left—those that are still awake. I find it strange somehow to think of it. We have turned ourselves into a company of sleepers. We have cheated death and will continue to cheat him across all eternity, as we fly through the night—forever running. But eternity itself is a trap. We have cheated it. But still it exacts its price."

  Ian found he could not look into his eyes. Joshua floated before him, that distant enigmatic smile still on his face.

  "Of all the places I have visited or shall visit, this is the one I shall come back to," Ian said.

  Joshua nodded.

  "You have gazed at man-made eternity," Joshua re­plied. "And Ian Lacklin the historian only wishes to visit so that he can look into the past."

  Ian did not reply, for what Joshua said was true. If this was the potential of living across the millennium, then he would indeed prefer death. And in that thought Ian Lack­lin started to discover something else, as well. All his life he had been a coward. In fact, at times he felt rather proud of his cowardliness and viewed it simply as the proper reaction of any intellectual. But he saw a deeper fear haunting Joshua. A fear of death so all-consuming that life in a mausoleum was thought by him to be preferable. Ian felt that he would never again fear death in quite the same way, having seen what the extreme could bring.

  Joshua seemed bowed down, as if the weight of ages was oppressing him. And with that weight had come the loss of all vitality, all life—so that he was nothing but a husk, floating through the motions of living.

  "I'll be back, Joshua, and we can spend long days talking, talking of all that you once saw."

  "All that I once saw," Joshua said as if echoing his words.

  "I've loaded our ship's memory right to capacity with your records, thank you for helping me with that. I know Richard will be fascinated with your medical data, and I can't begin to tell you how your early data library will help my research. Thank you again."

  "You're welcome," Joshua replied, his voice barely audible. He seemed to be staring off into the distance, as if looking beyond to something Ian knew he could not see.

  "I might not be awake when you return, Ian Lacklin. Just our talking for the last ten days has conjured up so many memories better left undisturbed. And each mem­ory is a weight, a heavy chain dragging me down into a swirling circle of despair that I cannot escape. I may not be awake then when you return, and if not, come and visit me in the corridor of sleep and say hello, Ian Lacklin. Say hello to one who shall outlive you into eternity."

  Chapter 8

  Looking at the aft viewscreen, he could still see Joshua's unit, a small sphere of light suspended in the cross­hairs of the high-magnification scanner. Ian finally turned his gaze away from the screen and looked over to Richard and smiled.

  "Are we going to float out here forever?" Richard asked quietly, while offering a flask of gin. Ian nodded his ap­proval and the flask floated across to his outstretched hand. Just as he started to take a pull on the straw, the doorway slid open and Ellen drifted through the hatch into the storage compartment that all knew was lan's se­cret hiding place.

  "So much for my sanctum sanctorum," Ian muttered.

  Ellen settled down by his side and extended her hand to the flask.

  "Good gods"—Richard gasped—"is this a sign that our beloved group psychologist is cracking up, running amok, and all that?"

  "Shut up," she muttered in reply.

  "And so touchy! Truly this is too much."

  "Look, Croce, I knew Ian was in here trying to decide, and I thought I'd join him."

  "Well, what do you think I should do?" Ian asked.

  "I feel the same way you do," Ellen replied. "I'm torn. Our ship's memory banks are filled to capacity. I've got enough forms filled out to last me through half a dozen publications, and most of all I'm just sick. Especially after that one." She gestured toward the screen.

  "But?" Richard interjected sarcastically.

  "Yeah, but," Ellen replied. "That's just it, Ian, we're all being drawn by that one big but. A bit of mystery has been set, and I'd like to get a look at what this Dr. Franklin Smith set in motion. I must say that the videos of him are q
uite compelling."

  Ian smiled weakly at her. They had watched the 1100-year-old tape made by Joshua's onboard security system. It was badly damaged but computer enhancement had restored many of the details. Smith had been powerful— his charismatic energy rippling across the millennium. His ebony features had carried a sense of great intellect paired with a ruthless drive for survival. Yes, the romantic image from the past had held Ian in its sway as well.

  "He's long dead," Ian replied. "And if the odds are correct, chances are all his people are dead, as well. Their ship was an exile unit, and overcrowded far beyond its bearing capacity. True, he was a charismatic leader, one of the moving forces for the Great Outward Leap, but for his particular unit the odds were near impossible. I think this Alpha/Omega is just another unit."

  "But curiosity, the bane of any good historian, haunts you, doesn't it?" Ellen asked.

  "All right, let's be logical," Ian replied. "First off, our ship's memory is packed to capacity. We wouldn't store another byte of data if we wanted to. We've been out over four months, and it will take nearly that long to return."

  "If this crate holds up," a voice said over the PA loud­speaker.

  "Ahh, yeah, thanks for the encouraging reminder, Stasz." Ian looked up at the forward viewscreen, which was suddenly filled with the image of their grinning pilot, who had obviously been indulging with Richard.

  "I thought this little room was my private domain!" Ian shouted. "First Richard, then Ellen, now you listening in. So where the hell is Shelley?"

  "Right here, Ian." And the doorway slid open so that she drifted in to join them. "I was listening in on the intercom. There's been an open channel out of your cub­byhole for months, but you never knew it."

  Oh, great. Then they had heard his mutterings in pri­vate, when he thought he was hiding from the rest of them. He suddenly realized with a flush of embarrassment that Shelley and the rest must have heard some of the com­ments he had mumbled of late concerning Shelley, as well.

  He looked up at her and the moment of eye contact was enough. She blushed and he quickly turned away, and the other three chuckled.

  "Highly unethical, some of the things you've said to yourself," Ellen admonished.

  "Let's get back to the subject," Ian interrupted, trying to regain control of the conversation. "As Stasz reminds us on every single jump, there is a probability of disaster built into the Alpha-class spacecraft. We've been lucky. One more successful jump and we could be home."

  "Or one jump to Delta Sag, which is only seven light-years away," Shelley replied. "We could check out the vicinity, and then head for home. It will only add a month and a half to the journey."

  Ian realized that they were merely voicing the argu­ment that he'd wrestled with all day. Joshua had shaken him up. He had never expected something quite so chill­ing. But he was curious, as well. He had never orbited another star. Not surprising—he'd hardly ever been off-campus. They would in fact be the first survey vessel ever to orbit the Delta Sag binary. And since a number of colony vessels had headed in this direction, there was the possibility that they might find something.

  "Come on, Ian," Shelley said softly. "Let's do it."

  Ellen gave him a nudge and offered the flask.

  "But you're almost out of forms," Ian said jokingly.

  "I'll improvise. Hell, Ian, you've made my career on this journey. I never thought it possible that I'd ever profit from knowing you."

  "Say, Ian, when she gets rich and famous, we should go to some conference and pass the word about what C.C. means."

  Ellen turned with a roundhouse punch, and Richard jerked aside, just barely missed losing his teeth. As Rich­ard ducked, Ian was able to observe the absurd effects created by trying to punch someone in zero G.

  It took Shelley several minutes to subdue Ellen and pull her out of the room.

  "Not nice, Richard," Ian said admonishingly.

  "But it was fun."

  Knowing that the intercom line was hot, Ian didn't reply immediately. After thinking their situation over for a few minutes, he said, "All right, Stasz, punch us up for Delta Sag. But this time I think I'll stay back here with the flask and ride it out."

  And when the drive finally kicked in with a vision-blurring jolt, Ian could barely tell if it was the gin or distortion that caused him to black out.

  When the detection alarm kicked in, Ian and Shelley were hunched over the display board examining some of the records from Unit 287. For two weeks they had spent every waking moment checking out the video recordings and the historical data stored aboard the vessel. Ian was still in a state near shock over the library, where he had discovered thousands of works believed to have been lost in the Holocaust War.

  The names of authors whose works were till now un­known scrolled across the catalog display, and Ian mut­tered with frustration when he tried to decide which to examine first.

  "Look at these," Ian had cried. "The discovery of just one of these books would have been worthy of note, and we've found thousands. It will revolutionize our under­standing of pre-Holocaust literature."

  Shelley hung over his shoulder and watched as the names and works flashed across the screen.

  "Who was this Mailer?" she asked.

  "Someone obscure, I've read that his works are noth­ing but worthless mutterings."

  "Then if that's the case, with our memory filled to capacity, shouldn't we dump him? I mean, Richard, Stasz, and Ellen are all howling for memory space."

  "Yeah, maybe you're right," Ian replied, and he pushed the erase button to make room for something of more value.

  "What about this Akhmedov? I never heard of him either."

  "Good heavens, girl, and you my grad-ass ahh, I mean assistant. I should have you go back and reread your texts." And it was at that moment that the alarm kicked in.

  Stasz quickly hit the override and within minutes they had gathered forward to see what was to come.

  "No beacon functioning on this one," Stasz reported to the assembled crew, "but it's the biggest I've ever seen. Her mass triggered the alarm. She's only about five hundred A.U. off our main course, heading for Delta Sag. Should we jump down and check it out?"

  Ian looked around and shrugged his shoulders. "What the hell?" he murmured. And turning, he went back to the computer board aft to ride out the velocity shifts and the gut-popping downshift to sublight.

  "So that explains the mass," Stasz said. "There're two of them riding together."

  They were on final approach, and the confusing shape of what appeared to be a triple torus mated to a Bernal sphere had finally, at closer examination, resolved itself into two distinct and different vessels.

  "Shelley, can you get a clear design printout of this?" Ian asked.

  Shelley ran the radar imaging through the computer file, and after several minutes of cross-matching with their records, the probable design and ship's data finally came up on the screen.

  "Ian?"

  "Yes?"

  "What the hell is Albania?"

  "Albania?" He floated over to Shelley's side and peered over her shoulder. He noticed that there was a faint but pleasant scent to her hair, and for a second his thoughts were diverted.

  "What is it?" Ellen asked, and as he looked across at her Ian realized that she had noticed his diversion and he felt somewhat flustered.

  Albania? Faint memories were stirred of old maps of southeastern Europe. He wasn't sure, but he had a recollection that they were some crazy nationalist group out of the Balkans. A number of ethnic groups had founded colonies in that final decade before the Holocaust, as an attempt to preserve their culture if the war finally came. So this then must be an ethnic preservation unit. He chuckled softly at the image of the Albanians greeting him at the door wearing gawdy peasant garb and gyrating to bizarre folk music.

  This might be amusing, Ian thought lightly. They must be harmless.

  "Ian, I'm getting a printout on the second unit," Shelley said. "It appears to
be another ethnic group, it's a Serbo-Croatian Nationalist Liberation Unit."

  Serbo-Croatians? Hell, even he was stumped by that.

  He looked across at Ellen. "Amaze me and tell me that you know Serbo-Croatian, or whatever it is they speak over there."

  "I'd like to lie, but I never even heard of Serbo-Croatian."

  Ian didn't answer. He'd let them think that he knew all about them. He took over the data board from Shelley and accessed into their own library and into the library from 287 to find an answer.

  After a half hour of silent study, he came to his conclusions. "Stasz, how about firing up our drive and getting us the hell out of here."

  "What do you mean?" Richard interjected. "Hell, we're only a thousand kilometers away and closing. Come on, Ian, let's check these ethnic guys out—it might be interesting."

  "Look, I'm the historian and the project leader. Trust me. Those Albanians and Serbo-Croatians were neighbors back on Earth. In fact, if you go over to that region today, you'll still find them gleefully slicing each other's throats when the sun goes down. They were doing it for a thousand years before the Holocaust. Hell, those crazy bastards helped to trigger a world war. If ever there were two groups of people who enjoyed slaughtering each other, it would be those two. I bet that they searched through all the cosmos just to find each other out here, so they could dress up in their ethnic garb and go at it. So let's just leave them alone with their friendly folk customs."

  "Come on, Ian, let's go in just a little closer." This time it was Stasz.

  "You're playing with fire."

  "And here I thought you were turning heroic on us.

  Now the old Ian comes back out again," Shelley said jokingly.

  "Okay, go ahead, you crazies. But if they can get aboard this ship, you better learn how to speak Serbo or Albanian, or whatever it is, damn fast."

  From less than a kilometer away they slowly circled the two units. The two colonies were docked to each other by several long tubes. Stasz hailed the vessels on every possible frequency but received no response. However, both ships gave clear indications that their reactors were functioning at full power, and from the exterior mirrors Ian could see reflected images of the inside indicating lights and movement.