Into the Sea of Stars Page 17

  "Go and help his honor," he said softly. And wordlessly they stood and left the room.

  "You, fat one. Are you so typical of those who we thought were so fearless?"

  Ian had a hard time finding his voice, and he suddenly realized that his body was covered in a cold sweat. "Yes."

  "This bears great thought. Next—is it truth that you have the ability to go beyond light?"

  Ian could merely nod.

  "Don't tell him anything," Elijah hissed.

  "Silence! I could kill you with a word."

  "You killed me fifty years ago. I am arisen from that silent death. You cannot kill me ever again, for I am al­ready dead."

  "A holy fool," someone muttered from the shadows. "It is written then that he should be spaced."

  "He will be spaced when I command," Gregor replied. "Now, you who are called Ian, do you understand how this vessel can do such a thing?"

  "Ahh, well, to be honest, no."

  Gregor drew closer. "If I think that you lie, I'll slit your throat and then cut out your tongue and jam it down your windpipe."

  Ian was aware that a puddle was forming around his shoes. "I don't know how it works."

  "Then tell me which of you knows how it does."

  "No, I'll not betray a friend."

  Gregor looked him in the eye and held his gaze.

  "You have more courage than it appears," Gregor snapped. "The mystery of your coming requires more examination, for I see the dream of our jihad come to fruition at last with such a device that you now possess. This requires far more decision than I am capable of. You shall live, for the moment."

  Gregor turned away.

  There was a murmur of angry voices in the room.

  "Silence. I like it not, but the Father is already awak­ening. I cannot exceed my mandate, even if I wish it. He must be awakened."

  "But, Gregor," came a voice from the back of the room, "take the burden yourself this time and let him return to sleep."

  "Speak not or I shall force upon you what Nara has earned."

  Suddenly the two men who had followed Nara returned to the room and walked to his side.

  "Did Nara keep his honor?" Gregor asked.

  One of the two held up his blade for all to see—a dark substance dripped from the tip of the weapon. The others murmured their approval.

  "He had already cut himself open by the time we ar­rived. I ended for him as second, so he would not cry out and thus be shamed. Nara's honor was preserved."

  The others expressed their approval and, to lan's ears, sounded happy.

  "Then it is time to take communion with Nara's honor," Gregor intoned ceremonially. "Let these others be taken to a place of waiting, for the Father must be prayed to: A decision must be made."

  They were led away by their female interrogator, and as he watched them while leaving the room, Ian had a bad feeling about what a "communion with Nara's honor" really meant.

  Ian looked over to Elijah and saw that he was smiling hungrily.

  "Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into, Ian," Ellen said wearily.

  Ian looked up at Ellen and smiled weakly.

  "Can't you lay off him for a little while?" Stasz inter­jected.

  "Why are you defending him all of a sudden?"

  "Because I have a feeling all our butts are going to be fried in this one, and in spite of his screw-up in bringing us here, I have to say he really hasn't done all that bad."

  Ian looked up at Stasz and nodded his thanks.

  Richard and Shelley were asleep on a low cot set into the far corner of the room. His heavy arm was draped protectively over Shelley's shoulder, but she didn't seem to mind and had drifted off to sleep hours ago.

  How long they had been in the holding cell was only a guess. It had already been indicated to them that their respective roles had easily been ascertained by a search of the Discovery, and after that one bit of communication, not another word of information had been exchanged.

  Much to lan's surprise, they had been allowed their personal possessions, so he had his pocket computer and the alien artifact, which he had quickly explained as a religious medallion.

  Only Elijah seemed unperturbed by the situation. He was explaining that "to be locked up with even one other person is my idea of paradise," when the door to their cell opened noiselessly. Only a single guard stood there—the white-robed one they had called Gregor. He pointed to Ian then beckoned for him to follow.

  Ian suddenly felt as if the decision over their fate had been made. They must have discovered by now the op­erational and repair manuals stored in the ship's com­puters. With just a little research work they should be able to replicate the Discovery; therefore there was no need any longer for the Earthmen's "unclean" bodies to be kept alive.

  Ian stood up and attempted to maintain his dignity. He gently shook hands with Stasz and Elijah and lightly touched Ellen on the shoulder.

  "Should I wake up Richard and Shelley?" Ellen asked. There was a choke in her voice.

  He shook his head. "I don't think I could handle the upset; you better not. If I don't come back, tell Shelley I really regret not sleeping with her. It's been hard not to, but tell her I fought down the nearly overwhelming desire because I didn't want to create any friction aboard ship." He tried to chuckle.

  Ian looked at Ellen and smiled. "Maybe I should have made a pass at you, as well."

  "Go on, get out of here." She turned away.

  Ian walked out of the room and Gregor beckoned for him to proceed down the corridor.

  "Are you going to kill me?" Ian suddenly asked.

  "We all die. Death is an illusion, only honor and name remain. When you die, Ian Lacklin, try to leave more behind than a puddle on the floor."

  Suspecting that Gregor was laughing, Ian looked back over his shoulder, but his features were solemn and Ian realized that he had been perfectly serious.

  "I do not hate you, Ian Lacklin, but I would not gain honor by slaying thee. I know that there is honor in you, in spite of what your outward appearance might tell. Gain honor and then the slaying of you would be worthy for one such as myself."

  What the hell is this guy talking about? Ian wondered. If gaining honor is the ticket to this man's sword, then forget it.

  "I know what you are thinking, Ian Lacklin, but I be­lieve that you will understand, as well, and will in the end embrace your honor and die for it."

  Gregor touched Ian on the shoulder and motioned for him to stop.

  The chimelike sound that Ian had heard in the audience hall was drifting on the edge of hearing, but his attention was diverted by the procession coming his way from the other end of the corridor. Gregor backed to the wall and Ian followed his example to let the procession pass. They numbered nearly a hundred, each of them robed. Some were dark as ebony, others paler, a few had Gregor's Asiatic features. It seemed as if half a dozen races had been blended together during the millennium and a com­posite of all had been melded into one, with the black having a slight dominance. They walked with a certain assured grace, male and female alike. Not one looked sidelong at him, so perfect was their discipline.

  After the procession's passage Gregor again pointed forward, and Ian tried to somehow emulate those who had just passed by—walking to his death without a whine.

  Finally they stopped at the audience chamber where Ian had been received earlier. He looked at Gregor ques-tioningly. Was his death then to be a spectacle before an audience?

  Gregor pointed to the door, which slid open as if guided by unseen hands.

  "Is this to be my end?"

  Like an angel of death, Gregor silently pointed, his robed and hooded figure surreal and nightmarish.

  "Answer me, at least let me know. Am I to die in there?"

  Still there was no response.

  "Well, then I have one thing to say if that's the case."

  Again Gregor beckoned for him to go.

  Ian screwed up his courage, trying to re
member his best Old English, hoping that the words still meant the same even in this culture.

  "Well then, if that's the case, then fuck you!"

  Turning on his heels, he strode through the doorway.

  "Marvelous, absolutely marvelous." The voice was deep and melodious.

  The door slid closed behind Ian, and in the semidark-ness he could make out but one figure on the dais. Ian strode closer, and the figure stood up as if in greeting.

  "I haven't heard it said that way in nearly a thousand years. And with just the right inflection!"

  Ian stopped in front of the dais and looked up.

  "Yes, Ian Lacklin. My name is Dr. Franklin Smith."

  Chapter 13

  Nearly six and a half feet tall, he towered over Ian and beneath his simple robe was a powerful build. His chocolate features were wreathed in a salt-and-pepper beard that matched his bushy hair.

  Smith stepped closer to Ian and gave him a hard, appraising stare that seemed to slice into his soul. Ian tried to hold Smith's gaze, but after a brief painful struggle, he broke off the one-sided contest of wills.

  "Ah, yes." Smith turned away from Ian and walked back up to the dais, regaining the seat occupied in the last interview by Gregor. Smith pointed to the far corner of the dais.

  "There's a chair over there. Fetch it and come sit be­fore me."

  "Should I kneel first or something like that?"

  "Very good, Ian, very good. But if any of my people heard that comment in that tone, you'd be dead before even I could stop them." He paused for a moment then stared him straight in the eye. "So don't be a wise-ass, or your shit will be cooked."

  Ian grabbed the chair and sat down.

  Smith was silent for some minutes, and Ian thought it best to let him take the lead in whatever it was that was going to happen.

  Still staring straight into his eyes, Smith finally started. "You're a historian, are you not? That's what the ship's records indicate."

  "Yes, I'm a historian."

  "Then as a historian I know you have a million ques­tions. I have my questions, too, but perhaps they will be answered better if I see what path it is that you choose."

  Smith stretched and mumbled a quiet curse while rub­bing his back. "Go ahead, historian, ask."

  As the fullness of his opportunity washed over him, for a moment Ian was struck speechless. The past was but a dream, a dream lived more richly by any good historian, but still a dream. He thought for a moment that he had touched it with the life-extension colony, but that had turned to the ashes of senility. Yet here sat Franklin Smith, someone out of a past as distant and dead as Ssu-ma Zhung, Hitler, Napoleon, or Clarke. He had read of Smith, had charted his activities during the days leading up to the Holocaust and studied his in­strumental role in the grand conspiracy of the colonies to escape disaster. And now he sat across from him. Was it really even him at all? he suddenly wondered, growing suspicious.

  "How?"

  "How. Ah, yes, how am I here; not forgotten ashes, nor half-remembered legend." He stretched again and leaned forward. "You know, Ian, I suspected that would be your first question. The others"—he waved vaguely, as if indicating the entire universe—"take it as a miracle. But it was nothing more than a damn good research pro­gram at U.S.C. Have you heard of U.S.C.?"

  Ian shook his head.

  "Not a great school—the Chinese research programs were far better at that point—but still not bad. Well, they had isolated a number of the properties of hibernation. It was on the eve of the war..." His voice trailed off for a moment and he was silent.

  He suddenly looked up at Ian with a start. "Just re­membering, you see, it really wasn't that long ago for me. Before the war, an old professor of mine who was in on the project was exiled to the life-extension colony. I looked him up afterward. I heard that your records indicate a visit there, as well?"

  Ian nodded but said nothing.

  "He gave me a number of doses and the antidote for it, in consideration for a favor of mine."

  "Such as not destroying the life-extension colony the way you did a couple of the others?"

  Smith was silent again, and Ian wondered if he had gone too far. Smith smiled as if in warning, then contin­ued.

  "Through the accident of being scheduled in one of his classes while still an undergraduate, and a later chance meeting, I can sit here today, a millennium hence. While he..." His voice trailed off again for a moment. "Well, while he, if unfortunate enough to survive what happened, has long ago been taken by the inevitable thief of life and gone into the darkness.

  "So, with such a simple turn of fate, I am injected with the drug and fall into a deep dreamless sleep. It can be for a day, or it can, as in one case, last for over a century— as long as I am occasionally given an intravenous injection and my unsensing limbs are manipulated so that they do not atrophy. A century, I said, and to my body not a month has passed. When there is need for me, I am wakened by the antidote. And so it was that Gregor, whose grandfather had once so served me, decided that I should be called, so that I might judge for myself what it is that you bring to me."

  "And the passage of the centuries is nothing then to you?"

  "The leave-taking, the war, the first months of madness are not two years past for me. A millennium, Ian Lacklin, is as if only yesterday. This long inexorable journey but a brief flicker in time. Your wondrous machine, Ian Lack­lin, which has taken the journey of over fifty generations and compressed it into a moment, does in some ways compare with the journey that I have taken, as well. You remember Earth as it is today. And I, I have memories just as fresh, but of an Earth now gone for a thousand years."

  He chuckled sadly in that rich, full voice.

  "Only one question answered so far, Ian Lacklin. There must be yet ten thousand more."

  He was right, and Ian wondered for a moment if the conversation could just continue forever, postponing what he feared was the inevitable order for his death.

  "I know that you've had contact with several colonies from Earth, but you haven't run into anything else? You know, contact of some kind?"

  "You mean an alien civilization?"

  Ian nodded.

  "We've picked up some signals, most from the original SETI point. I was told there was one quite close not a generation ago, but so far, Ian, nothing. Why do you ask?"

  "Oh, just curious, that's all."

  Smith looked at Ian closely, as if he suspected some­thing, so Ian quickly pushed ahead with another question.

  "I know the how of your cheating death and time. But why?"

  "Wouldn't you cheat it? Think for a moment, Ian Lack­lin. How long does the average man now live on Earth?"

  "Three score is pretty good."

  "Ah, yes, I imagine the aftereffects of the war. Before that madness came, we were averaging a full century on Earth. Some aboard the geriatric units were approaching a century and a half."

  "On the life-extension unit many have passed the mil­lennium mark," Ian replied, "but it wasn't a very pretty sight."

  "Yes, yes, I can imagine. But as I was saying, suppose you could be given the chance to go to sleep and awaken for one or two days in each of the centuries to come— down through the ages, forever seeing what new and won­drous things would await us in our future. Wouldn't you take it?"

  Ian could only agree, but underneath it all he imagined that it would be exciting and terribly empty—to awaken each time in a world where he knew no one. He sensed something else; a faint glimmer of excitement shone in Smith's eyes that wasn't there before.

  "But there is another reason, isn't there?"

  Franklin smiled. And the smile to Ian was one of threat.

  "There is my mission, as well." His voice increased in power, as if he was suddenly addressing a multitude rather than one nervous historian.

  "Your mission, you say?"

  "Yes, but another time for that, Ian Lacklin. You'll learn soon enough."

  Ian sensed that a door had just
been closed on a pos­sible line of questioning, at least for the present, so he gathered in his thoughts for a moment and struck out in a new direction.

  "According to Beaulieu, you were one of the key fig­ures of the secretive Alpha Psi Council, the group that was instrumental in organizing the plan to evacuate all colonial units."

  "Who is this Beaulieu?"

  "One of the greatest historians alive today. It was Beaulieu who proved that man first landed on the Moon during the rule of Truman."

  "Close enough," Smith muttered.

  "He's leading the dig at Base Seven on Mars. The Copernican dig, the one that uncovered all the records of the Great Migration, was initiated by him, as well."

  "I knew we should have blown that base as we moved out," Smith said evenly.

  Ian didn't bother to follow up on that either but decided to wait for an answer. He could see that Smith was en­joying himself. In a strange way Ian was a contemporary of the near-mythical man, perhaps one of the few people alive who could understand the ramifications and intri­cacies of Smith's time and place.

  "Yes, the Psi Council, as we called it," Smith contin­ued. "I think, Ian, you understand the time and its events. My grandsires had made the Great Leap forward into space—that realm with all its promise and dreams. Then there was my generation, a generation taught to believe that we were the ones who would unbind ourselves for­ever from the confines of Earth.

  "I was born in space, Unit 333, my mother a Nigerian linguist, my father an American mission coordinator for a Powersat unit."

  Ian was having a hard time understanding some of Smith's monolog but he didn't interrupt. Smith was warm­ing to his subject, his full voice rising and falling as if he were telling a story to a group of young children who were fascinated by every word he said. Ian had his first sus­picions that Smith was slightly mad.

  "I was sent Earthside and, of all things, it was phi­losophy that took me. And with it came an Earthside position teaching. Those were hard times, Ian, ripe with a promise. Man could have gone far. But the darkness was already overwhelming us in a world of haves and have-nots. The great rivals of the previous century banded together out of fear of those whom they now had to suppress. The world was carrying a burden of twelve billion souls, Ian. Twelve billion. Once we had dreamed that space could take them. But faster than we could take them off-planet, more were born—and so the mad­ness came.