Into the Sea of Stars Read online

  He settled back into his chair and took a long, refresh­ing sip. So he was embarking on the great journey, fol­lowing the path of his heroes on their outward reach to the stars. How often he had tried to romanticize this to his bored students, who viewed the exploration of space with not one-tenth the interest that was reserved for the afternoon video love shows. How he longed for the world of a millennium earlier, when things were held in their proper perspective.

  Idiots! At least I'm away from them. He took another swallow. In spite of his fears, Ian felt a tingling, a surge of excitement. He was reaching out along the same path that millions had followed so long ago. He would at last have the chance to follow them outward and discover the secret of their odyssey.

  The thought set his heart to pounding. He was about to realize the ultimate fantasy of any good historian—to come face to face with the past. With luck he might even find a Mitsubishi Habitat, or one of the old O'Neill Cyl­inders. Ian knew historians who would joyfully have killed their mothers if it meant a chance to meet with Churchill or to witness the Mongol burning of Kiev. And here was his chance, his dream coming out to meet him. He could remember how Lelezi dreamed of finding a tape showing a Saturn V lift-off. Sure, once that would have given Ian a thrill, but now he was going for far bigger game.

  The steward came by again and Ian waved for another triple. Shelley gave him a frown.

  His mind lapsed into happy reverie. He could imag­ine meeting in secret with Smith and the Council of Ten as they made their momentous decision to abandon Earth on the eve of the Holocaust War. Yes, Ian Lacklin, an­nouncing to a startled world the forming of the Alliance and the Declaration of Severance...

  "It's wonderful, just simply wonderful!"

  Several heads turned to look at him, but he didn't give a damn. Hell no, they can all kiss off. He was Ian Lacklin, noted historian, soon to be explorer. Why, damn it, once he returned from this voyage, there wouldn't be a pub­lisher in the country crazy enough to turn down his man­uscripts. He'd have it made. Yes sir, he could snap his fingers at the Chancellor, why, even the Governor could kiss his butt. The thought of such a thing made him laugh out loud. And to think that just a week ago he was terrified about the Governor's ever finding out about him and what's-her-name.

  And the Chancellor, yeah the Chancellor. Good-bye to that rotten SOB and all the bureaucratic nightmares of teaching at a government-run institution. No more damned memos about using the correct forms, or inventories re­porting how many erasers were missing, or asinine edu­cation courses. No sir, Ian thought, no more faculty meetings, and most of all, no more educational politics. "No more!" he shouted out loud. "Say, steward, get over here if you please, my good man."

  Shelley was looking around the cabin in mortal em­barrassment, when an insistent warning beeper suddenly kicked on. "All passengers, this is your flight director. Please be sure that your safety belts are fastened." Ian paid it no heed.

  Shelley looked over at Ian and made sure that he was strapped in.

  "We have reached maximum velocity; our acceleration will terminate in ten seconds. You'll experience a mo­mentary sensation of lightness when acceleration cuts out. We know you'll enjoy it as a pleasant foretaste of zero G at Geosync 4. Thank you."

  "And you know what I'd like to tell Miss Redding, Miss C.C. Set Procedures Redding right now?" Ian shouted.

  Shelley looked at him wide-eyed. In her entire shel­tered experience of university parents and honors dor­mitories, she had never been forced to deal with a drunken male.

  She was still searching for an apt response when the acceleration cut off. Shelley suddenly felt as if she had been riding an elevator (which indeed she was) and the vehicle had slowed while she kept going. Her stomach felt as if it were climbing out her mouth.

  And suddenly she no longer had to think of how to respond to Ian. Her only concern now was to find enough towels to start cleaning up her thoroughly besotten pro­fessor.

  * * *

  "Yes, Dr. Redding, of course."

  He tried to back out of the cramped middle cabin, but the laws of zero G tricked him. His arms flailing like berserk windmill sails, Richard Croce spun across the room, slapped into the wall, then ricocheted back toward Ellen Redding, who didn't hesitate for one second with her high-speed outpouring of vitriolic abuse.

  "Damn it, woman, help me." Richard groaned as he did a slow rolling dive straight at her bulging midsection.

  Grabbing hold of a support railing, Ellen gently pulled herself out of Richard's dive-bomb approach. He drifted past her and smacked into the opposite wall of the cabin, this time face first, but his outstretched hands grabbed a padded rail and prevented another pinball-like trajectory.

  "Now, Dr. Croce, if you've stopped your acrobatic display of zero-gravity ineptitude, I would like to sum­marize my argument."

  "Damn it, Ellen, I can't do anything about it."

  "Dr. Redding to you, Doctor Croce." There was a sar­castic edge to how she said Dr. Croce— as if the linking of the two words were somehow impossible.

  "All right, Dr. Redding," Richard replied coldly, "I'll remember your title." The rest of the sentence started to form but he thought better of it. He viewed doctorates in sociology and collective psychology as having the same validity as a doctorate in physical education or school administration.

  "Thank you"—she hesitated for a moment, and then smiled icily—"Doctor."

  He took several deep breaths in a vain attempt to calm himself, then decided to start in again. "And another thing, Captain Leminski stated that our gross weight is a hundred and twenty kilos over." He eyed her bulging form sar­castically, and she started to color into a deeper shade of purple that went beyond the flaming red of her hair.

  "I know where we can dump off that weight right now," she replied evenly.

  "I don't see anything coming off your manifest."

  "Because it doesn't need to."

  "A hundred and fifty kilos of survey forms in triplicate! You call that necessary!" Richard shouted.

  "Dr. Croce, I've already explained to you that I've been sent on this expedition by our Chancellor to gather important data. The best way for a sociologist and col­lective psychologist to gather information is through ob­servation and survey."

  "You don't even know if they'll be able to read the damn things. Did you get your precious forms translated into Old English or Japanese or Russian? Well, did you?"

  "There is no need of that. I'm sure your good friend Ian will be able to translate for us."

  The loathing she put into the word Ian was almost frightening in its intensity. The faculty battles between Ian Lacklin and Ellen Redding were near legend. Richard pitied poor Ian when he came aboard.

  "Dr. Redding, I'm sure the Chancellor doesn't give a good damn about these so-called Lost Colonies. Person­ally, I think this whole charade is nothing more than a hairbrained move on the Chancellor's part to get rid of his most embarrassing tenured faculty."

  "Now, Croce, you—"

  "Dr. Croce, to you."

  Boiling with anger, Ellen stumbled for a response, and Richard pushed on.

  "If—and I say, if—we find these colonies, I think Ian will have more to do with his time than to translate your half-witted sociological surveys to a bunch of people who most likely won't want to be surveyed in the first place. Therefore, my dear doctor, I think it only logical that your damn bloody forms should be heaved out right now."

  "If anything is to be heaved, it should be those ten cases of alleged surgical and sterilization equipment." A smug smile lit up her pudgy face, and she laughed maliciously. "Besides, Doctor, a half hour ago I managed to put one of those cases through the airlock."

  "You bitch! Do you know how hard it was to get that gin up here!" His voice trailed off into incoherent screams. One-tenth of his liquor, gone! Three years for this damned mission, and only nine cases to see him through! Richard barely heard Leminski shout over the intercom about a ship's docking alongside as h
e launched himself through the air toward Ellen.

  The hatch behind them opened. A green face peered through. "Oh, my God." Ian groaned.

  "Ah, Ian, old friend," Richard shouted, as he drifted within striking distance of Ellen, "you're just in time to witness the effect of zero gravity on blubber."

  "Why, you pickled sot—"

  "Enough! I've had enough!" A wiry form in blue cov­eralls pushed through the doorway behind Ian.

  "Ah, Ian," Richard said with sudden cheer, "meet our pilot and guide through the universe, Stasz Leminski."

  Ian extended his hand, but Stasz ignored him.

  "I have my orders," Stasz whispered in a sharp, hissing voice. His five-and-a-half-foot, hundred-pound frame seemed to be a coiled bundle of energy ready to explode in violent rage at any second.

  "The problem is simple. We need to dump one hundred and twenty kilos. You must decide which one hundred and twenty kilos within twenty-three hours. Antimatter ignition sequencing will start in twenty-six hours. If by three hours before departure you have not dumped the excess mass, I will do it for you."

  Grabbing hold of a handrail, he turned himself about as if getting set to leave.

  "Ah, Leminski, I don't think you quite understand," Ellen Redding said. She spoke with the pedantic style typical of a professor addressing an idiot or a first-year university student.

  "I understand perfectly, Miss Redding." He smiled a tight wolfish grin as she stiffened to the form of address. "You see, Miss Redding, I am the craft pilot and engineer, therefore I am responsible for the function of this wreck which the Confederation has pawned off on you... well, never mind that. As I was saying, when it comes to the function of this vessel, I am in control."

  Pushing off, he floated back down the corridor.

  Ellen turned on Ian, who quailed at the sight of his old nemesis. But before she could speak, Stasz's voice drifted back to them. "By the way, Dr. Redding, I'm declaring that Croce's 'surgical supplies' are now part of my ship's maintenance stores, therefore they are not to be touched. Dr. Lacklin, I'd suggest that those damned forms get dumped right now. Heaven knows how I hate forms; in fact, I've already got eighty kilos' worth in the airlock." He laughed sardonically and disappeared into the forward control room.

  Sensing an impending explosion, Richard pushed past Ellen and mumbled an excuse about checking his equip­ment. As he drifted by Ian, his nose wrinkled at the sour smell.

  "Good luck, old boy," Richard whispered.

  "If I'd known that she was going to be aboard, I'd have stayed home in spite of the Chancellor," Ian whispered in reply. "Writing grants would be heaven compared to this."

  "I heard that, Ian."

  Richard grabbed Shelley's arm and pushed her out the hatch, abandoning Ian to what Richard told her would be "a friendly Social Science Departmental Meeting."

  The shouting between the two old rivals filled the ship until Stasz finally called it to halt and begged for a little sleep before departure.

  Chapter 3

  "I thought it essential that we all sit down together before departure and briefly review what we can expect." Ian was trying to speak with an authoritative voice, but it came out more as a strangled croak. He and Ellen Redding had had such a knock-down drag out over who was in control of the mission that he had actually shouted himself hoarse. He looked across at her and tried a wan smile, but from her response it must have looked to her to be a threatening grimace. Nevertheless she said noth­ing; his halfhearted threat to call the Chancellor and resign over her presence, for the moment at least, had been the lever to submission.

  "Why we've been assigned is the Chancellor's decision and not mine. But I can see where, if anything, he wished to get rid of three tenured faculty and bring in his own people—and, Ellen, I'd think even you'd agree with that." She nodded her head sadly. Most of the campus staff knew about the affair between Ellen and the Chancellor a dozen years back, when he was still the glad-handing, ever-smiling young hotshot assistant to the assistant vice president. Out of that had come the famous nickname "C.C." Redding, which most faculty could guess at but usually would not discuss with anyone less than a graduate student.

  Leminski floated to one side of the table and looked vacantly off into space with a slightly bored expression of disdain.

  Ian cleared his throat and tried to continue. "Stasz, are we in trim for flight weight?"

  "Yeah, and one kilo under. Croce and me drained off an extra bottle of gin and just discharged it a little while ago."

  Oh, great, Ian thought, Richard has a new drinking buddy. The pilot to whom we've entrusted our lives.

  "All right then, we've got our ship, everything is loaded, and now we have to decide where to go."

  Richard looked up at Ian. "What do you mean, where do we go? Why, I thought this expedition was to look for the Lost Colonies."

  "It's not that simple," Ian said softly. "Shelley's grant request mentioned in general terms the seven hundred lost colonies, and indeed if all of them survived, which is highly unlikely, we are now presented with an inter­esting piece of math which our dear sponsors never grasped."

  "Go on," Ellen said softly, without a trace of anger. When it came to questions of odds and statistics, she was all professional and, in fact, even cordial.

  "All right, here is what we know—the givens, so to speak. Starting in the year 2079 the first colonial units came to the decision to abandon Earth in light of the coming war. Their propulsion systems were stationkeeping units, not heavy-lift devices. Given the tech level of the period, the only propulsion units available were ion drive, plasma drive, solar sail, antimatter, and thermo­nuclear pulse.

  "Within four years the first unit completed its modi­fications and was away. Seven hundred and twenty-three departed before August 7, 2087, when the first wave of EMP detonations on Earth and the subsequent strikes wiped out all communication."

  Ian was really getting into form now, and for once he had an interested audience. His was no longer dry his­tory—it was the information that would be the center of their lives for the next three years.

  "Could more units have left afterward?" Richard asked.

  "Possibly. And just that question shows the problems of this quest. There is only one absolute given in this whole scheme. Six hundred and twelve units did pull out of near-Earth orbit and one hundred and eleven others pulled out from various deep-space orbits, including three asteroid mining-survey colonies.

  "But the data stops the day the war started, when the tracking facilities on the Moon and Mars were knocked out. So there is the potential that approximately seven hundred other units, which were preparing to abandon Earth orbit, did indeed abandon orbit."

  "So that increases our odds tremendously?" Ellen asked cautiously,

  "Yes, from next to impossible to almost next to im­possible. And I'm not being sarcastic. You see, the Co­pernicus site did have the initial trajectory data. In fact, for the units that left several years before the war, the data are pretty darn good, since they had time to do some pinpoint tracking.

  "So here we have the raw data of seven hundred-odd colonies to start with, that's great. However, did you ever stop to think"—and Ian was talking in general, but every­one could sense that it was directed toward Shelley— "just how big it is out there?"

  She smiled wanly and nodded. The stares of the other three focused on her, and she could feel the hostility grow­ing as each one thought about the fact that it was the overzealous young student who had pulled them from their more-comfortable niches and sent them to synchron­ous orbit.

  "It's not that bad," she said meekly.

  "Not that bad!" Stasz interjected. "My hand to God, for I speak the truth, it's merely numbing in size.

  "How far could they have gone?" he asked, shifting his gaze from Shelley back to Ian.

  "Not far. It's estimated that their drive systems at best could take them up to point-one light. Therefore, a max­imum of 112 light-years out. That gives us a c
ubic volume of.. .let me see."

  "Nearly ten million cubic light years." Ellen said softly, obviously proud that she could outdo them all in a little exercise of mental calculation.

  "Therefore," Ian responded, "I present our problem— where do we start? We shall be looking for approximately seven hundred units in an area of ten million cubic light-years."

  "Can't we eliminate a good part of that?" Richard asked.

  "I think so," Stasz interjected. "The fifteen stars near­est to Earth have already been checked out—without any sign of refugee colonies. That eliminates nearly a hundred craft right there, since their trajectories carried them that way. Now, it is of course possible that they went to those systems, slingshoted around them, and went off on tan­gent trajectories,, thereby making predictions of their whereabouts more difficult."

  "And I think we can also eliminate two hundred or so colonies because the data we have on them indicates that they would not have survived the journey for long."

  "Why so, Dr. Lacklin?" Shelley asked, curiosity overcoming her desire to hide.

  "The answer is simple. We are dealing with closed ecosystems. There is a certain amount of free hydrogen available in interstellar space, and if you could accelerate up to ramjet velocities that would be useful, but outside of the propulsion systems, the colonies had to be one hundred percent closed."

  "I'm not sure that I follow you," Ellen admitted.

  "Well, let us say that a colony had a ninety-nine point nine percent reclamation rate for all combinations of ox­ygen. Let's say that across a time period of X, point one percent of the total oxygen supply is lost due to faulty reclamation, leaks, and such. Now, point one is not bad for any vessel if X equals one year. But look at the simple math—in one thousand years, unless another oxygen sup­ply was found, the colony would be dead. Now, this equa­tion applies to every resource: oxygen, amino acids, carbon compounds, nitrogen, various electronic components, and even worse, any catalysts, substances that are changed by the interaction of a process."