Into the Sea of Stars Read online

  "The first critical point of scarcity," Richard inter­rupted, "defines the limits of growth or survival." He looked around with a self-satisfied smile, as Ian and the others turned to him.

  "Well, it's an ecological point, and that's what these colonies are—closed ecologies. The first point of scarcity will define their possible limit, any bioscientist knows that. So you're saying that a number of these units had limited carrying capacity."

  "At least a hundred are most likely dead by now," Ian continued, "unless they entered another star system for resupply and possible colonization. But from what Stasz has said of the. survey, there were no signs of that."

  "So far we've checked the fifteen nearest stars," Stasz responded.

  "And nothing?" Shelley asked.

  "Not a sign."

  "It's damn peculiar," Shelley replied. "You'd have thought that the units would have naturally gravitated to the nearest star systems."

  "Maybe none of them were appropriate," Richard in­terjected.

  "Two of the systems had planetary bodies that might have been useful for resupply, but the others, except for the energy from the star, were next to useless," Stasz replied.

  "Let's get back to the question of which direction to take," Ellen said, sensing that the rest of them would soon be off on a technical discussion that could last for days.

  "Ah, yes," Ian responded, as if being drawn back from a drifting line of thought that he wished to pursue. "Which way..." His voice trailed off.

  "How about thataway," Richard announced melodra­matically, while pointing off vaguely toward the "down" direction of the room.

  "Dr. Lacklin," Shelley said quietly, waiting for the laughter at Richard's comment to die down. "Dr. Lacklin, what about toward SETI Anomaly One and the galactic center?"

  Ian brightened up at her suggestion.

  "Precisely what I was leading to, of course," he said hurriedly. "You see, there was one general trend in the movement. Colonial 237, which was the second unit to depart, was headed straight for the galactic center, and our records show that one hundred thirty-five other units went within ten minutes of arc to either side of that point."

  "Well, that narrows the volume tremendously."

  "Still a bit of a problem, Ellen," Stasz replied.

  Ellen groaned. "It only gives us an area about twenty-one thousand A.U. in diameter to search at a range of fifty light-years out."

  Ian chuckled softly and gave Shelley a baleful glance. "I tried to explain this to the Chancellor, but do you think he cared about the mathematics of our search? Oh no. You see, a bright young graduate assistant had convinced a bunch of drone-head bureaucrats that this expedition could work." His normally high voice started to crack into falsetto. "Twenty-one thousand A.U." And shaking his head, he fell silent.

  "Why the galactic center?" Richard asked.

  "Why not? There were several stars they could orbit into along the path, and somehow it seemed appropriate. Sort of like going to the center of everything, if you will. And if we were to find anything in terms of life, I guess that would be the place to look for it. That, and the SETI contact back in 2018, coming straight out from the galactic center. Even though the contact point was estimated to be four thousand light-years away, it was still something to go for in all that immensity of space."

  "Are there any other areas of such promise?" Stasz asked.

  "No," Ian said softly, "the other colonies were pretty evenly distributed. A fair number going toward the thirty nearest stars, and, like I already said, the paradox of this is that in the first fifteen checked out so far, not one sighting has been made. If we head toward the galactic center, within a hundred light-years three stars not too far off the trajectory might be worth checking out. Twenty-three units used solar sails as their propulsion, and with our survey-ship telescopies, we can run a computerized scan as we head out. Forty of the units were using the old Orion concept—nuclear-blast pulsing."

  "God, how primitive," Stasz muttered.

  "Yeah, almost barbaric, but it worked. We might get lucky and detect a detonation or, at least, residual radia­tion from the pulsers. The ramjets will leave a certain amount of disturbance in their wake, and with luck, we can latch on. We'll have to trust to the nav-detection computer system to pick out anything and hope that there is some semblance of communication between them which we can home in on. Many of the units carried a powerful beacon system and we know the frequencies, so we can track on that, as well.

  "So, unless one of my fellow travelers has another suggestion, I guess we should point ourselves into the galactic core and hope."

  "We do have fairly precise measurements on colonials 418 and 422," Shelley interjected. "We could try for them first."

  "I don't think it really matters," Ian replied despond­ently, "so what the hell, enter it into the log as we depart that we're locking onto the tracks of 418 and 422. At least it will make us sound like we're doing something."

  "You sound as if you don't expect to find any of those colonies," Ellen responded.

  "By the Eye of the Crab," Stasz shouted, and he pointed to Richard and winked. Richard pulled a plastic pouch out of his pocket and tossed it to the pilot, who snatched it out of the air, pulled the straw out, and drained off so much of the contents that Richard's face fell even as Stasz's turned redder and redder.

  "As I was about to say, nearly seventy-five percent of these Alpha-3 class survey ships never came back from their surveys. Hell, lady, chances are you'll die before we ever find one of lan's bloody lost friends. Why the hell do you think the government gave this ship to your grant foundation? Two years ago they dumped a pretty penny into overhauling this crate and then the smart boys in Research and Development come up with a safer and faster design. Now if they scrapped this bucket some damn fool antispace senator would scream that we're wasting taxpayers' money. Of course nobody in DSSE wants assignment to this deathtrap, so some bright young fellow comes up with the idea of giving it to you damned stupid educators via the research foundation. Why, that's the perfect plan! This bucket sails off to oblivion, no one at DSSE is to blame, and in fact we get a bigger appro­priation to build a replacement."

  "So why are you along, my friend?" Richard asked.

  '"Cause I had a little run-in with the Governor."

  "Oh."

  "Did you ever hear of his daughter?"

  Richard Croce's and Ellen Redding's howls filled the room. Ian just turned scarlet. Only Shelley was strangely quiet.

  "You're all crazy, you are," Stasz shouted. "I'll watch you laugh though when I punch us out of here in three hours. Is it the galactic center, then?"

  Ian nodded his head sadly. Why not? Hell, it was as good as any area to search. They'd have to find at least one colony, that was plain. Maybe with a little luck they could score something in a year or so.

  With a whispering hiss the Discovery slipped from its docking bay, the faint push from the back of the seat creating a sensation that "down" was at the rear of the command compartment. Ian looked across at Shelley, who was in the couch behind Stasz, and gave a reassuring smile. But she didn't need one. It was her first flight, and for her it was a moment full of wonder.

  Ian listened in on the chatter over Stasz's comlink. He never figured out how a pilot could make sense of the nonstop commands as flight control sorted out the dozens of incoming and outbound flights.

  "Com Sat Rep 23A, your approach to D-97 on 933 is open. Ah, VCT9-er, you are cleared for entry into Restrict 9, approach at point-four M per. Discovery 1..."

  "That's us," Stasz whispered.

  "Out to depart line 8, cleared at your discretion. Good luck."

  "Discovery 1 up to point-one G on depart line 8," Stasz replied as his fingers danced across the green-lit board. The quiet hissing was suddenly punched out by a dull rumbling throb that pushed them back into their seats, then the booster flared to life as Stasz punched up an outside view astern on the main monitor so his passengers could watch departure.<
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  The nexus point of the station was already a mile eastern, silhouetted by the backlighting of a half-phase Earth. The skyhook beyond the nexus shone like a diamond, the sharp, straightedged line descended toward Earth until it finally disappeared from view. Jutting out from the cable in all directions a host of spidery weblines curved away into the infinity of space, a halo over 45,000 miles in diameter, hanging above the Earth—the growing hub of civilization's outward reach.

  The passengers of Discovery 1 were strangely quiet as each one dealt with his inner fears. Stasz's taunting words had a ring of truth to all of them. The odds were stacked against the voyage, and all because a Chancellor wanted to rid himself of some staff to open up positions for a couple of new cronies.

  "Take a good look at old mother Earth." Stasz laughed softly. "You ain't gonna see no blue for a long time to come. Jesus, it got so on my last trip, out that I would think more about blue skies and oceans than I even thought about sex. Funny how the body misses some things more than others out here."

  "You're really not helping things," Richard replied.

  "Not paid to help things." Stasz laughed. "Paid to fly this crate and point out the realities to you folks. Hang on, I'm bringing her up to three G."

  He punched up the control buttons and the rumbling roar increased in pitch as they were pushed deeper into their seats. Ian rolled his head toward Shelley and saw that she was absolutely enthralled with the whole thing.

  She gave him an excited smile. "This is what it must have been like for those first voyagers," she said, her eyes alight with excitement. The only response she re­ceived were groans from Ellen and Richard.

  Within minutes Richard noticed that the half planet of Earth was noticeably receding, so that the entire planet occupied less than half the screen. The Brasilia terminus was still visible, looking more like a jewel in a spider's web than a complex structure that housed half a thousand workers and docking ports for a hundred ships.

  Stasz slowly throttled them up to 3.5 G and held the rate there for several long minutes. Ian knew it was simply a matter of showmanship on Stasz's part. They could just as easily have accelerated at 1 G as they cleared near-Earth space—and the ultimate effect would have been no different—but Stasz, like most pilots, wanted to "hot trail" it out and feel the pleasure of raw power under his control.

  Let him have his fun, Ian thought. He was surprised to realize that he was enjoying himself. The historian in him was fantasizing, as well—just as Shelley was doing— imagining the feel of an old shuttle or HBV at lift-off. He settled into his couch and let the pulsing roar engulf him in a drowsy state. Suddenly the pressure intensified and he heard a muffled cry of dismay from Richard. Looking across to Stasz, Ian saw that the pilot had slammed the throttle to the wall. Stasz's eyes were wide and betrayed a maniacal gleam: he was getting off on the power.

  They inched up past 4 and then started toward 4.5, and Stasz laughed with a high-pitched keen.

  Great, the pilot was crazy!

  The Discovery thundered away, slashing across space on its outward trajectory. And suddenly the rockets winked off.

  A deep rolling sensation rose from lan's stomach as they went from 4.5 to 0 in an instant. He had the unpleas­ant sensation that he was tumbling head over heels, and from her low, gasping groan he knew that Ellen Redding was already experiencing the worst of it. Stasz merely laughed.

  "And into the universe!" he cried.

  The disk of the Moon soon matched the Earth's in size, as Stasz called them to the forward cabin where they strapped themselves back into their cushioned couches.

  "I've reviewed it with you once, but for one last time, here we go. We've cleared the major shipping lanes of near-Earth environment, and our nav system has come up clean, but to be on the safe side I've positioned our initial path five degrees of arc off the asteroid belt and will compensate once we've cleared that region. Remem­ber, the translight jump will cause a momentary blackout and all of you will experience some degree of nausea, so have those damn bags ready. After the initial jump the ship's gravity inertia system will kick on, so remember that there will be one G aligned toward the long axis of the ship.

  "Are you ready?"

  They all nodded bleakly. Ian shot one final look at the small blue-green disk just barely visible on the video dis­play. This great adventure was already starting to pale. Just what the hell was he doing there?

  "Oh, by the way," Stasz shouted out with a laugh, "in one out of every ninety-seven point four jumps, the ship breaks up. We've never figured out why. Just thought you might like to know."

  Ian looked at Ellen. She was tight-lipped but managed a cold grimace of a smile. He wasn't sure if it was a smile of genuine fear or one of resentment at the crazy scheme that had dragged her into space. Shelley, however, had a look of joyous anticipation. Richard was strangely quiet, and Ian suddenly realized that the doctor had narced him­self out with a tranq shot.

  "Here we go," Stasz shouted. "Crazy Stasz plays with light speed—and don't say I didn't warn you!" He pulled the lever that punched them into star drive.

  lan's vision blurred. He tried to focus on the disk of the Earth, but it was already lost to view. The sun shot into range of the camera focused astern, its once-yellow disk shifting through the lower end of the visual spectrum to infrared. The darkness of space around it distorted in a hazy shimmer. He could hear Stasz's high-pitched laugh­ter and, as if triggered by it, experienced a swirling black­ness of nightmarish dreams.

  Chapter 4

  The shipboard routine was soon established. Ellen avoided Ian and Richard and to their surprise soon fas­tened her attention onto Stasz, even though he was, in her own words, "merely a ship's driver, and not a very well-educated driver at that."

  They were grateful for the respite. The vessel was small enough, as it was, but hidden in an aft storage compart­ment Ian soon found a quiet retreat where he could be alone with his thoughts. And it was there, several weeks after Discovery's departure, that Richard came to him, bottle in hand.

  "Ah, my good friend and fellow wizard," Richard in­toned softly, holding up the precious bottle of gin for lan's examination. "Come, my morose and melancholy col­league, life could be worse. You could be back at that damnable college with that thrice-damned Chancellor breathing down your neck. So come drain this precious liquid with me and rejoice that fortune has thus smiled upon us."

  Ian smiled wanly and pushed aside a couple of crates to widen his little nook so Richard could crawl in.

  Richard squirmed into the cubbyhole, uncorked the bottle, and offered it to him straight.

  Ian screwed up his face and, with a quick tilt of the head, gulped down the scalding liquid. His eyes streamed rivers of tears; he coughed convulsively and struggled for breath, but soon the warming glow spread through his body.

  Richard looked around the retreat and shook his head. He knew Ian to be a fairly typical intellectual neurotic, but the man was head of the project and their lives could depend on this neurotic's decisions. "Must say that you've got a nice little fortress here." He took the bottle from Ian, drained off a mouthful, and smacked his lips. "You certainly picked a nice place to hide out."

  Ian gave Richard a twisted smile, already knowing what he was driving at. "You mean, retreat from reality."

  "Now did I say that, my good man?"

  "No, but we've known each other for twenty years. I can already tell you what you've been thinking about. Shall I?"

  "By all means, second guess me."

  "You're thinking that Ian Lacklin is a good enough sort of fellow to play a round of chess with, to talk a little historical bullshit with, to knock a drink down with on a rainy winter evening, but let's not push it beyond that.

  "Yes, beyond that," Ian interjected, waving his arms, "beyond your typical foggy history teacher who spends most of his waking hours dreaming of a history he never could, or never will, interact with. Hell, man, a history teacher by his very nature avoids the reali
ty of his own time by escaping into the past. Just think, Richard, just think for one minute, did you ever meet a history teacher who had both feet on the ground?"

  "Well, I can think of—"

  "Just a minute," Ian interrupted, "I mean a real history teacher, not some smashball coach disguised as a history teacher."

  "Well, in that case, I guess..." His voice trailed off.

  "Point proved! My colleagues and I are paid to examine that which can no longer be touched. History, the past. Oh, sure, we all dream at times of walking into that past and being one of the heroes. I know a skinny, gawky runt of a history prof who would give ten years off his life just to ride with Ghenghis Khan for one day. But really, if old Ghenghis ever showed up in his office, that guy would need a new set of underwear in ten seconds flat. That's my point: We're fine at examining a dead past, but to be part of the living present with its realities and dangers is another story."

  "What are you driving at, Ian?"

  "Look at us!" Ian shouted, and taking the bottle from Richard he popped off another gulp. "We've got a crazy as a pilot, a pimply grad-ass, and, God help us, old C.C. Then there's you. Pardon me, but you know your short­comings as well as I do. A doctor in the college clinic with a good grasp of pre-Holocaust medicine and a great grasp on the bottle. Finally there's me. Richard, we've been dumped, and you know and I know that if we ever get back, it will be a miracle. And I am not merely head of a project—I am in command!"

  Good lord, he's right, Richard thought, trying to hold his expression straight. Ian Lacklin is in command of a ship, not some damned faculty subcommittee meeting, where the worst possible blunder that could be committed was that a room might get painted the wrong color, or another one of Ellen's damnable surveys would be forced upon a group of unwilling students.

  "That scares you now, doesn't it?" Ian asked softly. "We are cruising out into totally unknown territory, in a vessel that is known to be unreliable, with a leader who is not fit to lead."

  "So, what is the alternative?"