Into the Sea of Stars Read online

  "Most likely, same as you. They jumped me, but once I took the helmet off, they calmed down. Something about dissenters and I assured them I was nothing of the sort, and after that everything was fine. They brought me back here, fed me some broth, then you came in."

  The old man brought over a wooden plate filled with a thick white soup. Ian took a hesitant sip, remembering all of his anthropological studies about primitive societies and eating rituals. The woman he admired earlier stepped out of the crowd and sat by his side.

  "You from Earth, or another colony?"

  This was a surprise. He expected some mumbo jumbo about gods from other worlds, or some similar nonsense.

  "Earth. How did you guess that?"

  "We're not stupid. You obviously aren't from here, at least not dressed like that."

  "But how do you know about Earth? Did your elders teach you or—"

  "Come now," she admonished, and lightly touched him on the arm, a move that Shelley could not fail to notice. "We do not understand everything, but some of the teach­ing computers and their programs still work. When we're young we use them."

  "If you can do that, then why do you?..."

  "You mean, live like primitives. Why not? Maybe you should ask yourself that."

  "Yes, friend," another woman interjected, "why not live like primitives?"

  "But how do you keep your system running?"

  "Most of it was automated by our forefathers. All we have to do is routine maintenance, which is simple."

  "Which frees us of the slavery of complexity, so that we can return to simplicity and light," another one said, and a chorus of voices murmured in the affirmative. Ian looked up and noticed that several hundred people had gathered around the roaring fire.

  "They're just getting started," Shelley whispered.

  "When we foreswear complexity, then all is balanced," a young man said from the back of the crowd. "Then and only then is true simplicity obtained."

  This is crazy, Ian thought, what are we getting into, first-year philosophy?

  "But the order of your world is built on complexity," Ian tried cautiously.

  "But we have purified it back to the basics," another replied.

  "However, you live in one of the most complex ma­chines ever designed by man. Once you accept that first step toward complexity, there is no going back."

  "But we have," several replied eagerly.

  "As I said," Shelley whispered, "don't even try."

  "But this is a machine you live in, not Eden," Ian replied, "and a machine requires technical skills. Just sup­pose something really serious should go wrong."

  "Nothing has, and nothing will," the redhead replied. "We have everything under control, as long as we follow the simplicity of collective meditation and consensus."

  "Tell me more about the dissenters," Shelley asked, wishing to extract Ian from a potentially dangerous de­bate. Ian, however, shot her a quick look of reproach. These people obviously got excited, a little too excited, about the dissenters. He still wasn't sure if he and Shelley were guests or prisoners, and until he knew more, he wanted to keep them smiling.

  "They are the ones who fell," the gray-bearded elder replied.

  "How so?" Shelley continued.

  "Can't you yourself see their folly?"

  Oh, no, Ian thought, step carefully.

  "Look out! Incoming!"

  A wild explosion of confusion erupted. The people scattered in every direction, screaming in terror. For a second Ian thought Shelley had triggered something and they were now going to be ripped apart. Then he noticed the colonists were all running away, and he wondered if he and Shelley had broken some taboo, which caused them to flee.

  A roaring, whishing noise thundered overhead.

  "What the hell!" Ian felt something brush past his shoulder and for an instant thought Shelley was pressing up against him.

  "Ian?"

  "Yeah." He turned to look at her. But his view was now blocked. A huge arrow, nearly a dozen feet in length and as thick around as his thigh, was buried in the ground between them. The pressure on his shoulder came from the still-quivering bolt.

  The locals looked at him in open-mouthed amazement. He tried a wan smile of bravado, wishing for a quick line. Ian looked back at the arrow, its heavy point buried only inches away from his foot. His eyes rolled up and he fainted dead away.

  He heard a roaring sound, as if he were trapped in a waterfall. The shouting was all around him, and the in­dividual voices soon came clear.

  "Those sons of bitches!"

  There was a wild frenzy of activity. Shelley had dragged him off to one side of the circle.

  "Another incoming!"

  The crowd scattered and this time he noticed that most of them disappeared into the vine-covered buildings that surrounded the clearing. He saw the bolt streaking in, following a strange curving trajectory. The arrow slammed against the side of a building and shattered.

  "Bastards, ass-kissing Dissenters." The crowd poured out of the buildings, chanting.

  "Bastards, bastards, bastards." The air around them pulsed with a rippling energy. From out of the shadows an object out of ancient history was dragged by an en­thusiast mob.

  "Double torsion ballista," Ian murmured. The urge of the historian was too much. He crawled out from under the protection of the building and went over and joined the shouting mob.

  He walked up close to the machine. It was the real thing, and he felt a rippling thrill. The twin bundles of rope that powered it were made of human hair, while the bowstring appeared to be made of steel cable. Half a dozen young women carried up a ten-foot arrow and the crowd roared with pleasure at the sight.

  The machine was cocked by hand-powered windlasses then tilted back so that it pointed halfway up to vertical.

  What the hell? Ian stepped back. Why were they shoot­ing an arrow straight up?

  The crowd suddenly fell silent, and suddenly he heard a soft echoing chant.

  "Assholes, assholes, assholes."

  He looked around wondering where the distant chant­ing came from, until Shelley touched his shoulder and pointed straight up.

  "Look."

  Ian tilted his head back and then he suddenly remem­bered. They had seen another fire on the opposite side of the cylinder. Directly overhead and three hundred meters away was the other side, and a flickering fire illuminated the sky above them in a soft ruddy glow.

  Ian sidled up alongside the redhead. He gulped as he came closer. The exertion and excitement had covered her body with a sheen of sweat, and her eyes were wild with excitement that had a most definite sexual aura to it.

  He collected his thoughts and pointed straight up. "Dis­senters?"

  She nodded her head vigorously.

  The graybeard took up position alongside the catapult, which was now loaded, and grabbed hold of the trigger.

  "We are the truth," he intoned. "Therefore in the name of the truth and the light we are absolved of this action. It is not my hand that triggers this, it is the result of our consensus, therefore I am not responsible, for the con­sensus makes me do it. But it is moral nevertheless, since we are right."

  "We are right and they are wrong," the crowd roared.

  "Fuck you" came a distant reply.

  The elder yanked the trigger.

  The catapult snapped with a thunderous crack. The arrow leaped away into the dark.

  Ian was amazed. "Say, I thought I read somewhere that you were founded by believers in peace?"

  "But we are followers of peace."

  "That looks like a weapon of war to me."

  "No, it's not, it's random luck. We don't aim it at anyone, if they get hit it's the will of a higher power. We believe in peace more than they do, and we are right, therefore our protest against them is for the higher cause of peace."

  He tried to follow the logic but gave up.

  "It's going to be a long night," the redhead whispered, drawing closer, and her hand lightly t
ouched his side.

  "But it looks like you people are having a war here," Ian said weakly. "How can we? I mean, aren't they going to come down and attack...?"

  "No, that would be violence. They stay on their side, we stay on ours, and we trade spears. What do you think, we're savages or something?"

  She drew closer, her naked breasts brushing against his arm.

  He didn't dare to answer.

  As he stepped out of the building into the soft diffused light of day, Ian felt a sense of guilt. Shelley sat by the ashes of the fire, notepad in hand, punching in observa­tions. He ambled over to her side feeling rather sheepish.

  "So, tell me, are primitive mating customs all they're cracked up to be? Shelley told us what you were up to in there."

  It was Ellen! He turned around and there on the op­posite side of the square stood Stasz and Ellen. Ellen's expression was definitely not one of cheerful good morn­ing.

  The redhead came out of the shelter, raised her arms up over her head, and stretched with a supple feline grace. Ellen's expression reddened, and on Stasz's there was genuine admiration as he kept looking from the girl and back to Ian. She smiled a vague sort of hello in their direction, then wandered off into the overgrowth. Shelley didn't even look up but simply continued with her notes.

  "I'm glad to see you were in good hands and safe," Ellen snarled. "We wandered over half this god damn botanical toilet looking for you. Then we get captured by those, what did they call themselves, 'true dissenters,' and then..."

  "Watch what you say," Shelley snapped.

  "Are you addressing me?" Ellen purred, getting ready to strike.

  "I would suggest that if you are referring to our friends up there"—Shelley pointed vaguely toward the other side—"that you do so quietly. And for God's sake, don't call them true dissenters. Our friends around here get upset rather easily."

  Ellen knew she couldn't argue with her, but Ian and Stasz could see that Shelley had insulted her by pointing out something she should have realized already.

  As if in response, a faint drifting call echoed down from above. "Collectivist assholes!"

  "Oh, no, here we go again." Ian groaned.

  "Naw, they're too exhausted," Shelley replied. "It was a hell of a night."

  "To be sure," Stasz said, his voice edged with jealousy as he looked back in the direction the redhead had taken.

  A couple of men were still gathered around the cata­pult, which was loaded, and Ian could see this would be the last shot of the fray, since everyone had gone off to sleep. The old graybeard, however, was still up and di­recting the alignment of the siege engine.

  "Gates, the old graybeard, is the leader. By the way, you might like to know that you spent the night with his daughter Ileia," Shelley said softly.

  Ian looked at his feet and muttered a comment about observing local customs.

  "Gates filled me in on some fascinating details," Shel­ley continued, ignoring his embarrassment. "I've re­corded them all, Dr. Lacklin, so that you may study them later, when you feel up to it."

  Stasz snickered and turned away, while Ian tried to come up with a casual reply.

  "Freethinker bastards!" It was Gates and one of his followers.

  "Watch this," Shelley said.

  The catapult hurled its shot, which arced up and away. It followed an arching path, due to the Coriolis effect created by the turning of the cylinder. In the daylight Ian now realized that the catapult was not aimed straight at the other campsite but a good sixty degrees off.

  He watched the bolt climb in a curving path—at least it appeared that way. As it reached toward the relative apogee in the center, the bolt slowed, then with ever-increasing speed it started the long sloping glide back down.

  "Pretty good accuracy," Shelley said, "considering the physics of shooting an arrow inside a turning cylinder."

  Ian watched with admiration as the bolt streaked in and landed near the bull's-eyelike target created by the dissenters' campfire. There was a mild scurrying and he half imagined that he could see several people look up and shake their fists.

  "You missed me" came the taunting cry from the other side.

  "The forms these people are going to fill out will be fascinating," Ellen whispered.

  Gates and his two assistants shook their fists at the other side, and calling it quits, they went into the nearest building to catch up on their sleep.

  Ian looked around the cylinder, at least able to get a good chance to observe his environment without the pres­sure of looking for Shelley. Its scale was truly astounding, but what amazed Ian even more was the realization that this was a small unit of early design. There were colonial cylinders of the same general design that were fifty times as big in volume. He looked up again at the lovely sweep of green overgrowth that covered nearly everything. He wondered how the unit managed to allow so much of its carbon and nitrogen to be fixed in such a profusion of plants, but then from his own rough estimate the popu­lation here must only be a few percentile points of the bearing capacity. So that great percentage no longer in existence must be a fair part of the liquid and other ma­terials tied up in the unit. The thought suddenly struck him with chilling force. Back on Earth one could not easily grasp the total cyclic nature of life. He once had a prof who pointed out that, statistically speaking, the next glass of water you drank would be carrying in it a molecule from Caesar's body—and from Cleopatra's urine, one of his classmates had rudely interjected.

  But here the system was closer. These people, Gates, Ileia, a good part of their very bodies were made up of the component chemicals that had formed their grandsires before the coming of the Holocaust.

  As a historian the thought awed him. But there was a more overriding concern at the moment. He was simply exhausted.

  "I'm heading back to the ship. If you people stay, I would suggest that you do so as a group. I'll send Richard down to take a look at these people."

  "I take it we're staying for a while?" Shelley asked.

  "Well, I guess that's what we've come sixty light-years for. We'll stay a week or so to gather the necessary data, document this place, then we'll push on."

  "I want to get my surveys out," Ellen said excitedly. "This is going to be fascinating. I should get at least two or three publications out of this one."

  "And I think I'll get something, as well," Stasz said eagerly, as he edged off to one side of the group and then turned to plunge into the overgrowth.

  "I'm going back to sleep aboard ship. I don't want any of these people allowed aboard the vessel," Ian com­manded. "If both sides met there, we would be the ones to suffer. So they stay out. I would suggest that we get Stasz to rig up a simple security surveillance system on the approaches to the air lock."

  "I'll let him know when he gets back," Shelley said.

  Ian turned and started back up the path. He gave a quick scan up, looking for incoming. Their catapult was visible but it was unattended.

  "Get some rest, Dr. Lacklin," Shelley called. "You've had a hard night."

  He looked back at Shelley. She had that straight, of­ficial look about her, all professional.

  "Ah, yeah, thanks, Shelley." He searched awkwardly for words, "Yes. You did a good job."

  "I doubt if you did." Ellen sniffed.

  "Ah, shut up," Ian grumbled, and he pushed off back to the ship.

  "All secured for undocking," Stasz's voice crackled over the intercom.

  Ian felt the gentle nudge of the ship as the maneuvering thrusters pushed them free and away.

  He watched on the aft monitor as the bulk of the cyl­inder dropped astern.

  "I still think they're the craziest assholes I've ever laid eyes on," Richard said, resuming their conversation.

  "Don't say assholes, Richard," Ellen replied, "I've heard that word shouted at least ten thousand times in the last two weeks."

  "Okay, bastards."

  "Richard!"

  "I'm throttling up," Stasz said. A faint pulsin
g rumble echoed through the ship and the slight tug of gravity in­creased. Funny, he barely noticed the gravity changes anymore, and his stomach couldn't be in better shape.

  "That's one group I'm glad to be rid of," Richard mut­tered as he uncapped a beaker of gin and offered it around. Even Ellen took a quick snort and smiled her gratitude.

  "So damned self-righteous, both of them," Shelley re­plied. "I still can't figure out what split them up." She looked to Ellen, their sociologist who was always ready with a theory.

  "I don't know, some doctrinal point about their wor­ship service. I think the break came nearly a millennium ago. Fascinating how they ritualized their war. They never engaged in direct killing close up, they clearly defined their boundaries and observed them, and I found at least one record in their computer that indicated they had co­operated when the vessel was holed. They even coop­erated in their birth reductions and contraceptives to maintain the low population. But Lord, did they get into symbolic warfare."

  "It sure as hell didn't look symbolic to me," Richard replied. "Thank heavens those crazies didn't have a cou­ple of small thermonukes; they'd have wiped each other out long ago. What do you think, Ian? Ian?"

  Ian sat off to one side, his expression pale as he fum­bled with his pockets. But the others barely noticed as Shelley jumped back into the conversation.

  "But it was symbolic. It was their catharsis; they could vent their feelings and only occasionally would some un­wary person get slammed."

  "I still think they were damn fools," Richard muttered, and Shelley nodded her agreement. Ian noticed how she stared at him, and felt a sudden flush of embarrassment.

  "I think I'll go forward and watch jump from Stasz's Co seat."

  He fumbled through his pockets one more time, but he already knew that what he was looking for was some­where back on the colony, most likely having fallen from his pocket while he had been "playing" with Ileia. He had mislaid the Thermomine Manual and chances were the inhabitants were already pouring through it. He could only hope the symbolic warfare would stay symbolic. He cursed himself soundly; here was yet another thing to feel guilt over, but there was no way he could tell his comrades about this screw up—Ellen would be all over him in a flash.