Into the Sea of Stars (13 page)

"Some followed the paths of mechanical engineering,
so that it became possible to replace many of the organs
that had once been the cause of so much anguish and
pain. Soon we had the heart, the liver, the kidney, hormone producers, and even the eyes," and as he said that
he gently pointed to his right eye, "which you in error
said had witnessed such distant times. But the engineers'
victories were merely successful counterattacks; it was
we, the bioengineers,
the
genetic scientists, who turned
the tide of victory. We learned cells would only reproduce
for so many generations before losing their vitality; we
learned to halt that decline in individual cells; we learned,
as well, to supply antibodies tailored to the needs of each
individual, growing outside his body a reserve specially
designed and ready for instant application. We also mastered the rebuilding of major organs by genetic manipu
lation of individual cells.

"We learned these things, and the world hated us. For
our wonders were expensive beyond all imagining. Only
the wealthy, only those who had made their fortunes could
afford our treatments. And as billions starved, hundreds who had everything learned to extend life, to stare death
in the face and cheat him of his prey. So at last the hatred
of the world turned against us, and we were banished to
space.

"But we already knew that space was the only place we could go to if we truly wished to cheat the final adversary. For on Earth there was too much that killed.
Gravity kills as inexorably as any disease. It taxes the
body,
it exacts payment from its victims. Here there would
be no accidents to our bodies that we could not repair, here our environment could be controlled, everything softened, everything
designed,
everything..."

His words drifted off for a moment.

"We've cheated him," Joshua whispered, "
we've
cheated him. I can live yet another thousand years and
if need be, I can be saved."

"Saved?"

"Yes, many choose that in the end. If something goes
wrong that we cannot stop—forms of senility, damage to
memory, certain rare cancers that we have yet to learn
how to control—we simply save the person. He is placed
in suspended animation—
ahh
, I think the word is hiber
nation."

"You've mastered that?"

"Yes, in the year that we fled from Earth, before the
war, our researchers found the answers and learned to
synthesize the necessary hormones that would trigger that
most ancient of protections."

"That is fantastic!" Ian replied. "Richard has to hear
about this! It could revolutionize space travel. It could
open up the entire universe!"

"Yes, I would have thought your people knew about
this; we shared the knowledge with another colony as
payment for their leaving us alone. This was just before
we left Earth. I would have thought they would have
spread the information."

"What colony was that?" Ian asked casually.

"I remember meeting with their leader, he was a stu
dent of mine. Funny—he was a reasonable sort of man,
but driven. I gave him a small supply of the hormone, and to my surprise, he honored his word and left us. I
had thought there for a moment that we would have died
after all."

"Who was he?"

"His name was Smith."

Ian wanted to push for more on that, but his thoughts were becoming disoriented, as if he had suddenly been turned round and round. So what if Franklin Smith had
been here? More than a millennium had passed, and with
it a journey across trillions of miles. But he still felt the
haunting image of the poet, floating—his words, a portent of warning.

"Would you like to see the rest?" Joshua whispered.

"What?" He was suddenly pulled back from his
thoughts.

"The rest, my old friends, my fellow travelers."

"How many are like you?" Ian asked. "How many
were born before the Holocaust?"

"All of us," Joshua replied. "The youngest woman to
come aboard was already long past childbearing age. We
are
all of the
long before."

Floating up out of his chair, he gently pushed off to
ward 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 envi
ronment, 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 unstea
diness. 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 any
one since we've come down."

"I'll show you," Joshua replied as they came to a dou
ble 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 sub
dued.

"
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 bod
ies.

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 hiber
nation. Thus we shall ride out the millennium until at last
the cures are found, until rejuvenation itself can be re
created, until even we can be made young again."

Ian walked away from Joshua.
And stared off aim
lessly.
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 re
plied. "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
Lack
lin
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."

L
ooking at the aft
viewscreen
, he could still see Josh
ua's unit, a small sphere of light suspended in the cross
hairs 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 ap
proval 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
se
cret 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
quite 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 loud
speaker.

"
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 cub
byhole for months, but you never knew it."

Oh, great. Then they had heard his mutterings in pri
vate, 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 com
ments 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 chill
ing. 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 Rich
ard 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 un
known 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 under
standing 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 noth
ing 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 rec
ollection 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 thou
sand years before the Holocaust. Hell, those crazy bas
tards 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 Alba
nian, or whatever it is, damn fast."