Into the Sea of Stars (5 page)

"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 despond
ently, "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 appro
priation 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.

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 re
ceived 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 unpleas
ant 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 dis
play. 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
him
self 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 laugh
ter and, as if triggered by it, experienced a swirling black
ness of nightmarish dreams.

The shipboard routine was soon established. Ellen avoided Ian and Richard and to their surprise soon fas
tened 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 in
toned softly, holding up the precious bottle of gin for
lan's
examination. "Come, my morose and melancholy col
league, 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 reality 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 short
comings 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?"

"You want the job?" Ian asked hopefully.

"Are you crazy? At least you're sober more than half
the time." He paused.

"There's always Ellen..."

"She'd push both of us out the airlock at the first chance,
if we ever gave command to her," Ian replied sadly.

"And after that 'crazy
Stasz
plays with star drive'
routine, I think that issue is settled, as well," Richard
responded. "So, friend, that leaves only you—a woolly-headed, slightly
wimpish
, and, in fact, altogether cow
ardly history professor as our fearless leader. Think of
it, Ian, you might be famous someday—statues to our
five-and-a-half-foot, overweight, bespectacled, receding
hairlined
..."

"Enough. You know, Richard, you're a great psychol
ogist and a real help to someone's fragile ego."

"Oh, come on, Ian, you'll do all right. After all, if we don't come back, well, I guess that means we don't come
back."

"Remarkably profound of you."

"Have another pull then, my friend, and let
thine
ego be restored."

For several long minutes the two friends sat in silence.
Richard, not making the situation easy on Ian, kept him
under a steady stare, trying to hold eye contact that Ian
attempted to avoid. Finally the barrier broke down.

"There's one other thing," Ian whispered.

"I thought so." And there was no note of triumph in
his voice, but rather a genuine sense of concern. Some
thing had been gnawing at Ian from the moment of de
parture; maybe he'd finally get the answer.

"You know history is not the most popular of subjects
back home," Ian said sadly. "What with this New Re
naissance of High Tech that everyone is chasing, some of
the early lessons have been forgotten. But ever since we launched, I've been thinking about a point that I daresay
the folks back home never considered."

"And that is?"

"Montezuma and Cortez."

"I don't follow you."

"You know the story—Cortez and his six hundred kicked the Aztec Empire into oblivion."

"Yeah, I have some faint recollection of it."

"I've been thinking, you know, just letting my imagination run. Suppose Cortez had mixed it up with some
thing different, something with, say, nukes—what would
have happened to Spain then?"

"You've got me,
Ian,
Let's hear this theory of yours."

"I know these people, these people out of our past. I
know them better than I know my neighbor, my students, or in some ways, even you, my friend. You see, Richard, I've devoted my life to studying those explorers and set
tlers out of the long-distant twenty-first century. I can
speak Old English, Old Russian, and Old Japanese fluently,
and I can get by in half a dozen others. I've read every
single text and document that deals with the great Exodus.
I feel more at home with the people of that period than I
do in my own age. I can sense their wonder, their purpose,
their
passionate drive to settle space."

His voice drifted off for a moment, as if he was lost in
thought, then suddenly he continued.

"Theirs was a grand epic, Richard, those first explor
ers, and now I'm afraid."

"Why?"

"Can't you see? To me it is a dream, a romance. Haven't
you ever idealized a woman from afar? Think back to when you were young, Richard. Think of that heart-
stopping moment, when the mere sight of her was enough."

Richard smiled vaguely and nodded.

"That is the life of a historian.
An idealized romance
from afar.
And remember this, as well, Richard, remem
ber when she was no longer idealized but came to your
embrace. And then what finally happened?"

And Richard nodded sadly and understood.

"That is my first fear, my friend.
The fear that an idealist has when reality finally confronts him.
But the fears
run deeper."

"As is to be expected from a typically neurotic type
such as
yourself
. Hell, man, you wouldn't be happy if
you only had one level of fear."

Ian shot him a look of reproach.

"Sorry. Go on then."

"As I said, I know these people better than I know my
own contemporaries. I know the circumstances of why
and how they left. Richard, with well over half a thousand
units somewhere out there, has one of them ever come
back?"

"Well, as I understand it, you just can't turn a million
tons of mass around and 'come back,' as you say. At least
I know that much about physics. The energy requirements
alone—"

"Ah, but we're talking about ten centuries, my friend.
Why didn't our exploratory teams
to
the nearest fifteen
stars find some sign of them? By God, man, it's logical
to assume that some of them would have checked out
Centauri or Barnard's. Damn it, there's even a gas giant
and iron-nickel asteroids around Barnard's. But we didn't find a single sign of them there. And for that matter, one
of them could easily have looped around a star and re
turned. But not a sign, not a single damn sign."

"And you mention the exploratory teams that haven't
come back."

"I've wondered on that, as well, and I'll place good
money that our friend
Stasz
thinks about it."

"What are you driving at, then?"

"Suppose they found something that wouldn't let them
come back?"

"Come on now, Ian, when I said you were neurotic I
was serious, but good heavens, man, don't make me di
agnose you as a paranoid, as well."

"Interesting comment, Richard, 'good heavens.'
What makes us associate the two?" Ian muttered as if musing
to himself.
"Must be medieval tradition and concepts.
The
heavens aren't good, Richard, they'll kill you in an in
stant. Just think, man, we've got this thin wall"—he tapped
the side of the hull, which echoed hollow in the room. "That and an ethereal force field beyond are our only
protection as we slip by at
translight
speed. Think if the
nav
system miscalculated and ran us up on a chunk of
rock bigger than my fist, you wouldn't have 'good heav
ens' then."

"Stop trying to make me paranoid, too," Richard mut
tered. And with his eyes fixed on the hull behind Ian, he
washed down another swallow of gin.

"But don't worry about it," Ian said with a soft smile,
obviously pleased that he had caused a spark of fear in
the usually unflappable Richard. "If it did happen there
would be such a tremendous flash of energy that we would
be vaporized before our synapses could register one screaming instant of fear."

"Aren't you
comforting.
"

As if in response, a faint shudder ran through the vessel
and Richard winced.
lan's
heart skipped a beat, but he tried not to show it. The
translight
nav
system worked
after all, even while they were talking; sensing an ap
proaching obstacle, it had shifted them around the mass,
the inertia-damping system compensating for all but a
fraction of the lateral forces.

"Shall we return to what you were saying?" Richard
said softly.

"Ah, yes, my fears of the hostile universe.
After all,
if one is going to be afraid, why not make it a really big fear? Why not fear the whole universe? Tell me, good
doctor,
is there a word in your lexicon for an abnormal fear of the entire universe?"