Into the Sea of Stars (7 page)

Ian stuffed the sheet into the middle of the book. Then,
closing the case to the mine, he stuck the booklet into his
back pocket.

The object should have filled him with blind terror, but
for some reason Ian felt a certain sense of quiet resolution.
The Montezuma and Cortez argument was never far from
his mind these days. He was a historian and knew the possibilities.

So he had, asked
Stasz
not to tell the others about the
device. Cortez had burned his ships to prevent his men
from escaping from the expedition. Ian tried to push the
thought aside that he might have to burn his ship, as well,
before the expedition ended.

It was no surprise to Ian that Ellen's dinner was ex
cellent. She had even produced the right wine for the
occasion, and after the first bottle of
Brinar
Chablis '64, Richard had, for the moment at least, settled into a polite
conversation with their hostess for the evening.

"But, Ellen, I thought you objected to spirits. Eight
weeks ago you wanted to dump my treasured emergency
rations overboard."

"You mean that I wanted to lighten our vessel of a
noxious brew one step removed from rat poison." Ellen
smiled for a moment, her freckled face lighting up with a
malevolent glow. "Of course, it was a mistake, my dear
Richard."

"I'm glad to hear you say that. And I must in return
compliment you for this amazing repast."

"I am thankful for your appreciation, Richard, and I was going to say my earlier move was a mistake. You
see, I think keeping that rat poison was just perfect, con
sidering who I hope it will eliminate."

"Charmed, Ellen, simply charmed," Richard muttered
as he produced a cigar and prepared to ignite it. Ian feared an explosion on her part and he knew Richard was simply
baiting her. He could see her seething under the red-faced
smile but she didn't let go, and there was an almost audible
sigh of relief around the table.

Of course, he could half guess the reason—she would
occasionally smile in
Stasz's
direction. So, the cabin fever
was already setting in, and her original disdain for the "ship's driver" was starting to thin.
Stasz
was attempting
to ignore her, but that was difficult with only five people in the room. As the light conversation flowed back and forth, Ian was fascinated by the subtle interplay between
the two of them as Ellen tried not to appear obvious,
Stasz
tried to ignore her while making yet another pass
at Shelley, and Richard laid out bait and traps for both of
them to fall into.

Well, this craft is turning in a regular little potboiler,
Ian thought as he settled back into his chair, bumming one of Richard's precious cigars.

He was lost in thought for several minutes until Shel
ley's voice brought him back into the conversation's flow.

"I said, don't you agree, Doctor?"

"Agree,
ahhh
, I'll have to think—"

"You weren't listening again." There was a soft chastisement in her voice, like a mother gently scolding a
favorite child. "I was saying that I think the Chancellor
is most likely the head of the Provincial Department of
Educational Services by now."

They fell silent for a moment.

"Yeah, his glory, our lives," Richard muttered.

"It might be a little more complex than that," Shelley
responded. "After all, he had a number of reasons for
putting you three out here. You were all known to be an
opposition to him in the faculty, and as part of the pro
motion process, you people would be able to evaluate
him. I think, however, that there might be more to it than
that."

Suddenly their conversation was drowned out by the
electronic wail of the ship's alarm. Ian could feel his heart
flutter on the edge of a palpitation. Ellen assumed her
classic "oh, my, I'm so flustered" pose. Richard attempted
to gently pull on his cigar and exhale with a display of
panache, but the sudden tremble of his hand gave it away.
Only Shelley and
Stasz
broke the tableau and, pushing away from the table, they ran forward to the control cen
ter. The ship suddenly lurched and there was a momentary sensation of falling away as the vessel performed a radical
shift in its course and the dampening system overloaded
in an attempt to compensate.

"Debris or asteroid," Richard muttered.

"Holy shit!"
It was
Stasz's
voice echoing down the
corridor.

"Dr.
Lacklin
, come quickly!" Shelley cried.

Ian got up from the table and, with a show of
bravado,
he looked at Ellen and smiled.

"Would you mind clearing the dishes, Ellen, while I
attend to the problem up
forward.
"

"Shove the damn dishes," Ellen snapped, "let our fat medico scrub them." Pushing Ian aside, she started for
ward, with Ian at her heels.

Entering the forward cabin, they climbed to the command and control center, where
Stasz
was already strapped
into his couch with Shelley in the
nav
-com position beside
him. The vessel lurched again, nearly knocking Ian off
his feet. Climbing up the ladder, he finally came up along
side of Ellen, who was peering over
Stasz's
shoulder at
a display board that was all but incomprehensible to him.

"How bad is it?" Ian whispered.

"Bad? It's fantastic," Shelley exulted. "We might have something."

"What!"

"Hang on a minute, Doc,"
Stasz
muttered as his fingers
raced across the control panel. Hooking on his mike, he
watched the display for a moment then started calling up
more data.

"Confirm, configuration, ship relative 21.34.45.01 hours
R.A., 00
,02
Dec."

Within seconds the data design snapped across the
largest of the monitors on the display board.

"Jesus, it's a thousand K across,"
Stasz
murmured. "I
think we've definitely got something here."

"What is?" Ellen asked.

"That's why the alarm went off. I programmed ship's
nav
to sound an alarm and automatically home onto any largely metallic, object we encountered. Well, here we
are."

Stasz
looked over his shoulder and smiled at Ian.

"You're in luck,
Doc,
I think we've just found your first colony."

"But a thousand K across?
They never built anything
that big," Ian muttered.

"Yes they did," Shelley said meekly, fearful at cor
recting her mentor. "Solar sails."

"But out here, why keep them deployed? The solar
wind is negligible. There isn't any evidence of a laser drive
base behind them."

"We'll soon find out why,"
Stasz
interjected. "Our ship
has already locked on and is three days out with only a mild deviation from our original course."

He scanned the display board again, called for a re
confirm, then looked back at Ian with a puzzled expres
sion.

"Curious."

"What's that?"

"They're heading inbound toward Earth at point zero one two L.S. I thought you said all these guys were trying
to get away. This one is hanging sails to the wind where
there is no wind and running inbound."

Ian looked at the display showing him that soon he would come face to face with a world out of the past.

He felt the cold stir of fear.

Colonial Unit 181

First Completion Date:
2031

Primary Function:
Standard Japanese Colonial/Manufac
turing Unit

Evacuation Date:
Estimated June 2083, one of the first
units recorded to have completed its conversion and departure.

Overall Design:
Standard Mitsubishi Design Unit Double
Torus
. Maximum Population Potential (MPP) of 37,500
with standard mix of software/hardware industry and
experimental design work on self-replicating processing system.

Propulsion:
Solar Sail with matter/antimatter boost.

Course:
Galactic Core.

Political/Social Orientation:
Hierarchical Corporate Model
with head of each family responding to subsystem
leader.
Standard Social Orientation and Interactive
Systems.

"Program engage, jump-down to match V-l, target Al
pha, close to point zero
zero
one A.U.,
engage
."

Stasz
turned in his couch and smiled at the rest of the crew. "Be sure you're strapped in," he said with a laugh. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the half-chewed
stub of an unlit cigar and waved it at Shelley.

"You sure that belt is strapped tight? I don't want you falling out of your couch, the way you did last time," He reached over as if to help her, but she hurriedly showed
him that it was
snugged
in tight around her hips and the
cross belting of the shoulder harness was properly se
cured.

A high-pitched warning Klaxon sounded—the thirty-
second mark to jump down.

"Don't worry, folks, this one ain't so dangerous.
Only
a point twenty-four percent probability of disintegration."

"How reassuring," Ellen whispered.

It was their second jump of the day, the last one having
been completed only minutes earlier. They had closed in
on their target and jumped down to a relative speed of
zero in relation to their original trajectory. But since the
target was in fact inbound toward Earth, they were taking
a short jump to close to maneuvering range.

"Ten seconds and sequencing start."

Ian could feel the inertia-dampening system hum to
life, and it was almost a signal for his stomach to get ready
with its usual reaction.

The jump-down hit. Overall velocity was still
sublight
so the effects weren't too bad, but it still took Shelley several minutes to help Ian with his post-jump cleanup.

Ian could hear the soft gasps of astonishment from
Richard and Ellen, and looking past his own tragic prob
lems, he saw a sight that was stunning, after weeks of
Doppler-shifted light.

Even from thousands of K out, the sails of the vessel
filled a good part of their visual range.

"Look, Ian, I think it's a double
torus
," Shelley said.

Ian realized that for the first time she wasn't calling him Dr.
Lacklin
.

Ian looked to
Stasz's
radar display and Shelley's keen
vision was confirmed by the screen.
A standard double
torus
.
Not the most efficient design, but fairly popular
nevertheless.

"Do you have any idea which one it is?" Ellen asked.

"Too early to tell.
Shelley, could you access my ship
configuration data file? Cross-check it with known double
torus
designs that headed out on this trajectory."

She started working while the others fell into silence
as the vessel and its sails filled an ever-larger portion of
their field of view.
Stasz
had programmed their jump to
perfection, with just enough residual velocity so they could
safely close in.

Ian suddenly realized he was trembling. He wasn't sure
if it was from fear, anticipation, or, most likely, a healthy
mixture of both.

"I know how you feel, my dear friend," Richard said, patting him on the shoulder. "The first night of my mar
riage to Ethel, I was trembling just like you."

"And she was most likely trembling with disgust until
she finally got that divorce," Ellen whispered sotto voce.

It broke the tension enough that all of them could laugh
for a minute.

As they watched, the double ring came closer into
view, so that
its
central support shaft could soon be made
out in the faint glow of deep space starlight.

"Have you set the radio for the frequencies I suggested?" Ian asked.

"The signal will pulse out on all frequencies you mentioned, along with several I think might be worth looking
into."

Ian activated his headset and nodded for
Stasz
to open
the line.

He looked around at his colleagues and tried to conjure
up the correct words in Old English.

"This is Earth vessel
Discovery
calling, Earth vessel
Discovery
. Please respond."

Nothing.

"Asleep at the switchboard most likely,"
Stasz
said in a reassuring voice. "Hell, there can be times when no one
is on the com for hours. I daresay they don't expect a visitor to drop in every day, the way we do."

"This is Earth research vessel
Discovery
approaching
and requesting docking information."

"Ah, Dr.
Lacklin
, try Japanese," Shelley said.

"How's that?"

"According to your data, there were twenty-three double
torus
designs, of which eight used sails. And of those
eight, six were Japanese."

He tried to remember his Old Japanese, and after a
minute or so, he believed he got off a reasonable message.
Still no response, so
Stasz
looped recording of
lan's
re
quest while they settled back.

"These ships have automatic piloting systems that detect and give alarm for any object bigger than a pea that approaches within ten thousand K," Ian said softly. "It
could be that no one has gotten into the control room yet.
If anyone's alive in there."

"There's significant damage to the sail area,"
Stasz
interjected. "Number of lines parted, numerous punctures, I detect holes larger than one K in the central area.
And I think we're picking up a reading here that indicates
a significant holing on the main shaft of the vessel."

"We'll soon know," Ian muttered as they continued to close in.

Ian had read about them for years and had watched
them on countless videos, but nothing, absolutely nothing
had prepared him for the sheer awesome size of a colonial
unit. It filled the entire sky, as if it would somehow en
compass the universe. Nothing in his experience could
possibly compare with the massive double-curve sweep
of the twin
torus
that slowly wheeled on either side of them as they closed in toward the docking ring on the
main shaft.

The sheer mass of the object was enough to create a
minor gravitational disturbance that required
Stasz
to pro
vide a slightly increased deceleration as they closed in.

As the four of them floated toward the docking bay,
Shelley passed out hard copies of the ship's design and
schematics of the blueprints now that the particular des
ignation of the ship had been confirmed by exterior mark
ings. They had already detected half a dozen
unrepaired
holes in the vessel, one of them a twenty-meter puncture through the main shaft. So there was little if any hope of
finding any life.

Ian was dreading the encounter for fear of what he
would find. In the three hours of closing there had been
no signal of any kind. There was no sign of interior lighting
and no heat dissipation from the coolant radiators.

Sealing himself into his bulky pressure suit, Ian settled
into the docking bay and waited, listening intently as
Stasz
called out the ever-closing range.

There was a faint jar as the adjustable docking unit
connected with the hull of the other ship. The green light over the docking-bay hatch turned yellow, and he could
feel the pressure suit crinkling as the docking chamber depressurized.

The light overhead changed to red. Ian looked at the
other three and nodded. There they were, four heroes,
ready to go forward in the name of Democratic Bureau
cracy. Four
heroes,
and he couldn't help but laugh, his
high-pitched giggle sounding somewhat foolish and slightly
hysterical.

He punched the button in front of him and the hatch
slid open. They were locked up against the side of the
colony, pressed against a
nonrotating
collar in the middle
of the central shaft. A manual docking door was in front
of him, instructions in Japanese, English, and Russian
written across it.

Within seconds he had deciphered their meaning, and,
grabbing the two handles alongside the door, Ian attempted to rotate them.

He spun in the opposite direction.

After several minutes of cursing and sweating, the other
three helped brace him into position and he tried again.

As if on rusted hinges, the handles gave way slowly
then suddenly they broke free and started to spin of their
own volition. The doorway slid open. A slight puff of air came out of the ship. Ian looked up and his mind blanked
out in horror as the ship's radio overloaded with his hys
terical screams.

Ellen was back in the corner, still clawing at the escape latch back into
their own
ship, which would not open with
the outside door unlatched. Yes, he could see that now. Panicked, Ian looked around, the only sound his own convulsive breathing and Ellen's soft whimpers coming
over the radio set.

"Ian, it's all right, it's all right." It was a soft, soothing
voice. Richard, yes, it was Richard.

He could feel the hands on his shoulder. His friend's
face was barely visible behind the helmet, and his own
vision was obscured by the moisture from his
hyperven-
tilation
.

He looked back and started to turn his head.

"No, not yet, Ian. Don't look back until you're ready."

"What—" He started to sob again. "What—Richard,
what is it?"

"It's a body, Ian," Richard said softly, "it's nothing but
a body mummified by the low pressure and dry air. It
can't hurt you now, Ian. He just gave you a start when
the change in pressure made him drift out of the airlock
toward you."

"Yeah, just a start."
Ian could feel his self-possession
on the edge of falling apart again.

"Take a few more deep breaths and when you feel
ready you can turn around."

"Where is he?"

"Shelley moved him back into the colony's airlock.
She's waiting for us in there. I'm going over to Ellen now." He let go of Ian, and, pushing off from the wall, he floated
over to where Ellen hung like a cat clinging to a sheer
wall. Her sobbing still filled the headset.

Ian took a couple of more deep breaths and slowly
turned.

As she poked around the interior of the colony's air
lock, Shelley was barely visible except for her headlamp.
While she searched around, she absently hung on to the mummified body with one hand.

Bracing himself, Ian pushed forward into the ship.

"Dr.
Lacklin
, I've found the airlock into the main cor
ridor of the central shaft.

"Wait a
minute,
we better close the hatch behind us before continuing on in."

Ian looked back toward Richard and Ellen.

"Go on without us," Richard said. "I'm taking Ellen
back in and giving her a stress pill."

Stress pill! Hell, he was the one the damn mummy
banged into. Out of the corner of his eye he examined the
body that Shelley was still hanging on to. A cold grimace
of desiccated flesh and bone stared back at him out of
lifeless, haunting sockets. He looked away.

Shelley, ignoring his fear, floated back to the docking door and closed it. Looking around the room, she noticed some Velcro stripping along one wall and without any
ceremony pushed the mummy up against it. The
fastabs
on the body's uniform locked him into place. Leaving him
on the wall, she floated back to Ian.