The Dark Beyond the Stars : A Novel (7 page)

He paused for a long moment, lost in the immensity of Outside. Then he ruffled the hair on the back of my head and his voice dropped to a more personal level.

“Your name will go down in history, Sparrow. So will mine and that of everybody else on board.”

He had listed me first and I was almost sick with pride and excitement. If he had asked, I would have given my life for him right then and there. Then he turned away from the port and drifted back to the plotting globe and the soft bubble of light that surrounded it. There was a low murmur in the compartment as the crewmen picked up their duties again.

“We haven’t found life yet, Sparrow, but we very well may on Aquinas II—we’ve detected radio frequencies in the waterhole range.” He fumbled with his pipe and tamped in some tobacco from a small pouch. “I think this time we’ll find it. We’ll need the help of everybody on board then, especially the younger members of Exploration likeyourself . I may even go in with you on the first Lander.”

“I’d be honored, sir.”

I had noticed a slight quiver around his mouth when I had spoken before and now I noticed it again.

“If not on Aquinas II, it will be soon enough,” he murmured as an afterthought. Then he promoted me to friend and confidant with a quick, self-deprecating smile. “A race whose drive systems have attained one-tenth the speed of light could colonize the galaxy in something like ten million years, Sparrow. We could do it ourselves. In the lifetime of the universe, ten million years is hardly a blink.”

He concentrated on his pipe for several moments and when he started talking again, I wasn’t sure whether it was tohimself or to me.

“We’re overdue to start running into the colonies of something else.”

There was an unmistakable note of worry in his voice and I glanced toward the ports, half expecting to see a telltale streamer of light that would indicate another ship close by, one that was alien and dangerous and a threat to the entire human race. I was acutely aware that we were a picket ship probing the unknown, that we represented mankind’s furthest reach and were the only ship out there that could warn Earth of an alien invasion.

I thrust out my hand to shake the Captain’s, to show him that he could count on me. In my haste, I brushed aside the small plastic cube with its tiny flowers trapped inside. I grabbed it before it could float too far away from the control panel and gripped it tightly, panicked at having disturbed it. It didn’t feel right. There should have been hard edges where the sides of the cube met but there weren’t any. It was subtly, oddly deformed.

“It’s a paperweight, Sparrow—a memento of Earth.” The Captain was smiling faintly, watching my face. I opened my fingers and stared at the cube. The edges were rounded where the plastic had… slumped?

Heat, I thought, then realized the
Astron
had probably been at a constant temperature since the day it was launched. The edges must have been worn from… handling? And if so, how long would it have taken? I set the cube down, its magnetic base gripping the panel top.

“The
begats
,” Isaid, my mind numb. “How far back do they go?”

“A hundred and two generations.” He concentrated on his pipe again. “On board ship, a generation is approximately twenty years.”

The
Astron
had spent two thousand years, give or take a few decades, in the depths of space. More than a hundred generations of crewmen had been born, lived, and died during its voyage. The security guard was drifting toward me; my session with the Captain was over. I shook his hand for the last time, smothering my surprise at what he had said.

“The previous captains would be proud of you, sir.” I sounded as pompous as only a seventeen-year-old can sound, but I wanted to assure him that I was ready to march in his army. He shook his head, still faintly smiling, still watchful, still curious which way my thoughts might jump.

“There’s been only one captain of the
Astron
, Sparrow. It’s an honor I’ve held since Launch.”

For a long moment I couldn’t say anything. “I’m s-sorry, sir,” I finally stammered. “I didn’t know.” I sounded like I was offering condolences rather than trying to hide my shock. His smile turned sardonic.“I bear up, Sparrow.”

The guard was by my side then and I followed him into the passageway, still unwilling to believe what I had heard.The Captain as old as the ship itself? I could think of no reason why he would lie, so I accepted it—and suddenly felt angry.

How many times had he given a still-wet-behind-the-ears crew member the same enthusiastic speech he had given me?Two thousand times?Ten thousand times? And how often had he heard the same response? The slight quiver around his mouth as I had talked to him… He knew all the variations by heart, he had been mouthing what I was saying at the very moment I was saying it. I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know.

It struck me then just how short my own life was when compared to the Captain’s, and I was both envious and afraid. He had enlisted me as friend and follower with ridiculous ease. Well, why not? He knew everything there was to know about human beings; he’d had more than two thousand years in which to study them, to learn how to manipulate them.

I wanted to hate him for it but I couldn’t. The truth was, I wanted desperately to believe in a Captain who told me that he needed me, who had let me know that I was both friend and companion, whose outstretched arms had briefly encompassed the entire galaxy with its billions of stars and myriad life forms, who had given me the one thing in life I needed above all else—purpose. I would be willing to do a great deal for the man who gave me that.

As I drifted down the corridor back to my compartment, I reminded myself that he had borne a crushing responsibility for those two thousand years. He had not only watched over all of us, he had led the crew in fulfilling the destiny for which the
Astron
had been launched so many years before. If I had to die for anybody, it would be for him.

And then I started to shiver uncontrollably, no longer able to deny what I had known from the start. If he wanted me to die, I would die all right. He was The Captain, and as such he held the power of life and death over everybody on board.

He was also the man from my nightmares, the man in black who could see into the depths of my soul.

Ididn’t sleep well the rest of that time period, and gratefully floated free of the hammock when the wake-up light came on. The division mess wasn’t hard to find: I followed my nose to a cluttered storage compartment down the same passageway where Crow and I had our living cubicles. Clustered around a few metal crates in the middle were Ophelia, Crow, Loon, Thrush, and a dozen others, including a pleasant-faced older woman. All of them were sipping collapsicups of hot coffee. Members of other exploration teams were clinging to the compartment’s racks and stanchions—Hawk and Eagle, two wide-eyed fifteen-year-olds who were as new to the division as I was; Swift, beautiful but nervous and almost as shy as Pipit; Heron, sly and pimply-faced, who apparently had found a hero in Thrush; and a thin, flat-muscled girl named Snipe, with close-cropped brown hair and that air of superiority with which so many young girls antagonize immature boys. Ophelia was present, as were some of the other team leaders. The one nobody could ignore was Portia, fat and sharp-tongued, whose saving grace was that she was as hard on herself as she was on others. Her lover and second in command was an untidy little man named Quince who seldom had anything to say except in support of whatever she said.

I almost didn’t notice Tybalt , but then nobody noticed Tybalt at first. He was a weathered, gray-bearded man, minus a left foot. I was later told he had lost it in a landslide on Galileo III twenty years before. He was chief of the planning division and my immediate superior when I wasn’t on call for Ophelia. He had a reputation as an easy man to work for—if you knew your job. The last one, Banquo , was heavy-eyed and yawning. Muscular but larded with fat, he was a member of Security as well as an assistant team leader. He took both much too seriously and made a point of sitting by himself. It was Banquo who had woken me up and taken me to the Captain a few hours before. I said “Good morning” to nobody in particular. Most of them murmured something in reply and all of them studied me, trying to figure out what I was like now. In turn, I studied them and wondered what I had been like before.

Thrush roosted in a corner, apparently his favorite spot for watching the others and taking mental notes. His hair was still matted from sleep, his face occasionally distorted by a yawn. He noticed me when I slipped in but his eyes were fixed on Pipit, who was busily pushing various pouches of leaves and powders into the food dispenser.

Crow glanced at me once, his expression hostile. I wanted badly to tell him about my visit with the Captain, but I couldn’t talk to him if he weren’t talking to me. Loon was right; I had been a fool. Ophelia caught my eye and nodded to the woman next to her.“ Huldah, partnership Noah.” She sounded curt and looked as hostile as Crow, though I couldn’t think of any way I had antagonized her. Huldahwas a plump little woman, eager to smile at anybody and anything. A working matron, I supposed, some minor duties in Hydroponics and a life that revolved around her partner. I nodded out of a vague sense of politeness.

“You should talk to Huldah sometime,” Ophelia said pointedly, dropping her voice. “She knows all about the families on board.”

I dipped my head, embarrassed. Huldah smiled the same empty smile that she had before. Thrush smothered another yawn, then said loudly so everybody would hear, “Did the Captain tell you all about the
Astron
, Sparrow?”

I didn’t know how he knew but I didn’t try to hide my enthusiasm. “He said he wanted to go in with us at Aquinas II.”

“I’m impressed,” Thrush mocked. “He hasn’t been off ship in a thousand years.”

Tybaltcame alive then. He glanced at Thrush with contempt, then back to me. “Pay no attention, Sparrow—if the Captain says he’s going to go in, he’ll go in.” He sipped his coffee, studying me as intently as Thrush had. What did they hope to see? I wondered.

Thrush shrugged. “He’s an oldman, he won’t remember what he said.”

I suddenly felt ashamed. The Captain had befriended me but I had yet to defend him.I slitted my eyes and glared.

“Say it to his face, Thrush.”

The compartment fell silent. Thrush had disliked me before, but from now on he would be an active enemy. I didn’t think it would be any great loss.

Heron looked at me and smirked. “Two thousand years old—he must creak when he walks.”

Tybaltturned on him.

“You have to be as old as the Captain to have vision, Heron. You wouldn’t understand that.”

Whatever Thrush’s faults, he didn’t strike me as a coward. I wasn’t that sure about Heron. Thrush grinned and scratched his chest.

“A vision, at any rate.”

Ophelia said sharply, “Shut up, Thrush.” He shrugged and went back to watching Pipit. Through it all, Banquo held his tongue, leaving the reprimands to Tybalt and Ophelia. That surprised me—I would have thought Banquo was the Captain’s man if anybody was.

The buzz of talk started up again while Pipit distributed the breakfast trays. I was as interested in the people in the compartment as I was in the food. It was easy to figure out the chain of command, which followed generational lines. There was the Captain and then probably a few right-hand men. After that came the heads of departments, like Noah and Abel, and finally theSeniors , team leaders like Ophelia and Tybalt .

Most of the talk over breakfast was of Aquinas II, with the younger team members bragging about what they would do once we landed. Ophelia, Crow, and a few others said nothing at all, making a point of not even looking at one another though it was plain they all agreed on something. Breakfast was textured protein flavored with Pipit’s secret store of spices and served in edible casings to keep it together; I had no idea what it was supposed to be but it tasted very good. Halfway through the meal, there were squeals in the passageway and three youngsters burst through the shadow screen. The smallest had misjudged his speed and I grabbed his legs to keep him from colliding with the bulkhead. We spun through the air, the contents of my tray spattering over the others in the compartment. While I tried to stop, the boy clung tightly to my arm and stared gravely into my face. He was a chubby three-year-old with brown hair and overly solemn eyes. I recognized him:K2 , one of the children Pipit had been tutoring.

Hawk and Eagle scrambled around the compartment with spare equipment rags to clean up the mess. The others in the compartment were annoyed, while Thrush watched with a sour smile on his face, amused by the flurry of activity.

We settled back around the crates. Huldah absently brushedK2 ’s hair and asked him if he knew all his
begats
.

He looked away, suddenly shy. I interrupted, saying, “I don’t know mine.”

There was an abrupt hush. Huldah cleared her throat and began in a sing-song: “Sparrow was begat by Nerissa who was begat by Abigail who was begat by Hake who was begat by Fox…”

I held up my hand after the first dozen. “You know them all?”

Another vacant smile.“They’re in the computer—you can look them up.”

Nobody was listening to us now, the
begats
having bored all of them.

“You know my family history?” I asked anxiously.

Huldah’ssmile vanished and she bent closer, her eyes filled with speculation. In that brief moment she became a different person, though nobody else seemed to notice the change.

“People telling you about your pastis not the same as you remembering it, Sparrow. You should look for your past in your present. Your memories may be gone but
you
haven’t changed.”

As quickly as it had vanished, the empty smile reappeared. I had misjudged her. But then, it hadn’t been the first time I had misjudged somebody, and it wouldn’t be the last. K2shoved away from Huldah and settled in the crook of my arm, helping himself to the bits of food that still clung to my tray. Pipit floated over to the food dispenser to get another one and as she passed Thrush, he stroked her leg possessively. She brushed his hand away without visible resentment, but when she returned she made a point of sitting next to Crow. Thrush now stared at Crow and Pipit in much the same way he had stared at me on board the Lander.