The Island of Hope (14 page)

His sudden alienation made her feel uneasy. Nothing and nobody could separate them, but Simeon, how could she put it... he looked old.

Unable to conceal her feelings for much longer, she walked over to Simeon and wrapped her arms around him. "You okay?" she whispered.

Simeon covered her hand with his. "Our true happiness was in its anticipation," he admitted.

Yanna looked into his eyes. In the whole Universe they were the only two people to speak that way. "You know something."

Simeon's blue eyes concealed a grayish hue.
'Like blue steel,
' Yanna thought. Neither he nor she realized that their relationship had already grown out of its youth.

"I've seen death."

That sounded like a verdict. The words hurt her like a whip lashing a delicate skin. Yanna started. "But we did come back," she tried to object.

"So what?"

The question stunned her.
'So what, really?
'

Then she asked: "Perhaps we've come to the wrong place?"

Simeon shook his head. He had pondered a lot over their problems during those last days. The dreams once fostered by their childish minds had been crushed and discarded. He couldn't find the words to explain it to Yanna, just as he'd been unable to do so at their first meeting in the bowels of the spheroid; a deadly chill had been clenching his heart since the moment when the
Io
was attacked. His dreams had been trampled, sliced by lasers just like Spyte had been, torn apart like Frauenberg and killed by vacuum like Vladimir. People knew not what they did. And the most terrible thing was that they, in a way, enjoyed the process!

Yanna looked in his eyes again. "Please don't," she whispered in despair.

He gently took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the sectors of the screen that displayed the airless surface of Stellar drifting past.

Their spacecraft followed a high-altitude orbit, and the main city of the planet lay before their eyes.

The super-megalopolis could impress the most experienced traveler. It was located on the bottom of a crater that was one hundred miles in diameter and was protected by a spherical force shield. The city glowed its many colored lights, encircled by a mountain range topped with the menacing batteries of space defense systems. In fact, it was the mountain range itself, riddled with caves and tunnels, that had initially been called Fort Stellar. For decades it had remained an ordinary military base, conveniently located in close proximity to Rory. The city on the crater's bottom had appeared much later.

They were flying over a boundless, airless plain studded with the gray squares of strategic launching sites. Some of them were empty; others were occupied by pressurized repair rigs while yet others sheltered squadrons of spaceships ready to take off.

That was the heart of the military machine of the Tri-Solar Confederation. Tens, even hundreds of miles of gray armor, heaps of metal and plastic, billions of galactic credits, hundreds of thousands of human lives – all this in the name of the so-called Safety Doctrine.

As Simeon watched the unfolding panorama, his hopes dwindled. Rory's velvet plains which they had left far below and tens of other planets were but the hostages of this gloomy gray monster stretching over half the Universe. The Safety Doctrine: an unfeeling mechanical guardian of human life whose creators had long been reduced to an army of ants swarming inside it.

He glanced at Yanna. She stared at the screens, as silent as himself. Color had drained from her face, replaced by a deathly pallor.

Her lips moved. A nervous chill clenched her chest. The ten days that she had spent at Jedian's villa after leaving the life support center now seemed like a distant rose-colored dream. The scales began to fall from her eyes.

She tried to restrain her uneven breathing. Before Simon could say anything, she already found the right definition of the panorama unfolding below. That was their Island, the difference being that this one was in good working order, brimming with deadly mechanics and operated by soulless machines. As for people, they apparently didn't realize that the automatic world they had created would only bring destruction, death and suffering to the tens of worlds that existed so far.

The door behind them hissed open. Jedian walked into the cabin.

Simeon turned to him. "When are we going to land?" he asked.

"Soon," Jedian opened the bar's glass doors, produced a glass and pulled a chair toward himself. "You'd better take a seat," he suggested.

Simeon gave him a long look. "Bad news?"

Hatred flooded Jedian. Why was the boy so calm? "No. But I'd like to ask you a question before we land."

Yanna sat down opposite him. Simeon leaned back in his seat. He was ready for bad news and he wasn't mistaken.

Jedian took a sip from his glass. "Soon we'll be on Stellar. Your grandfather will certainly demand a full report on my researches into your memories. I think I've discovered something interesting," he grinned. "Tell me, did your father mention any planet with a blue grass in his diaries?"

Yanna looked at Jedian, then at Simeon.

"I don't think so," Simeon answered. "I can't see your point."

"Shame," Jedian rose. "You two think about it, anyway," he said, stepping out. "While you still have time."

The door closed.

* * *

Simeon slumped into his seat and sat still, clasping his head with his hands.

"Simeon, dear, what's the matter with you?" Yanna approached him. "Say something!"

"The grass," his voice rang with pain. "You see, I do remember."

"Remember what?"

Simeon squeezed his eyes so tight that he saw iridescent circles float before him. His brain was about to explode.

Finally, he heaved a sigh. "No, I can’t remember," he looked about in despair, as if seeking support from the large shimmering row of screens.

"Leave it. You're hurting yourself."

Simeon nodded.

"What can we do?" Yanna took him by the hand — their old habit. "I have this feeling like I'm drifting away through space and can’t come back," she admitted.

Stellar's surface filled the screens, rushing past in every detail. The ship approached the planet's artificial surface. Landing sites were followed by squat gun towers which, in their turn, gave place to the rectangular buildings of some automatic factory rising into the black sky. The planet was clad in gray armor with only the distraction of the spaceship's clearance lights. The glittering dome of the force shield over the super megalopolis towered in front of them, gradually growing in size.

"Would you like to stay and live here?" Simeon's voice sounded dull.

Yanna took her time answering. She watched the gray monolith of the planet, remembering Rory's warm plains; in her mind's eye, the creepy vines of the mirror trees whose soft leaves she'd kissed only yesterday reveling in the touch of organic life, were now reaching out through space, climbing the turrets of space defense towers: a surreal collage entitled
hopelessness
.

"Why?" she asked by way of reply.

Simeon chuckled bitterly. "We've left the spheroid searching for happiness. I used to think that the Island was the most unnatural place in the Universe, created by injustice and madness. That was what my father used to tell me. But the Island was our home, you see?"

A flame licked the screens as the craft began to land. Two rows of blinding blue lights flashed ahead, indicating a gap in the city's force dome.

Simeon turned to her, tenderness and fury in his eyes. He wasn't going to sacrifice their lives to this monster. He wasn't afraid of machines — nor of people.

"The Island was controlled by a set of rules. We were used to sticking to the rules and thought it would never change," he touched her cheek. "We were children then — and we wanted to remain just that."

He smiled. "We used to see everything in black and white. On one side there was light, on the other darkness.

"No," Yanna grabbed his hand. "What's the point in blaming people? We've been dreaming about meeting them, remember! It might not be as bad as you think!"

The ship shuddered, entering an enormous hangar. It seemed to Simeon that history was repeating itself. Once he'd made her put on a spacesuit to show her the sinister reality of the spheroid. He wished things were as easy now.

Simeon was different from everybody else. For him, Jedian's words had become a mere confirmation of his own bitter conclusions. No amount of naive hopes or Utopian dreams could shield him from reality. The battle machines of the Spheroid that had educated him knew no such subtleties.

For him, the last thirty days had become a lifetime.

He couldn't master the art of understatements and half-feelings, of sucking up to the rich and the powerful. To try to adapt to this crowd of faceless, weary creatures was to Simeon equivalent to death. He was too used to being honest, straightforward and open.

"We just can't live here," he said, "and it's better we admit it now than hide behind our useless dreams."

Yanna sensed he was right, but still it was difficult for her to admit it. Accepting the reality as Simeon had described it would be the end. She realized the whole tragedy of their situation.

"Does that mean we've failed?" she asked, sick at heart.

Simeon clenched his teeth. "There are two ways," he said, "but eventually it is a moral death for both of us. All our values will go out the window. We'll be obliged to adapt to this
civilization
," he said sarcastically.

Yanna's face fell. She couldn't believe he was saying that. "There are other planets!"

"You’re wrong. We don't belong here," Simeon snapped.

"Are you suggesting we should change the world?"

Simeon stared at her. "Change the world?" he repeated. "What for?"

"To make it better!"

Simeon shook his head. "One hundred and seventy planets. Two Galactic wars," he mused. "The civilization is in the throes of labor. So many generations lost. You and I, we believed in an ideal world which doesn't exist! And never will. Nobody cares about us. For them, we're just casualties."

He knew he sounded tough but there was no other way.

They remained silent for a while.

"You're right," a tear rolled down her cheek. "Can't anyone help us at all?"

It seemed to her that the ground was giving way under her. In fact, it was their ship docking.

They arrived on Stellar.

14.

I
n the cool calm of the library on Jedian's villa, the computer pinged with incoming mail.

Andor turned his head. A letter for him.

A cable snaked from the android's cranium, connecting him to the library processor. He looked at the monitor, scanning the coded message.

A semblance of a smile touched his lips.

One of the security guards glanced through the window and recoiled. His boss had a nasty habit of collecting all sorts of weird junk. First some mutants from a deserted orbital station and now this robot sitting there with a cable in his head pulling faces at me!"

The guard shrugged and went on patrolling. An hour later, walking past on his next round, he looked into the window again.

The android had disappeared.

He entered the library and carefully examined all the corners, but the robot had, so to say, evaporated. The cables were neatly stacked up in a niche, the processor was switched off, and only one light was on on the satellite communications panel, indicating a sent facsimile message.

The guard checked the code and whistled. The information had been transferred directly to Admiral Vorontsov.

He waited some more, cussed under his breath and walked away. After all, Jedian hadn't left him any instructions regarding the robot. In any case, he couldn't leave the premises, and that was all that mattered.

On the runway, a drone shuttle was clearing the scanner arch, about to take off. A green light came on, meaning the cargo had been properly declared. Nothing illegal on board.

The shuttle accelerated and took off, gaining altitude.

From the cramped control cabin, Andor watched as the guard's figure by the edge of the runway was getting smaller. The electronic declaration form had listed him as an extra unit of the navigation control system.

The android's fingers sank into the shuttle's connectors, causing its computer to change course. Navigational data disappeared from the monitor, replaced by a new message,

Strictly confidential
.

An image of a gigantic battle spacecraft appeared on the screen.

A long-range battle cruiser GENESIS,
the prompt read.
Please enter the access code.

Once again, a barely perceptible smile touched Andor's lips.

* * *

The balcony of the banquet hall overlooked Fort Stellar. Simeon leaned against the marble railing, playing with his empty champagne glass.

The carved doors behind him clicked open.

"Admiral?"

Vorontsov wore the black uniform of the space fleet over his exosuit. As he approached, his dirk dagger knocked on the marble with a hollow sound. "Not happy, are you?"

Simeon shrugged.

"You are difficult to please," the Admiral said. "When you left that wretched spaceship dump, all you wanted was to meet people. Here you are. So what's the problem?"

Simeon gave him a long look. A fine web of wrinkles ran from the Admiral's eyes to his temples. Father used to love the man. What a strange, surreal coincidence.

"There is no problem," he answered.

Vorontsov didn't lower his eyes, brimming with carefully concealed fury. He was the one giving orders. He would have it no other way.

"Don't lie to me! I can see that you're smart, but your head is screwed on the wrong way! I can't understand your cynical fatalism. This reception is in your honor, and you're wandering about the halls with an air of moody independence. Just looking at you gives me the creeps. D'you think you're some angel of the Apocalypse or something?"

A smile touched Simeon's lips. "
Bellum omnium contra omnes
," he quoted, looking into the grandfather's eyes. Vorontsov raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"A war of all against all," Simeon translated. "I studied Latin on that
dump
, as you say, which was my home. Looking at the corpses floating in a vacuum, I kept thinking about all the survivors. I was imagining their throes of conscience. How's that for naive!"

"You weren't the first to think so," the admiral chuckled. "The reality, my boy, can be a bitch, but you can't hide from it behind illusions. This is a cruel world. We need to get real. Man is basically an animal still struggling with his instincts."

"I'm not an animal," Simeon cut him short. "I'm a man, sorry. Yes, I've grown up amid death and cold. I'm well aware that I might have been a beggar had I landed on another planet. I might have worn rags instead," he pulled at the lapel of his tail coat, "but at least I'd be human!"

The old admiral sullenly stared into space. "I can do a lot for you," he said after a long pause. "Just don't you preach to me, okay?" the old man snapped. "This is
my
world," he waved his hand at the cliffs where the laser batteries towered. "Perhaps in a million years mankind might stop tearing each other apart, but to do that, you'd have to take a new generation and raise them a couple thousand parsecs away from Stellar!"

Simeon started. "Makes sense."

Vorontsov felt his mechanical heart pound against his exosuit. Fury, regret, late repentance – he didn't know what to think anymore.
'Nerves are playing up
,' he thought.
'Why should I care, really?
' Now he clearly saw that he desperately wished only one thing: to forget.

"I'll do everything I can for you," he repeated monotonously. "Just don't think you can change the world. You can't. It's very steady on its legs."

"I need a spaceship," Simeon blurted.

The admiral could not hide his surprise. "What does that mean? What for?"

"Do you really care?" Simeon asked wearily. "What's the point piling up lies? You've always known what you wanted, so why are you trying to deceive yourself? You don't need any ghosts. The initial bout of compassion is gone. Now all that everybody wants is for us to turn out to be a bad dream — so that they can get on with their lives!"

"How dare you say that!" Vorontsov wheezed. His white-knuckled fingers clenched the marble railing. He looked about to pass out.

Simeon turned towards Fort Stellar. "Admiral, this is your world. I don't intend to contest it. To each his own. My place isn't here. I wouldn't want an inch of this surface."

Vorontsov was afraid to let go of the railing. The distant lights swirled before his eyes. His temples throbbed. During the last hundred years — at least — no one had ever dared speak to him with such merciless clarity. Until now, he'd been the one to pronounce verdicts and decide people's fates.
'This brat offers me a deal?
'

Still, he had no arguments to offer against the truth. Simeon wasn't trying to blackmail him, He'd simply expressed the admiral's most secret feelings.

"Fine," he answered, collecting himself. "That's your right. What kind of ship do you want?"

"
Genesis
."

"You can't! It's in a dry dock. We've made a decision to remove it from operation."

"But it's space-worthy!"

"There is no crew," the admiral explained. "They are disbanded. To operate a ship like this you need thirty men at least."

"Doesn't matter. We'll manage, Yanna and myself."

Vorontsov grinned.
'So this is the way he wants it to be. What a cheek!
' He had the impression he was gaining his ground, the slight disappointment replaced by the anticipation of a moral victory.

"
Well, let him try and fail. Then he'll come — no, he'll
crawl
back to me.'
'

The admiral knew that neither two nor ten people were capable of flying
Genesis
.

He produced a communicator. "Alpha four, I need a flyer. Tell Terminal 8 to unblock
Genesis
and provide a launch corridor-" he turned to Simeon questioningly.

"In an hour," Simeon suggested.

"In an hour." Vorontsov repeated. A smirk played on his lips. He put the communicator away and slapped Simeon on the shoulder. "The flyer is coming. It'll take you two on board
Genesis.
And in a couple of hours you-" he didn't finish the sentence, turned about abruptly on his heels and added,

"Enjoy your flight...
grandson
."