Visions of the Future (3 page)

Ling exhaled; the gulf was vast. “Regardless,” she said, “we are not pioneers; we’re just also-rans. We may have set out before you did, but you got here before us.”

“Well, my ancestors did,” said Bokket. “I’m sixth-generation Sororian.”

“
Sixth
generation?” I said. “How long has the colony been here?”

“We’re not a colony anymore; we’re an independent world. But the ship that got here first left Earth in 2107. Of course, my ancestors didn’t immigrate until much later.”

“Twenty-one-oh-seven,” I repeated. That was only fifty-six years after the launch of the
Pioneer Spirit.
I’d been thirty-one when our ship had started its journey; if I’d stayed behind, I might very well have lived to see the real pioneers depart. What had we been thinking, leaving Earth? Had we been running, escaping, getting out, fleeing before the bombs fell? Were we pioneers, or cowards?

No
. No, those were crazy thoughts. We’d left for the same reason that
Homo sapiens
had crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. It was what we did as a species. It was why we’d triumphed, and the Neandertals had failed. We needed to see what was on the other side, what was over the next hill, what was orbiting other stars. It was what had given us dominion over the home planet; it was what was going to make us kings of infinite space.

I turned to Ling. “We can’t stay here,” I said.

She seemed to mull this over for a bit, then nodded. She looked at Bokket. “We don’t want parades,” she said. “We don’t want statues.” She lifted her eyebrows, as if acknowledging the magnitude of what she was asking for. “We want a new ship, a faster ship.” She looked at me, and I bobbed my head in agreement. She pointed out the window. “A
streamlined
ship.”

“What would you do with it?” asked Bokket. “Where would you go?”

She glanced at me, then looked back at Bokket. “Andromeda.”

“Andromeda? You mean the Andromeda
galaxy
? But that’s—” a fractional pause, no doubt while his web link provided the data “—2.2
million
light-years away.”

“Exactly.”

“But… but it would take over two million years to get there.”

“Only from Earth’s—excuse me, from Soror’s—point of view,” said Ling. “We could do it in less subjective time than we’ve already been traveling, and, of course, we’d spend all that time in cryogenic freeze.”

“None of our ships have cryogenic chambers,” Bokket said. “There’s no need for them.”

“We could transfer the chambers from the
Pioneer Spirit
.”

Bokket shook his head. “It would be a one-way trip; you’d never come back.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “Unlike most galaxies, Andromeda is actually moving toward the Milky Way, not away from it. Eventually, the two galaxies will merge, bringing us home.”

“That’s billions of years in the future.”

“Thinking small hasn’t done us any good so far,” said Ling.

Bokket frowned. “I said before that we can afford to support you and your shipmates here on Soror, and that’s true. But starships are expensive. We can’t just give you one.”

“It’s got to be cheaper than supporting all of us.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You said you honored us. You said you stand on our shoulders. If that’s true, then repay the favor. Give us an opportunity to stand on your shoulders. Let us have a new ship.”

Bokket sighed; it was clear he felt we really didn’t understand how difficult Ling’s request would be to fulfill. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

Ling and I spent that evening talking, while blue-and-green Soror spun majestically beneath us. It was our job to jointly make the right decision, not just for ourselves but for the four dozen other members of the
Pioneer Spirit’s
complement that had entrusted their fate to us. Would they have wanted to be revived here?

No. No, of course not. They’d left Earth to found a colony; there was no reason to think they would have changed their minds, whatever they might be dreaming. Nobody had an emotional attachment to the idea of Tau Ceti; it just had seemed a logical target star.

“We could ask for passage back to Earth,” I said.

“You don’t want that,” said Ling. “And neither, I’m sure, would any of the others.”

“No, you’re right,” I said. “They’d want us to go on.”

Ling nodded. “I think so.”

“Andromeda?” I said, smiling. “Where did that come from?”

She shrugged. “First thing that popped into my head.”

“Andromeda,” I repeated, tasting the word some more. I remembered how thrilled I was, at sixteen, out in the California desert, to see that little oval smudge below Cassiopeia for the first time. Another galaxy, another island universe—and half again as big as our own. “Why not?” I fell silent but, after a while, said, “Bokket seems to like you.”

Ling smiled. “I like him.”

“Go for it,” I said.

“What?” She sounded surprised.

“Go for it, if you like him. I may have to be alone until Helena is revived at our final destination, but you don’t have to be. Even if they do give us a new ship, it’ll surely be a few weeks before they can transfer the cryochambers.”

Ling rolled her eyes. “
Men,
” she said, but I knew the idea appealed to her.

Bokket was right: the Sororian media seemed quite enamored with Ling and me, and not just because of our exotic appearance—my white skin and blue eyes; her dark skin and epicanthic folds; our two strange accents, both so different from the way people of the thirty-third century spoke. They also seemed to be fascinated by, well, by the pioneer spirit.

When the quarantine was over, we did go down to the planet. The temperature was perhaps a little cooler than I’d have liked, and the air a bit moister—but humans adapt, of course. The architecture in Soror’s capital city of Pax was surprisingly ornate, with lots of domed roofs and intricate carvings. The term “capital city” was an anachronism, though; government was completely decentralized, with all major decisions done by plebiscite—including the decision about whether or not to give us another ship.

Bokket, Ling, and I were in the central square of Pax, along with Kari Deetal, Soror’s president, waiting for the results of the vote to be announced. Media representatives from all over the Tau Ceti system were present, as well as one from Earth, whose stories were always read 11.9 years after he filed them. Also on hand were perhaps a thousand spectators.

“My friends,” said Deetal, to the crowd, spreading her arms, “you have all voted, and now let us share in the results.” She tipped her head slightly, and a moment later people in the crowd started clapping and cheering.

Ling and I turned to Bokket, who was beaming. “What is it?” said Ling. “What decision did they make?”

Bokket looked surprised. “Oh, sorry. I forgot you don’t have web implants. You’re going to get your ship.”

Ling closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. My heart was pounding.

President Deetal gestured toward us. “Dr. MacGregor, Dr. Woo—would you say a few words?”

We glanced at each other then stood up. “Thank you,” I said looking out at everyone.

Ling nodded in agreement. “Thank you very much.”

A reporter called out a question. “What are you going to call your new ship?”

Ling frowned; I pursed my lips. And then I said, “What else? The
Pioneer Spirit II.
”

The crowd erupted again.

Finally, the fateful day came. Our official boarding of our new starship—the one that would be covered by all the media—wouldn’t happen for another four hours, but Ling and I were nonetheless heading toward the airlock that joined the ship to the station’s outer rim. She wanted to look things over once more, and I wanted to spend a little time just sitting next to Helena’s cryochamber, communing with her.

And, as we walked, Bokket came running along the curving floor toward us.

“Ling,” he said, catching his breath. “Toby.”

I nodded a greeting. Ling looked slightly uncomfortable; she and Bokket had grown close during the last few weeks, but they’d also had their time alone last night to say their goodbyes. I don’t think she’d expected to see him again before we left.

“I’m sorry to bother you two,” he said. “I know you’re both busy, but…” He seemed quite nervous.

“Yes?” I said.

He looked at me, then at Ling. “Do you have room for another passenger?”

Ling smiled. “We don’t have passengers. We’re colonists.”

“Sorry,” said Bokket, smiling back at her. “Do you have room for another colonist?”

“Well, there are
four
spare cryochambers, but…” She looked at me.

“Why not?” I said, shrugging.

“It’s going to be hard work, you know,” said Ling, turning back to Bokket. “Wherever we end up, it’s going to be rough.”

Bokket nodded. “I know. And I want to be part of it.”

Ling knew she didn’t have to be coy around me. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “But—but why?”

Bokket reached out tentatively, and found Ling’s hand. He squeezed it gently, and she squeezed back. “You’re one reason,” he said.

“Got a thing for older women, eh?” said Ling. I smiled at that.

Bokket laughed. “I guess.”

“You said I was one reason,” said Ling.

He nodded. “The other reason is—well, it’s this: I don’t want to stand on the shoulders of giants.” He paused, then lifted his own shoulders a little, as if acknowledging that he was giving voice to the sort of thought rarely spoken aloud. “I want to
be
a giant.”

They continued to hold hands as we walked down the space station’s long corridor, heading toward the sleek and graceful ship that would take us to our new home.

What do you give when you’ve nothing left to give? When you’ve naught left to offer friends to whom you feel indebted? When you’re busted, in more than one sense?

We spend a fortune in this country sweeping away the byproducts of ourselves, ridding ourselves of personal waste. But how do you define “waste”? Might not what we consider waste be considered valuable by someone else? Sometimes values are so hard to define they escape analysis.

When you come right down to it, my body, your body, everybody is nothing more than a wondrously efficient and complex chemical plant, one that even DuPont can’t duplicate. Better living through chemistry.

And most of the time, we’re not even aware of the fact that this irreplaceable plant is producing all the time…

Both Pearson and the ship were rotted out.

He hadn’t known that when he’d rented it (having no intention of returning it and not worrying about that since both the credslip he’d used to pay for it and his corresponding identification were fakes), but he’d been in too much of a hurry to care.

The ship had made the Jump in one piece; but when he’d come out into normal space again, he’d found several small but critical components that had come out in many pieces.

All that was left of it now was a pillar of smoke and vaporized metal climbing into a pale blue sky. He could not bring himself to curse it. He knew the feeling. And it had ejected him, though somewhat less than safely. He was alive, and that wasn’t much. All he felt now was an overwhelming tiredness, a fatigue of the spirit. A numbness of the soul.

Surprisingly, there was no pain. Inside, Pearson continued to function. Outside, he could move his eyes and lips, twitch his nose, and—with enormous effort—raise his right arm off the flat, sandy ground. His face was no longer merely a small part of an expressive self: it was all that remained. What the rest of his body, encased in the remnants of his flight suit, looked like, he could only imagine. He did not wish to imagine. He knew his right arm was intact, because he could move it. Beyond that, all was morbid speculation.

If he was lucky, very lucky, he might be able to use the arm to turn himself onto his side. He did not bother to make the effort. There were no more illusions, at last no more illusions, circling languidly in Pearson’s consciousness. On the eve of death, he had become a realist.

It was a tiny world he’d inflicted himself upon, no more than a very large asteroid, really. Silently, he apologized to it for any damage his crash might have caused. He was always apologizing for doing damage.

He was breathing, so the thin atmosphere was less tenuous than it looked. No one would find him here. Even the police who’d been chasing him would leave off searching. Pearson was a most insignificant criminal. Not even a criminal, really. To qualify for that label you had to do something modestly harmful. “Criminal” implied someone dangerous, threatening. Pearson was merely irritating to society, like a minor itch.

Well, he’d finally gone and scratched himself, he thought, and was surprised to discover he had the strength and ability left to laugh.

It made him black out, however.

When he regained his senses, it was just beginning to grow light. He had no idea how long this minuscule world’s day was. Therefore he had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He might’ve been out a day or a week, human time. Though he no longer thought of himself as human. Complete muscular paralysis, save for his face and one arm, had left him a living corpse. He was unable to move about, nor reach the concentrates in the battered survival pack that might or might not still be attached to the leg of his suit, or do more than breathe in the feeble atmosphere that was temporarily keeping him alive. He rather wished he’d blown up with the ship.

He would not starve, however. He would die of thirst first. Living corpse, Pearson. Brain in a bottle. It gave him plenty of time to reflect on his life.

Actually, he’d been something of a living corpse all along. He’d never felt for anyone or anything, and not very strongly for himself. Never doing anyone any good and not having the capability to do anyone serious evil, he’d just sort of muddled along, taking up space and other people’s air.

I’d have made a better tree, he mused tiredly. Pearson wondered if he’d have made a very good tree. Certainly he couldn’t have been a worse tree than he had a man. He saw himself as a youth, cocky in a sniveling sort of way. Saw himself toadying up to the smoother, more professional criminals in hopes of worming his way into their company, their society, their friendship.

Naw, he hadn’t even made a very good boot-licker. Nor could he go straight, the couple of times he’d tried. The real, legal world had regarded him with the same resigned contempt as the less virtuous. So he’d lived in a tenebrous, mucousy vacuum of his own invention, not quite functioning efficiently in the mental sense and only barely in the physical.

If only… but no, he stopped himself sharply. He was going to die. Might as well be honest for a change, if only with himself. The misfortunes he’d suffered were his own doing, always his own doing, not the fault of others as he’d forever been telling himself. There had been a few pitying ones who’d tried to help him. Somehow he always managed to screw things up. If nothing else, perhaps he could die being honest with his own thoughts.

He had heard that dying of thirst was not pleasant.

The sun went down, and no moon came up. Naturally not, for a world this small could not afford the luxury of a moon. It was a wonder it held onto a breathable atmosphere. Pearson wondered idly if there was life existing on the fine, flat soil around him. Plants, maybe. He’d come down too fast and messily to spend time on such details. Since he was unable to turn his head, he could do no more than wonder.

Air rippled across him, a cool night breeze, pleasant after the mild, hazy heat of day. He felt it keenly on his face. The rest of his body’s external receptors were dead. It was possible he’d suffered severe burns. If so, he couldn’t react to them. In that respect the paralysis was a blessing. He knew that other parts of his body were functioning, though. He could smell himself.

When the sun rose again he was still wide awake. He estimated this world’s day at three to four hours, followed by a night of equal duration. The information was of no practical use, but such speculation helped keep his mind busy. He was slowly adjusting to his situation. It’s said the human mind can adjust to anything.

After a while he discovered the thought of death no longer bothered him. It would be a relief of sorts. No more running; from others, from his pitiful self. No one would grieve over him. No one would miss him. By his absence he would spare others the infection of his presence. The first hints of thirst, faint but unmistakable, took possession of his throat.

Short days passed and a few clouds appeared. He’d never paid any attention to clouds and little to the weather. Now he had time and reason to study both. He could see nothing else. It occurred to him he might be able to use his one functioning arm to turn his head and thus vary his line of sight. But when he tried, he found the arm would not respond sufficiently to carry out the complex maneuver.

Odd, the emotions. He discovered that the chance his one working limb might be becoming paralyzed frightened him more than the certain onslaught of death.

Clouds continued to gather above him. He regarded them indifferently. Rain might prolong his life a few earthly days, but eventually he’d starve. The concentrates in his suit pack could keep him alive for months, probably longer considering his lack of activity. But they might as well have been vaporized with the ship. He couldn’t reach them.

His mind speculated on possible methods of suicide. If his arm would respond and there was a sharp piece of metal nearby, a scrap of ship, he might cut his throat. If… if…

It did rain. Gently and steadily, for an entire half day. His open mouth caught enough to sate him. The clouds passed and shattered, and the distant sun returned. He felt it drying his face, assumed it was doing so to the rest of his body. He formed a new appreciation for the miracle of rain and the process by which it’s transformed into blood and lymph and cells. Amazing, astonishing accomplishment; and he’d spent a short lifetime taking it for granted. He deserved to die.

I am growing philosophical, he thought. Or delirious.

Short days gave way to brief nights. He had completely lost track of time when the first bug found him.

Pearson felt it long before he saw it. It crawled up his cheek. Maddeningly, he was unable to scratch at it or brush it away. It traversed his face, stopped, and peered into his right eye.

He blinked.

The tickle returned. He hadn’t caught it, then. It was on his forehead now. After pausing there, it walked down across his left cheek, retracing its first approach.

Out of the corner of his left eye he saw it as it dropped to his shoulder. It was blue-black and too small for him to discern individual details. It definitely looked like an insect.

It stopped on his shoulder, considering its surroundings.

Maybe it would be better this way, he thought. It would be faster if the bugs devoured him. When he’d bled enough, he would die. If they started below his head, he might never feel any pain before he passed out.

Silently, he encouraged the insect. Go on, buddy. Bring back your aunts and uncles and cousins and have yourselves a feast, courtesy of Pearson. It’ll be a blessing.

“No, we cannot do that.”

I’m delirious, he mused distantly, adding in reflex, “Why not?”

“You are a wonderment. We could not eat a wonderment. We are not deserving enough.”

“I’m no wonder,” he thought insistently. “I’m a wastrel, a failure, a thorough mistake of nature. Not only that,” he concluded, “I am lying here conversing telepathically with a bug.”

“I am Yirn, one of the People,” the soft thought informed him. “I am not what a bug is. Tell me, wonderment, how can something so huge be alive?”

So Pearson told him. He told the bug his name, and about mankind, and about his sick, sad existence that was soon to come to an end, and about his paralysis.

“I am saddened for you,” Yirn of the People finally said. “We can do nothing to help you. We are a poor tribe among many and are not permitted by the Laws to reproduce much. Nor do I begin to understand these strange things you tell me of space and time and size.

I find it hard enough to believe that this mountain you lie within once moved. Yet you say that is so, and I must believe.”

Pearson had a sudden, disturbing thought. “Hey, look, Yirn. Don’t get the idea I’m any sort of god or anything. I’m just bigger, that’s all. I’m really less than you. I couldn’t even make a good pimp.”

“The concept does not translate.” Yirn gave the impression of straining. “You are the most wonderful thing in all creation.”

“Bullshit. Say… how can I ‘talk’ with you when you’re so much smaller?”

“Among our People we have a saying that it is the size of the intellect that is important, not the size of the size.”

“Yeah, I guess. Look, I’m sorry you’ve got such a poor tribe, Yirn; and I appreciate your being sorry for me. No one’s ever been sorry for me before except me. Even a bug’s sympathy’s an improvement.” He lay quietly for a while, regarding the bug, which preened minute antennae.

“I… I wish I could do something for you and your tribe,” he finally said, “but I can’t even help myself. I’m going to die of hunger soon.”

“We would help if we could,” came the thought. Pearson had a feeling of sadness all out of proportion to the creature’s size. “But all we could gather would not feed you properly for a day.”

“Yeah. There’s food in my suit pack, but…” He fell silent. Then, “Yirn, tell me if there are shiny metal coverings on my lower body.”

Moments passed while the insect made a hike to the promontory of a knuckle and returned. “There are what you describe, Pearson.”

“How many People in your tribe?”

“What do you have in your mind, Pearson?”

Pearson told him and Yirn of the People replied. “Enough.”

It took days, local days, for the tribe of Yirn to open the catches on the suit packs. When it became apparent the People could digest human food, a great mental rejoicing filled Pearson’s brain; and he was glad.

It was a truly humble Yirn who later came to communicate with him. “For the first time in many, many generations, my tribe has enough to eat. We can multiply beyond the restrictions the Laws impose upon those bereft of food. One of the great blocks you call concentrates can feed the tribe for a long while. We have not tried the natural foods you say are contained in the greater pack beneath you, but we will.

“Now we can become a real tribe and not fear those tribes that prey on the poor. All because of you, great Pearson.”

“Just ‘Pearson,’ you understand? You call me ‘great’ again and I’ll…” He paused. “No. I won’t do anything. Even if I could. I’m finished with threatening. Just plain Pearson, if you will. And I haven’t done a goddamn thing for you. Your people got at the food all by themselves. First time I ever thought anything of concentrates.”