Voyagers I (23 page)

Schmidt shook his head slowly. “I demolished the room. They told me about it. I have no memory of it.”

“It’s not your fault,” Cavendish insisted. “You mustn’t blame yourself.”

“Who then?”

Cavendish started to reply, but the words wouldn’t come out. He got up from the little wooden chair on which he was perched, walked stiffly, painfully, to the window and looked out. Perspiration beaded his brow.

They’re making you do this, a part of his mind shouted silently at him. They’re forcing you to do it. But you can fight against them. You don’t have to obey.

His breath caught. He gasped with pain.

“I can’t,” he muttered.

“What did you say?” Schmidt asked from his bed.

Turning back to face the astronomer, Cavendish could feel his legs shaking beneath him, his stomach wrenching with the pain.

“It…it’s not your fault,” he repeated, and the pain eased a little. “The Americans…they forced you to come here, pulled you away from your home, your studies…”

“My girl, too.”

“Yes. You see?” It was easier if he just kept talking; the pain faded while he spoke to Schmidt. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened. It’s the bloody Yanks who’ve called the tune all along.”

Schmidt agreed with a nod, “I could have been home and happy. I never touched anything stronger than pot in my whole life until I came here.”

Woodenly, like a marionette jerked along by invisible strings, Cavendish stepped back to the chair beside Schmidt’s bed. Instead of sitting in it, he leaned both bony hands on the chair’s back.

A wave of pain washed over him and his knees nearly gave way.

“Stoner!” he blurted.

“What?”

Looking toward the young astronomer through pain-reddened eyes, Cavendish said, “It’s Stoner who’s at the bottom of all this.”

“Stoner? The American?”

“Yes…” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Cavendish went on, “We’d all be home now if it weren’t for him. McDermott wanted to finish the project and send us all home, but Stoner insisted on pressing on.”

“He wants to get all the credit, doesn’t he?” Schmidt said, the old sullen pout returning to his lips.

“Yes.” It was more of a whimper than a word.

Schmidt finally noticed the old man’s pain. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“Headaches,” Cavendish grated out. “I…get headaches.”

“Shall I call a doctor?”

“No. No, I’ll be all right.” Cavendish fished in the pockets of his trousers and pulled out a small plastic bottle. “They gave me pain-killers. Quite good, actually.”

Schmidt had propped himself up in the bed on one elbow. “They won’t let me have anything for the pain,” he said. “Nothing stronger than aspirin.”

Holding the bottle in front of the youngster, Cavendish repeated, “These are quite good. Non-narcotic. Non-habit-forming.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” the old man lied.

“It gets worse at night,” Schmidt said. “The pain.”

Straightening up, Cavendish said, “Perhaps it would be all right if I let you have a few of these…”

Schmidt nodded as Cavendish unscrewed the cap and shook out four pills into his trembling palm.

“You’re sure you can spare them?” Schmidt asked.

“I…can get more…”

Schmidt accepted the ovate yellow capsules, held them in his hand and looked down at them.

Cavendish’s whole body was on fire. “Try one,” he croaked. “It…will keep the pain…away.”

Schmidt hesitated only a moment, then took the cup of water next to his bed in one hand and popped a capsule into his mouth with the other. He drank and swallowed.

Within a few moments he was leaning back on the bed, glassy-eyed.

Cavendish, twitching as if electric currents were being applied to his nerve centers, came over to the bed and whispered into Schmidt’s ear:

“It’s all Stoner’s fault. If you can get up from this bed and find Stoner, you can go home again and be happy. Stoner wants to hurt you. Stoner wants to kill you. You’ve got to stop him before he kills you.”

Cavendish’s eyes widened at the words pouring from his lips. It was as if someone else were speaking, using Cavendish’s mouth as a transmitter, a machine totally disconnected from his own control.

Terrified at what was happening, he jerked away from the bed. A glance out the window told him that it was still late afternoon outside. Cavendish shambled out of Schmidt’s room, heading away from the hospital as fast as he could. He never noticed that out in the peaceful lagoon an outrigger canoe with two people in it abruptly capsized.

They were already soaked from the first time the outrigger had overturned. Markov paddled furiously, battering the water with uneven, choppy strokes, while Jo sat up in the bow and tried not to laugh.

“Watch out now,” she warned, “we’re getting into another channel between islands…”

Before she could finish the sentence the current caught the canoe and it started to tilt over. Markov watched helplessly as the outrigger pontoon swung up over his head and the two of them were dumped again into the bath-warm water.

He stood waist-deep in the water and felt his pockets. If anything’s lost, it’s lost forever, he knew. Then he remembered his wristwatch. It was dripping water and the crystal was fogged over, but the sweep-second hand still seemed to be moving.

“Come on, help me right it,” Jo called.

With a heavy sigh, Markov grabbed the pontoon struts and pushed the canoe right side up again. It was full of water. Laughing, Jo motioned for him to tilt the canoe enough to let most of the water out.

“I thought,” Markov said, grunting with the effort, “that these boats could not turn over. Isn’t that what the outrigger is for?”

Jo just laughed. He helped to push her back into the canoe, making certain to get a good handful of her backside in the process. Firm yet tender, he appraised.

Still grinning at him, Jo stuck out a hand. “Come on, climb back in.”

Markov surveyed the distance to the empty beach nearest them. “No thank you, I’ll walk. It’s safer.”

“Walk?”

“Wade. In fact, I will propel you to a safe harbor.”

“I thought you were afraid of sharks.”

He looked down into the perfectly clear water. “If I see a shark coming, I’m sure I can outrun him to the beach.”

He got behind the canoe and started pushing it through the water like an oversized child’s toy.

Jo clutched the gunwales and beamed at him. “My hero! Just like Humphrey Bogart in ‘The African Queen.’”

“Who?” Markov asked, sloshing through the thigh-deep water.

She gaped at him. “You never heard of Humphrey Bogart?”

“Wasn’t he Vice-president of the United States?”

As he nudged the outrigger up onto the beach, the sky darkened and unloaded another shower. Jo hopped out of the boat and helped him push it safely up on the sand. Then they ran for the cover of the trees up the beach and collapsed on the sand, wet, laughing, breathless.

“I don’t believe that I was meant for the outdoor life,” Markov observed.

“Whatever makes you say that?” Jo countered.

“I am a civilized man. That means I belong in a city, not out in this wilderness.”

“Moscow?”

He nodded. “Yes. Moscow would look very good to me right now. Providing you were there to share it with me, of course, dear one.”

“What’s it like?” Jo asked. “I’ve never been there.”

“It is a city,” Markov answered, shrugging. “Not as beautiful as Paris, nor as large as London. Not as crowded as Tokyo. The sun shines there for two whole minutes each year. Everyone rushes outdoors to witness the phenomenon. Then it gets cloudy again and it snows for the rest of the year.”

She laughed. “You love it, don’t you?”

Watching the rain gusting across the lagoon, Markov answered, “I suppose I do. I was born there. I imagine I will die there. My father died fifty kilometers to the west of Moscow, helping to hold off the Nazi invaders in nineteen forty-one. His father died in the civil war that followed the Revolution.”

Jo bent over slightly and touched his cheek with her outstretched hand. “But you’ll live a long and peaceful life, won’t you?”

He actually blushed. “I have every intention of doing so,” he said, trying to recover his composure.

They waited as the shower drifted across the island and headed off to the west. The sun came out from behind the scudding clouds, hot and bright. In minutes the beach was dry again.

Markov squinted at the sky. “Our clothes would dry faster if we spread them on the sand.”

Nodding, Jo teased, “Then we could go skinnydipping again.”

“I think I’ve been in the water enough for one afternoon,” Markov said.

Jo thought it over for a few moments. “Maybe we’d just better let the sun dry us off, without stripping.”

With a nod, Markov answered, “The better part of valor.”

Jo smiled at him, then said, “I just hope we can get back to Kwaj before it gets dark.”

It was midnight in Washington.

Despite the tension he felt, Willie Wilson smiled easily and leaned back on the couch. The hotel suite was well furnished; the management had given him its very best, top floor and top prices.

“You’re not from the insurance company?” Willie asked, spreading his arms across the back of the couch.

The young man sitting on the chair facing him smiled. “No, sir, I’m not. I’m with the Department of Justice.”

“Justice?” Willie glanced at his brother, who stood uneasily by the empty, unused bar, an almost scared look on his ruddy face.

“Yes, sir,” said the young man. He was neatly dressed in a conservative gray suit and quiet maroon tie. He looks like a lawyer, Willie thought.

“What do you want with me?” Willie asked him.

“We want to prevent a tragedy from happening,” the young man said.

“We?”

“The Department. The Attorney General. The White House.”

Willie gave a low whistle. “Heavy stuff.”

The young man nodded.

“What tragedy are you worrying about?” Willie asked.

“The panic you’ve been spreading.”

“Panic? I don’t deal in panic. I’m just a simple minister spreading the Word of the Lord.”

“Sir, you are frightening people. What happened at RFK Stadium could have been a colossal tragedy. It was only avoided by the narrowest of margins.”

“By
his
quick thinking!” Bobby snapped, jabbing a finger toward his brother.

“It was the Lord’s doing, not mine,” Willie said softly, still smiling.

“Reverend Wilson, you are frightening people. It was bad enough when you were just telling them to watch the skies. But now—with these lights in the sky every night…”

“That’s the message we’ve been waiting for,” Willie said.

“People are scared! They think the end of the world is coming.”

“I never said that.”

“But that’s what people believe you’re saying,” the young man said earnestly. “All over the country.”

“I’m just a simple minister of the Lord…”

“You’ve become a powerful national figure, Reverend Wilson. And you’ve got to show some responsibility for that power.”

“What do you mean, responsibility?” Bobby asked.

“You’ve got to cool it.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to stop scaring people. You’ve got to tell them that the lights in the sky have nothing to do with God or the end of the world.”

“I can’t do that,” Willie said flatly.

“You’ll have to.”

“Or else what?” Bobby asked.

The young man turned slightly in his chair to face Bobby. “Or else the federal government will get very tough with you.”

Willie’s smile never faded. He said, “I’ve met with the President, you know.”

“Yes, sir, I know. He sent me here, Reverend. He asked me to remind you of the tremendous responsibility you hold in your hands.”

“The President did?”

“That’s right, sir. He could have sent someone from IRS. Or from FCC.”

Willie’s smile became a shade tighter, just a little forced.

“In other words,” Bobby grumbled, “we play ball or the government shuts us off from television and goes through our books with a hundred auditors.”

“What do you mean, play ball?”

“Where is your next big rally, Reverend Wilson?”

“Anaheim.”

The young man nodded. “Yes. We’ve already been in contact with the stadium management there.”

“What right do you have…?”

“It’s very simple, Reverend. A panic at one of your rallies could kill hundreds of people. Maybe thousands. None of us wants that to happen. Right?”

Willie nodded slowly.

The young man took a deep breath. “Then what you have to tell your followers is that the lights in the sky are completely natural, that they’re caused by the spacecraft that’s approaching us, and that there is no supernatural meaning behind the lights whatsoever. You must disassociate the lights in the sky from the voice of God.”

“But that’s not possible,” Willie said.

“Yes, it is. You’ll have to say it.”

Willie glanced up at his brother, then looked back at the man from the Justice Department. “You’re interfering with the Lord’s work.”

“You work for the Lord, sir. I work for the Attorney General.” He hesitated, then added, “And we all work for the IRS.”

It was sunset before Stoner emerged from his office building. He stood at the entrance for a moment and looked out through the fringe of palms across the street toward the flaming sky. Then he turned and headed for the Post Exchange.

An hour later, showered, dressed in clean slacks and pullover shirt, he walked from the BOQ to the hotel, only to find that Jo wasn’t there. With a shrug, he went to the computer building, then to the Officers’ Club. She wasn’t in either place.

Where the hell could she be? he wondered. The clock behind the club bar showed it was well past seven. She said she was going for a swim; if anything had happened to her the whole island would be buzzing with it.

He made his way past the hardy group of regulars who lined the bar and sat wearily in the same corner booth he and Markov had used before.

She couldn’t have forgotten, he knew. She just decided not to show up. Cold anger seeped through him. She’s probably with McDermott.

No matter where Cavendish walked, no matter how far he decided to go or which direction he decided to go in, his feet kept returning him to the hospital.

It was dusk now, and as he leaned against the bole of a palm across the tennis courts from the hospital’s blocky shape, he could see lights going on in the windows.

I’ve got no will of my own, he whimpered deep within himself. They’re controlling me, making me walk and talk like some bloody animated doll.

He sagged against the tree. The pain wasn’t so bad at the moment, but nothing could make it go away altogether. Only obedience to their commands alleviated the agony.

“Damned clever of them,” he muttered to himself. “If they devoted as much effort to bettering their blasted economy as they do to controlling people’s minds, they wouldn’t need their blasted KGB.”

The pain wasn’t so bad now. Maybe I could get some food down, he thought. Or sleep! He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Sleep. What a luxury that would be.

Cavendish never saw Schmidt raise his window, lean out over its edge and drop the two floors to the sandy soil at the base of the hospital wall. The young man was fully dressed, his eyes glittered wildly, and in his buttoned shirt pocket were only two of the capsules that Cavendish had given him a few hours earlier.

Markov felt like a sailor returning home from a shipwreck. He was stiff-kneed with muscle strain, sticky with salt and sand, and sunburned painfully on his face and high forehead.

Every muscle ached. He had rowed the damnable outrigger canoe for hours while Jo sat grinning at him. If it hadn’t been for the brightness of the aurorae and the lights from the buildings on Kwajalein, Markov knew they would have drifted out to sea in the nighttime darkness and perished in the watery wilderness.

Now he clumped up the front stairs of his own little bungalow, crossed the uneven cement porch and pushed through the front door. It was not yet nine o’clock but it felt like four in the morning to Markov. Maria will be surprised to see me home so early, he thought.

She was not in the front room. He shrugged, and the movement under his shirt made him realize that his neck and shoulders were also sunburned.

With a sigh that looked forward to nothing more than collapsing face down on his bed, he opened the bedroom door.

Maria gaped at him, startled, shocked. The suitcase on her bed beside her was filled with strange electronic controls. A tiny glowing screen was flickering with a jagged trace of light, like an EKG.

But it was the expression on her face that stunned Markov. Guilt, anger, fear were all there. Her mouth was open but no sound issued from it. Her eyes stared at him and he could see all the way into her soul through them. She looked the way Lucifer must have looked when he realized that God had opened the pits of hell for him.

“What are you doing?” Markov bellowed. “What is this?”

All pain forgotten, he advanced on his wife. She got up from the bed, backed away from him, confusion and shame written across her face.

Markov looked from his wife to the suitcase of electronic gear. He grabbed the suitcase and raised it over his head.

“Don’t!” Maria screamed, and leaped at him.

He hurled the suitcase against the nearest wall. It split in two under the impact of the cement.

“You don’t know what you’re doing!” Maria screeched, clawing at him.

He pushed her away and she bounced onto the bed. Markov stepped over to the electronic equipment. One baleful red light was still on. In a cold fury he smashed his sandaled foot against it. Glass shattered and plastic buckled. Again and again he stomped the suitcase until nothing was left but unrecognizable shards of glass and circuit boards.

Maria was round-eyed. “You…you’ve destroyed a vital piece of state property.”

“Be silent, woman,” he growled, “and be grateful that I don’t do the same to you. I don’t know what that equipment was for, but it was for no good, I can see that much.”

Staring at the smashed equipment, Maria broke into sobs. “They’ll kill us both, Kirill. They’ll kill us both.”

“Then let them!” Markov snapped. “Perhaps we’d be better off dead.”