Deep Freeze

CHAPTER THREE

Commander Joshua Webster was out of uniform when the door chimes began to demand that he divert his attention away from the sleek, feminine curves of the lovely young lieutenant who was also in a total state of undress. His first thought was to ignore the musical clamor.

"Josh," the lieutenant complained, "I really can't concentrate with all that noise."

"They'll give up in a few seconds," Josh said, as he let his lips scale a luscious, small, darkly pointed mountain.

"Josh," she protested, pushing at him.

"All right, damn it," he said. He stood beside the bed for a moment, smiling down at her. He was a tautly built man, lean of waist, with the long, smooth muscles that spoke of good but not fanatic physical conditioning. "Don't go away."

She let her eyes fall to his narrow hips, his manhood. "Not a chance."

Josh slipped into a silk-smooth dressing gown, brushed his blond hair back with his fingers as he glanced into a mirror, and padded barefoot to the entrance.

"Oh, no," he said, as he looked into the matched faces of his twin siblings.

"I do like these loving, enthusiastic, familial greetings," David Webster said.

"I think that we may have come at a bad time," Ruth said, smiling ingenuously at Joshua. "Did we interrupt something, Brother Joshua?"

"You could say that," Josh admitted sheepishly.

"Well, we could come back later," David said.

"Fine, thanks, David," Josh said.

"But we won't." He pushed past Josh. He was the taller, and he was more powerfully built.

"Look," Josh said, "you know I'm pleased to see you, both of you, but—"

"We were hoping that you could put us up for the night," Ruth said.

"You do still have a guest room?"

"Yes." Josh ran his hand through his hair. The golden hue of it madeboth real and simulated blonde ladies envious. He looked more like the younger sister, Sheba, than like Ruth and David. There were those who, looking at the five biblically named Webster offspring and not knowing the strictly conventional morality of the parents, speculated as to whether Dan and Fran were at home on the same nights when Josh and Sheba were conceived.

Josh spread his hands. "You wouldn't like to go out and have a bite to eat? On me? There's a good restaurant just around the corner."

"Thank you, we ate at the Port," David said.

"You're doing this deliberately," Josh said.

Ruth raised her eyebrows. "Doing what, little brother? Are you trying to tell me that, heaven forbid, you have a—" She gasped in mock shock,

"—girl in your bedroom?"

"Not any more," the lieutenant said as she came out of the room and slammed the door behind her. Her sprucely simple Service blue skirt was just a bit awry, her blouse not quite tucked in properly.

"Angela—" Josh pleaded as he watched the lieutenant's stiff, straight back disappear toward the entry.

The lieutenant turned. Her smile showed that she was aptly named, for it was angelic. "Family matters first," she said. "Call me when you're free, Josh." She closed the door quietly behind her.

"Nice girl," Ruth said.

"Old Josh could always pick 'em," David said.

"I'm thinking of marrying this one," Josh said.

Ruth clutched at her heart. "Easy," she said. "I'm sensitive to shock."

Josh pouted for a moment, then beamed. "Well, hell, aside from the fact that you've ruined my evening, it's great to see you."

"I guess you'll have to sleep on the couch," Ruth said to David.

"Unless little brother wants to be a good host and give me his bed,"

David said.

"You're here about Dad and Mother," Josh said.

Ruth's face softened. "Any word?"

"None. I've been doing my best to change the schedule, but it's going to be at least another four months before a patrol vessel is in that sector."

He sat down, pulled his dressing gown tight around him. "There's really no need to worry, Ruth. You know the old man. He's thorough. He's a nut for detail. My guess is that once he found himself in an unexplored sector with a few million likely stars to check out he started with the nearest one and began methodically to work his way in toward the core. David can tell you how time consuming that can be. They're out there somewhere having the time of their lives, a second honeymoon. You know how we all used to be just a little jealous of their closeness. If ever a couple made a completion, just the two of them together, it's Dad and Mom. They've just sorta lost track of time, I'd guess. When they have to start eating space rations, they'll come out a lot faster than they went in."

"I want you to be right," David said.

"Yes," Ruth said, nodding.

"But?" Josh asked.

"I've got a new Zede Starliner that needs a shakedown cruise," David said, "and good company for the trip."

"You must be concerned, to leave your job and your precious kiddies,"

Josh said to Ruth.

She nodded again.

"We'll need the coordinates for the point where they left the extragalactic route," David said.

Josh nodded. "A Zede Starliner? C or D series?"

"E," David said.

Josh whistled. "Is what you do legal?"

"Why?" David asked. "Thinking of coming in with me?"

"Actually," Josh said, "the Service would suffer greatly if I left." But, he was thinking, even if he made admiral some day, even if he made fleet admiral, which was highly unlikely since the last three had been Far Seers from Old Earth, he'd never be able to afford an E series Starliner.

"I'm a little bit tired," Ruth said.

Josh showed her the guest room and the facilities. David poured himself a glass of Selbelese wine, the finest in the U.P. Josh came back into the room and sat down.

"Where did Dad take his orientation?" David asked.

"He took night courses at the academy in T-Town before he retired and then he spent three months in flight training."

"Three months."

"He's good," Josh said. "I checked him out when he and Mom came through here to get their permits. I wouldn't want to put him into a mock battle against young hotshots, but he's fully capable of taking that old Mule star-hopping out in the big empty."

David was feeling the warmth of the wine. The tension began to leave him. He liked his younger brother, enjoyed being with him. Josh's reassurances had the ring of truth.

"Wouldn't care to take leave and go with us?" David asked, after a comfortable silence.

"Dave, the promotion list comes up next month. I've been breaking my ass to make it." He spread his hands. "If I felt there was some real danger to Mom and Dad, I'd go in a heartbeat, but I want to get back into space, and I want to go back out there as H.M.F.I.C. of my own ship. I want those captain's stripes."

"Well, I think this family needs one genuine Service M.F.," David said.

Josh laughed. "The Webster kids haven't done too badly, have they?"

"One Service captain-to-be on the way up, a famous holostar, adedicated education professional—"

"A businessman rich enough to own a Starliner and—"

David made a face. "One social lioness."

"Not bad," Josh grinned. "Not even the lioness. I know that Mom and Dad are proud. They told me so when they were here. Got right mushy about it. Mom acted as if she was leaving forever instead of—"

He paused, his face going pale. He had forgotten how sentimental his mother had been on that last night.

David asked, "Mother had a bad feeling about the trip?"

Josh told himself that he was being foolish. "You know Mom. She cries when Sarah and her kids leave to go home—all the way across town."

David laughed. He always told his mother goodbye in the house and hurried away lest she follow him out to the aircar and make his own eyes misty by her weeping.

"Show me that couch," he said. "We're scheduled for an early lift-off."

"I'll wake you at five."

"Not that early," David said.

"There's something I need to arrange before you leave," Josh said. "It might take some time."

True to his word, Josh was up before sunrise. A blast of music so accurately reproduced that one could almost reach out and touch the musicians brought Ruth out of a dreamless sleep instantly. David was not far behind. They had breakfast at Josh's favorite neighborhood restaurant and joined a stream of centrally directed air-car traffic in Josh's little runabout. At the huge X&A headquarters complex Josh left the aircar in the care of an attendant who would file it somewhere in a cavernous underground park with a few thousand other vehicles and escorted his brother and sister to his office. The lovely young lieutenant who had left Josh's apartment with her uniform in some disarray looked up from her desk and smiled brightly.

"Morning, sir," she said.

"Lieutenant," Josh said. "Meet my brother and sister, Ruth and David.

Kids, this is my executive assistant, Lieutenant Angela."

"A pleasure," David said.

"We've met," Ruth said with evident disapproval in her voice.

Angela's smile did not change. "Coffee for all?"

"Thank you," Josh said. "And see if you can get us in to see the admiral first thing."

"Yes, sir."

As Angela left the room, her uniform not at all in disarray, David looked at Ruth and raised an eyebrow. "Meow," he said.

"I do not believe in double standards," Ruth said.

"I'm going to marry this one," Josh said.

The coffee was Selbelese. It seemed that most things that were good to drink came from one of the Selbel planets. The admiral would see Commander Webster and his guests in twenty minutes. That left time to have a second cup and for Josh to run over the day's schedule with his assistant.

Flux cars, moving at daunting speeds along rails through narrow corridors, carried them to the admiral's office. David was surprised and pleased when he saw the lettering on the door: Admiral Julie Roberts.

Everyone knew of the woman who had followed Dean Richards as captain of the Rimfire.

Service discipline and an iron will had kept Julie Roberts slim and vital.

Age had touched her gently, with silver in her hair, and by accentuating the spacer's lines at the corners of her eyes.

"Admiral," David said, taking Julie's outstretched hand, "believe me when I say this is an unexpected but very real pleasure."

Julie's smile was genuine. "You're not exactly unknown around X&A, Mr. Webster."

David glanced quickly at Josh, who shrugged.

"We keep track of certain cargoes, Mr. Webster," Julie said. "Precious stones among them. In that field you stand out."

Julie turned to take Ruth's hand as Josh completed the introductions.

There was more coffee. Julie was more than willing to talk briefly about Rimfire's circumnavigation of the galaxy. Then she questioned Ruth about her profession, expressed the opinion that the work Ruth was doing was of vital importance, looked at her watch.

"Admiral, you've been more than hospitable," Josh said, taking the cue.

"We won't take up any more of your time, but there is one thing."

Julie was all Service again. "Yes, Commander?"

"David and Ruth are going to find my—our mother and father. Perhaps you recall that their ship has not been in contact—"

"Yes, I'm familiar with the case, Commander." Julie turned to David. "I envy you, going into deep space in a Starliner."

"I would like your authorization, Admiral," Josh said, "to have a Seeker installed on David's ship."

Julie touched her cheek with slim, well manicured fingers. "Yes, all right," she said.

Josh sighed, rose. "Thank you very much, Admiral."

"I shall remember meeting you with great pride," Ruth said.

"And I," said David.

"My pleasure," Julie answered.

In the flux car David took his eyes off the walls flashing past to look at Josh. "What was all that? What's a Seeker?"

"Ever look inside a ship's computer?"

"Yes, of course."

"See a little black box somewhere down at the heart of it?"

"The X&A bug," David said.

"A prejudiced term," Josh said.

"Yes, I know," David said.

"I don't," Ruth said.

"The bug," David said, "is required equipment for every vessel going into space. It monitors the computer, records every order, every move, every transaction, and, through the computer, keeps a record of generator operation, life-support systems, everything that goes on in a ship in space.

Some people don't like it, say that it invades privacy."

"But accidents do happen," Josh said. "When they do, there's a complete record of what preceded almost any incident short of a ship falling into a sun. The bug is also motivation to keep spacers on the straight and narrow. There are some strict laws governing space travel, laws that are easy to break when a ship is light-years from nowhere alone in space. So the bug keeps an eye out for infractions, such as changing computer logs, blinking inside a planet's gravity well, things like that.

Information recorded in the bug's uni-chamber can be and has been used as valid evidence in court. In short, it's a monitor of everything that goes on from the time a ship lifts off to the time it shuts down power to the computer, and when you shut down power to the computer you'd better be hard and safe on a pad."

"I've read about it," Ruth said.

"The bug does one other thing that isn't so well known," Josh said. "It sends out low frequency radio waves that can be detected by the gadget the admiral authorized for your ship, David. The Seeker. The transmitter is activated by any unusual event such as accident or loss of power."

"I can see that it would be useful, but quite limited. For example, if Dad's ship had lost power, say, six months ago, the signal would have traveled only half a light-year. We'd have to be damned close in order to be able to pick it up."

"True," Josh said. "It'll be up to you to get within range. If—and I don't accept the premise that something has happened to Dad's ship."

"If there hasn't been a problem, the bug doesn't transmit?" Ruth asked.

Josh nodded. "So you're probably going out there for nothing. You're going to have to guess at the route Dad took once he left the Rimfire's beacons. The odds are millions to one that he'll come back to the blink beacons by a different route and you'll miss him entirely."

"It's a case of no news is good news, then," Ruth said. "If we don't hear a signal from the bug on Old Folks, we can assume that they're out there joyriding, that they're all right, happy as kids at dessert time."

In a matter of hours the Seeker was installed in the Fran Webster's communications bank. The influence of a certain Space Service commander, exerted through his executive assistant, got the Starliner lift-off clearance ahead of others who had been waiting longer. The Zede-built liner attracted a lot of attention as she rose slowly and smoothly on flux, went into her assigned orbit, and then disappeared as David punched in the first blink.

Xanthos, the administration planet, was located near the center of the volume of space occupied by the worlds that composed the United Planets Confederation. Although not nearly as congested as the zones inward toward the core, past the Dead Worlds, Xanthosian space offered no long blinks until a ship had traveled several parsecs toward the rim. Time became an element in space travel when the blink generator was depleted of power and had to rest while gathering energy from the nearest star.

During those charging periods Ruth familiarized herself with the Fran Webster and was duly impressed by the luxurious fittings. She swam in the small pool in the gym, although she had to rationalize the fact that she was swimming in the ship's main supply of water. It seemed rather odd to think of drinking one's bathwater, and, to one not accustomed to shipboard life, even odder to realize that the water in which she swam, the water she splashed into her face each morning, the water she drank, had been recycled only God knew how many times.

She spent considerable time with her library monitor in her cabin, sampling the ship's inexhaustible supply of books and films. By giving the monitor an order she could bring up every film in which her sister Shebahad appeared. She discovered that David had programmed the computer to isolate Sheba's parts, which was helpful in the early films where Sheba's appearances were mere bits. It was fun to watch her little sister as she developed her acting skills. Sheba had always been strikingly beautiful with her long blonde hair, her emerald eyes, her perfect little nose, but it was glaringly evident that she had not always been a good actress.

There were long, comfortable hours of talk between brother and sister, too. Good wine. Good food. Good music. First, they did the remember-when thing, reliving their childhood, laughing about tricks they had played on Josh or Sarah decades before. It had always been Ruth and David allied against Josh and Sarah, with Sheba standing aside in neutral territory, immune to the sibling rivalry because of her beauty and her gentle, loving nature. No one played tricks on Sheba. Everyone protected Sheba.

"A queen from the first," David said, chuckling fondly.

"The way that little girl could wrap people around her finger she should have become a politician," Ruth said with fondness.

Jump. Jump. Jump. Rest. Recharge.

David gave Ruth basic lessons in ship's operation and navigation. When she was on watch, Ruth's duty was mainly a matter of monitoring the instruments and the computer.

"If you can tell when something is going wrong, that's all you need to know," he told her. "Then you call me."

Ruth's curiosity wasn't satisfied with that, of course. She spent time studying the manuals and impressed David anew with her ability to collect and collate information.

It was a lovely trip. They hadn't spent time together in many years.

They remembered, they found that their taste in books and films was surprisingly alike, their politics straight down the conservative line, their taste in wine and food quite similar. It was difficult to get a good debate going because they thought so much alike. The only way David could get a rise out of his sister was to offer to make her life more comfortable, or more luxurious.

"Damn it, Ruth, I've got more money than I'll ever spend. Use it. Take a trip."

"I take one trip each year," she said.

"An excursion trip with a bunch of old maid schoolteachers."

"But that's what I am, an old maid schoolteacher."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"No reason to be. It has been my choice." She smiled, touched his hand.

"Why have you never married?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Because I never found a girl as pretty as Sheba?"

She laughed.

"Or you," he said. "Never found a woman I could talk to the way I talk to you."

She was thoughtful for a few moments. "Well, old Dave, you may have put your finger on it. I kept looking for a man like you back in my salad days when I was considering an alliance, marital or otherwise. Could it be that the Webster twins are slightly warped?" She asked the question wryly, but a memory had burned its way through a sheath of deliberate forgetfulness. She was fifteen and she'd just been kissed by a boy named John Form, a rather handsome boy who had put his tongue into her mouth. She'd gone to her brother in puzzlement, for at the time it seemed distasteful and rather unsanitary, that tonguey kiss.

"Well, that's the way it's done, Sis," David had said. "It's called deep kissing."

"I don't like it," she'd said. "Do you?"

He had grinned and winked.

"Uggh."

"Maybe John Form didn't know how to do it right," he had suggested.

On impulse, he had pulled Ruth to him. "Let your lips part slightly." Shehad let her lips open. And a burst of sunlight glowed inside her as his mouth covered hers and his tongue sought hers and engendered response.

She had tried to hide her shameful reaction and apparently she'd been successful. She'd said, "Well, that's about the way John did it."

David was talking. She picked up his teasing line of thought again as he said, "If so, it's your fault."

"Pooh."

"For being the way you are. Caring, thoughtful, wise—"

"Wise? My God, that makes me sound ancient."

"—rather nice looking—"

"You say that only because we look so much alike."

"Comfortable."

"Ah, that's it. You're just too damned lazy to court a woman."

He grinned. "Could be."

It was not, by any means, the only time their talk had approached what would have been flirtation had they not been brother and sister. Now, decades after he had demonstrated the art of deep kissing to her, she asked herself, "Does he realize? Did he, too, feel a sun burst inside him with that kiss when we were fifteen?"

The Fran Webster blinked back into normal space at a distance of parsecs from the nearest star. "Oh, my God," Ruth said, as she looked edge on at the Milky Way. "Oh, dear God, how beautiful."

The fiery heart of the galaxy was a dazzling globe of diamonds, the bulge of it protruding on either side of the disc, the thinner disc stretching on and back from the ship's position.

"Now I do envy you," she said. "For having seen this before."

"But I haven't," he said. "This is my first time outside the galaxy, too."

He patted her on the shoulder. "No one I'd rather share it with."

"Thank you. Thank you for this."

"My pleasure."

"Can we just stay here for a while?"

"Sure. We have charge for another jump, but we can wait until the generator is full again."

She toyed with the optics, zooming in on the nearest stars so that she could appreciate the distance, then coming back, back, until once again the enthralling spectacle was spread out before her.

"Come along," David said.

"Where?"

"Out there," he said, pointing at the optic viewer.

"Yes. Yes," she whispered, thinking that he was merely being mystic, or poetic, but he took her hand and led her to the central lock, helped her climb into a shimmering E.V.A. suit. She shivered in anticipation and some fear as the inner hatch closed and she leapt convulsively when, with a wild hissing, the air evacuated from the lock and the other hatch opened to—space, darkness, cold that she could not feel but could imagine. She was incapable of movement. She made no effort to resist as David pulled her toward him, locked an umbilical to the suit and to his, stepped out into the void pulling her with him.

She screamed.

"That hurt my ears," he said, his voice perfectly reproduced by the suit's communicator.

"Take me in," she gasped, having difficulty breathing. They were drifting away from the ship, weightless. She felt helpless. She squirmed and reached out. The reaction to her sudden motion sent them spinning, together, to the end of the cords. They jerked to a stop.

"Ruth!"

His voice penetrated the haze of panic.

"I want you to look."

He turned her.

The galaxy was one vast, misty jewel over her head, hanging there, but not heavy, ethereal, so beautiful that she felt only awe, not fear.

She turned her head. The ship's hull was a metal wall behind her, seen dimly by the glow of the galaxy. Beyond was—nothing, a nothing so deep, so complete that she had to stare at it for a long, long time before she could see the dimmest little points of light, lights that were, she told herself, other galaxies as large as, larger, brighter than the glowing dream of beauty that hung over her head.

"My God, David."

"Yes."

"Still want to go in?"

"No, not just yet." She giggled. "I'm going to have to change clothes, but not yet." In her moments of sheer panic she had wet herself, but she felt no shame.

"You can feel it when you're out here," he said.

"That, sir, is exactly the kind of imprecise statement for which I would reprimand one of my students."

"Pardon me all to hell."

"But I understand exactly what you mean."

During a long silence she listened to her own breathing, her own heart pounding, let her eyes close partially to dim the glory of the massed stars.

"Time to go," David said.

"All right."

She matched his movements, pulling herself toward the ship along the thin cord that was all that prevented her from drifting away into the endlessness of the intergalactic void. Then they were in the lock and airwas hissing in.

Out of the suit, she kissed him on the cheek. "I think that is the nicest gift anyone has ever given me," she said. "Thank you."