Into the Sea of Stars

Chapter 15

I an felt a moment of disorientation. The darkness was strange. Shortly after his return from his meeting, a meal had been delivered that outshone anything they had experienced since Earth. In spite of the circumstances, Ian was enthralled with the dinner plates; each was stamped "Souvenir of the 2064 New York World's Fair." Ian slipped one of the coffee saucers into his jacket pocket. It now rested next to the alien artifact.

It had already occurred to the crew of Discovery that this was to be some sort of ceremonial last supper-and they were suddenly convinced of it when the lights were dimmed. Nervously they sat together until eventually exhaustion and the need for a final private moment had sent them to their own small areas.

As if stirred by a distant voice, Ian "awoke from his sleep and looked toward the doorway. A shadow filled the dimly lit corridor-Smith. Leaving the others to what he feared might be a final rest, Ian stood and followed Smith to the audience chamber.

"Have you decided?"

"First, I give you permission to sit." And Smith beck oned for him to sit on the small stool placed before the dais.

Smith was dressed in the flowing ceremonial robes of the warrior, his sword resting on the floor by his right hand. The soft lamplight behind him haloed his salt-and- pepper hair and cast darkened shadows that hid his beard and ebony features.

Ian gave him a nod of thanks and settled down onto the stool. Smith said nothing, and Ian finally broke the silence.

"I can't understand one thing."

"Go on."

Ian drew in his breath and finally committed himself. "You have the information that you need from us. We therefore serve no logical purpose by living. You, if any one, have learned to kill without prejudice or sentiment. If we do not serve a purpose, then why don't you kill us?"

Smith leaned forward and his features emerged from the shadows. "You are correct, Ian Lacklin. You've sur mised that you still serve a purpose, and now you ask me what it is."

"Yes."

Smith chuckled softly. "Are the universities still the same as when I was there?"

The change of tack threw Ian off balance for a second, but he quickly picked up on it. "I have a feeling that it's universal and timeless."

"Still the same administrators?" He chuckled softly. "You know, I could never figure out how people so dumb and so deceitful ever got into education."

Ian nodded and found himself chuckling, as well.

"And still the same dumb jocks who your dean forces you to pass, in spite of their idiocy?"

"I think I know what jock means, we call them ozone heads. But yes-it is still the same. Most schools are still places were education is second to the god of sports."

"It's just that I was once a full professor of philosophy," Smith said sadly, "and I know that you were a professor of history, specializing in my time."

"I thought that was part of the reason you kept my friends and me alive."

"But events, Ian Lacklin, will soon force the end of this nostalgic interlude. I was a professor, but now I am something entirely different."

Ian found it remarkable that he was gripped by an icy feeling of calm. The path was open to him. He could sense it in Smith's words. The reason he had not heard from Smith or, for that matter, the reason they had not yet been eliminated was simply because Smith was not sure of the path to follow. Smith as the Angel of Death was poised, but something behind him held him back. Ian now knew that it rested with him-an overweight, nearsighted, certifiably incompetent history teacher-to talk the man out of slaughtering the entire population of the Earth, or he would die trying.

He thought about that for a moment. He could die as soon as the session was over. To his surprise his bowels didn't turn to water, and his knees didn't quake at the mere thought of it all. His arguments were already form ing, and he started.

"I guess it's obvious that you intend to use the plans for our faster-than-light vessel. You'll build a fleet and in short order return to Earth."

Smith smiled softly and nodded.

"With fire and sword," his deep voice boomed, "as they say."

Ian took a deep breath. "You're a fool!" His voice echoed in the chamber. And for a moment there was a look of shock on the face of Smith.

The sword seemed almost to leap into Smith's hand and arc back in a sweep that would culminate in death. Ian steeled himself for the numbing blow and stilled the terror in his heart. He looked into Smith's eyes and held him with a challenge.

Smith held his gaze, and wild desire was mirrored in his eyes, as if he wrestled with himself. Ian waited, amazed at the sudden intensity of reality and thought that held him. It was as if in a single second he could clearly con sider a dozen different thoughts. He was amazed at the almost ludicrous realization that he was engaged in a diplomacy that the world might never know of. He was amazed, as well, at the cold-blooded logic that had driven him to insult Smith.

And Ian Lacklin felt a secret pride. He had, for one moment, at least, transcended; and as an old word had described, he was no longer a wimp. Ian Lacklin had equaled, at last, his fabled heroes of old.

Smith kept the sword poised, and then with a sudden flourish he drove it into the flooring by his side and re leased it-so that the handle quivered and swayed as if it held a trembling life of its own.

"Explain!" Smith barked. And shaking with sup pressed emotion, he turned away.

"There is no need for me to be pedantic, your education is better than mine. And as is so very rare, you do not let that education hamper you with useless rhetoric. You therefore understand the nature of societal movements. That has been my career. I studied your movements, your age.

"A society must have a tangible goal, a Utopian dream of what it can transcend to. It can be, as in the Middle Ages, a drive to religious oneness and establishment of the kingdom of God. To my own ancestors it was an all- consuming passion to transcend the near-fatal damage of the Holocaust and return us to space. For you it is re venge."

"Yes, revenge!" Smith shouted. "You were not there. I was. I saw the light slip out of Janet's eyes, I saw the bloodied floor of the fighting pits, I carry the blood of the tens of thousands on my soul. And I saw what they did on Earth. They did it! They did it!" His voice rose to a scream of rage.

"They are dead a thousand years," Ian whispered in reply. "Franklin Smith, you are nearly the last of your age; you dream a revenge against those who are dust, their legacies forgotten, their age destroyed in a Holocaust of their own making. Damn it, Smith, they're nothing except your memory."

He fell silent, waiting for the reply, but there was no response. And Smith still kept his back to him. Ian searched for the historical example.

"Your logic is the same as if the blacks of your age were to punish the whites of your South for an experience gone two hundred years, or a Jew of my time to punish what were once Germans for that first Holocaust more than a millennium ago."

"But the memories are still here and alive." Smith turned and pointed to his heart. "Still alive and burning in here."

"You've had revenge enough, Franklin Smith, revenge enough. That traveler of mine, Elijah, he said 'For I alone have lived to tell thee this tale.' You know, you murdered his entire colony. That poor mad fool quoting ancient literature is all that is left of an entire world, and that is your work."

"It was necessary."

"So was what happened to you."

Smith's hand rested again on the sword.

"Go ahead, if that's your answer to what might save you, then go ahead and get it over with. I'm tired of waiting for it."

"Speak then, damn you."

"The world was tottering toward madness. To an insane world the voice of sanity is usually viewed as insane. You're lucky they didn't kill you on the spot. At least you had a chance. You're no better than they are, for you'd have done the same. In fact you have done the same in the name of saving your society.

"Think of it, Smith. The madness that seized the world forced over seven hundred colonies and nearly thirty million people to flee the Earth. It was violent, in many cases nearly hopeless, and millions died. But the bonds had been broken. Right now hundreds of civilizations are spreading slowly across this area of the galaxy. The birth of a child is attended by blood and trauma. So, too, usually with a civilization. That madness, that trauma forced you to flee and, yes, forced the tragedy of your life. But I see here a billion people, bonded together in a new civilization that you have forged out of your own power and desire. That has only happened to a handful of men in history. You are the Adam, Abraham, and Moses of a new civi lization."

"And now the angel of war," Smith replied.

"Death, you mean. And as I said before, you'd be a fool."

"You're just arguing to save your own life and your own world."

"Of course I am. Only a madman desires death. Only a madman desires his world to die. But I see the death of all in this; your world and mine will die."

"How so? I've looked at your records; I know your capabilities. In ten years I could destroy you completely. Even if your people learned of my coming, still I would overwhelm them."

"Yes, even if my people knew. You already outnumber us nearly four to one, and in ten years time it will be six to one. Your technology is generations beyond our own, all except for that one small quirk of fate that caused one of our people to discover the way of circumventing light- speed. That is our only superiority, and you now have that, as well.

"But I tell you this, Franklin Smith. Lead your people for a revenge that only you need have, and it will destroy you and your civilization in the process."

"Give me your argument then, and be done with it. I am growing weary of this talk."

"My opening argument is that a civilization needs a goal. You've set up the goal for your people: the desire for revenge. You've created a perfect machine for that goal: a billion people linked together by common blood, a people trained in what you called Bushido, and a tech nological level that transcends Earth's-as if your twenty- first-century world had found a way to wage war on a rabble of medieval knights.

"But remember that concept about a goal. So you go ahead, you build and then you attack. You use atomics to blast us and sweep life off the face of the Earth. You have triumphed, Franklin Smith. Imagine that triumph."

He looked into Smith's eyes expecting the vision he painted to be one that would excite, but to his surprise there was nothing, as if Smith could already see the path that Ian was pointing to.

"And then what? Damn it, tell me, then what? You've selected a goal that can be too easily reached. Oh, it was a wonderful goal that could bind a people together when they needed binding. You engineered that superbly well. But now, thanks to me, you can attain that goal. Once you've reached it, however, what can revenge bring?"

"It can still bring a payment here," Smith replied, strik ing his chest. "Here it will bring a rich reward."

"A reward of the moment. But a societal revenge, once it is reached, bears a strange price. Once the goal has been obtained, then there is no goal-no dream to reach out to. Nothing now to work toward. And then the old prophets and the old dreams are cast aside. Think, man, of the contempt' your age felt for the century-long quest for revenge in the Middle East. They had their revenge and destroyed their foe, taking back what they called the usurped lands, and think in the end of the bitter retribution that came-and how it was created by themselves."

To his surprise Smith nodded his head in response. "I lost several classmates in that war, I remember now."

"I could argue this point for hours, Franklin Smith, but that is foolish. You're the philosophy professor, you should be able to follow the argument on your own. I am merely the historical observer.

"If your society reaches its goal, then it will change forever-and in a direction you might not have anticipated or be able to control. The very factors that bind it together, that give it strength and vitality, will be lost. Your own America was built on a goal of expansion and limitless opportunity. When you started to listen to the drivel of idiots who said there must be limits to growth and that expansion into space is wrong, you fell behind. It was nearly fatal, for the Japanese and Chinese never had such doubts.

"Go ahead and make your goal. They'll throw you aside then, Smith. You've already started toward another goal; if you point that way, you can't lose."

"Go ahead," Smith replied sarcastically, "enlighten me, Professor."

"The complete settling of space is the only goal that can be sought and yet, ultimately, never obtained. With the hibernation drug you could take your people in that direction for ten thousand more years. At your rate of growth you could be tens of trillions, reaching out across the entire galaxy. That's a hell of an alternative. Don't go back to Earth, Smith. Go ahead and kill us if need be, but don't go back to Earth. Revenge isn't worth the cost. You shaped a destiny for your people, continue to do it. In five or six generations your people could forget that the hatred of Earth ever existed-and the dream could be redirected elsewhere."

"But you Earthmen could one day be a threat."

"That's like- saying a Carthaginian army could have threatened the America of your twenty-first-century. Damn it, Smith, you've got such an exponential jump on Earth, it'll never catch up. Besides, our society is still primarily planetbound. We've learned; our society's ethic limits population growth. Less than one-tenth of one percent of us are space dwellers, and the vast majority of those out there still look back down to Earth. We're a people who've learned to live within our ecosystem, as those aboard any space colony must do. It's pretty boring in a way, but that's the way I guess we'll always be. We cast off our seed, and some of us will still go out, but the grim ne cessities of it have already been done by our ancestors.

"But your people, your vibrant society is not looking inward, dependent on a single planet. Your people are already looking out toward the rest of the universe. The hell with Earth, Franklin Smith, you've got an entire uni verse to populate with your descendents."

Ian fell silent. And for several minutes nothing more was said.

"You know something, Ian, you are neither as dumb nor as wimpish as I first thought. Your argument is sound and bears thinking. After all, the distant future is only a matter of months for me, but generations for my people. We have a significant lead on you already, and now, with this light drive, there is nothing to fear from your people."

Smith stretched and walked over to rest his hand on the hilt of the sword. "However, Ian Lacklin, though it saddens me to say this, I think you should pray to what ever god it is that you worship, for it is time that you meet him."

"Wait a minute, Doc," Ian said hurriedly, coming to his feet, "I thought that you'd see we weren't a threat, I mean, you know…"

Smith drew the blade out of the floor and advanced on Ian.

"Look at it from my perspective, Ian, and try to be reasonable. I still have a touch of the paranoid in me. If I let you go there is the slim chance that you could create quite a problem for me some day. Besides, I have the designs for your ship, so there's no need to let others know that I have it. Therefore…" He shrugged his shoul ders and grimaced as if he were being forced into an unpleasant act.

"You ask me to be reasonable?" Ian shouted. "Damn it, you're going to cut my head off and you want me to be reasonable!"

"I'm sorry, Ian, I do like you. I promise your passing will be quick and painless. Now just kneel down so I won't miss my aim and cause you undue suffering."

"Bullshit! I've tried to be reasonable, but you wouldn't listen. So you've forced me into it." Ian reached into his pocket.

"Come along now, Ian, we searched you for weapons, and I was good enough to allow you to keep your personal effects. Now don't try to threaten me."

"I'm not threatening you," Ian said coldly. "There's a thermonuclear mine aboard our ship; your sensing devices should have picked up the radiation signature."

"So what?"

Ian pulled the alien cylinder out of his pocket. "This is the trigger."

"Come on, Ian Lacklin, you're bluffing. That's a use less piece of junk."

"I thought so, too. But it's a small, alien transmitting device. Just before we jumped to this region I rigged it up to trigger the mine."

Smith was silent, watching Lacklin's eyes for some telltale clue.

Ian was actually shaking. "I'm not joking this time, Smith. I didn't want this situation, I had hoped we could get along without threats, but you forced me into this."

Ian held the cylinder over his head and touched the end of it with his thumb.

"Take another step and you'll get to see firsthand what real eternity is all about. All I need to do is push down on the end of this cylinder and puff, you and I will be gamma rays."

Ian was staring straight into Smith's eyes and a taunting smile crossed his face. He was in control!

"I'll tell you something, Smith," Ian said, his voice reflecting his sense of assurance. "I've listened to you for some time now, in fact, I've even grown to like you, but the game is over. So here's what you're going to do for me. First off, you're going to call the guards off my friends, and then we'll take a nice leisurely stroll down to the docking ports."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then we'll see right now if I'm bluffing or not."

Smith still held him with his gaze, but Ian knew he had the upper hand.

"Look, Smith, we pose no threat, we only stir a fear that should have been buried a millennium ago. Now if I push this button you die, and when you go the civilization that is built around your semigodhood dies with you. Logic therefore dictates that we take that little walk to the dock ing bay. You can save face by making sure all your people are ordered from the area. Later just tell them that you decided to let us live. So you win. And even if I'm bluffing, you'd still win anyhow; we and the Earth pose no threat to you."

Smith started to smile but lan's gaze held steady as he started to move his thumb.

" Stasz, is all secure in there?"

"Engines are powering up, Ian. All secured, just tell me when to close the airlock and let's get the hell out of here."

Ian switched off the comlink and looked at Smith, who floated on the other side of the airlock.

"So, what are you waiting for, Ian? I've done as you requested, I've let you and the others return to your ship. So go on, get the hell out of here."

"Do you think I'm that dumb?" Ian said, edging his voice with contempt.

Smith's knuckles whitened as he clenched his hands. "Don't push it, Lacklin. You're aboard your ship, now just get the hell out of here."

"Before we can jump to light you could vaporize us with your ship's defenses, or the defenses of any one of a hundred of your other ships."

Smith smiled.

"Checkmate. I could force you to come with us," Ian said.

"Then I'd call your bluff. You'll not take me off this ship to suffer the humiliation of being held hostage."

"Checkmate," Ian replied sadly. Ian drew a deep breath and stepped out of the airlock. There was no other way and he had assumed from the beginning that it would end like this. He held Smith in control only as long as the threat was in front of him.

" Stasz, listen to me."

"Go ahead, boss."

Boss, Stasz had just called him boss! " Stasz, I want you to remove the thermomine from the aft storage area and bring it to me in the airlock."

Smith's eyes grew wider and Ian held the cylinder up as a warning not to try anything.

"Ian, what the hell are you doing?" Stasz replied.

"Don't argue with me on this. He'll vaporize us as soon as we pull out. I'm staying behind with the mine as a guarantee to make sure he doesn't. Now dump that mine and just get the hell out of here."

Afraid that Smith might try a desperate move, Ian held him with his gaze. "An even swap, Smith. They get away and I'll surrender the mine and this trigger, then you can do as you see fit."

A flicker of a smile crossed Smith's face.

"Most noble on your part, Doctor."

Ian felt the airlock open behind him.

"You sure you want to do this?" Stasz asked. Ian looked at him from the corner of his eye. Stasz was floating in the entry way, the ugly black mine tucked under his arm.

"Just toss it over here, get back on the controls and punch it the hell out of here."

"Ian?"

" Goddamm it, do it!" Ian shouted.

"Thanks for saving my retirement," Stasz said sadly, "I'll see they put your name on a gold plaque." And with a reluctant gesture Stasz gave the bomb an underhand toss.

"Ian, my love, you can't!"

With a wild shout Shelley barged past Stasz and ric ocheted off a bulkhead, knocking the slowly tumbling bomb off course. She came straight at Ian, her arms out stretched like a distraught lover reaching for her mate.

She slammed into Ian even as the bomb drifted past him, just out of reach. He could see Smith leaping from the other side, grasping both for the bomb and the alien swizzle stick which had been knocked out of his hand by the impact of a sobbing Shelley.

"Shelley, let go!"

Floating in the zero gravity, the two men slammed into each other-each grappling for a hold.

"Really, Smith," Ian shouted, " two Ph. D.'s should find a better way to settle their disputes." He pulled back his right hand for a roundhouse punch. lan's entire body was thrown into the blow, and Ian was amazed to see blood spray even as he recoiled away.

He slammed up against the opposite wall to be met by a solid blow to his lower back. He had hit the mine, driving it into the wall and activating the last switch.

"Warning, warning, you have preactivated the Clearance Assured AB-23A thermomine. We are happy that you have decided to go with the best bang in the universe. And remember to contact our quality control people if you have any problem.

"Warning, Warning…"

The high-pitched voice, sounding like a video adver tiser, droned on as Ian finally managed to grab a handhold and stopped his wild gyrations. Smith was dazed, and floated before him like a damaged ship that had lost all power to move or react.

"Ian, let's go!" Shelley's hands were yanking on his leg; a sudden tug pulled him back toward the airlock.

She pulled him through the airlock door and hit a button on the control panel; the door slammed shut.

" Stasz, punch us the hell out of here," Shelley screamed.

"The artifact," Ian shouted. "Wait, it's the only thing we have! I've got to go back."

Ian reached over to hit the airlock door release. There was a faint shudder as Stasz cut free from the docking port. Instantly the prejump acceleration kicked on, push ing Ian and Shelley against the opposite wall.

Reaching out Smith snatched the slowly tumbling mine. Pushing off from the wall, he floated down the corridor and stopped at a viewing port.

They were already free and accelerating into their jump.

With his left hand Smith touched his nose and winced with pain.

Damn it, that little guy broke his nose.

But that little guy would be vapor in fairly short order.

He reached over to a comlink board and got ready to call in the command to activate a weapons battery. The mine kept shrieking out its warning and he suddenly realized that the last thing he needed was for that warning to be going on in the background. Some of his "priests" were feeling a little uppity this time around, the way he imagined the pope would feel if God showed up and tried to take over the business. The last thing he needed was for them to think there had been a screw up. First the mine, then a couple of disabling shots.

"Warning, warning…"

"All right, shut up, damn it."

He examined the six numbered levers that were now in the down position. Simple enough. He grabbed hold of the last one and flicked it up.

"Congratulations, you have activated the final trigger. If you wish to deactivate it, please check your service manual at once. To avoid accidents, be sure the manual is the correct one for your model," the voice said cheer fully. "We advise that you now leave the area. Ninety seconds, eighty-nine, eighty-eight…"

Smith let go of the mine and it hovered in front of him.

"Oh, shit."