Into the Sea of Stars

Chapter 2

Brazil's tropical heat was finally locked out by the silent closing of the liftcar's door. Ian gratefully sank into the first available seat and Shelley eased in alongside. Mopping his face with a soaked handkerchief, Ian breathed a sigh of relief as the frigid air washed over him. The air- conditioning in the Brasilia Skyhook Station was again down for "routine inspection," meaning that the incom petent ground staff would take two weeks to find out what was wrong. The result had been an agonizing eight hours of 100-degree heat while waiting for the next liftcar. Now that his fear of dying from the heat was removed, Ian Lacklin again had time to curse the fates in general and Chancellor Cushman in particular.

After the initial shock of the Chancellor's news had worn off, Ian had thought that, bureaucrats being what they are, it would take a year at the very least before the mission was cleared for launch. Given that much time, he had naively reasoned there would be ample opportu nities to gum up the paperwork into such a tangle that the mission would just keep getting delayed, postponing for ever the dreaded jump into deep space.

But he now realized that the Chancellor had been half a dozen moves ahead of him from the beginning. lan's battle plan collapsed in a paper blizzard as the Chancellor outclassed and outmaneuvered him in every bureaucratic strategem possible.

In the final act of a "team spirit send-off," the Chancellor had personally driven Ian and Shelley to the New Bostem airstrip for their connecting flight to the Brasilia Skyhook Station. Shelley and the Chancellor had even managed to have a fairly civil conversation about the pros pects before them. As a final gesture he gave them a send- off bouquet of flowers, which made Ian sneeze.

Ian turned in his seat and gave Shelley an appraising glance. Why he had requested her was beyond him. Per haps it was revenge for her getting him into the mess. He knew he wasn't attracted to her in any physical way; she was all adolescent angles, even though she was already in her early twenties. She had the air typical of a studious female, one who would forever be bound to a book, wear the most uncomplimentary of heavy wools, and never be cured of near-terminal acne.

If Shelley had any positive feature, it was her ability to cover his tail when it came to paperwork and organization. Only Shelley could make any sense out of lan's data files-if Ian had to run up his data by himself he would soon be totally lost… lan's contemplation of Shel ley ended as the liftcraft attendant turned on the infor mation channel.

"Welcome to Brasilia Station, Skyhook 4. Your liftcraft is now preparing for departure."

Shelley turned to Ian with a bewildered look and he realized that her chair speaker was set for Portuguese. Turning the switch on her armrest to English, he settled back and tried to calm his nerves.

"We apologize for any inconvenience you may have suffered because of the malfunctioning air-conditioning system. Now that you are aboard the liftcraft you may rest assured that our crew will see to your every comfort."

Some of the hundred-odd passengers laughed, but their biting comments about the competence of the staff and the safety of the liftcraft didn't help Ian in the slightest.

"Our transit time to Geosync Station 4 will be eleven hours and twenty minutes…" The voice droned on about emergency procedures and safety regulations, but lan's thoughts had already drifted away.

The liftcar started to shake, and Shelley's hand dug into his forearm. "What was that?" she whispered hoarsely.

Ian pointed out the window and smiled at her as if she were a naive child.

"Why, we've started up, that's all."

The car silently started its ascent up the vertical track, exerting a slight pressure in the pit of his stomach. Sud denly they cleared the interior of the Brasilia station and broke into the tropical sunlight. Their speed was already better than a kilometer a minute and the ground dropped away.

How undramatic this all is, Ian thought sadly, even though he fully realized that he would have been terrified by the old way of trans-Earth lift-off. The days of chemical rockets belching scarlet plumes of incandescent flame were gone forever. Never would he have the chance to go roar ing into the heavens atop a crackling, thundering throne of fire. That was gone, long since gone-a distant memory already half a hundred years past, now that the Skyhook Towers girdled the equator with a ring of spokes. The towers rose tens of thousands of kilometers to geosync and yet that distance beyond for the necessary counter-weighting. The trip into space was reduced to a simple elevator ride; a very long elevator ride, to be sure, but lacking the thundering grandeur of so long ago.

Shelley was quickly glued to the window as they rose up and away. At the twenty-kilometer level the curvature of the Earth was ever so slightly visible, and Ian could see the deepening indigo of their destination. Pressing up against the window alongside Shelley, he looked down on the Earth, which was dropping away with ever-increasing speed.

For long minutes Shelley stayed pressed to the win dow, until a faint groan sounded alongside her. "Dr. Lack lin, what's wrong?"

"Just thinking about zero G, that's all"-he moaned feebly-"just thinking about zero G." And he fumbled through the storage pouch alongside his chair, making sure that the white plastic bags were there, ready for his use.

The acceleration was light but constant, as if a gentle hand were pushing them back into their couches. Zero gravity would not occur until the car arrived at the geosync station, where their velocity in relationship to the Earth would cancel out their potential rate of fall.

But Ian attempted to divert his thoughts from that dreaded moment by looking out at the indigo band that marked the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere.

As if on cue, the steward appeared, pushing a cart laden with the more potent forms of liquid relaxant. Ian handed over a fiver, pointed with three fingers to a dark amber bottle, and an icy triple of rum was produced.

He settled back into his chair and took a long, refresh ing sip. So he was embarking on the great journey, fol lowing the path of his heroes on their outward reach to the stars. How often he had tried to romanticize this to his bored students, who viewed the exploration of space with not one-tenth the interest that was reserved for the afternoon video love shows. How he longed for the world of a millennium earlier, when things were held in their proper perspective.

Idiots! At least I'm away from them. He took another swallow. In spite of his fears, Ian felt a tingling, a surge of excitement. He was reaching out along the same path that millions had followed so long ago. He would at last have the chance to follow them outward and discover the secret of their odyssey.

The thought set his heart to pounding. He was about to realize the ultimate fantasy of any good historian-to come face to face with the past. With luck he might even find a Mitsubishi Habitat, or one of the old O'Neill Cyl inders. Ian knew historians who would joyfully have killed their mothers if it meant a chance to meet with Churchill or to witness the Mongol burning of Kiev. And here was his chance, his dream coming out to meet him. He could remember how Lelezi dreamed of finding a tape showing a Saturn V lift-off. Sure, once that would have given Ian a thrill, but now he was going for far bigger game.

The steward came by again and Ian waved for another triple. Shelley gave him a frown.

His mind lapsed into happy reverie. He could imag ine meeting in secret with Smith and the Council of Ten as they made their momentous decision to abandon Earth on the eve of the Holocaust War. Yes, Ian Lacklin, announcing to a startled world the forming of the Alliance and the Declaration of Severance…

"It's wonderful, just simply wonderful!"

Several heads turned to look at him, but he didn't give a damn. Hell no, they can all kiss off. He was Ian Lacklin, noted historian, soon to be explorer. Why, damn it, once he returned from this voyage, there wouldn't be a pub lisher in the country crazy enough to turn down his man uscripts. He'd have it made. Yes sir, he could snap his fingers at the Chancellor, why, even the Governor could kiss his butt. The thought of such a thing made him laugh out loud. And to think that just a week ago he was terrified about the Governor's ever finding out about him and what's-her-name.

And the Chancellor, yeah the Chancellor. Good-bye to that rotten SOB and all the bureaucratic nightmares of teaching at a government-run institution. No more damned memos about using the correct forms, or inventories re porting how many erasers were missing, or asinine edu cation courses. No sir, Ian thought, no more faculty meetings, and most of all, no more educational politics. "No more!" he shouted out loud. "Say, steward, get over here if you please, my good man."

Shelley was looking around the cabin in mortal em barrassment, when an insistent warning beeper suddenly kicked on. "All passengers, this is your flight director. Please be sure that your safety belts are fastened." Ian paid it no heed.

Shelley looked over at Ian and made sure that he was strapped in.

"We have reached maximum velocity; our acceleration will terminate in ten seconds. You'll experience a mo mentary sensation of lightness when acceleration cuts out. We know you'll enjoy it as a pleasant foretaste of zero G at Geosync 4. Thank you."

"And you know what I'd like to tell Miss Redding, Miss C.C. Set Procedures Redding right now?" Ian shouted.

Shelley looked at him wide-eyed. In her entire sheltered experience of university parents and honors dor mitories, she had never been forced to deal with a drunken male.

She was still searching for an apt response when the acceleration cut off. Shelley suddenly felt as if she had been riding an elevator (which indeed she was) and the vehicle had slowed while she kept going. Her stomach felt as if it were climbing out her mouth.

And suddenly she no longer had to think of how to respond to Ian. Her only concern now was to find enough towels to start cleaning up her thoroughly besotten pro fessor.

"Yes, Dr. Redding, of course."

He tried to back out of the cramped middle cabin, but the laws of zero G tricked him. His arms flailing like berserk windmill sails, Richard Croce spun across the room, slapped into the wall, then ricocheted back toward Ellen Redding, who didn't hesitate for one second with her high-speed outpouring of vitriolic abuse.

"Damn it, woman, help me." Richard groaned as he did a slow rolling dive straight at her bulging midsection.

Grabbing hold of a support railing, Ellen gently pulled herself out of Richard's dive-bomb approach. He drifted past her and smacked into the opposite wall of the cabin, this time face first, but his outstretched hands grabbed a padded rail and prevented another pinball-like trajectory.

"Now, Dr. Croce, if you've stopped your acrobatic display of zero-gravity ineptitude, I would like to sum marize my argument."

"Damn it, Ellen, I can't do anything about it."

"Dr. Redding to you, Doctor Croce." There was a sar castic edge to how she said Dr. Croce- as if the linking of the two words were somehow impossible.

"All right, Dr. Redding," Richard replied coldly, "I'll remember your title." The rest of the sentence started to form but he thought better of it. He viewed doctorates in sociology and collective psychology as having the same validity as a doctorate in physical education or school administration.

"Thank you"-she hesitated for a moment, and then smiled icily-"Doctor."

He took several deep breaths in a vain attempt to calm himself, then decided to start in again. "And another thing, Captain Leminski stated that our gross weight is a hundred and twenty kilos over." He eyed her bulging form sarcastically, and she started to color into a deeper shade of purple that went beyond the flaming red of her hair.

"I know where we can dump off that weight right now," she replied evenly.

"I don't see anything coming off your manifest."

"Because it doesn't need to."

"A hundred and fifty kilos of survey forms in triplicate! You call that necessary!" Richard shouted.

"Dr. Croce, I've already explained to you that I've been sent on this expedition by our Chancellor to gather important data. The best way for a sociologist and col lective psychologist to gather information is through ob servation and survey."

"You don't even know if they'll be able to read the damn things. Did you get your precious forms translated into Old English or Japanese or Russian? Well, did you?"

"There is no need of that. I'm sure your good friend Ian will be able to translate for us."

The loathing she put into the word Ian was almost frightening in its intensity. The faculty battles between Ian Lacklin and Ellen Redding were near legend. Richard pitied poor Ian when he came aboard.

"Dr. Redding, I'm sure the Chancellor doesn't give a good damn about these so-called Lost Colonies. Personally, I think this whole charade is nothing more than a hairbrained move on the Chancellor's part to get rid of his most embarrassing tenured faculty."

"Now, Croce, you-"

"Dr. Croce, to you."

Boiling with anger, Ellen stumbled for a response, and Richard pushed on.

"If-and I say, if-we find these colonies, I think Ian will have more to do with his time than to translate your half-witted sociological surveys to a bunch of people who most likely won't want to be surveyed in the first place. Therefore, my dear doctor, I think it only logical that your damn bloody forms should be heaved out right now."

"If anything is to be heaved, it should be those ten cases of alleged surgical and sterilization equipment." A smug smile lit up her pudgy face, and she laughed mali ciously. "Besides, Doctor, a half hour ago I managed to put one of those cases through the airlock."

"You bitch! Do you know how hard it was to get that gin up here! " His voice trailed off into incoherent screams. One-tenth of his liquor, gone! Three years for this damned mission, and only nine cases to see him through! Richard barely heard Leminski shout over the intercom about a ship's docking alongside as he launched himself through the air toward Ellen.

The hatch behind them opened. A green face peered through. "Oh, my God." Ian groaned.

"Ah, Ian, old friend," Richard shouted, as he drifted within striking distance of Ellen, "you're just in time to witness the effect of zero gravity on blubber."

"Why, you pickled sot-"

"Enough! I've had enough!" A wiry form in blue cov eralls pushed through the doorway behind Ian.

"Ah, Ian," Richard said with sudden cheer, " meet our pilot and guide through the universe, Stasz Leminski."

Ian extended his hand, but Stasz ignored him.

"I have my orders," Stasz whispered in a sharp, hissing voice. His five-and-a-half-foot, hundred-pound frame seemed to be a coiled bundle of energy ready to explode in violent rage at any second.

"The problem is simple. We need to dump one hundred and twenty kilos. You must decide which one hundred and twenty kilos within twenty-three hours. Antimatter ignition sequencing will start in twenty-six hours. If by three hours before departure you have not dumped the excess mass, I will do it for you."

Grabbing hold of a handrail, he turned himself about as if getting set to leave.

"Ah, Leminski, I don't think you quite understand," Ellen Redding said. She spoke with the pedantic style typical of a professor addressing an idiot or a first-year university student.

"I understand perfectly, Miss Redding." He smiled a tight wolfish grin as she stiffened to the form of address. "You see, Miss Redding, I am the craft pilot and engineer, therefore I am responsible for the function of this wreck which the Confederation has pawned off on you… well, never mind that. As I was saying, when it comes to the function of this vessel, I am in control."

Pushing off, he floated back down the corridor.

Ellen turned on Ian, who quailed at the sight of his old nemesis. But before she could speak, Stasz's voice drifted back to them. "By the way, Dr. Redding, I'm declaring that Croce's 'surgical supplies' are now part of my ship's maintenance stores, therefore they are not to be touched. Dr. Lacklin, I'd suggest that those damned forms get dumped right now. Heaven knows how I hate forms; in fact, I've already got eighty kilos' worth in the airlock." He laughed sardonically and disappeared into the forward control room.

Sensing an impending explosion, Richard pushed past Ellen and mumbled an excuse about checking his equipment. As he drifted by Ian, his nose wrinkled at the sour smell.

"Good luck, old boy," Richard whispered.

"If I'd known that she was going to be aboard, I'd have stayed home in spite of the Chancellor," Ian whispered in reply. "Writing grants would be heaven compared to this."

"I heard that, Ian."

Richard grabbed Shelley's arm and pushed her out the hatch, abandoning Ian to what Richard told her would be "a friendly Social Science Departmental Meeting."

The shouting between the two old rivals filled the ship until Stasz finally called it to halt and begged for a little sleep before departure.