Into the Sea of Stars

Chapter 8

Looking at the aft viewscreen, he could still see Josh ua's unit, a small sphere of light suspended in the cross hairs of the high-magnification scanner. Ian finally turned his gaze away from the screen and looked over to Richard and smiled.

"Are we going to float out here forever?" Richard asked quietly, while offering a flask of gin. Ian nodded his ap proval and the flask floated across to his outstretched hand. Just as he started to take a pull on the straw, the doorway slid open and Ellen drifted through the hatch into the storage compartment that all knew was lan's se cret hiding place.

"So much for my sanctum sanctorum," Ian muttered.

Ellen settled down by his side and extended her hand to the flask.

"Good gods"-Richard gasped-"is this a sign that our beloved group psychologist is cracking up, running amok, and all that?"

"Shut up," she muttered in reply.

"And so touchy! Truly this is too much."

"Look, Croce, I knew Ian was in here trying to decide, and I thought I'd join him."

"Well, what do you think I should do?" Ian asked.

"I feel the same way you do," Ellen replied. "I'm torn. Our ship's memory banks are filled to capacity. I've got enough forms filled out to last me through half a dozen publications, and most of all I'm just sick. Especially after that one." She gestured toward the screen.

"But?" Richard interjected sarcastically.

"Yeah, but," Ellen replied. "That's just it, Ian, we're all being drawn by that one big but. A bit of mystery has been set, and I'd like to get a look at what this Dr. Franklin Smith set in motion. I must say that the videos of him are quite compelling."

Ian smiled weakly at her. They had watched the 1100- year-old tape made by Joshua's onboard security system. It was badly damaged but computer enhancement had restored many of the details. Smith had been powerful- his charismatic energy rippling across the millennium. His ebony features had carried a sense of great intellect paired with a ruthless drive for survival. Yes, the romantic image from the past had held Ian in its sway as well.

"He's long dead," Ian replied. "And if the odds are correct, chances are all his people are dead, as well. Their ship was an exile unit, and overcrowded far beyond its bearing capacity. True, he was a charismatic leader, one of the moving forces for the Great Outward Leap, but for his particular unit the odds were near impossible. I think this Alpha / Omega is just another unit."

"But curiosity, the bane of any good historian, haunts you, doesn't it?" Ellen asked.

"All right, let's be logical," Ian replied. "First off, our ship's memory is packed to capacity. We wouldn't store another byte of data if we wanted to. We've been out over four months, and it will take nearly that long to return."

"If this crate holds up," a voice said over the PA loud speaker.

" Ahh, yeah, thanks for the encouraging reminder, Stasz." Ian looked up at the forward viewscreen, which was suddenly filled with the image of their grinning pilot, who had obviously been indulging with Richard.

"I thought this little room was my private domain!" Ian shouted. "First Richard, then Ellen, now you listening in. So where the hell is Shelley?"

"Right here, Ian." And the doorway slid open so that she drifted in to join them. "I was listening in on the intercom. There's been an open channel out of your cub byhole for months, but you never knew it."

Oh, great. Then they had heard his mutterings in pri vate, when he thought he was hiding from the rest of them. He suddenly realized with a flush of embarrassment that Shelley and the rest must have heard some of the com ments he had mumbled of late concerning Shelley, as well.

He looked up at her and the moment of eye contact was enough. She blushed and he quickly turned away, and the other three chuckled.

"Highly unethical, some of the things you've said to yourself," Ellen admonished.

"Let's get back to the subject," Ian interrupted, trying to regain control of the conversation. "As Stasz reminds us on every single jump, there is a probability of disaster built into the Alpha-class spacecraft. We've been lucky. One more successful jump and we could be home."

"Or one jump to Delta Sag, which is only seven light-years away," Shelley replied. "We could check out the vicinity, and then head for home. It will only add a month and a half to the journey."

Ian realized that they were merely voicing the argument that he'd wrestled with all day. Joshua had shaken him up. He had never expected something quite so chill ing. But he was curious, as well. He had never orbited another star. Not surprising-he'd hardly ever been off- campus. They would in fact be the first survey vessel ever to orbit the Delta Sag binary. And since a number of colony vessels had headed in this direction, there was the possibility that they might find something.

"Come on, Ian," Shelley said softly. "Let's do it."

Ellen gave him a nudge and offered the flask.

"But you're almost out of forms," Ian said jokingly.

"I'll improvise. Hell, Ian, you've made my career on this journey. I never thought it possible that I'd ever profit from knowing you."

"Say, Ian, when she gets rich and famous, we should go to some conference and pass the word about what C.C. means."

Ellen turned with a roundhouse punch, and Richard jerked aside, just barely missed losing his teeth. As Rich ard ducked, Ian was able to observe the absurd effects created by trying to punch someone in zero G.

It took Shelley several minutes to subdue Ellen and pull her out of the room.

"Not nice, Richard," Ian said admonishingly.

"But it was fun."

Knowing that the intercom line was hot, Ian didn't reply immediately. After thinking their situation over for a few minutes, he said, "All right, Stasz, punch us up for Delta Sag. But this time I think I'll stay back here with the flask and ride it out."

And when the drive finally kicked in with a vision- blurring jolt, Ian could barely tell if it was the gin or distortion that caused him to black out.

When the detection alarm kicked in, Ian and Shelley were hunched over the display board examining some of the records from Unit 287. For two weeks they had spent every waking moment checking out the video recordings and the historical data stored aboard the vessel. Ian was still in a state near shock over the library, where he had discovered thousands of works believed to have been lost in the Holocaust War.

The names of authors whose works were till now un known scrolled across the catalog display, and Ian muttered with frustration when he tried to decide which to examine first.

"Look at these," Ian had cried. "The discovery of just one of these books would have been worthy of note, and we've found thousands. It will revolutionize our under standing of pre-Holocaust literature."

Shelley hung over his shoulder and watched as the names and works flashed across the screen.

"Who was this Mailer?" she asked.

"Someone obscure, I've read that his works are noth ing but worthless mutterings."

"Then if that's the case, with our memory filled to capacity, shouldn't we dump him? I mean, Richard, Stasz, and Ellen are all howling for memory space."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Ian replied, and he pushed the erase button to make room for something of more value.

"What about this Akhmedov? I never heard of him either."

"Good heavens, girl, and you my grad-ass ahh, I mean assistant. I should have you go back and reread your texts." And it was at that moment that the alarm kicked in.

Stasz quickly hit the override and within minutes they had gathered forward to see what was to come.

"No beacon functioning on this one," Stasz reported to the assembled crew, "but it's the biggest I've ever seen. Her mass triggered the alarm. She's only about five hundred A.U. off our main course, heading for Delta Sag. Should we jump down and check it out?"

Ian looked around and shrugged his shoulders. "What the hell?" he murmured. And turning, he went back to the computer board aft to ride out the velocity shifts and the gut-popping downshift to sublight.

"So that explains the mass," Stasz said. "There're two of them riding together."

They were on final approach, and the confusing shape of what appeared to be a triple torus mated to a Bernal sphere had finally, at closer examination, resolved itself into two distinct and different vessels.

"Shelley, can you get a clear design printout of this?" Ian asked.

Shelley ran the radar imaging through the computer file, and after several minutes of cross-matching with their records, the probable design and ship's data finally came up on the screen.

"Ian?"

"Yes?"

"What the hell is Albania?"

"Albania?" He floated over to Shelley's side and peered over her shoulder. He noticed that there was a faint but pleasant scent to her hair, and for a second his thoughts were diverted.

"What is it?" Ellen asked, and as he looked across at her Ian realized that she had noticed his diversion and he felt somewhat flustered.

Albania? Faint memories were stirred of old maps of southeastern Europe. He wasn't sure, but he had a rec ollection that they were some crazy nationalist group out of the Balkans. A number of ethnic groups had founded colonies in that final decade before the Holocaust, as an attempt to preserve their culture if the war finally came. So this then must be an ethnic preservation unit. He chuckled softly at the image of the Albanians greeting him at the door wearing gawdy peasant garb and gyrating to bizarre folk music.

This might be amusing, Ian thought lightly. They must be harmless.

"Ian, I'm getting a printout on the second unit," Shelley said. "It appears to be another ethnic group, it's a Serbo- Croatian Nationalist Liberation Unit."

Serbo-Croatians? Hell, even he was stumped by that.

He looked across at Ellen. "Amaze me and tell me that you know Serbo-Croatian, or whatever it is they speak over there."

"I'd like to lie, but I never even heard of Serbo- Croatian."

Ian didn't answer. He'd let them think that he knew all about them. He took over the data board from Shelley and accessed into their own library and into the library from 287 to find an answer.

After a half hour of silent study, he came to his conclusions. " Stasz, how about firing up our drive and getting us the hell out of here."

"What do you mean?" Richard interjected. "Hell, we're only a thousand kilometers away and closing. Come on, Ian, let's check these ethnic guys out-it might be interesting."

"Look, I'm the historian and the project leader. Trust me. Those Albanians and Serbo-Croatians were neighbors back on Earth. In fact, if you go over to that region today, you'll still find them gleefully slicing each other's throats when the sun goes down. They were doing it for a thou sand years before the Holocaust. Hell, those crazy bas tards helped to trigger a world war. If ever there were two groups of people who enjoyed slaughtering each other, it would be those two. I bet that they searched through all the cosmos just to find each other out here, so they could dress up in their ethnic garb and go at it. So let's just leave them alone with their friendly folk customs."

"Come on, Ian, let's go in just a little closer." This time it was Stasz.

"You're playing with fire."

"And here I thought you were turning heroic on us.

Now the old Ian comes back out again," Shelley said jokingly.

"Okay, go ahead, you crazies. But if they can get aboard this ship, you better learn how to speak Serbo or Alba nian, or whatever it is, damn fast."

From less than a kilometer away they slowly circled the two units. The two colonies were docked to each other by several long tubes. Stasz hailed the vessels on every possible frequency but received no response. However, both ships gave clear indications that their reactors were functioning at full power, and from the exterior mirrors Ian could see reflected images of the inside indicating lights and movement.

It was the half-dozen suitless bodies floating between the two ships that finally sobered lan's companions. Suddenly a number of vessels emerged from the Serbo-Croatian ship, and then from the Albanian. Both squad rons started in their direction and Ian's arguments finally took effect.

"I think we better get out of here," Stasz muttered as he punched up the sublight drive and started to pull away from the colonies.

However, after several minutes it soon became clear that their pursuers were gaining on them.

"You see, I told you so," Ian said dejectedly. "You guys wanted to check them out when I told you not to, and now they're going to force us to attend whatever it is they do to each other over there."

"Maybe they're not hostile," Ellen said hopefully.

"Not hostile? Did you see those bodies that had been deep-spaced? That didn't look too civilized to me."

"They're closing in at point twenty-three kilometers per minute," Stasz interrupted. "I'm pushing her to the max now, but it will take me another half hour to plot out our jump and go through purging and adjustment."

"Can't you speed it up?"

"You want to up our chance of disintegration from 1.4 to 20.2 percent?"

"Might not make a difference," Ian replied.

"Say, take a look at that!" Shelley cried, pointing at the aft screen.

A flash had emerged from the lead Albanian pursuit vessel.

"Looks like a primitive rocket," Stasz yelled. "If it's aimed at us, we're dead meat."

The rocket accelerated and within seconds its course was obvious, as it closed on the lead ship in the Serbo- Croatian pursuit squadron. In a noiseless flash of light the Serbo-Croatian craft disintegrated. The other vessels sud denly turned in their pursuit paths, accelerating away at right angles from their original trajectories. Rotating on their axes, they started to fire back.

"Good old rivalry saves our butts," Richard murmured. "Hate each other too much to let the other one get the prize."

More vessels soon emerged from the two colony ships and a major battle was underway. In the confusion the Discovery was soon forgotten, as each side prevented the other from closing in.

"Say, Stasz," Richard asked imploringly, "would you punch us out of here asap?"

Stasz chuckled and recited again the odds of disinte gration with the jump. But the routine somehow did not have the same effect anymore.

"Albania," Ian repeated, shaking his head, bumming a flask from Richard. He headed aft to hide out when the shift hit.

Ian sat alone in the command bay as the others slept, and for a brief moment he was able to enjoy the total solitude that being the only one awake could bring. After nearly five months of voyaging together, each had learned the patterns of behavior that would generate the least amount of friction. Ian found that reversing his circadian cycle gave him the chance to quietly hide in his work when most of the others were asleep. As the Discovery soared across the vastness of empty space, Ian would spend hours in Stasz's couch contemplating the Doppler- distorted images or prowling through the vast accumu lation of data stored in the ship's memory. And Ian finally realized that he was actually happy. In spite of the fears that still haunted him, he was enjoying himself, perhaps for the first time in his life.

First of all the vast and varied responsibilities of Earth. were gone. All concern about rent, budgets, department meetings, and reviews by the Chancellor had vanished. Ian actually felt healthier, and he had to confess that El len's food, even when spiced with her occasional vitriolic tirades, was far better than his bachelor monstrosities. There was something far deeper, as well. For the first time in his life he felt as if he were doing something im portant, not just dreaming about the lives of others long dead. The sense of accomplishment was almost worth the bouts of terror that still assailed him. He found that he was actually learning to manage the nagging self-doubts when he had to make a decision that could be crucial to his survival, let alone the survival of others.

One self-generated disturbance, however, did give him pause for concern. He was experiencing an increasing number of fantasies about Shelley. She had somehow changed. When they had departed, she was still the kid who was playing at being the grownup housekeeper and guardian for a beloved uncle or older neighbor. Ever since the burning he had received from the Governor's daugh ter, Ian had sworn off females in general and young ones in particular. As a college professor he mainly associated with kids twenty years his junior, and he had learned long ago that they were a quick and easy way to a tribunal hearing on a morals charge.

But five months of close proximity was getting a little too much to deal with. He knew that Stasz had absolutely no interest in Ellen's designs but was turning his attention toward Shelley, as well. But the few grab passes offered by the pilot had all resulted in cracked knuckles. So that possibility was out.

At times he thought Shelley was making a direct pass at him, and then again there were times when she seemed just a slightly gawky grad assistant who was trying to be helpful. But more and more of late, he found himself contemplating the tight slacks that Shelley had taken to wearing, and the press of her body against his when they were hovered over the computer display…

"Mind if I join you?"

Ian awoke from his reverie to find Ellen standing in the doorway. " Ahh, sure. Thought you'd be asleep."

"Felt like taking a midnight stroll." She chuckled softly. Coming forward, she slipped into the Co seat next to Ian.

"You look rather pensive."

"Oh, just watching the show pass by."

"It's rather frightening at times," Ellen said softly.

"How so?"

"Come on, Ian. In my book, you were the original coward. I thought you would still be quaking at the pros pects of this voyage."

He didn't take offense at her statement. And rather than ducking it, he had a strange compulsion to talk it out. "First of all, I did feel terror, cold stark terror, when I finally started to realize what this voyage was. I can almost understand how medieval man was stunned and terrified by Copernicus. Before him the world was small, safe, the center of God's will. After Copernicus eternity stretched out before us and such a thing was beyond our ability to grasp, thus the blind terror of it all.

"When I realized just how far we would travel, just how far away from Earth we were going, how far we were traveling from that damn little campus, I was struck with fear. The thought of this frail, delicate body hurtling at jump speed for trillions of miles was beyond my ability to deal with on a rational basis. I tried to soothe myself with the thought of the romance of it, but that's a bunch of shit. There isn't any romance, there never is any ro mance when you're out doing it. Maybe years later we'll talk about how romantic it all was. The romance of ad venture exists only in the memory. Any good historian could tell you that."

"Sounding philosophical tonight."

"Comes with soaring in space for too long. It gives you the chance, the time to separate yourself from the mun dane. I think I can understand the attraction the explorers of long ago felt for the sea. Out there the mundane cares of the rest of the world were lost in a never-ending change which was the sea, the wind at your back…"

"But it's so cold," Ellen whispered. "I look out at this immensity and I feel so small, so alone."

"Precisely. And that is where you lose yourself. I've imagined at times that this voyage could soar on forever, across the endless sea."

"And I see it merely as a mission and then a trip home. Don't you want to go home, Ian?"

"What for? To go back to faculty meetings and the monthly confrontations with Dr. Ellen Redding?"

"All right, Ian, you made your point. You know, I've tried at times to analyze why we can't stand each other. For that matter, why I can't stand most people,"

He was tempted to let fly with a sarcasm, but let it pass. Ellen was making an effort. Rare, to be sure, but it was an effort.

He took a deep breath and made the plunge. "When I hear the name Ellen Redding I picture a florid, freckled, five-foot-three, slightly overweight, middle-aging adoles cent, who still behaves at times like she is the ingenue of the high school set."

He quickly held up his hand to ward off the explosion, but it didn't come. She just sat silently, and he wasn't sure if the blush on her face was a signal for a fireball or for tears.

"And I think she resents it all," Ian continued. "She wishes to be something else. The classic beauty, the truly talented artist, the person who lives in the same circle as the Chancellor or with the literati of New Bostem, and instead is stuck in a backwater town. So you lash out, Ellen. You lash out at this overweight, balding, none-too- competent history professor. A male of the species who can represent all the males who never gave you an even break just because of your sex and lack of sexuality. And I guess I'm saying this 'cause I'm a long way from home. I'm still a coward underneath it all, and I want to bury the hatchet."

"Ian, you never did learn tact. You never did learn how to tell the truth without cutting flesh."

She turned away for a moment. "I think I'd almost miss cutting you up."

"There's always Richard."

"That slob?"

"Sure he's a slob-a frustrated slob who never had the right connections in a system that required it. A slob who was a little too sensitive when it came to practicing medicine, and hid it with a couple of drinks too many. And anyhow, Ellen, you make him happy."

"I make him happy! I'm not sure I heard that correctly."

"Sure, Ellen, think of it. Where would you and Richard be if you didn't have each other to insult? I half believe we enjoy our antagonisms as much as we do our loves. It gives us the energy to face what otherwise would be a very boring existence. Think of it this way, Ellen, you make Richard happy in a deep personal way every time you insult him."

She turned and looked at Ian. She wasn't sure if his speech wasn't some sort of elaborate joke planned by Richard and Ian, or if she was experiencing a moment of truth between the two of them.

Then the alarm kicked on and within seconds Stasz wandered sleepy-eyed, into the cabin to check the console printouts for navigation prompts.

As Ellen walked out of the cabin, Ian would have sworn that she smiled at him.