Star Crossed

by C. Gockel

  Joel crowed, “Ninety-five percent across the board!” Coordinated blasts of energy rotated the Ship around until the main engine pointed in the direction of the Ship’s motion.

  Becca trilled, “Let’s hear it for the thruster mechanics!” Applause came from the gallery.

  The big new world swelled even bigger in the Picture. If the main engine failed, it was going to be a pass. A close pass.

  “Go for main engine burn,” said Bix, matter-of-factly.

  Joel announced, “If there are any eyes to see down there, we are gonna write ‘hi’ across the night sky.”

  “Maybe some spiny fish are looking up,” said Lary.

  The engine poured out a cataract of plasma. Joel burst out, “Burn, baby, burn!” As the plasma exhaust interacted with the tenuous upper atmosphere, pale fire rippled back across the thick hide of the decelerating starship.

  “Feel that shiver?” Becca called out. “That was the vibration of the engine. It took that long to travel through the structure to reach us.”

  The force of the deceleration was almost unnoticeable. Miguel produced a small plumb on a long line, which he held up with a solemn air. The line tilted a few degrees off vertical, responding to the building force of the engine.

  The Big Picture depicted the Ship as a bright ball on a trail of fire. From down below it would have looked like a swift comet flying across the sky. Catharin felt like letting her feelings go, cheering the engine on as the crowd in the gallery had begun to do. But red flecks materialized on Miguel’s half of the workstation window, flutters in the life support system piping. Catharin’s stasis-system sensors reported perturbations in the supercold fluid flowing in the line, but none of significance, not so far.

  “Throttle down!” Joel announced.

  Miguel’s plumb drifted back toward vertical.

  Wild applause erupted in the gallery, with whoops and cries of joy. Bix ignored it all. “Flight status!” he barked.

  Joel sang out, “Engine shutdown nominal! Position—a slightly elliptical polar orbit.”

  “Structure! Report!”

  Becca’s voice was high, clear, her words rapid-fire. “Sensors indicate hull holding and no damage! No strain outside limits!”

  “Life Support?”

  “Minor problems, but the trunk lines check—clear!” said Miguel, whose voice broke.

  “Astro/Survey!”

  Lary responded, “All in working order!—But what’s all that??” He waved toward the Big Picture. Particles surrounded the starship, a cloud, spreading out in front of the Ship in its orbit and behind it.

  Becca said, “That’s starship dander. Bits of insulation that came loose during braking.”

  The Ship arced across the terminator into its first sunrise. Ahead of the Ship, the swath of particles, sunlit, coruscated, a glittering host.

  Bix said, “We’re here, and you can start the calendar, Lary, with Year One, Day One.”

  Joel gave a great shout. Becca bounded over to him. “You did it, star pilot!” she announced, her voice high and ringing. Joel caught her up in his arms in a swinging bear hug. Bix contributed an open-handed whack to Joel’s shoulder. Excitement eddied like the pool under the cataract, clear and bubbling.

  The green bulk of the new world rolled by beneath the Ship. In its morning, it was blue and brown and green, with traces of white snow and expanses of silver cloud. Catharin discovered tears of gladness on her face just before Joel pulled her up into an embrace, which she returned with all of her strength. Joel said into Catharin’s ear, “We did it, lady.”

  The mess machines, expertly coached by Lary, with some raw material provided by Miguel, were capable of conjuring up a facsimile of champagne. An inferior champagne, to be sure, but good enough for a party. And all twelve dozen of the revived persons in Aeon celebrated in the dining hall. For the first time since the starflight had begun, there were enough people to fill the space provided.

  Lary’s reedy voice carried over the general hubbub as he described a newly hatched pet project: to send a football-sized instrument package through the eye of a hurricane down to a soft landing on one of the mountaintop islands on the surface of Planet Blue. “A dumb bundle, but a well-aimed one.” He chortled.

  Catharin could hear Becca loud and clear too. Nearby, in an animated one-on-two with Bix and Joel, she tilted her chin toward them, saying, “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket with my own voice. I chose an instrument that I could travel with, something that packs small.” She described the size of her flute case by sketching the parcel in the air.

  Joel suggested, “Go get it so you can make us some music.”

  Catharin located Miguel, engaged in conversation with Evangelina, who, dressed up for this occasion, looked prettier than ever. Miguel bubbled brightly in Spanish.

  Zak the ceramic technologist turned up at Catharin’s side. “I wanted to thank you for reviving me. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” His brown eyes burned with warm intensity in a thin, dark face. “The Captain says we can advance the schedule for my family, and I’ll see them in a few years, not a few decades.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, and meant it with her heart.

  Planet Blue appeared in the dining hall’s tall window. A moon, but a huge, blue one, its surface covered with a skein of hurricanes.

  Somebody started to sing. Catharin recognized the tune. “Par le clair de lune argent . . . .” By the light of the silvery moon . . . .

  “‘Watery’! It ought to be ‘watery’!” someone else called out. There was laughter. “What’s ‘watery’ in French?”

  Lary piped up, “Aqueux!” So a dissonant chorus sang it that way.

  The blue light outlined the contours of Lary’s face. He grinned, pleased with his little contribution to the impromptu sing-along. The light had the effect of highlighting the bone structure of Lary’s head, the shape of skull.

  Catharin was suddenly, joltingly, reminded of a death’s head. She felt a stab of alarm, almost panic. It might be a mild allergic reaction to the faux champagne, she thought, and put her glass down. Even so, she decided that she would run more medical tests on Lary.

  Halfway through the second and even more enthusiastic performance of the song, Becca returned with flute in hand. The silvery tones of the flute joined the melody.

  Catharin stopped singing. Her adrenaline had flamed out. She felt herself sinking into a terrible exhaustion. For her best friends—Captain and Pilot and Engineer—the great deed was done, the grand dream had come to life and fulfillment. Even Lary had ended up with a windfall of opportunity to continue his life’s work.

  Her work was only beginning and might not end until her life did. She had bargained for as much: something to live for. But the work that faced her here was not what she’d foreseen. Pure survival, simply saving humanity from rampant illness and genetic disorder, might be the issue from now into the indefinite future. That was the price of the two new worlds. Catharin crossed her arms, holding herself together.

  Becca approached Catharin. Perching on the edge of Catharin’s chair, Becca lifted the flute to her lips, and resumed. This time the notes that sounded were the melody of “Simple Gifts.”

  Joel came too. He placed his hand on the nape of Catharin’s neck, warm and firm. Tears trickled onto Catharin’s cheeks. She became aware that Bix and Lary, Miguel and Evangelina were standing around her too.

  “This is Cat’s favorite song,” said Joel, to everybody else. “Becca’s been rehearsing all week,” Lary informed Catharin cheerfully. “I could hear it through my wall.”

  The corners of Becca’s lips quirked as she wrapped a smile around the lip plate of the flute. The blue moon’s light reflected on the silver flute like water.

  The space-to-ground shuttle swooped down toward the colors of Planet Green. Streams of telemetry flowed back to Aeon.

  Landscape unfurled below the shuttleplane, a panoply of greens, blues, and earth tones. Startling spots of more u
nexpected color, like puddles of tempera paint, were splashed across the land: lakes tinted purple, orange, and yellow by high concentrations of anaerobic bacteria.

  It was late, and Catharin had the screening room to herself. She relaxed, watching the replay. The atmosphere down there was breathable: Earthlike in temperature, pressure, and composition, though slightly more oxygen-rich, on account of the abundance of vegetation. They would make it, build a colony and a future on Planet Green. Someone had already flown down and back up safely: the first of many steps into their future on that gentle green world.

  The shuttleplane entered a canyon land of tall white clouds and cloud shadows. The craft punched into a wall of cumulus and the picture went streaming gray. Complex arrow symbols scrolled across the bottom of screen: wind speeds and directions inside the cloud. Then the shuttleplane broke into clear air with tremendous visibility, a late-morning desert, flat tapestry of browns and tans. A river crossed the desert. With a network of fine green tracery—confluent tributaries—the river and its watershed looked like a fern, or like a two-dimensional cross-section of a lung.

  At last the shuttleplane’s big engines kicked in. One, two, three. That had been tricky. The shuttleplane could have limped back to the Ship on two engines, but not just one.

  The door of the screening room opened. Becca peered in. “Did I miss the whole thing? Darn! And I haven’t seen it but twice already!” She slipped into a chair beside Catharin.

  The shuttleplane thundered back up toward orbit, the planet’s land falling away below it, lakes and hills blurring into a flatter, mottled picture like camouflage cloth. Blue atmosphere thinned to space black.

  “You know, Cat, back in the twentieth century, it took decades and it cost human lives to do that.” Becca sounded reverent. “To make machines that could fly up out of the clouds into space, just like that.”

  The starship rolled up out of the blackness of space, battered and big. Its transport level lock opened, a slit of yellow light warmer than the stars, to admit the returning shuttleplane.

  The women left the screening room together, walking along a corridor piped in the gray color signifying the transport level. “Did you know they’re about to start fabbing a plane for downside?” Becca asked. “It needs long wings, on account of the slightly lower gravity that makes the atmosphere just a little thinner than on Earth.” Definitely in her piloting mood, Becca’s eyes shone, cloud blue. Her hands illustrated the long profile of the new airplane’s wings. Then she asked, “How was your day?”

  “I defrosted a good-looking guy. He’s not awake—he’s in the second day of revival, which means, still pretty far under.” On impulse, Catharin added, “Would you like to see him?”

  It must have sounded like an odd suggestion. A puzzled twist appeared at the edges of Becca’s lips. “You know I never pass up the chance to see a good-looking guy.”

  Catharin led the way to the recovery room on Level 7. She ignored the red-lettered sign that said medical personnel only. Opening shutters on the window, Catharin gestured the invitation for Becca to look into the room.

  Motionless except for slow breathing, the man lay on his back. He was tall. His long-fingered hands rested outside the sheet draped over him. His face was beardless—depilated—with sharply defined masculine angles.

  Becca said, “That’s the good-lookingest guy I’ve laid eyes on since we got here. Who is he and do I get to work with him?”

  “His name is Joseph Devreze. He is a theoretical molecular biologist.”

  “Scientists don’t look that good, as a rule!”

  “He is a bona fide genius, which may be why he breaks rules.”

  “Brown eyes?”

  “Get this: bluer than yours. Cobalt blue.”

  “All that and he’s tall, too. And I know you go for tall, smart guys.” Becca gave Catharin a mischievous grin. “Have you got designs on him?”

  Catharin felt herself blush. “I know him very slightly. I interviewed him just before the Ship left.”

  “So what’s he slightly like?”

  Folding her arms, Catharin reviewed her memories. “The most arrogant bastard I’ve ever had the displeasure to meet.”

  Becca made a wry face. “Sounds like he made a great first impression.”

  There was a trace of a furrow across the man’s brow, and a hint of frown lines engraved into his long face, like the signs of a medieval bishop’s preoccupation with matters of his Church. The sculpted hands—with long, chiseled fingers—could have belonged to a modern surgeon. In truth, however, this man was at least as far from being a curer of bodily ills as from being a curate of souls. “There wasn’t a Nobel Prize for biology, so biological breakthroughs were awarded the prize under the rubric of medicine whether appropriate or not, and in this case it was not. Medicine, indeed.” Catharin did not bother to keep the acid out of her tone. “Genetic novelties is what he did, corporation-sponsored, for fame and fortune, and why he left Earth I don’t know. He showed up at the last minute.”

  “Wait, whoa! You mean he’s a passenger? And he’s not expecting to be revived until the colony’s all set up?”

  Catharin leaned back against the wall, arms still folded. Becca was right. Devreze would think that he had been subjected to a most untimely resurrection. The millennium had come and gone in stasis, and there was no glory waiting for Joseph Devreze, no appreciative colony to seek his help with alienated organisms to conquer alien territory. Just a medical emergency like nothing his arrogant genius had ever met. “Our genes need fixing. Otherwise there will be no future,” Catharin said flatly. “It’s not just a matter of emergent illnesses caused by molecular damage. There are also double-strand breaks in the germ-line DNA. That means our ability to reproduce is questionable. I anticipate stillbirths and teratisms, or in another word, freaks. And more genetic diseases than I care to name, retardation being the most likely.”

  Visibly disturbed, Becca ran a hand through her hair. “That is one bad piece of news.”

  “I’m sorry—I needed to share it with somebody. I haven’t told anyone else about the double-strand breaks. Please keep all that I’m telling you confidential, for now.”

  “I will,” said Becca.

  “I’m quite sure that he freely altered the human germ line, despite the fact that doing so was illegal. I also think he can restore the damages caused by stasis. Unfortunately, it’s not clear to me what makes him tick. Altruism doesn’t seem to be among his motivations. Becca, I do not want him to know how much we need him. Not yet.”

  Becca ran her hand through her hair again. “Understood,” she said with a quick nod. “Well, things could get interesting with that guy up and about.”

  Catharin shot a misgiving glance at the motionless form of Joseph Devreze. “The phrase that occurs to me is ‘loose cannon rolling around on deck.’“

  9 Landfall

  Three. Two. One. Zero. Earth dwindled to a gleaming disk, a silver coin in a well full of stars. Joseph Devreze wished for a new planet on the other side of stars and stasis.

  Zero stayed. Cold and timeless zero—silent, insensate nothingness—went on and on.

  Until now.

  “One.” The voice was hoarse, cracked, his. “Two. Three.”

  “Good,” said the woman. “What comes after three?”

  A hissing tinnitus in his ears sounded like a spring thaw, a rushing melt of blood in his brain. It distracted him.

  “Count to ten. Please, Joe.”

  Joe. Rhymed with “go.” Sounded basic, uncomplicated. He remembered somebody, somewhen, telling him to expect things to be pretty basic, no altitudinous technology, because black boxes stink in the middle of nowhere, and repairability was going to be more important than anything else. Joe sounded simple, repairable. That would be his name here. Joe.

  The woman was tall and blonde, and she sounded worried. “What comes after three?”

  “Four,” said Joe. Behind the blonde woman, above a doorway, he saw the numbers
3, 2, 1, 0. “Three, two, one, zero. Breakaway from Earth orbit. We there yet?”

  She sighed. “Yes. How do you feel?”

  Homesick. Sick, remembering that the home planet was as good as dead and gone for him. “Hung over.” Joe made a weak attempt at a grin.

  “That’s the right idea. Your body is steeped in exotic chemicals that kept your body fluids from freezing—crystallizing and destroying your tissues—in stasis. Can you sit up?”

  Joe grasped her hand. Her skin felt warmer than his. “Terraforming? What stage?”

  “It hasn’t begun. We woke you up early, because we need you now.”

  His mental image of the star-world future quivered and changed, like a telcon screen changing channels. That did not bother him. It had been a fuzzy, unclear, imaginary image to start with. He liked the sound of “we need you now.” He sat up. “I’m ready. Where to?”

  “How do you feel?”

  Suddenly he remembered her from before. “I said, where to, Catharin?”

  She gave him a level stare. “Let’s see if you can walk, Joe, or if I’ll have to call for a wheelchair.” She helped him to stand up and put on a bathrobe made of soft paper over the pajamas of the same material. Joe steadied himself with one hand on her shoulder. His whole torso felt as though it were stuffed with cold, stiff cotton.

  Catharin guided him into the corridor—it curved upward, making it seem that he was walking uphill—then into a room full of people, most of whom were milling around and talking. They seemed almost too active, too vivid for Joe to stand to watch. He let himself be helped into a chair beside a table. Then Catharin left him. He felt lost.

  Another man sat at the table with him, also wearing a paper bathrobe. Somebody else resurrected from the dead. The other man had Asian features, and he was gently sipping from a cup of tea. He glanced at Joe. “Good morning, Mr.—?”

  Joe went blank for the duration of three sips while he groped for an answer, his mind as dim and disordered as an abandoned warehouse, until he found what he wanted. “Toronto. Joe Toronto. First Tier.”