Lost in Space

by Joan D. Vinge

  Will crossed the room to what had once been John's chair at the com. The console sat at the center of a massive tangle of cables, its cybernetic circuitry linking the hyperengine and something on the upper gantry like the webwork of an insane spider. "Over the years, I have struggled to harness the awesome power of time. All my experiments at creating a stable doorway have failed. Until now." He touched a burton on the console, and somewhere a generator came on, illuminating an active fuel cylinder from the starship's original drive unit.

  "The core material," West whispered. The dazed slur was gone from his voice, and his eyes were clear. "If we could get that back to our Jupiter Two …"

  John nodded, never taking his eyes off his son. Creating a stable doorway… My God, he thought. Will hadn't contained a natural phenomenon —he'd caused it. Will's time machine had created the unstable portals, not the other way around… and they were tearing this planet apart.

  "Once this core material is fully introduced into the control console," Will said, his voice rising, "I will open a doorway stable enough for one person to take one trip through time and space as well. Today, I will change history—!" Will input another command, and John watched the energy bubble drift down through the air, until it disappeared into the hyperengine basin waiting below. A monitor came alive, showing him an image of the Earth.

  "I will return home," Will said, his eyes burning, "to the day you took us on this cursed mission. I'll stop us from taking off. I'll do what you never could! I'll save the family. I'll save us all!" His voice trembled.

  John choked on grief as he watched his son, and listened to him speak. God, Will was insane… the years alone had driven him mad. He had failed Will —failed everyone he loved—and his failure was a thousand times more terrible than anything he'd ever blamed his own father for.

  He shook his head, shaking loose his thoughts. "Will, look around—" He waved his hand. "The force of your time machine is ripping this planet apart! What if it has the same effect on Earth? What if, in getting home, you destroy Earth in the process?"

  Will turned his back and started to walk away, heading for the console. "I'm going home," he repeated. "I'm going to save the family."

  "Will, I'm your father!" John said desperately. "You've got to listen to me—!"

  Will spun around, his face a mask of hatred. "Let me tell you about my father," he said. "My father was a walking ghost. He dragged his family into deep dark space and lost them there. My father is not coming to the rescue!" He went to the console beside the coalescing space-time wormhole without looking back again.

  Don got slowly to his feet, his expression a gridlock of emotions. He stared at John, back at the forty-year-old man who was John's son, and shook his head.

  John's mind held only one thought now, and it left him as strengthless to act as the touch of Death.

  Will crept through the deepening twilight, moving from moss-hung rock to piece of wreckage as he and Doctor Smith worked their way toward the glowing gap in the hull of the Jupiter Two.

  Smith put a hand on his arm, abruptly holding him back. "As soon as we enter," Smith murmured, gesturing, "I want you to blast anything that moves."

  Will looked at him with a frown of surprise. "But shouldn't we find out—"

  "Will," Smith said, unexpectedly putting an arm around his shoulders, "let me tell you about life. Around every corner, monsters wait. I know. You see, I am one. And we monsters…" Will felt his body try to shrink out of Smith's grasp; the Doctor's bottomless stare pinned him like a butterfly under glass "… we have no fear of devouring little boys. To survive, you must be fully prepared to kill."

  Will shrugged off Smith's arm. "I can do it," he said, too loudly. He knew that Smith didn't believe the words, any more than he did.

  "Listen to me, boy!" Smith said angrily. "I have crossed this world with you. I will risk my life—but I will not throw it away." He gestured at the alien world around them, the path of light spilling from the broken ship. "Who knows what dangers lie ahead? You cannot protect us, child. But I can. I will. So I ask you now, trust me…" He held out his hand. "Will. Give me that gun."

  Will hesitated, wishing his mother was there, to tell him what to do; wishing his father would somehow miraculously appear, and make the decision meaningless___Slowly, he pulled the pistol free. He thumbed the lock pad. "Enable gun for all users," he ordered.

  "Voiceprint confirmed," the gun said.

  He handed the gun to Smith.

  "Finally—" Smith's arm uncoiled like a striking snake. He caught Will around the neck, pinioning him, and pressed the gun barrel to Will's temple. Will cried out, shutting his eyes.

  "A brief lesson in survival, on this world or any other," Smith hissed. "Never trust anyone."

  Smith let him go, shoved him forward. "Remember it into your old age…" he said, his voice poisoned with bitterness, "should you have one. Now move!"

  Will started on numbly, fighting back tears.

  John stood with his grown son, watching the hyperdrive basin; finally giving Will the kind of attention he had always wanted. In the glowing basin field dampeners were slowly compressing the amorphous energy bubble into a corridor of coherent imagery. An ever-expanding ring of plasma fire surrounded a blue-and-white-flecked sphere that even as he watched was becoming more and more clearly a vision of the Earth.

  It was possible to travel through time and space, controlling your destination with pinpoint accuracy… without a hypergate. His son had proved it. The Proteus

  had done it___He realized suddenly what he had not even had time to consider before: that whether they ever returned to Earth or not, their world was safe. Humanity had reached the stars.

  Behind him West slipped into the shadows, moving toward the hyperdrive console, and the core material. If he could only keep Will's attention focused here, West would have a chance to act. It struck him painfully that he had never listened to Will before the way he was listening to him now. That he was fully appreciating the brilliance of his son's mind only now, as he performed an act of betrayal, and Will performed an experiment that could destroy the Earth after all.

  "I can do what you never could," Will repeated, like a mantra. "I can save us all — "

  "Never fear!" a sarcastic voice called out, across the room. "Smith is here."

  John spun around, to see Smith come through the doorway behind the Robot, with Will… his son—his ten-year-old, frightened son—held at gunpoint. Smith pulled some kind of device from his pocket, and with one swift motion lodged it in the Robot's back. The Robot's arms flew up, then dropped to its sides. A control bolt

  "Will!" John cried, starting forward.

  "Don't move, Professor Robinson," Smith raised the gun, his eyes cold, "or this rather peculiar family reunion will be tragically brief." He glanced aside. "I'll ask you to step away from that console, Major." He gestured West back.

  West froze, staring at Smith, and Will. And then he crossed the room to join John without protest.

  Smith stood behind the Robot, inputting orders on the control bolt's keypad. "I knew this would come in handy." He glanced up at them with a satisfied smile as the Robot abruptly powered up, raising its arms. "Let's try this dance again," he murmured, addressing it now as he finished reprogrammimg its CPU. "You are the puppet. I am the puppeteer. Do get it right this time… Robot, you will respond to my voice alone. Enable electric distrupters."

  The Robot's extended claws began to glow as an energy charge built between them. Smith's smile widened. "Now that's a good gargantuan."

  John glanced away from Smith, seeing the expression on his young son's face as Will gazed at the time machine, wide-eyed. "You did it," Will murmured. "Just like I imagined! Rerouted the hypercore. But the spatial delivery system… the modified power source! I never thought of those—"

  Will's avatar looked back at him, with a bittersweet smile. "The future is never what it looks like when you're ten___"

  Smith crossed the room and put his
gun to the adult Will's head. "Say good-bye to your past," he said. "Your future lies with me… I'm going home in your place."

  The older Will turned to look at Smith; an amused expression spread over his face.

  "An odd moment for merriment, don't you think?" Smith snapped. "What are you grinning at—?"

  The older Will shrugged, and gestured at the room. "Look around you, Doctor," he said. "At this hostile world. Do you really think a boy could have survived, all alone?"

  Smith's eyes narrowed; his frown turned puzzled.

  Movement caught the corner of John's eye, and he saw —something—emerge like a fluid shadow from the deeper shadows cloaking the walls and corners.

  A voice, alien and yet somehow horribly familiar, rasped, " 'Never fear, Smith is here…'" The shadow form moved into the light on clicking, inhuman feet. It wore a black, hooded robe pieced together from torn fieldsuits, tubing, and circuitry. The robe cloaked its seven-foot form, barely revealing a glimpse of a face covered with silvery techno-organic chitin. What had been hair and beard had transformed into spiny filaments that made John think of insect feelers, or insect limbs. The eyes glowed like polished metal in the reflected light. But somehow, undeniably, it was Doctor Zachary Smith.

  "Hello, Doctor," the hybrid rasped, moving toward Smith, "how nice to see me again, after all these years." An arm flashed out of the cloak to slap the weapon from Smith's trembling grasp. The hybrid loomed over him, peering down at his face. Smith shrank back as though he were trying to fold in on himself and disappear.

  "The spider's sting had some unexpected side effects…" The hybrid seized Smith and spun him around, revealing the tear in his shirt—the wound he had gotten as they fled the spider-aliens on the probe ship. John saw how the wound had festered, as the technovirus began to invade the cells of Smith's body.

  So did Smith. He jerked loose from the hybrid's grasp, his face filled with terror.

  "But my unique gifts gave me an advantage in this quarrelsome world." The hybrid reached out, caressing the older Will's cheek. For the first time, John saw his hand clearly… barely even a hand anymore.

  "After the women were savaged," the hybrid said insinuatingly, "I became the father Will never had."

  John's hands silently tightened into fists; beside him, West grimaced in disgust.

  Abruptly the hybrid seized Smith by the arms, dragging him around the room like a doll in a grotesque waltz between past and present. "Three decades of agony taught me the error of my ways," he grated, bending

  Smith backward until his spine threatened to snap. "But you, Doctor. Your crude ambition fills me with self-loathing!" He twisted Smith like a rag, twirled him back around. "You see, I have looked within me, and what I see is you — "

  Suddenly he hoisted Smith up over his head; as his robe fell open John saw more spidery arms flailing at his sides. With a tremendous heave, the hybrid pitched Smith across the room, out through an opening in the wall, down onto the rocks below.

  "I never liked me, anyway…" the hybrid muttered, straightening his robe. The words hung like a shroud over the stricken, silent room. He turned to the Robot. "Kill them all."

  "No!" the grown Will said sharply. John looked up in sudden hope, but Will did not acknowledge any of them.

  The hybrid folded his claw-hands like a praying mantis. "Be reasonable, son," he said placatingly. "Once your doorway in time is complete, this planet will come apart…" He raised a silver claw to his chitoned brow in an oddly theatrical gesture. "Oh, the sweet redemption of eternity! I am willing to perish here for your most noble mission, so that all our suffering will have never been…" He glanced at John. "But your selfish father will only try to stop you." He looked back at Will.

  Will held the hybrid's gaze, impassive, unyielding.

  The hybrid heaved a large, very human sigh. "Very well… Robot, take them inside the ship and keep them there. If they move, then kill them."

  The Robot rolled forward and obeyed.

  * * *

  Maureen looked up from the display screen of her remote as another tremor shook the ground around them, starting small dusty landslides everywhere. Birds or something like them screamed and took flight, reminding her suddenly of the urgency of their own situation. "We've got to get to the ship," she said to Judy. Judy nodded and looked around for Penny.

  Penny wasn't there. Neither were the two Blawps.

  "Penny—?" Maureen called, feeling her chest tighten.

  Suddenly their Blawp appeared, skittering out into the open space to grab her hand, trying to pull her forward. Blawp's fist held a mass of colored ribbons—the ones that Penny always wore.

  "Where is she, girl?" Maureen asked anxiously, as Blawp waved the ribbons in the air. Blawp raced off into the underbrush, still gesturing at them to follow.

  Maureen looked at Judy; Judy shrugged. What choice did they have— ? They went after her.

  Within the Jupiter Two's cannibalized engine room, the field dampeners were creating an ever clearer, more precise vision of the Earth within the conduit of temporal energy… narrowing its field of focus until John could see the familiar skyline of Houston. On this world, the ground tremors were increasing in frequency, shaking the unstable structure around them. The Robot moved forward to herd them from the room. John lifted his young son up onto his back, as the grown Will rode the control console up to the gantry. The hybrid clambered effortlessly up the scaffolding after him. John glimpsed inhuman arms and taloned feet again, flickering in and out of view beneath the tattered robe as Smith climbed higher.

  West gasped suddenly, beside him. "Egg sac…" Don breathed, his face bloodless. John saw in his eyes the memory of Jeb Walker. The Proteus flashed into his own mind; he suddenly remembered the holograph of something its crew had brought up from the planet's surface.

  "Will!" he shouted. "It's a trick! Smith's carrying an egg sac —if he's going to stay on this world and die, why is he about to spawn?"

  Energy lanced between the Robot's claws as it approached. "Proceed to the ship or be destroyed," it said.

  Carrying his other son, the one he might still be able to save, he followed Don out of the room.

  Will watched, thin-lipped, as the Robot herded his younger self out of the room, along with his father and Don West—both of them looking no older than the last time he had seen them, for the simple reason that they were no older… They had slipped through a gap in time opened by the very machine he had created. Time was no longer a river, but a vast sea, and riptides were eating away at this world's stability.

  He had anticipated the time displacement that would tear this planet apart; but he had never dreamed it would mean that he'd see his father again, young and alive. Were his mother and sisters still alive out there too, somewhen; about to meet their deaths in a wholly different, but equally terrible way… ?

  As the platform reached its position on the upper gantry, the hybrid dropped into place beside him. For the first time in years, Smith's mutant body startled his eyes. He had forgotten how hideously changed from its original human form it was, until he'd seen the man again as he used to be.

  Smith peered down into the temporal vortex, at the vision of Earth it was reeling in, closer and closer to the right place, the right moment. "It's almost time…" he said gleefully, and made a travesty of a chuckle. "I really am a word-smith." None of this seemed to phase him. But then, Smith had literally thrown away his younger self, with its reminder of his humanity, no matter how flawed…

  This shouldn't be a happy moment, Will thought. He might have spent nearly three decades alone, with no one but this monstrous caricature of a human for a companion, but he hadn't forgotten everything about how real people behaved. His parents had taught him that, and his sisters, too…

  He looked up. "Tell me again, old monster, how did the girls die?"

  Smith shook his head. "We've been over this before, son…"

  "In all the years since, the spiders have never resurfaced," Will insis
ted, moving away from the control panel. "Why?"

  Smith stared at him for a long moment. And then his distorted lips widened in a smile. "Let's forget the past," he murmured.

  Will turned back to the console, resetting the perimeters of the time portal. The dampeners pressed in on the conduit of plasma, narrowing its diameter, narrowing their view of the launch dome that now lay at its other end point.

  "Careful, child," Smith admonished. "The plasma around the portal will rip a man to pieces. Haven't you made the doorway too small—?"

  "Not for me," Will said coldly. He turned back to meet Smith's inhuman eyes. "But then, I'm not going, am I… ?" His voice hardened. "The spiders didn't kill the girls—it was you. I just never let myself see it. You kept me alive because you needed me. Because I could build this for you!" He gestured at the vortex.

  "Poor, poor boy." Smith shrugged off his cloak; four grotesquely deformed hind limbs straightened out of their crouch. "Did you really think I would let you go home… ?" A second set of unnaturally elongated arms unfolded at his sides. "Let all that I have become vanish?" The obscene conduit of his neck snaked upward, rising from the carapace of his bloated thorax until he stood ten feet tall, revealing the hideous truth that he had hidden for so long. "Look at me — !" he commanded. "I am no mere man… I am a god."

  He pulled open the egg sac at his waist, so that Will saw the swarming mass of countless spider-forms. "Within me lie the seeds of a master race. We will descend upon the helpless Earth. An entire planet to rule—" His arm darted out, grabbing Will by the front of his shirt, dragging him forward. Smith's mouth gaped wide over Will's throat, as he murmured, "An entire planet on which to feed…"

  Chapter T ulj e n 't lj

  LJJUl sat beside his father, feeling another tremor shake their rapidly crumbling world. Festoons of conduit swayed, the piled rubbish and broken equipment creaked and rattled, until the storeroom in which they had been confined seemed to have a life of its own… like the Robot, standing guard at the door.