Tin Woodman

by David Bischoff

  He was moving in a direction counter to that of Tin Woodman and the Pegasus, moving toward the former along the path of the alien’s own orbit. Somewhat under fifty thousand kilometers in the distance, Tin Woodman was rushing toward him.

  Again, Div was in space, alone, out of range of the interminable noise, the constant dull roar of people loving, fighting, hating, living with a passion he had never dared. Ahead, guiding him now, the single placid being known only as Tin Woodman seemed to expand, big as fate. Seemed to envelope his mind, like the blooming of a rose.

  The many minutes passed slowly.

  Finally, the spider ship’s pilot went into a braking maneuver, reacting to the appearance of the alien on its short-range sensors. All sensation of motion disappeared as Div’s craft matched speed and trajectory with that of Tin Woodman. Now, the alien was finally visible to Div himself, appearing as a silver light which grew larger and brighter as it approached.

  Pacing the alien, a few kilometers away and closing rapidly, Div felt as if he were hanging motionless in the void. Everything important in his universe depended upon his actions in the next few minutes. He twisted his head to the left, peering into the lens of the spider’s inboard monitor. Darsen was watching him. No doubt about that.

  Bolted underneath the seat was a tool kit, intended for minor maintenance on the vehicle. Cautiously, watching the monitor, Div reached down, opened it. He ducked his head downward to examine its contents. The monitor swiveled to follow his movement.

  There was no way, then, to disable the monitor without being seen.

  He would have to use a quicker method.

  There was a large wrench inside the box. He unstrapped it, grasping it by one end. In full view of the monitor, he brought it up above his head.

  Div drove the wrench into the monitor lens, smashing it. He released the tool, and it spun off into space, amid many tiny shards of lens crystal. He hit the button that released his seat straps. Free of these, out of Darsen’s sight, he pulled himself out of the cage and thrust out into space.

  As Mora stepped off the lift platform onto the command deck of the bridge, she saw Edan Darsen staring disbelievingly into the empty grayness of the main vu-tank.

  His fury hit her mind like a bomb blast.

  “The bastard’s put out the monitor,” he cried. “Switch to the outboard monitor, fast. I’m going to override the robot.” He flipped the switch causing the remote shuttle controls to rise from concealment within his command console.

  Mora could read his emotions. There was murder in his mind, clear and unmistakable.

  “What do you intend to do?” demanded Coffer as she rose from her station.

  Darsen ignored the question. “Just get me that other monitor,” he snapped. “I can’t get him if I can’t see him.”

  Mora watched Darsen in horror for several moments. Then she began to walk toward him across the bridge.

  The vu-tank came alive suddenly, focused on Tin Woodman. The spider was quite close to the creature. Close enough to allow a human figure in a bright yellow pressure suit to be seen drifting along the side of the alien, gloved hand pressed lightly against the living tissue of the hull, as if caressing it. Near Div, an opening was forming in the substance—Tin Woodman’s flesh drawing back like the iris of a human eye.

  There was no rnistaking Div’s intention. He was going to enter Tin Woodrnan.

  Mora noted all this mechanically as she circled the vu-tank suspended in the center of the bridge, moving toward Darsen. She watched as the metal claws of the spider rose up close in the foreground of the holographic image, then extended toward Tin Woodman. Under Darsen’s command, the spider was moving in on Div rapidly.

  As Mora approached Darsen, she saw the deft, cold-blooded way in which he manipulated the spider.

  It frightened her.

  She felt the hatred and anger which raged in his mind. But she was not confused or hesitant. She felt clearheaded. She knew exactly what she was going to do. What she had to do.

  Mora locked her right hand around Darsen’s left wrist. She drove her mind, knifelike, into his mind.

  Screaming, Darsen leaped out of his chair, away from the console.

  Mora did not release him. Instead, she probed deeper, feeling no sympathy; only the echoes of Darsen’s pain through her empathic faculties.

  “Look at me,” she demanded.

  Darsen angled his face upward, eyes bulging. He gasped for breath, his hand grabbing futilely at his head, as though to break the link with Mora through physical force.

  Mora forced him to his knees.

  “Look at yourself,” she shouted, making her mind a mirror. All the hatred, the fear of Darsen rose to the surface. “Look at the horror, at the pain you’ve caused. Look at yourself as another sees you!”

  Darsen shrieked.

  He was trying to speak, but his words were inconsequential to her. He lunged, grabbing her throat with his free right hand.

  In defense, Mora fought back with her mind, losing control. Instantly Darsen arched back, wide-eyed, hair wildly disheveled, as if struck by a high-voltage electrical cable.

  Mora released his wrist, and he crumpled to the deck, spasming feebly.

  She gazed about the bridge. The crew had ceased their activities, but no one moved toward her. They had simply watched it all, motionless, afraid to interfere.

  Mora checked the vu-tank.

  Div had disappeared from the picture. The doorway in Tin Woodman’s hull was sealed.

  Darsen was hurried to MedSec—alive, but unconscious.

  Leana Coffer felt ill. So this was the sacrificial victim of both Darsen and Harlthor. Poor Mora Elbrun. She had to set the security guards upon her of course. Now they walked—cautiously after the display of Mora’s previously unknown power—from the lift shaft, their stunners drawn.

  Somehow Harlthor had gotten this woman to cover him, thought Coffer, knowing the action he would take, and the response it would invoke from Darsen. But how, and why—and what was Harlthor doing inside the alien now? But her duty rapidly shoved aside these speculative thoughts—she was in command now.

  Mora did not resist as the security officers secured her hands behind her with plastic cuffs. She met Coffer’s eyes as the executive officer advanced toward her slowly, “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said, her voice cold, distant. “I didn’t know that I could. But it’s all one now. It’s too late—Div is beyond your reach, and I can’t say that I’m sorry for what I did.”

  “Who put you up to it, Mora? Div? The Woodman itself?” Coffer felt her face wrinkle with sadness. “I’m afraid that for now I’ve no choice in what I do, Mora, Do you understand that?” Her shoulders sagged slightly. Perhaps it would have been better if the Talent had killed Darsen. It would all be one . . . the future for Mora would be equally bleak in either case.

  For now, they would simply detain the Talent under guard in her quarters. These little cabins of the Pegasus could change into jails so easily . . . perhaps they were jail cells all the time, really.

  But what was happening with Tin Woodman? With Mora EIbrun seen to, that was the prime question.

  “Mora—do you know why Harlthor disobeyed the captain and has done this thing?”

  “No,” said Mora. “I only know that it was the right thing.”

  Coffer was inclined to agree. What to do now, though . . . send another spider ship out? Wait? Command was infinitely harder with so many options present.

  Lieutenant Genson at the sensor board solved that problem rapidly with an announcement.

  “Commander! Tin Woodman is breaking orbit!”

  Coffer hesitated for a part of a second before realizing that the report had been addressed to her. She nodded curtly. “Carry on, Genson. At this point there is little we can—”

  “It’s on a collision course with us!”


  In the vu-tank, the image of Tin Woodman had begun to grow rapidly. “Take evasive measures!” Coffer ordered, knowing even as she said it that the order was senseless. The Pegasus was too far within this system’s gravitational field to use its Null-R drive, and at least a minute was needed to prepare the other engines. The starship could not take evasive action swiftly enough in normal space to avoid destruction . . .

  And the alien bore down relentlessly upon the vessel, speed constantly increasing—then simply disappeared at the last possible instant.

  Something electric passed through Coffer. She leaned on the command desk to support herself. It was as though an angel’s wing had brushed her—she had felt a feathery touch of the numinous—emotions beyond previous experience. It was beyond words—and Coffer could not re-create even a shadow of the sensation from memory. It was there in the instant that the Tin Woodman had faded incredibly from view—and now it was gone. She felt, in her soul, a deep hunger for its return.

  Her gaze swept the bridge. The crew appeared similarly shaken—awe-struck, disoriented, frozen in their position as though by a spray of fairy dust. And Mora Elbrun . . .

  Mora stood there between the security officers, transfixed, her mouth slack—and her eyes seemed to glimmer and sparkle briefly as though they were glass eyepieces focused into a bright and mysterious moment within her. She spoke. “Div!” As though it were the secret name of God himself.

  “—just gone.” Norlan from the communications console. “What?” he asked, vocalizing the question that was heavy in them all. His voice seemed to rise up from a great murk . . . a great distance.

  Coffer went to Mora. “What happened, Mora? What was that?”

  Mora began to smile. “He’s safe now . . . safe from all of you.” Her vision seemed to lose its glaze as she stared at Coffer. “You can’t hurt him now.”

  “But what happened? Is the alien coming back? You seem to have seen something . . . with your Talent, Mora?”

  But the woman only smiled a secret smile, and Coffer knew that they would get no explanation. Not now, at least. Christ, what a mess of things—the alien had slipped away, and they had nothing to show for the weeks they had loitered here, ignoring the duties of their interstellar run. The authorities would be furious.

  Then suddenly Mora seemed to be loosed from her daze . . . and she tried to speak. “I saw . . .” she repeated several times, but did not seem to be able to form words to describe what she saw, despite Coffer’s encouragement.

  Finally, Coffer gave up. There were other things to be attended to.

  She said, “Take her down to her cabin, as previously ordered. Have Dr. Kervatz give her a mild sedative. Darsen will no doubt want her rested when he decides what he wants done with her.”

  FIVE

  Leana Coffer’ s Journal

  (Vocoder transcription)

  It’s been rough lately—frayed nerves all over, especially mine. We’ve got to stay in this sector of space until we get new orders. There will doubtlessly be a long inquiry into this Tin Woodman affair when we reach a Triunion base—but that certainty seems almost preferable to the limbo we find ourselves in now.

  Darsen’s recovering quite well—so well that he gave me his first order today. Thank God he’s not totally well yet; I’ll be acting captain for a few days more, and the crew can rest awhile.

  I visited Darsen after a tedious duty shift today. He seemed to be resting comfortably. He’s still a little weak, but as ever sees himself as the Caesar of this ship, Bellerophon to this Pegasus.

  He’s ordered that Mora Elbrun be turned over to the MedSec surgeons.

  He wants her Doped.

  No one aboard ever suspected that Mora had the power to attack Darsen the way she did. I’m still not sure she does—perhaps the alien had something to do with that. But having harmed Darsen, she’s given that maniac the excuse to do what he’s always wanted to do. In this instance his orders, though given for vicious personal reasons, are backed up by regulations. Were I the permanent commander of the Pegasus, I could bend the rules; they leave room for personal judgment. But if I defy Darsen’s orders now I’ll be called to account for it when he reassumes full command of the ship.

  I told him about what appeared to be happening to Mora just before Tin Woodman vanished. That it seemed as though there was some sort of communication between them, so strong that the members of the bridge crew felt it too. I suggested that Mora is our best witness to this phenomenon, and that if we Dope her we’ll lose it. But in his fury, Darsen isn’t at all concerned with the negative consequences of blanking Mora. He wants his revenge.

  So in my own self-interest and for the welfare of everyone who serves under Darsen, I have to allow the treatments to begin. Hopefully, my strongly worded advisory to the Triunion Council will stop them before it’s too late for Mora. For the good of everyone . . . that’s really an unworthy excuse. It’s my career that I want to protect. I’m ashamed of myself, but it takes more than moral courage to commit suicide—it takes a little craziness too. I’m too sane. So I just work out my feelings talking into this little mike—Down with Caesar! Death to the captain! How easy to say . . . how hard to even try to oppose the imperious bastard.

  Death to . . . God!—I’d better put this recorder on voice-lock from now on, or be more careful what I say.

  Her wheat-colored hair was reaped, and the useless harvest placed in a disposal unit.

  They hadn’t bothered to put her out, and she watched with detachment the cold and glistening ceremony that would end in her oblivion. Her head was clamped to an operating table. Her open eyes gazed up, fixed on the face of the surgeon who hovered, Charon-like, surveying the tool-oars about him with which he would row her across the Styx. two nurses, gloved hands poised, flanked him. An anesthesiologist sat by her side, his attention devoted to a bank of meters which monitored her pain levels and vital signs. A painless death-that-was-not-death would be hers.

  The murmur of voices, the whirs and hums of the omnipresent machinery, the antiseptic lack of scents; all were familiar to Mora, and yet simultaneously unreal. It seemed so far away, so unimportant. She’d given them no struggle. Paralyzed by a swift injection, swiftly wheeled into this MedSec operating cubicle, head shaved, connected to these padded clamps, electrodes affixed to her flesh; all of it had been a slow, soft blur lacking significance.

  They were turning her over to the machines, but it didn’t matter because she’d been caught up in the cogs and gears all her life, and this was the logical end.

  No. It didn’t matter at all.

  “Bring up the sterile field,” Wald Kervatz directed Nurse Vandez. She obliged with a delicate twist of a dial, which resulted in a blue nimbus of radiation suffusing the cubicle walls. A brain injection was not a complex operation, but regulations classified it as major surgery. Observation by a full surgical team was therefore required.

  I could turn this over to any of them, Kervatz thought. Let someone else watch the machines do their work.

  A surgical laser moved into place next to the subject. “First, an incision will be made in the left parietal bone, just above the temporal suture,” Kervatz explained, his voice pedantic, trying to separate himself as much as possible from what was really happening. Trying not to feel as though his hand were on the lever of a guillotine . . .

  He activated the laser, and it drilled into Mora Elbrun’s head. Vaporized flesh and bone condensed quickly into carbon dust, glowing red in the path of the laser’s light. Kervatz looked up at the acoustical hologram suspended over the operating table. Floating there was an image in carnival colors, segmented in three dimensions by a graph marked with numbered co-ordinates, of the patient’s brain.

  The laser drew back, was replaced by a machine which held a hair-fine needle. “The point of injection is controlled down to the micro-millimeter,” Kervatz said. “Psychemicidia
n is released only into the angular gyrus.” He turned to the anesthesiologist. “Scandon, where did you study medicine?”

  “New York Medical College,” the young man replied.

  Kervatz nodded. He thought he’d seen that on the lad’s readout. The doctor had studied there himself, some twenty years before.

  “Was Chips still there?”

  “Yes, sir. Used him in surgical training. We did have newer models—”

  “Watch the dials, Scandon.” Chips had been a perfect patient; it was a prosthesis. Chips bled, reacted to pain, vomited. Kervatz remembered the first time he’d seen Chips die. It had been in the midst of an arterial implant Kervatz had been performing. He was given a failing mark, the technicians cranked old Chips back up again, and the next student had taken his turn. There’d been no guilt, then; only the humiliation of failing a test. “This is a human being, Scandon.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  As if that mattered, he thought. They were all machines to one another on this ship, in this universe; fleshy constructs of society. Sometimes Kervatz fancied he saw the thin little wires running out of people’s heads, out of his own cranium: metallic puppet strings. A little tug, and watch us dance. Watch us destroy the mind of someone who refused to dance. Watch a more substantial bit of metal drive downward into the rebel’s soul . . .

  The moment: a click, a hiss. On the holograph, a snail-slow black line moved inward, downward, penetrating the cerebral cortex: the needle.

  I’m sorry, Mora. The wires are too strong.

  “On target,” Vandez said.

  Reality twisted about her, pretzeling into moebus strips of moments that turned inside out, revolved her about. She seemed to be gazing down on it all from a spot on the ceiling, and then inconstant reality did a double flip and she was back on the table, growing fuzzy at the edges. Her body dissolved into a little cloud that began to dissipate into the sterile, odorless air, sucked up by intake ducts, cleansed from the starship’s systems, ejected into space like so much worthless flotsam.