Tin Woodman

by David Bischoff

  A nurse breezed out from a room a few doors down, strode efficiently ahead of him, not looking back. The door to that room had been left open. Ston stepped inside. There was a woman in the room, lying on a form-couch. Mora Elbrun.

  Standing beside her, Ston touched her forehead lightly with his good hand. She seemed to be sleeping. Her hair was gone. “Mora? Mora, it’s Ston Maurtan,” His hand moved to her bare shoulder, shook it. Her eyelids slowly lifted. The pupils were dilated, making her coral eyes larger than ever. She opened her mouth, but didn’t speak. No, not asleep. Drugged. There was a cast to her eyes, as if she was light-years away . . . it was like peering into two bottomless, empty wells.

  “Mora,” Ston whispered, an insane idea dawning on him. “Mora, did you call me?” No response. There was nothing he could do right now, he realized.

  Approaching footsteps echoed down the outside corridor. He dashed back out, just before the nurse he’d seen depart before turned the corner, carrying a tray of medical supplies. Ston let her walk down to him. “I’m lost,” he said, averting his face sheepishly. “Could you tell me where 4-B is?”

  “Go back to the main corridor and make a right,” the woman answered brusquely, stepping past him, and into Mora’s room. She closed the door behind her. Ston noted the usual simple electronic lock of the sort crew quarters were outfitted with.

  That was good.

  “I may be crazy, Mora Elbrun,” he mumbled to himself, walking toward the MedSec room to be mended. “But I can’t let them do this to you.”

  SIX

  Leana Coffer’s Journal

  (Vocoder transcription authorized

  by Leana Coffer. Original recording

  voice-locked per program 774-D.)

  Acting captain—Ha! What a joke. One of the first things that Darsen did upon reassuming command was to order his flunky, Jin Tamner, to prepare and have sent by Norlan a formal report of what transpired during the attempt at contact with Tin Woodman. It “superseded” the report I prepared; mine wasn’t even transmitted.

  Dr. Kervatz sent me a report on the first of Mora’s treatments. She’s going under fast. Maybe two more treatments, and they’ll make an ideal citizen of her. Of course, someone will have to feed her; she won’t be able to do those things any more.

  To think that at one time I was idealistic about the service, back at the academy. Such a feeling of commitment—I worked so hard for my commission. I remember feeling that I’d blown it, the time that I got into a political demonstration and got arrested by the MP’s . . . then when the commission came through anyway, how overjoyed I was.

  So here I am at thirty-six, believing in nothing, looking off into some terrible future which I feel Darsen is planning. If I had something to believe in, I’d give my life to it. I don’t even believe in myself.

  I envy Mora. What motivated her to sacrifice herself for a stranger? Because he was a Talent? That alone seems an unlikely explanation. If only I could talk to her, find out.

  And what of Div? He gave himself as well, in a way. What has happened to him and the alien that swallowed him up? I’ll never know, I guess—and yet there’s nothing in the universe I’d rather know, if that experience on the bridge was a taste of it . . .

  Far away, the memory replayed itself for the being who had been called Div Harlthor. Again he saw it all, and it took on new meaning, scintillating light into new crevices of revelation:

  The swim through space, sensing the void-spider behind him, weaving its invisible web of deadly intent down toward him. Hurry, must hurry, or all is lost. And always there is a beacon-like transmission, pulling him, tugging him to what must be where Tin Woodman wanted him . . . The soft impact with the hull, the feeling of it tingling through the palms of his pressure suit gloves. And yet, no access door! Panic. And, simultaneously, a soothing feeling of well-being. All is well, it says, and it is not from within him. Suddenly, the parting of the hull. Quickly, he slips in. Into the darkness. He turns and the opening slowly seals away the stars and the fruitlessly clutching spider ship of Edan Darsen. The darkness is total, and yet not at all frightening. A comfortable, life-giving darkness. He becomes aware of a hissing sound—air? Yes, this must be some sort of airlock. The hissing stops, and the lip of darkness parts into the interior of the ship. He steps out into it and into awe.

  Trusting, he removes his pressure suit. He is standing in a long, winding corridor of some resilient pink substance. Its texture is smooth; warm to the touch. Like a womb, he thinks. A mad, Freudian fantasy. He shakes the idea off. The air is sweet and moist and warm.

  Out of the depths of the dimly luminescent passage ahead of him the mind of the ship-being reaches out . . .

  ••• FOLLOW •••

  Alien thoughts lead him through the labyrinth, slowly, toward the creature’s center. It seems as though he travels far through this round tunnel, so suffused with rose light. Off every twist, every surface, the ship’s consciousness reverberates one great empty emotion, echoing until the air seems to roar with it.

  ••• ALONENESS •••

  ••• DRIFTING WITIIOUT PURPOSE AMONG THE STARS •••

  ••• THE BURNING FIRES TOUCHING VUL •••

  ••• DEATH ••• PAIN •••

  ••• HOLLOW LONELINESS •••

  Something builds within him. Somehow, he senses movement of the ship . . . he feels contact with this ship-being more and more . . . flooding in . . . lovely, beautiful . . .

  He staggers, falls into spongy tissue with exquisite pleasure . . . and abruptly is aware that he is more than iust himself—his senses extend much further. He reaches out to a tender spark in the void before him . . . and finds that it is Mora Elbrun . . . in an instant, he sees what she has done for him, and knows why . . . for a moment, he stands on the bridge of the starship Pegasus, looking and feeling all of it through Mora’ s senses.

  It is all right, he finds himself telling her. See through me as well. See what is happening to me. And he could feel her experience his change as well, as her being briefly once more merged with his as it had in her cabin—and he showed her the things he was experiencing . . .

  Then the abrupt breakage of contact—the slithery slide into a different dimension of space—the fear. . . and the comfort.

  ••• ALL IS WELL •••

  ••• I HAVE POWER ONCE MORE •••

  ••• WE ARE LEAVING QUICKLY •••

  He starts to question this but realizes that there will be plenty of time for questions. So much to learn. He rises back to his feet and proceeds into the heart of the ship-being.

  It was part of his Learning and Acclimatization, this constant reanalysis of the content and substances of the first meeting. It is the Rosetta stone of meaning for his new comprehension.

  ••• TAKE IT BACK TO THE ENTRY INTO THE CORRIDOR •••

  said the ship-being.

  ••• WHAT IS A “WOMB”? •••

  Ston Maurtan was proud of his service record.

  After a top ten percent showing in his academy class on Crysor, his Voyage Training accomplishments had been so exemplary, he received his commission and ship assignment after merely eight months aboard the Valkyrie. While on this training cruiser, he’d been granted a week’s leave of absence so that he might attend the funeral of his sister, Adria, on Earth. His return was two hours beyond the time designated on his ship’s LOA document. This had been the only infraction of regulations logged against him since he’d stuffed his DI’s boots with mashed potatoes in his first year at the academy.

  The only other infraction he’d been caught at, anyway,

  An intercom just above blared, startling him: “Attention. All officers on Bridge Crew ‘A’ will please report to briefing lounge 3-G immediately . . . Attention. All officers on Bridge Crew—”

 
Damn. What was wrong with his nerves? He’d always imagined that in stress situations he’d be cool, but now he found himself battling a surprising amount of simple, uncomplicated fear. He tuned out the sudden intrusion of noise upon his concentrated effort to beat back that fear. Control yourself, man, he told himself. For in the last twelve hours Ensign Ston Maurtan had committed two court-martial offenses. At the moment he was contemplating the third. Self-control was everything, now.

  Uncertainty, not guilt, caused his blood to race, his hands to tremble slightly at unexpected sounds. Quite suddenly, he felt cut off from the others aboard the Pegasus. He had no allies in this, no friends in whom he might confide these necessary things he’d done to save Mora.

  Court-martial offenses. The past hours raced over and over in his head:

  Following Dr. Kervatz’s orders, he had gone directly from treatment in MedSec to the Engineering Office to report the necessary forty-eight-hour absence from duty his injury had caused. Lingering there, he visited the electronics shop, where he illicitly pocketed certain items of hardware, failing to have their nature recorded or their price debited to his ship’s account. Back in his quarters, he waited for his roommate’s necessary duty-shift departure, then constructed a simple device capable of blocking electronic signals to magnetic locks.

  After locating Mora’s quarters in the ship’s directory, he used his new lock pick to enter the compartment. There he found her MedSec uniform. It fit him poorly—blouse too narrow across shoulders and chest; pants too long in leg; baggy about the rear section. But it was identical to all the other MedSec uniforms, and would have to serve as the needed camouflage to mask his intended activities.

  A brisk walk and lift-chute jump later, he was striding outside the MedSec offices. There was no one in sight. His luck was holding up. He selected the correct door, clamped his device to the wall, tapped its button. The door whispered open obediently and Ston walked through, mindful of the directory schematic he’d memorized. He was in the post-operative recovery cell, which adjoined Mora’s recuperation chamber, connected by another door. He applied his lock pick to that door.

  The chamber that was revealed to him by the door’s opening was dim, lit solely by a small lamp near the medical form-couch upon which Mora lay unconscious. She was not alone. A nurse was leaning over her.

  “What are you doing here?” Ston challenged immediately, blurting the first thing that flashed into his mind. He shifted the lock-pick mechanism to his injured left hand.

  “Huh?” The man straightened up hesitantly, turned around. A big man, he almost eclipsed the lamplight. “Why, uh, Vandez put this on my rounds. I’m to administer—”

  Drawing in a breath, Ston stepped forward, delivered a hard blow to the nurse’s chin with his good hand. The fist shut the nurse up, but hardly fazed him more than that. Ston desperately rabbit-punched him again, gave him a few clumsy karate chops, which managed to bring him to his knees. He kneed him in the jaw, brought the lock pick down on the back of his head as a last resort. The plastic case smashed, scattering the jerry-rigged circuitry components on the floor.

  The nurse grunted and banged onto the floor, unconscious.

  Fiery pain coursed up Ston’s left arm from the blow’s impact. He clenched his teeth, choked back a scream.

  Once more in control, he paced over to the form-couch’s control panel. “Mora—can you hear me?” he whispered harshly. When there was no response, he activated the couch’s motor. Its low hum seemed to his jangled nerves a huge roar. Mora stirred, her head lolling from side to side on the pillow. But she didn’t speak. Her eyes, half-opened, seemed unable to focus. He knew she couldn’t understand him, but he spoke nevertheless: “It’s going to be all right.”

  As he looked down on her, for a moment he seemed to be gazing at Adria.

  Shrugging off the illusion, he found the lever that disengaged the couch from its wall-and-motor attachment. The bed rolled away slightly on its four wheels. He pushed it past the snoring man on the floor into the post-op room. After poking his head out the main door, he steered the bed into the still-empty corridor, wheeled it toward the lift chute.

  He’d just arrived when a lift platform sighed down. On it was a tall man wearing the maroon and gold of command crew. Ston didn’t know him; he checked the ID badge over the left breast pocket. Lieutenant Norlan. Ston gulped silently, flashed a small smile, praying the expression would hold Norlan’s gaze so that the man wouldn’t pay undue attention to the medical couch’s passenger.

  Norlan returned the smile. “Going up?”

  “Down.” Ston shook his head. “I mean, I’ll wait for the next lift.” Norlan nodded absently, punched a control. The lift rose.

  Ston felt perspiration bead on his brow, dampen his palms.

  When the lift returned empty, he guided the couch into it, dialed out the special sleeper deck code on the controls. The lift eased down, not helping the queasiness he felt in his abdomen. To take his mind off his fear and sickness, he considered the sleeper deck.

  The environmental systems of the Pegasus were capable of sustaining approximately a thousand persons, although the ship’s crew numbered half that many. But a starship cruiser of this sort performed many functions. Right now, aboard the Pegasus, close to a hundred civilian scientists engaged in deep-space research. Then there were the crews of ten small stellar exploration spacecraft the Pegasus was ferrying to a number of distant star systems. Four hundred and twenty-one military individuals and technicians bound for existing colonies near the edge of Triunion space were on board, as well as colonists being transported to newly chartered settlements along the Pegasus’ intended route.

  To accomplish the hauling of these people, an entire section of the Pegasus was outfitted with two thousand Henderson capsules—black, sarcophagus-like cryogenic units, each able to hold one person in suspended animation for years. All of the Pegasus’ human supercargo, including the nine hundred and eighty-four prospective colonists bound for two new worlds, were presently sealed in the starship’s Hendersons.

  This was sleeper deck.

  The platform halted. Before Ston were the cold corridors of his destination. There were no duty stations on this deck. The ship’s computer monitored the conditions of the Hendersons, which were efficiently racked in long, monotonous, uniform rows. Ston guided Mora’s couch between the close rows of these black metal boxes, relaxing. This part was planned very carefully; it should run smoothly.

  He eased up to the first available empty capsule, opened it, lifted Mora in, hooking up the waste evacuation and breathing equipment. He did not activate the cryogenic circuits; should Mora recover from her single psychemicidian injection, her metabolism would have to remain normal. Therefore, to prevent the monitor computer from sounding an alarm because of the unit’s “malfunctioning” freezer device, he’d have to cut the sensor cable before he initiated power into—

  Damn. He’d forgotten the wire cutters.

  Praying that it would be enough, he yanked at the sensor cable with his good hand. The cable held a moment . . . then jerked free. Relieved, he set it down on the floor in a space he hoped no one would notice. Then he pulled down the lid of the Henderson, switched on the air supply and the emergency heating coils.

  He double-checked everything to ascertain that nothing would malfunction. Reasonably satisfied, he grabbed hold of the empty med-couch and wheeled it back to wait for the lift platform.

  So many offenses, each one grounds for court-martial . . .

  A repeat announcement from the speakers brought him out of his reverie into the reality of the present moment. There was no use counting up the offenses now. The number dwindled into insignificance. They’d number them for him when they caught him—which they probably would. He had ditched the couch in an equipment storage area where it was not likely to be found, but as soon as Mora’s disappearance was discovered and announced, it was onl
y a matter of time before Lieutenant Norlan put two and two together and pointed his face out on the personnel roster. And had that nurse gotten a good look at his face? Probably.

  He had botched it.

  But there was no use stopping now. The momentum he had built up was too great. Perhaps the inertia would carry him through.

  In any case, he had no regrets for what he had done. And no second thoughts about what he was going to do.

  Like most of the starship’s rooms of function, the briefing lounge was severely military. The transition from the comfort-oriented living and entertainment quarters was always a noticeable one to Lieutenant Gary Norlan. It was almost as though the environment itself called for attention, discipline, and restraint in one’s duties. But as he settled in one of the briefing table’s straight-backed, hard-plastic chairs, it was the captain who called for the immediate attention of the assembled members of Bridge Crew A.

  “Where is Dr. Kervatz?” he demanded, as though one of them might be hiding the man. Captain Edan Darsen was obviously still weak, and yet his almost manic inner intensity backboned him into performing his duty, despite his ill-health. He refused to stay in bed.

  It was Tamner who immediately responded. “He’s not bridge crew, Captain. You only ordered—”

  Darsen’s eyes betrayed an uncharacteristic anxiousness—usually hard and cold, they now darted about, searching the faces of those assembled for—something. Norlan felt a queasy sensation when those eyes lighted on him. They looked out from a severely disturbed consciousness. “Kervatz’s attendance here is necessary,” he stated, his big bass voice louder than necessary. “What I have to say will concern him. Have him paged.”