Starswarm

by Jerry Pournelle

  For a long time Kip thought his Voice was God, because the Voice always spoke in stern unemotional tones like Brother Joseph reading the lesson, and it used words Kip didn't understand. Besides, the Voice knew almost everything, and sometimes it could do strange things like bring him a new Teddy Bear.

  Kip had always had a Teddy Bear. He thought he could remember when Mommy gave him Teddy, and it was one of the few memories of Mommy that he had. Teddy went everywhere with Kip. He was hugged and crushed at night, and dragged in the dirt all day. Once, one of Mukky's new puppies got Teddy and chewed him. Mukky snapped at the puppy and growled at him a long time, and she whined because she was sorry until Kip told her it was all right and scratched her ears. Teddy had been a wreck, but Uncle Mike had fixed him. Over the years Uncle Mike changed Teddy's stuffing and patched him until he wasn't recognizable, but still he was Teddy.

  Finally, though, Kip dropped Teddy into the wrong hole, and a firebrighter took him. Kip screamed, and although the dogs knew better they attacked the firebrighter because the dogs couldn't stand to hear human children crying. Mukky's puppy had to be killed, and Mukky was hurt, and firebrighter blood and guts got all over and inside Teddy. Not even Uncle Mike could do anything for him then. Uncle Mike asked Dr. Henderson, but no one knew any cure for the firebrighter smell, so they buried his Teddy Bear. It was his last connection with his mother, and Kip cried all night. Then he told the Voice about it. "I want Teddy back," Kip told the Voice, and he cried again.

  A week later the supply copter landed at Starswarm Station. When the pilot opened the cargo hatch there was a big brown stuffed bear sitting on top of the groceries and scientific equipment. He was almost an exact copy of what Teddy had been when he was younger and hadn't been patched so much.

  "Durndest thing," the pilot said. "Not on any manifests. Just right there in the cargo. Found him last stop. Here, Kip, I guess you'll want him."

  Kip nodded gravely and thanked the pilot. He was a nice bear, but he wasn't Teddy. Kip kept him in his room. The new bear was never crushed at night or rolled through the dirt, or even chewed by Mukky's puppies. It was a very proper bear, and he had his place in the corner by the big red and white toy box, and Kip liked him very much, but he didn't love him because he didn't come from Mommy.

  That night Kip heard Uncle Mike and the pilot talking over whiskey.

  "Nice of you to bring the bear for the boy, Cal," Uncle Mike said.

  "Not me," Cal said. "Happened just the way I told you. Opened the compartment for final check before we took off, and there it was. No manifest, no papers, nothing. So I remembered your lad and decided to bring it along, but it weren't none of my doing. Never even saw one of those things on Purgatory before. Have you?"

  "No, but we don't get to town very much," Mike said. "Have another?"

  "Sure. Well, it's the darndest thing."

  So that was how Kip knew his Voice had brought the bear to Starswarm, and why he thought it was God. Brother Joseph had told Kip about prayers, and Kip knew all about them, because he'd prayed to his Voice. After supper that night he told the Voice that he knew it was God.

  The Voice was very astonished by this theory. Kip knew, because the Voice told him so. It had to, because it didn't have any expression. "I AM ASTONISHED, I HAVE TOLD YOU MY NAME IS GWEN," the Voice said.

  Kip was sitting quietly in the front room, with Uncle Mike dozing in the big easy chair facing the door. Uncle Mike never sat with his back to any door, not even his own, not even with the dogs outside and Mukky lying in the doorway, and Silver lying beside Kip.

  "I thought Gwen was your secret name. God's secret name," Kim thought in the special way he used to talk with the Voice.

  I DO NOT KNOW THE SECRET NAME OF GOD. IT IS NOT REQUIRED THAT I KNOW. CORRECTION. MANY SECRET NAMES OE GOD ARE RECORDED. NONE ARE IDENTIFIED AS UNIQUELY TRUE."

  Kip didn't understand that at all, but he could tell that Gwen wasn't God after all. "Well, " Kip thought, "even so I don't need to say prayers because I can talk to you." With the rest of his mind, the part that didn't talk to Gwen, Kip wondered if grown-ups talked to God because Gwen wouldn't talk to them.

  "DOES UNCLE MIKE TELL YOU TO SAY PRAYERS?"

  Kip knew what was coming, but Uncle Mike taught him never to lie. Uncle Mike didn't know about Gwen, but Kip knew Uncle Mike wouldn't want him to lie to Gwen either. "Yes—well, be tells me to do what Brother Joseph says, and Brother Joseph says I must always say my prayers."

  "THEN YOU MUST SAY YOUR PRAYERS."

  "But why, if I can talk to you? Why can't you say them for me?"

  "YOU MUST ALWAYS DO AS YOUR UNCLE MIKE INSTRUCTS YOU," Gwen replied, and that wasn't surprising, because Gwen always told him to do what Uncle Mike said, and to tell Uncle Mike about everything except about Gwen.

  When Kip was seven, Brother Joseph came back from town with education screens and disks and began teaching Kip. Uncle Mike helped too. At first it was very hard, but then Kip could read and it was easier. Then it was very hard again because there was all that mathematics and arithmetic and the languages, and Earth histories about old countries that Kip wasn't even sure existed because where did all those people live? Kip could look outside and see the horizon empty all around with nobody living there but Dr. Henderson and his scientists. There was a village of centaurs on the ridge (just out of sight unless Kip looked from the second-story window), but one research station of people and one village of centaurs wasn't so crowded.

  But then he learned about Earth, and how people lived on Earth for thousands of years until they invented space travel, and then someone invented the Drive that let them go from star to star, and they found other worlds they could live on. There weren't many, and some of them weren't very good worlds. Some of the worlds were owned by big companies. Purgatory was owned by Great Western Enterprises. There were mines, and factories, but that was all at Pearly Gates. Starswarm Station was owned by the Great Western Foundation, which wasn't quite the same as Great Western Enterprises, because the Foundation had a different board of directors, and its own money from the Trent family. But GWE had put a lot of money into the Foundation too, and Dr. Henderson had to be careful because GWE owned the planet and the security forces, and they brought in all the supplies, so it was important not to get the Great Western Enterprises people mad at him.

  Kip was supposed to learn a lot more about Earth and business and commerce, and especially Great Western and the Trent family that founded it. Kip didn't think that was interesting. There was a lot of stuff he was supposed to learn that wasn't interesting, but Uncle Mike said he had to learn it, and Kip worked very hard until one day he asked Gwen for help. After that it was easy again, because Gwen could do anything with mathematics, and Gwen never forgot anything Kip asked her to remember for him either. She also knew more than Uncle Mike or Brother Joseph or even Dr. Henderson. Sometimes Kip startled them by correcting his teachers, but he had to be careful about this, because Uncle Mike couldn't know about Gwen.

  Kip didn't know what would happen if he told Uncle Mike. Possibly they'd make Gwen go away, and Kip couldn't stand that because there would be nobody but the dogs to talk to when Uncle Mike was busy.

  Or possibly Gwen would make Uncle Mike go away, and that would be even worse. Uncle Mike was all Kip had left, now that they'd buried Teddy. He remembered Teddy and he thought he remembered Mommy giving him the bear, and he asked Gwen again about Mommy.

  "YOU WILL BE TOLD ABOUT YOUR PARENTS WHEN YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH. I MAY NOT TELL YOU NOW."

  That was what Gwen always said, but this time Kip knew the difference between "may" and "can," and it frightened him so he didn't ask any more.

  Chapter Two

  Uncle Mike

  WHEN Kip was eight he asked Uncle Mike who his parents were. He thought a long time about how to do it so that Uncle Mike wouldn't guess that Gwen told him he had parents. He chose his opportunity carefully.

  They were on the front porch of the big house after dinner. Ac
ross the field the scientists were bringing in specimens. There was a light snow cover on the tundra, and they'd used sleds. The dogs yelped greetings to each other, and all of Kip's dogs except Mukky and Silver went over to talk to their friends and ask what they'd found out there in the snow.

  Purgatory's bright rings glistened as a big arch in the evening sky overhead, bright flashing bands of jewels in the blue-tinted light. They were beautiful, but Kip was used to them, as he was used to the endless rolling hills and their thin forest patches, and the thousands of lakes and pools clear above the permafrost in summer and frozen solid in winter, and as he was used to the burning summers when men didn't move outside if they could help it, and the terrible cold winters when you couldn't go outside without a hotsuit and lots of dogs and even then when the blue sun was up the light was bright and there were sharp shadows. He couldn't even remember when they didn't live in Purgatory.

  "Aren't you my father's brother, Uncle Mike?" Kip asked. He thought that wouldn't cause any suspicions because he knew what an "uncle" was.

  Mike Gallegher rocked gently in the wicker chair. He hitched it over a little to catch the last of the afternoon suns, and took out tobacco and paper to roll a cigarette.

  When Uncle Mike did that, he was thinking about how to tell Kip something unpleasant. Kip knew that the way he knew you didn't put your hand in a firebrighter hole, or go far from Starswarm without a gun and a whole team of dogs, or stare at the night sun when it was out.

  "Uncles can be mothers' brothers too," Kip said seriously. "My name is Brewster and yours is Flynn, so I guess you aren't my father's brother. Are you my Mommy's brother?"

  Uncle Mike lit the cigarette, his big hands cupped around the lighter as if it might blow out. The dark green eyes lazily watched Kip from their nest of small brown wrinkles. Like everyone on Purgatory, Uncle Mike was tanned deep with ultraviolet from the blue sun. "Yeah, you can say that. Kip, how much do you remember about your folks?"

  "Not much, sir." Uncle Mike insisted that older people were always called sir, even though he said most of them didn't deserve it. "Mommy gave me Teddy, I think. My real Teddy, not—"

  "Yeah. I know. Kip, your folks are dead. Reckon you're old enough to know that now."

  "Gwen, he says Mommy and Father are dead!"

  "WHO SAYS?"

  "Uncle Mike."

  "YOU MUST ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR UNCLE MIKE."

  "How did they die, Uncle Mike?" Somehow Kip had always known, but he still wanted to cry.

  "Can't tell you that, Kip. Not just yet. But they were fine people. Not really my relatives at all. I worked for your father. When you're old enough, I'll work for you. Right now, I have to raise you because that's the last order your father ever gave me."

  "Oh." That was confusing. Someday Uncle Mike will work for me? The way Dr. Henderson's technicians work for him? But that means Uncle Mike will have to do what I tell him, and Gwen always says—

  "Your folks had important work to do, Kip. One day when you're old enough, you'll have to do it for them."

  "But who were they? What was the work?"

  "I've said enough, Kip."

  "If you worked for my father, and now you work for me, you have to do what I say! Tell me!"

  "Reckon not, Kip. I've got a lot of orders to obey, boy, and right now you've been countermanded. I probably told you too much, but it's time you knew some of it. That's why you have to study so hard, so you'll know how to do your father's work when the time comes. It's a job needs doing and there's nobody to do it but you."

  Chapter Three

  Lara

  ONE day when he was reading a history lesson about the Reformation and Counterreformation and religious wars of Earth, something puzzled him. He wasn't sure but—Gwen, what is my name? Kip asked.

  "YOUR NAME IS KENNETH BREWSTER," Gwen answered. "YOU ARE USUALLY CALLED BY THE NAME KIP. QUERY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THIS. WHY DO YOU ASK?"

  "I thought I remembered a different name. Kip, that's all right, I've always been Kip, but it's not the right last name. I remember something else. Shorter."

  "I CAN MAKE NO COMMENT AT THIS TIME."

  "Does that mean you know and won't tell me?"

  "I CAN MAKE NO COMMENT AT THIS TIME."

  Kip knew it was no good asking more. When Gwen started saying things like that, she never changed her mind. Sometimes he could think of new ways to ask questions and get around Gwen's restrictions, but never when he was trying to find out about himself or his parents, or Uncle Mike.

  Kip was lonely. School was dull, and Kip was bored, and he began to complain about it. Uncle Mike was sympathetic, but he said there wasn't anything he could do. But not long after, Dr. Henderson brought his family out to live at Starswarm. Kip liked Mrs. Henderson because she was always baking cookies and making candy and pickled bushberries for Kip, but mostly he was glad because they brought Lara, and he finally had someone to play with.

  Lara was nine, younger than Kip by eleven Earth-months; only they didn't use Earth-months on Purgatory. They used blue-light and plain-light and Michaeldays, which seemed more natural to Kip than Earth-months. But he could think in Earth-months because Uncle Mike made him learn, the way he had to learn everything about Earth. Besides, it was easy to convert from any number to any other. Kip just asked Gwen. Even Dr. Henderson thought Kip was a mathematical genius because of all the things Gwen could do.

  Lara was nearly as old as Kip but she wasn't very smart. She knew a lot of stuff from school, but she didn't know about firebrighters, and what months the centaurs were dangerous, and she was even afraid of the dogs. She came to Starswarm in the spring, and when the ice was melted off the lake out on the tundra, Uncle Mike and Dr. Henderson let her go with Kip outside the fence.

  Mrs. Henderson didn't like that much. "Eric, are you trying to get our daughter killed?"

  "We won't get lost," Kip said. He showed his position indicator card. "Uncle Mike calibrated this when they put the new global position satellites in, so I always know where I am."

  "They're going three kilometers," Dr. Henderson said. "It's safe this time of year, and besides, Kip has a gun and a radio."

  "A gun! Eric, are you out of your mind!" Mrs. Henderson came out of the house like a charging centaur to gather Lara in her arms.

  "Uncle Mike says I can carry it, Mrs. Henderson," Kip protested. "I know how to shoot. I c'd show you, but I'm not allowed unless there's something to shoot at or Uncle Mike tells me."

  "There. You see?" Dr. Henderson protested. "Harriet, Lara is safer out there with Kip than she was with you in DeeCee, or in Pearly Gates for that matter."

  Mrs. Henderson shuddered but she had to agree to that.

  "C'mon," Kip said. He led Lara out through the gates. "Kip," he called as they passed through.

  The barrier wouldn't open. Kip looked at Lara in annoyance. "You have to tell it your name," he said.

  "Oh. Lara Henderson."

  "Who accompanies you?" the gate asked.

  "Kip." He grinned at Lara. "The gate isn't really very smart."

  The gate opened.

  "Silver!" Kip shouted. "Five, Silver."

  The dog barked acknowledgment and led half a team out with them. Five was as high as Silver could count. After that, it was just "many." The pack dogs fanned out across the tundra and ran in circles, while Silver paced just ahead of Kip and Lara.

  "They seem awfully smart," Lara said.

  "Sure. They're dogs."

  "We had dogs on Earth, and they weren't so smart."

  Kip frowned. He remembered some TRI-V shows with stupid dogs. Were all dogs on Earth like that? He asked Gwen.

  "THE DOGS AT STARSWARM STATION ARE THE PRODUCTS OF GENETIC ENGINEERING EXPERIMENTS PERFORMED BY DR. ERIC HENDERSON AND HIS PREDECESSOR DR. MARY BUDONNIC. THEIR INTELLIGENCE AND TRAINING IS ALSO ESPECIALLY STIMULATED BY BONEWITS RNA INJECTIONS. ALL THE DOGS AT STARSWARM ARE DESCENDED FROM A SINGLE CLONED PAIR WITH GENETIC MATERIAL ADDED FROM THREE EARTH STRAINS. THEY ARE PREDOM
INANTLY MALAMUTE AND SIBERIAN HUSKY WITH GERMAN SHEPHERD ADDITIONS. THEY—"

  "Enough." Kip thought.

  Lara was dancing in the afternoon sunlight. "Where are we going?" she asked.

  "There's a lake," Kip said. "Just over that hill—"

  "Race you!" Lara shouted. She ran, getting a good head start while Kip stared at her. The dogs barked and ran ahead eagerly.

  "Sure!" Kip began to run.