The Fleet of Stars

by Poul Anderson

  But he wasn't going anywhere, that was plain. Not that he cared whether he died. However, it ought to serve some purpose other than pleasing Tanir.

  He settled to his defense. Hold your fire. Bide your time. That may lure those last two out where you can kill them.

  The time dragged on. Occasional bullets told him the bandits hadn't left yet. He got no shot at either one. Now and then his radio gave him their voices, but they were using Lunarian, which he didn't know.

  Whenever he looked Kinna's way, he saw how fast she was stiffening.

  He recalled the old myths about hell. The main thing was that it went on without end.

  —He had heard nothing for a while. The enemy couldn't stay indefinitely. Had they retreated?

  He decided to suppose so.

  He slung the rifle over his shoulders, bolstered the pistol, knelt, and picked up Kinna. As weary as he was, she, rigid in his arms, proved unexpectedly heavy. He could strip her. Naked, she wouldn't weigh much. But that would squander time. He climbed over the barricade and down into the hollow. The dead man nearly caused him to trip. Having crossed, he must drag Kinna over the surrounding boulders, but after that he could carry her again, however awkwardly, on toward their aircraft. He kept his gaze away from the face. It wasn't hers, not any more.

  Two lean, broad-winged, metal-bright shapes arrowed over heaven. They went into hover mode above the ledge. Skinsuited, armed, instruments alert, half a dozen men jumped out and descended on jetpacks. Vapor fumed around them as they landed.

  They met Fenn halfway. He was stumbling, often falling, though he always rose and groped onward. "Here," he said, lowering the object to the stones. "Take her. She was shot, oh, an hour, an hour and a half ago, something like that. Can you bring her back for revival?"

  The squad leader hunkered, looked, and straightened. "We'll flit her off as fast as we can," he replied, "but I'm afraid it's far too late. The eyes alone indicate it," the dimmed, glazed eyes of the wholly dead. He signaled his followers. Two of them sprang to take the corpse up and bear it off. Words crackled over the radio waves. A flyer swung overhead and lowered a sling.

  Too late, Fenn thought dully. Oh, yes, too late by ten or fifteen degrees of planetary rotation. The stuff, the structures, the connections and relationships, everything that created her awareness and memories and thousandfold dear ways, everything that was her, is destroyed, gone.

  Sure, some of the more primitive cells may still be salvageable. A clone may be possible. Or, failing that, her genome is in her medical file, like anybody else's. A new organism could be grown according to it from chemicals. That's a technology of the people out among the stars and their Life Mothers, but we could do it here if we wanted to.

  Why? She's gone. We'd get a twin. Never her.

  The vague stories say the Life Mothers can bring somebody dead back to the world. They take what's in a download and map it into the new body. But the job is nothing like that simple. It needs an entire living planet, in oneness with the Mother. For us humans, a whole way of life, a way of thinking and being. We don't have it anywhere in the Solar System. The cybercosm doesn't believe we ought to have it. Besides, Kinna was never downloaded. She's gone.

  “You called that you were under attack by Inrai,'' the constable was saying.

  "Yes," the machine in Fenn replied. "You'll find two carcasses. The other two are hiding somewhere thereabouts." He waved at the heights, bluffs, clinkers, the monstrous black lifelessness. "Wait around. If they call their plane, you'll see it approach and can catch them. If they surrender, you'll have them too. Or if neither happens, you can sweep the area with high-gain detectors and find them. They're worth the trouble, I think."

  To get information that would lead to breaking the Inrai, once and for all.

  To get Tanir of Conaire killed or, better, because that was much worse for a Lunarian, locked permanently away.

  Not that Fenn greatly cared. His last strength was going where Kinna had gone. But it would come back, he knew as an abstract proposition, and he'd think of a use for it.

  26

  BLOWING DUST MADE the night outside the viewport a blank black. Chuan had dismissed the mathematical calligraphy from his walls and they curved pale gray, equally featureless. The air was devoid of music or fragrance. Only the deep, slowly changeable colors in the floor and its warm springiness underfoot gave any life to the room. He wasn't sure why he had ordered this. It fit his mood, but he should be beyond letting externals affect him. Perhaps he had subconsciously thought that a cell was suitable for the interview ahead. Or a tomb.

  Fenn came in. His tread was leaden. He wore merely a drab brown coverall. The brass-hued hair and beard were unkempt. Though he stayed erect, the dangling arms gave an impression that his shoulders were hunched.

  Chuan looked up into eyes sunken and dark-rimmed. The cragginess of the face stood out like the prow of a crashed spaceship. "Welcome," Chuan said low.

  "Really?" The word rumbled with a certain force but scant spirit.

  "We share a sorrow," Chuan answered. "Let that suffice."

  "You didn't tell me to come here for that."

  No, Chuan thought, he'll do his own grieving, as I will do mine.

  How understandable that he's sullen, if "sullen" is the right word. Consider everything he has endured these past three days, since that which happened on the mountain. He may just be emotionally numb. Without psychostimulant, he might well have crumbled. Possibly neither guess is quite correct. He is a strange one, an atavism; he doesn't fit into today's world.

  It will actually be kindest to be sharp with him. Or so I think. I could be wrong. I have forgotten so much of what it is to be human.

  Chuan hardened his tone. "No. Nor do I intend reproaches or accusations," although I could level them. "A private talk between us is in the public interest. Please be seated."

  The big body sank into a lounger but did not relax. "Gracias for it."

  "I beg pardon?" Chuan asked, startled in spite of himself.

  Fenn met his eyes as he sat down opposite. "Your straightforwardness. Too many people I've been with lately were oily."

  Chuan could not suppress a flick of anger. "I would call them considerate, civilized." And I don't imagine the Ronays—But all the response they gave my awkward condolence was "Thank you."

  "Be glad you are living in the present era," he said. "Most past history would have seen you imprisoned at the very least."

  Fenn shrugged, "I heard talk of that."

  Tea stood on the table between them. They ignored it.

  "Would you like me to summarize your situation?" Chuan offered. "It may not yet be clear to you." Under any other circumstances he could have smiled as he added, "Frankly, it was not clear to us until today."

  Fenn continued to stare at him, hardly blinking, as a caged bird of prey might have stared, back when men kept wild animals in cages. "What do you mean by 'us'?"

  He may be more wide-awake than he appears, Chuan thought. Well, that would be for the better. The objective tonight is to make him comprehend.

  "A loose word for the responsible parties in this case. Officers of the constabulary, judiciary, and commonalty, on both Mars and Earth."

  "And the cybercosm," Fenn said.

  Chuan nodded. "Yes. It too is integral with the civilization that is yours and mine."

  Fenn waited. His hands rested quiescent on the arms of his seat, thick, hairy, hands that had held a weapon that killed two men.

  Chuan sat likewise immobile. He had prepared his speech in advance. It was as dry as he could make it.

  "The immediate counsel was to detain you for psychological evaluation and judgment. You were directly involved in appalling events. You committed an unsanctioned entry, and your broadcast of'sequestered data was a flagrant violation, which will have evil consequences. In the past your imprisonment would have been automatic, and in many milieus you would have been interrogated under torture before being put to death.


  "However, a number of considerations spoke against arraigning you. You cooperated with the constables, submitting to intensive interrogation under veracitin, although you had the right to refuse." It was the intelligent thing to do, of course, if Fenn hoped ever to go free, but Chuan wondered whether his traumas had left him helpless. Then how angry would he grow as he returned to himself? "Thus we have a full account.

  "Let me also rehearse the arguments you had ready. Your possession of a circumventor was authorized, although by an obscure officer on Earth. You were operating not on your own but as an agent of the Lahui Kuikawa, who are an autonomous polity of the Synesis. The withholding of lens data had never been presented as public policy, only as scientific caution; hence, at worst you were guilty of violating privacy. These data being of basic significance, the Synesis was wrong to withhold them, and you were reclaiming for all people their Covenant right to know. As for the violence that followed, you acted only in defense of your companion and yourself, in a situation that no one could reasonably have anticipated."

  Memory arose, snatched, and wrenched. Oh, Kinna, Kinna! "Unforeseen, unforeseeable, yes," broke out of Chuan. "A senseless contingency, a meaningless accident. How can anyone believe the ideal is false, that mind must someday tame this universe?"

  Perm's visage stirred just a little—with surprise? Grief? It congealed again.

  Chuan mastered his feelings. "My apologies," he said. "Let me stay with the facts. Your arguments were specious at best. I doubt they would survive any proper challenge." He did not mean the legalisms of humans, though those probably could not withstand serious examination either. He meant the impartial logic of justice, of the cybercosm. But it did not try cases; at most, it counseled. "However, that would be distracting and delaying at. a time of crisis. It could provoke major disturbances.

  "Meanwhile, the leadership of the Lahui Kuikawa has entered a demand for your return—under administrative confidentiality thus far, but unequivocal. They claim the prerogative to question and consult with you, and set any penalty they find called for. Whether or not this claim is valid under the Covenant, an open dispute about it would be still more disruptive than a proceeding against you on Mars. You counted on this, did you not?

  "Constabulary analysts have pointed out that you yourself are bound to become wildly controversial as the news spreads, especially on this planet. Your presence here will pose a danger to the daily order of societies already badly divided, and, I may add, to your own person.

  "The harm has been done. It is a unique harm, which cannot ever be repeated. Rather than serving a deterrent purpose, your penalization and correction in a glare of publicity would increase the difficulties coming upon us. Civilization has been weaning itself away from vengefulness. The decision is that no charges shall be filed in the Republic of Mars, provided that you promptly return to Earth."

  And there the Lahui Kuikawa will deal with you quietly, in their shipboard isolation, Chuan thought. I don't know how. Will you end at the bottom of the sea, or will they hail you a hero? Neither of those extremes, I suppose. It doesn't matter. You are no more, actually, than a random, element in a blind cosmos—a stone that chanced to fall where it unloosed an avalanche that will shake all humankind and has killed Kinna Ronay.

  Compassion touched him. “I think knowing what you have caused will be ample punishment for you," he finished softly. "I do not think I could bear such knowledge."

  Fenn did not stir. After a silence, he asked, in the same even tone as before—it made Chuan recall surf grinding cobbles together off a stony beach—"Just what have I done wrong?"

  Reflex lashed back. "Do you truly consider yourself some kind of idealist?'' At once, Chuan felt shamed by his loss of control.

  "No," Fenn said. "The establishment you belong to, that you're speaking for, it kept information from my people that we need. You never gave us a sound reason. We decided you never would."

  “Could you not accept that the reason might be better than you knew?"

  "Was it?"

  Chuan sighed. To this man, the revelation would be a knife; and he, Chuan, must wield it.

  Fenn hounded him: "Why should we take your unsupported word? It never quite made sense. You haven't been consistent, either. You could have guarded the station on Pavonis as strictly as you do the lens—the lenses, I guess—but you didn't."

  Replying to that postponed the stabbing for a few minutes. "A strong watch over the lenses was and is necessary because the Proserpinans were resolved to raid their data file, and indeed, they made an effort to. Now when the knowledge comes out, their reaction is unpredictable, but I dread it, if only for their sakes. Polities on the inner planets are, for the most part, more stable. It should be possible to contain the harm to them.

  "Because of that stability, we, the responsible minds, did not expect a threat to the station. The Inrai attack surprised us, but it failed, and afterward we had no wish to hunt down whatever poor remnants might slink about. That may have proven to be another mistake. We are not omniscient.

  "The station database must contain the file if the station is to function as a unit of the network that receives and analyzes the information from the stars. Otherwise it would depend entirely on communication with the lenses and other instruments, across light-days, not just slow but vulnerable to interference and interception.

  "We thought the polities and peoples of the Synesis would respect its integrity. We thought that if any of them seriously wanted to know, they would press their case through lawful channels. Then we could have taken a few chosen leaders aside, explained what the dilemma is, and hoped they would cooperate and persuade their people to wait." Chuan sighed again. "But we underestimated the extent of disaffection, distrust, dysfunction."

  "You couldn't have kept the secret forever," Fenn said.

  "No, nor had we any such intention. It was only that the partial knowledge we have gained so far can have a shattering impact. A half-truth can do more damage than a falsehood-—as every demagoguery, charlatanry, and murderous mass hysteria in Earth's tormented past bears witness. We are convinced that what we have seen is a half-truth. and that the reality is not terrible but glorious. However, this is theoretical. We must have more data, firm evidence. Then we can reveal everything.

  "We would have done so. Now the news will come as a catastrophe out of nowhere. We can only try to reassure the populace that the news is probably not bad. We will ask for their courage and patience while we search further and more deeply. For humans to maintain such an attitude through several centuries is... unprecedented. Perhaps they can, if we succeed in guiding, consoling, and strengthening."

  "The word isn't out yet, then," Fenn said.

  "Not as such. We know the data themselves have been downloaded many times, copied, dispersed beyond recapture, on Earth and Luna as well as Mars. Interpreting them will take some while. They record images, electromagnetic and neutrino pulsations, gravitational waves, and subtler phenomena yet. They require analysis, rectification, enhancement, reanalysis, and correlation with everything else we know about the universe. Our understanding—yes, I believe the very Teramind's—is far from complete. We still confront mystery.

  "But there is enough scientific talent among humans, enough computer power and, I fear, determination, that the basic facts will soon begin to emerge for them."

  Chuan leaned forward. "That is another reason for letting you go, Fenn," he finished. "You can bring those facts back to your Lahui Kuikawa, to their leaders, in confidence. Coming from you, it should be less devastating a shock. They can come to terms with it early on, and think how to tell their people. They can do that better, more gently and wisely, than any official announcement. The Lahui culture has generally been calm, benign, and realistic. Perhaps it can set an example for everyone else, and help bring us all through the crisis."

  Fenn stayed moveless. "Muy bien," he growled, "what is the word?"

  Chuan could no longer look into those eyes. He got up,
went to the viewport, clasped hands behind his back, and stood staring out at the night.

  "We are not alone," he said.

  After another silence, Fenn replied, "I wondered whether that might be it."

  "The Taurus lens, especially, has brought us a story from the galactic core. We have glimpses of planets ablaze with light and of astronomically vast structures in space, around suns, in the clouds and clusters and the emptinesses between. We have caught traces of other energies, every spectrum, on global and stellar scales of magnitude, so focused and so regular that they must be under intelligent control. With such clues, we have turned other instruments elsewhere and found the signs we did not know the meaning of before, the radiation-signs of works spread far apart through the spiral arms and out beyond. We have seen a cosmic civilization."

  It was as if an image of the galaxy shone for Chuan against the darkness, its scythe-spoked wheel a hundred thousand light-years across, stars in their hundreds of billions, the white-hot embers and colossal black coals where they had died, the lacily luminous nebulae where they were coming to birth. They clustered thickly toward the center, which glowed rosered because here they were mostly cool dwarfs, survivors from the beginning; the spirals gleamed blue, because here creation continued, with giants flaring prodigally and briefly. But those stars were thinning out toward intergalactic immensity. Thirty thousand light-years from the core, Sol had no neighbor closer than Alpha Gentauri. A single migration from one to the other remained humankind's mightiest achievement. Neither sun appeared in Chuan's vision; the hugeness drank them down.

  For the first time tonight, something like eagerness tinged Fenri's voice. He twisted around to look at his host, who saw him from the corner of an eye but did not look back. "Why, that's wonderful! What we've tried for and dreamed about these past thousand years. Isn't it?"