Short Fiction Complete

by Fred Saberhagen

  “I told you he’d be here on schedule!” cried Mal, pounding Bart joyfully on the back. No club in Mal’s hand this time.

  “Ship was just taking good care of him, that’s all!” Sigrid pulled him in for a big hug against her heavy bosom.

  Later he learned that an intensive effort had been made to “rescue” him from the machines, set him free from his long sleeps. The attempt had collapsed foolishly and no one wanted to talk about it. Then everyone had grown a little worried about Bart and all were glad to see him still coming back, if only for a day each year. Gray was spreading in the hair of the happy crew around him, and several of the male heads were now nearly bald. Many of the people looked a little fatter and squintier than when he had seen them last. They gave him a big lunch that was almost a birthday party.

  Thirty-seven

  Galina and Solon took him on a tour of their biology lab, which was much enlarged and changed since he had seen it last. They had in cages some white rats and hamsters, grown from genetic material obtained from the Ship’s stores.

  “Do you think the long sleeps are harming me?” Bart asked when he had a chance.

  “Harming you physically? No, I doubt it.” Galina looked at him thoughtfully. “It takes an enormous amount of energy and a great deal of control equipment to keep a human being in such a sleep; even a Ship like this couldn’t do it for very many people at a time. It’s not just freezing in the ordinary sense, you know. Even the orbital electrons within your body’s atoms are kept from moving. . . but don’t worry about the physical danger of it; that’s extremely small.”

  She was anxious to resume the biology lessons, so they went on a thorough tour of the lab.

  “We haven’t been able to get any human genetic material from the Ship to work with. Still, in theory it should be possible for us to produce a new human generation here, starting with just ordinary cells from our own bodies. Did I ever tell you anything about cloning cells?”

  “No.”

  “I will. Anyway, it hasn’t worked out yet. We’re not sure if the Ship is interfering in some subtle way, or if there are simply problems we’re not aware of.”

  They showed Bart masses of tissue growing in glass jars. They had never been able to get the tissue to differentiate properly into all the organs that had to grow in concert to make a person. It looked to Bart as if they hadn’t yet even come close to achieving that.

  Here and there old colored tapes were stuck to the walls and overhead, but the game they represented seemed to have been utterly abandoned.

  The only competition Bart heard about today was in growing the best food plants and flowers.

  Thirty-eight

  It was depressing to see Helsa now dragging herself around like an invalid, her arms grown thin and her ankles puffy. Others told Bart that Galina suspected some slow, incurable disease. Then they turned the talk to brighter things.

  “There’s a lot of card playing going on now, Bart,” Sharon informed him.

  “Card playing?”

  “Poker, whist, bridge,” said Ranjan. “We’ll show you. They’re old games we dug out of the Ship’s records. We’ve also tried out two new approaches to get through the barriers to reach the control regions of the Ship, but neither has worked.”

  “We haven’t really tried them yet,” Fuad objected.

  “Well, we’ve run them on the computer,” Lotis put in.

  “Bah. I tell you, the Ship is still using that computer against us—”

  “No, I keep telling you,” argued Ranjan, “we’ve got it blocked off now against any possibility of the Ship’s gaining access—”

  “So you think! I don’t agree.” The argument was heated, but showed no sign of coming to blows.

  Thirty-nine

  Today there was a prayer meeting, more elaborate in ceremony but less intense in feeling than the last one Bart had attended. He noted that people’s clothing, which they now largely made for themselves, was growing more elaborate, too, and more voluminous. It covered more of their sagging bodies, and distracted attention from them.

  Bart also noticed that a softer, more comfortable type of chair had been manufactured somehow and was now in general use. The legs didn’t look as if they could be unscrewed.

  Forty

  It was birthday party time again. Four candles adorned the big cake, each standing for ten years, as someone explained to Bart. The party was opened with a rather perfunctory prayer.

  “Bet you don’t remember when I took this picture of you, Bart.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Several speeches were made, tracing the recent history of progress in science—mainly astronomical observations and biological research; and in the arts—mainly sculpture, painting, and drawing. Not much had been done lately in an engineering way, a speaker said, which Bart supposed meant they weren’t getting anywhere with plans to take over the Ship.

  A new president, Olen, had just been elected for a two-year term, and he pledged in a vague way to get things moving.

  All around the table the faces were puffy or lined, continuing to puddle or sag. There was more gray hair than any other color.

  Forty-one

  Bart found a number of people playing chess, a game they said they would teach him before the day was over.

  About dinner time Basil told him something else, more confidentially. “I’m not going to give you any details, kid—nothing the Ship doesn’t already know. Information you don’t have can’t be pumped out of you. I’ll just say that this time we really know what we’re doing, and we’re not likely to be stopped. We’ve been a long time getting ready.”

  Forty-two

  He soon learned that Basil, Mal, and Olen had set out shortly after Bart’s last waking day, on a major effort to force their way into the Ship’s control areas. They were not back yet, and by now it was doubtful, to say the least, that they ever would return.

  Himyar, the sculptor, proudly showed Bart a tall pair of steel doors on which he was carving the history of their little society in a series of panels. He claimed that he had devised a method of grinding stainless steel that worked beautifully.

  Helsa was now much better, Bart saw with some surprise. But Sigrid looked unhealthy and was complaining of vague pains. “We’re going to try something new,” Bart heard Galina tell her cheerfully. Evidently the Ship was again not helping, or could not.

  The garden had once more been enlarged, this time all for additional useful food plants.

  Forty-three

  Basil was back—had been back for several months—but Bart saw that there was still something new and wild and strange in his eyes and he was still emaciated. The other men weren’t coming back, Basil said, and that was about all he had to tell about his adventure.

  The way Basil looked made Bart timid about pressing him with any further questions. Later he heard more of Basil’s story from someone else. The three men had tried going outside the Ship to reach the aft, where they intended to get back in. Something had gone wrong with their equipment; maybe the Ship had sabotaged it. They did get back into the Ship, luckily, in a region where they could find air and water and stored food enough to keep them alive for a time, but the controls had been as much out of reach as ever. Eventually, Basil had made his way back, somehow, through a maze of inner decks and passageways. He had never made it completely clear just how the other two had died, and Bart got the impression that it might be wise not to press too closely on that question.

  Himyar had completed his doors and was working with Vivian on a giant mural of Earth, composed of scenes reconstructed imaginatively from old records.

  Sigrid’s condition was not much changed from last year.

  Fay, having recently been named president in a special election, told Bart it had been decided that he should attend school every waking day. The people were getting ready a course of study for him. “The machines insisted on our attending school, I mean in a formal way, and I don’t know why they don’t with yo
u, but never mind.” She brushed back her graying hair and looked at him as if at a challenge. “It’s time and past time that you formed good habits to carry over through the rest of your life.”

  Forty-four

  Bart heard right away that Sigrid had died, only a few days ago.

  Maybe this latest death was still on everyone’s mind, and that was why his first day of school didn’t go too well. Lotis was teaching, and sort of skipped from subject to subject, and technique to technique. She knew it wasn’t going well, and once she sighed: “Someone else will take a turn at teaching next year—I mean, tomorrow. Are you able to learn anything from me, Bart?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  His day was almost over before he heard something exciting: it was no longer quite certain that Olen and Mal were dead. At least, some garbled message had come in, along disused intercom channels that were thought to connect with control territory. Some almost indecipherable words about surviving. Maybe it was only garbage belched out by the vast intraship communications delay lines or memory drums, not produced by any of this generation’s people at all. But maybe. . .

  Forty-five

  Himyar had put his clever hands to work, toiling in his improved shop, to outfit several people with eyeglasses. Studies on artificial teeth were now well under way, with Solon doing most of the research. The Ship refused to do anything along prosthetic lines for anyone, though it still treated routine minor injuries.

  Bart heard Edris and Trac and Kichiro praying, but no longer to the Ship. He saw Basil, who now stared at walls instead of stars, and still said very little.

  School was better today. Fuad as teacher talked with him easily and amused him with stories of old Earth.

  Forty-six

  School again, his teacher Chao, who was grimly determined that he should learn to appreciate the beauties of geometry.

  He heard that the garden was just getting over an epidemic of plant disease, caused by no one knew what.

  Ranjan had just been elected president, for an indeterminate term, and had pledged to get things moving.

  The work on artificial teeth was progressing again after several setbacks. Solon and others looked into Bart’s mouth again to judge whether he needed braces, but to his relief decided to let well enough, or almost well enough, alone.

  Forty-seven

  Bart got to see Vivian’s and Himyar’s finished mural, and part of a championship chess game between Armin and Basil.

  He tasted a new hybrid fruit from the restored garden.

  He heard vague mention of a Golden Birthday celebration that might last for a year and should begin fairly soon.

  He saw some artificial teeth in operation.

  He heard with blunted shock that Fay, who had been working on and off in the biology lab, had killed herself with quick, painless poison. If anyone knew the reasons, they never made them plain to Bart.

  In school Himyar taught him, spiritedly but unintelligibly, about the various traditions of Earthly art.

  Forty-eight

  The gardeners and biologists had reported success in rejuvenating plants, and there was hope of applying their discoveries to people. Some were saying excitedly that now they understood why the Ship in its wisdom had refused them any help along this line, while letting them work freely at it for themselves. It was something only humans could do, being beyond the very limited creative capabilities of computers.

  Not everyone agreed.

  Bart’s school went on with a whole group of teachers. They were trying music appreciation today, and no one on the Ship seemed to have a real bent in this direction.

  Forty-nine

  Bart noticed today that some of the people who had seemed happily and permanently paired off as sex-and-life partners were now in different pairings, and evidently just as happy.

  Today in school there was some confusion about just what Bart had been taught in previous sessions, and what he might now be fairly tested on. He did well on the tests when they were finally given, and the arguing teachers were all relieved.

  Fifty

  Again the whole group of them—the fifteen still alive—was on hand to greet Bart when he came through the last heavy door that set aside his private territory. They greeted him with cheers and songs, told him today was a holiday from school, and pulled him away for what they promised would be the biggest and best birthday party yet.

  Sharon had just been elected president, and at the party table made a brief speech about how, with the help of all of them, she meant to get things moving again. As she said, she certainly wasn’t going to be able to do it all by herself.

  There were several games of volleyball. Playing with these old people who had the names of kids he had once briefly met, Bart found himself for a little while one of the gang. He lost himself in the game, jumped nimbly among the jiggling paunches and creaking joints, got knocked down when someone’s hundred-kilo mass accidentally crashed into him.

  But it was only for a little while that he belonged.

  Fifty-one

  He came into their living area with the feeling that they would have forgotten about keeping him in school, but no, the lessons were on as promised. Today, with Helsa teaching, Bart got a basic course in the Ship, what little the old records actually said about it and its mission, and something of what the people had been able to find out for themselves. After lunch, somewhat to Bart’s surprise, Basil came in and took over for a while, describing how the hull looked from outside, and what some of the remoter portions of the Ship were like. He spoke impersonally, and rarely as if he himself had been there.

  Fifty-two

  The whole company was excited. About a month ago the world of the ship had been rocked by an explosion, thought to have taken place a kilometer or two away along the hull, probably toward the aft. Whether a hurtling meteoric body had struck the hull, or there were some internal cause, was unknown.

  The rumor flew by that Mal and Olen were perhaps still alive, and somehow responsible for the blast.

  There was a sudden renewal of religious fervor. And school was conducted in an atmosphere of tension.

  Fifty-three

  There had been no more explosions, nor any further hints that the lost men had survived. The crisis atmosphere was gone, and talk was again centered on the hoped-for rejuvenation treatments.

  Bart saw a proud display of implanted artificial teeth. The method didn’t work well in all cases yet, but Solon was optimistic about improvements.

  School went on. Today a team of instructors tried to teach him a little about human language and its near-infinite variations, some of which they spoke, or at least could read.

  Fifty-four

  Timber harvested from the enormous garden was being used to build a sort of pavilion—a roofless, high-walled structure which Bart was told would be used as a kind of social center. He thought they built it just to be building something.

  Himyar was seeking treatment for arthritis, which had stiffened his fingers and interfered considerably with his work.

  Fifty-five

  Fuad lay on a bed inside the finished pavilion, recuperating from what he said had been a heart attack. Galina said the EGG showed that the worst was over. Bart sat and talked for a while with Fuad, who was fetter even than last year, and didn’t look good.

  People were swinging woven racquets, worn with use, in a game they called squash, played where the volleyball net had been three days ago.

  Fifty-six

  “What I preach to you, Bart,” said Basil, taking a turn at being schoolmaster, “what we have evolved here in our little world, is a complete synthesis of all mankind’s old creeds and philosophies. I am really certain of this.”

  “How can you have a complete whatchamacallit if they were always contradicting each other, like you say?”

  Basil had a long answer, but Bart found it not very satisfying.

  A large part of the garden was now taken up by plants grown solely for use in the rejuvenation
experiments.

  Bart heard at dinner that Chao was now suffering repeated bouts of mental illness, and Galina had to keep her tranquilized and sometimes confined to her own room.

  Fifty-seven

  Politics had heated up suddenly. Edris, who had been acting president, had been removed from office and Trac was in, as some kind of compromise. Bart couldn’t figure out what the dispute was about, except some of the people felt themselves insulted by others.

  At lunch Trac made a little speech about how she meant to get things moving again, both on exploration of the Ship and the rejuvenation work, which evidently had been allowed to lapse. She said also that expanded medical facilities were needed, and the hospital should be enlarged.

  Bart remembered the hospital as the pavilion, or social center, but there were two chronic invalids, Fuad and Chao, living in it now.

  Fifty-eight

  Kichiro and Himyar were pointed out to Bart as rejuvenation patients, perhaps already on their way to growing younger, though Galina and Solon didn’t want to make any definite claims just yet.

  “It’s helped me a great deal, too,” Trac said. Bart thought to himself how much her face had wrinkled and bagged in the last few days.

  Himyar had started working in a new electronic medium, less demanding on the knuckles.

  Basil was living apart now, giving much time to fasting and prayer.

  Most of the women had taken to dyeing their hair, yellow and red being favorite colors.

  Fifty-nine

  Great interest in chess had revived, and a huge birthday party was being planned for next year.

  Hair colors were still used, but had been toned down.

  School went on. Bart argued with his teachers that they should show him more about the structure of the Ship than about things of old Earth, which didn’t seem to him to have any bearing on his present situation. Galina still pushed biology, but Bart could see that you’d have to study that for years to really get anywhere. He didn’t know how much time he had to study anything.