The Dark Beyond the Stars

by Frank M. Robinson

  Huldah had said the crew were mayflies to him. I had to remember that. I turned to go and he said, “You also forget something else.”

  I paused at the hatch. “What?” I loaded it with all the insolence I could muster. “Sparrow” wasn’t going to forget Tybalt and Noah.

  “Death buys a privilege that everybody eagerly seeks, especially those who overvalue living. There’s room for new life on board.” He let it hang there for a moment to give me time to realize just what he was saying. “Every man wants to father children and every woman wants to be a mother—it’s built into the genes.” He smiled cynically. “You might qualify for a chance at creating new life, Sparrow.”

  “I’d appreciate the opportunity, sir,” I said stiffly and left. I suspected I was as sterile as Ophelia thought he was—and that he knew it. The only thing the offer meant to me was that he had decided to tolerate “Sparrow” a while longer.

  I went back to my compartment and flicked on the falsie to surround myself with books and soft music. Snipe was on shift and I was glad to be alone.

  A crew, the Captain had said, not the crew. I thought of the two empty cylinders that were a part of the Astron and the “dream” I’d had when I was a member of the fifth generation and the crew was three times as large. With the passing of the generations, the Captain had been slowly cannibalizing the ship. Now I realized he had been cannibalizing the crew as well. The ship was not quite a self-contained environment; there was a slow but gradual leakage of everything important for the maintenance of life. Every generation there would be fewer and fewer of us until finally there would be nobody left to return to the ancient kingdom of Spain. But that didn’t really matter to the Captain.

  It was then I finally joined the mutiny.

  Chapter 24

  In a week, the Aquinas system was far behind; we watched and worried as the constellations slowly swung around in the sky: There was nothing but blackness ahead of the Astron now, while the glittering diamond dust of the stars shifted to our sides and rear. We were heading into the Dark and none of us knew how many generations it would take to cross it—or if we ever would.

  I knew I was being watched, and not in my role as an icon for the crew. Unfortunately, everybody I knew in the mutiny was being watched as well. The Captain had known about Ophelia, which hardly surprised me, but he had also known about Snipe, Crow, Loon, and… who else? I thought of the “safe” compartment and wondered if the peep screen had been repaired, then decided it hadn’t. Spare parts were in short supply and so ancient that most of them malfunctioned at the first opportunity.

  But the Captain didn’t need peep screens so long as he had informers. I guessed that there were a lot of them and that the would-be mutineers had been too naive about who they recruited or even approached.

  It was easier to get together with Crow and the others than I thought. When we were alone, we exchanged a look or a nod and murmured a time, and half a dozen shifts after changing course we were sitting around an imaginary fire listening to the howls of imaginary wolves.

  We didn’t dog down the hatch—it would have been too obvious and it wasn’t necessary. The shadow screens cut most of the sound as well as the light. But once inside and safe, we sat warming ourselves by the simulated flames and staring at each other in silence. Why should I assume that none of them were informers? I wondered. After all, the Captain would have his rewards as well as his punishments. But Crow and Loon were my best friends and Ophelia could have had me flatlined long ago…

  We sat there for a long moment, each of us speculating, and finally I decided to trust my emotions.

  Ophelia beat me to it.

  “We operate in cells,” she said at last. “Only one person in each cell knows the name of a member in another cell. The Captain knows about me but I don’t think he knows of many more.”

  They were better organized than I thought but I was sure Ophelia was naive, that the Captain at least suspected others.

  Then I remembered when they had tried to recruit me.

  “You put me at risk,” I accused.

  Ophelia shrugged. “You were a member before; Kusaka expected us to approach you. And we wanted you to know the arguments so you could check them yourself. You idolized Kusaka and we knew you’d refuse at first—and that your refusal would save you later on.”

  “And if he finds out now?”

  “We’ll lose our lives and you’ll lose your memories.”

  That pretense was finally gone. Snipe reassured me without my asking.

  “Only a few of us know that you’re aware of who you really are Sparrow. Those here, Huldah, and Abel.”

  “You read minds?” I asked sarcastically.

  “It was obvious what you were thinking.”

  I could feel the sweat start in the small of my back. Too many knew and chances were it wouldn’t be long before the Captain knew as well.

  “What do you do about informers?” The mutineers couldn’t use any sort of force to protect themselves, which meant informers had nothing to fear from them.

  Crow laughed. “There aren’t any—not really. We know who the Captain’s men are and we mislead them with false information, or feed them real information that’s not important enough for the Captain to act on.”

  “He acted on Noah and Tybalt,” I said bitterly.

  “We had just heard we were going into the Dark and there was resentment among the crew. We knew the Captain would do something.”

  But they hadn’t anticipated that the Captain would condemn Tybalt as well as Noah. The attempted murder was a coincidence, a sideshow that had happened at the same time. Or was it? I suspected that Thrush, Heron, and the mutineers were all connected, though none of them may have realized it.

  “You know all the Captain’s men?” I asked, dubious.

  Ophelia nodded.

  “All of them. We can sense who’s one of us and who isn’t.”

  Ophelia was very brave and very confident and Hamlet must have loved her for those qualities. But I was more cautious than he had been and overconfidence irritated me.

  “You underestimate the Captain,” I grumbled. “He’ll find out who all of the mutineers are and he’ll chop off their heads one by one. The cells will slow him down but sooner or later there’ll be informers. And you’ll make mistakes in who you recruit.”

  Snipe shook her head.

  “Ophelia’s right, Sparrow. We know who we can trust.”

  They were all looking at me when she said that, nodding in agreement, and I felt the hair at the back of my head prickle. Another mystery that Huldah hadn’t seen fit to tell me about.

  “You want to seize the ship and return,” I said, still playing devil’s advocate. “But you can’t run the ship without the Captain. The computer takes orders only from him. You told me so yourself.”

  Crow looked smug. “That’s true, we can’t run the ship without him. But he can’t run it without us, either.”

  I wasn’t too sure of that. “How many on the Captain’s side?”

  Everybody looked at Loon, who apparently kept track of these things.

  “It’s a sixty-forty split, Sparrow. More favor returning than continuing with the Captain.”

  “You can’t force the Captain to agree,” I said, disgusted for once by somebody else’s innocence. “All he has to do is breed a new crew. Time’s on his side. Your mutiny may be nothing but a rumor two generations from now.” I hadn’t forgotten the Captain’s comments about Tybalt.

  They fell silent but none of them looked worried.

  “This hasn’t been the only mutiny,” Ophelia finally said. “During the first few generations there was another. The crew must have known it was possible to win—otherwise they would never have tried it.”

  Without them saying so, I knew they were depending on me. I remembered Noah telling me that the key to the success of their mutiny was locked away in my memories. Two of us would have had firsthand knowledge of that original mutiny: the Capt
ain, who remembered everything. And I, who remembered nothing.

  “You haven’t told us,” Crow said. For a moment, I had been lost in my thoughts.

  “Told you what?”

  “Whether you’re with us or not.”

  “You can’t sense it?” I said sarcastically. “Why else would I be here?” My sudden flash of anger was a cover for a sudden, wrenching feeling of loss. Ophelia was right, I had idolized the Captain, and it’s hard to let go of idols—if nothing else, they’re a bulwark against reality. Unfortunately, reality was something I could no longer avoid.

  I was running out of time and I knew beyond all doubt that my life as Sparrow was drawing to a close and I was hastening the end by throwing in my lot with them. Sooner or later, the Captain would find out about the new recruit.

  My only comfort was that Hamlet would have been proud of me.

  Small comfort.

  ****

  Sometimes it’s the smallest events in life that lead to the largest consequences. A missed bulb of coffee in the morning can cause a nagging irritation that will lead to a fatal error in judgment on some exotic planetary surface. A casual collision in a passageway can lead to a brief apology, a slight show of interest, an enthusiastic coupling, and permanent partnering. I had seen both happen, though nobody was watching when it happened to me.

  Two weeks after leaving Aquinas, and one after my meeting in the “safe” compartment, I was half asleep in my hammock when Snipe came off duty and crawled in beside me. We lay entwined and she murmured some question, I no longer remember what, which started me thinking that everybody wanted answers from me but very few had ever offered to tell me anything.

  Huldah had warned me to use my eyes, but beyond that had volunteered precious little information about my own life or who I had been in the past. Ophelia and Crow had been just as closemouthed—and so, for that matter, had Noah. Perhaps there was some reason for their reticence, but if there was, I didn’t know it. I lay there, half asleep, feeling sorry for myself, when it occurred to me that the mystery went deeper than that.

  Tybalt had confided in me, but nobody else had. There had also been a fundamental difference between Tybalt and the others, though at the moment I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The Captain had taken me into his confidence as well, though that had been calculated. Then I remembered the children in the nursery: those who had laughed and cried in unison and those who had looked puzzled by it all…

  I yawned in the dark, decided it was foolish to spend more thought on it, and gave myself over to tracing lazy circles on Snipe’s bare back until I was sure she was awake. We made slow and casual love and then she slipped off to sleep once more, leaving me to stare at the overhead and wonder about her curious lack of response and if romance had finally fled. I mused about it, then convinced myself I was merely suffering from the self-doubts that plague everybody in the early hours just before normal waking.

  A moment later the hair prickled at the back of my head and I rolled slightly away from Snipe so there was a thin wedge of air between us. I suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of touching her. I loved Snipe and I knew she cared for me, but sometimes, at some very basic level, there was a barrier between us, a barrier that I could neither identify nor penetrate and that extended into other areas of her life as well. There were those moments when I felt very close to Snipe… and was frustrated because I could get no closer.

  That time period, a reason occurred to me and I felt my skin crawl. Those moments with Snipe were at the head of a very long list of questions that had been accumulating and I knew there was only one person who could answer them. But she probably wouldn’t. Not of her own free will.

  I would have to force her.

  ****

  I waited until the passageway was deserted, then asked for entry. When she gave it, I slipped in, pausing only long enough to make sure no peep screen had been installed since the last time. The Captain had hardly trusted Noah but he hadn’t bothered to monitor his living compartment; he knew Noah would have gotten around any monitor.

  Huldah was sipping tea, but secured the drink bulb to the work ledge and settled back in her hammock, her eyes alert and watchful. She was neither matron nor oracle now. I realized with surprise that she was frightened of me. She had… sensed?… what was on my mind, and she also knew that I was unpredictable.

  “You know all the begats,” I said. When she nodded, I added: “Back to when time began. At least as far back as the computer keeps them and probably before. Isn’t that correct?” I stole a line from Thrush then. “The truth, please, Huldah.”

  She nodded again but still said nothing.

  “And you’re teaching them to Pipit, right?”

  Another nod.

  “Who taught them to you, Huldah?”

  She paled then and so did I. I was right and what I would get from Huldah was confirmation that I was right. And when I got it, my personal world would be smashed forever.

  “It might not be good for you to know,” she said.

  I straddled her hammock and leaned so close my face was only a few centimeters from hers. She could not back away.

  “You loved Noah and you love Abel,” I said in a low voice, hoping that Loon’s outrageous gossip was right for once. “Noah was stranded and it would take very little to convince the Captain to rid himself of Abel. Abel played both sides and funneled important information to you and unimportant information to the Captain. Someone with malice could remind the Captain that Abel is no longer of value to him.”

  She stared at me with sudden hatred.

  “You wouldn’t be merely an accessory,” she said in a brittle voice. “You’d be as much a murderer as the Captain himself.”

  I quailed inside, but didn’t dare let it show in my face.

  “I have to know, Huldah.”

  “The Captain could be persuaded to do a lot of things,” she threatened, “including flatlining you.”

  “All of us lead dangerous lives,” I said. “Who taught you the begats?”

  She shrugged. “My mother.”

  “And her mother taught her and her mother’s mother taught her.”

  She nodded again, apprehensive, well aware what I was driving at.

  “But you do more than keep the begats. The Captain gives out the birth allowances but you take care of the fine points of ritual, right? As your mother did before you and her mother before that. There’s a birth ceremony and there’s also an impregnation ceremony and no doubt they drink to the mother and the would-be father. Am I still right?”

  “The crew needs ritual,” she said harshly.

  “A few mothers and maybe a hundred fathers,” I said. “I’ve never seen one but it must be something like that. You and Pipit provide the wine and the blessing and the mothers have children by fathers chosen not by chance but by you. There’s something in the wine, or perhaps there’s something the mother takes before her next suitor presents himself.”

  “If you know, why do you ask, Sparrow?”

  “I’m guessing,” I said. “I’m asking you to confirm it.” I then quit searching for a polite way to phrase it and said bluntly: “The Captain sets the birth allotments and picks the candidates, but he doesn’t breed a crew, Huldah. You do. I want to know what kind of crew you’re breeding.”

  I didn’t think she would answer but she read the same expression on my face that Thrush had read when I held a blade to his throat. Would I have helped Abel on his way to Reduction? Generations later I’m not so sure, but at the time I was quite certain I would have.

  Her voice turned sour with bitterness.

  “Not like the one he started with. One that treasures life, one that values cooperation, one that experiences firsthand the emotions that another feels, one that’s loyal to itself.” She paused. “One that can share its memories…”

  I wasn’t sure of the last but life on board the Astron already encouraged the other noble attributes. Huldah wanted to engrave them in stone, t
o make them part of the genetic map.

  She read me and said grimly, “They’re not idealistic, Sparrow, they’re practical. For life on board the Astron, they’re survival traits.”

  “What you’re trying to do is deprive the Captain of his crew,” I said with sudden insight. “A crew loyal to itself ensures that in a few more generations the Captain would have a crew that was solidly against him.”

  “It will take five more generations,” Huldah said calmly.

  What was it Ophelia had said? We can sense who’s one of us. Then I wondered if she had said that deliberately.

  “Selective breeding?”

  Huldah shrugged. “Small pockets of any species, separated from the main group, can change very fast. And they’ll breed true. We’ve also been in outer space for more than two thousand years, subjected to continuous low-level radiation. We’re dealing with a very small gene pool; our little branch of the human race is… malleable.”

  It hadn’t been a series of mutinies, I thought again. It had been one long mutiny that had been going on for centuries, probably since the first generation. Having lost their first attempt, they had decided to take the long view, to breed a crew that would think and act as one and pit it against a Captain who held all the power that one man on board could possibly hold.

  “More than half the crew is of different genetic stock from the Captain, right, Huldah?”

  “In a sense.”

  “And different from me,” I added bitterly.

  She guessed what I was thinking.

  “She loves you, Sparrow.”

  “What am I to her?” I asked cynically. “A pet?”

  “We’re different stock, Sparrow, not better, not worse.”

  “We can never be close,” I said. If there was ever a time when I felt my heart break, I felt it then. Snipe had been the end of my loneliness.

  She shook her head.

  “Closer than most couples. Perhaps not as close as you would like.”

  “She would be closer with one of her own kind, is that right?”