The ship shuddered, entering an enormous hangar. It seemed to Simeon that history was repeating itself. Once he'd made her put on a spacesuit to show her the sinister reality of the spheroid. He wished things were as easy now.
Simeon was different from everybody else. For him, Jedian's words had become a mere confirmation of his own bitter conclusions. No amount of naive hopes or Utopian dreams could shield him from reality. The battle machines of the Spheroid that had educated him knew no such subtleties.
For him, the last thirty days had become a lifetime.
He couldn't master the art of understatements and half-feelings, of sucking up to the rich and the powerful. To try to adapt to this crowd of faceless, weary creatures was to Simeon equivalent to death. He was too used to being honest, straightforward and open.
"We just can't live here," he said, "and it's better we admit it now than hide behind our useless dreams."
Yanna sensed he was right, but still it was difficult for her to admit it. Accepting the reality as Simeon had described it would be the end. She realized the whole tragedy of their situation.
"Does that mean we've failed?" she asked, sick at heart.
Simeon clenched his teeth. "There are two ways," he said, "but eventually it is a moral death for both of us. All our values will go out the window. We'll be obliged to adapt to this civilization," he said sarcastically.
Yanna's face fell. She couldn't believe he was saying that. "There are other planets!"
"You’re wrong. We don't belong here," Simeon snapped.
"Are you suggesting we should change the world?"
Simeon stared at her. "Change the world?" he repeated. "What for?"
"To make it better!"
Simeon shook his head. "One hundred and seventy planets. Two Galactic wars," he mused. "The civilization is in the throes of labor. So many generations lost. You and I, we believed in an ideal world which doesn't exist! And never will. Nobody cares about us. For them, we're just casualties."
He knew he sounded tough but there was no other way.
They remained silent for a while.
"You're right," a tear rolled down her cheek. "Can't anyone help us at all?"
It seemed to her that the ground was giving way under her. In fact, it was their ship docking.
They arrived on Stellar.
14.
In the cool calm of the library on Jedian's villa, the computer pinged with incoming mail.
Andor turned his head. A letter for him.
A cable snaked from the android's cranium, connecting him to the library processor. He looked at the monitor, scanning the coded message.
A semblance of a smile touched his lips.
One of the security guards glanced through the window and recoiled. His boss had a nasty habit of collecting all sorts of weird junk. First some mutants from a deserted orbital station and now this robot sitting there with a cable in his head pulling faces at me!"
The guard shrugged and went on patrolling. An hour later, walking past on his next round, he looked into the window again.
The android had disappeared.
He entered the library and carefully examined all the corners, but the robot had, so to say, evaporated. The cables were neatly stacked up in a niche, the processor was switched off, and only one light was on on the satellite communications panel, indicating a sent facsimile message.
The guard checked the code and whistled. The information had been transferred directly to Admiral Vorontsov.
He waited some more, cussed under his breath and walked away. After all, Jedian hadn't left him any instructions regarding the robot. In any case, he couldn't leave the premises, and that was all that mattered.
On the runway, a drone shuttle was clearing the scanner arch, about to take off. A green light came on, meaning the cargo had been properly declared. Nothing illegal on board.
The shuttle accelerated and took off, gaining altitude.
From the cramped control cabin, Andor watched as the guard's figure by the edge of the runway was getting smaller. The electronic declaration form had listed him as an extra unit of the navigation control system.
The android's fingers sank into the shuttle's connectors, causing its computer to change course. Navigational data disappeared from the monitor, replaced by a new message,
Strictly confidential.
An image of a gigantic battle spacecraft appeared on the screen.
A long-range battle cruiser GENESIS, the prompt read. Please enter the access code.
Once again, a barely perceptible smile touched Andor's lips.
* * *
The balcony of the banquet hall overlooked Fort Stellar. Simeon leaned against the marble railing, playing with his empty champagne glass.
The carved doors behind him clicked open.
"Admiral?"
Vorontsov wore the black uniform of the space fleet over his exosuit. As he approached, his dirk dagger knocked on the marble with a hollow sound. "Not happy, are you?"
Simeon shrugged.
"You are difficult to please," the Admiral said. "When you left that wretched spaceship dump, all you wanted was to meet people. Here you are. So what's the problem?"
Simeon gave him a long look. A fine web of wrinkles ran from the Admiral's eyes to his temples. Father used to love the man. What a strange, surreal coincidence.
"There is no problem," he answered.
Vorontsov didn't lower his eyes, brimming with carefully concealed fury. He was the one giving orders. He would have it no other way.
"Don't lie to me! I can see that you're smart, but your head is screwed on the wrong way! I can't understand your cynical fatalism. This reception is in your honor, and you're wandering about the halls with an air of moody independence. Just looking at you gives me the creeps. D'you think you're some angel of the Apocalypse or something?"
A smile touched Simeon's lips. "Bellum omnium contra omnes," he quoted, looking into the grandfather's eyes. Vorontsov raised an inquiring eyebrow.
"A war of all against all," Simeon translated. "I studied Latin on that dump, as you say, which was my home. Looking at the corpses floating in a vacuum, I kept thinking about all the survivors. I was imagining their throes of conscience. How's that for naive!"
"You weren't the first to think so," the admiral chuckled. "The reality, my boy, can be a bitch, but you can't hide from it behind illusions. This is a cruel world. We need to get real. Man is basically an animal still struggling with his instincts."
"I'm not an animal," Simeon cut him short. "I'm a man, sorry. Yes, I've grown up amid death and cold. I'm well aware that I might have been a beggar had I landed on another planet. I might have worn rags instead," he pulled at the lapel of his tail coat, "but at least I'd be human!"
The old admiral sullenly stared into space. "I can do a lot for you," he said after a long pause. "Just don't you preach to me, okay?" the old man snapped. "This is my world," he waved his hand at the cliffs where the laser batteries towered. "Perhaps in a million years mankind might stop tearing each other apart, but to do that, you'd have to take a new generation and raise them a couple thousand parsecs away from Stellar!"
Simeon started. "Makes sense."
Vorontsov felt his mechanical heart pound against his exosuit. Fury, regret, late repentance – he didn't know what to think anymore. 'Nerves are playing up,' he thought. 'Why should I care, really?' Now he clearly saw that he desperately wished only one thing: to forget.
"I'll do everything I can for you," he repeated monotonously. "Just don't think you can change the world. You can't. It's very steady on its legs."
"I need a spaceship," Simeon blurted.
The admiral could not hide his surprise. "What does that mean? What for?"
"Do you really care?" Simeon asked wearily. "What's the point piling up lies? You've always known what you wanted, so why are you trying to deceive yourself? You don't need any ghosts. The initial bout of compassion is gone. Now all that everybody
wants is for us to turn out to be a bad dream — so that they can get on with their lives!"
"How dare you say that!" Vorontsov wheezed. His white-knuckled fingers clenched the marble railing. He looked about to pass out.
Simeon turned towards Fort Stellar. "Admiral, this is your world. I don't intend to contest it. To each his own. My place isn't here. I wouldn't want an inch of this surface."
Vorontsov was afraid to let go of the railing. The distant lights swirled before his eyes. His temples throbbed. During the last hundred years — at least — no one had ever dared speak to him with such merciless clarity. Until now, he'd been the one to pronounce verdicts and decide people's fates. 'This brat offers me a deal?'
Still, he had no arguments to offer against the truth. Simeon wasn't trying to blackmail him, He'd simply expressed the admiral's most secret feelings.
"Fine," he answered, collecting himself. "That's your right. What kind of ship do you want?"
"Genesis."
"You can't! It's in a dry dock. We've made a decision to remove it from operation."
"But it's space-worthy!"
"There is no crew," the admiral explained. "They are disbanded. To operate a ship like this you need thirty men at least."
"Doesn't matter. We'll manage, Yanna and myself."
Vorontsov grinned. 'So this is the way he wants it to be. What a cheek!' He had the impression he was gaining his ground, the slight disappointment replaced by the anticipation of a moral victory.
"Well, let him try and fail. Then he'll come — no, he'll crawl back to me.''
The admiral knew that neither two nor ten people were capable of flying Genesis.
He produced a communicator. "Alpha four, I need a flyer. Tell Terminal 8 to unblock Genesis and provide a launch corridor-" he turned to Simeon questioningly.
"In an hour," Simeon suggested.
"In an hour." Vorontsov repeated. A smirk played on his lips. He put the communicator away and slapped Simeon on the shoulder. "The flyer is coming. It'll take you two on board Genesis. And in a couple of hours you-" he didn't finish the sentence, turned about abruptly on his heels and added,
"Enjoy your flight... grandson."
15.
The tiny flyer whizzed over Stellar's steely surface. It had left the city and the mountain tops far behind and was now approaching the neat grid of countless launching sites.
Simeon couldn't wait. Finally the little craft slowed down and dove toward the squat terminal building. The four segments of a round hatch parted, letting the flyer in. The airlock began filling with air. Finally the internal hatch clanged open. The flyer's hood went up.
Yanna and Simeon jumped out of the cab onto the concrete.
"Have you entered the return code?" Simeon asked.
Yanna nodded and took him by the hand.
They stepped into a corridor that opened up before them.
Simeon felt her body tremble.
The hangar was submerged in near darkness. Clusters of powerful lamps overhead struggled to disperse the gloom. Blue and red lights flashed along the perimeter of the launch pad.
Genesis lay on her belly. Two miles of perfect black armor that didn't reflect light: even the close flashes of signal lights disappeared in the depths of her armor plates.
Simeon stepped forward. The ship's dormant power was giving them the shivers.
Servomotors howled. The frontal part of the ship just under the control room came down, forming a ramp. A light glowed inside, inviting them to enter.
Without saying a word, they entered the elevator. A slight jolt; then the cabin rushed upwards. A panel on the wall flashed with the deck numbers.
15. The elevator hissed to a halt.
"Authorization confirmed," a voice said overhead. "Welcome to control room."
The elevator door opened.
Simeon and Yanna stood in the heart of Genesis.
A hemispherical hall was packed with control panels, screens, computer consoles and other electronics. Simeon counted fifteen main posts and five auxiliary ones. All seats were empty; the instrument boards in front of them flashed their lights, inviting crew members to take their places.
"But how on earth are we going to-?" Yanna stopped mid-word.
Simeon suppressed a knowing smile.
One of the seats by the central console swung around.
"Easy!" Andor said. His head was unscrewed open. Dozens of cables snaked from it, disappearing inside the console. His one hand was plugged into a connector, the fingers of the other lay on the keyboard. "Welcome aboard!"
Yanna giggled. "You should see yourself!"
Andor shrugged: the only gesture he could manage.
Simeon sank into the seat next to him. "Did it work?"
"It did indeed. I've set the ship's processor to speech mode. We've had a heart-to-heart, so now I'm her interpreter. Temporarily, of course," he added.
Simeon nodded. "Yanna, your seat is the sixth to the right of mine," he commanded. "The navigation console. You have forty seconds."
"Okay," she took the seat and studied the terminal. "What's the course?"
"We're leaving Stellar using the ion thruster. The course... whatever. Find a bright star and steer toward it. Hyperdrive safety range: three AUs."
"Andor?"
"System testing completed. Auto pilot on."
"Fine." Yanna's fingers lay on the keyboard.
* * *
Less than ten minutes remained of the hour Simeon had asked Vorontsov for. The hangar's dome shook, falling apart into ten segments. Genesis' belly glowed crimson.
"Lift-off," Andor said.
"Six feet! Fifteen!" Yanna's voice rang with excitement.
"Forty-five!"
A black silhouette rose above the gray surface of Stellar, surrounded with crimson flames: a powerful space beast shaking the planet as it forced its way out, growling.
"A hundred and twenty feet. We're entering the range of the space defense batteries."
"The engines are synchronized. Space defense systems show no activity."
Simeon's finger lingered over a key. "Have you sent the fax?" he asked Andor.
"I have."
"Then we've seen enough of this place."
The stern of Genesis flashed, flooding Stellar with a dazzling blue light.
A second later it blended with the abyss, becoming just another tiny star in the sky.
* * *
As Jedian headed for the Admiral's quarters, he was in an excellent mood. He'd managed to locate the planet where Simeon had been born. It was a modest planetoid in the God-forsaken system Epsilon-32, once known for its uranium mines. At the beginning of the first Galactic war an assault squad of the Earth Alliance had destroyed the mines, but fortunately the archived copies of their computer files had survived. They contained the colonists' DNA codes. Looking Simeon's parents up wouldn't be so difficult after all.
There was light in the Admiral's rooms. Jedian crossed the reception and stopped in the doorway of Vorontsov's private office.
Nobody in sight. That was weird. Fifteen minutes ago he'd spoken to his grandfather and told him he was coming.
Jedian pushed the door open and froze.
Admiral Vorontsov sat at his desk. A few loose pages lay in front of him — a fax, judging by the handwritten message.
But that wasn't what Jedian noticed first. The admiral's head was cocked unnaturally to one side as if he'd fallen asleep in an awkward pose. But was it possible to sleep with open eyes?
Jedian was panic-stricken. Stealthily, as if afraid of scaring Vorontsov, he approached his desk. The life support system next to it was flashing emergency lights. One look at it was enough to realize that the admiral had just had a fit.
Jedian's legs gave under him. He grasped at the desk, very nearly sweeping the pages off it. Jedian glanced over the lines. The handwriting was somewhat similar to his.
'We all had to go mad before we died,' he read a random line. His blood ran c
old as he realized what these pages were.
'But I remember. I still remember Mom's carefree laughter and the kind eyes of my Dad. The warm purple ocean of my native planet. I remember the feeling of boundless peace and happiness that only children have. The world was lying at my feet, so huge, astonishing and warm. It was mine. But all our dreams were trampled underfoot, mixed with ashes; frozen in a vacuum.'
'No wonder the old man had a fit,' Jedian thought, unable to take his eyes away from the handwritten lines.
'I'm neither a prosecutor nor a pacifist. I'm a professional soldier, an assassin legalized by the state, pulled by the force of circumstances out of the vicious circle of death and thrown away into a great icy nothing to die slowly, thinking.'
That was Andrei Vorontsov's diary.
Automatically Jedian's hand reached for the cables that snaked from the life support system to the admiral's chair. His fingers trembled as he pulled the wires out. Vorontsov's head jerked. The peaking graphs on monitor screens flattened.
Jedian stole a furtive look around and plugged the cables back in.
Life had come full circle.
EPILOGUE
A gargantuan structure drifted through deep space far from the busy galactic thoroughfares. Starborne Citadel.
Twenty planets had joined forces building it. When the conflict between Earth and the Colonies had broken out a hundred years ago, the colonists had no hope of winning the impending war. So they built Citadel that could serve them as a refuge in case their native planets were occupied.
The first Galactic war had plunged the inhabited areas of space into chaos. After the first crushing defeats, the Free Colonies' Alliance had disbanded under the strikes of the squadrons of the Earth Alliance.
Those were dark times for our civilization. Lawlessness and crime reigned in space. Hundreds of battles broke out, multiple planet alliances were created and then broken, piracy ruled, while entire planetary systems fell into decay.
Citadel's crew had no illusions about the future. There were some reasonable men among its senior officers, and after the first defeats suffered by the colonies, when the chaos was only just setting in, they steered their behemoth station toward an uninhabited and unexplored part of the Universe.
The Island of Hope Page 15