Stewards of the Flame

by Sylvia Engdahl

  “Oh, Jess. Our people wouldn’t go voluntarily into stasis if the odds of revival were 100 percent. They would rather die, literally.”

  “Some would, maybe—but would they condemn the others? It won’t work unless we all do it. If even a few refused and kept using up life support, it would run out too soon; then those in stasis would surely die there.”

  “Which is exactly why I can’t propose such an option. The people who’d go along with it would become victims of the rest.”

  “Peter,” Jesse said in dismay. “You of all people know that doing the hard thing generally pays off.”

  “It’s more complicated than that, Jess. I’ve led you and others to do hard things—but not without support. You’re relatively new to our ways and you still don’t grasp the part unconscious telepathy plays in influencing what people do. Take my word for it, neither you nor anyone else could have done what you did in training without a lot of backing.”

  “You provided that backing. You can do it again.”

  “Not by myself, or even with the help of a small minority.” Peter sighed. “As I told you in the beginning, we’re not supermen. Our abilities are built on what those before us have undergone. Not just on the knowledge that they got through it, but on their presence, their psychic encouragement. That’s why we hoped to establish our own culture, after all—why we’ve wanted our kids to grow up in an environment that supports the development of our psi skills.”

  “It doesn’t take skill to go into stasis. Plenty of colonists did it, even on this very ship! There would be no colony on Undine if your forebears hadn’t done it.”

  “But the telepathic backing of their contemporaries influenced them, just as it determined the way different societies on Earth—going back to ancient times—varied in what was routinely accepted versus what was viewed as beyond the pale. There were cultures in which cannibalism was common, yet you won’t find anyone on Earth today who’d eat human flesh. And you won’t find many among us fugitives from Undine’s vaults willing to climb into stasis units just like the ones we’ve escaped from, even with the theoretical expectation of someday waking.”

  “Are you speaking for yourself, Peter?”

  “No. I’d do it. I wouldn’t find it easy, but I would do it—I’d even go first if I thought others would follow. But they wouldn’t. The unconscious telepathic pressure from the majority, you see, would work against it instead of supplying encouragement.”

  “Then you’re saying nothing the Group has achieved can be salvaged. That Ian’s vision meant nothing, and we’re all going to die to no purpose.”

  “Yes, I am, Jess,” Peter said with sadness. “The Group has always believed in accepting death when the time comes. None of us ever envisioned facing it in quite this way . . . slowly, while our bodies are still strong and our minds are young, knowing that only a few secretly-transmitted records of what we’ve worked toward will survive us. But we can resign ourselves to it. We gambled and we lost.”

  “Damn it, Peter, I know you’re a fatalist in the sense of believing in fate, but you don’t usually let that keep you from inspiring people to act.”

  “Nothing I might say to the Group could overcome a shared phobia as strong as this one.” Peter had aged in the last hour, Jesse saw; he no longer seemed young and vital, and that was due not to fear of his own death, but to despair over the futility of what was past. “Foolish and tragic though it is,” he maintained, “the majority couldn’t face the very real possibility of dying in stasis—which existed even when it was routinely used on starships. They’d choose to wait and die naturally when our life support’s exhausted.”

  Jesse was silent for several minutes, pondering. Finally he said, “I can’t let that happen. I’m Captain of this ship, and I’m responsible for more than three hundred lives. I’ll do what I have to do to save them.”

  “You have no power to save them,” Peter said wearily. “The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can focus on getting us through what will be very difficult final days. There are decisions to be made about rationing, for instance—”

  “I’m Captain,” Jesse repeated. “In space the Captain has absolute authority. I will give the command for stasis—and if necessary I will enforce it.”

  “Enforce it? There’s no way you can do that.”

  “But there is. For all you know about human nature, Peter, in some ways you’re damned naive. Force of the kind common most places was suppressed on Undine. Guns couldn’t be imported and I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen one. But freighter command requires ability to defend the cargo, after all. The Captain’s locker on any starship contains sidearms, and I’m experienced in the use of them.”

  Peter stared at him. “God, Jesse! You’re not serious!”

  “Of course I am. I know that for you it’s a taboo, one of the kind that depends on the culture a person grows up in. But you, personally, are able to overcome that sort of conditioning. You’re capable of judging between two evils and deciding which of them you’d rather have prevail.”

  “Put that way . . . I can’t argue with you. But it won’t work, Jess. Our people aren’t going believe you’d shoot them if they refuse to obey your orders. They know and admire you, and unlike the Fleet crew we threatened, they’re sensitive enough to your mind to grasp your underlying intent.”

  “Are they? Or will they unconsciously block that sensitivity, as you’re evidently blocking it now?” At Peter’s gasp of shock Jesse added, “I wouldn’t point a gun I didn’t intend to fire, Peter. Consider this your first lesson in how to handle a gun.”

  “And are you going to hold a gun on Carla, then?” Peter demanded. “She won’t get into a stasis unit voluntarily, you know; her phobia about them is stronger than anyone’s. I suspect she’d prefer to be shot.”

  In anguish, Jesse bowed his head. “Which side are you on, Peter?” he demanded. “Do you want us to live, or not? If you do, you’re going to have to help me, not make it impossible.”

  Peter did not answer. In turmoil, Jesse left him on watch and went alone to inspect the stasis deck. The sealed hatch opened to his voice. He descended the companionway to the anteroom, turned on the power, and entered the chamber. It looked just like the vaults in the Hospital. Most others in the Group had, like himself, served briefly as vault attendants; there would be no difficulty in operating the equipment. Although there was no way to test it and certainly no assurance that it would function throughout the time they would have to hibernate, everything appeared to be in working order.

  But, he realized with dismay, there was one physical difference, a large difference, between what the Group would face and what the early colonists on this ship had experienced. When stasis had been used for long-term space travel, passengers had been sedated by trusted medical personnel before being put into the units. They had not gotten in by themselves. Now, on Mayflower XI, there was no supply of suitable sedatives. People would have to literally climb into what looked like coffins—might well prove to be coffins—and let the lids be closed before lowered metabolism could render them unconscious. It was all too probable that some of them might balk.

  What was he going to do? He could not let everyone die when there was a chance of survival! Would ordering them to comply at gunpoint work—or would some really prefer to be shot? Would it be justifiable to shoot those who preferred it in order to save the rest? But, he thought in agony, if he started that, he would have to carry it through, and what if one of them was Carla?

  Peter was leader of the Group. It would easy to let him make the decision he’d seemed to believe was his. But that was not how it worked in space. The responsibility was the Captain’s, whether he actively assumed it or not. Even if he proved unequal to it. Even if his miscalculation led to a slow, agonizing death for all aboard. Falling into Maclairn’s star would have been better than that, Jesse thought despairingly. At least they’d have died instantly. . . .

  He sat for a long time, hunched over with
his back against the anteroom’s bulkhead, seeing no answer yet unwilling to give up hope. If they were to act, it must be soon. It would be no good having regrets once the life support resources dropped below the level that would permit stasis to be followed by reawakening. Furthermore, enough time must be allowed after waking for establishing an orbit around Maclairn and for the many shuttle trips that would be needed to get everyone to its surface; it would be worse to die within sight of their new world than never to have reached it.

  Finally, reluctantly, Jesse went to his cabin. By the clock it was nearly morning; he would need a few hours of sleep to get through the demanding day to come. But in the cabin he would have to face Carla. She would want to make love, and if they did that, if they entered the enhanced telepathic state sex engendered, he could not prevent her from perceiving the truth. He’d hidden the existence of the shipboard stasis vaults so far because he’d felt no personal emotion about them . . . though on an unconscious level he must have shared her emotion, despite her resolute suppression of the memory that haunted her. Now, there was no way he could keep them out of his mind.

  She was asleep when he entered; he left the light off and tried to undress soundlessly, hoping she would stay asleep. But of course she didn’t. His desperation intruded into her dream. Carla sat up, not needing to see his face to know his anguish. “There’s something wrong,” she said, without uncertainty. “Tell me, Jesse.”

  He sat on the bed and drew her into his arms. “I can’t tell you,” he whispered. “It’s too hard a thing to say.”

  “Then let me into your mind! Come to bed and show me, if you can’t put into words.” She threw off the sheet and pulled him down; he kissed her, but forced himself to hold back.

  “Carla, we mustn’t do this. If we do, you’ll learn something you don’t want to know.”

  “Jesse! How could I not want to know whatever’s troubling you? Didn’t I share the very worst with you, when you were condemned, when we believed your mind would be destroyed? Don’t shut me out.”

  “The problem isn’t just mine. It affects you—and everyone.”

  “Is the ship in danger, then?”

  “Yes, Carla,” he admitted.

  “Well, are you going to keep that to yourself forever? Or are you planning to let me find out when you tell the whole Group? Isn’t the Captain’s wife entitled to advance notice?”

  She did have a right, he realized. She would have to know eventually, and to find out this way, through their love, would be easier for her than to hear a general announcement. It was himself he was trying to protect, not her—if their minds merged he would share her shock and terror as intensely as her physical response. So be it. Perhaps he could give her some comfort, for a short while, at least. Anyway, this might be the last time. . . .

  The last time. He had not thought of it that way before, but if they went into stasis and failed to wake, this would be the last time they ever made love. Oh God, they could not die like that—shut away from each other, alone in the dark, encased in steel boxes with the AI doing horrible things to their bodies, trapped there forever. . . . He must not let Carla find out that he’d ever considered it. Resolutely he thrust it from his thoughts and buried his face between her breasts, trying not to think at all as his perceptions and hers began to blend.

  They joined, lost at first in the rapture of mutual sensations. But he could not feel his usual pleasure in them. Against his will, the image of the vaults welled up again—the vaults as he had just seen them . . . row upon row of racked units, translucent covers darkened so that whether they contained bodies wasn’t apparent. . . . In shock, he withdrew from her, but it was too late; they were both too aroused for the telepathic bond to weaken. Carla, confused, shrank as if from her old nightmare, the execution of Ramón. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought it wouldn’t come back. . . . Then as she sensed more and cried out, panic overtook him, and she saw, in the nearest unit, her own face.

  She jerked away from him, screaming.

  As their shared consciousness shattered, Jesse knew with dismay that not all the fear had been Carla’s. Though she’d pushed him over the brink, part of that fear was his own . . . fear for her, but also for himself. The units had looked like coffins. He was no more eager to seal himself into a thing like that than anybody else. In horror he recalled the blue-faced body in the Hospital vault’s unit that had failed, the one he’d helped to transfer . . . what if he died in stasis and Carla did not, what if she woke to see his unrevivable corpse, knowing they were doomed after all since without him to pilot, they could not get to the surface of Maclairn? Or the other way around, what if he was forced to open the vaults and found many such corpses, hers among them?

  Even if they all survived stasis, it might prove to be for nothing. Was it even possible that he alone, the only one capable of flying a shuttle, could make enough round trips in quick succession to get three hundred people off the starship before the meager life support that would remain ran out? If not, he was asking many to face a futile ordeal. . . .

  He pulled Carla toward him again and held her, caressing her trembling body. Her mind was shut tight against him now. Neither of them spoke. After a while he began to shiver and pulled a blanket over them. Eventually she retreated into sleep, but Jesse could not. He lay wakeful beside her until morning.

  ~ 67 ~

  By this time tomorrow it would be too late, Jesse thought despairingly. He was Captain, he was responsible for over three hundred lives, yet he was powerless to sway the Group toward the one slim possibility of survival. He was no longer even sure that he himself was capable of doing what he must ask of them. Still, he must offer them the choice. He could not allow Peter to make it for them by default.

  Carla was very calm. She knew everything, of course; telepathy takes less time than speech. She had grasped the whole truth in a flash, though not all consciously, and had processed it as she slept. They rose and dressed, saying little.

  As he started to leave the cabin, Carla reached for his hand. “I’m not afraid to die, Jesse,” she said. “That’s what the Group has always stood for, isn’t it—not fearing death?”

  “But we might live, Carla!” Jesse said. “We might wake up within sight of a new world!”

  “No,” she said sadly. “Peter was right when he told you we can’t do that.”

  There was a knock on the door and Jesse opened it to Peter. “Kwame has the watch,” he said. “I’ve filled the rest of the Council in, and there’s no question about how things will go. But as a member, you have a right to speak before we vote. Can we meet here, now?” He frowned, his eyes on Carla.

  “She knows,” Jesse said shortly. “We slept together.”

  “Then I assume she’s confirmed what I told you.”

  “Yes.”

  “If the Council’s going to meet, I’ll get out of the way,” Carla said, straightening the bed cover.

  “No—stay, Carla!” Jesse pleaded. “You and I didn’t talk. You sensed only the worst of it.” To Peter he said, “I’d just inspected the stasis deck. It was vivid in my mind, and I—panicked. Do you suppose I don’t know how hard it would be to—” He broke off, telling himself that it was only for Carla’s sake that he avoided spelling it out.

  Kira came in with Hari and Reiko. Before seating herself at the table, she embraced him. “Jesse, dear,” she said, “we all know the hell you’re going through. If there were any possible way we could support you, we would—and it’s our own lives at stake too, after all. But we couldn’t save them by proposing a plan we know people won’t accept. We would only make things worse for those who’d want to follow it.”

  “My God, Kira. Are you so sure the rest won’t listen to reason? I’m scared, too—more than I thought I would be. But that’s no excuse for throwing away our only chance to live.”

  “There’s more to it than simply being scared. Isn’t that right, Carla?”

  Carla nodded. To Jesse she said, “I’m sorry. I wish I
were as strong as you are. But you—you came from Fleet, where such things seem natural. For us it’s different.”

  “It is,” Peter agreed, “and it’s not a matter of strength or weakness. You see, Jesse, we’re all afraid of something, deep down where we may not ever find it. And when we learn to overcome our more troublesome fears, we project the emotion we suppress onto that deep fear, that phobia, so that it becomes a symbol of all the rest. That’s the price we pay for our freedom from them. In the Group, the maintenance of bodies in stasis is that symbol. And because we do live free from other fears, it’s an exceptionally powerful one. It stands for everything we strive to resist.”

  “Yes,” declared Jesse, anger suddenly rising in him. “That’s exactly what it is—a symbol. No more than that! It matters to us, the living, not to those who die. There is life and there is death—there’s no in between. Maybe something comes after and maybe it doesn’t, but either way, what happens to dead bodies isn’t going to change it.”

  “Then why have we been risking arrest all these years to keep bodies out of the Vaults?” Carla protested.

  “Because it does matter to us. Because a society that worships mere flesh is built on false values, and can’t ever move beyond that stage to empowering the mind. But we’re beyond it ourselves, after all. Surely you don’t think that if we die in stasis we’ll be trapped in our bodies somehow—like the old tales of ghosts that can’t go to their rest because they’re not properly buried.”

  “I don’t know what I believe,” she whispered. “I just know I can’t die the way Ramón and Ian did. I can’t let you die that way.”