Cave of Stars (Macrolife Book 2)

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Cave of Stars (Macrolife Book 2) Page 23

by George Zebrowski


  “I saw enough,” she said, “to know the life we might have had, and might still have.”

  She looked up at him, waiting for his answer.

  “I know too much,” he said, “to hope blindly. But I still hope.”

  She kissed him quickly. “I have something to arrange,” she said and turned to the door.

  Alone, he climbed back into his bunk, determined to confront and set right what seemed to be happening within him without his consent.

  He lay there, listening to the ventilators, and remembered when Josepha had told him about prayer. Paul had told her it was a way of organizing one’s will and intellect to deal with loss and responsibility.

  I had the Link to help me do that, he had told her.

  Now, as he considered once again the loss of his lifespan and the deterioration of his body, he wondered at the feelings that stuck to the simple perception of facts. All the strengths of mind and ingenuity that had made more of human life than the fleeing shadows Josepha had known on her world were slipping away. The security of the mobile’s life had proven impermanent, and he feared the weakening of his body that would bring states of regretful sentiment and longing—until at last he welcomed death. His people would die nobly, but without the nobility of what had been lost. Shadows would visit his eyes more often as he aged, until his sight blackened and his limbs were stilled.

  “No,” he said out loud, and sat up and looked around what Josepha had called, in bitter moments, the coffin of their cabin.

  He would live to see the last of pity, and the start of recovery. A Link would join him again, bringing all the hoard of knowledge humankind had won from time, and he would share it with Josepha.

  62

  The survivors from Ceti’s penal islands gathered amidships, in one of the large storage bays just off the long axis. Josepha had insisted that Jason arrange the meeting. She tried to look confident as she entered the bay. Some of the men looked away from her. All fourteen Cetians, counting herself, were present, sitting on the floor, on containers, and standing near the bulkhead. She stopped and realized with a shock that she was looking at what might be the last of her people, and that they no longer regarded her as one of them.

  Jason sat alone on the floor against a large carton, looking away from her.

  She stopped under the single white square of light in the low ceiling and said, “I want to hear your complaints, alone, before Voss and Wolt get here. You can speak freely to me. I will take nothing amiss, however mistaken I might think it to be.”

  “How considerate of you!” Pietro Lukis shouted derisively, showing his teeth.

  “I am one of you,” she replied sternly.

  “Bely’s brat is one of us!” Lemuel Annan shouted, and Josepha cringed inwardly, wishing that Jason had not revealed the fact.

  “Shut up, Lemuel,” Jason said, looking at her with regret. “I thought we had all agreed that she had nothing to do with him.”

  “So you keep saying,” Lemuel muttered.

  Josepha looked around at the skeptical faces of the nine men and four women, most of whom still looked thin and unwell, and said, “Think what you will of me, but these people are not like us. They don’t act from greed or distrust, but from what’s constructive and possible.”

  Jason squinted up at her. “You’re so very sure of their motives.”

  “If their motives had been so bad,” she said, “they would never have come close enough for the Pontiff to destroy them. Remember, it was he who did this to you.”

  Jason said, “No one knew what Bely had in his hands to use against them. These starpeople came to show off, and were too careless about it.”

  “None of that matters now,” she said. “Nothing is more important now than getting this ship to the base in Praesepe. They don’t have enough sleep facilities for their own people, much less for us. Many of them face death as we do.”

  “But more of them will live!” Lemuel shouted.

  “Their lifespans are longer, to be fair,” Jason said.

  “Let’s be fair!” Lemuel cried, half laughing. “They want us to whelp children and die.”

  “They will also have offspring—” she started to say.

  “What?” Lemuel asked. “You mean they know how?”

  “They have offspring,” she said, “but not only as a means of securing the future.”

  Lemuel laughed loudly. Jason raised a hand for silence and said, “This is all beside the point. What I question is their decisions concerning us.”

  “If you tried to understand what kind of people they are—” Josepha began, and stopped. “What do you think should be done?”

  “That’s clear enough,” Jason said. “Risk more jumps and avoid a century of travel.” He looked directly at her, as if saying, Agree with me now.

  “But you don’t understand,” she pleaded, looking from one face to another. “It would be foolish to risk everything. There would be no way to save the situation if a jump threw us at random.”

  “Who’s to say?” Jason said. “It might work out fine.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Josepha said.

  What do you know? Jason’s look asked her.

  “Who cares if we make their base!” Lemuel shouted, then leaned back against a storage case. “There’s worlds out there. We could find one and make a new life for ourselves.”

  Josepha took a deep breath, appalled at the man’s ignorance. “Even if you looked for a thousand years,” she said, “the chances of finding a world where we could live, breathe, and eat are almost zero. And we would be starting with no technical base to help us, like our ancestors had on Ceti. They had a starship full of help. We’d have nothing.”

  Lemuel licked his lips, obviously shaken.

  “Let’s get back to the point,” Jason said. “We can’t live for a century. We can’t be what these people are, and that includes you, Josepha. You’re asking us to contribute to their future, not ours.”

  “I’d rather die under an open sky,” Terence Ohar said with sorrow in his voice. Josepha looked at the young man for a moment, and then at Beata Lorenz, who sat with him on the floor and stared at Josepha with old, tired eyes.

  “What I am saying,” Josepha said, “is that there is no choice but to make the best of things as they are. This applies to everyone on this ship. Don’t you think they would prefer to have it otherwise?”

  “Do you know that?” Lemuel asked. “How can you be sure?”

  “She talks fancy,” a small, bent old man sitting in the shadow between two crates said sadly. “I don’t understand a word.” Josepha recognized Padraic Tolen.

  “They saved you from the storm,” Josepha said.

  “They wouldn’t have,” Jason answered, “if you had not persuaded Voss Rhazes.”

  There was a long silence, but she realized that Jason’s words had helped her, by reminding everyone here that she had helped save their lives.

  “How far can we be from our destination?” young Terence Ohar asked hopefully.

  Josepha took a deep breath. “I know it’s hard for us to understand travel between stars. The distances are greater than anything we’ve known.”

  “But you’ve had it explained to you,” Jason said.

  “It would take thousands of years to reach even the nearest star to Ceti,” she said. “We’re much closer than that. Everything that can be done is being done.”

  “Screw you, bitch!” Lemuel shouted. “You’re going to whelp bastards for them, then sleep it off! Why can’t you stick to your own kind?”

  Josepha’s heart fluttered before the force of Lemuel’s words, but she was determined not to show her humiliation. She looked at Jason, but he would not meet her eyes as he stood up and leaned against a crate. His posture still reminded her of Ondro. She felt his bitter confusion, and wanted to help him, to help all these people whose lives had been wrecked by Josephus Bely.

  “What can we do?” she asked. “We’re from a backward world, where
life was ignorant and short. You knew that when you opposed Bely, and he exiled you for it He destroyed the life of these people after they had rescued you from certain death.”

  “Gratitude must end somewhere,” Jason said.

  “We have our lives,” Josepha said, “and we’re all in this together.”

  Lemuel sighed. “That’s just it,” he said tiredly, “we’re not all in this together, not in the same way. How much can we mean to them? Fourteen of us and some three thousand of them?” He looked at her reproachfully and said, “You’re fee only one of us who means anything to them.”

  Josepha tensed, and for an instant she saw a look of sympathy on Jason’s face.

  Bent old Padraic Tolen grinned at her toothlessly. “They’re soft,” he said. “Just give me a few moments alone with Rhazes or Blackfriar and we’d have what we want.”

  “Shut up!” Jason shouted.

  “You’re in love with her,” the old man shot back, “so you’ll take her part in the end. It might be your ticket into a sleeper berth.”

  Jason gave her a look of defeat.

  “Josepha’s right about one thing,” Lemuel said. “They’re not like us. They can’t know what we’ve lived through, how we feel and think. Makes it easier to let us die. What’s thirteen lives against three thousand to them?”

  “They’re stuck with us!” toothless Padraic cried out.

  It had all been too much for them, Josepha thought, the change from the islands to the habitat, the struggle to reach the rear docks after the explosions—and now this ship, with its metal corridors, harsh lighting, and hopeless journey through a darkness without daylight.

  She said, “You must believe that I am with you,” but looking at their faces, she couldn’t tell what they were thinking.

  “She’s sincere enough,” Jason said, “as far as it goes.” He looked unsure suddenly, searching for his words. “They’re not really our enemy, not the way Bely was. They just want to make it to their base so they can start over. Nothing wrong with that. We’ll gain if that happens, even if it’s only through some of our children. It’s not their fault we’re here, caught in the middle. It’s not their fault that there’s fourteen of us, who can’t be as important as three thousand and what’s waiting for them. It’s not their fault our lives are so short. Thank the likes of Bely and those before him who made life the way it’s been for us, when so much more was possible.”

  Josepha looked around at the faces as Jason spoke, and for a moment she began to believe that a real discussion was beginning. But she also saw that their fears could have no answer. This small group could never be whole again. By exiling them, her father had taken family and friends from them. And her rescue of the exiles had come, if not to nothing, then to very little, bringing death to most of them when Bely had loosed his weapons against the mobile. A double amputation had left only bits and pieces of the people they had once been. She could not expect them to speak to her as fair-minded souls, or view her with anything but skepticism and contempt. All this she would have to make Voss and Wolt Blackfriar understand.

  The door slid open behind her.

  “We’ve come to listen to you,” Voss said behind her.

  She turned in time to see Blackfriar come up next to him.

  “Please speak freely,” Blackfriar said.

  Josepha felt her stomach tighten as she sat down on a cylindrical container.

  “You must understand,” Jason said as he came forward, “what our position on this ship is.”

  “Please explain,” Blackfriar said.

  She saw Jason smile, and realized with dismay that they would not know how to talk to each other.

  “We’ll die off,” Jason said, “with no chance at the longlife that waits for you, no chance of living long enough to get there, no chance at sleep.”

  “Only a few of any of us will sleep,” Voss said.

  Jason glanced at Josepha, and the regret that she saw in his eyes seemed beyond help. “From what I understand,” he said, “many of you will live long enough to get there without sleep. Our world is gone, while you still have something of yours left, and a hope. If we survive the next century by mating with your kind, there will be nothing of us left. We will become you, and help you rebuild your way of life.”

  “There is a planet,” Blackfriar said, “where those of you who might still be alive can settle with your children.”

  Jason looked around and asked, “How many of us will still be alive?”

  “We can rejuvenate any survivors,” Voss said. “And they can have children, as you can now.”

  Jason looked around and said softly, “That would be hard on our five women. Will we be permitted to have offspring with yours? And whose children would they be then?”

  “You can have a variety of your own children,” Black-friar said.

  Jason looked puzzled.

  “We can combine enough of your hereditary materials,” Blackfriar explained, “to start fetuses, store them, and bring them to term in better times. We can still regain that capacity. No women, yours or ours, need carry young in their bodies unless they can and wish to do so.”

  Jason looked around the group, then back at Voss and Blackfriar. “If this is true—” Jason started to say.

  “There is some hope,” Voss said, “that we won’t have to reproduce to survive. We’ve sent a shuttle ahead to Praesepe, and it may bring back whatever we need to repair this ship’s drive, long before aging becomes a problem.”

  “You’ve sent a vessel ahead?” Jason asked with surprise. “With a jump drive?”

  Voss nodded. “No word from them yet, but we expect them back soon.”

  “You have nothing to fear from us,” Blackfriar said. “When we begin to rebuild and grow again, you may even have a chance to go back and help your world.”

  Jason glanced at Josepha, and she saw that he still doubted. He was struggling to control his feelings, to prevent them from drowning his reason in what he saw as credulity.

  “And what if the shuttle does not return?” he asked. “And why are you afraid of trying further jumps?”

  “We would all risk losing everything,” Voss said.

  “There may be no help at Praesepe,” Jason continued.

  “That’s possible, but unlikely,” Blackfriar said.

  “Another jump might be no more a risk than others,” Lemuel added.

  “It’s our lives,” Jason said, “those of us in this bay—that’s what we’re worried about. What chance have we got doing it the sure way? We’re not very important to you, are we?”

  “I’d like to die in daylight!” old Padraic rasped.

  They were right, Josepha thought. It was going to be too late for the faces staring with hope and fear at Voss and Blackfriar.

  Blackfriar nodded. “We will take the best solution for the greatest number, despite the cost to you or the rest of us.”

  “I told you so,” Lemuel said.

  Jason was silent for a while. “I do realize,” he said finally, “that there may be no happy solution. We may gain, through our children, only if you succeed, but your success will be too late for…most of us here. But the shuttle’s return may solve all our difficulties. When did you say it will return?”

  “In several days,” Voss said. Josepha was surprised by his vagueness, then realized that it was deliberate.

  Jason looked around at the gathering and Josepha knew that there would be no more discussion. They had all been worn down by the hope and fear of words, enough to see that only events would decide the future.

  “We’ll wait,” Jason said with a nod so much like Ondro’s, and Josepha heard only defeat in his voice. What else was there to do but wait? What else would there be for any of them if the shuttle failed to return? It had all been said.

  63

  Jason went to see Voss in the forward control area on the day after the meeting with the Cetians. He had agreed, at Josepha’s urging, to find out as much as he could about th
e ship’s predicament. He had decided to go despite Lemuel’s charge that he was planning to join the enemy because it would be his only chance to live.

  The baseless accusation had infuriated Jason. “You don’t think I remember you,” he had said to Lemuel, “but I do. And I know that you were a thief and common criminal, not a courier for the resisters as you claim.”

  “What do you know?” Lemuel had jeered. “What do you remember?”

  “I saw you pick up that knife on the hill just before Rhazes rescued us. What were you thinking? That you’d have a better chance at being saved if you made room for yourself by killing a few others? You should have cut your own throat!”

  Lemuel looked surprised. “What?”

  “During the storm,” Jason said, remembering that he had expected Lemuel to attack him, but for some reason the man had held back, shaking and looking pale, as if he might be ill, and Jason had glimpsed the fear inside him. The truth was that the man had planned to kill himself.

  “Well?” Jason asked. “Do I go to the control area to see what’s what?”

  ‘They’ll turn him!” Lemuel had shouted, but the faces of the others had told him to go.

  “We’re all agreed, then,” Jason had said, but Lemuel had turned away, hugging himself as if he had caught a chill.

  Voss showed Jason to the second station in front of the panel, then sat down next to him. “We’re putting as much power as we can into continuous thrust,” Voss explained. “That means our speed will keep increasing for as long as we exert force. At large speeds we can make the passage to Praesepe in a shorter experienced time.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jason said, remembering Lemuel’s warning that it would be easy for Rhazes to deceive the ignorant.

  “It’s a fact of nature,” Voss said, “that faster moving clocks run slower in relation to their point of origin. That also holds for your heartbeat, since your body is a natural clock.”

  “There’s no doubt of this?” Jason asked, looking carefully at the man who was his rival for Josepha. Maybe Lemuel was right—maybe she wanted him only for purely practical reasons of survival. As he sat next to the man, Jason realized that he couldn’t read him at all.

 

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