THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

by Ivan Cat

  Bob remembered Sheldon's World. He remembered the coming Armageddon: a freak swarm of comets on collision course with Sheldon's World. He remembered thinking they would all die. But he also remembered his discovery...

  They thought they were so clever. They thought no one else saw their plans to flee Sheldon's World and leave everyone else to fry or get squished. But Bob saw. Bob was a cargo boss at the time, restocking Long Reach with a crew of grunts, who worked in space-suits to protect them from dropping into fugue-coma. One day when he was alone, Bob opened a bunch of crates and saw what was inside. Booty. Art looted from public galleries, hordes of precious metals and gems, storage cubes full of technical secrets that would set them up in style on a different world.

  Bob kept this discovery to himself. No one willingly challenged authority on Sheldon's World. It was clean and orderly because laws were harsh and punishment harsher. The citizenry liked it that way, so twenty million pairs of peeking eyes kept a lookout for boat-rockers. Any revelation of what Bob knew would at best lead to martyrdom and Bob was not into that. So Bob did nothing until the day he fell and cracked his helmet.

  To his shock, Bob did not black out as fugue-laced atmosphere hissed into his suit.

  No one had to tell Bob what to do then. When Long Reach accelerated out of system bound for Evermore—a suitably cushy destination for fleeing cowards—Bob stayed on board. At first, he didn't feel much guilt over abandoning the rest of the planet's population to die, but about halfway from Sheldon's World to Evermore, when Bob knew beyond a shadow of doubt that everyone on his homeworld had been wiped out, he did begin to feel shame. After all, if he hadn't been so concerned with saving his own precious skin, he could have warned someone about what the backstabbers were up to. Bob began to feel cowardly and to despise himself. It was at this point that he began to idolize Karr, who was everything honorable that Bob was not. It was also then, between the stars and far from watchful authorities, that Bob stopped dosing up, dropped into slowtime, and began making a twisted penance for his sins—by shoving Karr's passengers out the airlock. Day after subjective day, week after subjective week, Bob's toil continued.

  One day, some time after their chat in the dreamchamber, Karr surprised Bob by appearing on Wendworm Way, still as a statue, but with the concerted look of a man who has places to be and things to do.

  Grinning, Bob poked Karr in the chest.

  "Hey Lindal, you got a drop of fugue on your ghimpsuit." Karr did not look down as the joke demanded, but Bob flicked him under the nose anyway. Then he went back for another body, chuckling all the way.

  Fourteen trips later Bob got bored.

  Bob laid his present burden across Karr's arms and shoulders. The ghimpsuit fibers tightened up like muscles to compensate for the extra load. Bob knew that Karr's own muscles were of little use in fuguetime. Even in the relatively low gravity caused by the fugueship's deceleration, Karr could not support his own weight without the ghimpsuit. The suit even exercised his muscles with electrical charges so they would not atrophy in low gravity. It was an amazing piece of technology all right. Except for showers, Bob never saw Karr without one on.

  Bob was only two times slower than realtime, so he didn't need a ghimpsuit to move around. Bob could talk with his own vocal cords and everything. Sure the ghimpsuit fabric also protected against foodyeast contamination, but it was hot and sweaty.

  Bob smirked. It was kind of funny the lengths his naïve buddy went to decontaminate, when he, Bob, had missed several decontaminations and it hadn't affected him in the least. In fact, it had increased his mental capacity; it was only after missing the decontaminations that Bob got the fabulous connection between airlocks, the backstabbers in the dreamchamber, and what he could do with them in combination. Yes, that was when it all started to make sense.

  Still smirking, Bob examined Karr's face. Bob had come upon Karr during a blink, so Karr's eyes were closed. With thumb and forefinger, Bob rolled one of Karr's eyelids open. The pupil did not register Bob. Of course not. He Bob, Avenging Angel, was far too fast for his slow friend. He let the eyelid go and it eased back down. Bob felt a fleeting pang of guilt, but it soon passed. Life on the fugueship was boring and Bob needed a bit of humor once in a while, even if he was the only one laughing.

  Bob succumbed to another mischievous impulse, suddenly pursing his lips and blowing air up Karr's nose. Karr still did not move. Bob held Karr's eyelids open. Bob leaned in. Bob licked Karr's eyeballs. Giggles shook Bob's withered body. Afterward Karr was as unmoving as usual, no wincing, no flinching.

  "You are such a good sport, buddy," Bob said. He tousled Karr's hair, picked up the dreamer, and continued with his angry task.

  When Bob passed Karr on the way back, his friend was frozen in the act of rubbing his eyes. Bob giggled again. He just couldn't stay angry, not with a guy like Karr around to keep him amused.

  Once out of his quarters, Karr never stopped moving, never stopped to tend the new wounds Bob had caused to his beloved ship, although it almost killed Karr to pass them by. Dreadful minutes elapsed. Karr knew Bob was messing with him. Karr's senses did register the unwanted intimacies, even if he could not see the perpetrator, but Karr bit his lip and pressed on, shirking off fits of burning in his eyes or sudden moist sensations in his ears. When a pair of his underwear appeared over his face like a deranged mask, he simply tossed them off. Nothing stopped Karr's inexorable progression of one foot ahead of another.

  Karr turned onto Airlock Alley.

  Now came the tough part of his plan. Karr had one shot at stopping Bob. If Karr didn't get it right the first time, there would be no second chance. A stiff weight in Karr's thigh pocket reassured him that the manual qi stick was still where he had put it. All the physical elements were falling into place. Now if Bob would just take the bait, and if Karr could only survive the upcoming mental ordeal....

  Bob shoved the last dreamer into space long before Karr made it to the airlock. Bob slept (in Karr's bed), masturbated (wearing Karr's underwear), then spent several frustrating hours shooting needles into various parts of Long Reach. The fugueship wasn't doing what Bob wanted. The more needles he shot, the less result he got. Bob had a temper tantrum, slashing and stabbing Long Reach until the ship shook with pain around him. That would teach the stupid beast. Panting, Bob sat down and congratulated himself into a better mood. After all he had a lot to be proud of; all the backstabbers were gone. All of his problems were solved.

  All except one.

  There was one more body to heave out the airlock: Karr's. Karr was a really great guy; Bob loved Karr, but Karr was misinformed. Karr gave his loyalty to the wrong people. Just look what Karr went through for them: the endless workload, the fuguing up, the decontaminations. Bob had to admit that no matter how much he liked his buddy, Karr was not on his side. When they reached Evermore, Karr would turn Bob in to the authorities. That was certain. It tore Bob's heart out to think it, but his buddy had to go. Bob procrastinated a few hours, but the prospect of killing Karr only grew more intimidating, so he reloaded his stolen Gattler and set off to find Karr.

  Karr had made it all the way to the "malfunctioning" airlock when Bob caught up with him. Karr's motionless body was poised halfway through the open inner iris-portal.

  What was his friend up to? Bob stepped around Karr and entered the lock to get a better look.

  Karr's eyes were almost closed, or just opening, and showed only the merest of slits. In one hand Karr gripped what looked like a long, thin ice pick. In the other was the mindercard, held up for Bob to read. Bob didn't want to read the message. It probably said something really nice and that would make killing Karr all that much harder. But Bob was so starved for conversation that he couldn't resist leaning in for a peek.

  Bob read aloud, "I'm sorry, Bob; but I have to kill you now."

  Bob couldn't believe his eyes. Surely his buddy Karr had not written that! Bob double-checked. "You have to kill me now?" That's what the words said, plain as
the stars in space. It irked Bob. "You have to kill me now?" With rising anger Bob realized he had been betrayed, again. First the backstabbers and now his friend.

  "What are you going to do, poke me with that hop-stabber?" Bob circled, venting. "You can't kill me. I can kill you, but you can't even think of killing me. You can't even see me!"

  To prove his point, Bob pranced like a boxer, jabbing Karr in the ribs with the butt of his stolen Gattler. Ghimpsuit fibers tightened up, absorbing most of the impact.

  "Do you like it? You do? Good, because I can do this all day long." Bob jabbed Karr again. "All day long—you traitor! I don't need you anymore. I figured out this Pilot-stuff. I can do it myself!" Bob worked himself into a frenzy. It was okay for Bob to plan to kill Karr. That was just necessity, but for Karr to contemplate killing Bob, that was far different. That meant Karr wasn't Bob's friend and that really hurt. No one ever liked Bob. Everybody dumped on Bob. Bob felt powerless when people dumped on him. "Where do you get off screwing me? After all I did. I kept you alive!"

  Bob blustered in front of Karr. Bob should have killed Karr right away, but Bob was a coward. Bob needed an excuse.

  "Come on statue-boy, I'll stand still." Bob stopped jumping around. "Take your best shot.

  "Come on!

  "What's the matter?

  "Afraid?"

  Bob ranted as minutes ticked by.

  "Hurry up you bastard! I'm waiting for you!"

  Imperceptibly at first, then ever so slowly, Karr drew back the hand with the ice pick, readying to plunge the steel spike into Bob's heart.

  "That's it. Here I am!" Bob challenged.

  He waited for the pick to start back down. He would wait until it almost reached his chest, then nail Karr with the Gattler, crucifying him to the walls of his own precious fugueship. Bob was in control and he reveled in it, like a starving man revels in cookies. It never occurred to Bob that he was in danger.

  That's when Karr sprung the trap.

  To Bob's horror, the pick suddenly plunged down with deadly speed. Bob raised the Gattler to block, but the blow was not aimed for him. Karr's arm sliced past Bob, stabbing the qi pick into a critical nerve cluster in the wall.

  Karr was not fugue-saturated!

  Karr winked victoriously. His slow movements had been an evil masquerade to catch Bob off-guard. Bob realized the trick as Karr kicked off of Bob's chest, falling back inside the ship. The inner door irised shut. Bob heard a building, rushing scream behind him, felt tearing wind and biting cold as he was sucked back and pitched out of the growing aperture in the outer airlock door. He clutched at the wrinkled skin, but it was too late. Bob shot free of the lock amid a spray of ice crystals, flash frozen from moist atmosphere hitting the vacuum. Expanding breath ruptured Bob's lungs. Relentless, absolute cold froze Bob's eyeballs open. His last views, as he tumbled further and further away from the airlock, were of the spinning arc of bodies outside, which glittered against eternal night like a string of pearls.

  It was a nightmare. A chilling, breathless nightmare that ended, not with a bang or a flash, but with a frozen-solid fading into nothingness, never to awaken. Just like all the others he had killed.

  Karr reclined on a seven-yard-wide dome of cerebral cortex in the brainroom, idly stroking warm pillows of tissue that puffed up around him like a great feather bed. He stared up, unfocused eyes not seeing the faintly glowing dome of cartilage overhead or the blinking of human control consoles around the edge of the pear-shaped room. It was this place that Karr liked best out of all the places in the ship and it was in that strange position that Karr felt the strongest bond between fugueship and Pilot. It calmed him. And he needed to be calm, because the tiny human and the great ship were in a lot of trouble.

  It all centered around time.

  Realtime. Slowtime. Fuguetime. How it slipped away, no matter what the subjective speed. How much had been wasted. How much Karr desperately needed. How terribly little was left.

  Karr was in slowtime. He had not dosed up on fugue after ejecting Bob from the ship, just as he had not dosed up after noticing Bob take a disinfectant shower in his quarters. Karr had understood then that he could not fight Bob in the minutes and hours of fuguetime, only in the seconds. And those were too few. But Karr knew that if he got to Bob's speed, he had a chance. Karr had pressed the purifier hoses into his nose and even opened the spigot, just in case Bob was watching, but unseen in the palm of his hand he held the hoses crimped so that no fluid made the journey through his head. By the time Karr left his quarters he was dropping out of fuguetime. Soon he was suffering the agonies of withdrawal from one fugue state to another. By the time Karr met Bob at the airlock, they were moving at the same speed. That had been the really hard part. It took every ounce of concentration Karr could muster, but he waited, holding himself immobile—difficult even in the low gravity and with the ghimpsuit's aid—praying that his opportunity would come before Bob caught on to the ruse.

  The extermination had gone off like clockwork. Karr had won. Bob had lost.

  Sort of.

  Accusing voices rang in Karr's head.

  Protect the ship. Keep the ship alive. It was his duty. His foremost duty, excluding all others. He must not fail. Instructors had hammered that into Karr at the Pilot Academy. His primary concern must always be for the ship. Karr came second. Cargo, a distant third. Outside concerns, which did not affect the ship, did not even register as problems. The instructors had gotten their point across. Horrible though the loss of thousands of human lives was, Karr was more terrified by Long Reach's intensifying sickness. A Pilot is nothing without his ship. If need be, a Pilot must lay down his life to save his ship. Without fugueships humanity was trapped in the gravity wells of far flung star systems. Without fugueships there was no Colonization, no Destiny. There were only three of the cherished creatures left in human space. Soon there might be only two.

  Karr's fugueship was dying.

  Karr could barely bring himself to think the ugly thought. But the facts could not be avoided.

  Fact: Bob had gone berserk with Gattler and qi needles. Hardly an organ, qi meridian or bone in the fugueship had gone untouched. Karr had hunted for and removed many of the needles that Bob had implanted with such callous abandon, but Long Reach's condition continued to worsen.

  Fact: Bob had damaged the navigation-lure in a crude attempt to change course. The remotes in the brainroom would take weeks to fix, weeks Karr did not have.

  Fact: Bob had opened Long Reach's aft engine orifices at right angles to its proper trajectory, which sent the titanic ship skewing off course.

  Result: although Karr had closed the aft orifices and restored the proper flow of fuel from storage bladders into the fusion furnace, there was no chance of getting back on course for Evermore.

  Fugueship trajectories built up from day after day, year after year of constant thrust. Before turnover from acceleration to braking, a trajectory change of four degrees was possible. After turnover, trajectory could not safely be altered more than two degrees. Bob, in his desperation to avoid judgment on Evermore, had opened up the reserve hydrogen bladders and attempted a course change exceeding thirty-five degrees. The mad maneuver was doomed to fail, except that Long Reach was now three degrees off course, sick, and plunging into deep space like an express elevator to hell. Karr had only enough reserve fuel to correct course one degree and still be able to brake when Long Reach dropped below ramscoop speed.

  And, perhaps worse than all these physical difficulties, was Bob's final gift to Karr: the realization that it was all Karr's fault. Although rarely at the forefront of his mind, Karr was proud of being a Pilot. And not just a good Pilot, but the best Pilot. Together Karr and Long Reach had seeded more colony worlds faster and more efficiently than any other fugueship-Pilot combination. But now it was obvious that Karr was not holding up his end of the partnership.

  He was a bad Pilot.

  A good Pilot would have paid attention to the levels of disinfecta
nt fluid and antifungal pills in his quarters. A good Pilot would have discovered Bob long ago and Long Reach would not be dying. It didn't matter to Karr that no one, not even his drill instructors, would have faulted him for ignoring a billion to one long shot. All Karr had was his duty. The precious moments of Karr's life, which others spent building the memories that make up a lifetime, Karr had spent in the fugueship, alone. Karr did not exist in the real world. There were no friends, lovers, family; they were dead or had never existed at all. What did Karr's life mean if Long Reach died?

  Nothing. That's what.

  It was worse than if he had never been born at all.

  Karr closed his eyes and pressed further back into his bed of warm brain. He had to concentrate. Bob had shaken his universe, but Karr must not think of Bob. Karr had to solve this deadly puzzle and save his ship, before time ran out.

  PART TWO

  Collisions

  IV

  Enclave of the Body Pure Planet New Ascension Seventeen years later.

  It was a hopeful evening. The motion of the ground was a soothing wide roll, almost imperceptible. Jorjorra mounds sighed and divided, sighed and divided, piling up content and calm, like melons, and warm breezes caressed clouds of petals down from blooming sailtrees. The darkness, usually full of fear and misgiving, seemed that night to wrap the ring-island and its inhabitants in sheltering arms.

  A heavy duty crawler lumbered through this unaccustomed serenity, an overgrown scarab, but with six immense studded wheels instead of insect legs. Electric motors whined as it rolled along a rutted track. A one-man cab, its doors long since removed for ease of use, perched at the front of the vehicle's flat deck. Inside, a teenage-looking Jenette Tesla worked the control levers, her lithe body taut on the seat. Keen blue eyes peered past bobbed hair—which was a light gray, almost white, blonde, marking her as a second generation colonist—and she wore a one-piece daysuit the color of scorched sand. Beside her on the engine cowling sat the predatory silhouette of a Khafra, its dagger teeth glinting in pale dashboard light.