Flight of Exiles e-2

by Ben Bova

  Dan thought for a moment, then asked, “Is there any evidence of… tampering?”

  “Tampering?”

  “Deliberate damage. Sabotage.”

  Even in the dim lighting, he could see Joe’s mouth hang open. “Sabotage? Who in hell would do a thing like that?”

  “You found no evidence.”

  “Nobody looked for any. We’re just in there to get the damned thing fixed, not play detective.”

  “Then the generator could have been deliberately knocked out.”

  Joe shook his head, a motion that made his body drift away slightly in the zero gravity. “Who’d want to do that? It’s like slitting your own throat. We all need that electrical power—”

  Dan turned away from him and looked back at the stars. At the double star, close, beckoning.

  “One thing leads to another,” he said. “The generator blows out. This puts an extra load on the auxiliary power units. The circuits in the cryonics section overheat. A fire starts. My father dies. I get hospitalized. The Council elects a new Chairman…”

  “Do you realize what you’re saying?” Joe’s voice was barely audible, shocked.

  Dan nodded grimly. “That’s why I’m speaking softly, and saying it here, and only to you. If I had anything more than a few bad dreams, a few ugly thoughts—I’d be screaming it over the intercom system and going after the murderers with any weapon I could lay my hands on.”

  “Murderers? Dan—that’s crazy!”

  “Is it? Is it really?”

  Joe didn’t answer, merely shook his head.

  “In another two months we’ll be in orbit around the major planet of Alpha Centauri,” Dan said. “Key people among the cryosleepers will be awakened. My father—who was in charge of this when the voyage started—would have naturally resumed command…”

  “No, the Chairman elected by the Council would be in charge.”

  “I would have been that Chairman! But Larry’s taken it over. He took it while I was locked in the infirmary. And after my father died.”

  Joe actually backed away from him now. “Dan… you’re accusing Larry… my god, he lost his father in the fire, too.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone,” Dan replied, barely controlling the heat he felt within himself. “Not yet. There’s no proof of anything. But it looks rotten to me, Joe, and I’m going to find out if I’m right or wrong.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know—I’ll need help. Your help.”

  “Doing what?”

  Dan grimaced. “Watching. Looking for evidence. I… could be all wrong, I know that. But—Joe, I can’t sleep, not until I’m certain that this is all a nightmare, or…” his voice hardened, “…or, I find the proof and punish the murderer.”

  “Murder,” Joe whispered back to him. “Do you really think somebody aboard the ship could … murder?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  Larry sat nervously at the head of the long Council table.

  The Council members were filing into the narrow room, in twos and threes. Dr. Loring took his seat close to Larry, smiling at him. Trying to make me feel at ease. The permanent members were seated in the even-numbered chairs. The younger temporary members sat between them, heads of thick dark hair, or blond, or red, alternating with the grays, whites, and bald heads of the older generation. Of the twenty-four Council members, nine were women.

  The table was almost filled when Dan Christopher and Joe Haller came in together.

  Larry felt a flash of surprise go through him. Then he rose from his chair and went down along the table to Dan.

  “Hey, it’s good to see you back on your feet again,” he said, putting out his hand. “How do you feel?”

  Dan shook Larry’s hand without enthusiasm. “I’m all right,” he answered.

  “I didn’t know you’d be out of the infirmary today,” Larry apologized. “I was going to visit you. I did drop in once, but they told me you were sleeping.”

  “I’m fine now,” Dan said.

  And sore as hell, Larry realized. “Look… uh, why don’t we get together after this meeting and talk. There’s a lot we ought to hash over.”

  Dan nodded. “Okay.”

  Feeling even shakier than before, Larry went back to the Chairman’s seat and opened the meeting. He let the automatic procedures of every meeting smooth over his nervousness, and sat there listening to his pulse beating in his eardrums as the minutes of the previous meeting flashed on the wall screen at the far end of the long, narrow room.

  They rumbled through old business, and listened to Joe Haller’s report on progress with the generator. Adrienne Kaufman, head of the Genetics Section, recommended that the Council offer its official expression of sympathy for those who lost family members in the recent fire. Larry glanced at Dan while the unanimous vote was made; Dan was staring at him, his eyes ablaze.

  Then came new business, and Larry heard himself saying:

  “As you know, we’ll be in the Alpha Centauri system in about two months. Our trajectory will bring us to a point where we fly-by the major planet. At some point before our closest approach, we must decide if we want to decelerate and take up orbit around the planet, or continue onward and out of the Centauri system. So it’s time for us to begin a serious review of what’s known about the planets and to consider launching our remote probes, to gather more data on them.”

  Pressing a stud set into the tabletop before him, Larry said, “Here’s the best holo of the major planet that we have, taken by the original probe from Earth, nearly a century ago.”

  The wall screen seemed to dissolve. In its place, deep space itself took form, with stars hanging everywhere, and a fat, yellowish ball of a planet sitting in the middle of the emptiness.

  “Dr. Loring, could you review what’s known about the major planet?” Larry asked.

  “Not terribly much, I’m afraid,” Loring began in his most pedantic style. “That primitive probe was woefully small, and a horrendous communications problem—transmitting holographic data over more than four light-years is no simple problem, believe me! And, of course, the men who launched the probe weren’t considering settling down on the Centaurian planets to live. In fact, they didn’t even know there were any planets in the Alpha Centauri system when the probe was launched.”

  “All right,” said one of the other elder Councilmen. “Now how about telling us what we do know?”

  “Certainly, certainly,” Dr. Loring replied. “I won’t even discuss the minor planet… it’s airless, bare rock, baked by the big star, Alpha Centauri A… which, as you know is almost exactly like the sun. I don’t foresee any radiation problems for us from A… and star B is small and cool, no problems there either. No worries about high fluxes of ultraviolet or x-rays and such. Now Proxima—the third star of the system—is so dim and so far away that it will look like an ordinary star up in the sky. No influence on the planet at all.”

  “What about the planet itself?” Adrienne Kaufman asked sharply.

  “Oh, yes… Frankly, it’s not going to be paradise. The white clouds you see flecking the surface are water vapor, all right, and the temperature range of the planet should permit liquid water on its surface. But, as you can see, that surface is mostly yellow-green. Watery planets, such as Earth, tend to look blue.”

  “What is the yellow-green stuff?”

  Loring shrugged elaborately. “I wish I could tell you. The spectroscopic data returned by the original probe was very scant. I’ve been doing additional work with our equipment in the hub, but it’s still very skimpy data. There’s no evidence yet of liquid water on the surface. The planet’s density appears to be rather high, judging from the orbits of its little moonlets. Its surface gravity might be as high as 1 1/2 g… certainly no lower than 1.2. Anyone standing on that planet is going to feel heavier than he does now by 20 to 50 percent.”

  “That could make life unpleasant.”

  The chief medic said, “It could make life imp
ossible for us on the surface. Human beings can’t live normal, active lives under a continuous 1.5-gload. It would ruin your back, your abdominal wall, your feet and legs.”

  “But the data’s so sketchy—”

  Larry took over. “It’s very sketchy, and it could be wrong, too. I think we ought to launch our own probes as soon as possible, and start to get more detailed and reliable information.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement.

  Dan Christopher spoke up. “What happens if we find that the planet is as bad as we fear?”

  Silence. Everyone turned to look at Dan, sitting down at the far end of the table, then one by one they turned back to look at Larry for an answer.

  Larry hiked his eyebrows. “We’d have two possible alternatives. Either stay in orbit and live in the ship until we can raise a generation of children who are genetically altered so that they’re suited for life on the planet’s surface… or keep going and look for another star with a more Earthlike planet.”

  “Which would you recommend, in such a case?” Dan asked.

  Larry sensed danger, a trap. “It’s much too early to try to answer that question,” he said slowly. “There are too many variables, too many unknowns.”

  Joe Haller said, “Truthfully, I wouldn’t want to bet on this bucket of transistors making it much farther than Alpha Centauri.”

  “And we know nothing at all about possible Earthlike planets around other stars,” Dr. Loring pointed out.

  “Then we’ve got to stay at Alpha Centauri and modify our children to live on the major planet,” Dan said.

  Larry found himself shaking his head. “We don’t know yet. There’s a chance that we won’t be able to do that, even if we want to. And to expect the rest of us to live out our lives here in the ship while we’re raising children who’ll leave us and go live on the surface… well, I think we might run into some psychological problems there.”

  “Wouldn’t there be psychological problems connected with sailing off for some unknown destination?” Dan asked.

  “Yes, sure, but…” Larry stopped himself. Why does he want to start an argument? “Look., there’s no sense talking about this until we have some data back from the close-up probes.”

  Emile Polany, chief of the engineering department, said in a deep voice that still carried traces of old Europe, “We can launch the probes after a few days’ checkout. They are capable of high acceleration, and could be in orbit around the major planet in a few weeks.”

  “What about landing on the planet itself?” Dan asked.

  “The probes are equipped with instrument packages that can be soft-landed on the surface.”

  “Good. We ought to begin the checkout at once,” said Dan.

  Only then did Larry realize what was happening. He’s trying to take the meeting away from me. He’s trying to show everyone that he’s in charge, no matter who they elected Chairman.

  5

  The meeting ended.

  Much more swiftly than they had drifted into the meeting room, the Council members cleared out. Larry watched them leave, all of them except Dan. Finally he was alone in the room except for Dan. They sat at opposite ends of the table staring at each other.

  I’ve known him all my life, Larry thought, and now he’s a stranger.

  He got up from his seat and forced himself to walk down along the table to where Dan was sitting.

  “I guess you do feel okay,” Larry said, putting on a smile. He sat on the edge of the table, next to Dan’s chair. “You sure made yourself heard.”

  Dan was slouched back in his seat. He looked up at Larry and asked, “Why’d you get yourself elected Chairman? We agreed that I’d take it this year.”

  “I know,” Larry said, feeling rotten. “You… well, you were laid up in the infirmary, no telling how long you’d be there. The medics kept saying you were okay physically, but emotionally…”

  “So you stepped in.”

  “Yes.”

  “And being Chairman gives you the right to marry Valery, too, doesn’t it?”

  God, he can see right through me!

  “Don’t tell me that never entered your head,” Dan insisted.

  Keeping his voice steady, Larry answered, “You know we’ve both been in love with Val since we were kids—”

  “The Lorings raised all three of us. But we’re not playing brothers and sister anymore. Are you going to marry Val?”

  “That’s… up to her,” Larry said.

  “She’s promised to me!”

  “Computer selection. That’s not final.”

  Dan’s eyes flared, but he said only, “You’re willing to let her make the decision between us?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.”

  Larry felt the breath sag out of him in relief.

  But Dan went on, “Have you appointed a board of inquiry to investigate the fire?”

  “Board of… no, we have the report of Mort Campbell’s Damage Control group. That’s enough. What, good would a board of inquiry do?”

  .Straightening up in his chair, Dan said, “The cause of the fire should be investigated. Fifty people died, and we should know why. Somebody’s responsible; accidents have causes.”

  Feeling bewildered, Larry said, “We know why. The circuits were overloaded, the insulation gave—”

  Dan banged a hand on the tabletop. “I want a full investigation! With a formal board of inquiry. And I want to head that board. If you won’t set it up, I’ll call for it at the next Council meeting.”

  “But that would be like slapping Mort Campbell in the face. After all, he’s in charge of Life Support—”

  “I don’t give a damn about Campbell!” Dan shouted. “Will you appoint a board or do I have to get the Council to do it?”

  Larry felt ice-chilled inside. Another try to get the Council under his own control. “All right,” he said slowly. “I’ll appoint a board. You can even be its head. But you won’t find anything that hasn’t already been found.”

  “Maybe.” Dan pulled himself out of the chair and strode to the door without another word or a backward glance. The door slid shut behind him with a click.

  Larry sat there alone in the Council room for several minutes. Then he went back to his own seat and punched out a phone number on the tabletop keyboard.

  “Infirmary,” said a pretty nurse. Her face was ballooned many times larger than life on the wall screen.

  “Give me the chief psychotech, please.”

  “Dr. Hsai? I’m afraid he’s busy at the moment—”

  “See if you can interrupt him, will you? This is the Chairman; I must speak to him right away.”

  “Oh… yessir, I’ll try.”

  The screen went blank for a moment while a part of Larry’s mind smiled a little. Rank hath its privileges. The features of a thin-faced oriental in his thirties appeared on the screen.

  “Mr. Belsen, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Doctor, but this is important. I’m worried about Dan Christopher… he’s acting… well, strange.”

  Hsai made an understanding face. “Yes, that is to be expected. He feels the loss of his father very deeply, you know.”

  “Too deeply, do you think?”

  The doctor smiled. “To paraphrase a venerable adage; How deep is too deep?”

  Larry hesitated for a moment, then decided to say it. “Deep enough to unbalance him.”

  “Ahhh… I see. You feel he is unstable?”

  “He’s acting strangely, Doctor. Making veiled accusations. He wants to investigate the accident in which his father died. He talks as if he thinks somebody caused the fire deliberately.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Hsai thought for a moment. “Well, I had planned to check on him within a few days. Perhaps I had better make it sooner. And deeper.”

  “I’d appreciate knowing what the results are.”

  “Eh, the doctor-patient rel
ationship…”

  “Yes, I know. But Dan can be a very influential member of the Council. It’s important that I know whether or not we can trust his judgment.”

  “I see. Well, I suppose I can give you some feeling in that regard without violating any sacred oaths.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Very well, Mr. Chairman. I shall see him tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Larry’s office, as chief of the Command and Control section, was actually a cubbyhole set between the ship’s bridge and the computer center. Barely big enough for a desk and a small wall-screen viewer, the office was well suited for someone who was frightened of crowds and open spaces—or for someone who hated to spend much time at a desk and preferred to be moving around the ship.

  Larry went into his office and sat at the desk. Suddenly he was very tired. He ran a weary hand over his brow.

  A tap at the door.

  “Come in.”

  It was Dr. Loring. “I am interrupting something?”

  “No, not at all,” Larry said. “Sit down.” He gestured to the only other chair in the room.

  Loring’s bulk seemed to make the walls bulge outward. He squeezed around the plastic chair and then plopped down on it. Larry winched as the metal legs seemed to sag.

  “I wanted to congratulate you… you ran a good meeting, despite certain, ah—interferences.”

  Larry nodded absently. “You know,” he mused, “I hadn’t really understood until today how likely it is that the planet we’re heading for won’t be suitable to live on.”

  “Yes. That would be a disappointment.”

  “Disappointment?” Larry swiveled his chair around to face Dr. Loring directly. “It’ll be a catastrophe. It’ll mean rethinking the whole purpose of this voyage. Do we really want to stay at a world that’s not like Earth, and change our children into… into something different from us?”

  “Frankly, I don’t see any alternative,” Loring confessed. “We don’t know of any better planets elsewhere.”

  “Well, we’d better start looking,” Larry said firmly. “I don’t like being put in a corner. I want to have some choice as to whether we stay at Alpha Centauri or not.”