Flight of Exiles e-2

by Ben Bova

  Larry glanced at the life indications panel above the bed: heart rate, respiration, alpha rhythm, metabolic level, blood pressure—all low, feeble.

  Mrs. Loring collapsed. She simply fainted, and Larry had to grab her before she slumped to the floor. A pair of nurses appeared out of nowhere and took her off, muttering, “Shock… hypertensive…”

  A medic came in a few moments later.

  “I think it would be best for us to keep Mrs. Loring here, at least for the rest of the night.”

  Larry nodded.

  “How’s…” Val’s voice was shaky. “Wh…what are the chances for my father…?”

  The medic tried to smile but couldn’t quite force it through. “We’re doing everything we can. I think he’s stabilizing—that is, his life signs aren’t growing any worse, at least not over the past half-hour or so. But he’s in very poor shape… he needs extensive surgery. It’s probably beyond our limited capabilities. …”

  Larry said, “There are expert surgeons in cryosleep, aren’t there?”

  “A few.” The medic nodded. “I don’t know the details of their backgrounds—”

  “I’ll have them checked out. Maybe we can revive them.”

  “Revive them? That takes special permission—”

  “I know,” Larry said.

  “And the revival procedure itself takes weeks,” the medic went on. “We’d have to suspend Dr. Loring in cryosleep until the surgical team could be made ready for him. I’m not certain he’d survive freezing, in the condition he’s in.”

  Larry could feel Val’s weight leaning against his arm. Without looking down at her, he told the medic, “Dr. Loring is a very important member of the Council, and as close to me as my own father. Closer, in fact. I want every resource at our disposal brought to bear to save him. I’ve already lost one father… I don’t want to lose another. Do you understand?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Chairman.” The medic almost bowed. “Everything that can be done, will be, I assure you.”

  Turning to Val, Larry said, “All right. Come on, let’s get out of here. There’s nothing we can do except wait.”

  Slowly, he led her out of the infirmary.

  As they walked along the curving corridor to nowhere in particular, Larry said, “I want you to call a friend, somebody who can stay with you. I don’t want you to stay alone.”

  “All right,” she said quietly.

  He glanced at his wristwatch: almost time for the morning shift to start.

  “Larry…”

  “What?”

  Valery’s face was pale, her eyes frightened. “It’s like a sickness is sweeping through the ship, isn’t it? The fire, and Dan’s accusations, and now Dad…everything’s going crazy.”

  For a few moments Larry didn’t answer. The only sounds were the padding of their slippered feet on the floor tiles, their own breathing, and the vaster breathing of the ship’s air circulation fans.

  “Maybe,” he said at last, “it is a sickness. Maybe there’s a madman among us.”

  She should have looked surprised. But she didn’t. “You mean Dan.” It wasn’t a question.

  Larry shook his head “I don’t want to make accusations. Dan’s been acting peculiarly since his father died, but that doesn’t mean…”

  “It’s all my fault!” Val suddenly burst out, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Your fault?”

  “I’ve come between you. Dan hates me because I picked you, not him. He wants to get rid of you…destroy you. He thinks you killed his father, deliberately. And now…and now…” She couldn’t speak anymore. She was crying.

  And now he’s tried to kill Dr Loring, my foster father. Is that what she’s saying?

  The Council members were already in their seats, looking deathly grim, when Larry entered the Council room. The only empty chair was Dr Loring’s.

  Taking his own seat, Larry said as unemotionally as he could, “I’m sorry to be late I was in the infirmary. Dr Loring is still alive, but just barely. The medics have decided to place him in cryosleep until a surgical team is revived for an attempt to save his life.”

  “If there is such a team among us,” said one of the older Council members. “I don’t seem to recall too many surgeons among our original number. Biochemists and geneticists, yes, plenty of those. But surgeons?”

  Larry nodded curtly “The computer is searching the personnel files for the right people. If they’re found, I assume the Council is willing to waive the usual rules about retiring one person for each person revived? This is an emergency situation, after all.”

  They muttered and nodded assent.

  “And if there is no surgical team capable of helping him?” Adrienne Kaufman asked.

  “We’ll just have to keep Dr Loring in cryosleep until some of our younger members can be trained sufficiently well to operate on him.”

  “That could take a generation!”

  “Once he’s in cryosleep safely, it doesn’t matter.”

  “The old man shouldn’t have been wandering around the tubes by himself,” said a young Councilman. “Accidents can happen to the best of us.”

  “Was it an accident?” Dan Christopher asked, from his seat at the far end of the table “Seems to me we’ve been having far too many accidents lately.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Larry wanted to say something, to take command of the discussion, but he didn’t know how to do it without stirring Dan’s antagonism even further.

  “What was Dr Loring doing up there,” Dan asked, “at that time of night? What was he working on? His daughter tells me he’s been spending lots of his time in the observatory on some special task.”

  A couple of the Council members turned to glance at Larry. He would mention Valery, Larry said to himself, trying to keep cold hatred from numbing his whole body.

  “It’s no secret,” Adrienne Kaufman said haughtily. “Everyone knew that Dr. Loring was looking for other Earthlike planets, around other stars. At least, almost everyone knew.” She stared icily at Dan.

  “But there’s no record of his work in the computer memory,” Dr. Polanyi said. “I ran a check yesterday, when I first heard about the accident.”

  “It was no accident,” Dan said firmly “And his work was erased from the computer.”

  “What?”

  “How can you say that?”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  Dan leaped to his feet. “Ridiculous, is it? How’d you like to see proof that there’s a murderer among us?”

  Everyone started talking, arguing, shouting at once.

  “Quiet!” Larry roared.

  They all froze in mid-word. Arms stopped waving, voices hushed, and everyone turned to look at the Chairman.

  Quietly, calmly, coldly, Larry said to Dan, “What’s this all about?”

  “I’ve been checking into the computer, too,” Dan said, his dark eyes flashing. “And I’ve found something that shows there’s an organized plot to undermine our whole flight…a madman’s running loose, trying to kill us all!”

  They all started jabbering again.

  “Wait,” Larry said, silencing them with a raised hand. “Dan, if you have such proof, by all means, let’s see it. Right now.”

  Dan jabbed at a button on the small tabletop keyboard at his place. “You’ll see it all right.”

  The wall screen at the far end of the room lit up and showed a human face. Louis Christopher, Dan’s father, the driving force that made the ship, the voyage, their lives possible.

  As Louis Christopher began to speak, Larry could think of nothing except the enormous likeness between father and son. The same long, lean, dark face. The same handsome features. The same intense, burning eyes.

  “None of you will see this tape until I’m dead,” Louis Christopher was saying. “The fact mat you are viewing it now means that I have died. I hope that my death was a solitary affair, and hasn’t affected the performance of our ship or the success of our
voyage.”

  Christopher seemed to be staring straight at the camera, trying almost to hypnotize it, Larry thought. The effect was as if he was staring straight at the viewer, face to face.

  “As I speak to you, our journey has just begun. Earth still looms large behind us. The stars are very far away. There are many among us who oppose this voyage, who think it’s madness. Many among us were satisfied to remain aboard this ship in orbit around the Earth forever, prisoners, exiles for life.

  “We voted to aim for the stars, though, and that’s where we’re going. Still, many are grumbling. They fear the unknowns of deep space. They’re afraid of leaving Earth behind permanently.

  “They may try to subvert our voyage. They may decide that they’d rather be exiles near Earth than free men among the stars. They may try to get us to return to Earth.

  “That’s why I’m making this tape. Since I must now be dead, it makes no further difference to me what you do. But it does make a difference to the future generations, to our children and their children. Continue the voyage! Don’t let this magnificent ship, and our wonderfully brave people, be taken over by the fearful and timid. The stars are ours! We have the opportunity to reach Alpha Centauri and begin a new life there, on a literally new world. Reject anyone who would do otherwise!”

  Several of the Council members shifted in their chairs. A few turned to glance at Larry.

  “Our people have worked hard and struggled against titanic odds and risked everything they have,” Louis Christopher continued, “to get to Alpha Centauri. We’ve pledged ourselves and mortgaged future generations yet unborn to make a new world for ourselves, far from Earth’s decay and madness. You must continue until you reach that goal.

  “Now let me point out another danger. It seems unlikely that the planets of Alpha Centauri will be exactly like Earth. We have, though, the means to adapt our children genetically to live on a different world. Don’t be tempted to go further than Alpha Centauri. I know the construction of this ship, its limits and capabilities. It won’t last long enough to reach another star. Settle on Alpha Centauri; to do otherwise will be to destroy the ship, the voyage, and every one of you.

  “It won’t be easy to change your children physically so that they can live on a strange world. But it must be done. It is the only way. Be strong. Be brave. Good luck. And good-bye.”

  The screen went dead.

  For a long half-minute no one moved or spoke. Then one of the Councilmen coughed nervously, and they all turned in their seats, murmuring to each other. Dan remained standing by his chair, visibly trembling with emotion.

  Larry said as gently as he could, “Is that what you call proof of murder?”

  “What more proof do you need?” Dan blazed back. “He knew this would happen! He knew someone would try to subvert the whole voyage, push on to another star, get us all killed. He warned us.”

  “But how does that prove he was murdered?” one of the women asked.

  “Or that Dr. Loring’s accident wasn’t accidental?”

  Glowering at them, Dan replied, “We all know that if my father were alive now, he’d be revived and we’d vote him Chairman.”

  Larry said nothing.

  “And we also know that Dr. Loring was looking for another planet around some other star. If he had found such a planet he’d be blathering it all over the ship. He said nothing, because he couldn’t find another Earthlike world. In fact, he must have found evidence for no planets, or hostile planets… because whoever tried to kill him erased his work from the computer memory so that we’d never know what he’d found.”

  Larry pointed toward Dan and shouted out, “Or he might have found a new Earth somewhere, much better for us than the Centaurian planet, and his would-be murderer tried to keep us from finding that out!”

  They glared at each other from opposite ends of the table, wordless for a moment.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Adrienne Kaufman said.

  Larry took a deep, calming breath. “The truth of the matter is that there’s no evidence of murder, not of anyone at any time. All the deaths and near-deaths that we’ve had can be attributed to accidental causes. And anyone,” he stared right at Dan, “who insists on finding foul play behind every accident on this ship is running the risk of being thought insane.”

  Dan stood there, shaking with rage, face flaming. Then he spun around and stamped out of the Council room.

  Larry turned to the chief meditech, who was sitting halfway down the table.

  “I want him in the infirmary immediately. And I want him checked out even if you have to strap him down. We can’t have a madman running loose aboard this ship!”

  Because if he is insane, Larry said to himself, maybe he is a murderer!

  8

  The cryonics room felt like gray November to Larry.

  He had never known Earthly seasons, except through poetry and the videotapes he had watched during his school years. But here in the stark, cold, silent area where the frozen members of the ship’s people slept away the years, he shivered with the incipient chill of winter.

  The cryonics sections took up two full levels of the ship. The big compartments, called bays, were filled with row after row of massive covered couches, like the granite sarcophagi of ancient Egyptian pharaohs. But these coffins were for the living, not the dead; and they were made of stainless steel and plastic and honeycombed with tubes that carried liquid helium at 4.2 degrees above absolute zero. Instead of elaborate carved hieroglyphics, the cryogenic couches bore dials and gauges, automatic read-out viewers that showed the condition of the sleeper inside. Alive. Frozen, unmoving, unbreathing, silent and still for year after year. But alive.

  Larry had never been frozen. The prospect bothered him somehow. It was too much like death.

  The entire cryonics bay was like death, like winter; cold, lonely, silent. His breath hung in misty clouds before his face, and he felt chilled to the marrow despite the electric jacket he wore over his coveralls. The glareless lights overhead made everything look even flatter, grayer. The softly padded flooring muffled even the sounds of his footsteps.

  Dr. Hsai was already there, Larry saw. The oriental psychotech was waiting for him, several rows up ahead. Larry quickened his pace.

  “This is a strange place for a meeting,” Dr. Hsai said as Larry came up to him. He seemed more curious than upset.

  “I wanted to talk with you privately,” Larry explained. “This is one of the few places aboard ship where we can be sure of no interruptions or eavesdroppers.”

  The psychotech’s thin eyebrows arched upward, “Ahh…just what was it that you wanted to discuss?” If he felt cold, Hsai wasn’t showing it.

  “I understand that you want to release Dan Christopher.”

  Hsai bobbed his head once. “There is no excuse for keeping him in the infirmary. He has been there for almost a month now. I have seen him every day. There is no evidence of mental abnormality—nor should we expect to find any, under these circumstances.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mr. Christopher is not suffering from a physically caused abnormality. He is not schizoid, which is the result of molecular imbalances in the nervous system. Nor does he have any brain lesions, nor any other physically connected disease.”

  “But…”

  Dr. Hsai raised a slim, long-fingered hand. “Please. Allow me to continue. His problems are strictly emotional. Under the controlled conditions of the infirmary, this type of problem doesn’t come to the surface.”

  Larry felt himself frowning. “But you can probe his mind … analyze what he’s saying and thinking… his dreams and tests…”

  “Alas,” said Dr. Hsai, “I am only a psychotechnician, not a psychiatrist. Our only psychiatrist died in the epidemic a few years ago, you recall; the other two are here, in cryosleep.”

  “But can’t you tell…”

  “I can tell you that there is no physical reason for abnormal behavior in Mr. Christopher�
�s case. His behavior in the infirmary was, at first, very hostile and suspicious. He was angry at being… as he put it, ‘arrested and jailed.’ But he adjusted to the situation within a week or so, and has been behaving very calmly ever since.”

  Larry muttered, “And there haven’t been any accidents during the past month, either.”

  …Dr. Hsai shrugged. “Either there is nothing wrong with him at all, or…”

  “Or?”

  “Or he is clever enough to hide his emotions from me, and he’s waiting until he’s released to work out his hostilities.”

  “Can someone be… well, can he act normal and still be…”

  “Neurotic? Psychotic? Insane?” Dr. Hsai smiled sadly. “Oh, yes. The paranoids, in particular, can behave very normally… until they’re placed in a certain stress situation. Then their psychosis shows up.”

  Larry shuddered, only partly from the cold. “What can we do?”

  “It’s doing no good to keep him in the infirmary. Frankly, he has every right to be released and resume his duties.”

  “But if we do, we run the risk of his going amok … causing more ‘accidents.’ ”

  Softly, Dr. Hsai said, “My own opinion is that there’s nothing wrong with the young man, except anger and frustration. He feels the loss of his father very deeply; but even more deeply, he feels the loss of his expected position as Chairman and the loss of his chosen girl.”

  “In other words, he’s sore as hell at me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And he’ll do whatever he can to get Valery back, and get himself elected Chairman.”

  “Yes.”

  Larry took a deep, cold breath. Looking straight into the psychotech’s dark, calm eyes, he asked, “Do you think he’s capable of committing violent acts? Like murder?”

  Hsai shook his head. “Under the proper circumstances, anyone is capable of murder. Even you and I.”