Beyond Those Distant Stars

by John B. Rosenman

  She started to dismiss the thought, but some part of her that would not flinch from even the most odious truth made her reconsider. Assuming the Slug had not been lying, how could he possibly have been telling the truth?

  A seemingly irrelevant question occurred to her then. Why had the alien extended his boarding tube when he had them all at his mercy? What purpose could it have served?

  The answer came quickly. He did it because he was bored and lonely, banished from his fellows who were scattered throughout space. Just as I feel-have felt-banished from the fellowship of my own race because I am no longer human.

  The truth struck. The alien had been right. They shared a terrible loneliness, a mutual understanding. THAT was the bond he had spoken of.

  But she sensed a still greater bond, the one the alien had created in making her share his mind. That was the bond she needed to use. How could she do it?

  On the monitors, ninety-eight multi-hued polyhedrons and two crystal, disk-shaped levers faced her. George had said that to the ancients, the sum of ninety-eight and two represented some divine form of perfection. Ninety-eight and two equaled one hundred, and one hundred was everything, all there was.

  She stiffened in her chair. One hundred was all. It represented the All-Mother.

  She leaned toward O'Bannion's image. “Dan, do you hear me? This is McMasters.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “I want you and your crew to press all ninety-eight facets of the panel before you but not the two levers. Understand?”

  O'Bannion turned to his companions in perplexity. “All ninety-eight? Not the levers?”

  “Yes,” she said, putting steel in her voice. “Do it!”

  Despite their armor, the five figures leapt to obey. When pressed, each polyhedron blazed with light, and after the order was completed, the effect was mesmerizing. As Stella gazed at the dazzling array, it was as if something she had once known had returned to her.

  All praise to the All-Mother.

  The two levers in the center now scintillated with light, and she knew that the left one was different. If pressed alone, it would destroy the ship and inform the All-Mother that one of her sons had been conquered and had chosen to take his life.

  Stella shuddered. So the All-Mother knew. That was the very last thing she had needed, for the Queen Bitch Commander to come down their throats.

  She couldn't worry about that now. She had to decide what to do next.

  As she sat there, endless space seemed to unfold before her eyes, and she felt the boredom of eternal life, of loneliness beyond despair.

  Come into me. Come with me. I will take you to the All-Mother.

  No!

  Be in and with me forever. We will explore this universe and others. I shall show you eternity, Stella!

  “D-Dan,” she stammered, “I want you to listen carefully.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “Good. I want you to press both levers simultaneously, at the exact same instant.”

  “Yes, ser.” She watched him turn, place his hands against the two levers, and carefully press them.

  Nothing.

  “You were non-sync,” she told him when he turned back. “It has to be together. No deviation at all.”

  She watched him approach the dazzling panel again and place his hands carefully on the levers, trying to accomplish what the alien himself had done so effortlessly through thought alone.

  She watched him flex his fingers, prepare himself.

  Then push.

  Instantly the panel changed, opened out and wheeled up as if into a new dimension, towering over the crew who backed off in alarm. Beneath a large globe that floated in the center appeared complex panels consisting of strange gauges and differently colored, fluctuating ovals that resembled the singularity. From the remnants of her bond with the Slug, she knew they were electromagnetic force fields, vortexes that interrelated within an immensely intricate system.

  It was the drive and navigation center. Her bond with the dead alien had not only enabled her to solve the mechanism, but would enable her to control the ship.

  “Lee,” Stella barked, “tell Thunderheart to suit up with me at once. And have a shuttle pod ready. We're taking the Slug ship through the hole together.”

  * * * *

  Minutes later, as Myles attached her comm leads, George was still trying to dissuade her from going. His greatest objection, she suspected, was her chosen companion. Despite her haste she could tell he was also envious of Thunderheart, and when Jason voiced his concern, she felt a fleeting pleasure. Could Jason begrudge her the man's company too?

  “Stella, think!” George expostulated. “Even to go near that ship—”

  The arrival of Thunderheart's armor from his locker amidships ignited new activity as several officers moved to assist him. In the commotion, Stella slipped free of George's remonstrations and faced Lee.

  “I'm sending our crew back. There'll be just the two of us on the Slug ship. We're going to change the whole plan, Lee. When you receive my order, you take the Spaceranger through first, comm the guard ships on the other side and prepare them for our appearance so they won't launch an attack. We'll follow you thirty minutes after you disappear down the hole's throat. Copy?”

  Lee nodded. No frantic questions, no opposition, just prompt support. “Yes, thirty minutes.”

  “Good.”

  She wheeled about, anxious to be gone before she reconsidered and lost her nerve. As if sensing her impatience, those helping Thunderheart quickened their efforts, and he soon rose.

  “Ready, Commander.”

  They marched to the lift tube and descended with George's last verbal barrage reaching her ears. Twelve levels below, they left the tube and went to the shuttle port. There a pod waited, chambered into the projector tube that pointed out into space.

  At its helm, Brett Duvall grinned mischievously. “Hi, Stella.”

  Stella looked twice, and then grinned back. She glanced at Thunderheart, who beamed in delight.

  “We First Contact Heroes gotta stick together, don't you think?” Brett said. “Wish we could take the others, though. Be like old times.”

  Stella forced a laugh and boarded the pod, wondering if that was what the six-member crew who had first encountered a Slug would be called. In the far future, when they were long dead, would people sing of their exploits and remember their names?

  Vanity, she told herself. All any of us have is now. Think of that alone or you'll kill them all.

  When they were seated, Brett fired the thrusters and they shot down the tube into space. Covered by a plastene dome, the shuttle pod provided a clear view of space and remote, twinkling stars. To one side, Stella discerned a white dwarf, which seemed to symbolize the vanity of all hopes of immortality. In the end, everything was finite and died. Even the universe would grind to a halt one day.

  “I want to thank you, ser,” Thunderheart said.

  She snapped out of her reverie. “What for?”

  He looked down at his hands. “When my family died, I felt lost.” He squirmed in shame, and then forged on. “In just minutes I felt empty and alone, cut off from my strength. It was something I'd never imagined before.”

  In just minutes? Stella had heard of the close psychic bond among empaths but hadn't known its severance could have such a quick effect. “You had us, the rest of the crew,” she said. For the first time she wondered if Thunderheart's combat-tested, gene-engineered abilities were the only reason she had taken him with her. Perhaps she was also drawn by the fact that like her, he was different and alone.

  “It's not the same,” Thunderheart responded. “We grew up together, slept together, ate together, had sex together, and sensed what each was thinking. On a few occasions, we even had trouble telling each other apart or determining who we were. There was no I or you, you see. Only we.”

  “So you didn't need anyone else? The other crew were strangers?”

  Starlight glistened on
Thunderheart's faceplate. “Not strangers, but not comrades either.” He rolled his shoulders, searching for words. “More like distant companions, members of the same army.”

  Stella nodded, noting with a covert glance that they were halfway to their destination. “The Emperor too?” she prodded.

  Thunderheart looked down. “Not distant, but not near either. Our spiritual star, the one that brought us even closer. When my family died, that too was lost. I was lost. It was like...”

  “Like being terribly alone?” she finished. “No longer belonging anywhere or with anyone? A freak in a universe where everyone except you had a place? Is that how you felt, Thunderheart?”

  Thunderheart's head rose in surprise. “Yes! When I faced the enemy and he tempted me, I saw a way both to die with honor and to escape this growing emptiness which I felt would soon destroy me. With my dying breath, I could still serve you and my Emperor and damage the foe. So I attacked and the enemy took me, and I fought until my last breath was gone. And then...”

  “You died.”

  Thunderheart nodded, gazing past her into eternity. “But then, something very strange happened. Instead of endless nothing, there was your face, you bringing me back, only different now, everything different, and new.” His eyes shifted, and she saw herself register in their depths. “It was like being...”

  “Reborn?” she said.

  He drew a tremulous breath. “Like being reborn,” he said. “With you there to guide me.”

  Stella smiled and touched his shoulder, understanding at last the main reason she had chosen Thunderheart to go with her.

  * * * *

  As Brett Duvall fired the retros and the colossal bulk of the alien ship loomed up, doubt returned to Stella with crushing abruptness. Had she really solved this alien conundrum? Just because she had bonded with the enemy and prevented the craft's destruction didn't mean she could fly it, let alone take it successfully down a singularity.

  What a fool she was!

  Thunderheart's trusting gaze discouraged self-reproach. Feigning confidence, she rose briskly and strode across the egress ramp into the alien's boarding tube as Brett hovered alongside.

  “Brett,” she called over the whine of the engine, “I'm sending the crewmen back. Sorry I can't ask you aboard.”

  Brett's delicate, bright face grinned and she held up her hand as Thunderheart crossed the ramp. “Thanks for everything, Commander. I wouldn't have missed it for a shovelful of worlds.”

  Stella and Thunderheart marched down the boarding tube. It seemed strange, for while the crew who had accompanied her the first time were absent, she felt she could still hear their footsteps beside her.

  Turning left, they proceeded down the corridor where most of the fighting had occurred. All the bodies, both Scaleys and Human, had been transported to George's department, yet to her it was as if the battle still raged. A laser fired and a faceplate shattered. Screams of agony pursued her as they continued.

  Turning right, they headed down the corridor where they had defeated the Scaleys and where George, in single combat, had bested one of the enemy. Right again, down the vaulted corridor where the imager continued to unfold its dark magic-through the portal-and onto the alien bridge.

  The five-member crew stood at attention as Stella entered the room and stopped before them.

  “Comrades,” she said, “you may return to the Spaceranger. A pod's waiting at the boarding tube to take you there.”

  The crew traded glances, and then O'Bannion nodded. “Yes, Commander.”

  As they left, Stella approached the drive center's glittering, intricate array. Beyond it, the sweeping plexiport window yawned into space, revealing the swirling black mouth of the singularity. She gazed at it, and then returned her attention to the machinery.

  To her horror it looked different, confusing. She saw odd-looking, swirling ovals that resembled whirlpools and intricate gauges and scales. All were meaningless, mechanical gibberish. It was an alien Gordian knot she could never hope to untie.

  Thunderheart waited behind her. She turned and met his bright gaze, which she knew would see no fault or flaw in her even if she slunk away in defeat and returned to the ship. Yet her crew would not be so charitable, for she had brashly announced that she would personally thread this ship through a cosmic needle. Now she would have to admit she couldn't.

  Thunderheart smiled, and somehow it both calmed her and hardened her resolve, made her feel more capable. Though he couldn't help her pilot this ship, his presence strengthened her. She watched him sit down and strap himself into one of the welded chairs.

  When she turned back to the drive center, everything became familiar again. The ship was activating her link with the deceased alien. She could, in part, perceive her surroundings through the Slug's senses. Swallowing her fear and aversion, Stella struggled to accept the transformation and use it to her advantage.

  The panels no longer looked complex but rudimentary and as familiar as the contours of her sluglike body. Stepping forward, she felt the heritage and memory of her new race sink into her, recreating, with the lore of a billion centuries, every cell and fiber. Stars beckoned, and the gulfs called-called with a voice that had once been young and eagerly answered.

  No longer one race but two, Stella reached out and inserted her hand/mind into a gold, oval force field, savoring the electric tingle and warm flow of current in her fingers/body. All that was missing was a final component of the alien mind-link and she would be able to pilot the craft by thought alone, just as the Slug had.

  On the panel, a display appeared. O'Bannion and the others boarded the shuttle pod. Moments later the egress ramp withdrew and the pod looped off into space.

  Pressing her hand into two more force fields-a green one and a gray-Stella retracted the boarding tube and sealed the hatch. Then, as if she were seeing with the Slug's single, Cyclopean eye, she watched her hands blur as they flew over the panels, disappearing into vortexes, accessing and adjusting their interplay and systemic balance, preparing her ship for the leap ahead.

  When all was ready, she strapped herself in beside Thunderheart. Before her, one swirling red oval stood out, commanding her attention. It alone, she knew, would free this vessel for its plunge down the singularity.

  Rubbing her chin, Stella spoke into her comlink. “Time to go, Lee.”

  “Aye, aye, ser,” came the reply. “See you in thirty minutes.”

  Shortly afterward, the Spaceranger streaked past them. In the plexiport, she saw it whoosh down the maelstrom as if sucked to perdition. There was a glint of silver hull, a flash of fin, and then nothing.

  Glancing about, Stella focused on familiarizing herself with the ship. Thank God she could fly it. Maybe things were going their way at last.

  Her thoughts turned to Jason, and she remembered how close he had seemed in sickbay, how his voice had sounded when he said, “I can only hope you feel the same way.” She regretted not telling him of her love, but then, could she really be sure of her feelings? What if the ache in her heart, this yearning, was only a sick need born from loneliness?

  When a half hour had elapsed, she smiled at Thunderheart. Then she reached out for the red oval vortex that would propel them through the singularity.

  My son, Wind-of-the-Stars-what has happened to him?

  The voice was an exhalation from far away. Words in an alien language breathed through her mind.

  Stella clutched her chair in shock. Wind-of-the-Stars is dead, she thought. I have blown him out, All-Mother.

  Gone, this fruit of my fertile womb? The astonished response seemed to come from a great distance. His ship, the Pregnant Song, abides still, and yet he has spun his death song?

  I myself spun it for him, Stella answered. And I alone will guide the Pregnant Song.

  Brief silence. And what are YOU called?

  Though she did not have to speak, Stella's lips formed the words. “If you choose to know, share with your other bastards this truth: I, Stel
la Singlethorne McMasters, sang your child to death and claimed his craft.”

  And what are you?

  She savored her response. I am a human.

  Even greater astonishment reached her across the void. Then hate beyond description raged and staggered her will. Before it, her son's power over minds was as nothing. Before it, even the close bond of empaths was an insubstantial dream. Even from a great distance, Stella felt her determination falter. What could possibly stand against this monster?

  Stella Singlethorne McMasters, the silent voice whispered, I will await your arrival and spin your death myself. It will be a song like none I have ever spun, and I will sing it not only for you but for all your inferior species.

  Stella fought to quell her rage. As she did, something passed through across the infinite sea of space, a glimpse of some great secret the All-Mother possessed that she didn't want to reveal. What was it? Even as she searched, it was gone.

  I myself will spin your death song, she countered, and every note shall be a dirge.

  She reached for an oval.

  Phantom laughter. Are you sure it is THAT one, frail human?

  She snatched her hand back, an ice pick of realization making her gasp. Suddenly, she no longer knew into which force field she should insert her hand. While she had been sparring with the All-Mother, her opponent had been playing a far deadlier game without her notice.

  It is I who shall sing for you! Malignant, labyrinthine laughter.

  Stella tore her eyes from the panels and glanced at Thunderheart, who tensed at her distress. “Commander, are you all right?”

  She ignored him and turned back.

  You have lost! Triumph, distant glee.

  No. She studied the mazelike configuration. She must concentrate. Could it be the blue oval, or the green? She moved her hand in that direction. One of the purple ones, perhaps? Again, she moved her hand.

  You have lost!

  No!

  Part of the Slug's memory returned. The oval force field she must use was located directly before her. Which one was it? Could it be the one with the starlike, changing cluster, the orange one that seemed to endlessly iris shut, or the gray? Yes. No. She had to decide.