Beyond Those Distant Stars

by John B. Rosenman

  Powers, Stella saw, was looking at her differently. “Do you really believe what you said?” he asked. “We need strength and discipline, especially these days, when there's so much disobedience.”

  “Have they been enough?” Stella answered. “Yes, we need strength. Yes, we need discipline. But we need something more: a willingness to accept the fact that those of us who falter and break in this terrible war aren't the enemy, but our comrades.”

  “Compassion,” Gage said. Her eyes moved to Orian's widow and son, and then slid away.

  “No, not compassion,” Lovejoy said. “Sophistry. A specious, sentimental rationale for treason and weakness.” He glared at Stella. “And all of it spoken by a mechanical soldier with a duroplast heart.”

  “But a soldier nonetheless,” Stella said. “And one better than you.” Seizing Lovejoy's belt in both hands, she lifted him half a meter in the air.

  “Hey! What...” He sputtered in shock.

  “I may be duroplast, major,” she said, “as well as some components you've never even heard of, but I urge you to remember that it was I who defeated the enemy, I who flew the enemy's ship here. When you debrief me a few hours from now, be sure to include that in the report.”

  Above her, Lovejoy's obelisk face was now wonderfully expressive, with intriguing shades of color. He opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider, and closed it.

  “Commander,” Gage said, her voice not quite concealing her pleasure, “I'd appreciate it if you'd be kind enough to put Major Lovejoy back down.”

  Stella smiled up at Lovejoy, tempted to lift him still higher, through the ceiling if necessary. “I'll be glad to oblige, General,” she said. “By the way, do you think you might ask the good major to personally invite Tessa Farron and her son to join us?”

  * * * *

  She walked down the massive, sixty-meter-wide concourse, holding Tessa Farron's hand on one side, and her son's on the other. Just beyond Tessa, General Gage marched with them, her face sending ambivalent signals.

  When Stella glanced behind her, Colonel Powers’ expression seemed similar-troubled, no longer so certain. Only Major Lovejoy looked unchanged. Clearly, he was not happy to be with them.

  Stella smiled at Tessa and her son, trying to coax a smile out in return, but they both looked crushed and overwhelmed. As they should be, Stella thought, especially the boy, who was too young even to understand. Stooping, she picked him up in her left arm and cradled him against her.

  On the walls of the concourse, large oval holos of a silver-haired, handsome man appeared at regular intervals. He bore many rows of medals on his chest, and his slate blue eyes gazed off into a distance beyond their ken.

  “He's a good-looking man,” Gage said, following her eyes. “He visited here once.”

  “Really?” She adjusted the boy's weight in her arm. “What's he like?”

  Gage considered. “Greatness and pettiness rolled into one.”

  “I see.” She peered ahead at the corridor's foreshortened horizon, seeing the beginnings of crowds massed against both sides. “What did he have more of, greatness or pettiness?”

  Gage shrugged. “I could never decide.”

  The beginning of distant cheers half-drowned out her answer. Soon they could no longer speak, for the numerous people waiting had started to clap. It sounded wild, joyful, unrestrained, as if they had been waiting a long time.

  Would they still applaud when they realized who was with them, when they saw the traitor's family? Glancing at Tessa, Stella saw the dread in her face, the fear of public disgrace that would crown her already staggering loss. Was she doing this woman a kindness in taking her on this march? Even if the people didn't revile her and she stayed as a guest in Stella's quarters, would anything really change? After she left, wouldn't Tessa be returned to the room with two locks and as many guards?

  Against her cheek, Ulysses Orian had fallen asleep and was beyond such cares. But she knew that someday he would have to face them.

  Soft words at her back, Lovejoy's voice: “They will cast curses, Commander. Despise them for what they are.”

  “It appears I have a higher opinion of our comrades than do you, Major. I say they won't.”

  Lovejoy didn't answer.

  And now, with Loran's regal features gazing down upon them, they reached the first of the people. The applause swelled, the cheers rising still higher.

  Then, abruptly, they faltered. Stella saw people nearby turn silent and stop clapping. Some pointed at Tessa and her son and spoke quickly to those standing next to them, who stopped clapping too. The effect rippled ahead through the people waiting, and their enthusiasm diminished, though they didn't know why. Stella looked past Tessa to Gage.

  “I would have told you,” Gage said, “but you wouldn't have listened.”

  She glanced at Tessa, whose twitching, wet-eyed face showed that she was fighting hard to keep her head up, and felt a dagger of doubt. Was it just pride and vanity on her part to believe that she could change people's hearts? Maybe she was just as closed-minded and arrogant as Lovejoy.

  “You said it yourself,” she said to Gage. “We have to change the way we think.”

  Gage scanned the people with her eyes. “I didn't mean this.”

  The people were almost silent now. Their faces were riveted on Tessa and the child. Looking closely, she saw revulsion, contempt, and hatred, but here and there she also saw flickers of pity and compassion.

  Raising her hand and Tessa's together, she stopped and the others did also. Turning to both sides of the concourse, she looked at the silent rows of people, then at Lovejoy. “At least there are no curses.”

  Lovejoy smiled. “This is even worse. They give you nothing, only the silence of their contempt.”

  And indeed, they were all silent now. They just stared and stared, vast walls of contempt that could never be climbed.

  No, not just contempt, she thought. She saw hints of fellow feeling in their faces. It was buried perhaps, and deeply conflicted, but it was there. That black-haired woman with trembling lips in front, for example. Perhaps she was a mother like Tessa.

  Gage stood shifting her feet, apparently uncertain what she should do. Tessa herself stood erect beside Stella, tears glistening on her cheeks.

  Lovejoy, Stella saw, was smiling directly at her. He looked smug and satisfied, totally vindicated.

  It can't go on any longer, she thought. Not this silence, this cruelty.

  Hardening herself, she removed her hand from Tessa's and stepped away from the others. She opened her mouth to speak.

  Then a hand gently touched her shoulder as someone moved past her. At first she thought it was Gage, but the figure was too tall and the wrong sex.

  Colonel Powers raised his hands and started to clap. The sharp reports filled the concourse, echoing off walls, off General Loran's stately face. Again and again the security officer of Loran Base brought his hands together, producing explosive sounds as if to herald the birth of a new tradition. Stella's hands tingled in sympathy, but no one else was responding.

  Then, to her surprise, someone to their right clapped. Soon there was another and another and another. Cheers stirred and whistles as the applause grew and gathered, rising from a murmur to a swell, from a swell to a roar, and finally to thunder that deafened them all. They stood there, pounded by an ovation that seemed to go on and on forever.

  At one point, laughing, Stella turned and looked at Lovejoy. He was clapping too, mechanically, but his eyes bore into hers like pistol sights, as cold and unforgiving as ever.

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  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The “debriefing” started badly and got worse. Sitting in the stiff-backed chair, Stella quickly reached the conclusion that while everyone else at Loran Base might love her, this group of officers most definitely did not. They seemed harsh, devious, and above all, suspicious, seeing alien treachery in her slightest word or gesture.

  Th
ere was another quality too, one which took longer for her to identify. She saw it in subtle things, in shared whispers and mutual glances. Her questioners seemed to have ulterior motives, to be playing some kind of game in which she was an important piece. The only trouble was, she was a passive one.

  Major Chong, an Intelligence specialist whom Powers had chosen to lead the questioning, sat at a table before Stella, flanked by Colonel Powers and another officer. Chong had flat eyes that never blinked and a soft voice that struck like a cobra. It occurred to Stella that Lee Song might look like him in thirty years if he lost his soul one piece at a time.

  “How did you know how to pilot the enemy ship?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Be so kind as to tell us again.”

  “During the mind meld with the Slug, a sharing of memories and knowledge occurred. After he died, it ebbed and flowed, but basically it grew stronger, until I was able to interface my mind with the ship's complex drive system.”

  “Just like that. Poof.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were able to do this even though you're human?”

  “Also yes.”

  “I see. And therefore you would be able to teach the method to someone else?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Even though he was sitting still, Chong seemed to eel his way closer. “I don't understand. If it gave you its—”

  “He, not it.”

  “Ah, yes. If he were able to pass this talent on to you, why can't you do the same with one of us?”

  “Because I'm not an alien.” She considered saying more because there was more to it, but their hostile stares kept her silent. Despite herself, she felt her frustration and rage rise. Why didn't they want to believe her and take what she had to offer? Instead of pats on the back and a hearty “Well done,” there was only Major Chong's unblinking face.

  “Is that true, Commander McMasters? You're not alien in addition to being ‘cyber-enhanced'? Your loyalties and identity haven't been subverted and compromised by another allegiance?”

  “No, they have not.”

  “But if you're not alien, why did you fire at the base and almost ram it? Such behavior indicates that you're a terrible risk to this base and to our beloved Emperor, who is soon to arrive.”

  “As I told you before, the ship malfunctioned. It was an accident. I remain as loyal to the Emperor as you are, Major Chong.”

  At that moment, Major Lovejoy, standing against the back wall, played his trump. “That's odd, Commander. According to some of your officers, you claimed to be ‘half Slug’ during one of your conversations.”

  She could have bitten off her tongue-or Lovejoy's head. “It was just a figure of speech.”

  “Really?” Lovejoy glanced at some fellow officers with a faint smirk. “It sounds pretty plain to me, subject to only one interpretation.”

  Easy, Stella. Stay calm. “I meant that I had acquired some of his abilities, not his allegiance or values. Once again: I remain a true and loyal subject of the Emperor.” She moved in her chair with growing unrest. If any of her officers had mentioned the All-Mother, that would make things even worse. Why hadn't she thought to prepare for such questions? For that matter, why had she told Gage in the first place? If the base commander disclosed the All-Mother's ability to control Stella's mind to just one of these vultures, they might execute her. But she didn't think Gage would tell anyone. No, she was sure of it.

  With a smile, Lovejoy passed the questioning to another officer, who Stella remembered was a highly regarded xenologist. Captain Starkey was a fat woman with a double chin and a fair mustache. “Commander McMasters,” she said, “are the Slugs the final link in the enemy's chain?”

  Though she understood the metaphor, she pretended confusion. “What?”

  Starkey smiled and straightened her snug jacket. “Let me rephrase. Is there any force or power beyond the Slugs to which they, in turn, are psychologically subject?”

  It was quiet in the room. She raised her head and stared at General Loran's handsome, avuncular image on the back wall. After a moment, she lowered her eyes.

  “Yes, there is. She's called the All-Mother. She seems to function as their ‘overmind,’ I guess you could call it. Their commanding and coordinating intelligence.”

  “It seems odd that you held that information back, Commander,” Starkey said. “Are you trying to hide something?”

  Stella shifted in her seat, wondering if one of the reasons she hadn't mentioned the All-Mother was that she was afraid she herself might be dangerous to the Emperor. After all, the All-Mother had almost made her attack this base.

  She cleared her throat. “No. I'm not hiding anything.”

  Starkey made a rude sound. “Oh, come now, Commander....”

  “That's enough,” Colonel Powers said. He rose to his feet at the table. “You all know there's such a power because you questioned her officers and learned about the All-Mother.” He turned his head, looking at Lovejoy and the others in the room. “I think we should stop trying to catch Commander McMasters in some lie and treating her as if she's the enemy. She's not.”

  “I agree,” a dark-faced captain said. Several other officers murmured assent.

  As Stella watched, the room seemed to split in half and she saw smiles turn in her direction. A few officers lightly applauded Powers’ words even though he had earlier urged Gage to destroy her and her ship.

  Gripping the table, Chong gazed up at Powers with a look that bordered on outrage. “As this base's security officer, you're completely satisfied, Colonel Powers? You don't think there's any chance at all that she poses a risk?”

  “No, I don't.”

  “You say this even—”

  “Don't question me, Major Chong. As security officer, this session continues only as long as I want it to.” He turned to Stella, brushing his close-cropped hair with his hand. “I do have one last question, however. It's peculiar that no one thought to ask it. Commander McMasters, is there a name for our enemies? I mean, what do they call themselves?”

  “The Slug we killed said they call themselves the ‘Seeds of Time,'” she said.

  “The ‘Seeds of Time.'” Powers frowned at the words.

  “That's a very strange name for any species to call itself,” Starkey pounced. “Especially a militaristic one like the Slugs. Suppose we explore right now the implications—”

  “I think not,” Colonel Powers said. “The Emperor's due in less than twenty-four hours and we must prepare.” He smiled at Stella. “For now, our distinguished visitor needs to visit with her crew. Later, she and her officers will dine with General Gage as her personal guests.” He nodded crisply at those assembled. “Thank you for your assistance. The meeting is adjourned.”

  * * * *

  Escorted from the room by Colonel Powers, Stella waited till they were out of earshot before glancing at him. “Do you mind telling me what happened in there?”

  “I don't understand.”

  “I'll make it clearer,” she said as they turned a corner into another broad corridor. “On my approach to the base, you counseled General Gage to blast me to pieces. Now you halt an inquisition designed to expose me as some kind of alien traitor and practically proclaim me to be a hero. Do you mind explaining the sudden about-face?”

  Colonel Powers marched at her side, his back ramrod straight and his eyes directed straight ahead. “General Gage ordered me to stop the meeting if it seemed to be getting too adversarial.”

  “I see. And the officers who seconded your defense of me-were they ordered to do so also?”

  “Yes, though they were glad to do it.”

  “Why did General Gage order it? If, as you said, your decision to stop the meeting was sufficient, why should she arrange for additional support? Unless...” She thought of some of the things Gage had told her. “Unless your authority alone may not have been sufficient.”

  Powers stopped and turned to her as she also halt
ed. “There is opposition,” he said reluctantly. “General Gage felt it might be necessary to broaden my support.”

  “Colonel Powers, are you implying that otherwise they might have disobeyed you and continued the meeting?”

  Powers’ expression remained unchanged. He turned.

  She caught his shoulder, stopping him. “No, please. I've got to know. Tell me.”

  “It's not your—”

  “It is. I'm at the center of this. How can I know what to say or how to act if I don't know what's going on?”

  Powers hesitated, clearly reluctant to discuss the matter. What had Gage called him-'two-dimensional'? For such a man, Stella thought, discussing his fellow officers’ potential disobedience with an outsider must be difficult indeed, especially since he was the one in charge of security. Remaining silent had to be standard policy.

  But this situation was unique, and she could see Powers’ grudging agreement with her question even before he answered. “Your arrival just before the Emperor's visit has complicated affairs even more. Some of my fellow officers are competing with each other, maneuvering for position in an attempt to curry favor with the Emperor.” He glanced away, trying to conceal his distaste. “Unfortunately, his arrival provides them with an unprecedented opportunity to exploit your visit for personal gain.”

  “You mean to help their careers?” Stella almost stamped her foot in exasperation. “How would discrediting me do that?”

  “You don't understand, do you?” Powers said. “If they ask the question that exposes you as a traitor who's been corrupted by the enemy, they can receive Kolanera's blessing for saving the Empire from a disastrous mistake.”

  “Don't they care that our capture of an enemy ship can turn this war around and save the Empire?”

  “To them, it's your capture of the ship,” Powers said, “not theirs. The only way they can get credit for it is if you can show them how to pilot it and employ its ordnance. And you just said you couldn't.”

  “So it's easier to promote their careers by tearing me down than by building on what I know? General Gage mentioned that some officers might try to ingratiate themselves with the Emperor, but this behavior is selfish and unconscionable. Even worse, it's treason to oppose what can help us.”