Voyagers III - Star Brothers

by Ben Bova

  Janos led them to the long dining table, where four places had been set at one end. President Novotny sat at its head, Janos and Ilona on his left, Stoner on his right. He wondered where the rest of the laboratory staff was having its dinner this evening. Equal but separate, Stoner said to his star brother. Which means not equal at all, the alien responded.

  The food was good, the wine better, and dinner conversation pleasant and inconsequential. Once the dishes had been cleared away and several musty bottles of brandies put before the president, he lit a fresh cigar and began telling long, rambling stories about his childhood and early political experiences.

  “Those were terrible days,” he said, puffing thick clouds of blue smoke toward the beamed ceiling. “My grandfather died in the uprising, my father was arrested and held for nearly six years. They wouldn’t let me join the Party until I was almost forty! That’s what the rebellion of ’56 left us. A heritage of suspicion and anger.”

  “In the West,” said Stoner, “the Hungarian uprising was regarded with great sympathy. Students fighting Russian tanks with little more than their bare hands.”

  For once Novotny’s eyes bored straight at Stoner. “The West applauded, but did nothing to help Hungary. The West praised our Freedom Fighters, but stood aside and allowed the Soviets to crush them.”

  Stoner admitted, “True enough.”

  “But—” The president’s eyes began to rove again and he smiled jovially, “—all that happened more than sixty years ago. Ancient history. Hungary is proud and free today.”

  “And we will grow stronger,” Janos added.

  “Indeed we will,” President Novotny agreed.

  “By developing biochips?” Stoner asked.

  Novotny’s smile faltered for just a moment. Then, “Why, yes, biochips are what they are called. You know of them?”

  “They are being developed in the West, as well.”

  “So I had heard.”

  Janos nearly sneered. “We know about the work being done in the West. Primitive, compared to our research.”

  “One British group is working with a team of primatologists in Africa,” said Ilona. “They are trying to establish linkages between humans and apes through implanting biochips.”

  “Primitive,” Janos repeated.

  Stoner replied, “I think the research that Vanguard Industries is doing is further advanced than that. I’m sure other corporations are also working on the concept.”

  “The corporations do their work in secret,” Novotny said, his bushy brows knitting. “They do not publish their results in the scientific journals.”

  “Nor do we,” Ilona pointed out. “Our work is kept secret. We are not allowed to publish.”

  President Novotny spread his hands in the classic what can I do gesture. “You see that we have competition. It is important—vital—that our competitors do not learn of the advances we have made.”

  Stoner wondered how they intended to have him help them without revealing the advances they had made. No matter, he told his star brother, we can always talk our way out of here when we’re ready to.

  As if reading Stoner’s mind, the president turned to him and said, “Of course, this has almost nothing to do with you, sir. Our interest in you stems from your unique experience in surviving cryonic freezing.”

  Stoner smiled back at Novotny. “Do you mean that you don’t believe there’s a connection between the two?”

  Novotny looked startled and glanced at Janos.

  The scientist glared at Stoner. “Until this moment, the connection was nothing more than a hypothesis of mine.”

  With a grin, Stoner said, “I see that Dr. Lucacs has impressed the correct word on you.”

  The president’s head swivelled from Stoner to Janos and then back again.

  “What is your hypothesis?” Stoner asked as softly as a leopard padding through the jungle.

  Janos looked distinctly uncomfortable. Obviously he had not intended to speak of this in front of President Novotny, but now he was in a corner.

  “It will sound…outlandish,” he said.

  “It is my idea!” Ilona snapped. “And it is pure speculation, nothing but a series of surmises.”

  She’s trying to shield him, thought Stoner.

  “I would still like to hear it, regardless of whose idea it is,” said the president. His smile was deadly now. He put his cigar in the oversized metal ashtray that had been placed at his elbow and reached for the nearest brandy bottle.

  “The biochips,” Ilona said as the president poured for himself, “are miniature electronic elements based on protein instead of silicon or other semiconductor materials.”

  “This I know,” Novotny said. He did not offer anyone else a drink.

  “The purpose of using proteinoid materials is to allow the chips to be implanted in the body and connected to the nervous system.”

  “But that is only the first step,” Janos took over, his clear tenor voice trembling slightly. “It is conceivable—conceptually possible—to make other devices for implantation in the body. Smaller devices. Machines that can do many different tasks, much as the cells of the body themselves. But better.”

  “And smaller than cells, much smaller,” said Ilona.

  “Nanotechnology, it has been called,” Janos said. “Creating devices that are a millionth of a millimeter in size. Devices that can exist inside the human body, repairing cell damage, enhancing the body’s health, counteracting the effects of aging—”

  “And freezing,” Ilona said, staring directly at Stoner.

  “Even producing extraordinary mental powers,” Janos added.

  All three of them focused their total attention on Stoner. He said nothing, merely leaned back in his chair while his star brother waited, shuddering, within him.

  “I have heard of this thing called nanotechnology,” President Novotny said. “My director of scientific research briefed me on its possibilities. But he said that such a development would not be possible for many decades to come.”

  “The alien race that built the starship must have developed nanotechnology,” Janos said.

  “And Dr. Stoner spent many years in cryonic suspension aboard that ship,” Ilona added. “His body could have been invaded by alien…”

  “Devices,” Stoner said for her. “Not creatures. The devices are machines. By themselves they are as inert as an automobile parked in a garage.”

  Janos gasped. “It is true!”

  Stoner said nothing. But, gazing at President Novotny, he could see the whirling thoughts behind his darting eyes. What weapons could we make of such devices! Invisibly small machines that could invade the human body and tear it apart from the inside. What a truly incredible weapon that could be! The man who controls such technology could become the most powerful man on Earth!

  CHAPTER 17

  HIS star brother fairly snarled with revulsion. The first thing he thinks of is weaponry, killing his fellow humans. The second thing is power.

  The only thing he thinks of is himself, Stoner pointed out. In his deepest heart he does not regard anyone else as truly human; no one except himself. He is the center of his world. Everything and everyone else revolves around him.

  And with people such as this you want to share the powers that we have?

  We must share the power with them, Stoner said, or they will soon die.

  Give them our power and they will kill themselves in an orgy of murder. You saw the world of death. You know what can happen when such powers are misused. That is what this man will do! He will destroy your world, utterly and forever!

  Perhaps, admitted Stoner. But the time has come to face that choice.

  No, said his star brother. Implacably.

  We must, Stoner insisted. They’ll develop it on their own and misuse it. We no longer have the option of delaying. It’s got to be done now. By us. While we can observe and control.

  We can’t control this egomaniac! He’s mad for power.

&n
bsp; We can. We’ve got to.

  Stoner pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “I would like to see your laboratory now,” he said to Janos.

  No! raged his star brother. Don’t do this! The risk is too great! Everything we’ve tried to achieve will be smashed away.

  Do you see an alternative? Stoner asked. Other than killing the three of them?

  His star brother fell silent.

  Janos slowly stood up, as if in a hypnotic trance. “You wish to see the laboratory now?”

  Stoner nodded gravely.

  “Come on then.”

  Ilona and the president followed them as Janos led Stoner to the rear of the lodge and down a flight of metal stairs to a concrete-walled basement. Overhead fluorescents flickered on automatically, triggered by the heat of their bodies. They walked past dusty shelves of packing crates and long rows of wine bins and finally came to a heavy steel door. Janos tapped out a combination on the keyboard panel set into the wall. The door clicked open slightly and a gust of air sighed out from it.

  It was the narrow cage of an elevator. The four of them squeezed into it and rode down in breathless silence about thirty meters, Stoner estimated. When the elevator stopped the metal bars of its door opened automatically.

  As laboratories went, theirs was small. But Stoner realized that they did not need elaborate facilities nor huge expanses of equipment and offices. A few dedicated researchers, backed by a government that provided them virtually anything they asked for. That was enough. More than enough.

  Janos walked them through two labs and into a third room that looked to be a combination of a surgical center with an electronics shop. An operating table, bare and cold beneath a quartet of powerful lamps. Rows of metal cabinets that held surgical instruments. Banks of computers and monitors lining the adjacent wall, their screens round and blank as the eyes of the dead. The faint odor of animal fur and excrement hung in the air despite the hum of air fans set into the concrete ceiling that sucked up Novotny’s cigar smoke with relentless efficiency.

  Stoner pointed toward double doors on the other side of the chamber. “Animal pens through there.”

  Janos bobbed his head twice. “Dogs, mostly. We have done a few procedures with chimpanzees and even gorillas, but dogs are much easier to work with.”

  “And you want to take samples of my blood to see if it’s crawling with nanometer-sized alien machines.” It was not a question.

  “Blood and tissue samples, yes,” said Janos.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Stoner. “But if you can make a small incision in your president’s thumb, or one of his fingertips…”

  Madness! screamed his star brother silently.

  For the first time since he had awakened fifteen years earlier, Stoner ignored the alien presence within him. He watched, grim-faced, as Janos woodenly found a small needle and pricked both Novotny’s thumb and his own.

  He locked his eyes with Novotny’s. The politician tried to look away, but could not. Stoner saw in the Hungarian president’s eyes what he had heard at the dinner table: a man totally dedicated to himself, a man who did not truly regard other men and women as human beings, a man who felt nothing for anyone except himself.

  He glanced down at the bead of blood welling from his flesh and then back into the half-fearful, half-exultant eyes of the politician. Stoner said, “You want the power that is implied by the alien’s capabilities. Here it is.”

  You know why I’m doing this, Stoner said silently to his star brother. The alien presence replied, I understand but I do not agree.

  I have more faith in the human race than you do. Perhaps that’s because I know them better.

  I know everything that you know, his star brother reminded him. And I am not so affected by daydreams and false hopes as you are.

  You could control those hopes if you chose to.

  No, the time for that is past. You have decided to act against my best judgment. We must both see which of us is right, even though the stakes are the survival of your kind and all the other forms of life on this world.

  Stoner took Novotny’s thumb and pressed it against his own. For a wild, insane moment a distant echo from long ago sprang up in his mind: high school, a teenager rife with acne rubbing thumbs with a girl and then announcing that he was a Martian and his sex organ was in his thumb.

  Stoner almost laughed aloud. He looked up at the Hungarian president, though, and immediately sobered.

  “Very well, now you have the power,” he said in a deadly earnest voice. “You will find that you also have the responsibility.”

  Novotny blinked at him. “I don’t understand…”

  “You will,” Stoner said, as much to his star brother as to the president. “You will.”

  “You signed the waiver, you work where they tell ya.”

  Paulino Alvarado felt his knees shaking and hoped that his new boss did not notice it.

  “But I did not sign a waiver…”

  “The hell you didn’t. Everybody does. It’s in the pile of forms they shove at ya when you first get here. You signed it, all right. The legal division don’t make any mistakes about that.”

  The boss was a nervous-looking rat-faced little man, even smaller and scrawnier than Paulino himself. His coveralls were stained with grease and frayed from long hard use. Once they had been bright orange, as Paulino’s new coveralls were, but now they had faded to a dull tone that was almost gray.

  They were walking through a vast, echoing garage, dimly lit by panels set into the ceiling high overhead. Rows of grimy tractors with large skinny wheels stood silently in the shadows, except for one down at the end where a handful of mechanics were clustered beneath a glaring set of lights. The sparks of a welding torch sputtered fitfully, blue and cold.

  “But I have never operated a tractor,” Paulino protested. “I have never been in a space suit.”

  “Pressure suit,” the boss corrected. “Don’t call ’em space suits, makes ya sound like a fuckin’ tourist. Pressure suit, or p-suit.”

  Paulino felt panic rising inside him. “I didn’t come here to work outside! I’m supposed to…”

  The boss turned on him, snarling. “You’re here to do whatever the fuck I tell you to do! Got that? You signed the waiver and all the other papers like the stupid asshole you are, so you’re mine, greaseball! If I tell you to pull your pants down and make love to an oxy tank that’s what you’ll do. Unnerstand?”

  Paulino gulped and nodded.

  More gently, the boss went on, “There’s nothin’ much to operatin’ a tractor. I’ll take you out for an orientation run. You’ll get it down in ten minutes unless you’re braindamaged.”

  Paulino continued to nod as the boss helped him climb into a pressure suit. He was still nodding when he pulled the cumbersome helmet over his head and, following the boss’s instructions, closed the seal at its neck.

  And his knees were still shaking furiously.

  Vic Tomasso spent the whole day going through the motions of setting up a recovery operation to find Stoner and return him safely home.

  But even for a multinational corporation of the size and power of Vanguard, invading a sovereign nation was an operation that took time to prepare. Vanguard had a sales office in Budapest, and even ran the water treatment system for the length of the Danube River under contract to the various national governments through whose territories the river flowed. There was manpower available in Hungary, men and women who already were on the scene and did not have to be smuggled into the country.

  But damned little muscle. Most of the Vanguard people inside the country were either engineers or administrators. Only a handful were security, and none of them were trained for special operations. Glorified night watchmen, Tomasso called them.

  So he went through the motions of checking with the head of the Budapest office and then discussing the situation with the chief of corporate security, a man who had access to more troops and firepower than the nation of Hungary
. But, as Tomasso had known from the start, even though the security chief had contingency plans for such operations, it would take a few days to assemble the necessary people and train them for this specific mission.

  Tomasso asked the security chief to put such an operation in motion. He could not order it, since he was merely an administrative aide and the chief of a department outranked him. But being the aide to the president of the company gave Tomasso more clout than his salary level indicated. By day’s end, the wheels were rolling.

  Tomasso stuck his head in Jo’s office before leaving for the day.

  “Spoke with Guderian,” he said when Jo looked up from her display screen at him. “He’s pulling together the troops. We can give you a briefing tomorrow morning, say, ten o’clock?”

  “Why not tonight?” Jo snapped.

  Tomasso tried a boyish grin. “Give the man a chance to study the satellite photos of the area and adapt one of the standby contingency plans,” he pleaded.

  Jo’s lips pressed together tightly for a moment. Then she said, “Make it eight o’clock. Right here in my office.”

  “Oh-eight-hundred hours. Yes, ma’am.” And Tomasso snapped off a crisp military salute without losing his grin.

  He hustled back to his office and got Guderian on the screen.

  “Eight o’clock in her office,” the security chief said, as tight-lipped as Jo had been. “Right.”

  “Have a pleasant evening,” Tomasso quipped. Then he went out to the parking lot, hopped into his open sports car and headed for the beach.

  The electric engine hummed softly and the wind plucked at his dark hair as Tomasso sped along the beach highway. Traffic was as heavy as any evening rush hour, but most of the cars were on the automated lanes, where the drivers could relax and watch their dashboard TVs or chat sociably with their passengers.

  Trucks, of course, had their own special lanes and electronic controls. There was even talk of completely automating the trucks and having them directed remotely, the way spacecraft were. The drivers were all in favor of the idea, since they owned the trucks and could stay home while their machines worked. But the highway safety bureaucrats worried that totally automated trucks would be a problem when emergencies arose.