The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II

by David G. Hartwell

  He had the plan all worked out so that it could not fail.

  He had his hand on the doorknob when Sims called him back. “There’s another thing I better tell you, Bradley.”

  “All right. What’s that?”

  “Vonda. She’s on your side. She told them to stay away, but it wasn’t enough. She’s been relieved of duty. A replacement is coming with the others.”

  “Oh,” said Reynolds.

  Properly suited, Reynolds sat in the cockpit of the shuttle tug, watching the pilot beside him going through the ritual of a final inspection prior to takeoff. The dead desolate surface of the moon stretched briefly away from where the tug sat, the horizon so near that it almost looked touchable. Reynolds liked the moon. If he had not, he would never have elected to return here to stay. It was the Earth he hated. Better than the moon was space itself, the dark endless void beyond the reach of man’s ugly grasping hands. That was where Reynolds was going now. Up. Out. Into the void. He was impatient to leave.

  The pilot’s voice came to him softly through the suit radio, a low murmur, not loud enough for him to understand what the man was saying. The pilot was talking to himself as he worked, using the rumble of his own voice as a way of patterning his mind so that it would not lose concentration. The pilot was a young man in his middle twenties, probably on loan from the Air Force, a lieutenant or, at most, a junior Air Force captain. He was barely old enough to remember when space had really been a frontier. Mankind had decided to go out, and Reynolds had been one of the men chosen to take the giant steps, but now it was late – the giant steps of twenty years ago were mere tentative contusions in the dust of the centuries – and man was coming back. From where he sat, looking out, Reynolds could see exactly 50 percent of the present American space program: the protruding bubble of the moon base. The other half was the orbiting space lab that circled the Earth itself, a battered relic of the expansive seventies. Well beyond the nearby horizon – maybe a hundred miles away – there had once been another bubble, but it was gone now. The brave men who had lived and worked and struggled and died and survived there – they were all gone too. Where? The Russians still maintained an orbiting space station, so some of their former moon colonists were undoubtedly there, but where were the rest? In Siberia? Working there? Hadn’t the Russians decided that Siberia – the old barless prison state of the czars and early Communists – was a more practical frontier than the moon?

  And weren’t they maybe right? Reynolds did not like to think so, for he had poured his life into this – into the moon and the void beyond. But at times, like now, peering through the artificial window of his suit, seeing the bare bubble of the base clinging to the edge of this dead world like a wart on an old woman’s face, starkly vulnerable, he found it hard to see the point of it. He was an old enough man to recall the first time he had ever been moved by the spirit of conquest. As a schoolboy, he remembered the first time men conquered Mount Everest – it was around 1956 or ’57 – and he had religiously followed the newspaper reports. Afterward, a movie had been made, and watching that film, seeing the shadows of pale mountaineers clinging to the edge of that white god, he had decided that was what he wanted to be. And he had never been taught otherwise; only by the time he was old enough to act, all the mountains had long since been conquered. And he had ended up as an astronomer, able if nothing else to gaze outward at the distant shining peaks of the void, and from there he had been pointed toward space. So he had gone to Mars and become famous, but fame had turned him inward, so that now, without the brilliance of his past, he would have been nobody but another of those anonymous old men who dot the cities of the world, inhabiting identically bleak book-lined rooms, eating daily in bad restaurants, their minds always a billion miles away from the dead shells of their bodies.

  “We can go now, Dr. Reynolds,” the pilot was saying.

  Reynolds grunted in reply, his mind several miles distant from his waiting body. He was thinking that there was something, after all. How could he think in terms of pointlessness and futility when he alone had actually seen them with his own eyes? Creatures, intelligent beings, born far away, light-years from the insignificant world of man? Didn’t that in itself prove something? Yes. He was sure that it did. But what?

  The tug lifted with a murmur from the surface of the moon. Crouched deeply within his seat, Reynolds thought that it wouldn’t be long now.

  And they found us, he thought, we did not find them. And when had they gone into space? Late. Very late. At a moment in their history comparable to man a hundred thousand years from now. They had avoided space until a pressing reason had come for venturing out, and then they had gone. He remembered that he had been unable to explain to Jonathon why man wanted to visit the stars when he did not believe in the divinity of the suns. Was there a reason? And, if so, did it make sense?

  The journey was not long.

  It didn’t smell. The air ran clean and sharp and sweet through the corridors, and if there was any odor to it, the odor was one of purity and freshness, almost pine needles or mint. The air was good for his spirits. As soon as Reynolds came aboard the starship, his depression and melancholy were forgotten. Perhaps he was only letting the apparent grimness of the situation get the better of him. It had been too long a time since he’d last had to fight. Jonathon would know what to do. The alien was more than three hundred years old, a product of a civilization and culture that had reached its maturity at a time when man was not yet man, when he was barely a skinny undersized ape, a carrion eater upon the hot plains of Africa.

  When Reynolds reached the meeting room, he saw that Jonathon and Richard were not alone this time. The third alien – Reynolds sensed it was someone important – was introduced as Vergnan. No adopted Earth name for it.

  “This is ours who best knows the stars,” Jonathon said. “It has spoken with yours and hopes it may be able to assist you.”

  Reynolds had almost forgotten that part. The sudden pressures of the past few hours had driven everything else from his mind. His training. His unsuccessful attempts to speak to the stars. He had failed. Jonathon had been unable to teach him, but he thought that was probably because he simply did not believe.

  “Now we shall leave you,” Jonathon said.

  “But – ” said Reynolds.

  “We are not permitted to stay.”

  “But there’s something I must tell you.”

  It was too late. Jonathon and Richard headed for the corridor, walking with surprising gracefulness. Their long necks bobbed, their skinny legs shook, but they still managed to move as swiftly and sleekly as any cat, almost rippling as they went.

  Reynolds turned toward Vergnan. Should he tell this one about the visitors from Earth? He did not think so. Vergnan was old, his skin much paler than the others, almost totally hairless. His eyes were wrinkled and one ear was torn.

  Vergnan’s eyes were closed.

  Remembering his lessons, Reynolds too closed his eyes.

  And kept them closed. In the dark, time passed more quickly than it seemed, but he was positive that five minutes went by.

  Then the alien began to speak. No – he did not speak, he simply sang, his voice trilling with the high searching notes of a well-tuned violin, dashing up and down the scale, a pleasant sound, soothing, cool. Reynolds tried desperately to concentrate upon the song, ignoring the existence of all other sensations, recognizing nothing and no one but Vergnan. Reynolds ignored the taste and smell of the air and the distant throbbing of the ship’s machinery. The alien sang deeper and clearer, his voice rising higher and higher, directed now at the stars. Jonathon, too, had sung, but never like this. When Jonathon sang, its voice had dashed away in a frightened search, shifting and darting wildly about, seeking vainly a place to land. Vergnan sang without doubt. It – he – was certain. Reynolds sensed the overwhelming maleness of this being, his patriarchal strength and dignity. His voice and song never struggled or wavered. He knew always exactly where he was going.
>
  Had he felt something? Reynolds did not know. If so, then what? No, no, he thought, and concentrated more fully upon the voice, too intently to allow for the logic of thought. Within, he felt strong, alive, renewed, resurrected. I am a new man. Reynolds is dead. He is another. These thoughts came to him like the whispering words of another. Go, Reynolds. Fly. Leave. Fly.

  Then he realized that he was singing too. He could not imitate Vergnan, for his voice was too alien, but he tried and heard his own voice coming frighteningly near, almost fading into and being lost within the constant tones of the other. The two voices suddenly became one – mingling indiscriminately – merging – and that one voice rose higher, floating, then higher again, rising, farther, going farther out – farther and deeper.

  Then he felt it. Reynolds. And he knew it for what it was.

  The Sun.

  More ancient than the whole of the Earth itself. A greater, vaster being, more powerful and knowing. Divinity as a ball of heat and energy.

  Reynolds spoke to the stars.

  And, knowing this, balking at the concept, he drew back instinctively in fear, his voice faltering, dwindling, collapsing. Reynolds scurried back, seeking the Earth, but, grasping, pulling, Vergnan drew him on. Beyond the shallow exterior light of the sun, he witnessed the totality of that which lay hidden within. The core. The impenetrable darkness within. Fear gripped him once more. He begged to be allowed to flee. Tears streaking his face with the heat of fire, he pleaded. Vergnan benignly drew him on. Come forward – come – see – know. Forces coiled to a point.

  And he saw.

  Could he describe it as evil? Thought was an absurdity. Not thinking, instead sensing and feeling, he experienced the wholeness of this entity – a star – the sun – and saw that it was not evil. He sensed the sheer totality of its opening nothingness. Sensation was absent. Colder than cold, more terrifying than hate, more sordid than fear, blacker than evil. The vast inner whole nothingness of everything that was anything, of all.

  I have seen enough. No!

  Yes, cried Vergnan, agreeing.

  To stay a moment longer would mean never returning again. Vergnan knew this too, and he released Reynolds, allowed him to go.

  And still he sang. The song was different from before. Struggling within himself, Reynolds sang too, trying to match his voice to that of the alien. It was easier this time. The two voices merged, mingled, became one.

  And then Reynolds awoke.

  He was lying on the floor in the starship, the rainbow walls swirling brightly around him.

  Vergnan stepped over him. He saw the alien’s protruding belly as he passed. He did not look down or back, but continued onward, out the door, gone, as quick and cold as the inner soul of the sun itself. For a brief moment, he hated Vergnan more deeply than he had ever hated anything in his life. Then he sat up, gripping himself, forcing a return to sanity. I am all right now, he insisted. I am back. I am alive. The walls ceased spinning. At his back the floor shed its clinging coat of roughness. The shadows in the corners of his eyes dispersed.

  Jonathon entered the room alone. “Now you have been,” it said, crossing the room and assuming its usual place beside the wall.

  “Yes,” said Reynolds, not attempting to stand.

  “And now you know why we search. For centuries our star was kind to us, loving, but now it too – like yours – is changed.”

  “You are looking for a new home?”

  “True.”

  “And?”

  “And we find nothing. All are alike. We have seen nine, visiting all. They are nothing.”

  “Then you leave here too?”

  “We must, but first we will approach your star. Not until we have drawn so close that we have seen everything, not until then can we dare admit our failure. This time we thought we had succeeded. When we met you, this is what we thought, for you are unlike your star. We felt that the star could not produce you – or your race – without the presence of benevolence. But it is gone now. We meet only the blackness. We struggle to penetrate to a deeper core. And fail.”

  “I am not typical of my race,” Reynolds said.

  “We shall see.”

  He remained with Jonathon until he felt strong enough to stand. The floor hummed. Feeling it with moist palms, he planted a kiss upon the creased cold metal. A wind swept through the room, carrying a hint of returned life. Jonathon faded, rippled, returned to a sharp outline of crisp reality. Reynolds was suddenly hungry and the oily taste of meat swirled up through his nostrils. The cords in his neck stood out with the strain until, gradually, the tension passed from him.

  He left and went to the tug. During the great fall to the silver moon he said not a word, thought not a thought. The trip was long.

  Reynolds lay on his back in the dark room, staring upward at the faint shadow of a ceiling, refusing to see.

  Hypnosis? Or a more powerful alien equivalent of the same? Wasn’t that, as an explanation, more likely than admitting that he had indeed communicated with the sun, discovering a force greater than evil, blacker than black. Or – here was another theory: wasn’t it possible that these aliens, because of the conditions of their own world, so thoroughly accepted the consciousness of the stars that they could make him believe as well? Similar things had happened on Earth. Religious miracles, the curing of diseases through faith, men who claimed to have spoken with God. What about flying saucers and little green men and all the other incidents of mass hysteria? Wasn’t that the answer here? Hysteria? Hypnosis? Perhaps even a drug of some sort: a drug released into the air. Reynolds had plenty of possible solutions – he could choose one or all – but he decided that he did not really care.

  He had gone into this thing knowing exactly what he was doing and now that it had happened he did not regret the experience. He had found a way of fulfilling his required mission while at the same time experiencing something personal that no other man would ever know. Whether he had actually seen the sun was immaterial; the experience, as such, was still his own. Nobody could ever take that away from him.

  It was some time after this when he realized that a fist was pounding on the door. He decided he might as well ignore that, because sometimes when you ignored things, they went away. But the knocking did not go away – it only got louder. Finally Reynolds got up. He opened the door.

  Kelly glared at his nakedness and said, “Did I wake you?”

  “No.”

  “May I come in?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve got something to tell you.” She forced her way past him, sliding into the room. Then Reynolds saw that she wasn’t alone. A big, red-faced beefy man followed, forcing his way into the room too.

  Reynolds shut the door, cutting off the corridor light, but the big man went over and turned on the overhead light. “All right,” he said, as though it were an order.

  “Who the hell are you?” Reynolds said.

  “Forget him,” Kelly said. “I’ll talk.”

  “Talk,” said Reynolds.

  “The committee is here. The men from Washington. They arrived an hour ago and I’ve kept them busy since. You may not believe this, but I’m on your side.”

  “Sims told me.

  “He told me he told you.”

  “I knew he would. Mind telling me why? He didn’t know.”

  “Because I’m not an idiot,” Kelly said. “I’ve known enough petty bureaucrats in my life. Those things up there are alien beings. You can’t send these fools up there to go stomping all over their toes.”

  Reynolds gathered this would not be over soon. He put on his pants.

  “This is George O’Hara,” Kelly said. “He’s the new director.”

  “I want to offer my resignation,” Reynolds said casually, fixing the snaps of his shirt.

  “You have to accompany us to the starship,” O’Hara said.

  “I want you to,” Kelly said. “You owe this to someone. If not me, then the aliens. If you had told me the truth, this
might never have happened. If anyone is to blame for this mess, it’s you, Reynolds. Why won’t you tell me what’s been going on up there the last month? It has to be something.”

  “It is,” Reynolds said. “Don’t laugh, but I was trying to talk to the sun. I told you that’s why the aliens came here. They’re taking a cruise of the galaxy, pausing here and there to chat with the stars.”

  “Don’t be frivolous. And, yes, you told me all that.”

  “I have to be frivolous. Otherwise, it sounds too ridiculous. I made an agreement with them. I wanted to learn to talk to the sun. I told them, since I lived here, I could find out what they wanted to know better than they could. I could tell they were doubtful, but they let me go ahead. In return for my favor, when I was done, whether I succeeded or failed, they would give us what we wanted. A team of men could go and freely examine their ship. They would describe their voyage to us – where they had been, what they had found. They promised cooperation in return for my chat with the sun.”

  “So, then nothing happened?”

  “I didn’t say that. I talked with the sun today. And saw it. And now I’m not going to do anything except sit on my hands. You can take it from here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He knew he could not answer that. “I failed,” he said. “I didn’t find out anything they didn’t know.”

  “Well, will you go with us or not? That’s all I want to know right now.” She was losing her patience, but there was also more than a minor note of pleading in her voice. He knew he ought to feel satisfied hearing that, but he didn’t.

  “Oh, hell,” Reynolds said. “Yes – all right – I will go. But don’t ask me why. Just give me an hour to get ready.”

  “Good man,” O’Hara said, beaming happily.

  Ignoring him, Reynolds opened his closets and began tossing clothes and other belongings into various boxes and crates.