Exodus to the Stars

by Andreas Brandhorst

  In the black distance, hidden in shadow, a voice whispered.

  17

  Alahandra

  When a door appeared in a wall of the gray room, the little Alahandra knew that the big one did not want to be alone any longer. She left the room in which she had to wait now and then and began searching, wandering through the castle.

  In the hall with the many columns, she looked for the woman but did not find her. She thought that was strange, since it shone and sparkled within some of the pillars more brightly than ever before. Within others the snakes of light seemed to be struggling to escape. Many columns, however, in which there had previously been lights, were now dark as though dead. That made little Alahandra sad, although she did not understand the reason for it. She suspected that there was a connection with the sickness that afflicted the woman, and was very sorry that she could not help her.

  Where are you?

  And she knew without receiving an answer. Again she hurried through the castle, up long staircases, until she finally reached the small tower, the highest part of the building. There she stood, in the room with the arched windows and looking out into the fog that wrapped the castle like a robe that could not be removed.

  "I am not doing well," big Alahandra said without turning around.

  The girl stepped closer and wound her arms around the woman's waist. "I've felt it," she declared sympathetically. "If only I could help you."

  "I am old. My external components no longer function reliably, and there are also operating failures in the internal ones."

  "The room you dance in ... " little Alahandra said. "Some of the pillars have gone dark."

  And then they stood in the hall. Big Alahandra walked slowly through the forest of columns, touched something here, stroked something there. Her face showed sadness and concern.

  "The strangers who have come ... "

  "Yes?" The girl remembered. Before waiting in the gray room, she had felt that something had appeared inside of her, within the larger realm that was the world of big Alahandra.

  "I have erred. They do not belong to the Builders."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Security detention. They must not be allowed to endanger us." The woman leaned her head a little to the side. "The strangers have demanded that a peripheral unit take them to the Enemy!"

  The Enemy. How strange that word sounded. Little Alahandra had never had enemies before.

  Before ...

  Something diverted her thoughts into another direction.

  Big Alahandra looked at her, smiled ... and suddenly trembled. "The strangers have destroyed my peripheral unit. That is clearly hostile behavior. Additional offensive and defensive subsystems must be activated."

  She was about to begin a dance in the forest of columns, but froze after just the first step. This time little Alahandra did not attempt to leave the great room—she hardly would have reached the door anyway. She pressed her hands against her ears when the woman began to shriek. That had been happening more often recently, a sign of her sickness. The howling faded away with surprising swiftness, and big Alahandra's situation was one that had already grown familiar: she stood there rigidly, her face a grimace, completely motionless. Just as motionless as the lights in the many columns.

  Little Alahandra went to her, touched her hand, and made a contact that was not limited to the physical. She gave big Alahandra a portion of her strength, and with that the grotesque expression disappeared from the woman's face.

  And then she ran back and forth among the columns, dancing with the light snakes and with the sparkling and the glittering. Little Alahandra watched her. This time she saw and heard, for big Alahandra had not sent her into the gray room to wait.

  18

  Deshan Apian

  Lemuria, 4521 dT (51,879 B.C.)

  The view could hardly have been more magnificent, and Deshan Apian forgot the feeling of endless falling that had bothered him up to now. Weightless, he looked out the large panoramic window and down at the planet revolving slowly beneath them: Lemur, the blue of the oceans, the white of the glaciers and vast stretches of snow. The cradle of mankind.

  "It's ... beautiful," the Chronicler said, deeply moved. Of course he had seen pictures and films, but the reality, the direct experience of this view, was overwhelming.

  Levian Paronn nodded. "A cosmic jewel," he replied. "An oasis of life in space. Many people down there believe that Lemur will always exist, and will always be their home. But an asteroid would be enough to destroy what they consider 'the world.'"

  "An asteroid or ... dangerous beings from the depths of space?"

  Paronn did not answer right away. He held on firmly to the wall next to the window, gazed down at the planet for a few more seconds, then turned his head and looked at Deshan. For nineteen years the Chronicler had worked for this man, and in that time he believed he had come to know him well. The fire deep in his gray eyes had long been familiar. But there was also something different in the man to which Deshan had developed a special sensitivity, since he felt it ever more clearly: a mystery, a secret that Paronn had guarded for nearly two decades.

  "Dangerous beings," he repeated softly, and a shadow flitted across his face. "That can't be ruled out. That is why we must reach the stars. To survive. This new space station, the first of its kind, is an important step."

  "You know about the Star Seekers of Project Exodus," Deshan said. "Their movement is extremely popular and its Herald refers to threats from space as well. He has also mentioned 'dangerous beings.'"

  Paronn was silent.

  "Many people consider the Herald to be the returned twelfth Hero Vehraáto."

  "Under certain circumstances, myths can be very effective." Paronn sighed. "Come, Deshan, I'll show you the laboratory."

  The two men pushed off cautiously and floated to the hatch that led into the connecting support tubes. Deshan attempted to orient himself. During the flight on the shuttle, he'd had an opportunity to observe all the details of the large new space station. It was more than 1200 meters long, consisting of cylinders, tubes, rings, and smaller, cone-like structures. Many segments could rotate, simulating gravity with centrifugal force. In addition were dozens of long rods that jutted from the station like antennae, equipped with sensors and specialized measuring instruments. Paronn and Deshan now left one of the rings and the connecting support tube took them into a brightly lit cylinder, about thirty meters long and ten wide. It rotated slowly, and the Chronicler noticed in relief that the feeling of falling disappeared as he regained some of his weight on the inner wall. Though not much—a leap with any force behind it would have taken him all the way to the cylinder's opposite wall. Technicians and scientists sat at humming consoles. They busied themselves with the complex device that floated exactly where the cylinder's virtual rotation axis was located, in its weightless center.

  "What is that?" Deshan asked curiously, pointing upwards.

  "The experimental model of a completely new propulsion system," Paronn said proudly. "If we want to reach the stars, we need a engine that can generate enough thrust over a long period of time to accelerate spaceships to nearly the speed of light. Chemical reactions don't produce enough energy. We are working with different kinds of solar radiation, in particular with neutrinos."

  Deshan remembered Project Nineteen and looked up at the experimental device. It gave him the impression of being very improvised, consisting of bundled cables, reflectors, projectors, screen-like attachments, and other things that he could not identify. In the center he saw a long, transparent tube with a flickering thread of light within.

  One of the scientists approached them. He was an older man with thinning hair and a mottled face. In the low pseudo-gravity, his movements seemed strange to Deshan, as though drawn out into a kind of slow motion.

  "This is Professor Luban," Paronn said. "He is the leader of the propulsion system project."

  The scientist nodded to the Chronicler and then turned t
o Paronn. "We have readied everything for a new test."

  "Excellent." Paronn gestured. "Begin."

  Deshan watched as Luban returned to his console and manipulated the controls. A muffled rumbling in the background grew louder and the technicians and scientists looked up, their interest focused on the object in the center of laboratory.

  The glowing thread in the transparent tube increased in brightness and size, but then it started to flicker irregularly, and the rumbling changed to a stuttering buzzing. Excitement spread among the men and women at the consoles. Paronn observed what was happening and waited with growing impatience for an explanation. At length he could no longer stand by and moved with cautious steps towards Luban. Deshan followed him.

  With both concern and puzzlement, the professor looked at instrument displays that meant little to the Chronicler.

  "I don't understand it," Luban said. "The conditions were precisely identical, but we've gotten different results with this test. That doesn't make any sense. When identical conditions don't produce identical results, science isn't working any more."

  "Perhaps you've overlooked something," Paronn said. "There must be an unknown factor if identical test conditions produce different results. Let's check over everything together."

  And Deshan watched as Levian Paronn again became the man who overcame obstacles and solved problems.

  Two weeks later, as Deshan was sitting in the workroom of his large apartment, Mira came in. Now the mother of six children, she had also become a recognized psychosociologist. "I thought you told me that Levian Paronn was born in the research colony of Torhad in the year 4460."

  Deshan remembered the discussion about it, along with the accident that had claimed the lives of Paronn's parents. The possibility that their son had also died at the time he now regarded with more maturity and rationality—and thus with greater skepticism. "Yes, I did."

  "Have you taken a close look at your employer recently?"

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Come with me—I'd like to show you something."

  Deshan stood up and followed her into the hallway. Familiar voices could be heard behind the half-open door to a nearby room. Sixteen-year-old Tamaha and her sister Milissa, two years younger, were talking about a gene-tech project for the learning solidarity that they attended. They already sound like women, Deshan thought, amazed to realize how quickly time passed. In a few years they'll be grown.

  The large common room was decorated with many plants, and from its expansive front window one could look out over Marroar. The apartment was in the Inner District, on the thirtieth floor of the central Merit sector. Those who lived here had attained great Merit. The smaller children played a game of skill with mini-projectors that had to be combined to produce especially attractive reflective patterns. A young Educator in the service of the Sixth Solidarity Community watched over them, along with a mother with two children from another House. Mira and Deshan took care of their daughters and sons together, but they often resorted to the help of Solidarity Educators or the educational support of other mothers. As was common in Lemurian society, they both wanted to preserve their professional freedom despite their large House. Mira enjoyed her role as a mother, but she was also a Zephalon specialist and a psychosociologist, and of course she continued her work in both areas.

  Mira's room with the Zephalons was next to the common room. As Deshan and Mira stepped inside, she closed the door and pointed past a tall plant to a softly humming Zephalon. A large display showed an image of Levian Paronn recorded on board the space station.

  "That is him today," Mira said. "Command: change image."

  The system that Mira Lemroth had helped to develop to allow direct speech-processing had long become standard for modern Zephalons and also functioned with much more complex commands. The picture disappeared from the screen and another appeared that showed Levian Paronn as well, but in different surroundings.

  "Does anything strike you?" Mira asked.

  Deshan scrutinized the man for whom he was preparing a personal chronicle. "It's also Levian Paronn."

  "In your opinion, when were the two pictures taken? Command: show both images on the screen."

  The pictures appeared next to each other. "Not long ago," Deshan said.

  "Both?"

  "Yes. Paronn looks the same in both pictures."

  Mira nodded and pointed to the image on the left. "This picture was taken in the year 4502. It is nineteen years old."

  Deshan looked more closely, but could not see any difference in the faces.

  "I've had both faces examined by a special recognition program. Your impression is not mistaken. They are identical."

  "But that means ... "

  "It means that Levian Paronn has not aged during the last nineteen years."

  "We now know why the same test conditions produced different results," Professor Luban said. His face appeared on the communication monitor on board the shuttle that was again taking Levian Paronn and his Chronicler, Deshan Apian, to the space station, for the second time in a few months.

  "I'm eager to hear it," Paronn said, who once more insisted on flying the shuttle himself. A maneuvering jet fired, thrusting for several seconds to correct the small spaceship's course. Deshan looked out the window and saw the space station, whose contours stood out from Lemur's bright day side. Fewer than two kilometers separated them from the station.

  "The test conditions were actually not precisely identical," the professor explained. "Different people were present during the individual tests, and that led to a change in the results."

  "And?"

  "We have determined that the neutrinos produce more energy when certain people take part in the tests. Medical examinations of the persons concerned showed that they have parapsychological abilities that not only allow them to sense neutrinos but also to unconsciously control them. In this connection we are speaking of the 'Abhijn Power.'"

  Thin wrinkles appeared in Paronn's forehead. "Mutants?"

  "I wouldn't go so far as to use that term," the professor said.

  Luban continued with his explanation and emphasized several times that the discovery of the Abhijn Power could accelerate the development of a neutrino propulsion system. Deshan listened closely and employed mnemo-technical methods he had learned many years before to take mental note of everything. The news was interesting, but even so, he hoped for a quick end to the conversation because he had gathered enough determination to ask Paronn who he was and what he was hiding. He had wanted to speak to his employer about it on board the shuttle since they were alone there—but not undisturbed, as it turned out.

  "I am certain that in a short time we will have ... " Suddenly, the professor's face disappeared from the communication screen.

  And something flashed on the space station.

  In the middle ring segment, among several long cylinders, there was a silent explosion. Abruptly escaping air tore glowing debris and perhaps even human beings into space. Two thick beams of light shot from the glowing cloud, yellowish red at their point of origin and blue further away from the station.

  Deshan hardly noticed that the shuttle began to vibrate and the security Zephalon sounded an alarm to which his spacesuit's safety systems reacted: the helmet visor snapped into place in front of his face, and its seals closed with a slight hissing. His seatbelts tightened, giving Deshan less freedom of movement. He knew that a collision with a piece of debris could mean death, but even that thought was not at the center of his attention.

  Behind the incandescence of the space station's ring components, he saw images of things that did not exist: other space stations whose structures resembled that of the first, and spaceships that rode on flame into interplanetary space. Deshan saw something that he really should not be able to see at all, and the vision vanished when he blinked. Beyond the station, space was as empty as before.

  Paronn was struggling with the shuttle's controls, and if he had also seen the stra
nge images, he did not have a chance to mention it. He attempted to contact the station by radio, and at length the face of a young woman appeared on the communication screen. She seemed deeply shaken.

  "What happened?" Paronn asked, and Deshan saw him grimace behind his helmet visor as something scraped along the shuttle's hull.

  "The expanded laboratory with the experimental model of the new propulsion system ... " the woman managed to say. "Something went out of control and there was an explosion. I'm afraid none of the scientists and technicians survived."

  Paronn and Deshan floated in the airlock and looked into the destroyed section of the space station that was still exposed to the vacuum of space. Spotlight beams played here and there—spacesuit-wearing crew members flew between exploded equipment installations and mangled machinery. Transformers and projectors had half-melted and then frozen in the cold of space. There were no bodies anywhere. Professor Luban and the others were either burned to ashes in the fire of the explosion or torn apart by decompression in space.

  Deshan heard Paronn's low voice in his helmet speaker. "I could be dead. If we had arrived just a little earlier and joined Luban ... I could be dead."

  "We could both be dead," Deshan said.

  "What?" Paronn responded absently. "Both of us. Yes. Like Luban and the others. Dead."

  He turned around, went back into the still undamaged portion of the station, and took his helmet off. Deshan followed him.

  "The damage must be repaired as quickly as possible so the work can be resumed," Paronn said as though to himself. "Professor Luban always documented everything precisely. We'll find out what led to the explosion and correct the error."

  Paronn floated onwards, seeming to have forgotten the Chronicler. Deshan watched him go, once again surprised by Paronn but this time in an unpleasant way. He apparently did not waste very many thoughts on the people who had just died. His emotional reaction was obviously limited to the possibility of his own death. Did he really think and react so egocentrically?