Stepping Stones (26 page)

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

From glen to glen, and down the mountainside

The summer’s gone, and all the roses fallen

It’s you, it’s you must go,

And I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow,

Or when the land is hushed, and white with snow

It’s I’ll be there, in sunshine or in shadow

Oh, Danny boy, oh, Danny boy,

I love you so.

Just two months old at the time, Daniel had adored his mother’s singing.  At first Susan had only been able to hum the melody, but it had always exerted a soothing, magi
cal effect on their child.  B
efore lo
ng she’d known all the words.  And through mind-link, so had Aaron,
at least in principl
e,
but his sporadic attempts at
using his voice
had never produced more than a dissonant assortment of grunts and squeaks.  In the end Aaron had learned to say Daniel’s name aloud . . . but that was all.

Susan finished the song and sat quietly, gazing down at
their
sleeping child.  Aaron moved to stand behind her.  He placed his hands on her shoulders, feeling her body trembling under her tunic.  At his touch she turned, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.  “Did you tell them about the new star?”

“Yes.”

“They wouldn’t listen, would they?”

“No.”

“I knew they wouldn’t.”

Susan remained silent for a long moment.  Then she asked the question both had been avoiding.  “When?”

“Tomorrow,” Aaron answered.  “Tomorrow, at the end of the second watch.”

Susan rose and stepped to the
door.  S
he touched a light control, sending the chamber into darkness.  Across the room Aaron could hear the sounds
of her muffled sobbing.  M
oving to join her, he reached for her with his mind.  She closed herself off.  Instead she raised her chin, and finding his lips with hers, she kissed him—softly at first, then with growing intensity, her mouth
gradually
becoming insistent, selfish, demanding.  Once more he tried to enfold her with his mind, wanting to be with her more than life itself.  And again she refused, barring him from her most intimate core.

They made love on the living room floor.  For Aaron, it seemed as if Susan had somehow become a stranger, her kisses desperate and unquenchable, almost frantic.  Nonetheless, he responded as her hunger rose, her passion igniting them both, yet all the while
he was
plagued with the realization that her thoughts, feelings, desires—all the things that made her unique—were locked away from him, hidden and unreachable.

Is this what life would have been for Daniel?
Aaron wondered as they embarked on the final turns of life’s sweetest embrace. 
Alone, forever alone? 
More than ever he needed Susan to join
with
him completely, and eventually she did, melding her mind with his in that last shuddering instant, enmeshing him in both the
fullness
of her love and the
depth
of her despair.

Hours later Aaron left his sleeping wife and returned
to the nursery.  In the dim light
he could see Daniel, his small form illuminated in the lambent glow from the holoportrait in the next room.  The child lay curled on his side, one hand close to his face—thumb partially hidden between his lips, a black-and-tan stuffed bear with round button eyes and a white belly beside him.  Absently, Aaron noticed that one of the toy’s seams had started to pull loose.

Reaching into the crib, Aaron stroked Daniel’s head, the child’s hair silky beneath his fingers.  How quickly he’d grown!  Every day he looked more like a little boy.  Daniel stirred, and Aaron withdrew his hand.

Numbly,
Aaron
stood in the darkness, gazing down at his beautiful, crippled, cherished son.

Instead of returning to bed after leaving the nursery, Aaron exited his living quarters and took a slidestrip to his lab.  Upon arrival he found the large room deserted, as expected.  With grim determination, he sat at the sensor console.  Powering up the array of astronomical devices contained therein, he began his search.

The stars in the
viewing field
were blue-shifted by the relativistic effect of the ship’s velocity.  Adjusting his instruments to compensate, Aaron located the small sun
he had
recently discovered.  Over the centuries
,
a high percentage of the stars encountered by
Genesis
had proved to be binaries—two suns closely
circling
each other—and routinely devoid of habitable planets.  The rest of the suns that had fallen within their velocity cone were either too hot for life or disappointingly sterile and planetless.  This new
star
, however, appeared to be perfect:  stable, burning on the main sequence, and at only seven light years
distance
, a definite possibility.

Although at
seven light years
Aaron’s equipment was inadequate to actually
see
a planetary system, the presence of orbiting worlds could be detected by
painstakingly
observing light from the parent star.  Unfortunately, those measurements often took months.  Aaron had been scrutinizing the yellow sun for barely two weeks, and until now the results had been within the statistical range of error inherent in his sensing devices.  Nevertheless, he felt certain there was a habitable planet circling the new star.  There had to be.

Working frantically, Aaron continued his measurements through the first watch and into the second.  When he finished, he knew he was close, so very close.  Granted, he still had nothing definite, but within weeks he would know for sure, and he now felt confident he had enough to again petition
for
a delay of Daniel’s sentence.  After gathering his
research
notes, he hurried back to his living quarters.  He wanted Susan at his side when he once more faced the council.

When he arrived,
she was
gone.

Standing in the nursery, Aaron stared into the empty crib.  The rumpled covers lay pushed to one side, partially hiding the stuffed bear.  With a sinking feeling, he sent his consciousness throughout the ship—the clinic, galley, assembly hall, hydroponics, engineering—racing from mind to mind, calling her name.

She never answered.

He found the thought-tube on their bed, lying on his pillow.  He picked it up, afraid of what it might contain.  Fighting to control his nervousness, he touched the
crystal
cylinder to his temple.

Susan’s image sprang to life in Aaron’s mind, and she spoke to him for the last time.  Wordlessly, she left him all her memories of Daniel—his birth, his first smile, the wonder in his eyes, and more.  She told him
that she knew they c
ould never have another child, but tha
t was not the reason she was leaving. 
The reason was simple: 
She could not let Daniel go into the darkness alone.

She told Aaron that she loved him.  And finally, she bid him good-bye.

Hours later Aaron Rhodes sat on the ship’s observation deck, watching
as
the stars wheel
ed
slowly past.  He held a black-and-tan object in his hands.  Looking down, he noticed that a bit of wadding had begun to spill from the torn seam he’d noticed earlier.  Concentrating on the toy swimming in his vision, he carefully pushed the stuffing back in.

And then,
for the first time in his life, ignoring
the curious stares of others
, in a straining, broken voice that cracked and faltered with effort, using ancient words from a long-forgotten language . . . he began to sing.

Virus

I
am
alone.

Not counting the
Magellan
and what’s left of the two alien vessels, the nearest ship, the nearest colony,
in fact
the nearest
anything
is ten thousand light years
away
.  I’ve still got plenty of juice left in my EV suit, though, and my oxygen tanks are
almost
full.  Plus there’s a fresh voice spool in my recorder.  Before turning off
my suit’s heater coils
, I
want
to leave
behind
a record of what happened.  There sure as hell won’t be one in the
Magellan’s
computer log
.  Besides, I’m in no hurry to freeze.

So
here goes.  What I’m about to say may be hard to swallow, but I swear it’s true.  All of it.  One thing before I start, though, and this is
really, really
important:  Whoever finds me, do not, repeat,
do
not
attempt to download any of
Magellan’s
computer files.

Everyone says b
egin at the beginning, right?  Okay,
here’s how things began. 
I’m Lieutenant Dennis McGuire, communications and cybernetics officer aboard the
Federation
Starship
Magellan
.  We left Lunar orbit eight days ago to investigate a subspace disturbance in the Horsehead Nebula.  It was my first jump.  Having spent three dreary years on Lunar Orbiter 7, I was overjoyed to
hear
that I had
finally drawn sta
rship duty.  Don’t get me wrong. 
I’m not complaining about orbiter work; somebody has to keep the photonic brains on the mi
ning robots operational, and
it got me offplanet.  Nonetheless, it was a big comedown from the theoretical stuff
I had
been exposed to at the Academy—which I guess is what got me out here in the first place.

Let’s back up a bit.  I have
a knack for cybernetics, along with a talent for getting into trouble.  Although finishing at the top of my Academy class, I also managed to rack up one of the lowest fitness reports ever posted.  At least that’s what Captain Wheatly told me the day I graduated.  I remember his exact words.  “Mac,” he growled
at me
from across the spit-shined surface of his desk, “in the past four years you’ve set a new standard for academic excellence.  You’ve also been a royal pain in the ass.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed, figuring
one out of two wasn’t bad.  Besides, I knew he was right.  The military system and I didn’t see
eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but j
oining
the service
wa
s the only way for me to get offplanet.  I had
resigned myself to life in the
military
, but that didn’t mean I liked
all the damn rules
.

“You don’t deserve this, but I’m gonna do you a favor,”
Captain Wheatly
continued.

“T
hank you, sir,” I said, trying to look appreciative
.  In view of my fitness reports, I suspected
that
his idea of a favor would be a nice long tour on a
L
unar orbiter.  I was right.  Anyway, for the next three years I kept my nose relatively clean and kept reapplying for deep-space duty.  And when it
finally
came through, I jumped at the chance.

I had six hours to brief my
orbiter
replacement, clean out my locker, and catch a shuttle over to the
Magellan
, a four-man explorer
I had
seen
dropping into docking orbit earlier that morning.  I made it over as quickly as possible, which, as it turned out, wasn’t
fast
enough.

“Lieutenant McGuire, where the hell have you been?  We’re due to jump in thirty minutes!” Captain Stringer
, the
Magellan’s
CO,
yelled
at me as I struggled through the airlock.  Stringer was tall and lanky, with red hair and a temper to match.

“Sir, my orders stated—”

“Those orders were changed,” Stringer snapped.  “Didn’t you get the word?  Never mind.  Go help Cruz
with
the jump
calculations
.  And welcome aboard,” he added brusquely.

I had
barely entered the computer bay when I felt the
Magellan
lurch under her inertial thrusters.  Realizing w
e were already climbing out of L
unar orbit, I hurried to the computer console.  That’s when I got my first
big
surprise. 
Our onboard computer was an Omni 4000
, the most advanced computer
system
ever built.

I had
logged some time on an experimental Omni at the Academy, one of only three in existence. 
What
was
an Omni doing aboard a starship?
I wondered.  It didn’t make sense.

Granted, an onboard computer is and always has been the heart of every starship, controlling navigation, propulsion, environmental support, communications—even the cryo-systems that allowed early explorers to cross interstellar distances in frozen stasis.  With the development of jump technology, a ship’s computer
suddenly
became even more indispensable, for it alone could handle the mind-boggling complexities of navigating hyperspace.  The point is, all this takes a staggering amount of computing
power
.  On a starship the
computer
of choice is usually a Gates Mark 9, which has
way
more than enough.  Compared
with an Omni
,
however,
it’s a toy.

“Impressive, huh?” said a
dark, muscular man seated at a nearby
console.  I looked over, noting that although
the man’s
nose appeared to have been customized by more than a few knuckles, the rest
of his face
was wearing a big, lopsided grin.  “She asked us to call her Carla,” he added.

“
She
?”

“The Omni.”

“She
asked
you?”

The man shrugged.  “Don’t look at me.  We just got her
installed onboard
yesterday.” 
Then, leaning over, he
pumped my hand in a viselike grip.  “You must be McGuire.  I’m Felipe Cruz, ship’s navigator.”

“Call me Mac.”

Abruptly
,
the intercom crackled.  “Cruz, those equations ready?” Captain Stringer’s voice
came over the navigation speaker
.

“Working on ’em now, Cap.”

“We’re jumping in twenty-six minutes.  It would be
nice
if the solutions were completed
by then.  Get McGuire to help.”

“What’s the rush?”

“Just do it, Cruz.”

“Aye-aye, Skipper.”

“
Damn
,” Cruz
grumbled
after Stringer clicked off.  “Twenty-six minutes is cutting it thin.  Let’s go, Mac.  Time to shine.”

Although I knew almost nothing about navigating, one of my duties as communications officer was to assist with hyperspace computations.  Despite my puzzlement at the Omni’s presence, I sat at the keyboard, wondering whether the system had the Dexter Navigational Program in its memory. 
That particular
algorithm-laden program had been a stunning, albeit impractical, breakthrough in hyperspace navigation
when I was studying at the Academy
.  The trouble with
the program
was that only an Omni had the
raw computing
power to run it, and as I said, there weren’t many
Omnis
around—
especially
on starships.  Anyway, I checked the
Omni’s
program files.  To my amazement
,
the program I wanted was in there.

I glanced over at Cruz.  He
was working furiously at the nav console. 
He had
set up the destination tensors, but the look on his face said
he would
never solve them in time.  “Gimme the coordinates,” I said.

“What?”

“Just gim
me the coordinates.  The Omni will
do the rest.”

Cruz regarded me doubtfully.

“C’mon, Cruz.  What’ve you got to lose?”

“At this point, nothing.”  Dubiously, Cruz rattled off a long series of digits.  I entered them into the Omni.  Moments later the twelve-dimensional equations of motion flashed up on the display.

Cruz stared incredulously at the screen, then thumped me on the back.  “Mac, I think I’m gonna like having you around.  You too, Carla.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Cruz,”
the Omni
replied.

The jump to hyperspace came off right on schedule.  When it happened I was strapped in my webbing
chair
, wondering what th
e transition would feel like.  Despite all I’d heard, i
t wasn’t what I expected.  Not
even close
.  Oh, I was ready for the blinding flash
of light
and the weird, sideways lurch.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the feeling that someone had reached down my throat and turned me inside out like a glove.  I’ve heard it’s different for everyone, but for me it was, well . . . let’s just say I was glad when it was over.

After I pulled myself togethe
r, I made my way to the galley. 
Cruz and Stringer
were already
there drinking coffee.  Stringer eyed me as I entered, then smiled.  “First jump?”

“Yes, sir,” I
replied.
“What’s it like out there?”  I knew the answer; I just wanted to change the subject.

“Black,” Stringer answered.  “No stars, just black.  We won’t be seeing anything till we arrive.”

Recalling the jump coordinates, I did a quick mental calculation, coming up with an ETA of just under a week.  “What’s our mission?”

“And why the big hurry to get there?” added Cruz.

Stringer took a sip of coffee, then glanced at Cruz.  “Sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier.  This
is
top secret.  Two days ago the deep-space listening array picked up a subspace signal
coming
from somewhere in the Horsehead Nebula.  Looks like a distress beacon of some sort.”

Cruz shook his head.  “A beacon?  Way out there on the galactic rim?”

Stringer
shrugged
.  “There’s more.  Whatever it is, it’s not ours.  We’re being sent to investigate.”

“Not ours?  Are we talking
aliens
here?”

“Who knows?  If so, it’ll be our first contact with another race.  Understandably, the brass wants us
out
there ASAP.”  Stringer turned his gaze to me.  “Which reminds me—do you know a Captain Wheatly?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.  “He was my CO at the Academy.  Why?”

“He recommended you for this assignment.  Very highly, in fact.”

My jaw dropped. 
Highly recommended?  By Wheatly?

“
W
e don’t have the faintest idea what we may find out there,” Stringer explained, “
so
the consensus was that we needed a communications officer
with a
flexible approach to problem solving
, outside-the-box thinking
.  We also needed someone who had experience with an Omni.  According to Wheatly, you fit the bill.”

“Why the Omni?”

“If we run into an alien race
, communicating is
going to be a problem.  That’s where you and the Omni come in.”  At that point I noticed Stringer’s eyes drifting to a spot just over my left shoulder.  “Julie,” he said.  “Smooth jump, Commander.”

I turned, doing a double take as I got a look at the fourth member of
our
crew.  The
Magellan’s
pilot was tall and willowy, with clear hazel eyes, short brown hair, and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose
.  Her lips
were full and sensuous, and the rest of her filled out her uniform nicely.  Very nicely, indeed.  Things were definitely looking up.

“Thanks, Cap,” she said, eyeing me curiously.  “Who do we have here?”