Read Upon a Sea of Stars Online
Authors: A. Bertram Chandler
Upon a Sea of Stars (11 page)
Chapter 20
GRIMES PUT UP HIS HANDS
to his helmet, loosened the fastenings and gave it the necessary half turn, lifted it from the shoulders of his suit. The air of the compartment was chilly still, and damp, and a sweet yet pungent odor made him sneeze.
“Gesundheit,”
muttered the big man in the coffin.
“Thank you, Captain. To begin with, we must apologize for having boarded your ship uninvited. I trust that you do not object to my breathing your atmosphere, but I dislike talking through a diaphragm when I don’t have to.”
“Never mind all that.” Mitchell, sitting bolt upright in his tank, looked dangerously hostile. “Never mind all that. Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Grimes. Commodore. Rim Worlds Naval Reserve. These others, with the exception of the lady, are my officers. The lady is Commander Verrill of the Federation Survey Service.”
“Rim Worlds? Federation?” He looked wildly at the other tanks, the transparent containers in which his own staff were still sleeping. “Tell me it’s a dream, somebody. A bad dream.”
“I’m sorry, Captain. It’s not a dream. Your ship has been drifting for centuries,” Sonya Verrill told him.
Mitchell laughed. It was a sane enough laugh, but bitter. “And while she’s been drifting, the eggheads have come up with a practicable FTL drive. I suppose that we’ve fetched up at the very rim of the Galaxy.” He shrugged. “Well, at least we’ve finally got some place. I’ll wake my officers, and then we’ll start revivifying the passengers.” His face clouded. “But what happened to the duty watch? Was it von Spiedel? Or Geary? Or Carradine?”
“It was Carradine.” Grimes paused, then went on softly, “He and all his people are dead. But he asked to be remembered to you.”
“Are you mad, Commodore whatever your name is? How did you know that it was Carradine? And how can a man who’s been dead for centuries ask to be remembered to anybody?”
“He could write, Captain. He wrote before he died—an account of what happened. . . .”
“What did happen, damn you? And how did he die?”
“He shot himself,” Grimes said gravely.
“But what happened?”
“He didn’t know. I was hoping that you might be able to help us.”
“To help you? I don’t get the drift of this, Commodore. First of all you tell me that you’ve come to rescue us, and now you’re asking for help.”
“I’m deeply sorry if I conveyed the impression that we were here to rescue you. At the moment we’re not in a position to rescue anybody. We’re castaways like yourselves.”
“What a lovely, bloody mess to be woken up to!” swore Mitchell. He pushed himself out of the tank, floated to a tall locker. Flinging open the door he took out clothing, a black, gold-braided uniform, a light spacesuit. He dressed with seeming unhurriedness, but in a matter of seconds was attired save for his helmet. He snapped to McHenry, who was hung about with his usual assortment of tools, “You with all the ironmongery, get ready to undog the door, will you?” And to Grimes and Sonya Verrill, “Get your helmets back on. I’m going out. I have to see for myself . . .” And then he moved to the tank beside the one that he had vacated, looked down at the still body of the mature but lovely woman. He murmured, “I’d like you with me, my dear, but you’d better sleep on. I’ll not awaken you to this nightmare.”
Mitchell read the brief account left by Carradine, then went to the next level, the control room, to inspect the Log Book. He stared out through a port at
Faraway Quest
, and Grimes, using his suit radio, ordered Swinton to switch off the searchlights and turn on the floods. He stared at the sleek, graceful
Quest
, so very different from his own ungainly command, and at last turned away to look through the other ports at the unrelieved emptiness. His suit had a radio of sorts, but it was A.M. and not F.M. He tried to talk with Grimes by touching helmets, but this expedient was far from satisfactory. Finally the Commodore told McHenry to seal off the control room and to turn on the heaters. When the frozen atmosphere had thawed and evaporated it was possible for them all to remove the headpieces of their suits.
“Sir, I must apologize for my lack of courtesy,” said the First Captain stiffly.
“It was understandable, Captain Mitchell,” Grimes told him.
“But Captain Carradine should have called me,” Mitchell went on.
“And if he had, Captain, what could you have done? In all probability you would have died as he died. As it is, you know now that you stand a chance.”
“Perhaps, sir. Perhaps. But you haven’t told me, Commodore, how you come to be marooned in this Limbo.”
“It’s a long story,” said Grimes doubtfully.
“And we’ve all the time in the Universe to tell it, John,” put in Sonya Verrill. “Or all the time out of the Universe. What does it matter?”
“All right,” said Grimes. “It’s a long story, but you have to hear it, and it could well be that you might be able to make some suggestion, that there is some important point that has escaped us but that you, with a mind fresh to the problem, will seize upon.”
“That’s hardly likely,” The First Captain said. “When I look at your ship out there, and envisage all the centuries of research that have gone into her building . . . But go ahead, sir. At least I shall be privileged with a glimpse into the future—although it’s not the future now.”
Grimes told the story, trying to keep it as short as possible, but obliged, now and again, to go into technical details. He told the story, asking his officers to supply their own amplifications when necessary. Mitchell listened attentively, asking an occasional question.
“So,” he said when at last the Commodore was finished, “we are not the only ones to have fallen into this hole in Space-Time. There was the old surface ship that you boarded; there was the surface ship that Carradine’s people boarded. There were the aircraft that Captain Carradine mentioned . . . That dirigible airship, sir, with the crew of beelike beings . . . ?”
“The Shaara, Captain. They, too, have interstellar travel.”
“There’s some sort of a connection, Commodore. You got here, you think, by the use of your fantastic electronic gadgetry. But we didn’t. And those old surface ships and aircraft didn’t . . . And those people, sighted by Carradine, with no ships at all . . . These Shaara, Commodore, what are they like?”
“To all intents and purposes, Captain, they’re highly evolved honey bees.”
“H’m. But they have something that
we
have, otherwise they’d never have gotten here. Intelligence, of course. Technology. The airship that Carradine saw, and the spaceships that you say they have now . . . But there must be something else.”
“There is,” stated Calhoun flatly.
“And what is that, Commander?” asked Grimes.
“It’s a matter of . . . Well, I suppose
you’d
call it Psionics, sir.”
“But the Shaara are an utterly materialistic race.”
“I agree, sir. But they still possess certain abilities, certain talents that were essential to their survival before they started to climb the evolutionary ladder. Such as dowsing . . .”
“
Dowsing
, Commander Calhoun?”
“Yes. According to some authorities, the ability of the honey bee on Earth, and on the other worlds to which it has been introduced, to find nectar-laden blossoms is akin to dowsing, for water or minerals, as practiced by human beings.”
“H’m. This is the first time that I’ve heard that theory.”
“It’s not a new one, sir.”
Mitchell smiled for the first time since he had been awakened. It was not a happy smile, but it brought a momentary easing of the stern lines of his face. “Dowsing . . .” he whispered. “Yes. There could be a connection . . .”
“Such as?” asked Sonya Verrill.
The First Captain replied in a voice that was again doubtful, “I don’t know. But . . .” He went on, “As you must know, this ship is one of the specialized vessels built for large scale colonization. I’ve no doubt that in your day, Commander Verrill, newly discovered worlds are thoroughly surveyed before the first shipment of colonists is made. But in my time this was not so. The big ships pushed out into the unknown, heading for sectors of Space recommended by the astronomers. If their first planetfall was disappointing, then they proceeded to an alternative objective. And so on. But the crews and the passengers of the ships were themselves the survey teams.
“I need hardly tell you what such a survey team would have to look for. Water, on worlds that were apparently completely arid. Necessary ores. Mineral oil. The necessary electronic divining apparatus could have been carried, but in many ways it was better to carry, instead, a certain number of men and women who, in addition to their other qualifications, possessed dowsing ability.”
“I think I see what you’re driving at, Captain,” objected Sonya Verrill. “But those surface ships and aircraft would not have carried dowsers as an essential part of their crews.”
“Perhaps not, Commander Verrill. But—”
Calhoun broke in. “Dowsing ability is far more widespread than is generally realized. Most people have it to some degree.”
“So the Shaara can dowse, and we can dowse,” said Grimes. “But what
is
the connection?”
“You know where the dowsers among your passengers are berthed, Captain?” asked Calhoun. “Or should I have said ‘stowed?’ ”
“Stowed is the better word,” Mitchell admitted. “I don’t know at the moment where they are, but as soon as I’ve consulted the passenger list and the plans . . .”
“I’m sure that they’ve something to do with it,” Calhoun stated firmly. Then, to the Commodore, “I suggest that you tell Commander Swinton to get Mr. Mayhew into a suit, and send him across here. As soon as possible.”
“Who is Mr. Mayhew?” asked Mitchell.
“Our Psionic Radio Officer. A trained telepath.”
“So that idea was developed after all. There was talk of it in my time. So you think he may be able to read the minds of my dowsers?”
“I hope so,” said Grimes. Then, “I’ll get Swinton to send one of our suits across for you. It will make things easier if we’re able to speak with each other when we’re suited up again.” He put his helmet back on, called his First Lieutenant aboard the
Faraway Quest
and gave him the orders.
Chapter 21
THEY DID NOT HAVE LONG
to wait for Mayhew.
They watched him, accompanied by one of the junior engineers, jetting across the emptiness between the two ships. Jones squeezed through the sphincter airlock that sealed the hatch in the control room deck, and went down to the airlock proper in the after-hemisphere of the globe. He must have flashed his helmet lantern as a signal, as the two spacesuited figures veered abruptly in midflight and, shortly thereafter, were lost to view from the control room ports. Grimes, still wearing his helmet, heard Jones say, “Mr. Mayhew and Mr. Trent are aboard, sir.”
“Good. Bring them up here, will you?” The diaphragm in the deck bulged and developed a hole in its center, through which appeared the head of the Second Officer, and then his shoulders and finally, after a deal of squirming on his part, the rest of his body. The transparency of his helmet and the fabric of his suit were immediately bedewed with condensation. He stood there to help Mayhew through the Sphincter and, when he was in the control room, the junior engineer. They had been exposed to the cold for a longer period, and the congealing atmospheric moisture clothed them in glittering frost.
The three men put up their gloved hands to remove their helmets.
“You wanted me, sir?” asked Mayhew vaguely.
“Of course,” Grimes bit back a sarcastic retort.
The telepath ignored him, turned his attention to First Captain Mitchell. “You’re the fisherman. You were the one who was dreaming of sitting by a sunlit stream with rod and line—”
“Never mind that now,” snapped the Commodore. “Just listen to what we want, please.”
“I already know, sir.”
“H’m. Yes. I suppose you do. But isn’t it rather against the Institute’s Code of Ethics to eavesdrop?”
“Not in these circumstances, sir. My duty was to receive and to record every impression emanating from the minds of the boarding party.”
“Well, it saves time. As you know, First Captain Mitchell, as soon as he’s got himself into the spare suit you brought, is going to take us into the dormitory sphere, to where the team of dowsers is stowed. There may be some connection between them and the transference of ships and people to this . . . What did you call it, Captain? To this sub-Space.”
Mitchell, out of his own spacesuit but not yet into the one from
Faraway Quest
, was standing by an open filing cabinet, had pulled from it a bulky folder. “C Level,” he was muttering, “Sector 8. Tanks 18 to 23 inclusive . . .” He put the folder back into the cabinet and then was helped into the suit by Sonya Verrill.
With the Captain to guide them, it did not take them long to find the tanks in which the dowsers slept. There were six of them—two very ordinary looking men and four women, one of whom looked far from ordinary. The telepath stood by the first of the transparent containers, staring at the man inside it, his face behind the helmet viewplate wearing an expression of deep concentration.
“This man,” he said at last, “is dreaming of food . . . I can see a table, a table covered with a snow-white cloth, and an array of crystal goblets, and gleaming silverware. There are other people around the table, but they are blurred, indistinct. They are not important. But the waiter holding up the bottle of wine for my inspection is . . . He is an elderly, portly man, with a ruddy face and gray, muttonchop whiskers. He smiles as he pours a few drops from the bottle into my glass. I sip it. It is a white wine, very dry. I nod my approval.
“Another waiter is bringing in the first course: the oysters, the brown bread and butter, the lemon wedges . . .”
“Not much for us there,” interrupted Grimes.
“Oh, all right. All right. But I was just beginning to enjoy it. It was the first time that I’d seen oysters—
me
, I mean, not the man who’s having the dream—and I wanted to know what they taste like. But it’s too late now. Time is accelerated in dreams, and he’s polished them off . . .” He glowered moodily at the tank below the first one. “This man
works
in his dreams. He’s striding up a hillside, over short, springy turf. He is holding a forked twig in his hands. I can feel the odd, soft roughness of it, the—the aliveness of it. There’s a tension, a feeling of pleasurable anticipation, and it comes from the twig itself and from the ground over which I am walking, and from me . . . And I can feel the twig twitching, and I know that it’s water under my feet, running water. . . . But I carry on. There’s no urgency. I can
feel
all the mineral wealth beneath me, around me—the metals, the radio-actives . . .”
“No,” said Grimes. “That’s not it.”
“I wish you’d let me finish a dream, sir, even though it’s not my own.”
Mayhew moved to the next tank. In this one there was a woman, a tall, angular woman with a narrow face, sharp features. There was a drabness about her—a drabness, Grimes somehow knew, that would still have been there had she been awake and clothed, a coldness that was more intense than the frigidity of her physical environment.
The telepath stared at her, her face frightened. His lips moved, but no sound came. He muttered at last, “She’s dead. She’s dead, but . . .”
“But what?” demanded the Commodore sharply.
“There’s . . . How shall I put it? There’s a—a record . . .”
“A ghost,” said Calhoun.
“No. Not a ghost. There’s the record of her last thoughts still in her brain. . . . But I can’t play it back. There’s the sense—no, not even the sense, just a hint—of some orgasmic experience, something that was too intense, something that was too much for her mind. . . .”
Todhunter said, “But there was no physical cause of her death. In her condition there couldn’t have been. Perhaps we could still revivify her . . .” He turned to Mitchell. “As I understand it, Captain, it would be impossible to deal with people on these dormitory decks individually. If we revive one, we revive them all.”
“Yes,” agreed the First Captain. “That is so.”
“Then would you have any objection if we used the empty tank in your sleeping quarters for this woman?”
“Yes,” replied Mitchell. “I most certainly should.” His manner softened. “But there are eight empty tanks in Carradine’s compartment, and neither he nor his officers are in any state to object.”
“Good.”
“Check the other dowsers first, Mr. Mayhew,” said Grimes.
Mayhew did so. The three remaining women were all alive—if their state of suspended animation could be referred to as life—and all peacefully dreaming. The pictures in their minds were pleasant, humdrum pictures of husbands and homes and children.
The tank was opened, and the rectangular block of solid-frozen gas in which was the woman’s body lifted out quite easily. Even so, it was an awkward burden, even under conditions of free fall. Todhunter and Jones maneuvered it through the tiers of containers to the cylinder that was the axis of the globe, and then it had to be carried from level to level until the final deck was reached, the deck on which were the crew dormitories.
The doctor left Jones in charge of the body, went with Mitchell and Grimes and Sonya Verrill into what had been the Fourth Captain’s compartment. All the tanks, of course, were empty. Mitchell satisfied himself that Carradine’s container was ready for occupancy, and the ice-encased corpse was brought in, lowered into the rectangular box. Then, when all members of the party were in the wedge-shaped room, the double door was dogged tight and the automatic revivification process initiated.
There was the gradual rise of temperature and the thawing and evaporation of the frozen gases, and there was the thawing of the frozen gas in the coffin. There was the influx and the drainage of the colored fluids, the rhythmic massaging action of the pneumatic padding. Slowly the skin of the woman changed from silvery gray to a yellowish pallor, and then was suffused with the faintest of pink flushes. The eyelids flickered, and one leg began to twitch.
“She’s not dead,” murmured Grimes.
“But she is,” contradicted Mayhew. “And there’s just a spark . . . Just a spark, no more.
And I don’t like it.
”
The lid of the casket lifted, and as it did so the woman slowly assumed a sitting posture. Her eyes opened and she stared mindlessly. Her jaw hung slackly and saliva dribbled from her mouth. She was making a coarse, disgusting grunting noise.
“The blue sky . . .” Mayhew whispered. “The clear sky, and the aching blue of it . . . And it’s rending, like a piece of cloth between two giant hands. . . . It’s rending, and the noise of its tearing is louder than the loudest thunder. . . . And beyond it is the blackness, the dense blackness, and it’s empty. . . . But it’s not empty. They are there, company after company of them, robed in shining white and with great white wings that span the heavens. . . . And they raise their golden trumpets to their lips, and the sound is high and sweet, high and impossibly sweet, long, golden notes rolling down through that rent in the sky, and the voices, the golden voices and the silver voices, and the flaming swords lifted high to smite the unrighteous, and . . . And . . .
“And that was all,” he concluded. “She’s gone now, finally gone. What’s in the box is no more than a mindless hunk of flesh. But she’s gone . . .”
“So that was what she dreamed?” asked Mitchell in an almost inaudible voice. “So that was what she—dreamed, and with such intensity as almost to drag the ship with her through that rent in the blue sky. . . . But was it her? Could it possibly have been her?”
“Have you any better explanation?” countered the telepath.
“Is it an explanation?” asked Grimes tiredly.