The Colors of Space

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  He saw the girl again next day, when they checked in for blastoff. Shewas seated at a small desk, triangular like so much of the Lharifurniture, checking a register as they came out of the Decontam room,making sure they downed their greenish solution of microorganisms.

  "Papers, please?" She marked, and Bart noticed that she was using a redpencil.

  "Bartol," she said aloud. "Is that how you pronounce it?" She made smallscribbles in a sort of shorthand with the red pencil, then made othermarks with the black one in Lhari; he supposed the red marks were herown private memoranda, unreadable by the Lhari.

  "Next, please." She handed a cup of the greenish stuff to Ringg, behindhim. Bart went down toward the drive room, and to his own surprise,found himself wishing the girl were a mathematician rather than a medic.It would have been pleasant to watch her down there.

  Old Rugel, on duty in the drive room, watched Bart strap himself inbefore the computer. "Make sure you check all dials at null," hereminded him, and Bart felt a last surge of panic.

  This was his first cruise, except for practice runs at the Academy! Yethis rating called him an experienced man on the Polaris run. He'd hadthe Lhari training tape, which was supposed to condition his responses,but would it? He tried to clench his fists, drove a claw into his palm,winced, and commanded himself to stay calm and keep his mind on what hewas doing.

  It calmed him to make the routine check of his dials.

  "Strapdown check," said a Lhari with a yellowed crest and a raspingvoice. "New man, eh?" He gave Bart's straps perfunctory tugs atshoulders and waist, tightened a buckle. "Karol son of Garin."

  Bells rang in the ship, and Bart felt the odd, tonic touch of fear._This was it._

  Vorongil strode through the door, his banded cloak sweeping behind him,and took the control couch.

  "Ready from fueling room, sir."

  "Position," Vorongil snapped.

  Bart heard himself reading off a string of figures in Lhari. His voicesounded perfectly calm.

  "Communication."

  "Clear channels from Pylon Dispatch, sir." It was old Rugel's voice.

  "Well," Vorongil said, slowly and almost reflectively, "let's take herup then."

  He touched some controls. The humming grew. Then, swift, hard andcrushing, weight mashed Bart against his couch.

  "Position!" Vorongil's voice sounded harsh, and Bart fought the crushingweight of it. Even his eyeballs ached as he struggled to turn the tinyeye muscles from dial to dial, and his voice was a dim croak: "Fourteenseven sidereal twelve point one one four nine...."

  "Hold it to point one one four six," Vorongil said calmly.

  "Point one one four six," Bart said, and his claws stabbed at dials.Suddenly, in spite of the cold weight on his chest, the pain, thestruggle, he felt as if he were floating. He managed a long, luxuriousbreath. He _could_ handle it. He knew what he was doing.

  _He was an Astrogator...._

  Later, when Acceleration One had reached its apex and the artificialgravity made the ship a place of comfort again, he went down to thedining hall with Ringg and met the crew of the _Swiftwing_. There weretwelve officers and twelve crewmen of various ratings like himself andRingg, but there seemed to be little social division between them, asthere would have been on a human ship; officers and crew joked andargued without formality of any kind.

  None of them gave him a second look. Later, in the Recreation Lounge,Ringg challenged him to a game with one of the pinball machines. Itseemed fairly simple to Bart; he tried it, and to his own surprise, won.

  Old Rugel touched a lever at the side of the room. With a tiny whishingsound, shutters opened, the light of Procyon Alpha flooded them and helooked out through a great viewport into bottomless space.

  Procyon Alpha, Beta and Gamma hung at full, rings gently tilted. Beyondthem the stars burned, flaming through the shimmers of cosmic dust. Thecolors, the never-ending colors of space!

  And he stood here, in a room full of monsters--_he was one of themonsters_--

  "Which one of the planets was it we stopped on?" Rugel asked. "I can'ttell 'em apart from this distance."

  Bartol swallowed; he had almost said _the blue one_. He pointed."The--the big one there, with the rings almost edge-on. I think theycall it Alpha."

  "It's their planet," said Rugel. "I guess they can call it what theywant to. How about another game?"

  Resolutely, Bart turned his back on the bewitching colors, and bent overthe pinball machine.

  * * * * *

  The first week in space was a nightmare of strain. He welcomed the hourson watch in the drive room; there alone he was sure of what he wasdoing. Everywhere else in the ship he was perpetually scared,perpetually on tiptoe, perpetually afraid of making some small andstupid mistake. Once he actually called Aldebaran a red star, but Rugeleither did not hear the slip or thought he was repeating what one of theMentorians--there were two aboard besides the girl--had said.

  The absence of color from speech and life was the hardest thing to getused to. Every star in the manual was listed by light-frequency waves,to be checked against a photometer for a specific reading, and it almostdrove Bart mad to go through the ritual when the Mentorians were offduty and could not call off the color and the equivalent frequency typefor him. Yet he did not dare skip a single step, or someone might haveguessed that he could _see_ the difference between a yellow and a greenstar before checking them.

  The Academy ships had had the traditional human signal system offlashing red lights. Bart was stretched taut all the time, listening forthe small codelike buzzers and ticks that warned him of filled tanks,leads in need of servicing, answers ready. Ringg's metal-fatiguestesting kit was a bewildering muddle of boxes, meters, rods andearphones, each buzzing and clicking its characteristic warning.

  At first he felt stretched to capacity every waking moment, his memoryaching with a million details, and lay awake nights thinking his mindwould crack under the strain. Then Alpha faded to a dim bluish shimmer,Beta was eclipsed, Gamma was gone, Procyon dimmed to a failing spark;and suddenly Bart's memory accustomed itself to the load, the new habitswere firmly in place, and he found himself eating, sleeping and workingin a settled routine.

  He belonged to the _Swiftwing_ now.

  Procyon was almost lost in the viewports when a sort of upswept tempobegan to run through the ship, an undercurrent of increased activity.Cargo was checked, inventoried and strapped in. Ringg was given fourextra men to help him, made an extra tour of the ship, and came backbuzzing like a frantic cricket. Bart's computers told him they wereforging toward the sidereal location assigned for the first of thewarp-drive shifts, which would take them some fifteen light-years towardAldebaran.

  On the final watch before the warp-drive shift, the medical officer camearound and relieved the Mentorians from duty. Bart watched them go, witha curious, cold, crawling apprehension. Even the Mentorians, trusted bythe Lhari--even these were put into cold-sleep! Fear grabbed hisinsides.

  _No human had ever survived the shift into warp-drive_, the Lhari said.Briscoe, his father, Raynor Three--they thought they had proved that theLhari lied. If they were right, if it was a Lhari trick to reinforcetheir stranglehold on the human worlds and keep the warp-drive forthemselves, then Bart had nothing to fear. But he was afraid.

  Why did the Mentorians endure this, never quite trusted, isolated amongaliens?

  Raynor Three had said, _Because I belong in space, because I'm neverhappy anywhere else_. Bart looked out the viewport at the swirl and burnof the colors there. Now that he could never speak of the colors, itseemed he had never been so wholly and wistfully aware of them. Theysymbolized the thing he could never put into words.

  _So that everyone can have this. Not just the Lhari._

  Rugel watched the Mentorians go, scowling. "I wish medic would find away to keep them alive through warp," he said. "My Mentorian assistantcould watch that frequency-shift as we got near the bottom of the ar
c,and I'll bet she could _see_ it. They can see the changes in intensityfaster than I can plot them on the photometer!"

  Bart felt goosebumps break out on his skin. Rugel spoke as if thecertain death of humans, Mentorians, was a fact. Didn't the Lharithemselves know it was a farce? _Or was it?_

  Vorongil himself took the controls for the surge of Acceleration Two,which would take them past the Light Barrier. Bart, watching hisinstruments to exact position and time, saw the colors of each starshift strangely, moment by moment. The red stars seemed hard to see. Theorange-yellow ones burned suddenly like flame; the green ones seemedgolden, the blue ones almost green. Dimly, he remembered the old storyof a "red shift" in the lights of approaching stars, but here he saw itpure, a sight no human eyes had ever seen. A sight that _no_ eyes hadseen, human or otherwise, for the Lhari could not see it....

  "Time," he said briefly to Vorongil, "Fifteen seconds...."

  Rugel looked across from his couch. Bart felt that the old, scarredLhari could read his fear. Rugel said through a wheeze, "No matter howold you get, Bartol, you're still scared when you make a warp-shift. Butrelax, computers don't make mistakes."

  "Catalyst," Vorongil snapped, "Ready--_shift!_"

  At first there was no change; then Bart realized that the stars, throughthe viewport, had altered abruptly in size and shade and color. Theywere not sparks but strange streaks, like comets, crossing andrecrossing long tails that grew, longer and longer, moment by moment.The dark night of space was filled with a crisscrossing blaze. They weremoving faster than light, they saw the light left by the moving Universeas each star hurled in its own invisible orbit, while they toreincredibly through it, faster than light itself....

  Bart felt a curious, tingling discomfort, deep in his flesh; almost anitching, a stinging in his very bones.

  _Lhari flesh is no different from ours...._

  Space, through the viewport, was no longer space as he had come to knowit, but a strange eerie limbo, the star-tracks lengthening, shiftingcolor until they filled the whole viewport with shimmering, gray,recrossing light. The unbelievable reaction of warp-drive thrust themthrough space faster than the lights of the surrounding stars, fasterthan imagination could follow.

  The lights in the drive chamber began to dim--or was he blacking out?The stinging in his flesh was a clawed pain.

  Briscoe lived through it....

  _They say._

  The whirling star-tracks fogged, coiled, turned colorless worms oflight, went into a single vast blur. Dimly Bart saw old Rugel slumpforward, moaning softly; saw the old Lhari pillow his bald head on hisveined arms. Then darkness took him; and thinking it was death, Bartfelt only numb, regretful failure. _I've failed, we'll always fail. TheLhari were right all long._

  _But we tried! By God, we tried!_

  "Bartol?" A gentle hand, cat claws retracted, came down on his shoulder.Ringg bent over him. Good-natured rebuke was in his voice. "Why didn'tyou tell us you got a bad reaction, and ask to sign out for this shift?"he demanded. "Look, poor old Rugel's passed out again. He just won'tadmit he can't take it--but one idiot on a watch is enough! Some peoplejust feel as if the bottom's dropped out of the ship, and that's allthere is to it."

  Bart hauled his head upright, fighting a surge of stinging nausea. Hisbones itched inside and he was damnably uncomfortable, but he was alive.

  "I'm--fine."

  "You look it," Ringg said in derision. "Think you can help me get Rugelto his cabin?"

  Bart struggled to his feet, and found that when he was upright he feltbetter. "Wow!" he muttered, then clamped his mouth shut. He was supposedto be an experienced man, a Lhari hardened to space. He said woozily,"How long was I out?"

  "The usual time," Ringg said briskly, "about three seconds--just whilewe hit peak warp-drive. Feels longer, so they tell me, sometimes--time'sfunny, beyond light-speeds. The medic says it's purely psychological.I'm not so sure. I _itch_, blast it!"

  He moved his shoulders in a squirming way, then bent over Rugel, who wasmoaning, half insensible. "Catch hold of his feet, Bartol. Here--easehim out of his chair. No sense bothering the medics this time. Think youcan manage to help me carry him down to the deck?"

  "Sure," Bart said, finding his feet and his voice. He felt better asthey moved along the hallway, the limp, muttering form of the old Lhariinsensible in their arms. They reached the officer's deck, got Rugelinto his cabin and into his bunk, hauled off his cloak and boots. Ringgstood shaking his head.

  "And they say Captain Vorongil's so tough!"

  Bart made a questioning noise.

  "Why, just look," said Ringg. "He knows it would make poor old Rugelfeel as if he wasn't good for much--to order him into his bunk and makehim take dope like a Mentorian for every warp-shift. So we have this togo through at every jump!" He sounded cross and disgusted, but there wasa rough, boyish gentleness as he hauled the blanket over the bald oldLhari. He looked up, almost shyly.

  "Thanks for helping me with Old Baldy. We usually try to get him outbefore Vorongil officially takes notice. Of course, he sort of keeps hisback turned," Ringg said, and they laughed together as they turned backto the drive room. Bart found himself thinking, _Ringg's a good kid_,before he pulled himself up, in sudden shock.

  He _had_ lived through warp-drive! Then, indeed, the Lhari had beenlying all along, the vicious lie that maintained their strangleholdmonopoly of star-travel. He was their enemy again, the spy within theirgates, like Briscoe, to be hunted down and killed, but to bring themessage, loud and clear, to everyone: _The Lhari lied! The stars canbelong to us all!_

  When he got back to the drive room, he saw through the viewport that theblur had vanished, the star-trails were clear, distinct again, theircomet-tails shortening by the moment, their colors more distinct.

  The Lhari were waiting, a few poised over their instruments, a few morestanding at the quartz window watching the star-trails, some squirmingand scratching and grousing about "space fleas"--the characteristicitching reaction that seemed to be deep down inside the bones.

  Bart checked his panels, noted the time when they were due to snap backinto normal space, and went to stand by the viewport. The stars werereappearing, seeming to steady and blaze out in cloudy splendor throughthe bright dust. They burned in great streamers of flame, and for themoment he forgot his mission again, lost in the beauty of the fierylights. He drew a deep, shaking gasp. It was worth it all, to see this!He turned and saw Ringg, silent, at his shoulder.

  "Me, too," Ringg said, almost in a whisper. "I think every man on boardfeels that way, a little, only he won't admit it." His slanted gray eyeslooked quickly at Bart and away.

  "I guess we're almost down to L-point. Better check the panel and reportnulls, so medic can wake up the Mentorians."

  * * * * *

  The _Swiftwing_ moved on between the stars. Aldebaran loomed, then fadedin the viewports; another shift jumped them to a star whose human nameBart did not know. Shift followed shift, spaceport followed spaceport,sun followed sun; men lived on most of these worlds, and on each of thema Lhari spaceport rose, alien and arrogant. And on each world men lookedat Lhari with resentful eyes, cursing the race who kept the stars fortheir own.

  Cargo amassed in the holds of the _Swiftwing_, from worlds beyond alldreams of strangeness. Bart grew, not bored, but hardened to theincredible. For days at a time, no word of human speech crossed hismind.

  The blackout at peak of each warp-shift persisted. Vorongil had givenhim permission to report off duty, but since the blackouts did notimpair his efficiency, Bart had refused. Rugel told him that this wasthe moment of equilibrium, the peak of the faster-than-light motion.

  "Perhaps a true limiting speed beyond which nothing will ever go,"Vorongil said, touching the charts with a varnished claw. Rugel'sscarred old mouth spread in a thin smile.

  "Maybe there's no such thing as a limiting speed. Someday we'll reachtrue simultaneity--enter warp, and come out just where we want to be, atthe same time. Just a
split-second interval. That will be realtransmission."

  Ringg scoffed, "And suppose you get even better--and come out of warp_before_ you go into it? What then, Honorable Bald One?"

  Rugel chuckled, and did not answer. Bart turned away. It was not easy tokeep on hating the Lhari.

  There came a day when he came on watch to see drawn, worried faces; andwhen Ringg came into the drive room they threw their levers on_automatic_ and crowded around him, their crests bobbing in question anddismay. Vorongil seemed to emit sparks as he barked at Ringg, "You foundit?"

  "I found it. Inside the hull lining."

  Vorongil swore, and Ringg held up a hand in protest. "I only _locate_metals fatigue, sir--I don't _make_ it!"

  "No help for it then," Vorongil said. "We'll have to put down forrepairs. How much time do we have, Ringg?"

  "I give it thirty hours," Ringg said briefly, and Vorongil gave a longshrill whistle. "Bartol, what's the closest listed spaceport?"

  Bart dived for handbooks, manuals, comparative tables of position, andstarted programming information. The crew drifted toward him, and by thetime he finished feeding in the coded information, a row three-deep ofLhari surrounded him, including all the officers. Vorongil was right athis shoulder when Bart slipped on his earphones and started decoding thepunched strips that fed out the answers from the computer.

  "Nearest port is Cottman Four. It's almost exactly thirty hours away."

  "I don't like to run it that close." Vorongil's face was bitten deepwith lines. He turned to Ramillis, head of Maintenance. "Do we needspare parts? Or just general repairs?"

  "Just repairs, sir. We have plenty of shielding metal. It's a long jobto get through the hulls, but there's nothing we can't fix."

  Vorongil flexed his clawed hands nervously, stretching and retractingthem. "Ringg, you're the fatigue expert. I'll take your word for it. Canwe make thirty hours?"

  Ringg looked pale and there was none of his usual boyish nonsense whenhe said, "Captain, I swear I wouldn't risk Cottman. You know whatcrystallization's like, sir. We can't get through that hull lining torepair it in space, if it _does_ go before we land. We wouldn't have thechance of a hydrogen atom in a tank of halogens."

  Vorongil's slanted eyebrows made a single unbroken line. "That's theword then. Bartol, find us the closest star with a planet--spaceport ornot."

  Bart's hands were shaking with sudden fear. He checked each digit oftheir present position, fed it into the computer, waited, finally wethis lips and plunged, taking the strip from a computer.

  "This small star, called Meristem. It's a--" he bit his lip, hard; hehad almost said _green_--"type Q, two planets with atmosphere withintolerable limits, not classified as inhabited."

  "Who owns it?"

  "I don't have that information on the banks, sir."

  Vorongil beckoned the Mentorian assistant. So apart were Lhari andMentorian on these ships that Bart did not even know his name. He said,"Look up a star called Meristem for us." The Mentorian hurried away,came back after a moment with the information that it belonged to theSecond Galaxy Federation, but was listed as unexplored.

  Vorongil scowled. "Well, we can claim necessity," he said. "It's onlyeight hours away, and Cottman's thirty. Bartol, plot us a warp-driveshift that will land us in that system, and on the inner of the twoplanets, within nine hours. If it's a type Q star, that means dimillumination, and no spaceport mercury-vapor installations. We'll needas much sunlight as we can get."

  It was the first time that Bart, unaided, had had the responsibility ofplotting a warp-drive shift. He checked the coordinates of the smallgreen star three times before passing them along to Vorongil. Even so,when they went into Acceleration Two, he felt stinging fear. _If Iplotted wrong, we could shift into that crazy space and come outbillions of miles away...._

  But when the stars steadied and took on their own colors, the blaze of asmall green sun was steady in the viewport.

  "Meristem," Vorongil said, taking the controls himself. "Let's hope theplace is really uninhabited and that catalogue's up to date, lads. Itwouldn't be any fun to burn up some harmless village, or get shot at bybarbarians--and we're setting down with no control-tower signals and nospaceport repair crews. So let's hope our luck holds out for a whileyet."

  Bart, feeling the minute, unsteady trembling somewhere in theship--_Imagination_, he told himself, _you can't feel metal-fatiguesomewhere in the hull lining_--echoed the wish. He did not know that hehad already had the best luck of his unique voyage, or realize thefantastic luck that had brought him to the small green star Meristem.