by Ben Bova
“I knew you would return,” she said, her voice so low that he could barely hear her. “Every night, every meditation, I knew you were alive and would return.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it,” Linc said.
Instead of responding to that, Magda said, “I must know everything about your journey. Every detail. You really saw Jerlet? He spoke to you?”
Linc sat down cross-legged on the warm carpeted floor and leaned his back against the bunk. Magda sat next to him, and he began to tell her about his time with Jerlet.
He knew this room, had known it all his life, since long before Jerlet had gone away from them and the kids decided to turn to Magda for the wisdom and future-seeing abilities that had made her priestess. But the room seemed different now. Magda was different. Everything looked the same: the carpeting, the drawing on the walls that Peta had done, the glowing zodiac signs traced across the ceiling. But it all felt different. Strange.
Magda listened to Linc’s tale without interrupting once. Her eyes went misty when he told her about Peta, otherwise she showed no emotion at all. The room’s lights dimmed to sleeping level, and still Linc wasn’t finished. On the ceiling, the Bull, the Twins, the Lion, the Virgin also listened in their customary silence. In the shadows Magda sat unmoving, straight-backed, as if in meditation. The only sign that she heard Linc was an occasional nod of her head.
“… And”, well, I guess that’s all of it,” Linc said at last. His throat was dry, raspy.
Magda seemed to sense how he felt. “I’ll get you some water,” she said, rising to her feet. “Stay there.”
She went to the little niche in the wall where the water tap was and filled a cup for Linc.
Handing it to him and sitting down beside him again, Magda asked, “Jerlet wants us to fix the machines?”
Linc could hear uncertainty in her voice. Disbelief.
“Yes,” he answered. “The machines are our only hope. If we don’t fix them and use them properly, then we will fall into Baryta—the yellow sun. And we’ll all die. But with the help of the machines, we can reach the new world. Beryl. And we can live there.”
Magda said nothing.
Linc reached through the shadows to grasp her arm gently. “Think of it, Magda! A whole world for us! Open and free and clean. No more conning walls. All the air and food and water we could want. All the room!”
“The machines,” she said softly. “Jerlet told us long ago never to touch the machines. Never.”
Linc smiled at her, even though it was too dark for her to see it. “That was when we were children. Babies! Of course he told us not to touch the machines then. We would have hurt ourselves or fouled up the machines.”
She didn’t move away from his touch. But she didn’t move toward him, either.
“If Jerlet himself could tell us to fix the machines___”
“He can’t. He’s dea’d.”
“Yes, you told me.”
“He used the machines himself. All the time. Even when he was dying.”
“They didn’t save his life.”
“He was old, Magda. Unbelievably old. And he’d been sick for a long time.”
“But the machines still let him die,” she said.
Linc answered, “He’s inside a machine now. A machine is keeping his body safe until we—or our children, I guess—learn enough to bring him back to life.”
He felt her shudder, as though a touch of the outer darkness’s cold had gone through her.
Linc lay back on the carpeting and stared up at the softly glowing figures on the ceiling. The Ram, the Scales, the Scorpion. Once they had been strange and mysterious signs that had puzzled and even frightened him a little. Now, thanks to Jerlet, he knew what astronomical constellations were and how the art of astrology had begun on old Earth.
“Magda,” he said, surprised at the tone of his own voice. “We’re dealing with the difference between life and death. We can save the people, and reach the new world. But only if we use the machines. We’ve got to repair them and then use them. If we help the machines, they will help us. To live. If we don’t do it, then we will all die.”
“Jerlet told you that.”
“Jerlet showed me the truth of it. He taught me. He put ideas and information into my mind. I know what we have to do. But the people won’t do it unless you tell them to. You are their priestess. If you tell them that it’s the right thing to do, they’ll believe you.”
“Monel thinks he’s their leader.”
“Monel!” Linc heard anger and disgust in his voice. “He can play at being a leader, but if you tell the people that we’ve got to fix the machines, they’ll do it no matter how much Monel hollers.”
“You’re really certain… ?”
“I know what we have to do,” Linc said firmly.
For a moment, Magda said nothing. Then, “All right, Linc. I want to believe you. I don’t think I even care if you’re right or wrong. I want to believe you.”
He smiled into the darkness. “Magda___”
“Where will we start, Linc? What has to be done first?”
“The bridge,” he said. “We’ve got to get the bridge back into functioning condition.”
“Bridge?” she echoed. “Where is that?”
He hesitated. “Um… it’s what we call… the Ghost Place.”
Magda sat bolt upright. “The Ghost Place?” Her voice was a horrified whisper.” The Ghost Place? Linc, how could you even think of that? It’s impossible! You can’t go there!”
“We’ve got to.”
“No!” Magda screamed. “Never! That’s a place of death. I’ll never let you go there. You, or anyone else.”
(13)
Linc got slowly to his feet.
“Magda,” he said, forcing his voice to stay steady and calm, “this is something that I understand and you don’t. I’ve been with Jerlet; I know what has to be done.”
She stood beside him, fists planted stubbornly on her hips. “You don’t understand anything! You can’t go to the Ghost Place. It’s death___”
“That’s wrong. I know how to go there. I’ve got to clear out the bodies and fix the machines so that___”
“Linc, listen to me!” Her voice was more pleading than angry now. “I couldn’t stand it if you died.”
“I won’t die.”
“Jerlet died! You could, too.” She took a deep breath. “Besides, if you go there it’ll give Monel the chance he’s been waiting for. He’ll drive us both out.”
“Monel?”
“I don’t have the strength to fight him,” Magda said. “He wanted to make Jayna priestess. But when I stopped fighting against him so much and let him have things his own way… he let that drop. I’m still priestess, but Monel tells everybody what to do.”
Linc could feel his face pulling into a frown in the darkness. He couldn’t see the expression on Magda’s face, only the glint of highlights in her hair and the outLinc of her determined jaw, silhouetted against the fluorescent pictures on the walls.
“I’m here now,” he’said. “I’ll take care of Monel.”
“How?” she snapped. “By going to the Ghost Place? By killing yourself? Or by making everybody so scared of you and what you’re doing that they’ll listen to whatever Monel tells them?”
He reached out toward her. “Magda, it’s got to be done, or we’ll all die.”
“No, I don’t believe that. Jerlet wouldn’t___”
“Jerlet has no control over it! He never did! He was a man, an ordinary man. He couldn’t even move out of the weightless area. He couldn’t control the ship.”
Someone knocked at the door. Two sharp raps, loud and demanding. Their argument ended.
“Who is it?” Magda called.
“Monel.”
Before Linc could say anything, Magda answered, “Come in.”
The door slid open and Monel wheeled himself into the room.
“No lights?” His voice was mocking, a thin knife b
lade of sound. “Are you two meditating in the dark?”
Linc couldn’t see Monel’s face, but his two guards out in the softly-lit corridor were grinning. He went over and closed the door with one hand, while palming the light switch with the other. The room brightened.
“You two have had enough time to walk around the Wheel,” said Monel. “How about telling the rest of us what you’re up to.”
The rest of us. Linc thought, meaning you.
“Linc has been telling me about his time with Jerlet,” Magda said guardedly.
“Yes? You must tell us all about it.” Monel was smiling, but there was neither friendship nor warmth in his face.
“Jerlet sent me back to fix the machines,” Linc said, “so that we can be saved from the yellow sun.”
“And you say that Jerlet has died,” Monel added, “so that he can’t tell us what he wants us to do. We’ve got to learn about it from you.”
“That’s right.”
“And we must trust that you’re telling the truth about what Jerlet desires.”
Linc felt his fists clenching. “Do you think that I’m a liar?”
“Did I say that?” Monel countered smoothly.
Long ago, when he was only a tiny child and Jerlet still lived with the kids, Linc saw a pair of cats getting ready to fight one another. They glared at each other, made weird wailing sounds, and paced stiffly around one another. It took a long time for them to actually fight, but they finally worked themselves up to it.
That’s what we’re doing now. Linc realized as he and Monel traded questions and demands. Just like the cats; we’re getting ready to fight.
“I’ve got to repair the machinery on the bridge,” Linc heard himself saying. “It’s necessary, if we’re to reach the new world.”
“The Ghost Place,” Magda added.
Monel didn’t seem surprised.
“I’ve forbidden it,” Magda said. “No one can go there and live.”
“I can,” Linc insisted.
“Jerlet told you how to do it?” Monel asked.
“Yes.”
Magda shook her head violently. “It’s wrong! You mustn’t disturb the ghosts!”
“It’s either that, or we all die.”
Monel laughed. He threw his head back and laughed, a scratched, harsh, cackling laughter that grated against Linc’s nerves.
“You really think anybody will believe you?” he demanded of Linc. “Do you think that the people will let you tamper with the machines—or go to the Ghost Place?”
“They will,” Linc answered, “if Magda tells them it’s all right.”
He turned to look at her. She stared straight back at him, her space-black eyes hard and glittering. But she said nothing.
“Magda will say what I want her to say,” Monel told Linc. And he wheeled his chair over to her. She stood unmovingas he reached an arm around her waist. “Magda is mine.”
Linc felt the flames of anger flare within him.
But before he could say or do anything, Monel added, “And all you have is this crazy story about Jerlet. You have no proof. No one will believe you. No one at all.”
Linc took a step toward the smirking rat-faced thing in the wheelchair. He wanted to silence Monel, wipe the evil smile off his face, close his ratlike eyes forever.
Magda stopped him with a word.
“Linc.”
He stood there balanced on the balls of his feet, hanging between his desire to smash Monel and his desire to make Magda his own.
“Go in peace, Linc,” she commanded.
And suddenly Monel’s smile evaporated. He looked displeased, angry. That’s it! Linc realized. He wants me to attack him. Then the guards outside can come in and save him, and he’ll have me for the sin of violence.
Linc felt ice replacing the fire inside him. He stood there for an uncertain moment, then said to Monel:
“I know what has to be done. All you offer the people is death, but I bring the gift of life from Jerlet. And I’ll show you—and all the people—proof of what Jerlet demands from us.”
M onel’s voice was low and ominous. “How will you do that?”
Linc ignored his question and said to Magda, “Call a meeting of the people. Meditate and ask for Jerlet’s guidance. He’ll answer you with the proof that we have a chance to reach the new world. He’ll show you that world, and tell you what needs to be done to reach it.” If I can get back to Jerlet’s domain and set up the proper tapes for the wall screens to show.
“There’ll be no meeting,” Monel snapped.
“I’ll tell the people about it. They’ll want a chance to see the proof,” said Linc. “The priestess can’t deny giving someone a chance to be heard.”
“That’s true,” Magda said. “If the people ask for a meeting, I can’t refuse. It’s my duty as priestess.”
“After the next workday,” Linc said. “Call the people together to see Jerlet’s proof.”
Magda nodded her head so slightly that Linc wondered if she moved it at all. Monel sat glaring, red-faced with fury.
Linc turned and pushed the door open. He strode past the guards and down the corridor to his own room.
It should be a simple matter to set up the back-up communications antennas. Linc told himself as he paced down thecorridor. Jerlet showed me how, and the computer has all the information I need to do it. Then I can beam the data about Beryl into the screens down here, even though the regular communications channels are broken.
But sleep was making its insistent demands on him. By the time he got to his old room, he knew that he had to rest fora few hours, at least.
He was asleep as soon as his head touched the bunk. A deep dreamless sleep of exhaustion.
He awoke to someone shaking him by the shoulder.
“Linc…wake up. Please! Wake up.”
He swam up through a fog, focusing his eyes slowly, with enormous effort. It was so good to sleep, to slide back into warm oblivion….
“Linc, please! Wake up!”
He flicked his eyes open. Bending over him was Jayna. She looked terribly upset.
“Wha… what’s wrong?” Linc pushed himself up to a sitting position.
Jayna brushed back a wisp of hair. She was pretty, Linc realized. Golden hair and ice-blue eyes. Like the gold and blue of Baryta and Beryl, except that she was close enough to touch, warm, alive.
“What’s the matter?” he asked again.
She glanced nervously at the door to the corridor. It was closed, but from the look on her face, she seemed to be afraid that someone could see her in here with Linc.
“You’re in danger,” Jayna said breathlessly. Her voice was soft and high-pitched, a little girl’s voice. “Monel wants to cast you out.”
“That’s nothing new,” he grumbled as he reached down for his slippers.
“No! You don’t understand! He’s going to do it now. This shift. Before the meeting.”
Linc looked up at her. “What time is it?”
“Firstmeal’s just starting.”
He tugged on the slippers. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
Jayna sank to her knees beside him. “Linc.. .please listen to what I’m saying. Monel is out to kill you. He won’t let you get to the meeting. He wants you dead.”
He stared at her. She seemed really frightened. “How do you know? And why….”
“I heard him telling his guards to find you and bring you to the deadlock. They’re waiting for you at the galley. If you don’t show up there, they’ll come down here and get you.”
He got to his feet. Jayna stood up beside him. She’s shorter than Magda, he automatically noticed. But softer.
“We can hide in my room,” she said. “They won’t think of looking for you there.”
A trap? Aloud, he said, “Grab that helmet. I’ll get the rest of the suit.” He picked up the various pieces of his pressure suit, limp and lifeless now without him inside it. The backpack with its oxygen tanks was heavy, but Linc heft
ed it over one shoulder, gripping it by the straps.
“Hurry!” Jayna urged.
“The boots… can you carry them?”
She scurried to the corner of the room where he had left the boots and picked them up, shifting the bulbous helmet under her other arm.
Linc eased the door open and peeked out. A few people were walking in the corridor, but none of Mend’s guards were in sight.
“Come on,” he said, and started down the corridor.
“My room’s in the other direction.”
With a shake of his head, Linc countered, “This way. Toward the deadlock. That’s where we’re heading.”
She looked even more terrified, but she scampered along beside him. Wordlessly, they rushed down the corridor and made it to the lock without any interference.
Linc began pulling on the pressure suit. As he sealed the leggings and sleeves, he asked Jayna:
