by Ben Bova
For a while they stayed together, holding each other, not moving. But finally, Linc gently disengaged himself.
“You’d better go back, before they find out that you’ve come here.”
Jayna looked up at him, her eyes troubled. “Linc…let me stay here. With you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You can’t.”
“Please.”
His hands reached out to her, almost as if they had a life of their own and he had no control over them. But he stopped them and let them fall to his sides.
“No,” he said firmly. “You’ve got to go back. If you stay, Monel will send his guards here to bring you back. It will be the excuse he needs to try to stop me.”
“They’d be afraid to come in here,” she said.
I want her to stay! Linc realized. But he said to Jayna, “You can’t stay here. Go back to the rest of them. Tell them you’ve been here, if you want to. Tell them what you saw, what I’m
doing. Tell them—all of them—that I’m going to save their lives whether they help me or not.”
“I’ll help you.” Her voice was pleading now. “I want to help you.”
“The best way for you to help is to go back and tell them.”
Jayna looked as if she would keep on arguing. But abruptly, she pulled her gaze away from Linc, turned, and nearly ran for the hatch that led to the passageway. She didn’t look back. Linc stood rooted to the floor plates, as if welded there, and watched her open the hatch and flee back to the rest of the people.
Idiot! he snarled at himself. She doesn’t know why you wanted her to leave. After a moment’s thought, he admitted, And neither do I.
Time became a meaningless, endless round of work. Linc slept, ate, and worked. He sent the servomechs back and forth from the bridge to the hub so often that he lost count. He learned what he needed to know from the computer’s instruction screens; and a lot more besides.
Jayna returned for more brief visits. She always brought food, even, though Linc assured her that he ate very well; the servomechs brought food down from the galley in the hub. She stopped asking to stay with him, but hinted subtly about it. Linc ignored her hints.
Beryl grew brighter, and Baryta became a blinding sphere of brilliance that he could watch only through the special filters of the telescopes and viewing screens. Linc finally got the astrogation computer working, and then faced the problem of checking out the controls and wiring that linked the computer’s command system to the ship’s rocket thrusters.
That’s when Slav showed up.
He simply pushed open the airlock hatch and called in his heavy deep voice, “Linc? It’s me, Slav.”
Linc was at the other end of the bridge, studying a diagram on a viewing screen. It traced out the wiring circuits that led to the main rocket engines.
He rushed down the length of the bridge as Slav called again:
“Hey Linc. Where are you? It’s me…”
Stav heard his pounding footsteps and turned to see him. Linc skidded to a halt.
“… Slav,” he ended, his voice going soft.
For a moment, Linc didn’t know what to say. “I… it’s… it’s good to see you, Slav.”
His broad-cheeked, square-jawed face broke into a wide boy’s grin. “Jayna told me she’s been here and the ghosts didn’t get her. I felt kind of silly, staying away.”
“There’s nothing here to be afraid of.”
“Huhn… that’s what Jayna said. Thought I’d come and see for myself.”
Linc waved a hand at the curving Linc of desks and viewscreens that formed the bridge. “Sure… see for yourself.”
Stav paced along, hands locked behind his broad back, and looked at the instrument screens. Nearly all of them were working now, showing views of Beryl, readout numbers and curving graph Lincs in different colors that reported on how the ship’s power generators and other machines were working. Slav seemed especially fascinated by the computer and it’s winking lights.
“You’ve got all the machines working,” Stav said.
“Almost all of them,” Linc replied. “It wasn’t too tough to do. Most of them just needed minor repairs. Whoever built them made them to last.”
Stav nodded heavily. He was impressed.
“I could use some help,” Linc said.
Stav pursed his lips quizzically. “Monel wouldn’t like that.”
“Is he just as bad as when I left?”
“Worse.”
“Oh.”
“Every day the yellow sun gets closer, the people get more afraid, and Monel gets crazier. He’s got everybody lining up in the morning for firstmeal. If he doesn’t like you, you have to go to the end of the Linc. Maybe you don’t get any food at all. His guards watch us all day long. It’s not easy to do your work with somebody staring at you all the time. If you try to rest for a few moments they yell at you. And then you don’t get any food at lastmeal.”
“And the people are putting up with that?”
“What can we do? I almost wrapped a hoe around one guard’s head, but then I remembered what happened to poor litle Peta. I don’t want to be cast out!”
Linc frowned. “What about Magda?”
“We never see her anymore. She’s locked herself in her room. Monel claims she’s meditating day and night, trying to save us by pure mental concentration.”
Linc looked away from the thick-armed farmer and stared at a viewscreen that showed green curving Lincs snaking across a gridwork graph. The background of the screen was black, and Linc could see his face reflected in it: tight, hollow-cheeked, thin-lipped, eyes scowling.
“Slav,” he said at last, “meditating isn’t going to save this ship. And nothing Monel can do will save us, either. But I can save us all. I know how to get us safely to the new world. Most of the machines are working now. I need help to get the rest of them in shape.”
“You want me to help you.”
“Not just you,” Linc said. “All the people. Anyone and everyone. Go back and tell them that they can help me… and if they do, they’ll be saving themselves.”
Slav blinked his eyes. Like almost everything he did, it was a slow and deliberate movement. “Not everybody can come here. Somebody’s got to work the farm tanks___”
“I need all the help I can get. We’re in a race against time. Everything’s got to be ready before we get too close to the yellow sun. Otherwise we won’t be able to pull away from it and land on the new world.”
“All right,” Slav said. “I’ll tell the people. Monel and his guards, though….”
“They can’t stop you. Not if you all act together.”
Slav nodded slowly, but he didn’t seem convinced.
(17)
Linc paced slowly along the bridge, watching the yiewscreens and the men and women sitting at their stations tending the instruments. He felt a warm glow of pride.
The ship works beautifully, he said to himself. My ship. I brought it back to life. I made it work again. He wished for a moment that Jerlet could see it all; how the machines hummed and clicked to themselves. How the people had come to him: Jayna first, then Slav, then two more, a handful, a dozen. Now he had enough people to do all the tasks that needed doing. They didn’t even jump when a servomech trundled past them, anymore. The rocket engines tested out; the connections were solid. The computer had worked out a flight plan to put them in orbit around Beryl.
All that remains to do is to test the matter transmitter. Linc knew. But even if it takes time to get it working, once we’re in a stable orbit around Beryl we’ll have plenty of time. Already the main computer up in the hub was going over all the necessary data and working up a program that would tell Linc how to repair and test the matter transmitter system.
If Jerlet could only see this! He’d be proud of me. But Linc frowned to himself. He knew who he really wanted to see his accomplishments: Magda. But she had never once visited the bridge, his domain.
Monel had come.
Red-faced, thinner, and nastier than ever, he had come flanked by six of his guards and watched—angry and snarling—as more than a dozen people worked at the tasks Linc had assigned them.
“You’ll get no food!” he screamed at them. “None at all! Don’t expect to go against my orders and still get fed.”
Linc countered, “We have food processors at the hub and other levels of the ship. The servomechs keep us well-supplied. We won’t starve.”
Monel spun his chair around and wheeled himself away from the bridge. One of his guards stayed with Linc, a fellow named Rix. “He’s gone crazy,” Rix said. “I’m better off with you.”
Linc didn’t tell everyone that the food processors couldn’t feed a large number of people indefinitely. They would need inputs of fresh food eventually. But by that time we’ll either be in orbit around Beryl or dead.
Monel was back a few days later, this time threatening to have the guards tear people away from the bridge by force, if necessary.
“Violence?” Linc asked.
“Justice!” Monel snarled.
Linc went to a desk top and touched a button. A servomech rolled up to Monel’s chair and stood there, its dome sensors pulsing with a faint reddish light. Monel backed his chair away.
“Those metal arms,” Linc said, “can inflict a lot of justice on your guards. Or you.”
Monel left the bridge. He never returned. Neither did his guards.
And Magda never came at all.
I could go get her, Linc thought. But he shook his head at the idea. No! Let her come to me. She’s wrong and I’m right.
Besides, there was Jayna and a dozen other girls who wanted to be with him now. Let Magda sit in her shrine, Linc told himself. Let her meditate ‘til she turns green!
Most of the people came to the bridge to help him every day, then returned to their quarters for meals and sleep. Despite the threats and grumblings, Monel took no action to stop them. Slav and his farmers hardly ever showed up on the.bridge, but Linc knew they were on his side.
Linc himself slept in the captain’s lounge, next to the bridge. He ate what Jayna or some of the other girls brought him.
He spent most of his time working on the matter transmitter.
It was incredibly complex, and he didn’t understand the first tenth of what he was doing. But the computer patiently showed detailed diagrams, gave him long lists of parts and instructions on where to find them and how to use them.
And each day the yellow sun grew brighter, bigger. It seemed to be reaching out for them.
Linc was squatting on the floor of the transmitter booth—a» tall cylinder of transparent plastic that stood in front of the system’s roomful of electronic hardware—when Hollie came running up to him.
“Linc,” she called breathlessly, “the astrogation computer is starting to print out the final course corrections!”
Linc scrambled to his feet and wordlessly followed her to the bridge. Hollie was a slim, lanky girl, almost Linc’s own height, and her long legs kept pace with him as they raced down the corridor from the transmitter station to the bridge.
More than a dozen people were crowded around the astrogation computer desk. They moved back when Linc arrived and let him slide into the seat.
Above the desk, the computer’s main viewscreen had split into several different displays. One showed numbers: the exact timing and thrust levels of the rocket burns that must be made. Another showed a picture of their course, laid against a schematic drawing of the solar system that they were finally reaching. Thin yellow Lincs showed the orbits of the system’s six planets: Beryl was the second-closest to the yellow sun. A glowing blue Linc showed the course that the ship would have to follow; it ended in a circular orbit around Beryl. A flashing green dot showed where the rocket burns had to be made.
Linc studied the numbers and nodded.
“Twelve hours,” he said. “The first rocket burn has to be made in twelve hours.”
They all clapped and laughed. They were excited, eager. Their long weeks of work were finally resulting in something they could see.
But Linc found himself wishing for more time. I’ve got to be in a dozen places at once, he realized. The matter transmitter wasn’t ready for testing yet, and no one else could read or handle the tools well enough to be trusted with it. But he also had to be
here on the bridge to make certain that the course-changing maneuvers were done exactly right. Otherwise everything was doomed.
And, he realized, he had to see Magda.
It was night. Everyone was asleep. Linc stood by the astrogation computer and watched all the unsleeping, hard-working instruments of the bridge. The whole ship is at my fingertips. All mine. Just as though nobody else existed.
In three more hours they would all be awake and clustered here at the bridge while the rocket engines roared briefly to life. A few seconds to thrust, that was all that was needed for this first course correction. A quick burn that would swerve them away from Baryta’s glaring hot grasp.
The difference between life and death.
She won’t come to see it happen, he knew. She’ll stay in her little shrine and wail for me to come to her.
He paced the length of the bridge once. Then twice. Abruptly he strode to the hatch and pushed it open. For the first time in many months, he went back to the living area.
It seemed strange to be walking down the old corridor again. His home, for most of life. But now it looked old, worn, and tired, somehow different than Linc remembered it. The walls were stained and discolored. The floor was scuffed and dull.
He passed the big double doors of the farm section. How many lifetimes ago had he repaired the pump that Peta had damaged? How much had happened since then!
Linc found himself slowing down as he neared Magda’sdoor. He glanced up and saw a long-dead TV camera’s eye staring blindly out of the ceiling. I could fly that and watch the corridor from the bridge, he thought idly.
He finally got to her door, hesitated, then tapped on it lightly.
“Come in Linc,” came Magda’s muffled voice.
The room was the same. The walls glowed dimly. The strange sky shapes shone across the ceiling. Magda sat on the bunk, her face deep in shadow, as Linc stepped in and let the door slide shut behind him.
“How did you know it was me?” he asked. She pushed her hair back away from her face with a graceful hand.
“I’m the priestess. I can see things that other people can’t see.”
He didn’t answer.
“Besides,” she said, “who else would it be? I knew you’d come sooner or later. And probably while everyone else was asleep.”
H e crossed the tiny room in three strides and sat on the floor, at her feet.
“You don’t sleep?” he asked.
“Not very much, anymore.”
From this close he could see, despite the room’s dimness, that her face was even more gaunt and hollowed than his own.
“I’ve got the ship running smoothly now,” Linc said.
She looked down at him and let one hand rest on his shoulder. “Yes, I know.” Her hand felt cold through the thin fabric of his shirt. She seemed tense, almost afraid.
“We’ll be able to make it to the new world.”
“Perhaps.”
“You could help us—”
“I have helped you,” Magda said.
Linc stared up at her. “You have? How? By meditating? A few hours with a screwdriver would have been more help.”
“Don’t joke about serious things,” Magda said softly. “I’ve helped you by staying here and fasting, concentrating, meditating—and by preventing Monel from stopping your work.”
“Monel couldn’t—”
“Monel tried to rouse all the people against you,” Magda said. “But Slav and his farmers refused to follow him. Thanks to the priestess.”
Linc didn’t understand. “What? Are you saying…?”
It was difficult to see her face in th
e shadows. Magda seemed to be staring off somewhere in the darkness. “Ever since you went to the Ghost Place,” she explained, “Monel has tried everyday to make me say that you are evil, and you must be stopped. I have not said it. Slav asked me for guidance, and I told him that he should not fear you, or the Ghost Place.”
“But you told me—” Linc didn’t bother finishing the sentence. None of it made any sense to him.
Magda went on, “You are such children, all of you. You each want to be the mighty leader, the one who gives orders, who decides what must be done. You know you’re right. Monel knows you’re wrong. At least Slav doesn’t pretend to know everything, he asks the priestess for guidence.”
