The Dark Beyond the Stars

by Frank M. Robinson

  A murmur arose, which the Captain silenced with a glance. He settled behind his desk and Noah took Heron’s place in front of him. The contrast was striking. The Captain was sleek, muscled, tanned, well groomed in a plain black halter that rippled when he moved. The appearance of power and the awe it inspired probably hadn’t changed in two thousand years. He embodied all the authority of distant Earth, the hopes and fears of an entire race.

  Noah was slightly bent over and disheveled. His arms and legs stuck out like bony rods from his rumpled halter, his thinning gray hair stood up over his ears and floated in front of his face so from time to time he had to brush it aside. He was nervous and at the start his voice quavered, but he was never without his dignity.

  The Captain asked a few preliminary questions, then got to the heart of the matter.

  “I understand there are mutineers on board and you’re their leader. Is that correct, Noah?”

  There was a gasp in the audience from those to whom mention of a possible mutiny was unsettling news.

  “I would like to face my accusers,” Noah said.

  The Captain brushed this aside.

  “Your request would be granted if we were on Earth and this were a formal trial. But of necessity hearings aboard ship are informal, an attempt to get at the truth.”

  “Will the sentencing also be informal?”

  Noah was goading him, but the Captain refused to take the bait.

  “Trials and sentencing are the responsibility of the Captain.”

  He studied Noah a moment. I think he realized he couldn’t get the old man to confess to anything if he didn’t want to and decided to tempt him instead. He suddenly became more casual, more the Captain I had talked to on the bridge.

  “You have your views, Noah. It’s safe to say they’re different from mine and you believe they’re right and justified. But I’m not so sure that everybody here knows what they are, and I think they’re entitled to hear them.” He looked apologetic. “I think you’d agree it’s better to talk about them in the open than try and convince crew members secretly.”

  It sounded eminently fair, and it put the Captain on the side of the angels, encouraging open discussion instead of mutiny. It was also a trap and I wasn’t sure that Noah, blinded by righteousness, would see it.

  Noah looked uncertain. “For the sake of argument, then.”

  The Captain nodded in agreement and leaned back in his chair. “You don’t believe there’s life in the universe, do you, Noah?”

  “Only what’s on this ship and back on Earth.”

  The Captain smiled.

  “Aside from Earth, Noah.”

  “No,” Noah said slowly, “I don’t believe there’s any other life in the universe. I think it’s a miracle that it happened even once.”

  The Captain jotted a note on his slate. “You have scientific proof, Noah?”

  “The only way of proving there’s life is by finding it and so far we haven’t.”

  “And how much of the galaxy have we actually explored? A hundredth of one percent?”

  Noah finally sensed the trap.

  “Much less than that, unless you count the sweeps of the radio telescope. Then it’s more.”

  “But still less than a hundredth,” the Captain repeated, his eyes lidded.

  There was a stirring in the audience. The Captain had made his point.

  “You were unhappy with our progress, convinced the purpose of the Astron was futile. Is that correct, Noah?”

  “That’s largely correct,” Noah said in a strained voice.

  The Captain looked like he was going to push him on the point, then changed his mind. He didn’t want to create sympathy for Noah by bullying him as he had Heron.

  “So you and a few like-minded friends formed a group with the intention of… what? Taking over the Astron? And then what?”

  “Returning to Earth,” Noah said calmly. “The one planet we know that can support life.”

  I caught my breath. It was an admission of the Captain’s accusation. The Captain made another note, then casually sprung the rest of his trap.

  “You had doubts about the purpose of the Astron and whether we would succeed in that purpose. Why didn’t you come to me with those doubts, Noah?”

  The argument was changing now, but for Noah it was too late.

  “You would never have listened—”

  The Captain looked hurt. “I would have argued with you, but I think I would have listened. Perhaps you might have persuaded me. Or I you. But at the very least, I would have discouraged you from fomenting a mutiny, thus endangering others.”

  There was a muttering in the audience and I was afraid that Noah would wither in the face of it as Heron had.

  Noah suddenly changed the subject. He had a forum and I suspected he was going to use it to warn the crew rather than defend himself, a cause I was sure he already considered lost.

  “The Astron is wearing out,” he said in a shaky voice. “It’ll never make it through another twenty generations.”

  The Captain brought his open palm down on the desktop. The sharp sound abruptly quieted the whispering in the audience.

  “We’re not discussing the condition of the ship. That’s in the hands of Maintenance! We’re discussing a mutiny and your leadership of it and at no time have you denied that role!”

  “It was for the sake of argument,” Noah objected.

  “Argument?” The Captain feigned a look of surprise. “Not argument, Noah. You admitted you formed such a group and you’ve told us its purpose. But when the Astron left the Earth two thousand years ago, it had a purpose far different from yours. Your ancestors enlisted in that purpose of their own free will and their Earth-born descendants were paid enormous sums of money because of that enlistment. That was a contract, Noah, one that can’t be broken purely because it no longer suits the interests of one of the parties.”

  “Parents can’t make contracts binding their children—”

  “It’s been done throughout history,” the Captain sneered. “And those children who broke their contracts did so at their peril.”

  He waited a moment, then became conciliatory again, this time speaking directly to the crewmen in the hangar area.

  “Few of you know the state of the Earth at the time of Launch. It was a used-up planet, a world of frontiersmen with no frontiers, a world whose people doubted the value of their existence because their own planetary system had proved barren. They took almost all their treasure and built this ship and gave it a very definite purpose. It was to open Outside as a new frontier, to find living creatures elsewhere and in so doing, find a purpose to their lives. They knew it would take time. They didn’t expect the Astron to return early with a message that there was nothing out there and their very lives were an accident of nature!”

  He fell silent and I stared at him, amazed. He had spoken from the heart and I had to fight to keep from being swept up in the jumble of emotions he evoked.

  The Captain made one last notation on his writing slate, pushed it aside, folded his hands, and looked at Noah with a faint expression of sadness.

  “You are charged with fomenting a mutiny. A mutiny not only against me as captain but against the wishes of those millions in whose name the Astron was launched so long ago. Do you have any final words to say in your defense?”

  For the first and only time since I had known him, Noah looked angry.

  “You’re not condemning me alone,” he said quietly. “You’re condemning everybody on board. The Astron will never make it through the Dark.”

  Sudden silence gripped the hangar deck. Many of the crew had been thinking it and now somebody had voiced their doubts aloud.

  “You leave me only one choice, Noah, one that I regret because you’ve been a valuable member of this ship’s company.” The Captain nodded to Banquo. “The prisoner is condemned.”

  He didn’t look at Noah—but then, for him, there no longer was a Noah.

  ****<
br />
  We had started to file out when the Captain once again held up his hand.

  “We’ll resume once more next time period.”

  It was obvious who was going to be called next. I managed to catch up with her in the corridor that led to the hangar deck.

  “I’m sorry, Ophelia.”

  She looked at me without her usual arrogance and hostility.

  “I was hard on you, Sparrow. I regret that.” She smiled faintly and tried to make a joke of it. “You reminded me of somebody I knew.”

  “I presumed,” I said. “I shouldn’t have.”

  Her smile faded.

  “When you get to know him better, say hello to Hamlet for me.”

  She kicked down the corridor back to her compartment and I stared after her, feeling admiration and guilt in equal amounts. Then I felt somebody float up beside me and turned to look at Snipe.

  “Ophelia’s a remarkable woman,” she said. “I admire her.” A faint flicker of a smile. “She’s entitled to whatever’s left of Hamlet.”

  Snipe was offering to share me, and I was touched.

  “Do you mean that?”

  Her smile faded. “She’s entitled,” she repeated.

  It was my turn to smile, if only slightly.

  “You’re jealous, Snipe.”

  “I always have been.” She looked away. “But I owe you to her.”

  It was Ophelia who had first introduced us, I remembered. And even though I was no longer Hamlet, it had been an act of generosity.

  “Hamlet’s dead,” I said softly. “I’m just… Sparrow.”

  We went back to my compartment and she turned off the falsie of the library, then curled up beside me in the hammock. We didn’t make love but merely held each other in silence and drifted quietly off to sleep in each other’s arms. I was emotionally exhausted and wanted only to hold and to be held. I had no dreams at all.

  When I woke, I sat on the edge of the hammock and lightly stroked Snipe’s hair until she drifted awake.

  “It’s Ophelia’s turn, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “She’ll start it.”

  “I think she’ll be the last.”

  I was surprised.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Pipit told me. She… sensed it last time. The Captain’s afraid to call any more.”

  “Bad for morale,” I grunted.

  She shook her head.

  “It would go too far, there would be no end to it.”

  We had breakfast in silence, then filed onto the hangar deck. I sat up front where Ophelia could see me, to lend whatever moral support I could. And then Ophelia herself came in and sat beside me. I was stunned. If not her, then who?

  The answer shocked everyone. The Captain floated in, followed once again by Banquo and Cato. Accompanying them, and looking completely surprised at being there, was Tybalt. There had been no rumors and he hadn’t been in custody long enough to be missed.

  The Captain waited until the murmuring in the audience had quieted, then stared at Tybalt in silence, the expression on his face a carefully composed one of anger and hurt. Once again the charge was mutiny. We gasped.

  “You’ve been a team leader for twenty years, Tybalt, one of the most experienced men on board. And one I trusted above all—”

  “I’ve never given you reason not to trust me,” Tybalt interrupted.

  You don’t interrupt the Captain, I thought. But he showed no anger at Tybalt’s outburst.

  “I thought I knew you,” the Captain continued. “I would have trusted you with my life.”

  Tybalt looked bewildered.

  “You still can.”

  The Captain slowly shook his head.

  “Perhaps at one time. Not now.” A glance at the slate. “Once you believed in the purpose of the Astron, that there was life elsewhere in the universe and someday we would find it. When did you change that belief, Tybalt?”

  “I never have,” Tybalt said, outraged. He still couldn’t believe that he was on trial.

  “You partnered with someone who didn’t believe, someone who was closely connected to the mutiny, who was known as one of the leaders. Is that correct, Tybalt?”

  Beside me, I could feel Ophelia stiffen. Tybalt couldn’t deny it but neither could he admit it without confirming that Ophelia was one of the ringleaders. So he looked at the deck and said nothing.

  “We all know you did,” the Captain said easily. “It would seem unlikely you’d partner with somebody you disapproved of or with whom you violently disagreed.”

  Tybalt didn’t reply, nor did he look up. The Captain frowned.

  “If somebody is a loyal crew member and close enough to another crew member to know they’re engaged in actively fomenting mutiny, that they oppose the mission of this ship and want to abort it, what do you think they should do, Tybalt? Keep it to themselves and thus betray not only the ship’s purpose and everybody on board but everybody on Earth as well? Or should they go to the Captain and lay out the facts of the mutiny as they know them?”

  That wasn’t a lecture for Tybalt, that was a lecture for the rest of us. I wondered how many would now scurry to the Captain and tell everything they knew, naming names.

  Tybalt finally glanced up at the Captain.

  “I wouldn’t betray my shipmates,” he said in a husky whisper.

  “A noble sentiment but a little late. You already have.” The Captain nodded at me. “Sparrow was a member of your command; I’m sure he trusted you. But it was you who gave Heron the freedom to act as his assassin. Do you deny that Heron asked for, and you granted, permission to move around the surface as he saw fit?”

  “I didn’t—”

  The Captain brought the flat of his hand down on the table-top.

  “You didn’t know. Or so you say. Yet you knew there was bad blood between Sparrow and Heron. And you saw to it that alone of all the groups that landed on Aquinas II, yours was armed. Heron had a pellet gun. Sparrow did not. You knew that.”

  The Captain was picking and choosing evidence as he saw fit. What had been commendable three time periods before was now traitorous. I could sense the slow growth of anger in the audience. They all knew Tybalt and they all liked him. No one had doubted his loyalty, though I knew a few had questioned his wisdom in partnering with Ophelia, however briefly. But all of them had understood why.

  “I was loyal,” Tybalt said in a dull voice. “I’ve always been loyal.”

  The Captain shook his head in denial.

  “You would have the court believe that you were an innocent dupe, that you had no idea what Heron intended. Yet you knew that he was armed and that he hated Sparrow. It stretches no one’s imagination to speculate that you knew what Heron intended.”

  Tybalt gaped. “Sparrow was a friend.”

  “A friend who competed with you, however briefly, for the woman you later partnered with. Motive need go no further than that.”

  For a moment, I thought the Captain was referring to Hamlet, then realized he meant the one night I had taken Ophelia against her desires. The Captain had eyes everywhere. I waited to be called to testify, so I could deny the allegation.

  The Captain made a final notation, then clapped his writing slate shut.

  “I said I would have trusted you with my life. It would have been trust misplaced.” Then Tybalt vanished for him as completely as if he had slipped through a crack in the deck. “The prisoner is condemned.”

  We stood there in silence, all of us too stunned to move. If we’d had to vote on the crew member most loyal to the ship and the Captain, there was no doubt who would have won.

  I wondered why the Captain had done it, and then he obligingly told us. We had just started to shift toward the hatchway when he motioned us back.

  “The trials are over.” There was a grim smile on his face and I thought of a picture I had once seen in the computer’s memory matrix, of a tiger. “I hope they serve as a warning to those who would betray the Astron or its pu
rpose and thus betray the Earth itself.”

  Heron had been condemned for attempted murder.

  Noah had been condemned for attempted mutiny.

  Tybalt had been condemned as an object lesson.

  In two thousand years, the Captain should have learned better.

  ****

  In two weeks, we finished our job on Aquinas II. We found no life of any kind. Aquinas II was a windswept, lonely planet of water-ice mountains, lakes and rivers of methane, sudden storms, crater-marked plains, and smog dense enough to drastically limit visibility. It was a dirty planet with air we couldn’t breathe and water we couldn’t drink. A primitive planet, stillborn and barren. If only it had been closer to its primary, if only it had been warmer, if only there had been plate tectonics or deposits of radioactives—anything to heat up its chilly interior.

  But it was a cold planet and a dead one. There were no tracks to mark the slow passage of an Aquinas snail, no tiny pathway indicating where an overburdened proto-ant had wandered, no trail of bubbles in the methane lakes or streams where something very tiny had scooted by, its flagella whirling…

  The disappointment on board was so devastating that some of the crew were glad when it was announced we were leaving, even though they knew we were heading into the Dark, Nobody had computed how many generations it would take to cross it, and so far as I knew no studies had been done on the Astron’s ability to survive the crossing. But I doubted that the ship could.

  Heron and Noah and Tybalt hadn’t been seen since their trials and the speculation was they were being held somewhere on the Captain’s deck. Ophelia, Crow, and Loon were present for meals but absent much of the rest of the time. More than once I was afraid the long arm of the Captain had reached out to take them into custody, that Snipe had been wrong and their trials would be announced at any moment.

  When they were present, they ignored me and I ignored them. Guilt came with association and I knew they didn’t want to put me in peril. My own motives were more selfish. I had grown to love “Sparrow” and had no wish to be flatlined because of the company I kept.

  Half a dozen time periods later, when we were about to leave orbit, a stricken Portia broke the suspense and confirmed a rumor. Quince had told her the three prisoners wouldn’t be sent to Reduction after all. They had been stranded on Aquinas II and would die whenever their air ran out or the batteries for their life-support systems were exhausted.