The Dark Beyond the Stars

by Frank M. Robinson

  Tybalt had been right after all. The Captain didn’t know us. If they had been sent to Reduction, they would have become part of the food we ate, the water we drank, and the air we breathed. In a very real sense, they would have been with us forever.

  But stranding them on Aquinas II was like refusing somebody a formal burial back on ancient Earth. It went against the religion of the Astron, vague and undefined as it was, and it was something I doubted the crew would accept.

  As for myself, while I didn’t really care what happened to Heron, I cared very much what happened to Noah and Tybalt.

  They were my friends, but I had done nothing to save them. It didn’t take me long to realize I couldn’t live with that.

  Chapter 22

  We wouldn’t leave orbit for twenty-four hours but the life-support systems of those stranded on Aquinas II couldn’t function for nearly that long. I had no plan at all except that somebody would have to plead with the Captain to save the lives of Noah and Tybalt. And maybe Heron as well. If they could flatline my memories, perhaps they could do the same for his, and a newborn Heron might turn out to be a happy Heron and a credit to the ship.

  But who would speak for Noah?

  Or intercede for Tybalt?

  Or plead for Heron?

  I was very young; I had lived less than a year as Sparrow, and in my heart I knew the Captain’s mind could be changed. Noah was an old man who led a mutiny so inept it hardly qualified as more than conversation. And if Tybalt had been tried by a jury, the Captain could not have found twelve crew members who would have condemned him as disloyal.

  There was no logic at all in the sentences the Captain had handed down, and that should have warned me.

  The first person I approached was Ophelia. This time I announced myself and received permission to enter. She was floating by the far bulkhead of her compartment, replaced now by a view of Outside. She looked much as the Captain usually did, staring moodily into infinity. She didn’t turn when I entered.

  “You’re a fool, Sparrow. People will know you came to see me and they’ll report it to Kusaka.”

  I ignored her sarcasm and told her why I was there.

  “You really think somebody could convince Kusaka to change his mind? Forget it, Sparrow, there’s nothing to be done.”

  “They’ll die,” I said.

  “So will we all. Eventually.” Her voice turned even more bitter. “I should have been tried instead of Noah, Kusaka knows that. And he knows that I was the one Tybalt partnered with, however briefly.”

  “Then why didn’t he put you on trial?”

  She shrugged.

  “Perhaps he picked names at random.” Her face twisted. “Perhaps he figured that I would live longer than Noah and therefore would be more useful to him.”

  “How much do you think Noah told him?”

  “No more than Kusaka already knew.”

  There must have been a great battle of wits between Noah and the Captain. The Captain would have wanted to know the names of everybody connected with the mutiny, but Noah wouldn’t have revealed anything.

  “The Captain has access to drugs,” I pointed out, adding reluctantly: “He’ll use them on other mutineers.”

  “So? You can’t tell what you don’t know, I’m sure Kusaka has already found that out. His only alternative was to make examples of some of us and he chose Noah. It could just as easily have been me—I thought it would be me—but maybe Noah was more… expendable.”

  “And Tybalt?”

  Sadness softened her features.

  “Tybalt knew nothing. I never burdened him with useless knowledge, even when we argued.”

  She was convinced there was nothing to be done and I was increasingly unwilling to accept that.

  “You must know somebody who could plead their case with the Captain,” I said. “We don’t have much time.”

  I had pushed her too far and she got angry. “Don’t blame me for your own sense of guilt, Sparrow! If I could have volunteered to be tried in their place, I would have. Noah didn’t ask and wouldn’t have let me even if I had offered and Kusaka had agreed. As for Tybalt, you know nothing of what passed between us. And how sure are you that your assumptions are correct? Would it shock you if I suggested Kusaka might have made a lucky guess? But if anybody ever asks me, I don’t know that for sure. As far as I’m concerned, Tybalt and I stole what time we could and at the end of it, we parted friends and thanked each other.”

  I felt foolish and turned to leave but she was still angry and stopped me at the hatchway to threaten me.

  “I’ve told you more than I intended, Sparrow. But don’t forget that you can be denounced, too, and your death as ‘Sparrow’ would be just as final as Noah’s or Tybalt’s, even though your body remained.”

  Unable to help Noah, Ophelia had lashed out at me in frustration—but it still hurt.

  “I trust you, Ophelia—apparently more than you trust me.”

  There had been levels to the plotting that I never suspected. Implied in Ophelia’s sudden outburst was that Noah had never been the head of the mutiny and that it was even possible Tybalt had led a life of elaborate deception. I didn’t believe it—I knew him better than that—but Ophelia had introduced the worm of uncertainty and perhaps that’s what she intended.

  But I couldn’t resist toying with a new idea. Maybe there hadn’t been a series of mutinies over the years but only one, one that had lasted for generations. Ophelia’s suggestions of complexity hinted at it.

  The next person I went to was Huldah. At one time, if Loon was correct, she had partnered with both Noah and Abel, and Noah had become the ostensible leader of a mutiny while Abel had become one of the Captain’s men. Or had he? In a moment of anger, Noah had once said he would trust Abel with his life. Wheels within wheels… Perhaps Abel had played both sides. But if he had, he had been a fool for underestimating the Captain.

  ****

  Huldah was alone in her compartment, a sunken-faced old lady wrapped in several layers of black cloth for warmth, sipping at a bulb of Pipit’s special tea and knotting a string tapestry. Her voice was tired but her eyes were alert and intelligent. Once again she had put aside the role of matron.

  “Don’t bother offering condolences,” she said without rancor. “We both knew it would happen sooner or later.”

  I offered them anyway. “You know how I feel,” I said. “How the crew feels.” I floated there in silence, waiting for her to ask me the reason for my visit, then realized I had no time to be polite.

  “I wondered if you knew of someone who could plead with the Captain for their lives.”

  “I have no influence with the Captain, Sparrow.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of you.” I lied—she might have had more influence than anyone. “I thought you would know of somebody who does.”

  Her fingers were unsteady as she tied another knot.

  “There’s no special person to whom he would listen—all of us are mayflies compared to him.” She gave me a sidelong look. “Arguments might persuade him. Perhaps you know of someone who has persuasive arguments?”

  The only crew members I knew of who might argue with the Captain were all Seniors, and of the ones I knew best Noah and Tybalt were dying on Aquinas II while Ophelia couldn’t intercede and Huldah wouldn’t. From the expression on Huldah’s face, I had the uncomfortable feeling I was overlooking somebody but couldn’t think who.

  She tied a few more knots, then said impatiently: “You once shared the Captain’s table with him. At his invitation.”

  “Thrush?” I said, disbelieving. “He wouldn’t help me if I asked. And I wouldn’t ask. Nor would the Captain listen.”

  “Thrush may be spoiled sperm”—she shrugged—“but he thinks like a scientist. And a scientific argument might carry some weight with the Captain.”

  “Why would Thrush do anything for me?”

  “Not just for you, for Noah and Tybalt and Heron—for all of us.” She was watching me
with those too-alert eyes, gauging my reactions. She was very anxious that I see Thrush and ask his help.

  There was something I didn’t understand.

  “Thrush raped your daughter—yet you’re asking for his help through me.”

  She became impatient once again.

  “I hope Thrush will lead a long and unhappy life and I’ve no doubt that he will—it’s in his genes. I’ll admit I’m using you, Sparrow; I can’t go to him myself. But you know things about Thrush that he wouldn’t care for the Captain to know. You could use them against him. For Noah’s sake—and Tybalt’s.” She added under her breath: “For your sake as well.”

  But I knew of nothing with which I could threaten Thrush nor anything I could offer him. Nor could I think of any possible arguments he might advance that would influence the Captain.

  Huldah was an old woman, I thought with a trace of contempt, and one in whom I had already placed too much faith. I wanted to ask more but she shook her head and bent low to pluck at the string tapestry. I was almost to the shadow screen when she stopped me.

  “You underestimate yourself, Sparrow.”

  “It’s because you ask the impossible,” I said, angry. I had the feeling both she and Ophelia wanted me to play the hero.

  “It’s impossible only if you don’t try.”

  I was young and could still be shamed into actions I would regret later. I turned and fled through the hatchway and down the corridors to Thrush’s compartment. I didn’t think about what I would do once I got there because if I did, I knew I wouldn’t do anything at all.

  ****

  I stood just outside his shadow screen and asked for entry, expecting to be turned away with a sneer. There was a moment’s pause and then the shadow screen vanished and I was staring into what I later learned was a rain forest. Huge tree trunks soared for hundreds of feet into the air and the leafy canopy at the top was so thick, the sky was a patchwork of green. Brightly colored birds swooped through the branches and, high up, monkeys swung from limb to limb. Little things with lizard eyes scampered through the underbrush at my feet and lianas and creepers hung in front of my face. It was warm and humid and it smelled as I imagined a jungle should smell.

  It was a masterpiece.

  I knew of nobody else who had the ability to program a compartment falsie of such complexity. Once again I was forced to rethink my opinion of Thrush. He was more than just a scientist, and considerably more than an artist. It took an effort of will to remind myself that, for reasons I would probably never know, he wanted me dead.

  It didn’t take him long to remind me of that.

  “Come in, Sparrow, don’t stand out there in the corridor.”

  I ventured in, still amazed by his artistry, and too late sensed not only the shadow screen closing behind me but the hatch as well. Somewhere in front of me—or perhaps to the side or above me—was Thrush. I couldn’t see him. Unlike every other compartment falsie, this one had not been designed around its meager furnishings. It had been designed to hide them as well as its occupant.

  I felt for my mask, then realized I didn’t have it with me. And Thrush, who was undoubtedly wearing his, could see that I didn’t have mine.

  I took a few steps and promptly banged into the hammock. There was no indication it was there. I would have to feel my way through the compartment, ignoring all the visual clues to my surroundings.

  “I’m surprised you had the courage”—Thrush laughed—“though I can’t say much for your judgment.”

  “Where are you?” I asked, ignoring the skip my heart had taken when he questioned my judgment.

  “Not yet, Sparrow. Soon enough.”

  I tried to blank out the vegetation and orient myself in the compartment. I edged over to what had to be a bulkhead on my left and flattened against it, momentarily feeling safer. I fumbled for the thin strip of metal I had hidden in my waist-cloth and palmed it.

  “The crew doesn’t like me, Sparrow.” Thrush’s voice had suddenly turned sour and flat. “They like you better—but not much. Heron tried to kill you once, but you keep forgetting that you tried to kill me and came closer to succeeding than Heron ever did to murdering you. Nobody’s forgotten that and you’re a fool if you think they’ve forgiven.”

  A streak of excitement filtered into his voice.

  “Didn’t you stop to think, Sparrow? You’ve come to see me, it’s not the other way around. And my guess is that you’re carrying some kind of weapon. Have you got a blade, Sparrow? You’re holding it right now, right? With your back against the bulkhead so I can’t take you by surprise. Except I think I could. And if I killed you, Sparrow, I could plead self-defense and almost everybody would believe it.”

  I was sweating, the drops stinging as they crept into the corners of my eyes. My breathing was shallow and my ears strained to distinguish the sound of Thrush’s movements from the rustle of the small things in the jungle around me.

  “Are you afraid, Sparrow? I know you can’t see me and I assure you that you won’t hear me. Not in time.”

  I cursed myself again for being a fool. I started to slip around to my right, feeling for the hatchway, and bumped into an unexpected shelf. The sound seemed loud even among the shrieks and noises of the jungle. I tensed and swung the blade through the vegetation in front of me.

  Thrush’s voice filled with menace.

  “Are you frightened, Sparrow? If you admit it, it might save your life.”

  He fell silent and I swore I heard a slight movement. He was right: By the time I knew where he was, it would be much too late. And he was right again when he said the Captain’s case would be against me, not against him.

  “I have to know, Sparrow.”

  His voice was savage and I guessed he was close by. I sensed my own emotions in his, remembered when I had held a strip of metal to his throat and would have cut it, hesitating only when I felt his tremor of fear. Now he wanted the same admission from me.

  I shook my head and the sweat flew off in droplets. I wasn’t going to win this time.

  “So I’m afraid,” I finally admitted.

  The rain forest abruptly vanished. I was spread-eagled against the bulkhead, wriggling my blade foolishly in front of me, while a smug-looking Thrush floated behind the familiar ledge we all used as a desk. He took his hand off the terminal pad and showed large white teeth in a pale smile. On the hangar deck, I had spared his life only after he had shown fear. I had been the alpha primate then. Now he had spared mine, without ever leaving his position behind the desk. The possible fight, and winning or losing it, had all been in my imagination.

  “That makes us even,” he smirked.

  “More than even,” I muttered.

  He clasped his hands behind his head, not afraid of me even though I still held the blade in my hand. He knew that he could reach the terminal pad before I could reach him and that I would never find him in the jungle he had programmed. He also knew I had a reason for coming to see him.

  “We’re the only two people on board who can play like this,” he said smugly. “No, I take that back—a few could probably come close, Banquo for one. But very few of the others. We’re not like them, Sparrow.”

  He was lumping me in the same category with himself; I was repelled, while apprehensive at the same time. Did he know I was aware of my own history? For a brief moment, I was sweaty with anxiety, then realized that while he might play with Sparrow, he wouldn’t dare if he thought he was dealing with Hamlet.

  “I think we’re very different, Thrush—I would never have done to Heron what you did.”

  He sneered.

  “Easy enough to say when you’ve never been in a position where it was his life or yours. He won’t be missed by the ship—and though you don’t want to agree, I would be.”

  “He idolized you,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Why not? Did anybody else take the trouble to befriend him? In the end, I treated him badly, but circumstances left me no choice. And if you recall
, there was a time when you thought highly of me as well.”

  I bit back the hot reply that came to mind. On the hangar deck, when we had been so close I could feel his sudden surge of fear, I had asked him why he had wanted to kill me and was told he thought he was the better man. I had puzzled about that ever since. In the months that I had been “Sparrow,” I had imagined the Astron was split into two parts—the Captain and his men against the rest of the crew. The Captain had a mission and was willing to go to any lengths to carry it out. But a large fraction of the crew wanted to seize the Astron and return home.

  It had been a simple theory, but Thrush didn’t fit into it. I knew what the Captain wanted. I knew what most of the crew wanted. But I didn’t know what Thrush wanted.

  Then I had one of the few inspirations of my short life.

  “Do you agree with the Captain, Thrush? That there’s life out there?”

  “None of us will know for sure until we find it, will we, Sparrow?” He grinned. “If the Captain asked me, I might give him a different answer. As you did at the trials.”

  Were we that much alike? I wondered. Then I was curious what Hamlet had thought of Thrush, how Hamlet had handled him. Or if he had bothered.

  “Now I’ve got one for you, Sparrow.” Thrush’s smile faded. “Why did you come to see me? The truth, please.”

  He was very much in control, very self-confident. Apparently we were mortal enemies; but right then, I would never have known it. If he had ever played a role in one of Snipe’s historicals, he must have been very good.

  “I need your help.”

  “I didn’t think you could surprise me,” he murmured. “I was wrong.”

  “I want to convince the Captain to save their lives.” He knew who I meant.

  His face became a pale mask.

  “I was never that fond of Noah, and Tybalt’s easily replaced. And you overestimate my friendship with Heron.”