Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol VIII

by Various

  "Well, not too much," Coffin decided. "The tau factor is 0.87. Shipboard time during eighty years of free fall amounts to about seventy years; so far the difference isn't significant. And anyhow, we'll all spend most of the time in deepsleep. What they're afraid of, the ones who want to go back, is that the Earth they knew will have slipped away from them."

  She nodded. "Can't they understand it already has?" she said.

  It was like a blade stabbed into Coffin. Though he could not see why that should be: surely he, of all men, knew how relentlessly time flowed. He had already come back once, to an Earth scarcely recognizable. The Society had been a kind of fixed point, but even it had changed; and he--like Kivi, like all of them--was now haunted by the fear of returning again and not finding any other spacemen whatsoever.

  But when she spoke it--

  * * * * *

  "Maybe they're afraid to understand," he said.

  "You keep surprising me, captain," said Teresa with a hint of her smile. "You actually show a bit of human sympathy."

  And, thought a far-off part of Coffin, you showed enough to put me at ease by getting me to lecture you with safe impersonal figures. But he didn't mind. The fact was that now he could free-sit, face to face, alone, and talk to her like a friend.

  "Since we could only save about seven years by giving up at once," he said, "I admit I'm puzzled why so many people are so anxious about it. Couldn't we go on as planned and decide things at Rustum?"

  "I think not," said Teresa. "You see, nobody in his right mind wants to be a pioneer. To explore, yes; to settle rich new country with known and limited hazards, yes; but not to risk his children, his whole racial future, on a wild gamble. This group was driven into space by a conflict which just couldn't be settled at home. If that conflict has ended--"

  "But ... you and Lochaber ... you pointed out that it had not ended. That at best this is a breathing spell."

  "Still, they'd like to believe otherwise, wouldn't they? I mean, at least believe they have a fighting chance on Earth."

  "All right," said Coffin. "But it looks a safe bet, that there are a number of deepsleepers who'd agree with you, who'd think their chances are actually better on Rustum. Why can't we take them there first? It seems only fair."

  "Uh-uh." Her hair was short, but it floated in loose waves when she shook her head, and light rippled mahogany across it. "You've been there and I haven't, but I've studied your reports. A handful couldn't survive. Three thousand is none too many. It will have to be unanimous, whatever is decided."

  "I was trying to avoid that conclusion," he said wearily, "but if you agree--Well, can't we settle the argument at Rustum, after they've looked the place over?"

  "No. And I'll tell you why, captain," she said. "I know Coenrad de Smet well, and one or two others. Good men ... don't get me wrong ... but born politicians, intuitive rather than logical thinkers. They believe, quite honestly, it's best to go back. And, of course, the timid and lazy and selfish ones will support them. They don't want to risk having Rustum there, a whole new world for the taking--and the vote to go against them. I've seen plenty of your photographs, captain. They were so beautiful, some of them, that I can hardly wait for the reality. I know--and so does de Smet--High America is a magnificent place. Room, freedom, unpoisoned air. We'll remember all that we hated on Earth and that isn't on Rustum; we'll reflect much more soberly how long a time will have passed before we could possibly get back, and what a gamble we'd be taking on finding a tolerable situation there. The extra quarter gee won't seem so bad till it's time for heavy manual labor; the alien biochemistry won't bother us much till we have to stop eating rations and start trying to farm; the isolation won't really be felt till your spaceships have departed and we're all the humanity there is for more than twenty light-years.

  "No ... de Smet won't risk it. He might get caught up in the glamour himself!"

  Coffin murmured thoughtfully: "After only a few days of deceleration, there won't be enough reaction mass to do anything but continue home."

  "De Smet knows that, too," said Teresa. "Captain, you can make a hard decision and stick to it. That's why you have your job. But maybe you forget how few people can--how most of us pray someone will come along and tell us what to do. Even under severe pressure, the decision to go to Rustum was difficult. Now that there's a chance to undo it, go back to being safe and comfortable--but still a real risk that by the time we get home, Earth will no longer be safe or comfortable--we've been forced to decide all over again. It's agony, captain! De Smet is a strong man, in his way. He'll compel us to do the irrevocable, as soon as possible, just because it will make a final commitment. Once we've turned far enough back, it'll be out of our hands and we can stop thinking."

  He regarded her with a sort of wonder. "But you look calm enough," he said.

  "I made my decision back on Earth," she answered. "I've seen no reason to change it."

  * * * * *

  "What do the women think?" he asked, leaping back to safely denumerable things.

  "Most want to give up, of course." She said it with a mildness which softened the judgment. "Few of them really wanted to come in the first place. They did so only because their men insisted. Women are much too practical to care about a philosophy, or a frontier, or anything except their families."

  "Do you?" he challenged her.

  She shrugged ruefully. "I've no family, captain. At the same time, I suppose ... a sense of humor? ... kept me from sublimating it into a Cause of any kind." Counterattacking: "Why do you care what we do, captain?"

  "Why?" He was taken aback, and found himself stammering. "Why ... because ... I'm in charge--"

  "Oh, yes. But isn't it more than that? You spent years on Earth lecturing about Rustum and its colonization. I think it must be a deep symbol to you. Don't worry, I won't go analytic. I happen to think, myself, that this colony is enormously important, objectively speaking, I mean. If our race muffs this chance, we may never get another. But you and I wouldn't care about that, not really, unless it was personally important too. Would we? Why did you accept this thankless job, commanding a colonial fleet? It can't be an itch to explore. Rustum's already been visited once, and you'll have precious little time to carry on any further studies. You could have been off to some star where men have never traveled at all. Do you see, captain? You're not a bit more cold-blooded about this than I. You want that colony planted."

  She stopped, laughed, and color went across her face. "Oh, dear, I do chatter, don't I? Pardon me. Let's get back to business."

  "I think," said Coffin, slowly and jaggedly, "I'm beginning to realize what's involved."

  She settled back and listened.

  He bent a leg around a stanchion to hold his lean black frame in place and beat one fist softly into the palm of another. "Yes, it is an emotional issue," he said, the words carving the thoughts to shape. "Logic has nothing to do with it. There are some who want so badly to go to Rustum and be free, or whatever they hope to be there, that they'll dice with their lives for the privilege--and their wives' and children's lives. Others went reluctantly, against their own survival instincts, and now that they think they see a way of retreat, something they can justify to themselves, they'll fight any man who tries to bar it. Yes. It's a ghastly situation.

  "One way or another, the decision has got to be made soon. And the facts can't be hidden. Every deepsleeper must be wakened and nursed to health by someone now conscious. The word will pass, year after year, always to a different combination of spacemen and colonists, with always a proportion who're furious about what was decided while they slept. No, furious is too weak a word. Onward or backward, whichever way we go, we've struck at the emotional roots of people. And interstellar space can break the calmest men. How long before just the wrong percentage of malcontents, weaklings, and shaky sanities goes on duty? What's going to happen then?"

  He sucked in an uneven breath. "I'm sorry," he faltered. "I should not--"

  "Blow of
f steam? Why not?" she asked calmly. "Would it be better to keep on being the iron man, till one day you put a pistol to your head?"

  "You see," he said in his misery, "I'm responsible. Men and women ... all the little children--But I'll be in deepsleep. I'd go crazy if I tried to stay awake the whole voyage; the organism can't take it. I'll be asleep, and there'll be nothing I can do, but these ships were given into my care!"

  He began to shiver. She took both his hands. Neither of them spoke for a long while.

  * * * * *

  When he left the Pioneer, Coffin felt oddly hollow, as if he had opened his chest and pulled out heart and lungs. But his mind functioned with machine precision. For that he was grateful to Teresa: she had helped him discover what the facts were. It was a brutal knowledge, but without such understanding the expedition might well be doomed.

  Or might it? Dispassionately, now, Coffin estimated chances. Either they went on to Rustum or they turned back; in either case, the present likelihood of survival was--fifty-fifty? Well, you couldn't gauge it in percentages. Doubtless more safety lay in turning back. But even there the odds were such that no sane man would willingly gamble. Certainly the skipper had no right to take the hazard, if he could avoid it by any means.

  But what means were there?

  As he hauled himself toward the Ranger, Coffin watched the receiver web grow in his eyes, till it snared a distorted Milky Way. It seemed very frail to have carried so much hell. And, indeed, it would have to be dismantled before deceleration. No trick to sabotage the thing. If only I had known!

  Or if someone on Earth, the villain or well-meaning fool or whatever he was who wrote that first message ... if only he would send another. "Ignore preceding. Educational decree still in force." Or something. But no. Such things didn't happen. A man had to make his own luck, in an angry world.

  Coffin sighed and clamped boot-soles to his flagship's air lock.

  Mardikian helped him through. When he removed his hoarfrosted space helmet, Coffin saw how the boy's mouth quivered. A few hours had put years on Mardikian.

  He was in medical whites. Unnecessarily, to break the silence with any inane remark, Coffin said: "Going on vat duty, I see."

  "Yes, sir." A mutter. "My turn." The armor made a lot of noise while they stowed it. "We'll need some more ethanol soon, captain," blurted Mardikian desperately.

  * * * * *

  "What for?" grumbled Coffin. He had often wished the stuff were not indispensable. He alone had the key to its barrel. Some masters allowed a small liquor ration on voyage, and said Coffin was only disguising prejudice in claiming it added risk. ("What the devil can happen in interstellar orbit? The only reason anyone stays conscious at all is the machinery to care properly for sleepers would mass more than the extra supplies do. You can issue the grog when a man comes off watch, can't you? Oh, never mind, never mind! I'm just grateful I don't ship under you!")

  "Gammagen fixative ... and so on ... sir," stumbled Mardikian. "Mr. Hallmyer will ... make the requisition as usual."

  "All right." Coffin faced his radio man, captured the fearful eyes and would not let them go. "Have there been any further communications?" he snapped.

  "From Earth? No. No, sir. I ... I wouldn't really expect it ... we're about at the ... the ... the limit of reception now. It's almost a miracle, sir, I suppose, that we picked up the first. Of course, we might get another--" Mardikian's voice trailed off.

  Coffin continued to stare. At last: "They've been giving you a hard time, haven't they?"

  "What?"

  "The ones like Lochaber, who want to go on. They wish you'd had the sense to keep your mouth shut, at least till you consulted me. And then others, like de Smet, have said the opposite. Even over telecircuit, it's no fun being a storm center, is it?"

  "No, sir--"

  * * * * *

  Coffin turned away. Why torment the fellow more? This thing had happened, that was all. And the fewer who realized the danger, and were thereby put under still greater strain, the less that danger would be.

  "Avoid such disputes," said Coffin. "Most especially, don't brood over those which do arise. That's just begging for a nervous breakdown--out here. Carry on."

  Mardikian gulped and went aft.

  Coffin drifted athwartships. The vessel thrummed around him.

  He was not on watch, and had no desire to share the bridge with whoever was. He should eat something, but the idea was nauseating; he should try to sleep, but that would be useless. How long had he been with Teresa, while she cleared his mind and gave him what comfort she had to offer? A couple of hours. In fourteen hours or less, he must confront the spokesmen of crew and colonists. And meanwhile the fleet seethed.

  On Earth, he thought wearily, a choice between going on and turning back would not have drawn men so close to insanity, even if the time elements had been the same. But Earth was long domesticated. Maybe, centuries ago, when a few wind-powered hulks wallowed forth upon hugeness, unsure whether they might sail off the world's edge--maybe then there had been comparable dilemmas. Yes ... hadn't Columbus' men come near mutiny? Even unknown, though, and monster-peopled by superstition, Earth had not been as cruel an environment as space; nor had a caravel been as unnatural as a spaceship. Minds could never have disintegrated as quickly in mid-ocean as between the stars.

  Coffin grew aware, startled, that he had wandered to the radio shack.

  He entered. It was a mere cubbyhole, one wall occupied by gleaming electronic controls, the rest full of racked equipment, tools, testers, spare parts, half-assembled units for this and that special purpose. The fleet did not absolutely need a Com officer--any spaceman could do the minimal jobs, and any officer had intensive electronics training--but Mardikian was a good, conscientious, useful technician.

  His trouble was, perhaps, only that he was human.

  Coffin pulled himself to the main receiver. A tape whirred slowly between spools, preserving what the web gathered. Coffin looked at a clipboard. Mardikian had written half an hour ago: "Nothing received. Tape wiped and reset, 1530 hr." Maybe since then--? Coffin flipped a switch. A scanner went quickly through the recording, found only cosmic noise--none of the orderliness which would have meant code or speech--and informed the man.

  Now if it had just--

  Coffin grew rigid. He floated among the mechanisms for a long time, blank-eyed as they, and alone the quick harsh breath showed him to be alive.

  * * * * *

  O God, help me do that which is right.

  But what is right?

  I should wrestle with Thy angel until I knew. But there is no time. Lord, be not wroth with me because I have no time.

  Anguish ebbed. Coffin got busy.

  Decision would be reached at the meeting, fourteen hours hence. A message which was to make a substantial difference ought to be received before then. But not very much before; nor too late, eleventh-hour-reprieve style, either.

  But first, what should its wording be? Coffin didn't have to look up the last one. It was branded on his brain. An invitation to return and talk matters over. But necessarily short, compact, with minimum redundancy: which meant an increased danger of misinterpretation.

  He braced himself before the typer and began to compose, struck out his first words and started again, and again and again. It had to be exactly right. A mere cancellation of the previous message wouldn't do after all. Too pat. And a suspicion, brooded on during a year-watch, could be as deadly as an outright sense of betrayal. So....

  Since fleet now approaching equal-time point, quick action necessary. Colonization plans abandoned. Expedition ordered, repeat ordered to return to Earth. Education decree already rescinded (a man back home wouldn't be certain the first beam had made contact) and appeals for further concessions will be permitted through proper channels. Constitutionalists reminded that their first duty is to put their skills at disposal of society.

  Would that serve? Coffin read it over. It didn't contradict the first one; it only c
hanged a suggestion to a command, as if someone were growing more frantic by the hour. (And a picture of near-chaos in government wasn't attractive, was it?) The bit about "proper channels" underlined that speech was not free on Earth, and that the bureaucracy could restore the school decree any time it wished. The pompous last sentence ought to irritate men who had turned their backs on the thing which Terrestrial society was becoming.

  Maybe it could be improved, though--Coffin resumed work.

  When he ripped out his last version, he was astonished to note that two hours had passed. Already? The ship seemed very quiet. Too quiet. He grew feverishly aware that anyone might break in on him at any time.

  The tape could run for a day, but was usually checked and wiped every six or eight hours. Coffin decided to put his words on it at a spot corresponding to seven hours hence. Mardikian would have come off vat duty, but probably be asleep; he wouldn't play back until shortly before the council meeting.

  Coffin turned to a small auxiliary recorder. He had to tape his voice through a circuit which would alter it beyond recognition. And, of course, the whole thing had to be blurred, had to fade and come back, had to be full of squeals and buzzes and the crackling talk of the stars. No easy job to blend all those elements, in null-gee at that. Coffin lost himself in the task. He dared not do otherwise, for then he would be alone with himself.

  Plug in this modulator, add an oscillation--Let's see, where's that slide rule, what quantities do you want for--

  "What are you doing?"

  Coffin twisted about. Fingers clamped on his heart.

  Mardikian floated in the doorway, looking dazed and afraid as he saw who the intruder was. "What's wrong, sir?" he asked.

  "You're on watch," breathed Coffin.

  "Tea break, sir, and I thought I'd check and--" The boy pushed himself into the shack. Coffin saw him framed in meters and transformer banks, like some futuristic saint. But sweat glistened on the dark young face, broke free and drifted in tiny spheroids toward the ventilator.

  "Get out of here," said Coffin thickly. And then: "No! I don't mean that! Stay where you are!"