Brown, Eric

by Helix [v1. 0] [epub]

  Then Old Smith said, “Hendry... look, you’re all alone over there. There’s ten of us here. We’re all getting on, and we have our bad days, but we’re a good crowd, and things aren’t too bad here. We have a big garden you could help keep up...”

  Hendry smiled sadly, knowing that the haziness of the link would hide the quality of the smile: Old Smith might even interpret it as grateful.

  “You know something, Smith? I’ll think about it. Thank you. I could do with a change.” But even as he said the words he knew he had no intention of ever leaving the shuttle.

  Two days later, unable to rouse himself to check the desalination plant, or to fetch the fish from the jetty, he sat in his armchair and stared at the rotting salad in the bowl. The day was hot. The sun seemed huge, as if it had had enough of planet Earth, and man’s folly, and was intent on burning it up. The garden, irrigated automatically from the pumps, flourished—but even this depressed Hendry, pointed up the fact of his isolation.

  He moved into the shuttle and rooted around in a storage unit. He knew it was around here somewhere. .. O’Grady had insisted they kept it handy, in case of marauding strangers. They had never had occasion to use it.

  He found the rifle and took it outside, along with a box of cartridges. He sat with the gun on his lap for a long time, the very image of a protective homesteader of old.

  What did it matter if he ended it now, or if death came in some other manner years down the line?

  Chrissie would never know, would not suffer grief at his action. His bones would have long crumbled, in situ, by the time she was awoken from suspension.

  He broke the rifle and inserted two cartridges into the barrels. Then he sat a while longer, staring at the sun as it fell towards the horizon.

  It would all have been different if Su hadn’t been lured away by those green fanatics, if she had stayed loving him and his daughter. But she went for a reason, he told himself. She was lured away by something that he could not provide, some longed-for fulfilment of the soul.

  He looked at the gun, tested the feel of it against his temple, but the act of having to hold it at arm’s length in order for the barrel to touch his temple and his finger to find the trigger, seemed slightly ludicrous. With the barrels inserted into his mouth, in the classic method, the pose seemed even more ridiculous, some futile fellatio more comic than tragic.

  He lowered the rifle and smiled to himself. It was as if the act of playing out the taking of his life had served as some form of catharsis. Bizarrely, he felt hungry. He realised that he had not eaten properly for days.

  He set the gun aside and hurried into the garden.

  A day later something happened which made him look back at the failed suicide and shudder with the thought that, if some tiny thing had been different, if some brain chemistry had been slightly altered, he would never have lived to experience this miraculous salvation.

  * * * *

  4

  In the morninghe walked down to the sea and checked the net. The catch was the smallest yet, a stunted crab and a couple of small catfish. He tipped them all back and walked on to the desalination plant, which was throbbing away as steadily as ever. He made his way back to the shuttle, planning the vegetables he would pick for lunch and dinner. In the garden, unearthing a good crop of new potatoes, he thought about Old Smith and his offer last night.

  The idea of sharing his emotions with the people in the Tasmanian commune, who would inevitably want to know about his past life, did not appeal. The lonely life suited him. He was through with the idea of becoming emotionally attached to anyone. That had only brought him pain in the past. He would tell Old Smith, next time they spoke, that he had worked too hard at making the graveyard viable to abandon it now.

  Having come to this decision, he felt relieved. He could look ahead, perhaps extend the garden, try out a few new vegetables, the seeds of which he had stored in the cooler. He would while away his days listening to classical music and reading his way through the shuttle’s extensive library, thinking about the good times he’d shared with Chrissie.

  The heavy blatt of a helicopter’s rotor blades startled him. He laid aside the handful of potatoes he was unearthing and squinted in the direction of the noise. It was coming in low from the north, the vehicle as far as he could tell identical to the one Chrissie had arrived in over a week ago.

  His initial thought was that Chrissie had changed her mind, was not leaving Earth aboard the starship. His heart leapt, until his head gained control. She would have called to tell him of this decision, not arrived out of the blue like this.

  He stood and moved towards the derelict perimeter fence, staring across the intervening fifty metres of scrub to where the chopper had set down, its stilled rotors drooping like palm fronds.

  A suited figure climbed down from the fuselage, spoke briefly with the pilot, and turned to stare at Hendry. He walked towards the graveyard, clutching a slim black briefcase under his arm. The sight of such a dapper figure in this blasted landscape was at once incongruous and alarming.

  Something’s gone wrong, Hendry thought. The cryogenic process malfunctioned, killing Chrissie, and this suit has come to apologise on behalf of the ESO and offer statutory compensation.

  The man was slim and very blond, and wore a pair of wraparound sunglasses that made his expression— aided by an unsmiling mouth—inscrutable.

  He stopped before the fence, staring at Hendry. “You are Joseph Charles Hendry, date of birth 24th May 2052?” The words, delivered in a harsh Germanic accent, seemed absurd.

  “What do you want?”

  “I am Gert Bruckner of the European Space Organisation.”

  “It’s about Chrissie. What’s happened?”

  “This matter does not concern your daughter, Mr Hendry. She is fine.” He turned his head to the left slightly, staring past Hendry to the shuttle. Perspiration stood out on his blond, reddening brow. “If we might get out of the sun...”

  Hendry relented, moved aside and gestured Bruckner to follow him. When they reached the shuttle he indicated a chair beneath the awning, wondering what the hell a representative from the ESO might want with him.

  He fixed a jug of cold camomile tea and sat across the table from Bruckner.

  He poured and looked up. “How can I help you?”

  Bruckner laid his briefcase on the table, undipped it and withdrew a sheaf of papers. He leafed through them, concentrating on certain paragraphs, as if familiarising himself with details. He took a sip of camomile tea.

  “Mr Hendry, you served with Space Oceana for ten years from ‘78 to early ‘89, a smartware engineer on shuttles.”

  “What about it?”

  Bruckner glanced at a printed form. “You served with distinction, worked hard, even instituted design improvements on a couple of parallel systems—”

  “It was my job, before things went belly up.”

  Bruckner nodded. For all the emotion he evinced, he might have been an automaton. “Those good old days of solid fuel,” he said without emotion, and Hendry wondered if the line was a quote.

  Bruckner went on, “How would you like that job back, Mr Hendry?”

  Surprising himself, Hendry laughed. It was impossible, of course. Why would the ESO be starting up shuttle runs again? And to where? The Mars and Moon colonies were long abandoned... Unless there was a plan to recolonise. But it would never work.

  “I don’t understand. The colonies... I mean, why would the ESO be recruiting shuttle engineers?”

  Bruckner stared at him, his expression neutral. “We aren’t, Mr Hendry.”

  “In that case, will you please explain yourself?”

  Bruckner nodded, took another sip of cold tea. He replaced the glass precisely upon the condensation circle it had formed on the tabletop. “Mr Hendry, the ESO in Berne suffered a terrorist attack two weeks ago. We lost a number of clerical personnel in the bombing, and five technicians.”

  “I heard about it. So...”


  “So, we need to replace those technicians.”

  “But the ESO doesn’t fly shuttles anymore,” Hendry said. He saw himself reflected in Bruckner’s lenses. The man stared at him, his mouth set.

  “We need the engineers not for shuttles, but for a project that until now has remained—or so we thought—top secret.”

  Hendry thought he was about to suffer a coronary. Something tightened in his chest. He felt dizzy. “What project?”

  Bruckner said, “The ESO is sending a starship, theLovelock, on a mission to colonise the stars. It is—and this might be construed as a melodramatic way of putting it—Earth’s last hope.” For the first time, Bruckner smiled. “But I think your daughter...” he referred to his papers, “Christine, might have mentioned something about it?”

  Hendry said, “How could she keep quiet when she would never see me again?”

  “Well... perhaps now, if you accept the commission, your daughterwill see you again.”

  His heart thudded. All this was happening too fast. It was as if his emotions had to play catch up with what his head was telling him.

  “I... But why me? Why not any of the dozens of other younger smartware—?”

  Bruckner cut in, “They’re dead, in one or two cases not interested. Your credentials are impeccable. You are the logical choice.”

  Hendry just shook his head.

  Bruckner went on, “We’ve recruited four specialists so far to replace the five murdered. One survived without injuries. The six, when theLovelock lights out, will form the maintenance crew that will be resurrected from cold sleep at journey’s end to run a series of checks on the smartware systems and to bring the ship down.”

  “This is incredible,” Hendry murmured to himself.

  Chrissie... Chrissie was not lost to him. If he accepted the commission, then one day, in the far future, they would be reunited. He tried to envisage her surprise and joy.

  “This is for real, not some sick joke?”

  In reply Bruckner took a metallic card from the breast-pocket of his suit and passed it to Hendry. He tried to read the print, but his vision blurred.

  “My identification. You can access the relevant data if you have an up-to-date com-system.”

  “Okay... okay, so the Lovelock is heading for the stars. What are the chances of finding somewhere habitable? Surely pretty low?” Not that this, he thought, would be any deterrent to his accepting the job. His reward would be to have Chrissie again.

  “The Lovelock will be heading for a star system a little over five hundred light years from Earth. Before the Mars colony was disbanded, radio telescopes gathered data on Zeta Ophiuchi, a blue main sequence star. We processed the data after the withdrawal, and discovered that the star possesses a planet, which, from spectrographic analysis, is a good candidate for habitation. This will be the Lovelock’s first port of call.”

  Hendry nodded, attempting to come to terms with what Bruckner was telling him.

  A purpose to life, after so long without one. A chance to be with Chrissie, to build a colony out there among the stars...

  “When do you need my reply, Mr Bruckner?”

  The official indicated his card. “My details are there,” he said. “If you contact me within the next two days, shall we say, we can send a helicopter for you. There will be a period of training in Berne before departure. Contractual details will be discussed in Berne, should you accept the offer.”

  Bruckner stood, inclined his head, and indicated a sheaf of paper on the tabletop. “Read through the mission synopsis before you contact me.” He paused, then said, “Goodbye, Mr Hendry. I hope we meet again.”

  Hendry watched him go, step carefully over the remains of the fence, and cross to the helicopter. Seconds later the chopper took off, whisking Bruckner away. Hendry watched it, snickering over the parched brush, and wondered if he’d dreamed the conversation.

  That night Old Smith contacted him again. “Well, given any more thought to the offer?”

  “I thought about it long and hard, Smith. But something’s just come up. My daughter wants me to join her.”

  “And you’re going?” Old Smith looked crestfallen.

  Hendry smiled. “It’s an offer too good to refuse,” he said.

  “So you’re going up to Switzerland?”

  Hendry smiled. “Somewhere up there,” he said.

  They chatted a while longer before Old Smith waved a frail hand. “Good luck on the journey, Hendry. It’s a long way...”

  * * * *

  5

  The helicopter ferried him as far as Sydney—now little more than a fortified military base—from where an ESO sub-orb ship carried him the rest of the way to Europe. Strapped into the acceleration couch behind the taciturn pilot, Hendry had the very real sense that he was indeed going to the stars. The chopper ride to Sydney had failed to bring home to him the fact of where he was going, merely what he was leaving. Now, cocooned by the high-tech apparatus of space flight, much of which was familiar but a lot of which had been developed since his days in space, he knew that what Bruckner had told him was, amazingly, true: he was going to be frozen in a suspension unit and fired off to the stars. The fact brought home to him the immense privilege of being saved like this, and at the same time what a small cog he was in the vast, impersonal machine of the European Space Organisation’s colonisation mission.

  The sub-orb ride took five hours. From an altitude of 40,000 feet, planet Earth looked little different from how it had appeared fifty years ago, a little greyer, perhaps, and the landmasses reconfigured thanks to the rising tides. But at lower altitude, after take-off from Sydney and when coming in low over southern Europe, the full effect of global warming could be seen: the sere land, denuded of vegetation, with not a tree in sight. The cities were static, roads broken like fragile threads, buildings derelict.

  At the midpoint of the journey, as they were sailing high over Southern Asia and the Middle East, the pilot spoke for the first time. “That’s India down there, or what’s left of it. A billion dead. A country wiped out.” He grunted. “Only the temples are left standing.”

  “Plague?” Hendry asked.

  “And civil war, and drought.”

  A while later the pilot commented, “To your left. That was Israel, Jordan, Syria and all the rest. It’s a no-go area now. Nothing lives down there, not after the nuke wars.”

  From the air, the devastated region gave the paradoxical impression of calm, a geographical serenity not matched by a century of conflict culminating in the mutually destructive war of ‘75.

  Italy was a parched wasteland, its surviving population having fled north a decade ago. Only as the sub-orb screamed in over Austria did a kind of normality return—though that was deceptive. Despite the sight of lush green valleys down there, Hendry knew that Austria was no longer a functioning state; like eighty per cent of other European countries, it had suffered from civil wars, plagues, societal breakdown due to the more invidious malaise of mass unemployment as, one by one, services necessary for the smooth running of a modern industrial state had ceased functioning.

  Switzerland was a fortified enclave populated by the rich and the privileged, and the lucky—those who had found themselves in the right place at the right time: Chrissie, for example. It was ironic that the Swiss state, for so long neutral and without an army, now possessed the largest fighting force in the northern hemisphere—employed to patrol the borders and keep undesirables out.

  Hendry was taken by armed convoy from the spaceport to the ESO headquarters, a journey of some half a kilometre through what looked like a shantytown of ad hoc buildings and listless citizens roasting in the midday heat.

  His driver saw him staring. “Mainly Italian and Greek refugees,” he said. “They work in the factories, what few are still running.”

  By contrast, the ESO compound was an oasis of modern brick buildings equipped with air-conditioning. He was shown to an apartment overlooking a swimming pool, in which tanned,
healthy-looking Europeans disported themselves.

  He underwent a comprehensive medical check-up later that afternoon, conscious for the first time in years of his middle-age gut and general level of unfitness. “We’ll soon knock you into shape,” the medic joked. “Now let’s have a look at your head.” For the next hour he suffered tedious probes and prods as a neuroscientist checked the functioning of his implants, the sub-dermal receptor sites set flush to his skull that allowed him to interface with shipboard smartware. It had been one of his fears that recent developments in that area might have rendered his hardware obsolete—but the head-tech assured him that he had nothing to worry about. There had been precious few innovations in that area for at least ten years.