Rogue Star

by Frederik Pohl

  She grinned suddenly, thinking again of Andy Quam: imagine pitting him against the Reefer. Why, he ...

  Molly Zaldivar sat bolt upright.

  She had just realized that the singing sound of the sleeth was gone. The only noise on the mountain was the distant, moaning wind.

  She waited for a long moment, gathering her courage, then slipped quietly from the seat. She stood beside the vehicle, ready to leap back inside and flee, however useless that would be—but the sleeth was still out of range.

  Carefully, quietly she took a step up the rock path, then another. A pebble spun and grated under her feet. She paused, heart pounding—but there was no response.

  Another step—and another ...

  She was at the top of the path now. To her right the cave mouth waited, rimmed with crystal, a rubble of junked laboratory equipment in front of it No one was in sight. Not even—especially not—the sleeth.

  Molly broke into a trot and hurried toward the cave mouth.

  At that moment the sleeth appeared, rocketing over the crest of the mountain," coming down directly toward her like a thrown spear. She could see its great blind eyes staring directly into hers; it was moving at sonic velocities, hundreds of miles an hour; it would be on her in a second. "Cliff!" she shrieked, and flung herself toward the cave mouth.

  She never reached it.

  From inside the cave a great puff of black smoke came hurtling out in a perfect vortex ring. The concussion caught her and lifted her off her feet, threw her bruisingly to the ground. The sound followed a moment later and was deafening, but by then Molly was past caring; explosion, painful skin lacerations, raging sleeth, all blended together in a slow fading of sensation, and she was unconscious.

  What was real and what was dream? Molly opened her eyes dizzily and saw the gaunt, bleeding face of Cliff Hawk staring down at her, aghast. She closed them again, and someone—someone, something, some voice—was calling to her, and she saw Someone trapped and raging, commanding her to come ...

  "Wake up! Confound you, Molly!"

  "I'm awake, dearest," she said, and opened her eyes.

  It was Cliff. "We've got to get him out of there," she said earnestly. "He's lost and trapped and ..."

  "Who? What are you talking about?"

  She caught her head in her hands, suddenly aware of how much it hurt. "Why—" she looked up at Cliff Hawk, puzzled. "I forget."

  He grimaced. "You're confused," he announced. "And a pest, besides. What are you doing here?"

  "I wanted to stop you," she said dizzily. She was trying to remember what the very important thing was that Someone had said to her in her dream. If it had been a dream.

  "Thought so. And look what you've done! As if I didn't have enough trouble."

  Molly abandoned the fugitive memory. "There was an explosion," she said. "I got hurt."

  Cliff Hawk looked suddenly less angry, more worried. Clearly Molly was telling him nothing he didn't already know. The rivulet of blood that ran down from a scrape on his forehead divided around his nose, blurred itself hi the blue stubble of beard on his cheeks and chin. It made him look like a dangerous clown. But a clown with some great fear riding his back.

  "We—we had an accident. Molly, go back to Wisdom Creek."

  She shook her head, and then, without preamble, began to cry.

  Hawk swore violently, but bis touch was gentle as he reached swiftly down, caught her shoulders, helped her to her feet and into the cave. Molly let herself weep without shame, but it did not keep her from seeing that the cave was in fact a workshop, lined with glittering metal, rich with instruments and Machines. A corona of pale violet hung over a humming golden globe, now soiled and dented from whatever it was that had exploded nearby. She heard the distant howl of a power tube, screaming to itself like the bass-C pipe of a steam calliope as it sucked energy from the air. She let him find her a seat on a wobbly laboratory stool, accepted a tissue and dabbed at her nose.

  "You've got to go back," Cliff Hawk told her with rough tenderness. "I'm busy."

  "You're in trouble!" she corrected. "It's dangerous, Cliff. Leave the rogue stars alone! I'll go back to Wisdom Creek if you come with me."

  "I can't. We've had this out before." "But you're risking your life—the whole world ... ”

  "Molly." Awkwardly he touched her shoulder. "I can't stop. Even if it costs me my life. Even if it destroys the world. Did you mean it when you said you loved me? Then go back and leave me alone."

  Chapter 8

  Andy Quam puffed around the corner and shouted, "Say, there! Wait a minute, will you?"

  The three boys he had spied were ambling down the dusty road, yards away. They paused and looked around at him, politely curious. "Morning, preacher," nodded one of them. "Help you?"

  "Yes. I hope so, anyway. I mean—well, where is everybody?"

  "Starday, preacher. All off worshipping, mostly. 'Cept us."

  "I'm not a preacher, young man. I..."

  The boy looked him over. "Then why do you wear that funny suit?"

  Quamodian blushed. "It's the uniform of the Companions of the Star. I'm Monitor Quamodian. I'm trying to find..."

  "Gee, preacher!" The boy was showing the first real signs of interest now. "Companion of the Star? Then you go all over the galaxies, honest? And see all the funny Citizens with the green skins and the two heads and ..."

  "It is very impolite to make fun of a Citizen's appearance," said Andy Quam severely. "We are all equally star-shared."

  "Oh, sure. Gee! Ever seen a sun go nova, preacher? Or fought ammonia creatures on a gas giant, or ..."

  Andy Quam said honestly, "Young man, my task has been mostly supervisory and statistical. I have had no adventures of any kind. Except this one."

  "You're having an adventure now?"

  "More adventure than I like. There's something very serious going on. I'm looking for Molly Zaldivar."

  The second boy, a chubby redhead, spoke up. "Gone to the hills, preacher. Looking for her friends, I bet."

  "Shut up, Rufe! They're not her friends!"

  "Who are you telling to shut up, Rob? Just cause you're soft on Molly Zaldivar ..."

  "I'm warning you, Rufe!"

  "What's the secret? Everybody knows you're stuck on her. And everybody knows she likes that fellow that lives in the—get your hands off me!"

  Andy Quam grabbed them hastily. "Boys! If you're going to fight, please wait till I'm finished with you. Did you say you know where Molly is?"

  - The redhead broke free and brushed himself off, glowering at the other boy. "About thirty miles from here. Bet she is, anyway. Gone to the cave where the fellow lives with the Reefer and that animal. Kill themselves one day, my father says."

  "How do I get there?" Andy Quam demanded.

  "Why—no way, preacher. Not on Starday. Unless you want to walk."

  "But it's very important—" Quamodian stopped himself. The boy was probably right. Still, it was already late afternoon, local time on this part of the planet,- and at midnight he would be able to get things straightened out. He said, "What's a Reefer?"

  "Man from the reefs of space, of course. Got one of those reef animals with him. They call it a sleeth."

  "Big one," the third boy said suddenly. "My brother claims it can kill you soon's look at you."

  "Killed three hunting dogs already," confirmed Rufe. "I wouldn't go near it for anything," he added virtuously. "My father told me not to.','

  Andy Quam looked .at him thoughtfully. He said, "I bet you can tell me how to get there, though."

  "Might, preacher."

  "You could even show me, if you wanted to."

  "Get in trouble with my dad if I did."

  "Uh-huh. Say, boys. Back in my flyer I've got some rare goodies from a planet in Galaxy 5. Care to try them? Then maybe you can tell me a little more about this cave up in the hills."

  The boys clamored for a ride in the flyer. The hundred-meter limitation was still in effect, but Andy Quam she
pherded them all inside, closed the doors and ordered the flyer to rise to its legal limit and hover. It was the best he could do for them. And good enough, to judge from their shouts and yells as they thrust each other out of the way lo see from the ports.

  For that matter, Andy was interested too. Apart from his burning anxiety to find Molly Zaldivar as quickly as possible, this was old Earth, home of Man.

  He felt a vague disappointment as he looked from the hovering flyer. He had expected vast, fantastic ancient cities, or at least the fabulous monuments and ruins of the long human past. But there was nothing like that. The land that sloped away from Wisdom Creek was reddish-brown and empty. The village itself was a disappointment. Only the Star church looked striking from the air, star-shaped, five pointed wings projecting from its central dome. The roofs and columns of the wings were all a darling white, the dome itself black as space and transparent, with brilliant images of the thirteen component suns of Almalik swimming within it.

  "That's my house there, preacher," cried Rufus. "And see that road? Goes out to the mountains. That's where Miss Zaldivar is."

  Andy Quamodian leaned forward, over their heads, and peered into the distance. The village was cradled in the bend of a stream. To the south a dam across the stream made a long, narrow lake, crossed by a trestle that carried a road toward the high, hazed hills on the horizon. "That's thirty miles, you said?"

  "Nearer twenty-five, preacher.”

  "Which hill is it?"

  "Can't tell from here. Have to show you. Can't show you today, not till the Peace of Starday's over."

  Quamodian looked at him sharply. The boy's tone was —what? Cynical? Merely disinterested? "How come you're not in church?" he asked tardily.

  The boy's face was impassive. "We don't cotton to the Star," he said. "My dad says the old religion's good enough for us."

  "But Almalik's not opposed to any other religion, boys. It's not mystical. It's—oh, you must have been taught all this! It's a symbiotic association of stars and men and robots and fusorians, that's all."

  "Course, preacher," the boy said politely. "You mentioned goodies?"

  Andy Quam wanted to say more, but restrained himself. As a Monitor of the Companions of the Star he had been well drilled in the basic principles of the symbiosis, but as a matter of fact, he realized, he had never heard them questioned before. In Galaxy 5, in the far worlds where most citizens were nonhuman and had no interest at all in his views, in school where everyone nominally, at least, shared the same services on Starday, even among the dedicated scientists of Exion Four, there had been either no dissent or no interest at all. Perhaps he'd got a bit rusty.

  But he hadn't thought, not for one second had anything in his experience prepared him to think, that here on the birthplace of the human race there would still be opposition to the Star! No wonder Molly Zaldivar had had to send for him for help. If these boys were representative, Earth had no interest in the wide universe outside.

  While the boys were munching the treats the flyer had produced from its stores, transparent green jellies that pulsed warmly as they were chewed and filled the mind with a thrilling montage of synthetic sensation, Andy Quam said diffidently, "But not everybody's like you, are they? I mean, Molly Zaldivar's hi the Church of the Star. And so must others be, to justify that church over there."

  "Oh, there's plenty branded cattle of the Star," Rufe said chattily, pulling a bit of jelly from between his teeth. "That's what my dad calls them. But Miss Zaldivar doesn't go much. Sometimes she teaches Starday school, but not lately, far as I know."

  "Anyway, that church is pretty old," said the tallest boy. "I expect it had a lot more people years ago. And besides—sweet Almalik!" he cried. "Look there!"

  The first thing Andy Quam thought was that the boy had evidently had more to do with the Church of the Star than his father really approved of, using the name of Almalik to ease his emotions. The second thing was that that didn't matter. The boy's face was suddenly stark and afraid. Quamodian whirled, to face where the boy was pointing.

  And then he saw it, something that violated the sweet peace of that Starday afternoon. He saw a great rope of fire, which seemed to extend from the blinding red disk of the setting sun—which had a sudden dreadful resemblance to Cliff Hawk's rogue. He saw it coiling like a monstrous snake of fire in that serene blue sky, thrusting savagely down through the white tufts of cumulus that drifted toward the mountains.

  "Preacher!" cried Rufe, scared. "What is it?" But Quamodian did not know. It looked almost like the plasma effector of some transcience intellect, except that it was too enormous, its white blaze too painfully bright.

  Like a snake of fire attacking from the sky it coiled and struck, recoiled and struck again, recoiled and struck three times into those low, far hills. Then it withdrew, sucked back into the setting sun.

  A thin column of dark smoke rose from the shallow gap where it had struck. Presently an immense dull booming, like far thunder, rumbled out of the sky. The vast deep sound rolled away, leaving the valley bathed again hi the sunlight of the serene Starday afternoon.

  "Preacher, what was it?" demanded one of the boys, but Andy Quamodian could only shake his head. Then his eyes widened, his jaw dropped.

  "Those hills!" he cried. "Isn't that where you said ... "

  "Yes, preacher," whispered the boy. "That's where the cave is. Where Molly Zaldivar is right now."

  Chapter 9

  That distant voice was still whispering to Molly, though she couldn't quite hear it, couldn't quite make .out what it said or who it was that spoke. But it was a terribly pained voice, the sound of a mind in rage and agony.

  Cliff Hawk kept talking to her, demanding that she leave, harsh, even threatening, warning her that there was danger here. "Of course there's danger," she cried suddenly. "Why do you think I came? I want you to stop!"

  He sighed and looked at her. His face, she saw, was terribly lined. Young, strong, quick, he had come in the last "few weeks to look unendurably old;

  "You want me to stop, and you don't even know what I'm doing," he said.

  "You can remedy that."

  He looked away. After a moment he turned to the violet-lighted globe and studied it, still not speaking. Then he said, "We're searching for intelligence. For minds anywhere not in transcience contact with intergalactic society. The Reefer and I have built our own equipment—very sensitive equipment. One contact turned out to be the hysterical mind of a small human boy, lost in the wilderness of a new planet out in Galaxy 9. But the strangest contacts are the rogue stars ..." "What's a rogue star?"

  He probed at the dried blood beside his nose, thoughtfully. "Solitary sentient stars," he said. "They don't belong to the civilized community. Most of those we've picked up—all of them, maybe—are at enormous distances outside our own galactic cluster. Yet somehow—" he hesitated, shrugged, "I don't know why. Most of them seem angered or alarmed when they sense us. But there's one, out beyond Exion—" He stopped.

  Molly Zaldivar shuddered. She tried to remember something, but it was outside the reach of her mind.

  Cliff Hawk was lecturing now, his eyes fastened on limitless space. "Thinking machines are all alike. Whether they are human brains or fusorian committees or sentient stars or computing robots, they all possess certain features in common. All thinking things have inputs—from sensory organs or tape readers or sensitive plasmas. They all have data storage units—magnetic cores or neurone cells or spuming electrons. They all have logic and decision units —synaptic or electronic or transcience patterns. They all have outputs—through motor organs or servo machines or plasma effectors."

  He stopped thoughtfully, seeming to listen to the drone of energy fields and the distant scream of the power tube. "Go on, dear. How do you tell a rogue star from a lost boy?"

  Cliff Hawk hesitated, as though trying to relate the girl's presence to what he was talking about, but she urged him on with a gesture. "Our steady state universe is infinite," he said
. "Truly infinite. Endless. Not only in space and time, but also in multiplicity." The worry and resentment faded from his worn face as the theory absorbed him. "The exploding galaxies called quasars were the first proof of that—galactic explosions, resulting from extreme concentrations of mass. Space is distorted into a curved pocket around a dense contracting galactic core. When the dense mass becomes great enough, the pocket closes itself, separating from our space-time continuum."

  He was in full flight now. Molly heard a distant sighing, remembered the sleeth and shivered. Was that fearsome creature still lurking about? But she did not dare interrupt him.

  "The visible quasar explosion," he droned on, "results from the sudden expansion of the remaining shell of the galaxy, when it is released from the gravitation of the lost core. Each lost core, cut off from any ordinary space-time contact with the mother galaxy, becomes a new four-dimensional universe, expanding by the continuous creation of mass and space until its own maturing galaxies begin shrinking past the gravitational limit, budding more •wjiew universes."

  From the cave mouth blood-colored dusk seeped in, mingling with the violet hues of the aurora. It was growing hard to see. Molly stirred restlessly, stifling a sigh.

  "But the rogue stars," said Cliff Hawk, "are in our universe. Or we think they are. Or ..."

  "Or you're talking too much," rumbled a new voice, and Molly Zaldivar spun around to see a great bear of a man, wearing a dirty yellow beard, peering in at them from the cave mouth. In the red gloom he looked menacing. But far more menacing still was the great, restless bulk of the creature beside him. The sleeth.