Starbridge

by A. C. Crispin

  Yoki extended her hand. "Hi, Doc. It's a pleasure."

  "Make it Rob, and the pleasure is all mine."

  Mahree looked around at the crew members who still filled the galley, talking in small groups. "Now what?" she said. "I can't imagine just going off to bed after this. Anyone want to play cards?"

  "I've got a better idea," Rob said, his dark eyes lighting up. He clambered up to stand on top of the nearest table, ducking his head to avoid hitting the ceiling, and waved his arms for attention. "Hey! Fellow explorers! If anyone here is too excited to sleep, you're welcome to watch some films with me.

  I've got a bunch of them."

  "Films?" Yoki stared up at him. "You mean old ones? Where the hell did you get them?''

  "It's my hobby," Gable explained, still grinning. "I collect them. I've got some goodies, too. All the Astaire and Rogers classics, Bogart, Errol Flynn . . . but tonight, in honor of our search, I'll show space movies."

  "I'm game," Yoki said. "I couldn't sleep right now unless you stuck me in a hibernation capsule and gassed me."

  Within minutes Rob, Yoki, and Mahree had lined up seats to make an impromptu theater. The doctor activated the viewscreen covering one wall, then hooked a small machine to it and slipped in a cassette. He dimmed the lights as introductory music began. "This is the prize of my collection ... a real rarity."

  Mahree began to laugh when she saw the title. "Invaders 26

  From Mars." Don't tell me they really believed that Mars had indigenous life?"

  "Count your blessings." Rob grinned. "I'm sparing you the remake . . . this is the original. Believe me, you'll never walk over a sand dune again without remembering this film."

  Yoki shook her head. "Don't forget, hon, this thing was probably made before they even had computers. At least a hundred years before the First Martian Colony."

  Mahree settled down to watch, giggling. The tensions of the day made make-believe a refuge, and the audience eagerly plunged into the "movies"

  as Rob cal ed them, hissing the vil ains, cheering the heroes, laughing uproariously at the comic elements. In addition, the films were rife with unintentional humor, since they contained so many anachronisms and scientific errors.

  "I can't believe they were that dumb!" Mahree gasped, her stomach muscles sore from whooping. "They didn't even know sound doesn't carry in vacuum!

  And they thought you could pilot a spaceship by the seat of your pants in a fight, not to mention firing weapons using line-of-sight--" Her voice failed her and she laughed till she choked.

  "Hey, have a heart," Jerry said. "People had never been out in space when these were made. Pass the popcorn, please."

  "Sure they had," Ray Drummond argued. "This was made at least a hundred years after the OldNorthAm Civil War, so they had begun early orbital flights.

  What year did Armstrong land on the Moon?"

  "1970?" Yoki guessed.

  "July 20, 1969," Mahree said.

  "Shhhhh!" Rob admonished good-naturedly. "Now comes the scene where our heroes get their just deserts."

  "Well, that was fun," Yoki said, a few minutes later. "Even though that presentation scene was pretty sappy. My favorite was the big hairy guy."

  "You think that scene was sappy, you ought to see the one at the end of the third film," Rob said.

  Yoki stood up and stretched. "Well, I'm still game . . . still wide awake. Got any more movies, Rob?"

  "Sure," he said, sorting through his cassettes. "Make some more popcorn while I find one, will you? But in defense of my prizes, I've got to tell you that you're being too hard on them. Educated people during that time period knew that sound doesn't

  27

  travel in a vacuum, but the filmmakers included those 'sound effects'

  because they felt they made the work more dramatic. Be fair, folks. How often do you catch modern holo-vid programs doing the same thing--

  sacrificing scientific accuracy for convenience or drama? All the time!"

  "At least our spaceships look like spaceships," Ray insisted.

  "That's because when holo-vid producers want to show a spaceship, they don't have to build one from scratch. They can just vid a real one doing whatever they want the audience to see," Rob said. "These early filmmakers had to design these ships, and then construct them--or at least models of them. And it's not as though they were astronomical engineers, either."

  A moment later he pulled a cassette out of the file with an exclamation of triumph. "Ah, ha! Wait till you see what happens to the crew of this freighter!

  Try laughing through this one!"

  He dimmed the lights and the credits began to roll.

  Mahree found herself riveted, despite the whooshing noises the spaceship made. Her muscles tensed and jerked as she unconsciously tried to help the hapless crew, trapped aboard the doomed vessel. Adrenaline surged through her veins as she watched the heroine fling herself through the dark, dank passageways.

  "No ..." someone groaned softly a few seats away. "Forget the damned cat, just get out of there!"

  Mahree nervously caressed Sekhmet, who lay purring in her lap. She wasn't the only one to spill her popcorn during the film's climax.

  "Hey, Simon," joked Ray Drummond when Rob finally activated the lights, "I wouldn't want to encounter one of those babies belowdecks, would you?"

  Mahree glanced at the Bio Officer. Viorst's eyes looked glassy, and he didn't respond to the jibe, only licked his lips repeatedly.

  All around them, people were silently getting up and leaving. "Hey," Rob protested, "wait a minute, guys! We've got to give the good aliens equal time.

  Here's The Star Makers, one of my favorites ... and The Day the Earth Stood Still, arguably the best space film ever made ... and the one about the cute little alien with the blue eyes who--"

  "Some other time, Rob," Yoki interrupted gently. "I think everyone's tired."

  28

  The next morning Mahree stood her watch at the communications console.

  For two hours she monitored the holo-tank screen, her eyes searching for distinctive orange peaks and valleys, her ears straining for strange chattering noises.

  Joan and Paul had hooked up a booster to the standard communications equipment, and Desiree was slowly sweeping across the spacial coordinates where the first signal had triggered the Efrequency.

  At first Mahree sat tensely, willing a blip to cross the screen, poised to summon Joan and Jerry to track it down.

  But the hours dragged by, and nothing happened. By the end of her watch, she was glad to relinquish her seat to Rob Gable. "See anything, Mahree?"

  "Not a whisper, not an electronic hiccup. I've been sitting here wondering if we imagined it all."

  "It was real, all right."

  Her smile was grim. "Tell me that at the end of two hours staring at this screen. The line between reality and fantasy blurs fast."

  "Psychologists specialize in what's real and what isn't."

  "All the psychologists I ever met were doing their best to keep themselves afloat." Mahree slanted a look at him. "And not doing much better than the rest of us."

  He pretended to wipe blood away. "Ouch! What's that French word . . .

  touche?"

  Mahree smiled. "Oui."

  "Right. I deserve that for such a snotty remark."

  "It's all right, we're all a little on edge."

  "I know I am." He yawned, finger-combing his tousled hair. "Maybe I should've gotten some sack time last night instead of playing Master of Ceremonies at the film festival."

  "It was fun. Someday I'd like to see the rest of them."

  He swiveled in his seat to gaze out the forward viewscreen, his expression sobering. "Do you think anyone's out there?"

  "I don't know," she said slowly, her eyes never leaving the scanner holotank. "I'd like to think that they are."

  "Me, too. How much time left on your uncle's deadline?"

  "Only twenty hours," Mahree said gloomily.

 
; Rob gave her a meaningful glance. "This could be our chance, you know."

  Mahree stared at him, puzzled.

  29

  "You remember, what we were talking about before," he reminded her. "The chance to do something really different. Special. This could be it, for us."

  Us? Mahree glanced down, feeling her cheeks grow hot. Don't be silly, he didn't mean anything by that. "After all," he continued, "our situation here is pretty unique."

  Mahree grinned wryly. "It'll have to get 'uniquer' before we'll be able to count our pages in the history texts. Unless we turn up more signals, we won't even rate a footnote."

  Rob grimaced. "Yeah, dammit." He pointed at the holotank. "Light up, I command you!"

  The screen stayed obstinately dark.

  That "night" Mahree went to bed despondently, knowing that in the early hours of the "morning," while she slept, the watch would be called off and Disiree would make the transition back to metaspace. If only we could find something before the time runs out! She lay there, wishing she could physically reach out, sense those strange frequencies, and drag them into range of Desiree's receivers.

  Finally sheer exhaustion made her fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Hours later she started awake, thinking that someone had called her. "Yes?"

  she said, into the darkness. "I'm here."

  But her tiny cabin was dim, and her intercom remained silent. Mahree checked the chronometer, then lay down again, tossing and turning, eyes wide open in spite of her weariness. At last she decided to wander up to the control cabin and keep the last watch company.

  Raoul was not in the control room, but Joan Atwood was there, at the navigation console. Yoki Masuto was standing the communications watch.

  "Hi," Mahree said, sitting down beside the Cargo Chief. "Thought I'd keep you company, since I couldn't sleep."

  Yoki yawned, revealing pearly little teeth, and brushed her black bangs off her forehead. "Bless you, sweetie. After staying up for most of two nights running, my eyes are closing no matter what I do. But if I drink any more coffee, I'll have to slosh my way to the head."

  They had sat, exchanging desultory comments, for about forty- five minutes, when Joan Atwood approached. "How much longer till Uncle Raoul's limit?"

  Mahree asked anxiously.

  30

  "Five minutes," Joan said. "I'll be glad to put this craziness behind us and get back on course."

  "Aren't you disappointed?" the girl asked, unable to fathom how her aunt could remain so unconcerned.

  "Hell no. I thought this entire thing was a bunch of malarkey from the beginning, and I told Raoul so. We picked up the last hiccup of a dying star or something." She leaned over to flip off the automatic recording device.

  "Guess I might as well begin dismantling the long-range scanners."

  "But the time's not up!" Mahree protested, knowing it was silly. What difference can five minutes make?-- but she couldn't bear to let her aunt call off the search with even a minute left. This had been their chance to be special. Her one chance, probably--and it was slipping away even as she watched. Her throat tightened. "Please, Aunt Joan! Don't!"

  "Four minutes is going to make a difference? Don't be silly, hon." The older woman switched off the audio receiver, then the flight recorder.

  "Well ..." Yoki got up from her station. "If you're going to take it apart, I'm going to make a run to the head. My kidneys are floating."

  "Go ahead," Joan replied, walking back to her station to take down her tool kit. "You can bring me back a cup of--"

  "Look!" Mahree shrieked, leaping up and pointing at the screen. "There it is!

  That orange wavelength!"

  Both women bolted back to the console.

  "Where?" they demanded.

  "It was only there for a couple of seconds, this time, but I swear it was the same!" Mahree looked up at her aunt, and what she saw in the older woman's expression made her protest, half hysterically, "It was there, dammit! You have to believe me! I saw it! We can't stop searching now!"

  31

  CHAPTER 3

  Needle in a Spacestack

  Dear Diary:

  I cry when I get mad, and as I sit here keying this, tears are pouring down my face. I have never been so outraged!

  Tonight I got up and sat out the last of Yoki's watch with her. And, while everyone's back was turned, I saw a transmission blip cross the screen! I know I did! But they don't believe me. Aunt Joan didn't exactly call me a liar, but I could tell she was thinking it. She did suggest that two nearly sleepless nights had made us all edgy and ripe for hallucinating things that weren't there.

  Dammit, I did see that blip!

  It's not that nobody believed me, exactly ... Rob did. Of course, he's hardly impartial. I had to fight back the tears in the control room when Uncle Raoul, Jerry, Paul, then Rob came in. All of them looked at me so gently, so sympathetically . . .

  At least Uncle Raoul ordered Jerry to program a search pattern around the coordinates I'd noted on the screen (when I thought to look for them, that is, which was a full second or two after the blip had already disappeared). And, even more important, he ordered the long-range watch extended until midnight tonight. I can tell he's really hoping we find something--not like Joan and Simon.

  "I've got it!" Jerry announced. "Look at that!"

  32

  "What?" Every occupant of the control cabin rushed over to the communications console. Rob, who'd been dozing in the copilot's seat, swung down so abruptly that he banged his shin on the footrests. He swore as he limped over to join the others.

  Across the darkness filling the holo-tank, orange zigzags crawled. Jerry switched on the audio and deep yips interspersed with static and electronic squeals filled the bridge. "Get a directional reading!" Rob demanded. "Can we cross-vector with the original one?"

  "Give me a minute!" Jerry's fingers flew over the board.

  "Is the recorder on? Are you getting it all?"

  "You bet your ass, Doc," Jerry said fervently. "And this one has already lasted for more than a minute! If I can get enough so I can put the computer to work analyzing both transmissions for similar sounds and patterns . . .

  don't stop on me, signal . . . keep coming ..."

  Suddenly Rob remembered Mahree. She ought to be here. If it weren't for her, Raoul would have given up the search . . .

  He keyed the intercom, drumming his fingers nervously as he glanced around the bridge at the viewscreens, fore, aft, port, and starboard. Which one? he wondered, eyeing the stars. Some were larger and brighter, others just faint pinpoints against the nightsatin of the void. Looking back along the Sagittarius Arm toward the center of the galaxy, they resembled a thick swath of multicolored fireflies. Which one are you coming from? Who are we listening to?

  "Yes?" said a sleep-grainy voice.

  "Get up here, Mahree. Jerry's got another transmission!"

  An excited whoop was his only reply. Rob grinned as he closed the circuit, then reactivated it. "Yoki?"

  "Huh? Rob? What's going on?"

  "I'm up in the control cabin. Jerry's picked up the signal again. Get your rear up here."

  "Great! Be right there."

  Smiling, he walked back to the communications console, and saw that the signal was still marching across the holotank. "What are you doing now?" he asked Greendeer.

  The communications specialist shook his head, absorbed. "He's trying to triangulate from our three recorded positions," Raoul told the doctor. "Like drawing invisible lines across space. Where they intersect is our goal."

  "Theoretically, anyhow," muttered Jerry. "But gravity can 33

  bend waves in space. So if we've got a star between us and their system ..."

  The sound of hurried feet made Rob turn, to find Mahree behind him. "We did it!" he said, scooping her into a quick, hard embrace. "Jerry is trying to trace them!"

  Her eyes shone and her cheeks were flushed when he set her back on her feet. "Oh, Rob . .
. that's great!"

  This transmission lasted nearly twenty minutes, and by the time it was over, everyone in the crew had had a chance to see it. Even Joan had to admit that it must be artificial in nature-- though she insisted that it must be some kind of robot beacon. "Guess you were't seeing things, Mahree," the older woman said awkwardly. "Sorry I gave you such a hard time."

  "Hey, I was beginning to wonder myself!" Mahree smiled, touching her aunt's arm reassuringly. "But the question is, what do we do now?"

  "We let the computer analyze and compare those little peaks and valleys,"

  Jerry said. "And see whether it can cross-vector from our three positions--"

  He broke off as a string of coordinates began marching across the screen.

  "It's got it! The system!"

  "Where?" everyone demanded.

  Jerry was speaking commands and didn't respond. As they watched, a three-dimensional view of their area of space appeared, with Desiree's location indicated by a flashing red dot. One nearby system was highlighted on the screen.

  "That's it! About five parsecs away"--Jerry's words were clipped and precise, but there was no disguising his excitement --"and, Captain, it's practically on our course! We'll hardly have to deviate at all."

  Everyone turned to Raoul, who stood staring at the starmap with a bemused expression. "I'll be damned. I never thought we'd actually find it."

  "Well, I don't know which planet it is," Jerry said, trying to look modest. "But we ought to be able to discover that when we get there."

  "Raoul," Paul Monteleon said urgently, "everyone's assuming we're going.

  Are we?"

  "How will a stop there leave our fuel reserves?" the Captain countered.

  The lanky engineer's soft voice was flat. "I'll have to check it 34

  on the computer, of course, but my guess is, we'd be okay. It isn't far off-course, Jerry's right about that."

  "We've come this far," Raoul said, "it seems stupid to turn back now."

  Rob looked over at Mahree and Yoki and gave them a thumbs-up signal.

  They grinned back excitedly.

  "How long will it take to reach the system?" Simon Viorst asked, no expression in his green eyes. I need to have a talk with him, Rob thought, studying the older man. Viorst's handsome features looked pinched beneath his shock of graying blond hair. He's trying not to show it, but he's really scared.