Hooded Swan, Book I: Halcyon Drift

by Brian Stableford

  “You there, Johnny?” I asked.

  “I’m listening.”

  “We’re standing on the lip now.”

  “I can see you.”

  “Can you get a precise enough fix on the Lost Star to tell me exactly how far she is?”

  “Not exactly, no. About a thousand yards, I’d say. Give or take sixty.” Sixty yards might be a long way in there, I mused.

  “Give me the direction on your instruments, and my direction along your line of sight.” He did so, and I checked the direction on my own compass. I also set my pedometer to zero. One of the reasons that spacesuits are nowhere near as efficient as their makers claim is that they’re cluttered up inside with useless junk like pedometers.

  “Did you manage to get through to Eve?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK then, here we go. Ready, Captain?”

  DelArco nodded. I expelled my breath slowly and looked around. I wished it were daylight. There was light enough, and I’m not habitually scared of the dark—even alien night—but I always prefer to walk into the jaws of death while the sun’s shining. It makes the whole toothy appearance of the world seem more cheerful.

  We plunged down into the mass of living confusion. It was quite unlike being in a forest or a jungle on any other world. Naturally, there’s just barrier, and you have to hack and batter your way through it—fighting like crazy for every inch. But this stuff yielded to a bitter look. It didn’t need much persuading. The trouble was that there was too much of it to yield that easily. It couldn’t get out of our way because there was nowhere to go. And yet our every touch was an abomination. Our presence and our progress would cause the plants which we touched unbearable pain.

  So what, I wondered, would they do?

  What could they do?

  After five minutes in that place, with the damn things writhing away from under my feet and around my body, panic-stricken but helplessly caged, I was feeling sorry for the bloody things.

  For some time, we weren’t quite out of our depth in the stuff, but it was clear that we’d soon be completely entombed by the dream-like formlessness. We each had a light mounted in our helmets, but they weren’t made for general illumination. They had a tight, bright beam for working on the outsides of ships in deep-space. My lamp cast a circle of light big enough to fit both hands into, but it wasn’t very useful. Happily, the instruments inside my helmet—most notably the compass—had luminescent dials.

  We plugged on. Captain delArco was just behind me and—without quite clutching my hand—was sticking to me for dear life. He said absolutely nothing, but I didn’t need to be told that he was scared rigid by the blackness and the feel of the furtive, glutinous chaos through which we moved. Myriads of tiny creatures were accidentally transferred from the plants to me, and I hoped none of them was adapted for chewing tough plastic. But most of them had no intention whatsoever of staying with me for longer than cruel fate dictated. They couldn’t get away fast enough. Some stuck fast, and I assumed that these wouldn’t be getting away at all. This trip was wreaking its own special brand of havoc. Every hundred yards or so I had to wipe my faceplate.

  With three hundred yards still to go. I stopped to consider the details of my master plan. The captain was glad of the rest, but remained terrified

  “Johnny?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Everything is fine. Looks like no trouble. I’ll call again when I reach the ship.”

  “Check.”

  I moved slightly, and delArco placed his hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure whether he wanted more rest, or whether he just didn’t want to risk losing sight of me. He didn’t say a word. I brushed away his hand, but stood still. He sagged a little, and tried to lean on the plants. But of course they wouldn’t entertain the notion, and just gave way. He fought for the balance he’d so carelessly committed to the non-existent support, lost the fight, and fell over. I left, in a hurry. There was a moment’s dreadful pause, when I thought he might not panic, and then he screamed.

  “Grainger!”

  “What’s the matter?” I inquired, not pausing in my stride.

  “I’ve lost you.” Fear dripped from every syllable.

  “Well, don’t panic,” I reprimanded him primly. “That’s the thing to avoid. You’re not helpless. You know where the ship is. The one thing we mustn’t do is stagger around in this stuff. We might get lost.”

  “Come back here.”

  “I haven’t gone anywhere,” I lied. “I can’t be more than a few feet away. But don’t start fumbling around for me. Use your compass and your pedometer. You can get to the ship.”

  “I was following you,” he wailed. “I don’t know the way, and I don’t even know what a pedometer is!”

  “Don’t get hysterical,” I told him. “You heard the compass bearings Johnny gave me. I assure you I didn’t lose the straight line. You don’t need the pedometer. Just keep going in a straight line, and you’ll reach the ship.”

  “Why can’t you come back for me?”

  “Because I’d lose the straight line and the direction. I assure you that my way is best. I’m going on now. If you start now as well, we’ll probably only be a matter of three feet apart the whole way.”

  “Grainger, please!” He was petrified. Which was good. I was relying on the fact that even given the right compass bearing, he still wouldn’t be able to find the ship. Not before I’d had time for a good look and a chance to act, anyway.

  “I’m moving, Captain,” I said sweetly. I hoped that my voice didn’t betray any of the satisfaction I felt. But call circuits distort in a most convenient manner.

  Behind me, delArco began to sob.

  Poor bastard, I thought. You poor bastard.

  Then my light fell upon a human face, and it was my turn to be terrified.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I wiped my faceplate clear of little beasties with a quick stroke of the back of my hand. As I did so, the circle of light shifted. So did the face. It stayed where I could see it. It stared vacuously at my silver-clad form.

  “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” I said.

  I put out my hand, and he disappeared. Just gone, into nothingness, or into...plantness.

  “I have a horrible suspicion,” I confided to the world in general, ‘that things are not as they should be. We have been trampling on somebody’s toes, and....”

  I was rudely interrupted by Captain delArco, who screamed again.

  “Shut up, Captain,” I said tiredly. “It’s not real. Just the plants. They can change shape, remember.”

  He didn’t stop crying. His nerves were pretty bad.

  I waited.

  “What the hell’s happening?” Johnny wanted to know.

  “The jungle’s making faces at us. It can’t hit us, or hurt us, or call us names. So it’s making faces at us. I think the captain is frightened.”

  The calmness of my voice and the scorn inherent in the last remark brought delArco back to his senses. “I’m all right,” he said heroically. “I was startled, that’s all.”

  “Great,” I said, “I’m on my way again.”

  But the moment I moved again, I was a stimulus. The jungle had got an idea, and it worked—stopped me dead in my tracks. It wasn’t about to give up.

  There was another face, and another, and another. But shock tactics had lost their effect. I was no longer impressed. I walked straight through them. This time, the jungle wasn’t so slow with its inventiveness. The faces changed expression. From vacuousness, they passed through fear and pain and agony. I watched the face—always the same face—grow thinner, watched the flesh whiten and tauten about the bones, watched it begin to peel from the face, watched it dissolve and flow and writhe. I watched the death and decay of a human being. Wherever my lamp fell, there it was. As long as I moved, the continuity was maintained. No rest for the wicked.

  It’s one of
the crew of the Lost Star, supplied the wind. It’s something they’ve actually seen and experienced. It took them time to recognise you as human. That’s why there was a delay.

  So why are they showing me? I asked. Are they threatening me with the same fate? Trying to scare me to death? It won’t work.

  Forget about trying to prove how tough you are, the whisper replied. They aren’t trying to hurt you. They’re like everything else on this world—just plain and simple reaction. To every stimulus, they have a reaction. It’s the whole of their existence. They can’t fail to react. They can’t fail to react specifically. This is all they need to do—from their point of view—to cancel you out. You were hurting them before, as an invader with no programmed response. But not now. They’ve made up their minds. They’ve blotted you out of their existence plane. From now on, you’re just an accident of providence. They don’t care about you, Grainger. They won’t hurt you. They can’t even try.

  Thank you, I said, you’ve taken a load off my mind.

  Then I found the Lost Star.

  She was still intact. The jungle was close up to her sides, but it didn’t touch her. I paused for breath, leaning on the hull. She was a long, wide-bellied ship with big tailfins and solid wings. She wasn’t ugly but she was outsize—Junoesque.

  I knew as soon as I realised just how big she was that my plan to lose delArco wouldn’t pay off. She was no needle in a haystack. No matter how nervous or incompetent delArco might be, he couldn’t possibly stagger around forever without finding her. I cursed the fashion that had made them build so big eighty years ago. Today’s ships were much more compact and just as functional. As the unknown universe had shrunk—in importance rather than in size—so had human gestures of defiance.

  I wandered along her length, looking for the lock. I didn’t find it on my side of the ship. When I reached the fins, I used them to climb on top of her. The plants grew only two or three feet taller than she lay, but it was enough to hide her from the crater’s top. From on top of her I couldn’t see very much except jungle. Not that there was anything to see.

  I walked along the length of the ship again, peering over onto the side I hadn’t seen. Again, no lock. There was only one place it could be, and that was underneath. I swore silently. The time I’d gained from delArco was slowly draining away—wasted if I couldn’t gain access to the ship’s cargo hold. I jumped down at the nose, forgetting quite how high I was because I couldn’t see the ground. The plants, of course, did little or nothing to break the impact, and I turned my ankle. I had to hobble painfully along the side of the ship, wasting yet more time. Then I got down on my hands and knees and began a fast crawl beside the underbelly of the ship. I prayed that when I found it, the door would be either open or missing, so that I could get in with a minimum of effort. I was three-quarters of the way along when I found it at long last, hidden by the curve of the hull from the top, but not as inaccessible as I’d thought. Although shut, it was hinged on the undermost side. If I could get it open, I could certainly crawl in.

  “Grainger,” said delArco’s voice. “Have you reached her yet?”

  “No,” I replied. “How are you doing?”

  “OK.” He’d regained his composure. I swore silently.

  I lay on my back and scrambled underneath to get into the right position to manipulate the handle of the door. The door came open and fell heavily on my chest. I swore again—audibly—and squirmed out. With great care, I inserted myself into the narrow gap between door and hull. I wormed my way in, hoping that I didn’t damage my suit. Then, bracing myself against the walls of the airlock, I shut the outer door. I opened the inner one and climbed thankfully into the corridor. The ship had “up” along her vertical axis, like the Hymnia, but ship’s gravity was off and the shaft was now a tunnel. I searched with my lamp for the light switch, found it beside the lock, and pressed it. The lights came on.

  I paused on the rim of the hatchway, then carefully drew my gun, adjusted the beam, pointed it at the unlocking mechanism of the outer door, and fused the catch. That, I thought, should take Captain delArco some little time to sort out. In the meantime, let us see what is to be seen.

  The corridor, meant for climbing up or down, wasn’t wide enough to permit me to stand up. I had to crawl all the way to the control room.

  “Grainger,” said delArco.

  “What now?”

  “You must be there by now.”

  “I’ve found her,” I admitted.

  “Fine,” he said. “Don’t do anything. I’ll be with you in a matter of minutes.”

  “Yes, Captain,” I replied dutifully.

  The control room was quite empty of human forms—dead or alive. I went rapidly to the controls. The computer was still alive, as was the bleep. I tried a couple of elementary call signs, to make sure I knew what I was dealing with. Then I flipped all the switches under the console, reducing the artificial brain to so much scrap metal, wiping out the whole of the data store—including the ship’s log.

  Well, I said to myself, it’s only logical that before abandoning ship they should have reduced their power drain to a minimum, thus making the bleep last as long as possible. Nobody can tell whether the computer was killed now or eighty years ago. Can’t pin that on me.

  I began to check the cabins, one by one. They were all quite empty.

  The cargo hold was sealed tight and I hadn’t a clue where to look for the keys. In all probability, one of the crew had pocketed them before they tidied up and jumped ship. I hadn’t time to go searching for keys, though. Once delArco found the ship it wouldn’t take him long to cut through the outer door.

  About as long as it took me to cut my way into the cargo hold, in fact.

  I pushed the door with the toe of my boot, and I felt the lock go under the pressure. I leaned my full weight on the door, making sure my suit didn’t touch the hot patch, and it gave way slowly.

  The hold was unlighted, and I searched for a switch, but couldn’t find one. I switched on the helmet lamp again, and let the beam play over the cargo.

  “I’ve found her,” carolled delArco.

  “Good,” I said, with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

  “Where’s the door?”

  “Around the far side, underneath,” I told him. There was no point in keeping quiet now. I hadn’t gained the time I needed. Maybe I could still destroy the cargo, but I certainly couldn’t hide the fact that I’d done so. It was now a choice between serving Titus Charlot faithfully to the end, or risking all kinds of unpleasant consequences. While I was hesitating, I let my eyes roam casually over the legendary Lost Star cargo.

  The hold was crammed tight with books and papers and files full of film and notes. The books were old—maybe millions of years—but they still held together. There were some small items of artwork—mostly carvings and coloured metal-prints. There was some synthetic fabric as well. But by far and away the bulk of the cargo was knowledge—alien knowledge. The most saleable commodity of the eighty-year-old galaxy. High-priced today as well, of course, although with what New Alexandria already had under its belt, the desperation had drained out of the market and familiarity had knocked prices way down. In these days, alien knowledge was merely a convenience. In those days, it had been a fashion. New Alexandria had an insatiable thirst for it, and every world in the human universe needed New Alexandria to have it, to translate it, to understand it. The galaxy had been really hopped on the stuff. Maybe it reduced the fear of the unknown to know that alien races were being dissected in our computers within days of discovery, to know that we were keeping abreast of the universe, no matter how big it was. Crazes like that die easy, but the long-term effects were just beginning. The integration of alien and human, the use of what New Alexandria had bought.

  It was obvious all along what the Lost Star had carried—once I knew that she had found a dead world out there. There would be no King Solomon’s Mines on a dead world—just small remnants of a civilisation, the shards of i
ts accomplishments. After all that time, there would be not a trace of everyday life left behind. The only things to have survived the tremendous lapse in time would be things which were indestructible—either accidentally indestructible because of careless use of materials, or purposely so, in terms of permanent records and what the people had deliberately built to be indestructible. And what the Lost Star had picked up was anything she could scavenge that might tell something about Myastrid and her people.

  And it was all useless. For what could Myastrid tell us that Khor could not? No technological secrets, no philosophies, no sciences. All this had been passed on from the parent world to the colony on Khor. And from the Khor-monsa to New Alexandria. It was no accident that the first integration of intellectual achievements had been between Khormon and Human. The Khor-monsa had been very forthcoming about all aspects of their life and civilisation. Apparently, they had wanted to keep only one secret. There was only one thing that they did not want the prying humans to discover.

  I do not pretend to understand Khormon thinking. I call their insistence pride, and their manner politeness, but these are human words which refer to human attributes. They can have no precise relevance to alien peoples. I do not know why the keeping of this one secret was of such import. But that they had gone to some effort to keep it was obvious, if the majority of their own people did not know it. Perhaps, if they managed to destroy Myastrid, and suppress the Lost Star cargo, even those who knew about it would be able to forget it. And the Khor-monsa could be, in practical truth, the men of Khor.

  By the Law of New Rome, this cargo belonged to Titus Charlot. His consortium owned the Hooded Swan. They had commissioned her. In other systems of law, the cargo might have belonged to the Khor-monsa. Myastrid was not a derelict ship, but a world. Its people lived on, as the Khor-monsa. The Lost Star had not salvaged these books, but stolen them. But the contemplation of such legal and ethical niceties was not helpful. I already knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to burn every last page.