by Ben Bova
Loring looked mildly shocked. “You’re serious? You would actually consider going farther?”
Larry nodded.
“But… everyone on the ship thinks that our voyage is almost over.”
“I know,” Larry said. “It might be just beginning.”
Dr. Loring shook his head, making his heavy jowls quiver. “The people won’t like it. They are not emotionally prepared for going farther. The ship isn’t built to…”
“The ship can be repaired, overhauled. The people—well, the people will make the final decision, I guess. But I’d like them to understand the alternatives. Or at least to have an alternative to Alpha Centauri.”
“We don’t have the equipment on board to study planets of other stars from the ship. We can barely make out details of the major Centaurian planet, as it is.”
“Then you’ll have to build the equipment,” Larry said.
“In two months? I’m …”
“You’ve got less time than that,” Larry said, his voice hard and cold as plastisteel. “I want to be getting some data before we’re forced to settle into an orbit around the major planet.”
For once, Loring was speechless. He sat there open-mouthed, blinking wetly.
“You’ll get all the help you need,” Larry said. “I’ll see to that. But I want evidence of other Earthlike planets. They’ve got to be out there somewhere.”
“Why? Because you want them to exist?”
Larry could feel his teeth clenching. He forced himself to stay as calm as possible while answering, “No… it’s not just that. I don’t want to see my children altered to live on an inhuman world. Val’s children. Your grandchildren.”
Dr. Loring was silent for a long moment. Then, “He’s called her, you know.”
“Dan?”
“Yes. He wants to have dinner with her tonight.”
“She agreed?”
“Yes. I expect she’ll tell him about her decision to marry you.”
With a shake of his head, Larry replied, “No, I don’t think so. He’s been through enough recently; I don’t think Val will want to add that to his troubles.”
“But she’s got to!” Dr. Loring’s face started to redden. “Otherwise… she can’t let him think…”
“I know,” Larry said. “I know. But I’m afraid that Dan’s right on the edge of a real mental crackup. He’s like a man who’s gone outside and tethered himself to the level one wheel. He’s spinning around and around… and the more he spins, the wilder he feels.”
It had been a quiet, tense dinner. Valery and Dan had eaten in the ship’s main autocafeteria, in one of the shadowy little booths far away from the main dining area and the pickup lines with their crowds and noise.
They had said very little. Val looked beautiful but very serious in a red jumpsuit. Dan was dark and silent in a black coverall.
Now they were walking down a quiet corridor, back toward Dan’s quarters, a one-room compartment exactly like Larry’s. It even had one of Val’s paintings on its wall.
“You’ve decided on Larry, haven’t you?” Dan asked abruptly.
She stopped walking, right there in the middle of the nearly deserted corridor. “I think so. I told him-yes.”
He took her arm and resumed walking; she had to quicken her former pace to keep up with him. Without looking down at her, he asked, “You love him?”
“I love you both. You know that.”
“But you want to marry him.”
“He… he’s asked me to.”
“And you want your children to be the Chairman’s son and daughter.”
“No, it’s not that!”
“And if I were Chairman?”
Valery shook her head. “You’re not.”
“I could be.”
“No… not now. Larry has it and they’ll re-elect him. You won’t get another chance.”
Still looking straight ahead, he asked, “Suppose he’s voted out? Even before his first year’s over?”
“What?” She stopped again and pulled her arm free. “What are you saying, Dan?”
With a shrug, he answered, “Chairmen have been voted out before their terms were up. When the Council decides that the Chairman can’t handle the job. Or when they think there’s a better man available.”
“Don’t try it,” Valery said earnestly. “You’ll be hurting Larry and you’ll be hurting yourself even more.”
“I deserve to be Chairman,” Dan insisted. “But more than that—much more!—I want you. I love you, Val. I’ve always loved you. I’d tear this ship apart to get you, if I had to.”
“Oh, Dan… don’t.,. please…”
He reached out and took her into his arms. “You’re not going to marry Larry or anybody else. Only me. You think you’ve made up your mind, but just wait. By the time we go into orbit around the planet out there, you’ll see everything differently. You’ll see…”
Something in her head was telling Valery to push free of him, but something even stronger made her stay in his arms Looking up into his intent, deadly serious face, she said, “Dan… don’t make me come between you and Larry You’ve been friends…” It sounded pathetically weak, even while she was saying it.
“Larry might have murdered my father.”
“What?” In sudden amazement, she did push out of his grasp.
“I don’t think that fire was an accident. Somebody caused it Larry benefited from it.”
“Dan, that’s insane! Larry’s own father…”
“What’ll you think when I prove it?” Dan said, his voice rising to nearly a shout “Would you like to be married to a murderer?”
“Dan, stop it!”
“Well, would you?”
Valery turned suddenly and began running back down the corridor, the way they had just come.
“Val… wait.” He raced after her, caught her arm.
“I’m going home!” She pulled her arm free. “If you have any sense of decency at all you’ll never mention such a crazy thing again. Do you understand? Not to me or anyone else!”
She left him standing there, looking suddenly alone and helpless—and yet, as Valery glanced back toward him, Dan also seemed darkly resolved, strong and purposeful She shuddered Larry, a murderer? It was insane. But… that meant that Dan was—insane!
Which was it?
And with a final helping of horror, Valery realized, Whichever it is, I’ve helped to cause it’
Dan watched her hurry down the corridor, knowing that he had driven her away.
Maybe l am crazy, he said to himself. How could Larry…He couldn’t, not Larry!
But another part of his mind droned with remorseless logic.
Someone caused the fire. Someone killed fifty people and kept you from your rightful position as Chairman. Someone wants to change everything, have everything his own way.
Feeling sick and confused and more angry with himself than anyone else, Dan made his way back to his own quarters.
It wasn’t until he had dropped onto his bunk that he noticed his viewscreen had MESSAGE WAITING written in glowing yellow letters across it.
He sat up on the bunk and punched the yellow button among the cluster on the keyboard beside the screen. The face of a young man appeared on the screen. Dan couldn’t quite place him, he knew he had seen him before, but didn’t know him personally.
“I’m Ross Cranston, from the computer section. I have a private message for Dan Christopher. I’ll be in my quarters until first shift starts tomorrow morning.”
The taped message faded from the screen. Puzzled, Dan touched the green button and said, “Get me Ross Cranston, please.”
The computer-directed phone circuits answered with nothing but a faint hum Then the same face appeared on the screen.
He looked just a little startled. “Oh, you’re Dan Christopher, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” Dan said. “You wanted to speak to me.”
Cranston said, “Yes. But not on the phone.
Are you busy? Can I come to your quarters? Or you can come to mine.”
“What’s this all about?” Dan asked.
Nervously, Cranston answered, “I’d rather … it’d be better to talk in private.”
“About what?” Dan insisted.
“Your father.”
Dan was instantly taut with tension. “I’ll come to your place. What’s the number?”
Ten minutes later Dan was tapping on Cranston’s door. Politeness dictated a light tap with the fingernails, the compartments were all small enough for that sort of noise to be heard instantly, and it didn’t disturb the next compartment, just a few steps away But something in Dan wanted to pound on the door with both fists.
Cranston slid the door open He was much shorter than Dan sandy hair, worn long; roundish face, too puffy for a young man but not yet really fat. Nervous, light brown eyes darting everywhere.
“What’s this all about?” Dan said as he stepped into the compartment. It was like all the other living quarters, except that Cranston had covered its walls with graphs and odd-looking sketches that appeared to be printouts of computer-directed drawings.
Cranston gestured Dan to a chair. He himself pulled a large pillow off his bunk, let it drop to the floor, and then sat on it cross-legged.
“I’m with the computer section,” he began.
“You said that on the phone.”
“Yes. Well, earlier today we were running routine statistical checks, inputting those fifty deaths so the computer could keep its memory banks up to date…”
Dan felt his insides churning. “And?”
“Well… when we input your father’s name, a special subroutine must’ve been triggered. We got a message.”
“A message?”
Cranston nodded. “It’s kind of strange— I’m not even sure what it means. But I thought you ought to know about it.”
“What did it say?” Every nerve in Dan’s body was tightening.
Cranston reached lazily up to his desk, beside him. “Here, I had a paper copy made.”
Dan snatched the flimsy paper scrap from his hand. He looked at it, shook his head, and looked at it again. It said:
PRTY SBRTN 7, PRM MMRY 2337-99-I
“It’s gibberish.”
“No,” Cranston said. “It’s just a shorthand that computer programmers used around the time when the ship began the voyage. I checked that much.”
“Then what’s it mean?”
“If I’m right—and I think I am—it means that there’s a priority subroutine number seven, in one of the prime memory banks. Those prime banks date back to the beginning of the voyage.”
“What do the numbers mean?”
“It’s some sort of code index, to tell us where the subroutine’s located.”
Suddenly Dan’s temper exploded. “Subroutine, code index, memory banks…what the hell are you talking about? Speak English!”
Cranston actually backed away from him. “Okay… okay, it’s simple enough. It looks to me like somebody put a special priority message of some sort into one of the earliest memory banks in the computer. The message was to be read out only in the event of your father’s death, because the computer didn’t tell us the message existed until we told the computer he had died.”
“A message from my father?” Dan’s pulse was going wild now. “Could he have suspected … did he know …?”
Cranston was staring at him quizzically.
Dan grabbed the computer tech by his coverall shirtfront. “You find that message, do you hear? Find it as quickly as you can! But don’t tell anyone else about it. Not a soul!”
“O… okay… whatever you say—”
“How quickly can you get it for me?”
Pulling free of Dan’s grip, Cranston said, “I dunno… hard to say. A day or two… if I have to keep it a secret from everybody else, maybe a few days.”
“Get it as fast as you can,” Dan repeated. “And not a word to anybody. Understand?”
“Yeah… sure…”
“All right then.” Dan got up and strode out of the compartment, leaving the computer tech squatting there on the floor, looking dazed and more than a little frightened, slowly smoothing his rumpled shirtfront.
A message from my father, Dan told himself. He must have known what was going to happen to him!
6
The bridge crackled with excitement.
Larry stood at his usual post, behind the curving bank of desk consoles and the seated technicians who operated them. Viewscreens flickered, showing every part of the ship, the pulsebeat of every system.
For an instant the whole bridge was silent, the silence of tense expectation. Everyone was holding his or her breath; the only sounds were the faint whispering of the air fans and the slight electrical murmur of the consoles.
Larry stood rooted behind one of the techs, watching a viewscreen on her console that showed the long glistening cylinders of four automated rocket probes. A red numeral 10 glowed on the screen, down on its lower right corner.
“Still holding at minus ten seconds,” the tech muttered.
Another tech, at the next desk, added, “All systems still in the green.”
On the desk just to the left of where Larry stood was a viewscreen display of a computer-drawn star map. Dozens of pinpoints of light were scattered across it. Off to one side of the screen, one of the pinpoints was blinking. This represented their target, the major planet of Alpha Centauri. It was moving across the screen, heading for a dotted circle drawn in the middle of the map.
Larry watched the map. The blinking dot reached the circle and stopped there.
“Acquisition,” said the tech at that console. “We’re in the launch window.”
The numerals on the picture of the probes began to tick downward: nine, eight, seven…
“Launchers primed and ready.” A light on a console went from amber to green.
“…six, five…”
“Probes on internal power.”
“…four, three, two…”
“Hatch open.”
Larry could see that the metal hatch in front of the probes had slid away, revealing the stars outside.
“…one, zero.”
“Launch!”
The four cylinders slid smoothly away and disappeared in an eyeblink into the darkness of space.
“Radar plot,” a voice said crisply. “On course. Ignition on schedule— All four of ’em are on their way.”
Larry didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until he let it out in a long, relieved sigh. The technicians whooped triumphantly, turned to each other with grins and handshakes and backpoundings. The girls got kissed.
“They’re off and running,” one of the techs said to Larry. Neither of them knew where the phrase had come from, but it sounded right for the occasion.
He stood in the center of the celebrating crew, smiling happily. In another month we’ll have Hose-up data on the planet. Then we can decide logo into orbit or fly past and head out-system.
They were all standing around him now, clapping him on the back and laughing with him.
Larry threw up his hands. “Hey, I didn’t have anything to do with it. You guys launched the probes. I just stood back and watched you. You deserve all the congratulations, not me.”
They milled around for a few minutes more, before Larry finally said, “Okay, okay, you got off a good launch. Now how about the regular duty crew getting back to their stations. Don’t want to give the computer the impression it can run the ship by itself, do you?”
They grumbled light-heartedly, but -most of the techs returned to their desks. The few extra people who had been present for the launch drifted away from the bridge, out the two hatches at either end of the curving row of consoles.
Satisfied that everything was going smoothly, Larry went over to his own seat along the back wall of the bridge and relaxed in it. But not for long.
Dr. Loring pushed his way past the last of the d
eparting launch techs and entered the bridge. Larry suppressed a frown as the old man stood there momentarily, fat and wheezy and blinking, peering at the console screens.
He knows no one’s allowed up here without permission unless he’s a member of the working crew!
Loring turned his frog-eyed face toward Larry. “Ah, there you are,” he said, and lumbered over to Larry’s seat. “Congratulations, I was watching on the intercom. The launch seemed to go quite smoothly.”
Larry got up slowly from his chair. “Thanks. But… you know that the bridge is off limits for non-crew personnel.”
Loring waved a chubby hand in the air. “Oh, yes, of course. I apologize. But I, ah… I have other reasons for looking you up.” He glanced around at the techs, who were all busily at work with their backs to him. “Ahh… could we step into your office for a moment? This is rather delicate.”
There were times when Dr. Loring amused Larry, and other times when the old man exasperated him. This was one of the latter times. Stay cool, he told himself. After all, he is practically a father to you. He thinks he’s got a right to butt in.
Nodding, Larry led Dr. Loring through the door in the middle of the bridge’s back wall. It opened onto a short corridor that linked the bridge with the computer center. Off to one side of this hallway was Larry’s office. They stepped inside and Larry passed his hand over the light switch. The infrared sensor in the switch detected his body warmth and turned on the overhead light panels.
Larry gestured to the webchair and sat himself behind his desk. Loring sat down with great caution, lowering his weight onto the fragile-looking chair very slowly. The plastic squeaked.
“What’s the matter?” Larry asked.
“It’s about Dan Christopher,” Dr. Loring said, looking troubled.
Larry waited for the old man to add something else. When he didn’t, but merely sat there looking unhappy, Larry urged, “Well? What about Dan?”
“And Valery.”
Larry automatically tried to hide the jolting shock that went through him. Idiot! What are you afraid of? She loves you.
Patiently, he asked Dr. Loring, “Okay, what about Dan and Valery?”
