Upon a Sea of Stars

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Eh, what? When’m ready. But you understand now that you must not interfere. You must not interfere.”

  “I understand,” said Grimes, thinking, Too much and, not enough. He found a tube of tablets in his suitcase, shook one into the palm of his hand. “Here,” he said, offering it. “You’d better take this.”

  “Wha’s it for?”

  “It’ll sweeten the breath and sober you up. It’ll be too bad for you if the Presbyter sees the state you’re in.” And too bad for me, he thought.

  “ ’M not drunk.”

  “Of course not. Just a little—unsteady.”

  “Don’t really need . . . But jus’ to oblige, y’un-derstan’.”

  Smith swallowed the tablet, his Adam’s apple working convulsively. Grimes handed him a glass of cold water to wash it down. It acted almost immediately. The bearded man shuddered, then got steadily to his feet. He glared at Grimes, but it was no longer a fanatical glare. “Good night, sir,” he snapped.

  “Good night, Rector,” Grimes replied.

  When he was alone he thought of playing back the record of the evening’s conversations, but thought better of it. For all he knew, Smith might be able to switch the hidden microphone and scanner back on from his own quarters—and the less he knew of the tiny device hidden in the starboard epaulet of his white mess jacket, the better.

  He got out of his clothes and into his bunk, switched off the light; but, unusually for him, his sleep was uneasy and nightmare-ridden. He supposed that it was Clarisse Lane’s fault that she played a leading part in most of the dreams.

  The voyage wore on, and on, and even as the ever-precessing gyroscopes of the Mannschenn Drive tumbled and receded down the dark infinities, so did the good ship Piety fall through the twisted Continuum. On one hand was the warped convoluted Galactic Lens and ahead, a pulsating spiral of iridescent light against the ultimate darkness, was the Kinsolving sun.

  And this ship, unlike other ships of Grimes’s wide experience, was no little man-made oasis of light and warmth in the vast, empty desert of the night. She was cold, cold, and her atmosphere carried always the faint acridity of disinfectant, and men and women talked in grave, low voices and did not mingle, and never was there the merest hint of laughter.

  Clarisse Lane was not being maltreated—Grimes made sure of that—and was even allowed to meet the Commodore for a daily conversation, but always heavily chaperoned. She was the only telepath in the ship, which, while the interstellar drive was in operation, depended entirely upon the Carlotti equipment for deep space communication. But the Rector and the Presbyter did not doubt that she was in constant touch with Mayhew back at Port Forlorn—and Grimes did not doubt it either. She told him much during their meetings—things about which she could not possibly have known if there had not been a continual interchange of signals. Some of this intelligence was confirmed by messages addressed to Grimes and received, in the normal way, by the ship’s electronic radio officer.

  So they were obliged to be careful, these Neo-Calvinists. The chosen instrument for their experiment in practical theology was now also an agent for the Rim Worlds Confederacy. “But what does it matter?” Smith said to Grimes on one of the rare occasions that he spoke at length to him. “What does it matter? Perhaps it was ordained this way. Your friend Mayhew will be the witness to the truth, a witness who is not one of us. He will see through her eyes, hear with her ears, feel with every fiber of her being. The Word propagated by ourselves alone would be scoffed at. But there will be credence given it when it is propagated by an unbeliever.”

  “If anything happens,” said Grimes.

  But he couldn’t argue with these people, and they couldn’t argue with him. There was just no meeting of minds. He remembered a theory that he had once heard advanced by a ship’s doctor. “Long ago,” the man had said, “very long ago, there was a mutation. It wasn’t a physically obvious one, but as a result of it Homo Sapiens was divided into two separate species: Homo credulens, those capable of blind faith in the unprovable, and Homo incredulens, those who aren’t. The vast majority of people are, of course, hybrids.”

  Grimes had said, “And I suppose that all the pure Homo incredulens stock is either atheist or agnostic.”

  “Not so.” The doctor had laughed. “Not so. Agnostic—yes. But don’t forget that the atheist, like the theist, makes a definite statement for which he can produce no proof whatsoever.”

  An atheist would have been far less unhappy aboard this ship than a tolerant agnostic like Grimes.

  But even the longest, unhappiest voyage comes to an end. A good planetfall was made—whatever they believed, Piety’s people were excellent navigators—and, the Mannschenn Drive switched off, the Inertial Drive ticking over just enough to produce minimal gravitational field, the ship was falling in orbit about the lonely world, the blue and green mottled sphere hanging there against the blackness.

  The old charts—or copies of them—were out, and Grimes was called up to the control room. “Yes,” he told Smith, stabbing a finger down on the paper, “that’s where the spaceport was. Probably even now the apron’s not too overgrown for a safe landing. Captain Spence, when he came down in Epsilon Eridani, reported creepers over everything, but nothing heavy.”

  “It is a hundred and fifty standard years since he was here,” said Smith. “At least. I would suggest one of the beaches.”

  “Risky,” Grimes told him. “They shelve very steeply and according to our records violent storms are more frequent than otherwise.” He turned to the big screen upon which a magnification of the planet was appearing. “There, just to the east of the sunrise terminator. That’s the major continent—Farland, it was called—where the capital city and the spaceport were situated. You see that river, with the S bend? Step up the magnification, somebody. . . .”

  Now there was only the glowing picture of the island continent, filling all the screen, and that expanded, so that there was only the sprawling, silvery S, and toward the middle of it, on either bank, a straggle of buildings was visible.

  “The spaceport should be about ten miles to the west,” said Grimes.

  “Yes,” agreed Smith, taking a long pointer to the screen. “I think that’s it.”

  “Then make it Landing Stations, Rector,” ordered Presbyter Cannan.

  “Sir,” demurred Smith, “you cannot put a big ship down as though she were a dinghy.”

  “Lord, oh Lord,” almost prayed the Presbyter. “To have come so far, and then to be plagued by the dilatoriness of spacemen!”

  I wish that this were my control room, thought Grimes.

  But Piety’s crew worked well and efficiently, and in a very short space of time the intercom speakers were blatting strings of orders: “Secure all for landing stations!” “All idlers to their quarters!” and the like. Gyroscopes hummed and whined and the ship tilted relative to the planet until its surface was directly beneath her, and the first of the sounding rockets, standard equipment for a survey expedition but not for landing on a world with spaceport control functioning, were fixed.

  Parachutes blossomed in the upper atmosphere and the flares, each emitting a great steamer of smoke, ignited. Somebody was singing. It was the Presbyter.

  “Let the fiery, cloudy pillar

  Guide me all my journey through. . . .”

  Even Grimes was touched by the spirit of the occasion. What if this crazy, this impious (for so he was beginning to think of it) experiment did work? What would happen? What would be unleashed upon the worlds of men? Who was it—the Gnostics?—who had said that the God of the Old Testament was the Devil of the New? He shivered as he sat in his acceleration chair.

  She was dropping steadily, was Piety, following the first of her flares. But there was drift down there—perhaps a gale in the upper atmosphere, or a jet stream. The Inertial Drive generators grumbled suddenly as Smith applied lateral thrust. Down she dropped, and down, almost falling free, but under the full control of her captain. On the targ
et screen, right in the center, highly magnified, the cluster of ruins that had been a spaceport was clearly visible, tilting like tombstones in a deserted graveyard, ghastly in the blue light of the rising sun.

  Down she dropped, plunging through the wisps of cirrus, and there was a slight but appreciable rise of temperature as skin friction heated the metal of her hull. Smith slowed the rate of descent. The Presbyter started muttering irritably to himself.

  There was no longer need for magnification on the screen. The great rectangle of the landing field was clearly visible, the vegetation that covered it lighter in color—eau de Nile against the surrounding indigo—than the brush outside the area. The last of the flares to have been fired was still burning there, its column of smoke rising almost vertically. The growth among which it had fallen was slowly smoldering.

  Grimes looked at Smith. The man was concentrating hard. Beads of perspiration were forming on his upper cheeks, running down into his beard. But this was more important than an ordinary landing. So much hinged upon it. And, perhaps, malign (or benign) forces might be gathering their strength to overset the ship before her massive tripedal landing gear reached the safety of the planetary surface.

  But she was down.

  There was the gentlest of shocks, the faintest of creakings, the softest sighing of shock-absorbers. She was down, and the Inertial Drive generators muttered to themselves and then were quiet. She was down, and the soughing of the fans seemed to make the silence all the more silent.

  Presbyter Cannan broke it. He turned in his chair to address Grimes. “Commodore,” he asked as he pointed toward a distant peak, a black, truncated cone against the blue sky, “Commodore Grimes, what is the name of that mountain?”

  “I . . . I don’t know, sir.”

  “I know.” The old man’s voice was triumphant. “It is Sinai.”

  Had this been any other ship there would have been a period of relaxation. There were wild pigs and rabbits to hunt, descendants of the livestock abandoned by the original colonists. There were the famous caves, with their rock paintings, to visit. But the animals, their fear of Man long forgotten, came out of the undergrowth to stare curiously at the vessel and at the humans who busied themselves around her, opening side ports to allow the egress of the three pinnaces, already stocked with what would be required for the final stages of the expedition. And nobody was remotely interested in the caves.

  Grimes managed to see Clarisse Lane. The ship was almost deserted now, so he was able to make his way down into the women’s quarters without being challenged and stopped. He found her little cabin, hardly more than a cell. She was not locked in, not restrained in any way. She was sitting in her chair, a somber figure in her black dress, staring into nothingness. Her full lips moved almost imperceptibly as she vocalized her thoughts.

  With a sudden start she realized that Grimes was standing before her. She whispered, “I—I was talking to Ken.”

  “To Mayhew?”

  “Yes.”

  Saying goodbye, he thought. He said, “Clarisse, you don’t have to go through with this.”

  “I am going through with it, Commodore.”

  “You don’t have to,” he insisted. “You’re in touch with Mayhew. And he’ll be in touch with Rim Sword. The Admiral told me that she’d be standing by in this sector. She’s probably on her way here now. We can stall off those fanatics until she comes in.”

  She said, “I’m going through with it.”

  “But why? Why?”

  “Because I want to.”

  “But you’re not really one of them.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Sister Lane!” It was the Deaconess. “You asked for a few moments of privacy—and now I find you with this—this lecher! But come. The boat is waiting.”

  “I’ll come with you.” said Grimes.

  “You will not,” snapped the woman. “A place has been reserved for you in the pinnace carrying the Presbyter and the Rector. They had decided that it is meet that an infidel shall witness the handing down of the Law.”

  Clarisse Lane followed the Deaconess from the cabin. Grimes trailed along behind them. They went down to the main air lock, down the ramp to the overgrown apron, stumbling over the tough, straggling vines on their way to the boats. The sun was dropping fast to the western horizon. There was a hint of chill, a smell of dusk in the still air. There was the scent of growing things, and a faint hint of corruption.

  Smith beckoned to Grimes from the open door of the leading pinnace. He made his way slowly toward it, walking carefully. He clambered up the retractable steps into the crowded cabin that stank of perspiration and damp, heavy clothing. He found a seat, wedged between two junior officers.

  The door hissed shut. The Inertial Drive generator throbbed and snarled. Grimes could not see out of the ports, but he knew that the boat was airborne, was moving. There was no conversation in the cabin, but a metallic male voice reported from the speaker on the pilot’s console, “Number Two following.” After a pause a harsh female voice said, “Number Three following.”

  How long the flight lasted Grimes did not know; he was unable to raise his arm to look at his watch. But it seemed a long time, and it seemed a long time that they sat there after they had landed, waiting for the other boats to come down. But at last the door opened and a thin, icy wind whined through the aperture. The Presbyter was out first, then Smith, and eventually Grimes, in the middle of a huddle of officers and civilians.

  The plateau was smooth, windswept, an expanse of bare rock. To one side of it were the three pinnaces, and in front of them the men were drawn up in orderly ranks, with only the Presbyter standing apart. In the middle of the circular area were the women, a ragged huddle of somber black.

  Grimes’s attention was caught by a blue spark far below, not far from the still gleaming, serpentine river. Had Rim Sword landed? No. It was only the control room windows of Piety reflecting the last rays of the setting sun.

  There was a subdued murmuring as the women walked to stand to one side of the men. No, not all the women. Two remained in the center of the plateau. One was the Deaconess, tall and forbidding. The other was the Clarisse Lane. They had stripped her. She was wearing only a kilt cut roughly from the hide of some animal, clothing like that which had been worn by her ancestresses on this very planet. She was shivering and was hugging her full breasts to try to keep out the cold.

  Stark, incongruous, an easel stood there, supporting a frame square of black canvas, and there was a battery-powered floodlight to illuminate it. At its foot were pots of pigment, and brushes. Raul, the forefather of this girl, had called animals with his paintings. What would she call? What could she call?

  “Drink!” said the Deaconess, her voice rang clear over the thin whine of the bitter wind. “Drink!” She was holding out a glass of something. Clarisse took it, drained it.

  Suddenly the sun was gone, and there was only the glare of the floodlight. Overhead was the almost empty black sky, and low to the east was an arc of misty luminescence that was the slowly rising Galactic Lens. The wind seemed to be coming straight from intergalactic space.

  The Deaconess stalked over the rocky surface to take her stand beside the Presbyter, leaving the girl alone. Hesitantly Clarisse stooped to the pots and brushes, selected one of the latter, dipped it into paint, straightened, stood before the easel.

  She stiffened into immobility, seemed to be waiting for something.

  They were singing, then, the black-clad men and women drawn up in their stiff ranks before the pinnaces. They were singing. “Cwn Rhonda,” it was, and even Grimes, who had always loved that old Welsh hymn tune, found it hard to refrain from joining in. They were singing, the rumbling basses, the baritones, the high tenors and the shrill sopranos.

  Guide, me, oh Thou great Jehovah,

  Pilgrim through this barren land!

  I am weak, but Thou art mighty.

  Hold me with Thy powerful hand!

  They were singing,
and the girl was painting. With deft, sure strokes she was depicting on the black canvas the figure of a god, white-bearded, white-robed, wrathful. She was painting, and the men and women were singing, and the air was full of unbearable tension and the wind was now howling, tugging at their clothing, buffeting them. But the easel in its circle of harsh light stood steady and the girl worked on. . . .

  There was the dreadful crack of lightning close at hand, too close at hand, the crack and the dazzle, and the pungency of ozone, and the long, long streamer of blue fire licking out from above their heads and culminating on the plain far below, at the spaceport.

  There was the burgeoning fireball where the ship had been.

  There was the dreadful laughter, booming above the frenzy of the wind, and the metallic crash and clatter as the pinnaces, lifted and rolled over the rim of the plateau, plunged to destruction down the steep, rocky mountain slope.

  And They were there—the robust, white-bearded deity, a lightning bolt clutched and ready in his right hand, and the naked, seductively smiling goddess, and the other naked one with her bow and her leashed hounds, and she in the white robes, carrying a book, with the owl perched on her shoulder. The lame smith was there, with his hammer, and the sea-god, with his trident, and he with the red beard and the helmet and the body armor and the sword.

  Somebody screamed, and at least a score of the men and women had fallen to their knees. But the Presbyter stood his ground.

  “Who are you?” he shouted. “Who are you?”

  “Little man,” the great voice replied, “we were, we are and we always shall be.”

  Grimes realized that he was laughing uncontrollably and saying, over and over to himself, “Not Sinai, but Olympus! Not Sinai, but Olympus!”

  There was another supernal clap of thunder and the dark came sweeping back.