The Winds of Altair

by Ben Bova

  Gunnerson deftly docked the tiny shuttle at the Ghandi's airlock, and introduced his three passengers to the world government representative who was waiting for them in the sterile, metal-walled airlock chamber.

  He was a tall, fair, light-haired man named Manning. A career world government bureaucrat, he moved his lanky body slowly, his long legs and arms seeming to probe the air around him cautiously, as if afraid of bumping into something unpleasant. His voice was soft, bland, almost hypnotic.

  "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you." he said in an unemotional monotone. "We have been confined to this vehicle for four months now, and I have another four months ahead of me for the return flight. It will be so good to get back to Earth and my own home once again. Words fail me."

  Jeff could not suppress a grin. "Don't you want to take a day or two to see the surface of the planet? It's very exciting."

  Manning missed the humor. "No, I think not, but thank you all the same. My duty is accomplished once I have transferred the colonists to your care. I wouldn't dream of keeping Captain Gunnerson here one day longer than necessary."

  "The colonists are well?" Carbo asked. "Any problems with them?"

  "Oh no, none at all. They were happy to leave their wretched villages and cities. The devastation there was very intense." All in the same monotone. "We implanted them with neuro probes along the way. It took more than a month, but since then they have all been as docile as lambs."

  Jeff saw Carbo wince, but the scientist said nothing.

  "Well," Bishop Foy snapped, "I suppose we should meet their Council of Elders."

  "Yes, by all means. Right this way."

  Neither Jeff nor the others were prepared for the shock.

  Manning led them to the massive inner hatch of the big airlock chamber. He touched the control button set into the gleaming metal wall and the hatch sighed softly, almost reluctantly, then slid aside.

  The smell hit them first. The sour, acrid odor of too many people crowded too close together. Jeff had been positive that the colony ship would be somewhat like the Village in its interior design. But now he saw that they were stepping out onto a metal catwalk that circled the interior of this dome. The dome itself had been partitioned into many levels, so that the maximum number of people could be squeezed into it. A dozen meters below the catwalk, on a bare metal floor that could barely be seen because of the thick throngs of people standing down there, thousands upon thousands of colonists stood, jammed shoulder to shoulder.

  Men, women, children, babes in their mothers' arms, they all stood mutely, not making a sound, their big liquid eyes staring up at the catwalk and the airlock hatch, their dark faces turned upward toward Jeff and Carbo and Bishop Foy—but totally without expression, numb, paralyzed by the neuro probes that ruled out hope, erased fear, buried all expectation. Gray. Their coveralls were gray. Nothing but a sea of lifeless gray. Not a touch of color anywhere. Gray uniforms, dark skin, faces without even a spark of life to them.

  Jeff could hear them breathing. He could feel it, almost like the sighing rhythm of the surf down on Windsong. He knew that every dome in this huge ship was layered with many decks, and each deck held thousands of colonists sandwiched between its steel plates. And all of them were standing, waiting, their minds held in paralysis by the neuro probes. None of them saying a word; just standing there, breathing and looking blankly into nothingness.

  Jeff heard a gagging sound beside him and turned to see Bishop Foy's face go white. The Bishop reached out and grasped the steel railing of the catwalk with both his hands. His knees buckled. Jeff grabbed him around his frail shoulders.

  "I . . . I . . ." The Bishop tried to gasp out words.

  Carbo came up on his other side, his own face as white as the Bishop's, but the expression on it one of fury and self-hate.

  "You were right," the Bishop said. "We must do the best we can for them. We must. God would never forgive us for anything less."

  Manning seemed to politely ignore the Bishop's infirmity. "Shall I bring their Council of Elders here, do you think, or would you prefer to meet them in their own quarters?" Before anyone could answer, the bureaucrat went on, "Here is better, if you don't mind my suggesting it. Their quarters are, well, rather cramped and uncomfortable. And they all smell bad, you know."

  "Are their Elders under neuro control?" Carbo snarled.

  Ignoring the venom in the question, Manning answered, "No, of course not. They have been administering the controls, actually. Under my supervision, of course."

  "Of course."

  "Here," Bishop Foy said. "We'll . . . meet the Elders here."

  Manning nodded and turned to the intercom phone set into the wall. Jeff felt the Bishop's body regain some strength. The three of them stood at the railing and stared down into the eyes of those unmoving gray masses of humanity.

  "How wrong I've been," Foy muttered. "What a vain, foolish tool of pride I've been. Thank God for that stubborn conscience of yours, Holman. God has chosen you to show me the path to righteousness."

  Jeff took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring slightly at the strange, almost sickening odor from the overcrowded colonists. That's as close to praise as I'll ever get from the good Bishop, he knew. And he realized that he was content with that; it was enough.

  Six small, dark men clambered up a ladder and walked briskly along the catwalk to where Jeff and the others stood. They stopped a respectful five meters from the Bishop and bowed to him. As Manning introduced them, Jeff saw that each of them was of a slightly different hue, ranging from the coal-black of one of the Indians among them to the almost golden color of the one who was introduced as a Vietnamese. Their coveralls were like everyone else's, gray and devoid of decoration or any kind of insignia. But, this close, Jeff could see that they were clean and carefully pressed, even though threadbare.

  "Welcome to our humble ship," said the Indian, in sing-song English. "We are enormously grateful that you have sacrificed so much merely to help us."

  "No," said the Bishop, in a heartfelt tone that Jeff had never heard from him before. "It is we who must thank you for the opportunity to help do God's work."

  All six of the men smiled and bowed again.

  "It may be of some interest to you to know that, although the official name of this ship is the Ghandi, we colonists decided to give it an additional name, a more personal name, a name that meant much more to each of us. We voted on such a name—before," his voice lowered a notch, "before we had to insert the neuro probes into our brethren."

  "And what name did you choose?" Bishop Foy asked.

  "Hope. We call this ship, Hope."

  Jeff felt as if he was going to cry. Turning away from the bowing, expectant Council, he saw that Carbo's eyes looked misty, and even Bishop Foy was blinking.

  Carbo said, "We share in your hope. But we have many long years of hard work ahead of us."

  "Yes, I certainly can understand that," said the Indian.

  "The planet . . ." Bishop Foy began. "The planet we have all been sent to is not fit for human habitation." He said it all in a rush, as if afraid that he wouldn't have the strength to finish if he hesitated even for an instant.

  The Councilmen's eyes widened. "Not fit! But how can that be?"

  "What are we to do?"

  "We will build our own colony," the Bishop said. His voice grew stronger, calmer. "We will build a world for ourselves, a completely Earthlike world. With God's help."

  They looked at each other uneasily.

  "It can be done," Carbo said. "An O'Neill-type colony, big enough to house all of us."

  "But—what of children? What of the future?"

  "We will build more colonies. Larger ones. It will be difficult, and we will need the help of every person among you."

  "It will take an enormous amount of work," Jeff said. "You and your people will have to learn new skills, new abilities. Will you do this? Will you work with us to build a new world?"

  The Indian drew hims
elf up to his full height. Although he was a full head shorter than Jeff, he was the equal of any man there.

  "Are we not human? Have we not minds and hands and hearts? Can we not be trusted to help build our own future and the future of our children?"

  Jeff felt his face ease into a smile. Bishop Foy stepped up to the six men and took each hand, in turn. "God will help us in this mighty task," he said.

  But Carbo had turned to stare down at the sea of blank, dark faces once again.

  "Do you really mean it?" he asked. "Do you really want to be trusted with building your own future?"

  "Of course we do!"

  "Then turn off the damned controls!"

  They were surprised by his vehemence, but Bishop Foy explained that this was the famous Dr. Carbo who had invented the neuro-electronic probe.

  "And I never meant it to be used to turn human beings into cattle," Carbo growled. "Turn it off! Let them be human beings again!"

  Manning began to object. "But if we do . . ."

  Carbo cut him short with a murderous glance.

  "Well," Manning muttered. "It's your responsibility, isn't it?"

  But he picked up the intercom phone again and spoke into it briefly. Carbo gripped the railing and stared into the crowd.

  The first sound came from a baby, which cried out a bawling, tearful demand for attention. Then the entire mass of human flesh seemed to stir, to shake itself, like statues coming to life. The very air rippled, as thousands of human beings began murmuring, moving, turning to look at each other and then, one by one, craning their necks to see who was on the catwalk above them.

  Carbo released his grip on the railing. Somewhere down in the crowd, someone laughed. Voices spoke, softly at first, but then louder and louder as hundreds of conversations reverberated against the curving metal walls.

  And then someone, either a woman or a child, began to sing a simple Nirvan hymn. A child's prayer, set to music; the kind that mothers use for a lullaby, and all converts are taught in their earliest Church lessons.

  Another voice took up the hymn, and then another until the entire mass of people were singing their praise of God and their thanks. Jeff sang it, too, although he was so choked with emotion that he could barely get the words out of his throat. Bishop Foy's voice rang out with the rest, slightly off-key but powerful and happy.

  I'll have to teach Dr. Carbo the words, Jeff thought. If he'll let me.

  CHAPTER 28

  The great cluster of domes called the Village slowly began to spiral away from the sixth planet of Altair. A precise hundred kilometers behind it, the even larger conglomeration of domes known to its inhabitants as Hope, spun in the same looping graceful orbit.

  As if leading the way, the Village headed out toward a new position in space, equidistant from Altair VI and its parent star. The scientists in the Village called their destination the Lagrangian libration point, where the Village and its accompanying colony ship Hope would take up a stable orbit around blazing Altair. The students called their destination L-5, and determined to name the first colony they built there Gerard K. O'Neill.

  In the contact laboratory, Jeff Holman lay stretched on the couch one last time, as Amanda and Laura fastened the cuffs around his wrists and ankles, then positioned the silvery helmet on his head.

  From the control room, Jeff heard Carbo saying, "We'll never find out if the wolfcats really are intelligent, if they truly have some form of communication."

  "They are," Jeff called to him, "and they do."

  "But we won't be able to prove it!"

  "Yes we will. Later. After we've finished the first of the colonies and the colonists themselves have a good start on the next two, then we'll have the time to come back and study the wolfcats."

  "And all the other creatures of Windsong," Laura added.

  He tried to nod at her, but the helmet prevented his head from moving. No matter how many times I get into this rig, he laughed to himself, I always forget that it immobilizes me.

  Amanda said, "Everything checks out here, Frank."

  "Controls are ready."

  "Are you ready, Jeff?" she asked him.

  He licked his lips. "Yes."

  "Okay. One last time."

  "For a while."

  Jeff closed his eyes as the delicate machines of silver and silicon hummed to life, sending electrons dancing through him, mating his mind, his whole nervous system with the pulsing electronic circuitry that flashed outward from the Village as it curved through space and reached toward the planet that was drifting farther and farther away from them.

  One last time, Jeff thought. Soon we'll be too far from Windsong to reach Crown. One last time . . . for now.

  Sitting on a wooded hilltop under the warm southern sun, looking out over the rich grassland and the forests beyond it that fed his clan, Crown felt the breeze ruffle his fur. It was a good wind, clean and strong. The strange place where the frightening pulsing metal machines and the strange alien intruders had been was already fading into the dark caves of his memory. He almost felt sad; his days of adventure and exploration were ended.

  Something touched Crown, deep within his mind, and he felt a familiar thrill of inward excitement. He raised his head toward the sky and peered at the brilliant clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon. He looked for something that his eyes could never see.

  But he felt the presence, a voice that spoke to him wordlessly, thoughts that went beyond words.

  Goodbye, old friend . . . good hunting . . . I'll be with you again some day, but until then . . . goodbye.

  The great gray wolfcat lifted his massive head toward the sky and bellowed a roar of sheer exuberance. A roar that echoed in a human mind, thousands of kilometers away.

  About the Author

  Ben Bova is a six-time winner of the Hugo Award, a former editor of Analog,former editorial director of Omni, and past president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America. Bova is the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction. He lives in Florida.