D

by George Right

  "I breathe!" the woman interrupted.

  "I too, because it is a reflex, but I am not sure that we really need to. It's like a sailing ship which was equiped with an engine. And all systems of the starship is fed with the energy of our despair. Therefore, when it grows, light becomes brighter, and what has gone dead, turns on again.

  "But corpses..."

  "That's just it! We cannot die! We have tried already numerous times! But every time when we kill a body, on the matrix of our soul a new one is recreated! The law of increase of despair won't allow us to escape! Neither us, nor anyone else. Sooner or later all will fall into despair. At first, the crews of interstellar ships like us, then the whole civilizations, whose sense will reach an adequate level to enter into resonance with universal despair directly. Probably sooner or later even stars and galaxies will evolve to the same level, and in the whole universe nothing will remain except dark matter filled with infinite despair. Actually this process is already closer to the end than to the beginning: There is already four times more dark matter than what we consider normal."

  "And bandages?" asked Linda, clutching at a straw. "Well, let us assume we revived without clothes. It is logical, but didn't somebody bind us up? And why did we need it in the first place?”

  "They are not bandages," Victor sighed. "It's dead skin. Our subconsciousness tried to save us from the truth, representing it as just dried bandages. Look! Look at them attentively!"

  The woman brought her bound up arm to her eyes. Now she saw that the edges of the "bandages" were actually ugly peeling scars, and on the cadaverous-gray surface of the "bandages" it was possible to make out pores and some separate not yet fallen out hairs. That means, her head also... her face actually wasn't wrapped. It became these terrible rags.

  "A soul it not just personality," Adamson continued to explain. "The energy matrix stores the information about the body as well, otherwise resurrection would be impossible. Naturally there is no information about clothes there, nor about putrefactive bacteria. That's why bodies don't decay here. Small wounds don't influence this matrix, but those that are really serious and cause especially severe pain are reflected in it. That's why we revive with dead skin or, at least, with scars in place of such wounds. However, even this won't help us die. We tried. Oh my God, how many times we’ve tried.

  Linda shuddered and with a groan fell to her knees, clenching her head with her hands. Now she too could not escape the memories which rushed on her like a torrent. She now remembered how she had torn her own face and squeezed out her eyes–how with all her force had pushed off her feet from the floor, empaling herself through the stomach and breast on pipes, cut out the schematics of the damned ship on her own body, hung, stretched on wires, while the man now speaking with her skinned her slowly...

  "Remember how you crucified me?" she dully asked.

  "No," he answered. These memories were probably too awful, and his subconscious still tried to hide at least them. "Could it be that I... though, of course, who else... what for?"

  "I begged you myself–to torture me as long and painfully as possible. I couldn't do it myself, I have tried already. I hoped that I would go mad. That such pain would destroy my mind, and I wouldn't revive any more."

  "And I had agreed, though I understood that there would be nobody to render me the same service. But all the same it was no go. And then we tried to achieve the same goal by destroying our own brains. But it also didn't help. Only the amnesia after revival was deeper. Maybe the point is that the nerve tissue of a brain itself cannot feel pain."

  "But why did we destroy all equipment? Simply out of despair?"

  "Not only. The devices would quickly reveal the truth to us. We tried to prolong the pleasure of ignorance after the next revival. After all, in order to feel the whole power of despair it is necessary to realize it to the full extent."

  "And now? Are we realizing? I myself feel awful and frightened, but I wouldn't again go in for that, about what I've asked you before."

  "Still not realizing to the full. Some time is required. It's like an automatic tuning... but later even that pain will seem to you the lesser evil, than the despair! We already have gotten rid of tools because of fear of the pain which we would cause ourselves with their help later, and when ‘later’ came, we damned ourselves for having done so."

  "I've told you, we had not to read it!"

  "Sooner or later the despair all the same would cover us–even without hints. It happened already many times, since the very first time when we didn't know what was what yet. And beyond that, with each new death and revival this period is reduced."

  "Thus, we haven't much time." Linda stood up. "We should do something!"

  "We can do nothing." Victor shook his head. "We or anybody in the universe. Despair is not a god, not any sentient essence with which it would be possible to negotiate. The most cruel god can be cajoled with prayers and victims. But we deal with an absolutely stupid natural power–with the fundamental law defining the direction of all processes in the universe. Against it everything is impotent."

  "Last time we jammed the doors of several rooms where I usually revived," Linda had remembered, "but I have all the same appeared in one of them. How does it do this?

  "I think those are the features of the dark matter. Remember that our coordinates are actually smeared out across the universe."

  "So, we can pass through walls?"

  "Consciously, no." Victor punched a wall to make his point. "But the death is probably similar to the transition into a quantum state, and revival to a collapse of a wave function–only not within the universe, but within the ship.

  "Can our souls exist without bodies?"

  "As far as I understand, no. Anyway, such a condition would be unstable. Therefore, each time new bodies are formed."

  "But it happens only on a ship entered into the dark phase by the Kalkrin generator. We cannot leave the ship, can we?"

  "No. From our point of view, the space is closed within a field created by the generator."

  "And if we blow up the ship?"

  "I don't think that it will destroy the field. I've said already, it is kept stabilized during a long time not by the generator, but by ourselves."

  "But in an explosion we would be lost simultaneously! Till now we could not achieve that, even when we tried. Probably, in that case a field will slack? And, the main thing, the biosynthesizer with its protoplasm will be destroyed! New bodies will simply have nothing to arise from!"

  "Well," Victor responded slowly, "maybe we still have a hope to die–theoretically. For in practice we can't destroy the ship. Only in idiotic old fiction were spaceships equipped with self-destruction systems. I would like to ask those authors of such bunk, whether their own cars, trains, planes were supplied with such systems? And if no, why the devil would the designers of spaceships should behave differently?"

  "We have no fuel," Linda reasoned, "but that is speaking about a reactor which fed the generator. But we still should have onboard landing modules for delivery of biorobots to planet surfaces and back. And they have their own engines. If I remember correctly, it’s a chemical fuel.

  "Yes," he nodded. "We didn't want to cause a damage to planets' biospheres . Therefore, no radiation, but chemical components should be enough for a good explosion. I do not know whether we can manage to do it. All right, there is nothing to lose all the same. Let's go. The hangar deck is on the third level.

  They didn't risk using the now working lift, remembering (Victor especially), how it had ended last time. Driven by hope and fear–hope to die and fear not to have time to do it before the despair would fall upon them again with its full power–they ran down the stairs. When they at last rushed into the hangar deck after that racing on a spiral staircase, they felt themselves a bit giddy, while in former times these trained astronauts would not even notice such an easy challenge. It is probable that all that had happened contributed to such exhaustion.

  There wa
s an identification touch panel here, and Victor wasn't surprised anymore that it identified him. The green indicator lit confirmed that the hatch to outer space was closed and access to the hangar deck was permitted, and then the door slid aside.

  Cone-shaped landers stood on the floor ruled out in squares, kept by perforated pylons. The modules didn't reach even a meter in height. Two were absent.

  "Damn," Victor said fatefully.

  "We couldn't fly away on them even if we had a destination," Linda sadly agreed. "Now I have remembered. Bioengineering is my speciality. Biorobots, which we were going to synthesize, should have sizes, roughly speaking, from a bug to a big crab. Gathering of samples and recording doesn't require more, while delivering of each superfluous gram into an orbit... especially taking into account the supragravity..."

  "It is unimportant. In any case we cannot escape the field limits," interrupted Adamson. "Above all, we have already tried to use probes," he pointed to empty places, "and, obviously, with no success."

  "We still do not remember everything," Linda realized. "And what if we get into a trap of our own perceptions? We come, we see that have already tried, and we leave, without trying more. Over and over again. And these probes, maybe, weren't here at all. They were reduced, as well as the number of crewmen."

  "No, the probes couldn't be reduced," Victor objected. "Without them the whole expedition loses meaning. We tried to use them for explosion, but not here. Here they have only low-power engines allowing them to fly smoothly into the hangar and to take off from it. But outside there are rocket stages with fuel and real engines, to which the landers mate before departing."

  "Can we reach them? There is a vacuum outside after all? Though there should be spacesuits somewhere. Our mission plan didn't involve our exit from the ship, but for an emergency…"

  "I won't be surprised, if in our present condition we can survive even in a vacuum," Victor gloomy uttered. "But anyway it will allow us no more than to knock with a fist on a rocket wall. And even if we would blow it up out there, it won't damage the starship. In a vacuum there is no blast wave. That's why rocket stages are places outside. Perhaps, in previous times we forgot exactly about that! But if we manage to ram the ship with a rocket, especially near the biosynthesizer, it may work.”

  "How can we operate the rocket?"

  "Directly, no way. Only to program the lander computer."

  Linda approached the nearest landing module and scraped its smooth surface with her nails. Hair-thin grooves depicted outlines of several hatchlets, but they, of course, had no intention of opening.

  "And how will we reach the computer?"

  "Without tools we cannot get inside." Victor shook his head. "But it is unessential. Besides the main control room there is still a reserve post of remote controls, right in this compartment." He was silent for several seconds, remembering, and then resolutely turned and showed her a door in a distant corner: "There."

  "If it isn't broken, too..." Linda muttered, following him.

  Her suppositions were confirmed. The bulky stand had been broken open, and the torn out wire stuck out of the wall to the right of it.

  "Didn't think that we would have such ancient cables here," said Linda. This part of her memory still remained in darkness too. "I suppose, nowadays conducting nanochannels directly through walls is used everywhere?"

  "That's because it’s a reserve system," Victor explained. "Here everything is purposely made on a primitive but reliable element base–more difficult to break, more easy to repair."

  "You think we still can repair it?"

  "I will try. I apparently have already remembered enough."

  With an effort he removed the bent cover of the stand and got into the electric interiors. Linda went backwards and forward in the small room of the post, unable to remain in one place. It seemed to her that she could physically feel how despair, like a black poison, spread through her body, corroding it from within...

  "It seems, we have a chance," Victor suddenly said. "I do not remember which of us broke this stand, but he did not made the problem too bad–probably because of a shortage of tools. In general, considering the raised durability and numerous reservation... contacts, of course, will be jury-rigged, but... at least for some time, I think, it will work." He still picked inside for some time, then turned to Linda. "There is only one problem. Too long a piece of cable is torn out. Perhaps you remember where we have put it?"

  "No," she shook her head.

  "Then there is no conductor of suitable length here. To feed the panel, at least a half-meter conductor is necessary."

  "I understand. I will do it. I will take the wire ends."

  "Actually I wanted to offer to draw lots."

  "To hell with drawing lots! I am a bioengineer. I've passed pilot's training, too, but you’re the first pilot. Onboard computers are your domain."

  "All right. But there will be high voltage, I don't guarantee that you will withstand it."

  "Victor, this is ridiculous. I will die once again. What's the damned difference? The circuit will remain closed. Begin it now, until I can't bear it any more!"

  "Okay, then hold it here and here."

  She knelt near the stand. Having ripped off the insulation, she wound the end of the wire round a finger of her right hand and clutched it in a fist, and put her left hand inside the stand. Adamson helped her to insert a finger into the socket. Then he somehow fit the stand cover back on–it did not, of course, lie in place completely, but it was still possible to connect the screens and keyboard. Even the buttons on the keyboard were real, as in former times, instead of an image on a touch surface of a screen.

  "Switching on," Victor warned and connected the perviously opened jumpers.

  Linda's body curved in an arch, and she tried to cry out, but a sharp spasm which had twisted all her muscles didn't allow her to open her mouth. She could only low through the rounded nostrils. With a dry crackle the remaining scraps of her hair began to move on her head. The singeing reek began to spread in the air.

  But Adamson could not let this distracted him. He could not even allow himself to think about her suffering. Screens lit up, self-diagnostics lines began to run. Victor hasty interrupted the test and disabled all warnings. He knew himself rather well that in such mode the stand would work several minutes at the best, until the first contact connected end-to-end would fuse or any other element would die from rating violations. A human body is nevertheless a bad replacement for the certificated cable.

  Victor tried to activate the computer of the first probe. "Unable to communicate," appeared on the screen. Where is the problem–in the stand, in the probe, somewhere in between them? There is neither time nor the possibility to find out! The second probe: "Unable to communicate." The third… still too early to consider the stand fully operational. Especially while–yes, it was true–the smell of burning human skin began to mingle with the smell of the burning wafer-type components. Even to start the full diagnostics, it will take not less than three minutes.

  Linda continued to low, her body curving so much that it seemed that her vertebrae were about to crack and break. Victor shot an instant glance at her and continued furiously to click the buttons. The fifth probe... No, it's all useless... if only by any miracle the sixth, the last one, would revive... Yes!!!

  Victor's fingers danced over the touch panel. Despite its archaic look, the panel was not as primitive as it would have been at the beginning of the space age. Flight programming did not require entering tens and hundreds of lines of code, to point the purposes on the rotatable and scalable scheme was enough. A departure from a hangar and an attachment to the rocket are, in general, basic operations which do not demand a special program. Now a turn and...

  "Now, Linda," he said, pressing the confirmation button.

  "The chosen route threatens the safety of the ship. The program is canceled."

  Stupid metal crap, he thought, while on the contrary, it was too clever.

>   Linda still lowed and, thus, was alive. She would better to die, Victor thought, die and resurrect again in blissful ignorance in her room.

  "Stand it a little more," he helplessly muttered, activating the settings on the screen. Adjust safety level... "Enter the password."

  The password! Holy shit! Well certainly, he knew the password... once... many deaths ago.

  The terrible lowing broke, replaced by a choking rale. It smelled of burned flesh. But she was still alive.

  And suddenly, as if having come up from the most black depths of despair, letters and numbers of the password appeared before Victor's eyes. He entered them so hastily that he made a mistake. Once again, don't hurry. Don't pay attention to sounds and smells. Bingo! Maximal g-load, check, remaining fuel, check... turn off, turn off everything...

  There was no place to check intentional collision with the starpship in the settings. It couldn't be turned off. As Adamson had absolutely correctly noticed before, the situation when the crew needed to destroy its own starship couldnot come to the mind of any normal designer. To risk a probe, yes, even to destroy a probe, but not the ship!

  Victor put his hand out to switch off the power. Nothing would work. They were doomed. Doomed again and again to sustain the universal burden of cosmic despair, to search an easement in physical torments, to die and revive for new suffering, forever locked in this damned ship.