Voyagers I

by Ben Bova

  With a satisfied smile, Jo said, “Sounds terrific. How many girls can include that in their curriculum vitae?”

  “I thought you wanted to be called women, not girls.”

  “I can say girls,” Jo answered. “You have to call us women.”

  “Yeah,” he said tightly. “Figures.”

  Her face serious, Jo asked, “Keith, you’re not still sore at me, are you?”

  “Are you still sleeping with Big Mac?”

  “Oh, Christ! You’ll never figure it out, will you?”

  “I’ve already figured you out, Jo.”

  Her fists clenched in frustration, she said, “I don’t give a damn about Mac! Don’t you understand that?”

  “Of course I understand that,” he said, icy calm, frigid with anger. “That’s what makes it so goddamned rotten.”

  She started to reply, hesitated, let her hands drop to her sides. Without another word, Jo brushed past him and continued on her way toward the administration building.

  Toward McDermott, Stoner told himself, as he stood alone in the middle of the dusty street and watched her walk away from him.

  * * *

  Grandfather, I send my voice to You.

  Grandfather, I send my voice to You.

  With all the universe I send my voice to You.

  That I may live.

  Wiwanyag Washipi: The Sun Dance

  of the Oglala Sioux

  * * *

  CHAPTER 22

  Jo shivered in the darkness. As she unhooked her bra and slid her panties down her long legs, she asked McDermott, “Why do you keep it so cold in here?”

  From the bed, his bullfrog’s voice croaked, “So that you’ll have to huddle close to me to stay warm.”

  She was glad that he kept the lights off and the drapes pulled tightly across the trailer’s windows. He couldn’t see the expression on her face. The damned bunk’s not big enough for a fatass like him by himself, Jo grumbled silently, let alone the two of us.

  Still, she padded over to the bunk, pulled the covers aside and squirmed onto the few inches of tough rubbery mattress beside Big Mac. This is ruining my back, Jo thought.

  “And how’s my sweet young thing this evening?” McDermott asked, reaching for her breast.

  The same line, the same approach, as predictable as sunrise. But McDermott’s own rising was beyond prediction. He needed lots of Jo’s help to raise an erection. And many times nothing she did could help him.

  Jo worked on him calmly, dispassionately, a graduate student working on an experiment in order to get a good grade from the professor. She could feel the tensions easing out of McDermott’s body as she massaged and fondled him.

  “You’re doing fine,” she cooed. “Big, strong daddy is going to fill me up, aren’t you?”

  McDermott was moaning softly, lying on his back, arms at his sides. Bending over him, Jo whispered:

  “That’s a good boy…You’re getting big and strong for me…”

  Finally she straddled him, rocking back and forth until he came. When she stretched out beside him again, he was whimpering. Tears wet his face.

  “What’s the matter?” Jo whispered, genuinely surprised. “Are you all right?”

  “They want to take it away from me,” McDermott snuffled. “It’s my project, I’m in charge, but they want to go and turn it into some kind of space cadet circus.”

  “Nobody’s going to take it away from you,” she soothed. “You’re the director of the entire project.”

  “It’s that Stoner.” His voice was high and quavering, like a little boy’s. “He’s after me all the time. He wants to fly out there and meet the alien spacecraft.”

  “Even if he does”—she stroked his chest—“you’ll still be head of the project. So what if he flies off into space…”

  She felt his whole body shudder. “Go out and meet it? Touch it? Suppose it’s carrying disease germs? Suppose it’s some kind of slimy, horrible…thing?”

  “No, no. It won’t be. Everything will turn out all right. You’ll see. It’ll be all right.”

  “It could be evil…dangerous. It’s alien…not like us.”

  “There, there. It’ll all work out. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Try to relax and get some sleep.”

  It seemed like hours, but finally Big Mac was snoring peacefully, his white-haired chest rising and falling in calm rhythm. Jo slipped gratefully out of the bunk, glanced toward the shower stall. It’d wake him up, she knew. Pulling on her shorts and blouse, she decided to take a dip in the lagoon before returning to her own room at the hotel.

  “But it’s a good idea,” Markov was saying to his wife. “A necessary idea!”

  It was dark outside as they sat in the front room of their little bungalow. The Americans had given married couples each a tiny cement house of their own. Maria had spent their first two hours in it searching for hidden microphones.

  They sat with two trays of precooked dinners—soggy American vegetables and thin slices of unidentifiable meat—resting on their laps. Markov’s was almost untouched.

  “A good idea,” Maria mumbled, her mouth stuffed with a buttered soft white roll.

  “Yes,” Markov replied.

  His wife glared at him from her upholstered chair. “Technically, perhaps it is a good idea. But not politically.”

  “Politically?”

  Maria finished the roll of butter. As usual, she seemed both annoyed and disappointed with her husband.

  “Don’t you understand why the Americans brought up this idea of meeting the alien spacecraft?”

  “To capture it and bring it close to Earth for study,” said Markov.

  “And who would make this thrilling capture?”

  Markov shrugged. “Stoner is a former astronaut. I suppose he would want to be in on it…”

  “Exactly! An American astronaut.”

  “But we’re all working on this together, aren’t we?”

  “Hah! There is together and together.”

  Markov glanced down at his tray and decided that he couldn’t face another bite of the bland food. Maybe she’s right, he thought. Certainly we can’t trust the Americans to feed us.

  Maria continued, “All through this project the Americans have tried every trick they know to keep the knowledge of this alien spacecraft to themselves.”

  “So have we,” Markov protested weakly.

  Maria ignored him. “Now the one astronaut they have on their team suggests that we go out into space and bring the alien ship into orbit around the Earth.”

  “But it’s a good idea!” Markov insisted.

  “And how will they do this thing?” she retorted. “With the American Space Shuttle, and American launching facilities, and American astronauts.”

  “They will share the information with us.”

  “How do we know that? How do we know they will share all the information with us that they obtain?”

  “Zworkin feels the idea has merit.”

  “Zworkin!” Maria almost spat. “That Jew! He’s probably in league with the capitalists.”

  “Maria!”

  “It’s true,” she insisted. “Our task is to make certain that if anyone reaches this spaceship it will be Soviet cosmonauts. We cannot allow the Americans to steal this alien spaceship for themselves. And we cannot allow the Soviet Union to be betrayed by naïve scientists and unconscious traitors.”

  Feeling pitifully weak in the blast of his wife’s hot fervor, Markov said weakly, “I’ve already told Zworkin that I will serve on the committee that will examine Stoner’s suggestion.”

  “H’mph. And have you befriended Stoner himself, as you were ordered to do?”

  Ordered? Markov’s brows went up. Now she is giving me orders? To his wife, he replied, “I have met him twice; both times in groups with other people. We have said hello to each other, nothing more.”

  “Nothing more,” she repeated sullenly.

  “But Zworkin has accepted me for the commit
tee, so I should see a good deal of Stoner in the near future.”

  Maria’s scowl eased slightly. “See to it that any rocket adventures we enter into are done by Soviet cosmonauts.”

  With a sad shake of his head, Markov got up from his chair and headed for the kitchen with his unfinished tray.

  “Where are you going?” Maria called after him.

  “Out for a walk. I’m not sleepy yet.” Even though there were twin beds in the bungalow’s one bedroom, the thought of sleeping in the same room with Maria was becoming unbearable to Markov.

  “Don’t wake me up when you come in,” she growled.

  Once outside, in the sighing night breeze and the friendly whisper of the palms, Markov could breathe again. She overpowers me, he knew. It’s a battle for survival between us, and she’s winning it.

  He threaded his way through the little cluster of bungalows and made it to the beach, glowing white in the moonlight. He took off his shoes to stroll in the sand. It was still warm from the day’s sun. The water lapped gently a dozen meters away. Out in the night, along the invisible reef, he could hear the surf breathing like a restless sea god.

  Markov stood alone on the sand and stared out at the moonwashed night. How long before the ocean wears away these islands? How long before Maria and I tear each other apart?

  He laughed out loud. How dramatic you are! Tear each other apart! She’d snap you like a twig, but you couldn’t even muss her hair, no matter how hard you tried.

  He thought again of those few moments in their apartment, when Maria had gloatingly told him how she had destroyed Sonya Vlasov’s life. Even then, Markov said to himself, even in full fury, you know better than to try to fight her.

  Something made him look back up the beach and he saw a woman walking toward him. An apparition. Aphrodite, come out of the sea, tall, long-legged, with the slim waist and full bosom of a goddess. A white blouse, ghostly in the moonlight, was tied around her middle. Shorts clung lovingly to her hips.

  Markov stared as she calmly approached him, smiled to him and said in English, “Good evening.”

  His heart spun around. He was instantly, hopelessly, in love.

  “A good evening to you, beautiful lady. I have been waiting for you all my life.”

  She laughed. “You’re one of the Russians, aren’t you?”

  “Does it show?”

  “I’ve seen you with the other Russian scientists,” Jo said.

  “And why have I not seen you? Have I been blind, or have you kept yourself invisible, goddess that you are?”

  “Goddess? Wow!”

  “Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. I am your humble servant, Kirill Vasilovsk Markov, ready to follow you across deserts and mountains.”

  Jo laughed. “I’m afraid I’m not Aphrodite. My name is Jo Camerata, and I’m an American. But there is some Greek blood in my ancestry, come to think of it.”

  “You see?” Markov said. “The goddess exists in you.”

  Jo laughed.

  “And what is such a lovely young lady doing in this romantic setting, all alone? Are there no handsome young men to escort you?”

  With a shake of her head, she replied, “No. No young men.”

  “That is sad.”

  “Yes…” She smiled again. “But you’re here.”

  “Ah, the moonlight must be playing tricks on your eyes, fair one. I am neither young nor handsome.”

  “I can see perfectly well,” Jo said. “I came here for a swim. Would you like to go in with me?”

  “Swimming? Now? At night?”

  “Sure. The water’s warm.”

  “Intriguing.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to try it?”

  “But I have no swimsuit.”

  She laughed. “Neither do I. We can skinnydip. Nobody else is around.”

  “My English…” Markov couldn’t believe she was saying what he thought she was saying. “You mean—in the nude?”

  “Sure. Just leave your clothes here and wade in.”

  She stripped quickly and ran for the water. Markov fumbled with his clothes, his eyes on the glowing curves of her naked body. Finally he stepped cautiously into the bath-warm water. It felt good, relaxing, inviting.

  “Tell me,” he called to her as he waded in up to his chest, “were you going to go swimming all alone?”

  “Yes, but it’s always safer to go with somebody else,” Jo answered. “Especially at night. The sharks come into the lagoon at night.”

  “Sharks?” Suddenly the water felt cold and dangerous to Markov.

  * * *

  ROSS SEA, ANTARCTICA

  Hideki Takamura prowled the plunging deck of the catcher boat, bundled into his hooded sweater and wind-breaker. It was late in the season to be searching for whales, and if a plane or ship from the International Commission saw them, Japan would be reprimanded and embarrassed before the entire world. At least the meddling fools from Greenpeace had sailed homeward, he knew. That was something to be thankful for.

  The season’s catch had been poor, so even though the Commission had ordered all the whaling fleets home, they still plowed through the heavy Antarctic seas as the nights grew longer, hoping to find a few straggling whales to fill their half-empty holds.

  The clouds overhead parted as if pulled away by the hands of a giant. Takamura looked up at the coldly glittering stars.

  And his breath caught in his throat. The sky was shimmering with light: veils of eerie fluorescence streamed across the heavens, red, green, violet—the lights of the gods, dancing across the sky.

  Stark fear clutched Takamura’s heart. All the long years of schooling and scientific training on which he prided himself vanished from his mind. This is an evil omen, he knew. An evil omen…

  * * *

  CHAPTER 23

  The day was slowly dying.

  Stoner had eaten dinner with Jeff Thompson at one of Kwajalein’s three government-owned restaurants. The food was cheap and about as appetizing as its price would indicate. It was still bright daylight outside when he finished, so he returned to his office and went over the latest batch of photographs from Big Eye.

  Even in the orbital telescope’s best magnification the approaching spacecraft looked like nothing more than a featureless blob of light, a tiny smudge on the picture, a whitish thumbprint set against the sharp, unchanging patterns and endless blackness of eternity.

  By the time he left his office the sun was throwing spectacular swaths of red and orange across the tropical sky. Stoner walked alone down the main street, past the cinder block government buildings, heading in the general direction of the Officers’ Club.

  He wondered where Jo might be, what she was doing, and an image of her in bed with McDermott filled his mind. He tried to shut it away, to forget it, to think of something else instead. He quickened his pace toward the Officers’ Club; he knew he needed company, conversation, something to erase those pictures from his mind.

  “Ah, Stoner!” Cavendish was standing at the doorway of the club with a lanky, flaxen-haired, sullen-faced young man.

  “I want you to meet Hans Schmidt, of the Netherlands Radio Observatory at Dwingeloo.”

  Stoner put his hand out automatically. Schmidt’s grip was lukewarm.

  “Dwingeloo,” Stoner said, his memory tweaked. “I saw a report a few days ago that said Dwingeloo picked up the radio pulses from Jupiter last summer.”

  “That was my work,” Schmidt said in British English. “But it was classified secret by NATO.”

  The young man was slightly taller than Stoner, youthfully thin. But his face was still soft with baby fat. The forehead was high, the eyes a bit puffy, the lips set into a pout. He’ll be bald before he’s thirty, Stoner thought, but he’ll still look like a kid.

  “Welcome to the club,” Stoner replied. “My work got stamped secret, too.”

  “Quite,” said Cavendish, laying a hand on each man’s back and gently urging them into the Officers’ Club. “Schmidt her
e may actually have priority on discovering the radio pulses, you know. When did your group first pick them up?”

  “It wasn’t my group,” Stoner said. “I was just hired on as a consultant. You want to talk to Jeff Thompson about that.”

  They went to the crowded bar and ordered. Cavendish had a brandy, Stoner a scotch and water, Schmidt a Heineken’s. The club was noisy, smoky, the best and only bar on the island. After fifteen minutes of talk, Stoner agreed that Schmidt had probably recognized the strange nature of the radio pulses earlier than Thompson had.

  “So you’ll get the recognition,” Cavendish said, “once all this comes out into the open.”

  That seemed to make Schmidt even more morose. “By the time all this comes into the open I’ll be an old man.”

  “Oh come now, you still have a ways to go, you know.”

  Schmidt drained the last of his beer and looked as if he wanted to cry.

  “They’ve pushed you around, haven’t they?” Stoner said.

  He nodded slowly. “I was to be engaged…. Now who knows how long I’ll be here?”

  “Me too. They’ve been shoving all of us around like a pack of animals. You know how I celebrated Christmas? They let me make a phone call to my kids. One call. Like a prison inmate.”

  “Couldn’t they fly your girl out here?” Cavendish asked.

  “They wouldn’t let her come. And she wouldn’t do it, anyway. I asked her, but she said no. I can’t blame her…to leave her home and family and go to the end of the Earth.” He shook his head sorrowfully.

  “Damned bad show,” Cavendish murmured.

  “First, they destroy my thesis with their secrecy laws,” Schmidt went on, staring into his glass, “and now they exile me to this island. If I had murdered someone I would be treated better than this. If I became a terrorist and captured a train or threatened to blow up an airliner they would treat me better than this.”

  Stoner said grimly, “But you’re not a terrorist. You’re a scientist. They know they can kick us around and all we’ll do is beg for another chance to do our work.”