To Fear The Light

by Ben Bova

  Do you know that your name is looked upon with near-religious fervor on some of the outlying Worlds? he asked wordlessly, kneeling at the side of the receptacle where she lay. He leaned close to the tank’s thin plastiglass cover, his breath momentarily fogging the shiny surface. He straightened, then, and added silently, I wonder, Mother, how you’ll react to the changes that have come to pass as a result of your efforts.

  Eric often reflected on the irony of the events of the last several centuries: The project to save the Sun, itself designed to revitalize a stagnant Empire and reunite the individual Worlds to a common goal, had instead become the main cause of its death.

  Wormhole spaceflight had made it possible for near-instantaneous travel to almost any point in the Empire. Instead of voyages lasting years, even decades—huge segments of time during which starship crew and passengers achieved little—ships arrived in the blink of an eye, ready to colonize and develop new Worlds or to bring new technology to existing ones. Instead of taking years for information developed on one planet to disseminate throughout the Empire, it became immediately available to all. Free of the restraints imposed by time and a centralized government, existing well-developed worlds soon began their own colonizing efforts, quickly forming new alliances and new partnerships. There had even been instances where mini-empires, consisting of five or six planets ruled by a single tyrannical leader, had arisen as the unbridled expansion continued. Many of these totalitarian systems were crushed by the weakening Empire, but after a time even these were permitted to go unchecked in the knowledge that those who preferred better could easily emigrate elsewhere. In these instances the Empire was there to assist, and eventually the tyrants found themselves with no one to rule.

  And if the speed of planetary development was unprecedented, so, too, was the speed with which new cultures and customs were born. New ideologies, new social orders, new terminology sprang up more quickly than could be accounted for. In some cases, the people of one World—while still sharing a common language and heritage—seemed as alien from those on another as did the residents of different continents on Earth in the days before long-distance ocean voyages were possible.

  These were young Worlds, their fledgling societies as self-centered as they were self-aware. Concerned with their own development, and with the progress of their own colonial efforts, they had no need of an all-encompassing Imperial bond.

  And even less need for me.

  As there was no longer a necessity for a common thread, the Empire quietly, slowly died.

  The Emperor took one last look at his mother, peacefully unaware of all the history that had passed her by during her time in the tank, and turned away. The cryosleep chamber door slid aside at his approach, revealing a sterile antechamber where two cryotechs awaited.

  “Sire?” asked one, bowing slightly.

  The Emperor stopped and looked back into the room momentarily, then proceeded from the antechamber.

  “Move Dr. Montgarde to the recovery room in preparation for tomorrow.” He paused, accessing the estate computer system with the integrator woven into the very molecules of his brain. It took less than a second to find the right files, select the proper command sequence, and route the coded instructions to the recovery facility.

  “I’ve just installed the room environment for her awakening. See to it that no other programming is substituted.”

  On the opposite side of Earth, a dark-skinned man looked wistfully out over the deep blue waters of the Timor Sea. It was hot, and the sea breeze carried with it the mixed pleasure of heat and humidity that he had missed so. He gazed around him, the air bright and clear, and he caught the sound of a boat horn, faint and wistful on the wind. He looked to the north in the direction from which the sound had come, and although he could see as far as Cape Londonderry, there was no boat to be seen. But that, in itself, wasn’t unusual; the sea here could carry sounds for many kilometers.

  Billy Woorunmarra waded into the warm surf. He was out of shape, although he hated to admit it, and the water splashing up around his aching calves invigorated him after his bicycle ride from Kalumburu. On an impulse he stripped, tossing his balled-up trousers back up on the sand near where he’d already left his shirt and shoes. The pants unfurled in the breeze, however, and fell far short, landing just at the edge of the undulating surf. He didn’t care at all.

  Ignoring his pants as they rolled over and over in the water sweeping up the sand, he turned and dove into an incoming wave. He felt the warm salt water rush over him as he dove down, then back up into the sunshine again. Putting all else out of his mind, he swam for the better part of an hour, stopping only when he noticed that the Sun had begun to dip low on the horizon. Standing now in waist-deep water, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, drinking in the scents, sounds of the Timor: the sea spray in his nostrils, the salt water on his tongue, the screech of gulls, the sand washing between his toes. And above all else, the warmth of the Sun on bare, wet skin.

  There was little of this in Kalumburu. The burgeoning economic center, once a tiny Aboriginal settlement, had blossomed in his time off-planet, and after only a short visit there he had been anxious to get away from it. He saddened as he remembered the excitement with which the mayor had greeted him on his arrival to Earth. The mayor was Aborigine, just as he was, and could trace his ancestry back to the same area of the outback where he himself had grown up—but all that had changed. The mayor of Kalumburu was an Aborigine only physically, much as the town remained Aborigine in name only. The man’s Song Lines were gone, severing him from his people, his past, as completely as a knife separates the skin from a fresh-killed roo. He had arrived nearly a week earlier, but Billy was beginning to think there was little of what his people had been anywhere in the Kimberley region. The thought so disturbed him that he gave little consideration to how his deputy governor was making do during his absence back on Darson, a frontier world nearly ten light-years distant.

  For the moment, Billy’s thoughts were on his homeworld, and on what it had become. Perhaps a walkabout was what he needed. He could follow the track from Kalumburu down to the Great Sandy, to his birthplace, then back again. Surely by doing that he could reconnect the Song Lines to these people’s origins. Surely. But he realized the effort would be futile. Besides, a proper walkabout would take many months to complete, and he would miss the last phase of the project.

  The project.

  He had been present at a turning point in Adela de Montgarde’s efforts to gain support for her dream and had played a major role in her life then; he’d promised her that he would be here for her proudest moment, had even looked forward to it. According to the communique from Eric, she would be awakened tomorrow from her long slumber. It had been so long, and he admitted inwardly how much he had longed over the years to see her again. But so much had changed here!

  It has been much too long, he thought as he let his eyes scan the horizon. I am grateful that this, at least, has remained the same. He made out Long Reef and, a short distance to the south, the Bonaparte Archipelago, just as he’d remembered them; he wondered idly which of the islands he’d visited as a boy nearly three centuries earlier. A solitary gull screeched loudly overhead, and he followed its flight as it sailed across the face of the Sun, red and bloated as it neared the watery horizon to the west. Behind him a horn grated, spoiling the moment.

  He turned to see a small motorcade arriving a bit farther up the shoreline, pulling to a stop near where he’d left the bicycle in the sand. Despite his best efforts, several Kalumburu town officials, in their indefatigable efforts to fete him as a returning son, had found him. Beyond them he caught sight of the towers of the once-sleepy town, their plastiglass panels glinting brightly in the setting sun, and shook his head at the unwelcome reminder of what his people had become. The horn sounded again and the mayor stepped out onto the soft sand, waving for him to return to the vehicle. Billy waded to the edge of the surf and retrieved his trousers, still washing up
and down in the waves. As he stood there, the mayor finally reached him, and Billy took a moment’s pleasure from the shocked look on the man’s face when he suddenly realized he was naked.

  “Governor Woorunmarra!” the man sputtered over the wind and surf. “It’s time for the banquet!” He snapped his fingers, and one of his companions sprinted to the car to bring fresh clothing. Another had gotten the bicycle and was now stowing it in the back of one of the vehicles.

  “Tell me, Mayor Moora,” Billy said. “When’s the last time you had a corroboree? Or even been to one?”

  “What?” The mayor tilted his head, genuinely puzzled by the question.

  Angered, Billy asked, “Hell, when’s the last time you swam in this sea?”

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  He was about to challenge him further, but turned instead to the Sun, the distended, scarlet disk just now kissing the water.

  “This is all your making,” he whispered, and wished once more that he’d never made a promise to return here.

  “It’s not a big flower at all, is it?” asked the wizened old man. His bony, blue-veined hands shook as he lifted the fragile crimson bloom to his nose and inhaled deeply. “It is not even particularly beautiful. And yet, the magnificent beauty carried by its fragrance alone is so overpowering that I feel I may fall into it and be lost forever.”

  You’re a part of me, part of my life, she thought, trying desperately to bring the man’s identity up from the depths of a memory gone fuzzy with time. I should know you.

  “Of course you do, Adela, my love,” he answered, as if she’d spoken aloud. She opened her mouth to ask how he’d been able to hear her thoughts, but no sound came out and she felt the panic of helplessness wash over her.

  The old man laughed softly, the kindly sound immediately easing her fears, and handed the flower to her. When she took it from him, it was no longer a flower, but a tiny sparrow with delicate feathers the color of freshly fallen snow. The songbird regarded her from the cupped palms of her hands, then tilted its head back and sang. She closed her eyes and listened to the lovely music, and felt herself smile. How long had it been since she’d smiled?

  “The song is no longer mine,” he said. “I give it to you freely, Adela my love. It’s yours forever now. Forget me, and fly with it.”

  She opened her eyes at the words, but the old man was gone, which was as it should be. She looked at the tiny bird in her cupped hands and raised it to the breeze. The sparrow took wing and flew high above her, into branches of trees that had not been there before. As if to admit the bird to the sky, the breeze parted the uppermost boughs as the bird flew up and up and up. She strained to follow it, but the Sun broke suddenly from behind a fleecy white cloud, the unexpected brightness bringing tears to her eyes. Her vision blurred, she lost sight of the sparrow when it cleared the treetops.

  “No!” she cried out, attempting to shield her eyes from the brilliance.

  Dr. Adela de Montgarde had experienced cryosleep many times; enough times to know—now that the edges of consciousness returned slowly to her—that she had been dreaming. There was a coolness on her cheek as a gentle, sweet-smelling breeze played across her features. Her eyes still tightly closed, she reached a trembling hand to her cheek and brushed tears away. That part of the dream, at least, had been real.

  She had gone to sleep two hundred years earlier at Woodsgate, the Emperor’s family estate on Earth, surrounded by a serene holographic forest her beloved Javas had ordered made for her. She had loved it so, and he had promised that when she awoke, the forest would be there. She lay there for several long minutes, afraid to open her eyes; afraid that the promise of a man made all those years ago would not be kept. Surely, after all this time there had been more important things for him to remember. But the sounds! As she listened, she became aware that the very air around her was alive with the calling of birds, and—each time the breeze softly swept over her—of rustling leaves.

  Finally, her mind almost fully conscious, she opened her eyes and stared at the brightness above her. Fresh tears formed at the corners of eyelids unused for so many years. What she managed to see was a blur of greens, moving and swaying dizzily before her. She blinked, her eyelids seeming to move in the same slow motion as the undulating mass of greens and blues, and her vision became clearer. There were trees here, and a patch of blue sky dotted with the most beautiful white clouds she could remember seeing. And, just as in the dream, a sudden shaft of sunlight fell upon her. But this time, the tears that came to her eyes were tears of happiness.

  Thank you, Javas, she thought, and felt a smile come to her lips again.

  There was another sound, that of voices in quiet conversation. Turning her head, she saw that there were three people here; a middle-aged man stood a few meters away, his back to her as he spoke to two very young men. The pair wore identical featureless smocks that had a medical look about them. Occasionally he would nod at what they were saying, but he himself said very little. It was obvious they were talking about her, and although she could hear most of what they said, they used a number of words and phrases that were meaningless to her. What was a “corpser”? A “pullback”? What did they mean when they nodded in her direction and used the phrase “slow timer”?

  Adela shook her head to clear it, causing a sudden rustling of sheets that attracted their attention. The man turned and, smiling broadly, approached her. “Hello, Mother,” he said, then bent and kissed her softly on the cheek.

  It was Eric, she realized. He was older now, his hair—once the same dark brown shade as her own—mostly gray, his face lined with the passing of years and the weight of his office. It startled her to see her own son looking nearly twice her apparent age; he appeared, in fact, the same age Javas had been when she went to sleep. Assuming he’d followed Imperial custom and had stopped taking rejuvenation the day he became Emperor, then judging from his appearance he must have ruled the Imperial Court for nearly fifty years.

  The thought cut itself off abruptly as another realization suddenly struck her: Her beloved Javas must now be a half-century dead.

  3

  TRANSMISSION

  (PAUSE)

  “My name is Drew Hatton. I, uh … I mean …”

  “It’s all right, Drew. Take your time. Take all the time you need.”

  “My name is Drew Hatton, and I’d like to thank Lord Jephthah for the opportunity to talk to you today. At one time I served as chief steward aboard the passenger jumper H. L. Sylvan. You may have heard of her. Twenty years ago we were heading to Gate, uh, Gate Eighty-seven I think it was, after departing the colony world Copenhaver at Forty Eridani. We had developed a problem with the SIS—uh, that’s the Structural Integrity Shielding. That’s what reinforces and holds the big jumpers and starships together when we make the wormhole jumps. Without it, the ships would have to be a lot smaller and heavier with all the metal reinforcing. Anyway, we got a red light on the SIS, but we couldn’t figure out what the problem was. All our diagnostics showed it was all right. Even the Copenhaver techs said it was fine. We got an offer of help from a Sarpan ship that had clearance in the Eridani system and we accepted, even though some of the crew objected Everything was fine until just before they rendez-voused with us, and then everything started happening at once. Our internal gravity went off suddenly, and a few minutes later the SIS disengaged.”

  “Drew, was there any indication that the alien ship had anything directly to do with the SIS failure?”

  “I don’t know! I mean, we never found out; it all happened too fast. All I know is that we only had a red light until they showed up, and then … one minute I was with … another crew member and the next minute the whole ship was breaking up around us. I saw her pulled away right in front of me, and the next time I saw her she was dead … they were all dead!”

  “I’m sorry, Drew, but I don’t quite understand You mean that everyone died, except you? How did you survive?”

  “What …?
Oh, the life vest saved me. Vera and I had time to put one on. They’re computer-controlled to make an air shield around you automatically in the event of a hull breach. But there was only a minute or two’s warning, and Vera … she was killed just seconds before the vest activated. I remember I was floating in open space, chunks and pieces of the ship all around me when she … floated … I’m sorry, but I …”

  “It’s all right, Drew. Thank you.”

  (PAUSE)

  “My friends, I don’t need to tell you how dangerous our encounters with the Sarpan nonhumans have been over the years. And I don’t need to remind you that the dangers—and deaths—have increased since we enlisted their help with the noble project to save Earth’s Sun. Now, as we near the project’s end, still more nonhuman ships approach Sol system. Even now, more of them make themselves at home near worlds where humans live. And think of this: Because of the aliens’ short life spans, human systems are the only homes that some of them have ever known!

  “It grows worse by the day. You are not aware of this, but even now preparations are being made to awaken an alien that lies side by side with humans at the sunstation on Mercury in Sol system. An alien that worked with our human scientists years ago, at the beginning stages of the project, somehow convinced project scientists to keep it secretly in cryosleep until the time came to bring the project to its conclusion. Imagine! A nonhuman that, when it awakes, will share two centuries of human knowledge with its waiting, eager colleagues. Is this what you desire for humanity?

  “Make yourselves heard, my friends. Stop this madness before it is too late … .”

  4

  TSING 479

  Gareth Anmoore’s stomach lurched, and he fought with every bit of strength he possessed to keep from vomiting. He concentrated on the ceiling above his jump couch, carefully attempting to distinguish one tiny bump from another in the decoratively textured pseudoplaster that made his personal quarters look as much like a normal room as the designers felt necessary for a mere exploration ship. But the tiny bumps kept moving in the dim light, making him dizzier still as he furrowed his brow. Past experience made him keep concentrating, however: to close his eyes would send him plummeting into a deep well of vertigo guaranteed to set his stomach heaving, despite the antinauseants he’d taken before the jump began.