Far Beyond the Stars

by Steven Barnes

  Doctor Bashir examined him minutely, head to toe, but especially head, using every device and skill at his command. Finally, as doctors have done for a thousand years, he wagged his head soberly, and said, "All right."

  Sisko pushed himself up to a seated position. "What happened?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure. Reading some unusual synaptic activity," he said. There was more between his words than in them. To Sisko, he added, "The neural patterns are similar to those you experienced last year."

  Sisko levered himself up to a seated position. "You mean when I was having those …" he groped for the right word. "Visions about Bajor?"

  Bashir nodded. "That's right."

  "Visions?" Joseph asked. "Does this have something to do with those Prophets you're always telling me about?"

  "Could be," Sisko said reluctantly.

  "Is he having some kind of relapse?" Kasidy asked. "He's not going to need another operation, is he?" The concern and fear in her voice were obvious.

  Again, an expression that had probably clouded the face of doctors since Hippocrates. "I don't know yet," he said. To Sisko, he added, "But I'd like you to remain overnight for observation."

  To Sisko, the memory of the doorway, of the collapse, of the strange vision of the street was already beginning to recede. An old and urgent feeling was taking its place. He needed to work. "Are you sure that's necessary?" Serious irritation had crept into his voice.

  "Absolutely," Bashir said. "Take a look at these readings." And he handed a padd to Sisko.

  Sisko glanced down at it. Even as his eyes began to move he realized that something was happening. What he held in his hands was lighter than a padd and of a different shape. His vision momentarily clouded. When he focused again, he was staring at a magazine with a garish yellow cover. The word GALAXY was printed at the top in huge red letters. The image on the cover was that of an enormous green worm apparently lusting after a buxom blond in a space suit. The caption, lurid as the drawing, read: "Spawned in darkness!"

  The words across the top were the most confusing: October, 1953.

  Sisko shook his head. It felt as if the world was sinking away under his feet. He squeezed his eyes shut. Please, he said. Please, when I open my eyes again, let this all be over, let me just have my life. I know I've been complaining, I know things have been too complex, but this is insanity, and I am afraid.

  He opened his eyes again and—

  SHUFFLE

  CHAPTER 8

  "YOU GONNA BUY THAT or not?" the news vendor asked.

  Benny Russell said "Sure," and searched his pockets for change. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the stand, and was momentarily struck by—something.

  What was there about his reflection? It was the same reflection that he had seen uncounted millions of times over the course of his thirty years. Taller now, balder now, and (he had to admit) older now. Negro, in a white man's world. He had to admit that as well, but that was a fact that he had lived with every day of his life, and no occasion for surprise. But when he met his own eyes in the mirror, something …

  Something … made him stop. What was it? He wore a neat but slightly rumpled brown suit and a brown cap, and when he looked down he saw the worn pair of loafers he had patched too often in the past months, always promising himself that he would get new ones as soon as the next check came through.

  But when he looked at himself in the mirror, for just an instant he had seen … someone else. It was the same man, but yet not the same at all. The man he had seen had worn some kind of a dark tunic with an odd, almost military insignia. His eyes, although haunted, had been strong, and piercing. His carriage had been proud, as if he had spent his life walking taller and more confidently than Benny Russell had ever managed. There was a kind of quiet power in that other man. This was a man used to the responsibilities of command. It was just his imagination, he was sure, the same imagination that had gotten him into trouble since his youth, the ability to slip sideways through reality, through a door that no one else could see and to dream about what might be found there.

  He had always had that gift, the ability to watch half of a movie and to come up with a dozen ways it might end; to see the end of a movie and to devise a dozen ways it might have begun; and to regale his family with the answers.

  Walking home from the movies, taking the subway back into Harlem with his aunt, telling them stories, telling her other adventures of the men and women—mostly white men and women—they had watched on the screen. Making her laugh and say, "Lord, Lord. What are you going to do with that imagination, boy?"

  And seeing that laughter, seeing that love in their eyes had given young Benny Russell his first hint of what he might do with his life, his first clue about how he might make his way in the world. He knew his ambitions were ridiculous. He knew they were absurd.

  Hell—that just wasn't an appropriate dream for him to have. He might dream of being a policeman. Or a fireman. Those were jobs that were open to a bright, hardworking Negro boy who kept his nose clean (fireman was a little more difficult than policeman. There were few Negro firemen in New York in the thirties, but he had confidence that by the time he was ready for the job, the job would be ready for him.)

  But a writer? And of the kind of stories that filled young Benny Russell's dreams? He dreamed of aliens, and far planets, and machines … machines that were like cars that could travel on the ground or fly through the air. Machines that might travel under the water.

  There was a library at his school, and in it were books by a man named Jules Verne. And Mr. Verne told wonderful stories of ships that traveled beneath the water, and through the air, and through space. Men like Nemo, Robor, and Cavor lived in young Benny Russell's dreams. For years he longed to be like them: to create wonderful inventions, to travel to far places, and to experience miraculous adventures. But everyone told him that that dream, the dream of traveling in such things was far beyond what a colored man might achieve in this world. That might or might not be true. But he could dream.

  At last Benny Russell heard that enough to believe it; but if he couldn't do those things in reality, perhaps he could still write his own stories. And so he wrote his own stories. His teachers criticized him, and his aunt sometimes tore them up for trash; still, he wrote them, even if he had to hide them behind his bed and in his closet.

  He made up names for things that already had names, and renamed people and animals, creating in their place strange and exotic concoctions. And that was why, when he thought (through some momentary illusion of light) that he had seen something or someone in the window that looked like him but couldn't have been, a name popped into his mind instantly.

  Captain Benjamin Sisko, Benny said to himself, and grinned at the conceit. His hawklike visage never wavered as he scanned the tasks before him. The fate of the entire space station was in his hands, and never had so many lives rested so easily—

  "Ah, fella," the news vendor repeated. "Are you gonna buy that or not?" Benny handed the man a few coins, and was amused to see his imagination flaring again. He had long since accustomed himself to it, and was amused at its superimposition on reality. He suddenly saw this vendor as a tiny man with flared ears that joined to a swollen, hyperpronounced brow. His mind even leaped in with a name: Nog. He's a . . . Ferengi. Avaricious but oddly honorable—

  The vendor was making change, and his voice snapped Benny out of his trance. "Personally, I don't see the attraction."

  "What? Attraction to what?" Benny stammered. Those daydreams will get you into trouble one day, Benny. But first, let's hope they make your fortune.

  "Attraction to spaceships, flying saucers, men from Mars." He dropped a few coins in Benny's hand.

  "What's wrong with men from Mars?" he asked.

  "Nothing, except it's all make-believe. Me—I like war stories. Did you see From Here to Eternity? Burt Lancaster standing there, in the middle of Pearl Harbor, machine guns blazing, shooting down those Zeros. If it h
ad been flying saucers … forget about it."

  Benny chuckled. "Well, it takes all kinds."

  "Benny—" a voice said behind him.

  Benny turned to see who spoke, simultaneously recognizing the speaker as Albert Macklin. Irish, robust, intelligent, Macklin was a former mechanical engineer who now worked at the same magazine that paid Benny's rent. Benny was usually happy to see Macklin, but as he raised his hands in greeting, something wavered in his sight. A familiar sense came over him, that odd fantasy sense, and for just an instant, it wasn't Albert Macklin who stood in front of him but … but …

  O'Brien. Starfleet engineer. Chief of operations at . . . at . . . The rest eluded him, was just beyond reach of his conscious mind. But close, so very close. Somehow he sensed that it was important, and he felt an old excitement building inside him: there was a story in there, somewhere, and it was clawing its way to the surface.

  And, he knew, with an old and growing sense of excitement, it was going to be a corker.

  "Hello, Albert."

  Macklin's pipe hung from his mouth. He was patting down his pockets, searching for a book of matches. "I thought … that is if you're on the way to the office …"

  Benny finished his sentence for him. "We could walk there together?"

  "Exactly," Albert said. He patted his pockets again, evidently still searching for the elusive fire stick.

  Mercifully, Benny extended Albert a pack of matches.

  "Ah," Albert said nonchalantly. "There they are."

  And they walked off together, across Times Square. As they did, Benny took a last glimpse behind him at the newsstand.

  Nog the "Ferengi." O'Brien the Engineer. And a commanding Negro officer named Benjamin Sisko. What kind of story was his subconscious stewing up?

  CHAPTER 9

  FROM TIMES SQUARE they strolled together along Seventh Avenue toward 34th Street, and then over to Fifth Avenue, keeping a companionable silence. Benny had never tired of watching the skyscrapers rising, had never wearied of Manhattan's incessant bustle.

  It's the future, he would tell himself. It's my future, too.

  Off Fifth, not too far from the more expensive shops and offices stood the Arthur Trill building, a seven-story monument to the solid brick construction of the twenties. Several of the offices were leased to publishing concerns, all of which timeshared the services of a single Linotronics machine. There was a fashion magazine on the second story, and a trade rag for real estate salesmen on the third. He had heard (from the usual usually reliable sources) that the auto magazine on the ground floor let out their photo room for photo sessions of a more intimate nature, but he had no direct knowledge of this, nor was he ever likely to get it. He supposed it was just the kind of rumors that floated around a building, the kind of idle talk that made the days seem to pass more quickly.

  It was the sixth floor that concerned him, because the sixth floor was the brain center of Incredible Tales of Scientific Wonder, the third most successful science fiction magazine in the world, and the source of most of his income. The walls of the office were lined with blown-up covers of past issues, including several which had been based on his own stories.

  A series of small cubbyhole offices lined the room, with a larger, glass-enclosed office in the back. This last belonged to the magazine's editor.

  The walls were covered with drawings and paintings from the magazine, shelves of reference books, photos, and bizarre souvenirs from South America, Germany, and Japan. There were model airplanes, tanks and spaceships, plastic alien critters of every description, movie posters, and a model of the spike-like Trylon tower from the 1939 World's Fair.

  In the center of the room sat a round table where the writers generally gathered. Any of them might be found drifting in and out during the month, but on the first of the month was the only time you were guaranteed to find all of them gathered together. This was a special time, and no one wanted to be tardy. Benny had been late for this ritual before, and had lived to regret it.

  He still remembered his first visit to the offices of Incredible Tales, just three years before. He had already sold five yarns to them, and readers had loved them. They were stories set in his own personal universe, filled with bizarre monsters with names like tribbles and Borg, aliens with names like Vulcans and Klingons. His first fifteen stories had all been rejected, the first six summarily, accompanied by printed forms thanking him for his submission. The seventh rejection slip had contained a personalized note scrawled along the bottom: Good job—not quite what we're looking for, D.P.

  D.P.! That couldn't have been anyone but Douglas Pabst, Incredible Tales' legendary editor, a true giant on the level of Campbell or Gold. To get a note, anything other than that damnable little slip of paper, was an electric experience, one which seemed to mark a turning point in Benny's life and career. From then on, there was no stopping him. It felt like he ate, slept and lived at the battered Remington portable typewriter in his living room (his lucky one, the one stenciled with the drawings of the Trylon and the Perisphere from the 1939 World's Fair), banging out story after story after story until finally one of them arrived with a note that said:

  This isn't bad. I'd like you to take a look at the creatures you call Borg. I think they should make some kind of communication with the heroes, even though they are mostly machine. Have them say something that our heroes can flip back at them pithily later on. How about: "Resistance is Futile"? Give them a voice, and then try us again. D.P.

  That had been the beginning. After that point, Benny sold everything he wrote. It had taken three more stories for Pabst to invite Benny to drop by the office, and another two months, and another story accepted, before he actually found the nerve to do so.

  Walking through the door that first time felt so awkward. There had been the moment, the anticipated moment when the receptionist asked him what he wanted, and he was terribly afraid she would tell him that deliveries were made on the fourth floor, or that the janitorial service never appeared before five o'clock, or any of the other polite, subtle reminders of his station in life.

  Or what if Pabst didn't believe he had actually written the stories? Or what if he decided that he didn't want to publish stories written by a Negro? Or what if …

  What if …

  And here, there was a part of him that had to laugh. After all, wasn't science fiction the game of "what if"? Wasn't that one of the three primary postulates which motivated the entire field? They were, in order, "what if," "if only," and "if this goes on." These were the lessons that he had learned from the endless stories of star travel, and spaceships, and time warps, and biological experimentation run amok that he had spent every scraped nickel on since he was seventeen years old, since the most important summer of his life, the summer of 1940.

  And ultimately, he was able to turn the same tools back on his fear:

  What if Douglas Pabst only cares about the quality of a story, not about the color of its writer?

  If only you could find one ally, one man in this world willing to take a chance on you, maybe some of those dreams storming between your ears since that summer would have a chance to reach the wider world.

  If this goes on, you'll be too afraid to take any chances at all. This is the time to go for it!

  So Benny had come to this office, and the secretary had been polite, a bit surprised, but ultimately … pleased? Could that have been her reaction? Yes, he thought that it was. And Pabst himself had appeared after she disappeared into his office for less than a minute. The expression on his face was one of intense curiosity. Not disrespect. Not confusion. Not disdain or anger.

  Curiosity. The man had extended his hand. That had been three years ago, and Benny had never regretted taking it.

  At the moment, three people were seated at the table. Julius and Kay Bass were a husband and wife writing team. At the moment, they sat sipping coffee. Julius was a friendly, elegantly attired Englishman who usually wore an ascot. A cigarette holder was clipped
delicately between the fingers of his right hand. His wife Kay sat perched on the table. She was a decidedly attractive woman with a no-nonsense attitude and a cutting sense of humor—

  Bashir

  Kira

  There it went again, and Benny wasn't certain what was triggering it. His mind was off on another flight of fantasy, and he recognized that whatever engines were roaring down in the creative caverns, they were taking everyone and everything from his environment and adapting them to the task at hand. Bashir/Julius was … hmmm. A medical man. Yes, a doctor. Benny could easily see him, using futuristic salves and instruments to save lives. And Kay … or Kira … she was a security specialist of some kind. Second in command maybe, behind the mysterious (but dashing and handsome) Sisko.

  Across the table from them was Herbert Rossoff, a man as opinionated as the day was long, but undeniably brilliant nonetheless. He was the best writer of the group, and he damned well knew it. His attitude sometimes drove Benny slightly nuts, and Benny was delighted by what his imagination devised in vengeance. Rossoff suddenly resembled another "Ferengi," the same bizarre species as the newsboy, his crested brow leading directly into his ears. Hairless pate, and disturbingly sharp teeth. His name was …

  Quark. Yes, that was it. Egotistical, avaricious, but somehow, in spite of himself, likable.

  Kay was busy demonstrating something to her husband. Carefully, she spooned two tablespoons of granulated powder into a glass pitcher of water. She stirred the mixture and the water turned a tannish brown.

  "There you go," she said. "A pitcher of plain water instantly becomes a pitcher of ice tea!"

  Julius was definitely impressed. "Incredible," he said. "What will they think of next?"

  As if hefting a sacred orb, Julius picked up the jar of brown granules and studied the label. "White Rose Redi-Tea," he read. He humphed and then added, "H. G. Wells would approve."