Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (45 page)

A MOMENTARY TASTE OF BEING

. . . A momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste—

—K
HAYYÁM
/F
ITZGERALD

I
T FLOATS THERE
visibly engorged, blue-green against the blackness. He stares: it swells, pulsing to a terrifying dim beat, slowly extrudes a great ghostly bulge which extends, solidifies . . . it is a planet-testicle pushing a monster penis toward the stars. Its blood-beat reverberates through weeping immensities; cold, cold. The parsecs-long phallus throbs, probes blindly under intolerable pressure from within; its tip is a huge cloudy glans lit by a spark:
Centaur.
In grief it bulges, lengthens, seeking release—stars toll unbearable crescendo. . . .

It is a minute or two before Dr. Aaron Kaye is sure that he is awake in his temporary bunk in
Centaur
’s quarantine ward. His own throat is sobbing reflexively, his eyes are weeping, not stars. Another of the damn dreams. Aaron lies still, blinking, willing the icy grief to let go of his mind.

It lets go. Aaron sits up still cold with meaningless bereavement. What the hell is it, what’s tearing at him? “Great Pan is dead,” he mutters stumbling to the narrow wash-stall. The lament that echoed round the world. . . . He sluices his head, wishing for his own quarters and Solange. He really should work on these anxiety symptoms. Later, no time now. “Physician, screw thyself,” he jeers at the undistinguished, worried face in the mirror.

Oh, Jesus—the time! He has overslept while they are doing god knows what to Lory. Why hasn’t Coby waked him? Because Lory is his sister, of course; Aaron should have foreseen that.

He hustles out into Isolation’s tiny corridor. At one end is a vitrex wall; beyond it his assistant Coby looks up, takes off his headset. Was he listening to music, or what? No matter. Aaron glances into Tighe’s cubicle. Tighe’s face is still lax, sedated; he has been in sleep-therapy since his episode a week ago. Aaron goes to the speaker grille in the vitrex, draws a cup of hot brew: The liquid falls sluggishly; Isolation is at three-fourths gee in the rotating ship.

“Where’s Dr. Kaye—my sister?”

“They’ve started the interrogation, boss. I thought you needed your sleep.” Coby’s doubtless meaning to be friendly, but his voice has too many sly habits.

“Oh, god.” Aaron starts to cycle the cup out, forces himself to drink it. He has a persistent feeling that Lory’s alien is now located down below his right heel.

“Doc.”

“What?”

“Bruce and Åhlstrom came in while you were asleep. They complain they saw Tighe running around loose this morning.”

Aaron frowns. “He hasn’t been out, has he?”

“No way. They each saw him separately. I talked them into seeing you, later.”

“Yeah. Right.” Aaron cycles his cup and heads back up the hall, past a door marked
Interview
. The next is
Observation
. He goes in to a dim closet with viewscreens on two walls. The screen in front of him is already activated two-way. It shows four men seated in a small room outside Isolation’s wall.

The gray-haired classic Anglo profile is Captain Yellaston, acknowledging Aaron’s presence with a neutral nod. Beside him the two scout commanders go on watching their own screen. The fourth man is young Frank Foy,
Centaur
’s security officer. He is pursing his mouth over a wad of printout tape.

Reluctantly, Aaron activates his other screen one-way, knowing he will see something unpleasant. There she is—his sister Lory, a thin young red-haired woman wired to a sensor bank. Her eyes have turned to him, although Aaron knows she’s seeing a blank screen. Hypersensitive as usual. Behind her is Solange in a decontamination suit.

“We will go over the questions once more, Miss Kaye,” Frank Foy says in a preposterously impersonal tone.

“Dr. Kaye, please.” Lory sounds tired.

“Dr. Kaye, of course.” Why is young Frank so dislikable? Be fair, Aaron tells himself, it’s the man’s job. Necessary for the safety of the tribe. And he isn’t “young” Frank anymore. Christ, none of us are, twenty-six trillion miles from home. Ten years.

“Dr. Kaye, you were primarily qualified as a biologist on the Gamma scout mission, is that right?”

“Yes, but I was also qualified in astrogation. We all were.”

“Please answer yes or no.”

“Yes.”

Foy loops the printout, makes a mark. “And in your capacity as biologist you investigated the planetary surface both from orbit and on the ground from the landing site?”

“Yes.”

“In your judgment, is the planet suitable for human colonization?”

“Yes.”

“Did you observe anything harmful to human health or well-being?”

“No. No, it’s ideal—I told you.”

Foy coughs reprovingly. Aaron frowns too; Lory doesn’t usually call things ideal.

“Nothing potentially capable of harming human beings?”

“No. Wait—even water is potentially capable of harming people, you know.”

Foy’s mouth tightens. “Very well, I rephrase. Did you observe any life-forms that attacked or harmed humans?”

“No.”

“But”—Foy pounces—“when Lieutenant Tighe approached the specimen you brought back, he was harmed, was he not?”

“No, I don’t believe it harmed him.”

“As a biologist, you consider Lieutenant Tighe’s condition unimpaired?”

“No—I mean yes. He was impaired to begin with, poor man.”

“In view of the fact that Lieutenant Tighe has been hospitalized since his approach to this alien, do you still maintain it did not harm him?”

“Yes, it did not. Your grammar sort of confuses me. Please, may we move the sensor cuff to my other arm? I’m getting a little capillary breakage.” She looks up at the blank screen hiding the command staff.

Foy starts to object, but Captain Yellaston clears his throat warningly, nods. When Solange unhooks the big cuff Lory stands up and stretches her slim, almost breastless body; with that pleasant snub-nosed face she could pass for a boy.

Aaron watches her as he has all his life with a peculiar mixture of love and dread. That body, he knows, strikes most men as sexless, an impression confirmed by her task-oriented manner.
Centaur
’s selection board must have been composed of such men, one of the mission criteria was low sex-drive. Aaron sighs, watching Solange reattach the cuff. The board had been perfectly right, of course; as far as Lory herself was concerned she would have been happy in a nunnery. Aaron wishes she was in one. Not here.

Foy coughs primly into the microphone. “I will repeat, Dr. Kaye. Do you consider the effect of the alien specimen on Lieutenant Tighe was injurious to his health?”

“No,” says Lory patiently. It’s a disgusting scene, Aaron thinks; the helpless wired-up woman, the hidden probing men. Psychic rape. Do them justice, only Foy seems to be enjoying it.

“On the planet surface, did Commander Kuh have contact with these life-forms?”

“Yes.”

“And was he affected similarly to Lieutenant Tighe?”

“No—I mean, yes, the contact wasn’t injurious to him either.”

“I repeat. Was Commander Kuh or his men harmed in any way by the life-forms on that planet?”

“No.”

“I repeat. Were Commander Kuh or his men harmed in any way by the life-forms on that planet?”

“No.”
Lory shakes her head at the blank screen.

“You state that the scout ship’s computer ceased to record input from the sensors and cameras after the first day on the surface. Did you destroy those records?”

“No.”

“Was the computer tampered with by you or anyone?”

“No. I told you, we thought it was recording, no one knew the dump cycle had cut in. We lost all that data.”

“Dr. Kaye, I repeat: Did you dump those records?”

“No.”

“Dr. Kaye, I will go back once more. When you returned alone, navigating Commander Kuh’s scout ship, you stated that Commander Kuh and his crew had remained on the planet because they desired to begin colonization. You stated that the planet was, I quote, a paradise and that nothing on it was harmful to man. Despite the totally inadequate record of surface conditions you claim that Commander Kuh recommends that we immediately send the green signal to Earth to begin full-scale emigration. And yet when Lieutenant Tighe opened the port to the alien specimen in your ship he suffered a critical collapse. Dr. Kaye, I put it to you that what really happened on that planet was that Commander Kuh and his crew were injured or taken captive by beings on that planet and you are concealing this fact.”

Lory has been shaking her short red hair vigorously during this speech. “No! They weren’t injured or taken captive, that’s silly! I tell you, they wanted to stay. I volunteered to take the message back. I was the logical choice, I mean I was nonChinese, you know—”

“Please answer yes or no, Dr. Kaye. Did Commander Kuh or any of his people suffer a shock similar to Lieutenant Tighe?”

“No!”

Foy is frowning at his tapes, making tick-marks. Aaron’s liver has been getting chilly; he doesn’t need wiring to detect the extra sincerity in Lory’s voice.

“I repeat, Dr. Kaye. Did—”

But Captain Yellaston stirs authoritatively behind him.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Foy.”

Foy’s mouth closes. On the blind side of the screen Lory says gamely, “I’m not really tired, sir.”

“Nevertheless, I think we will complete this later,” Yellaston says in his good gray voice. He catches Aaron’s eye, and they all sit silent while Solange releases Lory from the cuff and body wires. Through Solange’s visor Aaron can see her lovely French-Arab face projecting worried compassion. Empathy is Solange’s specialty; a wire slips and Aaron sees her lips go “Ooh.” He smiles, feels briefly better.

As the women leave, the two scout commanders in the other cubicle stand up and stretch. Both brown-haired, blueeyed, muscular ectomesomorphs so much alike to Aaron’s eye, although Timofaev Bron was born in Omsk and Don Purcell in Ohio. Ten years ago those faces had held only simple dedication to the goal of getting to a supremely difficult place in one piece. The failures of their respective scout missions have brought them back to
Centaur
lined and dulled. But in the last twenty days since Lory’s return something has awakened in their eyes; Aaron isn’t too eager to know its name.

“Report, please, Lieutenant Foy,” says Yellaston, his glance making it clear that Aaron is to be included. The official recorder is still on.

Francis Xavier Foy sucks air through his teeth importantly; this is his second big interrogation on their entire ten-year voyage.

“Sir, I must regretfully report that the protocol shows persistent, ah, anomalous responses. First, the subject shows a markedly elevated and labile emotionality—” He glances irritatedly at Aaron, to whom this is no news.

“The level of affect is, ah, suggestive. More specifically, on the question of injury to Commander Kuh, Dr. Kaye—Dr.
Lory
Kaye, that is—the physiological reactions contraindicate her verbal responses, that is, they are not characteristic of her baseline truth-type—” He shuffles his printouts, not looking at Aaron.

“Lieutenant Foy, are you trying to tell us that in your professional judgment Dr. Kaye is lying about what happened to the Gamma scout crew?”

Frank Foy wriggles, reshuffling tapes. “Sir, I can only repeat that there are contraindications. Areas of unclarity. In particular these three responses, sir, if you would care to compare these peaks I have marked?”

Yellaston looks at him thoughtfully, not taking the tapes.

“Sir, if we could reconsider the decision not to employ, ah, chemical supplementation,” Foy says desperately. He means, scop and EDC. Aaron knows Yellaston won’t do this; he supposes he is grateful.

Yellaston doesn’t bother answering. “Leaving aside the question of injury to Commander Kuh, Frank, what about Dr. Kaye’s responses on the general habitability of the planet?”

“Again, there are anomalies in Dr. Kaye’s responses.” Foy visibly disapproves of any suspicions being left aside.

“What type of anomalies?”

“Abnormal arousal, sir. Surges of, ah, emotionality. Taken together with terms like ‘paradise,’ ‘ideal,’ and so on in the verbal protocol, the indications are—”

“In your professional judgment, Lieutenant Foy, do you conclude that Dr. Kaye is or is not lying when she says the planet is habitable?”

“Sir, the problem is variability, in a pinpoint sense. What you have suggests the classic pattern of a covert
area
.”

Yellaston ponders; behind him the two scout commanders watch impassively.

“Lieutenant Foy. If Dr. Kaye does in fact believe the planet to be eminently suitable for colonization, can you say that her emotion could be accounted for by extreme elation and excitement at the successful outcome of our long and difficult mission?”

Foy stares at him, mouth slightly open.

“Elation, extreme—I see what you mean, sir. I hadn’t—yes, sir, I suppose that could be one interpretation.”

“Then do I correctly summarize your findings at this stage by saying that while Dr. Kaye’s account of the events concerning Commander Kuh remains unclear, you see no specific counterindication of her statement that the planet is habitable?”

“Ah, yes, sir. Although—”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Foy. We will resume tomorrow.”

The two scout commanders glance at each other. They are solidly united against Foy, Aaron sees. Like two combat captains waiting for an unruly pacifist to be disposed of so the contest can start. Aaron sympathizes, he can’t make himself like Foy. But he didn’t like that tone in Lory’s voice, either.

“Man, the samples, the sensor records,” Don Purcell says abruptly. “They don’t lie. Even if they only got thirty hours on-planet, that place is perfect.”

Tim Bron grins, nods at Aaron. Yellaston smiles remotely, his eyes reminding them of the official recorder. For the thousandth time Aaron is touched by the calm command presence of the man. Old Yellowstone. The solid whatever-it-is that has held them together, stuffed in this tin can all through the years. Where the hell did they find him? A New Zealander, educated at some extinct British school. Chief of the Jupiter mission, etcetera, etcetera. Last of the dinosaurs.