The Dark Beyond the Stars : A Novel (47 page)

“He wanted to go in,” Crow said. “I didn’t think you wanted him there.”

“You were right,” I muttered, “I didn’t.”

I looked at Thrush and saw both of them through Sparrow’s eyes at the same time I saw them through mine. It was an unsettling superimposition. Sparrow saw Crow as larger than himself, thickly muscled with heavy features and an odd air of saintliness. Thrush was handsome, lightly but well built, with a sly look and a seductive arrogance about him.

To me they were both kids, maybe twenty years old, one pale and skinny and the other husky, with long hair and an open face that would someday get him into trouble with more women than one. The skinny one may have been arrogant at one time, but right now he was badly frightened. Had Thrush wanted to help the Michael Kusaka who was the Captain or had he wanted to help the Michael Kusaka who was his father? They were one and the same but they were also quite different. It didn’t matter. In trying to help Kusaka , Thrush had probably earned the right to his own life. When everything was over, I would have to talk to him.

I turned to tell Crow to call back Inbetween Station, the Lander, and the various floaters, but he read me before I could even ask.

“They’re on their way.”

“Lose any?”

“Maybe Finch—he might be beyond reach.”

“Tell the Lander to try and pick him up.” I wondered just how far their ability to locate fellow crew members extended.

He was almost to the hatchway when I said, “Was it a bluff, Crow?”

“I don’t know, sir.” But he looked stricken and that told me what I wanted to know. They hadn’t run the bluff against Mike; they had known that he was programmed, that he wouldn’t buy it, couldn’t buy it. They had run the bluff against Sparrow. They knew if they pressed him hard enough he would confront the Captain to try and save them and then… something would happen. They weren’t sure what, but since the phoenix dated from Year One of the voyage, they knew something would. And they had gambled that the phoenix would win.

Lucky fools.

A few hours later, we gathered on the bridge. I sat in the captain’s chair and could feel myself tied into every part of the ship. The chair was a giant terminal pad. The captain ran the ship not just with his hands but with every portion of his body. The chair itself was warm and resilient and I could feel my nerve endings tingle.

The last time I sat there had been during the shakedown cruise and I remembered the sense of power it had given me. It gave me the same feeling now but this time, I didn’t relish it. I had lived a hundred lifetimes and come out of it with a far different view of life and my place in it. They were all there—Ophelia, Snipe, Crow, and Loon, all looking expectant, while Grebe seemed apprehensive and Cato was frowning. Even Escalus was there, his eyes red-rimmed with grief; I knew I would have to watch him for as long as he lived. Finally, there was Thrush, his expression, as always, mocking.

Nobody was going to dispute that I was captain, but all wondered what I was going to do now. Ophelia, naturally, nominated herself as spokesperson.

“What are your plans?” she asked, but the question was a formality. Everybody on the bridge knew what I was going to do.

“We’re going home,” I said.

But I wasn’t sure there was still a home to go to.

They got to Finch minutes before his air ran out so the only casualties were Tern, Crane, Bunting, and a member of the old crew, Gower. I had known him only vaguely and that bothered me. I would have to make a point of getting to know the crew better; I couldn’t rely on Sparrow’s memories of friends and acquaintances.

But what bothered me most was Snipe. I had become somebody she had never known, somebody she was uncomfortable living with. She could read me as well as ever, but the person she read wasn’t…

Sparrow. During the next sleep period we went through the motions of making love just once and found that it repelled both of us. After that, we were awkward and cold with each other and seldom found reason to talk.

We worked it out another sleep period when I accidentally brushed her face and discovered her cheek was damp with tears.

“What’s wrong, Snipe?”

“I miss Sparrow,” she murmured.

I stroked her hair and brushed her neck with my lips and a little of Raymond Stone dropped away and then more and more. “Sparrow” had lived perhaps a year; Raymond Stone had lived thirty and could look forward to… what? A thousand years?Two thousand? “Sparrow” would die when his generation on board finally died. Until then, he deserved his own life.

That sleep period Raymond Stone mentally slapped Sparrow on the back, wished him well, and quietly withdrew. Not completely; there were parts of Stone that Sparrow needed. But it was Sparrow who made love to Snipe, died the little death, and slept the sleep of the just. Stepping into Mike’s role as captain was easier than I thought it would be. The computer posed no problems and I set the course for the return to Earth. It would be a straight-line voyage with no star-hopping unless we got undeniable signals in the waterhole frequencies. We had been out a hundred generations at the time of the mutiny and I estimated it would take twenty to return. None of the crew, except Thrush and me, would ever see the Earth, though they realized their not-so-remote descendants would.

The former Captain’s men posed a problem. I was blunt in warning Cato. He was resentful, but that I expected. He and his men did their job well and until such time as they didn’t, I wouldn’t interfere. Thrush was another matter.

We had been on the return course for a month before I felt I had the reins of authority firmly in my hands. Once they were, I sent for Thrush. Crow ushered him in, then madehimself inconspicuous by the hatchway.

I was mostly Sparrow then, with just enough of Raymond Stone to lend Sparrow some distance from his own feelings.

Thrush had changed very little. Pale, arrogant, suspicious… searching my face to determine how much of me was Sparrow and how much was Raymond Stone. He saw enough of Sparrow to be reassured and just enough of Raymond Stone to keep him off balance.

We stared at each other in silence. I waited while he became increasingly uncomfortable; finally he blurted: “When am I to be sent?”

“Sent where?” I asked, mystified.

“Reduction.”His smile was sardonic. “You’ve won your mutiny but I’m sure you’re worried about the possibility of others.”

“Mutinies are composed of followers,” I said quietly. “Not just leaders. Who would follow you, Thrush?” He colored and I shook my head, dismissing the fantasy. “If you go to Reduction, it will be because you want to go, not because I sent you.”

I had been responsible for Mike’s death and that was going to be hard to live down.

“You knew all along I was the return captain,” I said, curious.“How?”

He seemed bemused.

“Being an icon was too… romantic. And even considering the practice time you spent with the computer, you were too good.” He shrugged and for the first time sounded bitter. “The Captain should have sent you to Reduction half a dozen times and he never did. Only one explanation made sense—”

I cut him off.

“You’re thinking emotionally and you’re not the type, Thrush. What were the real reasons?”

He looked impressed and a little uneasy. He was used to dealing with Sparrow. Raymond Stone was unpredictable—and potentially threatening.

“Both you and the Captain were long-lifers and the roles you played fit a generational ship. But the
Astron
didn’t have the redundancy that a true generational ship would have had; it fed upon itself and the crew. There had to be another explanation for the Captain and you.”

Noah and Abel had undoubtedly come to the same conclusion.

“You wanted to be captain,” I said.

He shrugged.“Perhaps sometime. What else was there to be?”

“And you would have gone with Kusaka ?”

“I was curious.” A glimmer of his old arrogance returned. “It’s a big universe.”

Mike would have gone because he had been programmed. Thrush would have gone out of a cold curiosity.

“You would have been inviting loneliness for centuries.”

His face darkened.

“I’m lonely now.”

There was a certain amount of self-pity in the statement, but it was also true. I wondered if alienation could be transmitted through the genes.

“You knew you were Kusaka’s son?”

“Long before he told me.” A brief grimace: “I never identified with any of the crew, and like you, I healed too fast.”

He had logged computer time for the same reason I had—trying to find out who he was. It explained a lot. What he had discovered made him the prince-in-waiting andI his unwitting competition. It was an uneasy moment of identification; I couldn’t forget that he had tried to kill me. I couldn’t afford him, but the
Astron
couldn’t afford to be without him. He was the only true scientist on board.

“On the Lander, Thrush—you said you hoped I would die.”

He looked surprised.

“You were Hamlet,” he said. “I had no reason to like him.”

From somewhere inside came confirmation.

“The drink bulb in sick bay,” I said. “Was that you or Heron?”

His pale face suddenly shone with sweat.

“I knew Abel and Noah were going to ask you questions. I wanted to know the answers, too. But you would never have told me.”

I smiled to myself. It had been a simple truth serum, but how was Sparrow to know?

“And the tether line?”

He shrugged.“Somebody’s sloppy work.”

If he was telling the truth, Sparrow had been a fool. But considering all that had happened, Sparrow had the right. And Thrush was hardly blameless.

“And on Aquinas II?That was your idea, not Heron’s.”

He looked cornered, his pale lips lifting slightly away from his too-white teeth.

“Yes,” he blurted, “that was my idea. But you tried to kill me on the hangar deck. You would have cut my throat!”

I had come so very close…

“You drew first blood, Thrush.”

He shook his head vehemently.

“I wanted to mark you, not kill you. What kind of a fool do you think I am? Kill the Captain’s replacement?The crew’s icon? I would have been sent to Reduction within the hour.”

I continued, remorseless.

“On Aquinas II, you had decided I was too dangerous to live and tried murder by proxy. Of all the crew members, Heron was the only one who loved you, Thrush. The only one who would do anything foryou.

”

He hung his head and said nothing.

“And let’s not forget Pipit,” I murmured.

He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You want me to agree I deserve Reduction? Then I agree.”

I made up my mind.

“The
Astron
needs a doctor and you were Abel’s assistant. He didn’t like you, Thrush, but when it came to science, he thought highly of you.”

“Whatever you say,” he whispered.

He was a shade too humble and it irritated me.

“Don’t you want to see the Earth? Aside frommyself , you’re the only one who will.”

He shrugged once again. “It means nothing to me.”

I thought of his compartment falsie and knew he was lying.

“I know the Earth firsthand, Thrush. I’ve seen birds whose wings beat so fast they can hover above the ground without benefit of updrafts and I’ve heard other birds imitate a human voice. There are animals that raise their young in pouches, slugs that excrete glue to coat the ground they travel over, and worms that live in the oceans at depths that would crush a submarine…” My voice trailed away. I sounded like Mike so often had.

The old Thrush shouldered his way to the surface.

“You’ve seen a lot,” he said sarcastically.

The
Astron
needed him but it needed him on its terms, not his.

“An ice volcano is not the highest achievement of the universe,” I said slowly. “Neither are planetary rings nor a rock sitting in the middle of a lunar plain. You and I are its highest achievements, Thrush—we can think and we can feel and we can run and play games and pick our noses. There’s nothing else in the universe that can do any of those.”

He gave in then, making a great show of how little it meant to him. “If you want me to be the doctor—”

I cut him short, letting some of Raymond Stone’s authority seep into my voice. “You’ll do it because I tell you to, Thrush. And because nobody else is qualified.” And then I sweetened it, but only a little. “I also hope you’ll do it because you want to.”

When he was at the hatchway, I said: “I’m sorry about… your father. At one time he was my friend.”

“My father let you win,” Thrush said proudly. “He knew all about the mutiny, he could have stopped it at any time. But even after he knew I could serve as his replacement, he didn’t do it.” He looked away.

“Captain Kusaka committed suicide.”

That was one of the few times I ever saw the real Thrush. It didn’t make me like him any more but I understood him a little better. Everybody on board needed someone to “take an interest.” The Captain never had until he knew for sure that Thrush was going to live forever. By then it was too late…

****

My first real test as captain didn’t jump out at me all at once. I became aware of it bit by bit. Fewer and fewer crew members seemed to be wearing eye masks, preferring the comforting illusion of the compartment falsies to the reality of the ship as it actually was.A sullenness also seemed to be spreading through the crew, and too many of them fell silent when I passed.

“It’s because you’ve taken away purpose,” Snipe said one sleep period when we had curled up in the hammock.

“I haven’t taken away purpose,” I said, puzzled. “I’ve given it.” She was silent, stroking my legs and tangling her fingers in the hair on my chest. “That hurts.”

“Sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. Then, trying to explain: “You’ve seen the Earth, Sparrow. They never will. Before, we went from planet to planet and while we never found anything, there was always the hope that we would. And we kept ourselves busy preparing.”

Mike had made them promises and he was credible because he believed in them himself. If not
here
, he would say, then
there
. If not this generation, then next…