Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (75 page)

It was during our eighth month outward bound from Nova that the event occurred. We were then cruising at more than half-lightspeed, our navigation set for destination Earth.

One evening, I received another invitation to dine with the Captain. Dariush was also invited. Both of us were in an equitable mood as we walked along Concourse A toward the KC elevator, chatting about this and that. I told him I was concerned about the firewood consumption, that it might not hold out until we got home. He described new translations he was working on, temple codices. He was intrigued by what he called the “the psychology of ritual” and waxed didactic about the differences between cultic mind / brain processes and those of “authentic worship”. He said that the abolition of formal religion in our times had created a new phenomenon, the “ritualization of spontaneity”, which he believed was not in the least spontaneous or free but was, rather, an unhealthy frame of mind, producing in people a mental shell without a core. This in turn fostered a craving for “neo-transcendent experiences”.

“Like that green dance in the temple?” I said.

“Like that serpent dance in the temple”, he replied.

We boarded the elevator and ascended. The doors opened, and the conversation ended.

As we entered the Captain’s dining room, he rose from the head of the table and warmly greeted us. There were new messages from Nova, he said, handing us print-outs. The news was good. A second baby had been born, healthy and full term, obviously the fruit of another illegal conception before departure from Nova. There were now twelve pregnancies. Cabins were being built, fields being turned over for planting grain, tubers, and beans. The pioneers had discovered a mammal that was akin to the bovine. It had been captured without great effort, and the small herd was adapting well to domestication. It produced abundant milk. The colonists were experimenting with making cheese. The wild “turkey” was a prolific egg layer. Hives of the wild stingerless bee had been found, full of honey, as well as wax for making candles. The laser saws had broken down, and there were no materials to repair them, but the manual bow-saws worked well enough. The men had constructed a forge and were making tools such as ploughshares, sawbands, scythes, axe-heads—there was iron in the hills.

The shuttle had exhausted its fuel and had become a temporary barn. Vladimir and two of the other men were building a wooden boat, on which they hoped to go down the river to the sea some day, an estimated three-day journey. Others were building a cart on which they would pile harvested hay from the natural meadows. They hadn’t yet come to an agreement on a name for their community, but for now they were calling it “our village”. Everyone was in good health.

The Captain declared that the evening’s celebration would be in honor of our brave friends, whom he wished were here with us. “Or we with them”, said one of the half-dozen flight crew seated around the table. Dariush and I sat down to join them, and friendly banter ensued. A trolley was rolled into the room, bearing steaming platters and bowls. The meal commenced. I was getting a little tired of Cajun food, but the evening as it began was congenial.

After supper, the Captain turned to me and Dariush and said, “Gentlemen, would you be interested in seeing a room with a view?” We both said yes, wondering what he meant.

Everyone went out into the hallway, and the Captain led us through a double door into the forward command center. I had not visited it before, and my first sight of it was overwhelming. Uncannily, it was not unlike the command center of the temple ship, though ours was brightly illuminated, with polished floors and off-white ceilings. Along both walls were numerous modules for particular functions, all lit up with a perplexing array of technology, blinking lights, and computer screens. There didn’t seem to be anyone on duty. At the forefront of this long room, or hall, the uttermost command post stood like the wheel of an ocean liner. There was no wheel as such, but rather a sloped curving countertop embedded with large computer screens and more technology. Front and center were three comfortable swivel chairs facing the nose. Above the counter was a twenty-foot-wide horizontal window.

The Captain led us close to it and patted the central chair.

“The hot seat”, he smiled. “I don’t sit in it much. The ship is basically flying itself, and all we have to do is check instruments once or twice a day and make a record in the log.”

I couldn’t stop staring at the window.

“It’s a digital image”, explained the Captain. “Sometimes it seems more real than real. I’m not sure I like that, but it is very pretty.”

The view ahead was one I knew from reading star maps. We were heading home. In eight years from now, that tiny star we called the sun would be a massive sphere of fire so bright we would not be able to look at it.

“Can you see the planets?” Dariush asked.

The Captain bent over his console and tapped buttons. The view through the window expanded rapidly, and now we could see our solar system in detail. The sun was the size of a marble and four of the planets were visible as pin heads. He expanded it further, and then we could see Earth, our small blue pearl, a conglomerate of pixels that was halfway between a square and a sphere.

“Not much to see at this point”, he said. “It looks like it’s still there. Or should I say the light is still reaching us, though it left the planet four years ago.”

“Can we look at Nova?” I asked.

Again he tapped buttons, and there it was on the screen with a different configuration of constellations surrounding it. It was large enough that the continents were distinct. Only C-1 looked dead, partly visible as its western coast was swallowed by nightfall. C-4 was in the dawn of a new morning, shining and beautiful. Another zoom took the screen to a valley between the mountains and the ocean. From our present distance, the village was too small for recognition, but we knew its coordinates, knew where it was by the luminous computer dot shining at the bend of a river, twenty kilometers south of the mountains, sixty kilometers north of the sea.

The Captain pointed to the locater dot and said, “We’ll be erasing that from the computer memory soon, along with any other reference to the location.”

And that is when Arjuna appeared.

Behind us a voice said, “You will not be erasing anything from the memory.”

Startled, the Captain and the rest of the crew turned around to see who had spoken. And there stood Elif Larson and six DSI agents in uniform. We had been so intent on the view screen that we hadn’t heard them enter behind us. For a moment, no one said a word. We saw that the agents had pistols in their hands, little e-weapons that were either for stunning or killing, we weren’t sure which.

The Captain calmly pressed a button on his console and glanced up at the screen. The locator dot disappeared. He pressed another button, and the screen showed our distant home system.

“Get away from that console”, the Elf commanded. The Captain did not do as he was told. Instead he drew himself up to his full height and said: “You will immediately leave this deck and return to Concourse D, where you will confine yourselves for the remainder of the voyage, unless you are otherwise instructed.”

In reply, Larson removed a folded piece of paper from his inside breast pocket and opened it. He addressed the Captain by name and informed him that he had committed crimes against the government and grave violations of the expedition’s mandate. Moreover, he had just been heard planning another crime, the erasure of ship’s records, which were the property of the government. There were witnesses.

The Captain’s nerves were good. He looked Larson straight in the eyes and said with a voice that betrayed no emotion whatsoever: “It is a matter of supposition whether or not I have committed any crimes. It is a matter of fact that
your
crimes, Dr. Larson, are real. It is that which should concern you. There will be a hearing on Earth, and if you are found to be innocent, you will be released. If you are found to be guilty of murder and other infractions of civil liberty, you will face a prison sentence. I suggest that you would be wise to avoid compounding your crimes with more.”

“Obviously, you do not know the law”, said Larson.

“I have read the Manual thoroughly, as well as my own fleet directives. You are standing outside the law at the present moment, and I command you to leave this deck, where I am the sole authority.”

“The Manual is bigger than you think”, Larson countered. “Only my department has full access to the entire body of the laws governing this expedition.”

“Oh? Tell me what sort of a law is readable only by its enforcers?”

“An effective law.”

“A mockery of true law. Leave this deck now.”

“No, you’re coming with me. You are being taken into custody.”

“The ship needs her flight officers.”

“The ship, as you very well know, is programmed for the entire voyage and for docking in orbit upon arrival.”

This was true, a point that could hardly be refuted.

“You forget the need for oversight, human monitoring.”

“The ship monitors itself and corrects itself in the event of systems error, which has never occurred and never will.”

“This crew is also the guardian of fail-safe.”

“No more arguments, Captain. You will come along with us now.”

“Dr. Larson, I have already sent a detailed account of your activities to Earth-base, along with the sworn and signed testimony of witnesses. Your guns will prove to be very ineffective against a court of law. I should inform you that this conversation is being recorded and simultaneously transmitted to Earth-base even as we speak.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You would be imprudent to disbelieve me. Of course, it will take four years to arrive there, but within eight years from now, you also will arrive there. Consider this carefully.”

Larson grabbed the sleeve of the Captain’s uniform and yanked him away from the console.

Now for the first time, I saw the Captain’s anger. “Murderer of Siauliai,” he growled in a low voice, “destroyer of the hill of crosses.”

Larson took a step back and pointed his gun at the Captain.

The six men in the flight crew, who had followed the foregoing exchange as if they were paralyzed, now pressed close to their captain and stared menacingly at the company of DSI.

They in turn raised their pistols and aimed at the crew.

Does it sound like farce? Is it a scene out of a wild west film full of showdowns and shoot-outs, a cliché that has been lived or dramatized a thousand times over throughout our history? Well, that’s the way it was.

And to this last, best western I must now add an account of my own part in it. If I were truly honest with myself, I would tear up these pieces of paper or burn them in the arboretum, or simply wait for everything to burn. But I will not.

Tell it, Neil.

During the whole confrontation, Dariush and I had stood nearby, Dariush a step to the right of the Captain and me farther back, both of us within the guns’ firing line.

I felt the weight of Paul’s Russian pistol in my jacket’s right pocket. It was a revolver, loaded, with the safety on. I had carried it about with me ever since the aborted showdown at the shuttle bay. Like everyone else, I had been fairly certain that DSI was deflated and that we would probably have no more trouble from them. Nevertheless, carrying the gun gave me confidence. In part, it was a hankering after my youthful identity as the rider of the open range, the killer of snakes, armed and dangerous. And though I had not seriously believed that Larson was still a threat, it had given me some satisfaction to think that I could protect people from him in the unlikely event that he stepped out of line.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and flipped the safety off.

“Move!” Larson roared at the Captain. His humiliating defeat at the shuttle bay was visible in his gritted teeth, his flaring eyes.

“No”, said the Captain quietly, firmly, and turned his back to him.

It happened very fast, no more than a few seconds. Paralyzed by confusion more than by fear, we watched as Larson stepped forward and put the muzzle of his weapon to the base of the Captain’s neck. There was a click, a buzz, and the Captain fell to the floor, with a wisp of smoke curling up from his neck. Then Larson stepped over him and pointed the muzzle at the temple of the Captain’s head. Click, buzz, the body jumped and lay still.

The flight crew leaped upon the agents, and lines of blue light shot in every direction. At the same instant, I lurched forward and withdrew my gun. Pointing at Larson, I felt the frustrations of a lifetime concentrated in this one burning moment. Larson now saw me and raised his gun to shoot me down, but in his panic, he misfired and then the weapon clicked and clicked and did not buzz.

I heard a voice cry out, “No, Neil!”

I had closed my eyes for a second. Larson would now die, but reflexively, I could not watch myself kill a human being for the first time in my life. I pulled the trigger. There was a tremendous bang, and my eyes flew open.

There, standing between me and Larson, was Dariush with his hands raised toward me. For a moment, he looked me in the eyes, and seemed to nod as if he understood, and then he collapsed. Now Larson was fully exposed.

I blew a hole in his chest. A surprised look crossed his face. Blood spurted from the wound, and he fell to the floor. I was astonished. I had never quite thought of him as a real person—he was made of polyplast; he was made of paper. Now I knew that he was flesh and blood like me.

Then it hit me like a hammer blow that I had just shot Dariush. I dropped to my knees and crawled to him, desperately hoping that the wound was not grave. But he was dead.

*

What did I do then? The DSI agents had been disarmed. There was no more danger. The Captain was dead. Larson was dead. Dariush was dead. Two pools of blood were spreading across the floor.

Did I weep? Did I cry out to God for help? Did I beg him to rewind the tape and record a different scene?

I did none of this. Instead I rose to my feet, and in a fit of insane rage I aimed at the ship’s control consoles and fired bullets into them, one after another until the chambers were empty.