Homeward Bound (colonization) Read online

  Glen Johnson and Mickey Flynn floated in the Lewis and Clark ’s control room. The glass in the broad view windows had been treated to kill reflections, leaving them with a splendid view of the local asteroids-quite a few of which now sported American installations, or at least motors adequate to swing them out of orbit-and of far more stars than they would have seen from beneath Earth’s thick mantle of air. The sky was black-not just blue-black, but sable absolute.

  “We’ve spent a hell of a lot of time out here,” Johnson remarked, apropos of nothing in particular. He was a lean man of not quite sixty; because he’d spent the past twenty years weightless, his skin hadn’t wrinkled and sagged the way it would have in a gravity field. Of course, everything came at a price. If he had to endure much in the way of gravity now, it would kill him in short order.

  “We volunteered,” Flynn replied. He’d been round under gravity; he was rounder now, but he also did not sag so much. With dignity, he corrected himself: “I volunteered, anyhow. You stowed away.”

  “I was shanghaied.” Johnson had been saying that ever since he boarded the Lewis and Clark. The ship had still been in Earth orbit then, and he’d faked a malfunction in his orbital patrol craft to give himself a plausible excuse for finding out what was going on with it. The only trouble was, the commandant had thought he was a spy, had kept him aboard to make sure he couldn’t possibly report to anyone, and hadn’t trusted him from that day to this.

  Flynn sent him a bland, Buddhalike stare-except the Buddha had surely had a lot less original sin dancing in his eyes than Mickey Flynn did. “And what would you have done if you hadn’t been?” he inquired. “Something honest, perhaps? Give me leave to doubt.”

  Before Johnson could muster the high dudgeon such a remark demanded, the intercom in the ceiling blared out, “Colonel Johnson, report to the commandant’s office immediately! Colonel Glen Johnson, report to the commandant’s office immediately!”

  “There, you see?” Flynn said. “He’s finally caught you with your hand in the cookie jar. Out the air lock you go, without benefit of spacesuit or scooter. It’s been nice knowing you. Can I have that pint of bourbon you’ve got stashed away?”

  “Ha! Don’t I wish!” Johnson exclaimed. Ships from Earth were few and far between. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d tasted whiskey. Every so often, someone did cook up some unofficial alcohol-highly against regulations-aboard the Lewis and Clark. It was good, but it wasn’t the same.

  “Colonel Johnson, report to Lieutenant General Healey’s office immediately!” The intercom wasn’t going to let up. “Colonel Glen Johnson, report to Lieutenant General Healey’s office immediately!”

  “Well, I’m off,” Johnson said resignedly.

  “I knew that,” Flynn replied, imperturbable as usual.

  With a snort, Johnson glided out of the control room and toward the commandant’s lair near the heart of the ship. The corridors had handholds to let crewfolk brachiate along them. The Lewis and Clark had never carried bananas, which struck Johnson as a shame. Mirrors where corridors intersected helped stop collisions, a good thing-you could swing along at quite a clip, fast enough to make running into somebody else also going at top speed no joke at all.

  “Colonel Johnson, report to…” The intercom kept right on bellowing till Johnson zoomed into the commandant’s office. He’d slowed down by then, enough so that he didn’t sprain his wrists when he stopped by grabbing the far edge of Lieutenant General Healey’s desk.

  He saluted. The commandant remained a stickler for military courtesy out here in space, where it didn’t matter a dime’s worth to anybody else. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” Johnson said sweetly.

  “Yes.” Lieutenant General Charles Healey returned the salute. Johnson hadn’t liked him at first sight, and familiarity hadn’t made the commandant any more lovable. Healey had a face only a snapping turtle could love: round, pugnacious, and wattled. He had a snapping turtle’s attitude, too. He bit often, he bit hard, and he didn’t like to let go. Glaring at Johnson, he demanded, “When an American starship flies, how would you like to be one of the pilots aboard her?”

  Johnson stared back. Healey wasn’t joking. He never joked. As far as Johnson could tell, he’d had his sense of humor surgically removed at birth, and the operation had been a smashing success. Logically, that meant he wasn’t joking now. Considering all the trouble he and Johnson had had, the pilot still had trouble believing his ears. “My God, sir,” he blurted, “who do I have to kill to get the job?”

  “Yourself,” Healey answered, still in the hard, flat, take-it-or-leave-it voice he usually used. By all the signs, he wasn’t kidding about that, either.

  “Sir?” That was as much of a question as Johnson was going to ask, no matter how badly he wanted to know more.

  “Yourself-maybe.” Healey sounded as if he didn’t want to unbend even that much. More grudgingly still, he explained, “Cold sleep. If you’re not going to be too old by the time the ship finally flies, you’d better go under now. It’s still a new technique-nobody’s quite sure you’ll wake up by the time you get to where you’re needed.” He spoke with a certain somber relish.

  “Why me, sir?” Johnson asked. “Why not Flynn or Stone? They’re both senior to me.” Nobody had intended the Lewis and Clark to have three pilots. If he hadn’t involuntarily joined the crew, the ship wouldn’t have.

  “This would be in addition to them, not instead of,” Healey said. “Two reasons for having you along at all. First one is, you’re the best at fine maneuvering we’ve got. All that time in orbital missions and trundling back and forth on the scooter means you have to be. Do you say otherwise?” He scowled a challenge.

  “No, sir.” Johnson didn’t point out that piloting a starship was different from anything he’d done before. Piloting a starship was different from anything anybody had done before.

  Healey went on, “Second reason is, you’ll be on ice and out of everybody’s hair from the time you go under till you wake up again-if you wake up again. And then you’ll be a good many light-years from home-too many for even you to get yourself into much trouble.” The scowl got deeper. “I hope.”

  “Sir, the only place I’ve ever made trouble is inside your mind.” Johnson had been insisting on that ever since he came aboard the Lewis and Clark. While it wasn’t strictly true, it was his ticket to keep on breathing.

  By the way Lieutenant General Healey eyed him, he wondered how much that ticket was worth. “You are a lying son of a bitch,” Healey said crisply. “Do you think I believe your capsule had a genuine electrical failure? Do you think I don’t know you were talking with Sam Yeager before you poked your snoot into our business here?”

  Ice that had nothing to do with cold sleep walked up Johnson’s back. “Why shouldn’t I have talked with him?” he asked, since denying it was plainly pointless. “He’s only the best expert on the Lizards we’ve got. When I was doing orbital patrol, I needed that kind of information.”

  “He was such an expert on the goddamn Lizards, he turned Judas for them,” Healey said savagely. “For all I know, you would have done the same. Indianapolis’ blood is on his hands.”

  How much of the Lizards’ blood is on our hands? Johnson wondered to himself. We pulled a Jap on them, attacked without warning-and we attacked colonists in cold sleep, not a naval base. He started to point that out to Healey, then saved his breath. What point? The commandant wouldn’t listen to him. Healey never listened to anybody.

  After a deep, angry breath, the three-star general went on, “And I’ll tell you something else, Johnson. Your precious Yeager is on ice these days, too.”

  “On ice? As in cold sleep?” Glen Johnson knew the question was foolish as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

  “Yes, as in cold sleep.” Healey nodded. “If he hadn’t decided to do that, he might have ended up on ice some other way.” His eyes were cold as ice themselves-or maybe a little colder.

  He didn’t say anyth
ing more than that. He just waited. What’s he waiting for? Johnson wondered. He didn’t have to wonder long. He’s waiting to make sure I know exactly what he’s talking about. Figuring that out didn’t take long, either. Slowly, Johnson asked, “Sir, are you saying I’m liable to end up on ice some other way if I don’t go into cold sleep?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Healey answered. “I wouldn’t say that. You said that. But now that you have said it, you’d better think about it. You’d better not think about it very long, either.”

  Lots of ways to have an unfortunate accident back on Earth. Even more ways to have one out here in space. Would people on the crew be willing to help me have an unfortunate accident? Johnson didn’t even need to wonder about that. Lieutenant General Healey had plenty of people aboard who would obey orders just because they were orders. Johnson was damn good at what he did and he had some friends, but he couldn’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He couldn’t keep an eye on all the equipment he might have to use all the time. If Healey wanted him dead, dead he would be, and in short order.

  Which meant… “You talked me into it,” he said. “You’re persuasive as hell, sir, you know that?”

  “So glad you’re pleased,” Healey said with a nasty grin. “And just think of all the interesting things you’ll see eleven light-years from here.”

  “I’m thinking of all the things I’ll never see again,” Johnson answered. Healey smirked, an expression particularly revolting on his hard, suspicious face. Johnson went on, “The one I’ll be gladdest never to see again, I think, is you. Sir.” He pushed off and glided out of the commandant’s office. If they were going to hang him tomorrow anyway, what difference did what he said today make?

  It turned out not to be tomorrow. A doctor came out from Earth to do the dirty work. Calculating the cost of that, Johnson realized just how badly they wanted him on ice and on his way to Tau Ceti. All that sprang to mind was, If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, I’d rather walk.

  “Are you ready?” asked the doctor, an attractive woman named Blanchard.

  “If I say no, will you turn around and go back?” Johnson asked.

  She shook her head. “Not me. I’ll just hold you down and give you the treatment anyhow.” She could do it, too. All the work in the ship’s gymnasium and on the exercise bike couldn’t make up for Johnson’s being out of a gravity field the past twenty years. Dr. Blanchard was undoubtedly stronger than he was.

  He rolled up a sleeve and bared his arm. “Do your worst.”

  She did. He felt hot first, then nauseated, then dizzy. His heart slowed in his chest; his thoughts slowed in his head. This must be what dying is like, he realized. Had something gone wrong-or right? He stopped thinking altogether before he could finish shaping the question.

  Jonathan Yeager had started shaving his head when he was a teenager. It made him look more like a Lizard, and he’d wanted nothing so much as to be as much like a male of the Race as he could. He still shaved his head here in 1994, though he wasn’t a teenager any more; he’d had his fiftieth birthday the December before. The Race still fascinated him, too. He’d built a good career out of that fascination.

  His father had gone into cold sleep seventeen years earlier. Most people thought Sam Yeager was dead. Even now, cold sleep wasn’t much talked about. Back in 1977, it had been one notch higher than top secret. Of the few aware of it nowadays, fewer still knew it had existed that long.

  As Jonathan checked the incoming electronic messages on his computer, he muttered under his breath. The mutter wasn’t particularly happy. To this day, people seldom thought of him as Jonathan Yeager, expert on the Race. They thought of him as Sam Yeager’s kid. Even to males and females of the Race, for whom family was much more tenuous than it was for humans, he was Sam Yeager’s hatchling as often as not.

  “Not fair,” he said quietly. He was as good with Lizards as anybody breathing. No one had ever complained about his ability. The trouble was, his father had had something more than ability. His father had had precisely the right instincts to think like a male of the Race, instincts that amounted to genius of a highly specialized sort. Even the Lizards admitted as much.

  For whatever reasons of background and character and temperament, Jonathan didn’t quite have those same instincts. He was an expert. He was damned good at what he did. It wasn’t the same. It left him stuck being Sam Yeager’s kid. He’d be Sam Yeager’s kid till the day he died.

  “What’s not fair?” Karen said from behind him.

  He spun in his chair. “Oh, hi, hon,” he said to his wife. “Nothing, really. Just woolgathering. I didn’t know you were around.”

  Karen Yeager shook her head. Her coppery hair flipped back and forth. She was almost his own age; these days, she had help keeping her hair red. “Don’t talk nonsense,” she said briskly. “We’ve known each other since high school. We’ve been married almost thirty years. Do you think I can’t tell when something’s eating you?” She ended the sentence with an interrogative cough, tacked on almost automatically; she was as much an expert on the Lizards as he was.

  Jonathan sighed. “Well, you’re not wrong.” He didn’t say anything more.

  He didn’t have to. Karen pounced. “You’re letting your dad get you down again, aren’t you?”

  More than a little shamefaced, he nodded. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Dumb.” She didn’t hesitate about giving her verdict. “Dumb, dumb, dumb, with a capital D.” This time, she added an emphatic cough. “You’re here. He’s not. He was good. So are you.” Another emphatic cough followed that.

  “He was better than good, and you know it.” Jonathan waited to see if she’d have the nerve to tell him he was wrong.

  She didn’t. He wished she would have. She said, “You’re as good as anyone in the business nowadays. I’m not lying to you, Jonathan. If anybody ought to know, it’s me.”

  She was probably right about that. It made Jonathan feel very little better. “I’m not a spring chicken any more,” he said. “I’m not a spring chicken, and I’m still in my father’s shadow. I don’t know that I’ll ever get out of it, either.”

  “I’m in his shadow, too,” Karen said. “Anybody who has anything to do with the Race nowadays is in his shadow. I don’t see what we can do about that.”

  Jonathan hadn’t looked at it that way. He’d always imagined Sam Yeager’s shadow over himself alone. What son of an illustrious father-especially a son in the same line of work-doesn’t? Grudgingly, he said, “Maybe.”

  “Maybe, nothing. It’s truth.” Karen put the last word in the Lizards’ language, and added another emphatic cough. She went on, “And Mickey and Donald think you’re pretty hot stuff.”

  He couldn’t deny that, because it was obviously true. The two Lizards raised as human beings took him as seriously as they’d ever taken his father. That they were adults now astonished Jonathan as much as having one son in graduate school at Stanford and the other a junior at UCLA. The boys were both studying the Race; that passion had passed on to the third generation. Will they ever think of me the way I think of my old man? Jonathan wondered.

  He didn’t try to answer the question. Just posing it was hard enough. To keep from having to think about it, he said, “Mickey and Donald didn’t turn out too bad. Of course, we couldn’t isolate them from other Lizards as much as the Race isolated the human they raised Lizard-style.”

  “Right,” Karen said tightly. Jonathan knew he’d goofed by referring to Kassquit, even if he hadn’t named her. Thirty years earlier, he’d been her introduction to humanity, and to a lot of the things humans did. That had almost cost him Karen, though he still didn’t think it was all his fault. He hadn’t planned to go up and visit Kassquit just at the time when war broke out between the Race and the Reich. That had kept him up there with her a lot longer than he’d expected, and had let things between Kassquit and him get more complicated and more intimate than he’d thought they would.
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br />   Karen looked as if she was about to say something more, too. She hadn’t let him completely off the hook for Kassquit, not after all this time. That Kassquit herself had been in cold sleep for years and was probably on her way back to Home by now had nothing to do with anything, not as far as Karen was concerned.

  Before the squabble could really flare up, the telephone on Jonathan’s desk rang. Saved by the bell, he thought, and almost said it aloud. Instead, though, he just picked up the phone. “Jonathan Yeager speaking.”

  “Hello, Yeager.” The voice on the other end of the line didn’t identify itself. It carried so much authority, it didn’t really need to. “Are you by any chance familiar with the Admiral Peary?”

  Ice and fire chased themselves through Jonathan. Not a whole lot of people knew about the Admiral Peary. Officially, he wasn’t one of them. Unofficially… Unofficially, everybody in the first rank of American experts on the Race had been salivating ever since that name leaked out. “Yes, sir,” Jonathan said. “I have heard of it.” He didn’t say how or when or where, or what the Admiral Peary might be; no telling how secure the telephone line was.

  The authoritative voice on the other end of the line said what he’d most wanted to hear ever since that name began being bandied about: “How would you like to be aboard, then?”

  And Jonathan said what he’d long since made up his mind he would say: “You are inviting Karen and me both, right?”

  For close to half a minute, he got no answer. Then the voice, suddenly sounding not quite so authoritative, said, “I’ll get back to you on that.” Click. The line went dead.

  “What was that all about?” Karen asked. “Inviting us where?”

  “Aboard the Admiral Peary, ” Jonathan answered, and her eyes got big. Then he said something he wished he didn’t have to: “So far, the call is just for me.”

  “Oh.” He watched her deflate, hating what he saw. She said, “That’s why you asked whether it was for both of us.”