Bart grasped at random for an excuse. "That--that stuff the medic made
me drink made me feel--sort of sick."
"You may send for a medical officer after acceleration," said the Lhari
expressionlessly. "The summoning bell is at your left."
They turned and went out and Bart gulped. Lhari, in person, checking the
passenger decks! Normally you never saw one on board; just Mentorians.
The Lhari treated humans as if they were too dumb to bother about. Well,
at least for once someone was acting as if humans were worthy
antagonists. _We'll show them--someday!_
But he felt very alone, and scared....
A low hum rose, somewhere in the ship, and Bart grabbed ticking as he
felt the slow surge. Then a violent sense of pressure popped his ear
drums, weight crowded down on him like an elephant sitting on his chest,
and there was a horrible squashed sensation dragging his limbs out of
shape. It grew and grew. Bart lay still and sweated, trying to ease his
uncomfortable position, unable to move so much as a finger. The Lhari
ships hit 12 gravities in the first surge of acceleration. Bart felt as
if he were spreading out, under the weight, into a puddle of
flesh--_melted flesh like Briscoe's_--
Bart writhed and bit his lip till he could taste blood, wishing he were
young enough to bawl out loud.
Abruptly, it eased, and the blood started to flow again in his numbed
limbs. Bart loosened his straps, took a few deep breaths, wiped his
face--wringing wet, whether with sweat or tears he wasn't sure--and sat
up in his bunk. The loudspeaker announced, "Acceleration One is
completed. Passengers on A and B Decks are invited to witness the
passing of the Satellites from the Observation Lounge in half an hour."
Bart got up and washed his face, remembering that he had no luggage with
him, not so much as a toothbrush.
At the back of his mind, packed up in a corner, was the continuing worry
about his father, the horror at Briscoe's ghastly death, the fear of the
Lhari; but he slammed the lid firmly on them all. For the moment he was
safe. They might be looking for Bart Steele by now, but they weren't
looking for David Briscoe of Aldebaran. He might just as well relax and
enjoy the trip. He went down to the Observation Lounge.
It had been darkened, and one whole wall of the room was made of clear
quartzite. Bart drew a deep breath as the vast panorama of space opened
out before him.
They were receding from the sun at some thousands of miles a minute.
Swirling past the ship, gleaming in the reflected sunlight like iron
filings moving to the motion of a magnet, were the waves upon waves of
cosmic dust--tiny free electrons, ions, particles of gas; free of the
heavier atmosphere, themselves invisible, they formed in their billions
into bright clouds around the ship; pale, swirling veils of mist. And
through their dim shine, the brilliant flares of the fixed stars burned
clear and steady, so far away that even the hurling motion of the ship
could not change their positions.
One by one he picked out the constellations. Aldebaran swung on the
pendant chain of Taurus like a giant ruby. Orion strode across the sky,
a swirling nebula at his belt. Vega burned, cobalt blue, in the heart of
the Lyre.
Colors, colors! Inside the atmosphere of Earth's night, the stars had
been pale white sparks against black. Here, against the misty-pale
swirls of cosmic dust, they burned with color heaped on color; the
bloody burning crimson of Antares, the metallic gold of Capella, the
sullen pulsing of Betelgeuse. They burned, each with its own inward
flame and light, like handfuls of burning jewels flung by some giant
hand upon the swirling darkness. It was a sight Bart felt he could watch
forever and still be hungry to see; the never-changing, ever-changing
colors of space.
* * * * *
Behind him in the darkness, after a long time, someone said softly,
"Imagine being a Lhari and not being able to see anything out there but
bright or brighter light."
A bell rang melodiously in the ship and the passengers in the lounge
began to stir and move toward the door, to stretch limbs cramped like
Bart's by tranced watching, to talk quickly of ordinary things.
"I suppose that bell means dinner," said a vaguely familiar voice at
Bart's elbow. "Synthetics, I suppose, but at least we can all get
acquainted."
The light from the undarkened hall fell on their faces as they moved
toward the door. "Bart! Why, it can't be!"
In utter dismay, Bart looked down into the face of Tommy Kendron.
In the rush of danger, he had absolutely forgotten that Tommy Kendron
was on this ship--to make his alias useless; Tommy was looking at him in
surprise and delight.
"Why didn't you tell me, or did you and your father decide at the last
minute? Hey, it's great that we can go part way together, at least!"
Bart knew he must cut this short very quickly. He stepped out into the
full corridor light so that Tommy could see his black hair.
"I'm sorry, you're confusing me with someone else."
"Bart, come off it--" Tommy's voice died out. "Sorry, I'd have sworn you
were a friend of mine."
Bart wondered suddenly, had he done the wrong thing? He had a feeling he
might need a friend. Badly.
Well, it was too late now. He stared Tommy in the eye and said, "I've
never seen you before in my life."
Tommy looked deflated. He stepped back slightly, shaking his head.
"Never saw such a resemblance. Are you a Vegan?"
"No," Bart lied flatly. "Aldebaran. David Briscoe."
"Glad to know you, Dave." With undiscourageable friendliness, Tommy
stuck out a hand. "Say, that bell means dinner, why don't we go down
together? I don't know a soul on the ship, and it looks like
luck--running into a fellow who could be my best friend's twin brother."
Bart felt warmed and drawn, but sensibly he knew he could not keep up
the pretense. Sooner or later, he'd give himself away, use some habitual
phrase or gesture Tommy would recognize.
Should he take a chance--reveal himself to Tommy and ask him to keep
quiet? No. This wasn't a game. One man was already dead. He didn't want
Tommy to be next.
There was only one way out. He said coldly, "thank you, but I have other
things to attend to. I intend to be very busy all through the voyage."
He spun on his heel and walked away before he could see Tommy's eager,
friendly smile turn hurt and defensive.
Back in his cabin, he gloomily dialed some synthetic jellies, thinking
with annoyance of the anticipated good food of the dining room. He knew
he couldn't risk meeting Tommy again, and drearily resigned himself to
staying in his cabin. It looked like an awfully boring trip ahead.
It was. It was a week before the Lhari ship went into warp-drive, and
all that time Bart stayed in his cabin, not daring to go to the
observation Lounge or dining hall. He got tired of eating synthetics
(oh, they were nourishing enough, but they were altogether
uninteresting) and tired of listening to the tapes the room steward got
him from the ship's library. By the time they had been in space a week,
he was so bored with his own company that even the Mentorian medic was a
welcome sight when he came in to prepare him for cold-sleep.
Bart had had the best education on Earth, but he didn't know precisely
how the Lhari warp-drive worked. He'd been told that only a few of the
Lhari understood it, just as the man who flew a copter didn't need to
understand Newton's Three Laws of Motion in order to get himself back
and forth to work.
But he knew this much; when the ship generated the frequencies which
accelerated it beyond the speed of light, in effect the ship went into a
sort of fourth dimension, and came out of it a good many light-years
away. As far as Bart knew, no human being had ever survived warp-drive
except in the suspended animation which they called cold-sleep. While
the medic was professionally reassuring him and strapping him in his
bunk, Bart wondered what humans would do with the Lhari star-drive if
they had it. Well, he supposed they could use automation in their ships.
The Mentorian paused, needle in hand. "Do you wish to be wakened for the
week we shall spend in each of the Proxima, Sirius and Pollux systems,
sir? You can, of course, be given enough drug to keep you in cold-sleep
until we reach the Procyon system."
Bart wondered if the room steward had mentioned the passenger so bored
with the trip that he didn't even visit the Observation Lounge. He felt
tempted--he was getting awfully tired of staring at the walls. On the
other hand, he wanted very much to see the other star-systems. When he
passed through them on the trip to Earth, he'd been too young to pay
much attention.
Firmly he put the temptation aside. Better not to risk meeting other
passengers, Tommy especially, if he decided he couldn't take the
boredom.
The needle went into his arm. He felt himself sinking into sleep, and,
in sudden panic, realized that he was helpless. The ship would touch
down on three worlds, and on any of them the Lhari might have his
description, or his alias! He could be taken off, drugged and
unconscious, and might never wake up! He tried to move, to protest, to
tell them he was changing his mind, but already he was unable to speak.
There was a freezing moment of intense, painful cold. Then he was
floating in what felt like waves of cosmic dust, swirling many-colored
before his eyes. And then there was nothing, no color, nothing at all
except the nowhere night of sleep.