Dark Star (2 page)

Then he noticed the tell-tale flashing idly at the base of his communications grid. It was the deep-space receive. He looked right at Boiler, then left at Doolittle. Their tell-tales were flashing too, yet neither man seemed to notice, or care. No telling how long they'd been flashing.

He activated the grid and the computer voice promptly announced, "Attention, attention. Incoming communication from Earth Base, Mission Control, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. To
Scout Ship Dark Star
."

Dazed, Pinback stole another glance at his companions. Still, no one seemed the least bit interested. Well, they weren't going to get a rise out of him. So he ignored the computer also, while the message continued to repeat.

One man was a crowd on the narrow bridge. With the three of them it was intolerably close, and highly efficient.

But there were other reasons why the bridge was so small. One was that many sections of the ship, now empty, had once been packed with compressed acres of food, spare parts, and living material—most of which was now gone.

And there had to be lots of room for the bombs. It bothered Pinback that Doolittle and Boiler persisted in calling them bombs. He always tried to get them to refer to them by their proper names—thermostellar triggering devices.

But Doolittle persisted in calling them bombs. The term seemed inadequate to Pinback for such a godlike and overwhelming concatenation of modern technology. Once in a while Boiler would call them something else, usually unmentionable, because the bombs were the main reason they were on this unmentionable mission.

Talby didn't call them bombs, but then Talby didn't refer to them at all, Of course, Talby was crazy anyway, so it didn't much matter. But that bothered Pinback too, beause Talby didn't look crazy, or sound crazy. The alternative was that Talby was sane and the rest of them were crazy. Pinback found this line of thought unpleasant, and he dropped it.

Now Commander Powell, he'd
always
called them thermostellar triggering devices, but Commander Powell was—

"Attention, attention. Incoming communication from Earth Base, Mission Control, McMurd—"

The tension was too much for Pinback. Phooey on Boiler.

"Hey, guys," he said finally, his voice the usual combination of half pleading, half whine. "It's a message from Earth. All the way from Earth. Isn't anybody going to acknowledge it?"

Boiler's reaction was predictable. He just lay back in his chair, punching alternating buttons. The buttons didn't do anything. Nobody could remember what the buttons used to do. But punching them didn't affect the ship, so Boiler kept doing it. One on, one off. One on, one off.

Boiler was always punching things lately, not always inanimate things, either. Pinback liked Boiler even though the big sandy-haired gentleman hated the sergeant's guts. Pinback liked everybody. It was the best thing about him, really.

So he kept trying to make friends with Boiler. When Boiler made it particularly hard on him, Pinback rationalized that it was his contribution to maintenance of the ship's morale. The task was necessary, then, for the good of the ship as well as for the good of Pinback. Secretly, deep down, what he really wanted to do was see Boiler reduced to his component atoms. And he kept it deep down, because he was afraid of Boiler. He had no question in his mind, no question at all, that Boiler could beat him to a pulp anytime he felt like it.

Pinback returned his attention to Doolittle, tried to put a mite more grit into his voice, and failed miserably. "Lieutenant Doolittle, sir, aren't we going to accept the message? Sir?"

Doolittle looked back at him with that faintly contemptuous air he seemed to reserve for Pinback alone. "Message? Why bother? They wouldn't have anything important to say. And they never have anything
nice
to say. So why bother?

"Besides, we've got an unstable world coming up, Pinback. Or have you forgotten already? You could have, you know. You're particularly good at forgetting things, Pinback."

There! Now why did he have to go and say a thing like that? Pinback tried to ignore it.

"I know that, sir. I know we've got another unstable world to blow. And I'm ready for it, sir, ready as always—but a message from Earth! We haven't had a message from Earth in, well, in days, sir."

"Months," mumbled Boiler.

"Years," corrected Doolittle.

Pinback was discouraged. He badly wanted to hear that message. But should he acknowledge it by himself? Wasn't that kind of a bold step?

Why should it be? He outranked everyone on the ship now except Doolittle. That is, he would have outranked everybody on the ship except Doolittle if he were Sergeant Elmer Pinback, Deep Space Exploration Forces. But he wasn't Sergeant Elmer Pinback—or was he?

If he wasn't Sergeant Elmer Pinback, then, who was he? What was it Doolittle had said about forgetting? No, no!

He looked down at his uniform and sighed with relief. The name sewn into his jersey definitely said
Pinback
. And that was the only name he could think of for himself, though there was a tiny door opening in his mind, just a crack, that—

He slammed it shut. He was Sergeant Elmer Pinback, Deep Space Exploration Forces, and that was about enough nonsense!

As it developed, he was spared the need to make a decision, which pleased him greatly. He didn't like making decisions. He wasn't very good at it and he never would be very good at it.

Doolittle didn't like making decisions either, but it seemed to come naturally to him. Oh, the lieutenant didn't have any flair for it, and he didn't do it with much conviction—not like Commander Powell, say. But Pinback didn't care so long as
he
didn't have to do it.

Doolittle reached out a hand and lazily flipped the Receive switch.

The main screen over their heads started to clear. Pinback looked up at it anxiously, hopefully. Maybe, maybe it was even a recall order. He chided himself. That was a damn silly thought. There would be no recall order until they had finished their mission.

But it didn't hurt to hope.

Doolittle's eyes inclined easily upward, and after a while so did Boiler's—out of boredom, no doubt. A pause while the computer untangled, realigned, and enhanced the last of the high-beam, extreme-long-range communiqué. Then the screen cleared and an alien appeared in the middle of it.

The alien had a wide pink face with unbearable pale pink skin. The rest of it was clad in a snug-fitting, freshly pressed uniform. It had two blue eyes, a divided nose, a mouth with the normal complement of teeth—now broadened into a wide smile—and was no older then anyone on board the
Dark Star
. This made it look no less impossibly young, and innocent. It was also clean-shaven and closely cropped on top, which made its face look obscenely naked. The alien was a human being.

The crew of the
Dark Star
had all been human beings once upon a time. Exemplary human beings. A quintet of the most accomplished young human beings in existence. But they had all changed somewhat since that last, glowing evaluation had been made.

They'd been chosen partly because of their youth. Because of it—for although they might be away from Earth for only five or ten years shiptime, a century or so would pass back on their home world.

It was felt that young men returning still young from such an ordeal would be better able to adapt to whatever new society and civilization they found than would middle-aged men returning old. Also, the younger the man, the more resilient his emotions, the faster his reflexes—and the less he would have to remember and be sad about. Or so the psychometricians had argued.

They were partly right, and partly wrong. The men of the
Dark Star
did have less to remember than older men would have. But they remembered it that much more strongly.

So they looked into the mirror that was the communications screen and watched while this pale alien organism jabbered meaninglessly at them and they hated it and all that it now represented.

It was harder for Doolittle. Talby had his stars, and Pinback his almost-memories and his comic books, and Boiler his silent anger—but Doolittle had only memories, held stronger than most. So he hated it most of all.

Hated the hot bath the man had clearly enjoyed not too long ago. Hated his pleasant smile and honest good nature. Hated his clean clothes and polished epaulets and fresh air, and most especially he hated the girl the man was probably going to meet that night after they finished preparing this broadcast, hated the smooth thighs and fine soft belly and geometrically luscious . . .

He hated the computers he could see whirring mindlessly behind the man, and the men who ran those computers, and the computers who ran those men and their wives and their wive's friends, and the friends of the wive's friends and the buddies they played golf with on Sunday, and the kids of the buddies they played golf with on Sunday, and the outings they all went on to the beach . . .

To the beach, the beacon of the world, the olive green light that burned in the back of his pounding skull.

He hated them all—the taxpayers of the world who had heeded the fatuous exhortations of the scientists and politicians to make the habitable worlds of the galaxy safe for human colonization. Make them safe by funding the
Dark Star
project.

Make them safe by removing any unstable planetary bodies or oddball worlds that coexisted in a system with them. An. eccentricity of orbit, an internal rumble of molten indigestion—that was enough to send the
Dark Star
homing in on a planet to plant a thermostellar trigger in its lower intestine, set off a chain reaction, and remove from it forever a chance to interfere with future human settlements. Most of all Doolittle hated them because they had been the ones ultimately responsible for putting him out here. And because they wouldn't let him return home until this run was finished.

Not that the crew of the
Dark Star
was untrustworthy, or not among the most stable of the race, no. But there was always the outside chance—just a hint, the psychometricians said—that even the best men could go bonkers on a trip of this length. So, to be on the safe side the
Dark Star
itself had built into its structure explosive material that could he rendered inert only when the last thermostellar device had been successfully dropped, as recorded by the computer. Then they would he permitted to return home to full honors and acclaim and due process.

But they couldn't chance letting one of those planet-busters back into Old Sol's backyard.

Still, they were almost finished. What had begun as a leisurely journey had turned into a frenzied search for yet another unstable world, and another. Eighteen unstable planets destroyed in three years, shiptime. Three years—twenty years back on Earth.

They were far ahead of the best estimates, but certain things even the psychometricians hadn't imagined could drive men to superhuman effort.

And now only two bombs were left, numbers nineteen and twenty; and once they were successfully launched on their suicidal way, the
Dark Star
could go home. Home . . . back to and among the aliens he hated.

Doolittle didn't remember exactly when he had started hating the pink-faced aliens. But then it struck him that he didn't remember a lot of things lately—ever since Commander Powell had died. He activated the start switch.

The alien coughed lightly, cleared its throat, and began smoothly, with only the slightest tinge of self-consciousness.

"Hi, guys," it said brightly. "Glad we got your message finally. You'll be interested to hear it was broadcast live over the whole Earth—in prime time. You should have seen the ratings, guys. I mean, it was phenomenal. Knocked the top-rated . . ."

The alien hesitated, as if he was listening to someone speaking out of hearing range. He nodded imperceptibly and spoke again, rather more solemnly now.

"About the first of the colony ships. Everyone in the U.N. had been haggling over it for months, but that message from you guys threw it all over to the pro-colonization forces. Nothing like some honest emotion to sway recalcitrant politicos. The brass here at Mission Control are real proud of the way you fellas conveyed real anguish and tears and all.

"They should be getting started on the actual construction of the first ships any day now. There are just a few last details to be ironed out. Like, the Soviets claim the deep-space drive is their invention so they should have the largest number of colonists, while the Chin . . . Chinese think that it should be loaded according to the percentage of world population.

"The Israelis are pushing for an extra-large allotment on their claim of having designed the computer; and we, of course, feel that since we paid for most of the hardware so far and supplied the crew, that we ought to have a few more than the Wops and the . . ."

Again the alien looked nonplussed, listening to someone off-mike. His smile reappeared easily a moment later.

"But that's all internal politics and needn't concern you guys and the wonderful job you're doing." He hesitated and looked slightly concerned. "The time lag on these messages is getting longer . . . even longer than the boys here in relativity computation had expected. We gather from the ten-year delay that you are approximately eighteen parsecs out. We anticipated originally, as you will recall, that you would work more of a circular course closer in to Earth. But I guess systems with habitable worlds and unstable ones in combination are farther apart than the boys here predicted, right?

"The upshot of what I'm trying to say is that some people here get nervous when we don't hear from you as frequently as scheduled. We know you guys have lots of things to do, but"—Boiler made a growling sound—"try and drop us a line a little more often, okay? Just to say hiya." His grin broadened weakly and he looked down at a cuesheet out of camera view.

"As to the specifics of your message—sorry to hear about the radiation leaks on the ship, but equally glad to hear they've only affected minor mechanisms and haven't touched anything basic to your mission. Really sorry to hear about the death of Commander Powell. I was personally all broke up. Of course, I never had the honor of actually meeting him, but I remember how we used to read about him and the rest of you wonderful guys in school. There was a week of mourning here on Earth. The flags were at half mast, and a Congressional inquiry has been launched to investigate the firm that made the defective seat circuitry.