Guardsmen of Tomorrow (9 page)

Home. How good that sounded now that he knew there were wolves in the outer reaches.

He wasn’t ready, though, to return home. His job wasn’t finished.

“
Archangel
.” He waited for the computer to acknowledge. “Calculate another jump.

Estimate the
Via Dolorosa’s
current position and program coordinates for a fold-space exit just outside the minimum parsec’s distance with an added five-percent safety zone.”

He waited impatiently. Placing Hookah on his lap, he stroked and stroked the creature until it purred loudly. “Good baby,” he murmured softly. “Good baby.”

The computer finished its assignment. Dawes reached out for the trigger.

Yet again he fell through fold-space, seemingly alone without walls or ship to surround him. Yet, strangely in his mind this time he felt a presence, that purring, and knew his isolation was false, that he had a companion.

The stars resolved themselves once more in the view screen. As if anticipating him, Hookah stared outward and relayed the magnificent vision into his brain. Dawes caught his breath.

The
Archangel
had emerged into normal space near the Spider Nebula. Looming gigantic off the ship’s port bow, its great glare lit the abysmal darkness. Staring into its heart was like staring into a furnace. Around that blazing heart clouds of dust swirled in constant motion. Particles collided, exploding in twinkling bursts. At its edges, great tenuous columns of stars rose up in weblike strands, light-years thick, to stretch and shimmer across the black firmament.

Even with only the muted shades of Hookah’s vision, Dawes gaped in silent awe.

Another man might have missed his own eyes more acutely in that moment; instead, he gave thanks for those borrowed ones he had.

“We’ve seen the Temple of God,” he whispered to his pet. Oddly, he thought of Donovan and wished his friend was with him.

The
Archangel’s
computer spoke his name. They were now within one parsec of the congregationalists’ cryo-ship, it informed him, and speeding straight for it. It detected no sign of the remaining Kaxfen vessel.

“Keep searching,” Dawes instructed. “And resume control of the cryo-ship’s computers. We may have to move fast.” He realized with a mixture of irritation and amusement that he was addressing the computer as if it were a teammate. In a very real sense, it was.

In only a little time, the
Archangel
came abreast of the
Via Dolorosa
. The vessel glimmered dully in the reflected light from the Spider Nebula, an immense metal ball with conventional fusion drives jutting from its rear. Compared with the sleek designs of translight vehicles and with his own ship, it was an ugly monster without grace or beauty, a relic from another age.

And yet, though it crawled across the star trails like a slug in its shell, there was nobility in its ugliness, for it carried within it men and women who were explorers, adventurers, and world-builders, the seed of mankind, the carriers of Humanity’s torch. For all that he disdained their means of transportation, Chilson Dawes admired the people within. As if possessed of a sense of pride, the
Via Dolorosa
slowly rotated, showing itself off.

Then with a start, Chilson Dawes discovered where the Kaxfen ship had been hiding.

It hung in docking position attached to the cryo-ship’s hull. Through Hookah’s eyes, he saw it clearly.

And the Kaxfen saw him. Trailing a tangle of umbili-cals, it ripped itself from the hull and turned.

Still without weapons, Dawes swallowed hard before settling himself in his chair. He couldn’t destroy this alien ship with a fold-space ripple without destroying the
Via
Dolorosa
as well. What to do?

He ran a bluff.

Placing one palm on the communications console, he hailed his foe. “Kaxfen ship,”

he said calmly. “I’ve destroyed your five companion ships. Don’t force me to make it six. This ancient vessel and my own are now outside your claimed territory. Go home.”

He waited, either for an attack or for an acknowledging voice on his console. Neither came. The Kaxfen ship took no action at all. It seemed to hang in space, watching him, waiting as he waited. Dawes wondered what went through the alien mind of an uncertain star captain.

The answer was an anticlimax. The Kaxfen ship banked away and sped back toward Burnham space.

Dawes breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, Hookah,” he said to his pet, “I guess we know the color of their stripes, eh?”

With the little Mintakan creature purring in his ear, he maneuvered the
Archangel
toward the port where the Kaxfen had docked to discover any damage caused by their sudden departure. Laser burns on the hull revealed how they had blasted their way through cargo air lock doors. Through the rent, he could see drums and crates floating, prevented from escape into space by networks of secure webbing that bespoke an admirable foresight on the part of the ship’s occupants.

But why hadn’t the Kaxfen simply destroyed the
Via Dolorosal
Their lasers were powerful enough. What had they sought within?

He decided to find out.

There was too much damage at the cargo air lock, so he searched for another.

Hookah wiggled on his perch while Dawes worked the controls. A gentle thump shivered through the hull as docking clamps took hold. Dawes rose from his seat and moved through a series of corridors, pausing at a weapons locker to select a pistol and a communications link that would keep him in contact with
Archangel
.

This he slipped onto his wrist like a wristwatch.

With Hookah’s eyes showing the way, he moved into the air lock and crossed an umbilical bridge into the
Via Do-lorosa
. Hookah seemed to sense what Dawes needed, and kept its attention focused forward. Indeed, without speaking or giving instruction, Dawes seemed able to direct the creature’s eyes as if they were his own.

It took but a little concentration-as long as Hookah felt calm.

The air was stale. His bootheels rang in a passageway that had not known sound in twelve years. Inside the
Via Dolorosa’s
air lock, a dozen pressure suits hung limp and empty on their racks, ghostly in the darkness. They seemed to watch him, and Dawes felt suddenly bleak and lonely in their presence, like an invader walking where he didn’t belong. He found himself stroking Hookah, and was somewhat gladdened when it purred and rubbed his jaw.

Fluorescent lighting panels shone dimly and illumined what seemed to be miles of dull gray corridors. The ship’s engines were silent; the
Via Dolorosa
sped toward its destination on inertia; its passengers slept without even the throb of machinery for their lullaby.

He had entered at an air lock near those engines. Seven levels above, and for seven levels above that, five thousand men, women, and children slept in liquid nitrogen coffins. Another deck above those were sperm and egg banks, frozen genetic legacies from another five million donors who would never know their offspring.

Did they dream, Dawes wondered, thinking of those people, of their god or their resurrection in a new world? Or were their dreams smaller ones, of blue skies and grass, of birds at dawn, of friends left behind? This he knew: they had a faith beyond his understanding, and he who believed in little envied them.

He had to see them.

A core-shaft elevator ran the length of the ship from bow to stern. He found it and ascended. When the doors opened, he nearly didn’t get off. He hesitated, considered closing them again, then stepped forward.

He’d never seen the inside of a beehive, but he knew it was something like this. The central chamber was vast, overwhelming, deep. It curved around the core-shaft, blurring into gloom, reappearing again, Armor-glass coffins lined the walls, side by side and stacked one on top of the other. Through the misty shimmering ice that clung to the containers, he could make out pale outlines of naked bodies, their arms outstretched as if crucified.

A chill shivered down Dawes’ spine, and he found himself gasping. He hurried, stumbling, back to the elevator. He’d never considered himself a coward; hell, here he was, a blind man fighting to defend these people. Yet, what they were attempting was so far beyond his definition of courage that it left him beggared. No, he’d never understand these people. They were as alien to him as the Kaxfen, and standing in their presence, he felt an unfillable emptiness.

He stepped back into the elevator and ascended to the command deck. Nothing there but empty chairs at empty stations, and computers, their lights winking in the yellowish gloom. He spoke to
Archangel
through his corn-link. “How much extra time did we add by rerouting the
Via Do-lorosa
?”

Their journey would take an additional twelve years. Total time to their new paradise-one hundred thirty-three years. Through fold-space he could get them there in the twinkling of an eye.

And blind them in the process.

He checked each of the stations on the command deck, then all of the computers, assuring himself everything was operational. Then stepping back into the elevator, he descended, intent on making his way back to his ship and heading for home.

When the elevator doors opened once more, he stepped out. Then he paused. The fluorescent lighting panels, dim as they were-why were they on at all? He’d been too creeped out to notice before. But with everyone asleep, the
Via Dolorosa
should have been tomb-dark.

Pistol in hand, Dawes softened his tread and headed for the air lock. Maybe his presence had activated the lights. Maybe the Kaxfen had done so. Hookah’s many feet dug into the fabric of his shirt as he hurried back the way he had come.

From ahead, the metal barrel of a pistol glinted. Barely in time, Dawes flung himself aside. An energy beam whined past his head. Deep in his brain, he felt a shock of pain, and the lights went out. Stretched on the floor, he fired his own weapon wildly.

He didn’t see the beam.

In sudden terror, he grabbed at his shoulder. The little creature wasn’t there! The lights hadn’t gone out at all-he was blind!

“
Archangel
!” he shouted into his corn-link.
Archangel
had control of the cryo-ship’s computers. Maybe his foe couldn’t see in darkness any better than he could. “Turn off the lights! On every deck!” Through his fear, he tried to think. The Kaxfen ship had left one of their crew aboard. With no other way to get home, the alien had made its way to where the
Archangel
was docked. In a more controlled voice, he whispered into his corn-link. “Withdraw the umbilical and move away to a distance of one mile.”

A moment later, he felt a vibration through the deck as the
Archangel
withdrew its docking clamps.

He was alone with the alien then, but his thoughts turned to Hookah. He groped on the deck, aware of his vulnerable position, but unwilling to retreat without his pet. At last, he found the furry body; it didn’t stir when he poked it, nor move when he picked it up. Tears stung his blind eyes. Angry tears, he told himself.

He fired a shot up the corridor, then rolled to the opposite wall. The alien returned fire, aiming for his old position. Even without sight, the whine of the pistol told Dawes what he’d hoped for. He spoke into his corn-link again. “
Archangel
, seal the interior air-lock door!”

The soft, sliding scrape of metal within a metal track made him smile. He sat up in his private darkness and hugged Hookah against his body. His exploring fingers found scorched fur. The little creature wasn’t moving, hanging limply from his hand.

His anger grew. He hadn’t gotten a look at all at the Kaxfen. His first contact with an alien species, and it was trapped beyond an air-lock door not a hundred feet away.

His curiosity should have been eating him up-but it was anger that consumed him.

He raised the corn-link once again.

“
Archangel
.” His voice was hard, cold as space. “Open the outer air-lock door.”

He waited. And waited. He slipped Hookah’s body inside his shirt, feeling its fur against his skin, hoping for some sense of life from it as he waited.

At last, there was no point in waiting any longer. Rising, he steadied himself with one hand on the wall as he moved toward the air lock. He summoned
Archangel
, and felt the impact of its docking clamps, the vibration of the umbilical bridge attaching itself. He tried to remember the layout of the air lock’s interior; he’d have to make his way across it. He waited again while
Archangel
repressurized the chamber. Then, he opened the door and cautiously began his way across.

Something struck his wrist and he dropped his pistol. Thickly gloved hands seized him. He felt himself lifted and tossed through the air to strike the deck clumsily, painfully.

The pressure suits! The alien had taken refuge in one and saved himself.

He felt those thick hands on him again, felt himself lifted to his feet. But this time he reacted, catching one of those hands, twisting hard as he swept with one foot at the suit’s ankles. The alien fell, metal helmet slamming on the deck.

Dropping to his knees, Dawes groped desperately for his pistol. He spied it suddenly, just inches beyond his fingers. Snatching it up, he fired as the Kaxfen, on its feet again, lurched toward him.

He burned a precise hole through the center of its chest and watched as it staggered and collapsed.

Chilson Dawes sat back panting. Then, with a surge of joy he realized he’d seen!

He’d seen the pistol, seen the Kaxfen die! He felt for Hookah. His shirt had been ripped open; the little mind-worm’s head poked out curiously.

Dawes rocked back and forth as he stroked the creature. “You had to be alive,” he murmured. “I knew it; I felt it!” He held the creature up and nuzzled its fur with his nose. What he saw, though, was his own face close up, beaded with sweat, but strangely joyful. He laughed softly.

“
Archangel
,” he said into his corn-link, “we’re going home.”

As he climbed to his feet, he paused over the fallen Kaxfen. He couldn’t leave without a look under that helmet. Odds were very good he’d started a war. He had to know the face of his foe.