The Songs of Distant Earth (24 page)

They walked along a series of culverts and past small sluice gates, all of them closed at the moment, until they reached a wide, open area, well away from the main plant. As they left the central complex, Kumar waved cheerfully at the lens of a pointing camera. No one ever discovered, later, why it had been switched off at the crucial moment.

“The freezing tanks,” Kumar said. “Six hundred tons in each. Ninety-five per cent water, five per cent kelp. What’s so funny?”

“Not funny – but very
strange,”
answered Carina, still smiling. “Just think of it – carrying some of our ocean forest, all the way to the stars. Who would ever imagine such a thing! But
that’s
not why you brought me here.”

“No,” said Kumar softly. “Look …”

At first, she could not see what he was pointing at. Then her mind interpreted the image that flickered at the very edge of vision, and she understood.

It was an old miracle, of course. Men had done such things on many worlds, for over a thousand years. But to witness it with her own eyes was more than breathtaking – it was awesome.

Now that they had walked closer to the last of the tanks, she could see it more clearly. The thin thread of light – it could not have been more than a couple of centimetres wide! – climbed upward to the stars, straight and true as a laser beam. Her eyes followed it until it narrowed into invisibility, teasing her to decide the exact place of its disappearance. And still her gaze swept onward, dizzyingly, until she was staring at the zenith itself, and at the single star that was poised motionless there while all its fainter, natural companions marched steadily past it towards the west. Like some cosmic spider,
Magellan
had lowered a thread of gossamer and would soon be hoisting the prize it desired from the world below.

Now that they were standing at the very edge of the waiting ice block, Carina had another surprise. Its surface was completely covered with a glittering layer of golden foil, reminding her of the gifts that were presented to children on their birthdays or at the annual Landing Festival.

“Insulation,” Kumar explained. “And it really
is
gold – about two atoms thick. Without it, half the ice would melt again before it could get up to the shield.”

Insulation or no, Carina could feel the bite of cold through her bare feet as Kumar led her out on to the frozen slab. They reached its centre in a dozen steps – and there, glittering with a curious nonmetallic sheen, was the taut ribbon that stretched, if not to the stars, at least the thirty thousand kilometres up to the stationary orbit in which
Magellan
was now parked.

It ended in a cylindrical drum, studded with instruments and control jets, which clearly served as a mobile, intelligent crane-hook, homing on to its load after its long descent through the atmosphere. The whole arrangement looked surprisingly simple and even unsophisticated – deceptively so, like most products of mature, advanced technologies.

Carina suddenly shivered, and not from the cold underfoot, which she now scarcely noticed.

“Are you sure it’s safe here?” she asked anxiously.

“Of course. They always lift at midnight, on the second – and that’s still hours away. It’s a wonderful sight, but I don’t think we’ll stay so late.”

Now Kumar was kneeling, placing his ear against the incredible ribbon that bound ship and planet together. If it snapped, she wondered anxiously, would they fly apart?

“Listen,” he whispered …

She had not known what to expect. Sometimes in later years, when she could endure it, she tried to recapture the magic of this moment. She could never be sure if she had succeeded.

At first it seemed that she was hearing the deepest note of a giant harp whose strings were stretched between the worlds. It sent shivers down her spine, and she felt the little hairs at the nape of her neck stirring in that immemorial fear response forged in the primeval jungles of Earth.

Then, as she grew accustomed to it, she became aware of a whole spectrum of shifting overtones covering the range of hearing to the very limits of audibility – and doubtless far beyond. They blurred and merged one into the other, as inconstant yet steadily repeating as the sounds of the sea.

The more she listened, the more she was reminded of the endless beating of the waves upon a desolate beach. She felt that she was hearing the sea of space wash upon the shores of all its worlds – a sound terrifying in its meaningless futility as it reverberated through the aching emptiness of the universe.

And now she became aware of other elements in this immensely complex symphony. There were sudden, plangent twangings as if giant fingers had plucked at the ribbon somewhere along its thousands of taut kilometres. Meteorites? Surely not. Perhaps some electrical discharge in Thalassa’s seething ionosphere? And
–
was this pure imagination, something created by her own unconscious fears? – it seemed that from time to time she heard the faint wailing of demon voices or the ghostly cries of all the sick and starving children who had died on Earth during the Nightmare Centuries.

Suddenly, she could bear it no longer.

“I’m frightened, Kumar,” she whispered, tugging at his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

But Kumar was still lost in the stars, his mouth half open as he pressed his head against that resonant ribbon, hypnotized by its siren song. He never even noticed when, angry as much as scared, Carina stomped across the foil-covered ice and stood waiting for him on the familiar warmth of dry land.

For now he had noticed something new – a series of rising notes that seemed to be calling for his attention. It was like a Fanfare for Strings, if one could imagine such a thing, and it was ineffably sad and distant.

But it was coming closer, growing louder. It was the most thrilling sound that Kumar had ever heard, and it held him paralysed with astonishment and awe. He could almost imagine that
something
was racing down the ribbon towards him …

Seconds too late, he realized the truth as the first shock of the precursor wave jolted him flat against the golden foil and the ice block stirred beneath him. Then, for the very last time, Kumar Leonidas looked upon the fragile beauty of his sleeping world, and the terrified, upturned face of the girl who would remember this moment until her own dying day.

Already, it was too late to jump. And so the Little Lion ascended to the silent stars – naked and alone.

48. Decision

C
aptain Bey had graver problems on his mind and was very glad to delegate this task. In any event, no emissary could have been more appropriate than Loren Lorenson.

He had never met the Leonidas elders before and dreaded the encounter. Though Mirissa had offered to accompany him, he preferred to go alone.

The Lassans revered their old folk and did everything possible for their comfort and happiness. Lal and Nikri Leonidas lived in one of the small, self-contained retirement colonies along the south coast of the island. They had a six-room chalet with every conceivable labour-saving device, including the only general-purpose house robot that Loren had ever seen on South Island. By Earth chronology, he would have judged them to be in their late sixties.

After the initial subdued greetings, they sat on the porch, looking out to sea while the robot fussed around bearing drinks and plates of assorted fruit. Loren forced himself to eat a few morsels, then gathered his courage and tackled the hardest task of his life.

“Kumar
–
” The name stuck in his throat, and he had to begin again. “Kumar is still on the ship. I owe my life to him; he risked his to save mine. You can understand how I feel about this – I would do
anything

Once more he had to fight for control. Then, trying to be as brisk and scientific as he could – like Surgeon-Commander Newton during her briefing – he made yet another start.

“His body is almost undamaged, because decompression was slow and freezing took place immediately. But, of course, he is clinically dead – just as I was myself a few weeks ago…

“However, the two cases are very different. My – body – was recovered before there was time for brain damage, so revival was a fairly straightforward process.

“It was hours before they recovered Kumar. Physically, his brain is undamaged – but there is no trace of any activity.

“Even so, revival
may
be possible with extremely advanced technology. According to our records – which cover the entire history of Earth’s medical science – it has been done before in similar cases, with a success rate of sixty per cent.

“And that places us in a dilemma, which Captain Bey has asked me to explain to you frankly. We do not have the skills or the equipment to carry out such an operation. But we may – in three hundred years’ time…

“There are a dozen brain experts among the hundreds of medical specialists sleeping aboard the ship. There are technicians who can assemble and operate every conceivable type of surgical and life-support gear. All that Earth ever possessed will be ours again – soon after we reach Sagan 2 …”

He paused to let the implications sink in. The robot took this inopportune moment to offer its services; he waved it away.

“We would be willing – no, glad, for it is the very least we can do – to take Kumar with us. Though we cannot guarantee it, one day he may live again. We would like you to think it over; there is plenty of time before you have to make the decision.”

The old couple looked at each other for a long, silent moment while Loren stared out to sea. How quiet and peaceful it was! He would be glad to spend his own declining years here, visited from time to time by children and grandchildren …

Like so much of Tarna, it might almost be Earth. Perhaps through deliberate planning, there was no Lassan vegetation anywhere in sight; all the trees were hauntingly familiar.

Yet something essential was lacking; he realized that it had been puzzling him for a long time – indeed, ever since he had landed on this planet. And suddenly, as if this moment of grief had triggered the memory, he knew what he had missed.

There were no sea gulls wheeling in the sky, filling the air with the saddest and most evocative of all the sounds of Earth.

Lal Leonidas and his wife had still not exchanged a word, yet somehow Loren knew that they had made their decision.

“We appreciate your offer, Commander Lorenson; please express our thanks to Captain Bey.

“But we do not need any time to consider it. Whatever happens, Kumar will be lost to us forever.

“Even if you succeed – and as you say, there is no guarantee
–
he will awaken in a strange world, knowing that he will never see his home again and that all those he loved are centuries dead. It does not bear thinking of. You mean well, but that would be no kindness to him.

“We know what he would have wished and what must be done. Give him back to us. We will return him to the sea he loved.”

There was nothing more to be said. Loren felt both an overwhelming sadness and a vast relief.

He had done his duty. It was the decision he had expected.

49. Fire on the Reef

N
ow the little kayak would never be completed; but it would make its first and its last voyage.

Until sunset, it had lain at the water’s edge, lapped by the gentle waves of the tideless sea. Loren was moved, but not surprised, to see how many had come to pay their last respects. All Tarna was here, but many had also come from all over South Island – and even from North. Though some, perhaps, had been drawn by morbid curiosity – for the whole world had been shocked by the uniquely spectacular accident – Loren had never seen such a genuine outpouring of grief. He had not realized that the Lassans were capable of such deep emotion, and in his mind he savoured once again a phrase that Mirissa had found, searching the Archives for consolation: “Little friend of all the world”. Its origin was lost, and no one could guess what long-dead scholar, in what century, had saved it for the ages to come.

Once he had embraced them both with wordless sympathy, he had left Mirissa and Brant with the Leonidas family, gathered with numerous relatives from both islands. He did not want to meet any strangers, for he knew what many of them must be thinking. “He saved you – but you could not save him.” That was a burden he would carry for the rest of his life.

He bit his lip to check the tears that were not appropriate for a senior officer of the greatest starship ever built and felt one of the mind’s defence mechanisms come to his rescue. At moments of deep grief, sometimes the only way to prevent loss of control is to evoke some wholly incongruous – even comic – image from the depths of memory.

Yes – the universe had a strange sense of humour. Loren was almost forced to suppress a smile; how Kumar would have enjoyed the final joke it had played on him!

“Don’t be surprised,” Commander Newton had warned as she opened the door of the ship’s morgue and a gust of icy, formalin-tainted air rolled out to meet them. “It happens more often than you think. Sometimes it’s a final spasm – almost like an unconscious attempt to defy death. This time, it was probably caused by the loss of external pressure and the subsequent freezing.”

Had it not been for the crystals of ice defining the muscles of the splendid young body, Loren might have thought that Kumar was not merely sleeping but lost in blissful dreams.

For in death, the Little Lion was even more male than he had been in life.

And now the sun had vanished behind the low hills to the west, and a cool evening breeze was rising from the sea. With scarcely a ripple, the kayak slipped into the water, drawn by Brant and three other of Kumar’s closest friends. For the last time Loren glimpsed the calm and peaceful face of the boy to whom he owed his life.

There had been little weeping until now, but as the four swimmers pushed the boat slowly out from the shore, a great wail of lamentation rose from the assembled crowd. Now Loren could no longer contain his tears and did not care who saw them.