The Sails of Tau Ceti (23 page)

“You must get over your hatred. We do not ask you to love us. If we are to be successful, we must work well together. If you hate us, you will not be an effective advocate.”

“You’ll at least give me a few days to get used to my servitude, won’t you?”

“We owe you that. What will you tell your fellows? They are bound to notice the change in you.”

“I’ll tell them I don’t feel well.”

“That you are ill?” Maratel mused. “Will not Doctor Claridge then examine you and discover that you are, in fact, well?”

“Do you have a better solution?”

“Perhaps we can blame your condition on a failed attempt at getting your implant working.”

Tory thought about it, then nodded. “That’ll work. A loss of synchronization accident often leaves the victim feeling a bit suicidal. We’ll use that as the excuse for why I’m snapping everyone’s head off.”

“Would it help if we activate your implant now?”

“Are you saying that you’ve been faking these troubles in establishing a link?”

“It seemed wise. After all, had you been in touch with your ship when Faslorn told you the news, you would have recorded it in
Austria
’s computer. There might have been a chance that the recording would have been viewed by someone else.”

Tory looked at Maratel and thought of all the times she had wished her implant were working. All along, they had never intended to activate her link with the ship’s computer. After what she had just been through, the anger she felt at the news seemed oddly misplaced. “Well … I’ll … be … double … damned!”

Two obsidian eyes stared into her own. “If we are successful in the coming venture, Tory Bronson, I think it more likely that you will be declared a human saint!”

When Maratel delivered Tory back to the human living quarters, it was well past the beginning of the sleep period. She found the common room dark and deserted. Tory had lost all track of time during the meeting with Faslorn. Despite not having eaten all day, she was not hungry. She wondered if she would ever be hungry again. What she mostly felt was tired down to the marrow in her bones. All she could think of was to hop into bed and sleep for a week. Maybe when she woke, this nightmare would be over.

As she turned to enter her own apartment, she felt another stirring deep within. It was on a level so primal as to be below the level of conscious thought. She hesitated for a moment as she wrestled with an impulse that was not only silly under the circumstances, but also potentially dangerous.

Against her better judgment, she made her way to the door. It was not that of her own apartment, but Garth’s. Once inside, she quietly slipped out of her clothes as she listened to the soft sound of his steady breathing. She managed to climb into bed and press her body to his before he stirred. He came awake quickly, sputtering, “What the hell?”

“Hold me,” she commanded him.

He instinctively reached out and enfolded her in his embrace. After a few moments, gentle hands began to stroke the bare skin of her back.

“What’s going on?” he whispered.

“I feel like company tonight.”

“Why, what’s wrong?” he asked, all the sleep induced blurring suddenly gone from his voice.

“I’ll explain in the morning. For now, just hold me.”

“All right.”

They lay together for what seemed an eternity. Then, at a welcoming gesture from Tory, Garth initiated that most ancient of all means of delivering solace.

#

Faslorn and Maratel watched the display carefully. The low light sensors were working perfectly, rendering an image that, had they been human, would have been considered pornographic.

“Do you suppose she will tell him?”

Maratel did not answer immediately. She had studied Tory more carefully than most beings studied their offspring. The complexity of the human mind awed her, and frightened her a little. Tory was intelligent, possibly even a genius by human standards. When coupled with her implant, her intellect was enhanced far above normal. Still, a human with direct mind access to a computer was still a human. Their actions were ruled by unpredictable emotions. Tory might well charge into the common are in the morning and announce their secret to everyone. Or she might bide her time, pretend to cooperate with them, and then send a message to Earth as soon as
Austria
was away from their ship. Or she just might cooperate.

“Unknown,” was Maratel’s answer to Faslorn’s question.

“Monitor carefully,” her commander ordered. “We will take no chances. If you even suspect an attempt to pass the information on through subtle signals, we will go to the backup plan.”

“That would be a mistake,” Maratel said. “The death of the explorers in a sudden accident would be viewed with great suspicion on Earth. It is doubtful we could ever overcome the impression that would leave with the human masses.”

“Mistake or no, it would be necessary. The safety of the race is not to be gambled with.”

Maratel made no answer. She did not have to. Faslorn’s statement was more than a command; it was a lesson drilled into every Phelan child almost before it could talk. The species had been threatened with extinction once. It must never face that risk again.

CHAPTER 17

Tory woke next morning to find Garth asleep on the next pillow. His mouth was open and he was snoring gently. “Typical man!” she thought. Then the events of the previous day came flooding back to her. She rolled over to face the wall while she came to terms with her raging emotions. So preoccupied was she that she failed to hear the cessation of snores behind her.

She jumped when Garth asked, “What was last night about?”

Tory composed herself, turned over, and began to lie. “Sorry if I frightened you. I just didn’t want to be alone. Maratel and I had a little accident yesterday.”

“What sort of accident?”

“I thought the Phelan had solved their problem with the implant link. I would not have tried it otherwise. Honest!”

His complexion blanched and his voice turned gruff as he asked, “What happened?”

“I established contact here in the commons and it worked fine. Maratel suggested a test at the opposite end of the ship. We made a picnic of it. She showed me the sail anchor mechanism and we were on our way to Spiral Falls when I tested the link. I made contact without difficulty, then tried a full sensory transmission.”

“And?”

“I lost synchronization. Maratel says that I passed out. Anyway, when I came to, I found her leaning over me. If you want to know what fright looks like in a Phelan, I can tell you.”

“Never mind. Are you all right?”

“Except for feeling sick down to my soul, I think so.”

Tory carefully studied his expression as she embroidered her lie. His concern had turned to open fear at the mention of loss-of-synchronization. More than one synergist had been driven permanently insane by such an incident.

Garth reached out and stroked her cheek with gentle fingers. “We’ll have Kit look you over.”

“Later. Now I need my sleep. I didn’t get much rest last night,” she said with total honesty.

“I remember,” he replied.

This time Tory said it aloud. “Typical man!”

Garth got out of bed and went into the refresher while Tory pretended to fall back to sleep. She nearly succeeded. After Garth had returned to slumber around midnight, she had tossed and turned for hours as her overheated brain refused to calm down. It had been like some wild animal in a cage, pacing back and forth between the boundaries of her dilemma, always looking for the weak spot that would signal a way out. She did not remember blessed unconsciousness overtaking her, but she knew that she had slept less than two hours the entire night.

Besides needing her rest, there was another reason for avoiding Kit Claridge. A loss of synchronization accident left indelible marks on the victim’s reflexes. Tory could not submit to a medical examination because the results would reveal that there was nothing wrong with her reflexes. She would have to avoid the doctor until enough time passed that she could plausibly claim to be throwing off the effects.

Garth came out of the refresher wiping depilatory cream from his chin. “You will make no further attempts to link with the ship’s computer. We’ve lived without that receiver in your skull this long, we can do without a few weeks longer.”

Just in time, Tory remembered that she was not supposed to know that their departure had been fixed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re going home.”

“Huh?”

“That’s right. We launch three weeks from tomorrow if we can get ready in time. There is a lot to do. Faslorn and three others will be coming with us. We’ll have to install their cold sleep tanks in the hold, along with a supply of Phelan dietary supplements.”

“What of our own food?”

“We’ll move it into the living quarters. We’ll be a little crowded on the trip home.”

Three weeks! No wonder Faslorn had been in a hurry to find an advocate. If she was going to think her way out of the dilemma, she had a maximum two months in which to do it. Once
Austria
climbed the mountain of velocity again; the human crew would follow their Phelan passengers into sleep tanks. Their return to Earth would take a year. It would be a year lost to all but cold dreams. A great deal can happen in a year. Earth might see through the Phelan masquerade, or they might discover the Third Fleet, or reject the Phelan petition for sanctuary. Tory had a nightmare vision of waking to find the sun exploding around her, except, if the sun exploded, there would be no waking … ever.

For just a moment, she considered blurting out her problem to Garth. Even if she were being monitored, the Phelan would not be able to react fast enough to stop her. The impulse died before it was born. At best, the Phelan would take all of them prisoner and cut off communications with Earth. Or possibly, they would maintain the charade that everything was normal, stage
Austria
’s departure on schedule, and then explode the engines. It would be easy enough to send their condolences for the brave lives lost.

Perhaps there was some signal she could give Garth that the Phelan would not recognize. To what end? If she alerted him and he were clever enough to get a message off to Earth, then the sun would shine a million times brighter than normal in six short years. As she discovered the previous day, Faslorn’s bonds upon her were all the stronger for being immaterial.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Garth asked again as he prepared to leave.

She gave him a wan smile that was as much a lie as her recounting of the implant accident had been. “I’m fine. All I need to put my psyche back together is rest.”

“I’ll explain what happened to the others. Kit can examine you this evening.”

With that, Tory found herself alone. It was a feeling she had best get used to, she decided. It would be with her for a very long time to come. She gathered the covers about her with hands that had begun to shake.

#

Everything continued as before. The Phelan guides showed up each morning to take their charges to various appointments. Kit was excited by the medical techniques the Phelan doctors were demonstrating. Her reports to Earth were filled with superlatives and the impenetrable jargon with which doctors communicate. Eli continued his slow, plodding progress in learning the Phelan language. He could now converse with the younger children if they did not speak too quickly. When Garth was not supervising the modifications to
Austria
, he spent his time conferring with Faslorn, Rosswin, and the other high-ranking starship commanders. Tory, too, spent hours in the hangar bay watching over Phelan technicians. Her shifts were usually in the afternoon. Her mornings were spent with Maratel.

Except, for Tory, not everything was as before. She now recognized the whole operation for what it was — a carefully staged ballet in which every muscle twitch and phoneme was as stylized as a performance of Japanese Kabuki Theater. Outwardly, the Phelan remained as charming as ever. The only problem was that she could now see the strings holding the puppets erect. That soured the play for her.

Slowly, Tory began to regain her equilibrium and her appetite. She still hated what Faslorn had done to her, but she could at least think about it without flying into a rage. The nightmares came less often, and she could go for days without having visions of the sun suddenly blazing forth to swallow her world. Kit thought her counseling helped, and it had. However, much of Tory’s recovery from her “implant accident” was the result of her own inner resilience. “People,” a wise man had once said, “can get used to anything except death!” In the days following her recruitment, Tory found reason to believe him.

Her trips with Maratel were ostensibly to show her some part of the ship. Sometimes, they
were
tours. One of the first places Maratel took her was Spiral Falls. The two of them sat for an hour where the roaring torrent splashed down on the habitat’s outer deck. The noise was so loud that it was difficult to think (and easy to forget). The white spray quickly soaked Tory to the bone and she slipped into a shivery trance into which no external stimulus intruded. Later, she and Maratel warmed their frigid bodies under the distant sun tube. Baking oneself on a hot rock, Tory discovered, was as pleasurable as it was atavistic.

However, most of her tours with Maratel were clandestine training sessions. Before she would allow the Phelan to speak of anything else, Tory demanded to know how Tau Ceti had been destabilized and destroyed. The explanations were concise, and as far as she could tell, complete. They involved the interaction between neutrinos at a particular energy level and the super dense hydrogen plasma that is found at the heart of stars. She lacked the background to understand all that she was told, but what she was able to understand sounded plausible. In any event, she had no desire to put the Phelan explanation to a practical test.

Once the Phelan had convinced her that they could indeed do what they threatened, they immersed her in the details of their master plan to insinuate themselves into human society. She had to admit that they seemed to have thought of everything … everything, that is, except the obvious.