Voyagers I Read online

  “Good for you,” he said acidly. “You’re a girl who knows what she wants. I hope you get it.”

  You ignorant fool! she wanted to scream. You think I’m doing this for myself?

  But she answered aloud, “I’m all right, Keith.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  “Why did you call?” she asked woodenly.

  She heard him pull in a deep breath before he replied, “I punched in a trajectory problem a couple of hours ago and my terminal’s been dead silent ever since. What’s going on down there? The problem shouldn’t take that long for the computer to work out.”

  “The machine’s been running ever since I came on shift,” she said. “Some of those special trajectory problems of yours have built-in subroutines that take a lot of time.”

  “Well, check it out for me, will you?”

  “Certainly,” she said. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  She waited for him to answer, to say something to her, anything. Even anger would mean that he cared.

  Instead, he merely mouthed, “Thanks.”

  He doesn’t care, she realized. He never cared. Not for an instant. He’s more worried about his goddamned computer program than about me.

  “You’re quite welcome,” Jo said.

  And hung up.

  Stoner heard her voice, icy, as remote as the farthest star: “You’re quite welcome.”

  The phone clicked dead.

  The little bitch, he thought to himself. She’ll fuck anybody who can help her get what she wants. Well, I hope she’s enjoying herself with Big Mac.

  He slammed the phone down, feeling the fury seething inside him, knowing that he was raging not at Jo, not even at McDermott, but at himself.

  You’re quite a man, Stoner, he told himself. You sit here and let them hold you prisoner and tell yourself that your work is more important than personal ties and what you really want to do is kick the fucking door down and go out and grab her and carry her off to your cave.

  “Just listen to that wind!”

  Stoner jerked away from the phone to see Cavendish standing in the living room doorway, a brandy snifter in each hand.

  With a deep, shuddering breath, he brought his raging emotions under control, forced his pounding heart to slow down, smothered the fury he felt burning inside him under a blanket of cold numbness.

  “Are you all right?” Cavendish asked, crossing the big room toward him.

  Stoner nodded, not trusting himself yet to speak. He accepted the snifter from Cavendish’s outstretched hand.

  The old man lifted his glass and smiled wanly. “Cheers,” he offered.

  “Cheers,” Stoner said. He sipped at the cognac. It slid down his throat like liquid fire.

  Cavendish pulled the rocker up by the crackling fire and sat down with a weary sigh. “Quite a night out there,” he said. “Quite a night. You can hear the wind howling in the chimney.”

  Going over to the easy chair that faced the old man, Stoner asked, “Why can’t you sleep?”

  “H’mm? What?”

  “You said you don’t sleep well.” It was a safe subject. Stoner could feel the anger damping down inside him, fading away to the hidden corner where it could remain without anyone knowing it was there.

  “Bad dreams,” Cavendish answered, staring into the bright flames. “I was a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army for four years—just about the length of time it takes a photon to travel from Alpha Centauri to Earth.”

  “Must have been rough,” Stoner said.

  “Oh, that was only the beginning.” A heavy gust of wind rattled branches against the roof and Cavendish glanced up, his eyes haunted. “The Japanese moved us to Manchuria, you see, just in time to allow the Russians to capture us when they finally stepped into the Pacific war.”

  “The Russians were on our side then.”

  “They were on Stalin’s side. And Stalin decided that any scientist he could lay his hands on—even a young, starved, sick mathematical physicist—was going to stay in the Soviet Union and work for him, whether he wanted to or not.”

  “They kept you in Russia?”

  “In Siberia, actually. You boys had just set off your bloody atomic bomb, and Stalin was in an absolute sweat to catch up.”

  “I thought they got their nuclear know-how from spies…”

  “Nonsense! The only real secret about the atomic bomb was that it worked, that you could actually build one and it would explode satisfactorily. You gave that secret away at Hiroshima. Just as the biggest secret revealed by this alien spacecraft is that it exists—it came from somewhere other than Earth.”

  “How long did they keep you inside Russia?”

  “Years. Until Stalin died and his successors tried to ease tensions a bit. Even then, though, it wasn’t easy. They put me through hell and back before they let me go.”

  “How come?”

  Cavendish made a wry face. “The bloody KGB took it into their heads that I would make a marvelous espionage agent for them once I got back to England. I was treated to all sorts of brain-laundering techniques—and I do mean all sorts. That’s why I dread sleeping.”

  His hands had started to shake.

  “But you didn’t break,” Stoner said.

  “Of course I broke! And I swore to them that I’d be a good Soviet spy for them. It took a lot to convince them, you know. They’re very thorough.”

  Stoner just stared at him, waiting for more.

  “Well, once I got home and my head cleared a bit, I went to British Military Intelligence and told them the entire story. They were delighted. MI told me that I could be a double agent, pretending to work for the Reds but actually working for the Crown.”

  “Christ Almighty.”

  “Quite. I didn’t want to work for any of them, but I’ve been doing both ever since. The reason I’m here, actually, is because both the KGB and British MI want me here.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “I wish I were. The Russkies have their own people puzzling over the radio pulses, but they don’t have a telescope in orbit that can give them data on the spacecraft. I’m supposed to funnel your Big Eye data to them.”

  “Does the Navy know about this?”

  “Your Navy? No. Neither does NATO, I believe. MI are curious about what you chaps are up to, you realize. Your Navy people haven’t shared their information fully with their NATO colleagues, as yet.”

  “Cloak and dagger,” Stoner muttered.

  “Indeed. In this business a man has no friends, you know. Absolutely none. Anyone could turn out to be your enemy. Anyone could turn out to be an assassin.”

  “Assassin?” Stoner echoed. “You mean somebody might try to kill you?”

  For the first time, Cavendish laughed. It was a thin, harsh, humorless sound. “Not me, dear boy. You. I’m merely a cog in the machine that both sides are working. If there’s an assassin lurking in the bush, he’s after your head, not mine.”

  Stoner gaped at him. Slowly, he asked, “Are you trying to warn me, or…?”

  The computer terminal suddenly erupted into clattering life. Stoner and Cavendish both bolted from their chairs by the fireplace and rushed into the dining room, where the typing unit was pounding away madly. Line after line of numbers sprouted on the long accordionfolded sheets of paper that passed through the machine’s roller.

  “What is it?” Cavendish asked, the brandy snifter still in his fingers. “What’s it saying?”

  “The latest fix on the spacecraft…” Stoner yanked the paper up so that he could read the first rows of figures at eye level without stooping over the chattering typewriter.

  He gave a low whistle. “No wonder the computer had to chew on the data all night. The damned thing has changed its course.”

  “What?”

  “It’s accelerating.”

  “Can’t be!”

  “Look at this.” Stoner pointed to the numbers. “Here. And here again.”

  Cavendish sn
apped impatiently, “It might as well be Sanskrit! I don’t know your language!”

  “The spacecraft put on a burst of thrust,” Stoner explained. “Here and here.”

  “It’s maneuvering? Changing course?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then there must be a crew on board!”

  “Or a damned smart computer.”

  “But where is it heading? What’s its new course?”

  With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Stoner bent over the typewriter. Just as abruptly as it had started a few moments earlier, it stopped.

  “Well?”

  Stoner stared at the final row of figures. He didn’t need to check a reference table. He had memorized that set of numbers weeks earlier, because he had feared, or hoped, or maybe dreamed that they would show up to face him, inevitably.

  “Where is the bloody thing heading?” Cavendish demanded.

  “Here,” Stoner said.

  Cavendish’s mouth fell open. “Here,” he finally managed. “You mean Earth?”

  Stoner nodded. “It’s finished looking at Jupiter. Now it’s heading for Earth.”

  BOOK TWO

  * * *

  If the light of a thousand suns suddenly arose in the sky, that splendor might be compared to the radiance of the Supreme Spirit.

  BHAGAVAD-GITA 11:12

  * * *

  CHAPTER 18

  The General Secretary stared gloomily out the window of his limousine at the gray snowy morning.

  “You know,” he said in a low, heavy voice, “that I am dying.”

  Georgi Borodinski gasped. “Comrade Secretary! You mustn’t say such a thing.”

  The General Secretary turned awkwardly to face his aide. Both men were wrapped in heavy dark coats and fur hats, despite the limousine’s heating system.

  With a halfhearted grin, the General Secretary asked, “Why not? It is the truth.”

  “But still…”

  “You’re afraid the car is bugged. My prospective heirs might get a little overanxious and try to put me out of misery?” He laughed: a dry, rasping sound.

  Borodinski said nothing. By the standards of the Kremlin’s inner elite he was a youngish man, only slightly past fifty, his receding hair still dark, his flesh still firm. He had risen from the ranks of Party functionaries by steady hard work, unspectacular, uninspired, seemingly unambitious. But he had recognized his one chance for advancement twenty years earlier, and had attached himself with the dogged faithfulness of a loyal serf to the man who was now General Secretary of the Party and President of the Soviet Union.

  Now Borodinski stood on the verge of becoming General Secretary himself—if he could survive the struggle that would inevitably follow the death of his master.

  “Do you know why we are riding through the cold and snow, instead of staying warm and comfortable in my office?” asked the General Secretary.

  “I think I do,” Borodinski answered.

  Gesturing toward the driver on the other side of the bullet-proof glass partition, the Secretary explained, “A Tartar, from beyond Lake Baykal. He checks the car every day before I step into it. We are safe from eager ears.”

  “Yes.”

  “I must live like an ancient Roman Emperor, surrounded by my Palace Guard—all foreigners, barbarians, loyal to me personally and not to anyone or anything else. A fine state of affairs for the leader of a Marxist state, isn’t it?”

  “Every great leader has enemies, Comrade Secretary. Within as well as without.”

  The Secretary’s heavy brows inched upward. “But if everyone within the Kremlin is a good Marxist, why should I require such protection?”

  Borodinski saw where he was heading. “They are not all good Marxists. Even some in the Presidium and the Inner Council have their…failings.”

  The Secretary nodded grimly. “Now then,” he said, “about this latest offer from the American President…”

  Puzzled by the abrupt shift in their conversation, Borodinski blurted, “But what has that to do with…?”

  The General Secretary slapped the younger man’s knee and laughed heartily. “You don’t see it, eh? You still have a few things to learn about the art of ruling.”

  His laughter turned into a wheezing cough. Borodinski sat still, waves of sadness and fear washing through him. And impatience. But he sat unmoving as his master slowly won his struggle to breathe normally.

  “I was saying,” the General Secretary resumed, after wiping his lips and chin with a linen handkerchief, “the American President has made what appears to be another generous offer.”

  Borodinski nodded. “They’ve invited us to send a team of scientists to their base in the Pacific. Kwajalein Atoll, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” the Secretary said. “According to all available intelligence, the American offer seems genuine. Their President wants to use this—this alien spaceship—as a symbol to build stronger ties of co-operation between our two nations.”

  “Despite everything they’ve done over the past few years?”

  “Perhaps because of everything they’ve done over the past few years. They may have finally realized the futility of their so-called ‘get tough’ policies.”

  Borodinski considered that possibility for a moment, then asked, “Will you accept their offer?”

  Leaning closer to his aide, the Secretary asked, “What would you do?”

  It was a test, Borodinski realized, a test to see if he was fit to take over his master’s position. He fought down the fear rising in his throat and kept his long-simmering ambition deep within his heart.

  “There is strong opposition within the Presidium,” he said slowly. “The idea of co-operating with the capitalists can cause bitter resentment among our more conservative comrades.”

  “The same comrades who insisted that we march into Afghanistan,” the Secretary muttered, “without thinking about how difficult it is to march out again.”

  “They have caused us many difficulties, true,” said Borodinski.

  “And,” the General Secretary pointed out, “there is strong pressure within the Presidium that we accept the American offer.”

  Borodinski nodded and stroked his pointed, Lenin-style goatee. “I have learned that the United Nations is also interested in the American program. And they will certainly bring the Chinese in with them.”

  “Then we would be left out in the cold if we refused to co-operate, wouldn’t we?”

  “But if we do co-operate, it will infuriate some of the most powerful members of the Presidium. Not to mention the Red Army.”

  The General Secretary gave him a smirking grin. “A nice little problem, isn’t it? How would you handle it?”

  Borodinski sank into silent thought. The limousine drove on through the snowy gray silence of morning, well beyond the buildings and houses of sprawling Moscow, far beyond the range of rooftop directional microphones and laser snoopers that can record conversations from the vibrations that spoken words make on the windows of a moving automobile.

  Finally Borodinski said, “I think we have no alternative but to accept the American offer. Otherwise we will fall behind them and the others. They could obtain enormous amounts of information from this spaceship…” He had more to say, but the pleased expression on the General Secretary’s face told him it was time to stop talking.

  “A good, honest, straightforward decision.” The old man patted his knee. “Now allow me to give you a lesson in politics to go with it.”

  Borodinski sat up a little straighter.

  “I am a dying man, comrade. The doctors have confirmed it. Everyone in the Politburo and the Presidium knows it. This is a dangerous time for me—and for you.”

  Borodinski nodded, not trusting his voice to reply.

  The Secretary closed his eyes for a moment. Then, “You pointed out, quite correctly, that if we accept the Americans’ offer of co-operation it will infuriate some of our most conservative comrades. It might well enrage them to the poin
t where they might try to—well, hasten my demise.”

  “They’d never dare!”

  “Oh yes they would,” the Secretary assured him with a grim smile. “It wouldn’t be the first time a ruler in the Kremlin was hurried to his grave. And it hasn’t happened only to the Tsars, either.”

  Borodinski made his face look shocked.

  “But, comrade,” the Secretary went on, “suppose we prepare a little snare for these hotheads, a little trap to catch them in treasonable activities, eh? Then we can clear the Kremlin of the troublemakers and I can live out my remaining days in peace, knowing that I’m safe from traitors and assassins.”

  Borodinski stroked his pointed little beard again. “Then the decision to join the Americans in studying the alien spaceship…”

  “Is the bait for our trap, naturally.”

  “That’s…brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. No wonder you have been our leader for all these years.”

  The Secretary allowed himself a brief smile. “There is something else, as well.”

  “Yes?”

  “If we are to make contact with another race of intelligent creatures, I want it to be in my lifetime. In fact, it would be the crowning achievement of my career if the Soviet Union could make this contact alone, without the help of the West.”

  “But how…?”

  “This is what we shall do.” The General Secretary leaned closer to his aide, close enough so that Borodinski could smell the odor of medicine on the old man’s breath.

  “I am listening,” he said.

  “We will send a small team of scientists to this island. They will work with the Americans. Among them will be a few of our intelligence people, of course. Links to us. To me.”

  “I see. Of course.”

  “While the scientists study this spacecraft, we will be preparing one or more of our biggest rocket boosters for flights to meet this alien ship as it approaches us.”

  “Ahhh, now I see…”

  “Our scientists on Kwajalein will have the responsibility of keeping us fully informed. If and when the proper moment arrives, we will send cosmonauts to greet the alien ship.” He paused, took a deep, wheezing breath. “Or…”