Collected Short Fiction, page 167
“How come you’re awake?” Leslie asked, puzzled.
“I’m the new watchman. I was just about to ask you the same question, Holden.”
“You’re the new watchman? But—”
“Don’t believe him, Holden!” The weak voice was that of Captain Ronholm. The old man rolled over and sat up, wiping blood from his battered forehead. “You’re the watchman, Holden—my successor. Somehow Leslie woke up also, and I found him killing Davis. He hit me and—”
“Quiet!” Leslie snapped. “It’s a lie, you old fool! You’re the one who opened that chamber!”
“I’m inclined to doubt that,” Holden said quietly. “It’s Captain Ronholm’s word against yours, and your story doesn’t stack up. If he wanted to kill us all, why did he wait until the day the new watchman was supposed to awaken? He had four months to do it undetected. He—”
“He went psycho waiting,” Leslie said. “The old man’s out of his mind! Can’t you see that?”
“No,” Holden said. He turned away and started walking toward a booth in the center of the Suspension Hold.
“Where are you going?” Leslie asked. His half-shout echoed weirdly in the giant room.
“I’m going to wake the entire ship. We’ll have to put this matter to a trial, Leslie.”
He reached for the lever that would awaken all eighty-two sleepers.
“GET AWAY FROM THERE, Holden,” Jair Leslie said menacingly. “Don’t pull that thing.”
“Why not?”
“Because I say so!” And Leslie sprang.
His thick, long-armed body smashed into Holden, knocking him away from the lever. In self-defense, Holden brought his knotted hands down on Leslie’s balding head, jarring the smaller man. Leslie shook off the blow and smashed a fist into Holden’s stomach. While Holden fought to recover his wind, Leslie grabbed him by one arm and swung him away from the lever, out toward the middle of the deck.
There, Holden broke loose and stepped back.
“I don’t know what your game is, Leslie, but you won’t get away with it.”
Leslie chuckled. “You can’t stop me, Holden. No one can! If I can fool the cybe machines, I can beat you and all the rest of these idiots.” He spat scornfully and circled Holden, ready to resume the fight.
Holden edged forward and landed a solid right, but Leslie countered by clubbing down on the back of Holden’s neck with the side of his fist. Holden staggered dizzily and tried to recover his balance, but his reflexes were still poor and he slipped to the ground. He waited for Leslie to administer the knockout blow, but to his surprise it never came. There was only the sound of laughter and bare feet running over the deck.
“Come back here!” Holden yelled.
Leslie laughed derisively. “Come find me,” he called, and vanished into the dim recesses of the giant starship’s upper levels. Holden leaned against the wall for a few seconds, recovering his strength.
That was like Leslie, all right—to kill a sleeping man, club down the old captain, then run away as soon as he got into an evenly-matched fight. Holden stared bitterly at the doorway through which the saboteur had vanished. Then he heard a groan from behind him, and remembered the fallen form of old Captain Ronholm.
Ronholm’s scalp was still bleeding, and he was barely conscious. Holden knelt and examined him. He was no medic, but it wasn’t hard to tell that the old captain’s skull was fractured. Nearby lay the length of metal pipe with which Leslie had struck down the old man and opened the animation chamber of the dead crewman.
“Did he get away?” Ronholm murmured.
“He ran like a scared rat,” said Holden. “He had me beaten, but he was too yellow to stop and look. As soon as he knocked me down, he ran.”
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere in the upper levels. We’ll hunt him down as soon as you’re taken care of.”
“Forget about me,” Ronholm said. “I won’t last long. Get him before he can do any damage to the ship.” The old man sighed. “I suspected him all along, but I couldn’t prove it. I knew—” Suddenly Ronholm’s eyes closed. Holden touched the old captain lightly on the shoulder, then shook his head. Ronholm was dead. That made two victims of Leslie’s villainy already.
Ronholm had suspected him? Of what? And how had Leslie managed to awaken? The cybe controllers were pre-set to awaken only one crewman at a time—yet they had awakened both Leslie and Holden. Why?
And where was Leslie now? What evil was he planning?
Holden shook his head slowly and looked down at the body of the dead captain. This was too big a thing for him to handle alone. He walked back to the control booth in the center of the Suspension Hold and, after a moment’s hesitation, pulled the switch that would bring the entire crew of the Altair to life.
Slowly, reluctantly, the crew of the Altair began to awaken.
Holden watched as eighty-two animation chambers rolled open in response to the servo-mechanism he had activated; eighty-two hypodermics of adrenalin plunged into eighty-two hearts, and eighty-two naked men and women climbed bewilderedly from the womblike security of their animation chambers into the uncertainty that faced them.
“Where’s the watchman?” someone asked.
“Why were we awakened?”
“Did something happen to the ship?”
Holden cupped his hands and shouted, “I’m the watchman! Listen to me!”
The members of the crew, still dazed and not fully awake, gathered slowly around him. Holden told them what had happened—how he had discovered Leslie in the act of breaking open an animation chamber, of their struggle, of the deaths of Davis and Captain Ronholm.
“As watchman, I’m in charge,” Holden said. “And since the captain’s dead, I’ll remain in charge. I’ve awakened all of you because it’s necessary to track down this madman before he can do serious damage to the ship.”
“How far out are we?” someone asked.
“Ten years. Not quite half-way.”
“And just how did Leslie and you both awaken?” asked a cybernetics technician. “The cybe controllers are set to wake one watchman at a time.”
“I know,” Holden said. “But he said something about having fooled the cybes. I suspect he tampered with them before takeoff, arranged to be awakened out of turn once we were a good distance from Earth. It was just his bad luck that he picked the day I was set to wake and become watchman.”
He gestured toward the two bodies at the far end of the Suspension Hold. “Time’s wasting,” he said. “Kennedy, Lawrence, and Bronston, and Stein, come with me and we’ll give the Captain and Davis space burial. And as for the rest of you—” he pointed to Henry Larsen, assistant navigator—“Hank, divide them up into search-parties and start fine-combing this ship. We’ve got to find Leslie—right away!”
THE BODIES OF DAVIS and Ronholm were committed to space in a short, efficient ceremony. Holden turned to the four men who had assisted him, after the airlock was closed on the two bodies.
“That’s that,” he said. “Let’s go find Larsen and get assignments for the searching parties.”
“Why do you think Leslie did what he did?” asked Kennedy, the cybernetics technician. “Just psycho?”
“I don’t know,” replied Holden. “Captain Ronholm said something about suspecting him—as if Leslie had been planning to do something all along.”
“The Captain didn’t tell you anything else?”
Holden shook his head. “He started to, but he died before he could get it out.” They re-entered the Suspension Hold, where two men and a woman stood guard.
“Any word about Leslie?” Holden asked.
“The last we heard, Larsen had blanketed the ship without finding him,” said the girl. She was Judy Foster, a biologist. Holden had dated her two or three times during pre-indoctrination, and he felt oddly relieved that she had remained here on guard instead of going with the searching parties. There was no telling what Leslie might do or where he could be found.
Holden reached for the ship’s intercom. “Larsen?” he said. “Hank, this is Holden.”
“Hello, Rex,” came the reply after a few moments. “No, we haven’t found him yet. I’ve got twenty people on each level, going through the ship systematically. There’s no sign of Leslie. None at all.”
Holden frowned. “Okay,” he said. “Keep looking, I guess.”
“You don’t think he went completely psycho and jumped out the airlock, do you?”
“It isn’t much like him,” Holden said. “Keep looking, Hank.”
“Right.”
Holden put down the intercom and looked around the Hold. There were still too many unanswered questions, he thought. He didn’t have enough information to act on.
Judy Foster walked over to him. “You looked puzzled, Rex. What’s on your mind?”
“This whole business. I have the feeling I only know a fraction of the story. If only Captain Ronholm were—”
“He’s dead now,” Judy Foster reminded him.
“I know.”
Then Kennedy got an idea. “Hey, Rex! I just remembered—there’s a top-secret section in the information banks of the cybe controllers, for use only in emergency. Maybe there’s something in there you ought to know.”
“Maybe there is,” Holden said. “Take me there, will you?”
THE CYBERNETIC Controllers of the ship occupied one enormous room on the Second Level. Holden stood in the middle of the room, feeling dwarfed by the immensity of the mechanical mind all around. Computers hummed and sang as they governed the motion of the ship, the balance of the atmosphere, the billion other details.
“Okay,” Holden said. “Find me this classified info, will you?”
The cybe technician’s fingers played oyer the console of the information banks. “Want it on vocal?”
Holden nodded.
“The following information is for use of the captain of this ship only, or, in the event of his death or incapacitation, his duly qualified successor.”
“I am the acting captain,” Holden told the giant brain.
Scanners clicked as the information was digested. Then: “Approved.”
“Okay,” Holden said to Kennedy. “Feed me the whole Classified Info bank.”
“Coming up,” the technician said.
The controller proceeded to disgorge a vast supply of information obviously intended for the captain’s ears alone—information about managing the ship, handling the landing, controlling the crew members after the colony on Sirius was established. He noted it all carefully; now that Ronholm was dead, he would have to engrave these things on his mind. But he still wasn’t getting the information he wanted.
Finally: “The Captain should also be aware of the existence and possible presence aboard his ship of members of an underground organization dedicated to the proposition that man must not colonize other worlds. Although this organization is known to exist, its leaders have not yet been apprehended, and in the interest of world security all information about it has been kept from the public. The members of your own crew will not be aware of the existence of this group, nor should they be told of it. “The—”
Suddenly, the intercom beeped. “Okay, shut it off,” Holden said. “Dammit, that’s what we needed to know!” He grabbed for the intercom.
Hank Larsen’s voice said. “Rex, we’ve just received word from Leslie.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s holed up in the drive unit, with the entrances completely sealed off. He orders us to turn the ship back toward Earth and return to sleep or he’ll wreck the drive.”
“Tell him we’re considering his order,” Holden said. He glanced at the waiting cybernetic technician. “They’ve found Leslie,” he said. “He’s a member of that secret group, all right.”
“What do we do now?”
“I’m not sure,” Holden said. “But I’ve got a sort of an idea that may work.”
THE ENTIRE CREW was assembled in the Suspension Hold when Holden and Kennedy returned.
Larsen came up to him. “I didn’t see any point in continuing the search, so I called everyone back here.”
“Okay, Hank. Good work, even if you couldn’t rout him out.”
“How are we going to find him now?”
“Are we going to turn back?” someone else asked. “If we go to sleep, he’ll only kill us all anyway!”
Holden nodded. “It’s a tight situation. Leslie’s a fanatic—a member of a secret group so hush-hush that not even we’re supposed to know about it, for fear it’ll give space colonization a black eye. I just got the word from the info banks.”
“What’s this?” Larsen asked.
“An underground movement designed to blot out the star colonies,” Holden said. “They work their way on board starships and gimmick the cybes so they’ll wake up in mid-voyage. Then they just go down the row of chambers, killing everyone. Very efficient and very insane. It was just luck that Leslie timed his awakening badly.”
“So now he’s changed plans and is going to wreck the drive instead,” Larsen said. “We’re just as bad off as if he’d broken open our chambers.”
“No we’re not,” said Holden. “We’re still alive, as of now. And I think we can still flush him out of there.”
“How?”
Holden ignored the question. “I want a radio operator,” he said. “I’ve got a subspace call to make.”
Two hours later, Holden stood outside the massive duralloy doors of the drive unit. They were closed, tight closed, so that even a microbe would have trouble getting through. They couldn’t be opened from the outside at all. And they were built securely, to shield the ship from radiation in the event of a pile blowup.
Right now, Jair Leslie was crouching somewhere behind those doors, waiting for the answer to his ultimatum. He had given the Altair crew three hours to return to their chambers and re-enter suspended animation. Two of those hours remained.
Sweat poured down Holden’s face. He lifted the handmike to his lips and said, “Leslie? Leslie, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you all right, Holden. You have an answer for me yet?”
“Let me in, Leslie! Open the doors!”
Leslie chuckled savagely. “You really must think I’m crazy, Holden. I’m not opening these doors until you’re all safely back in dreamland.”
“You’d better open up,” Holden said. He paused, then added, “Sunflower!”
“What?” Leslie’s tones reflected utter astonishment.
“You heard me. Sunflower. Do I have to say more?”
“Who are you?” Leslie asked. “How much identification do I need?”
“But—but—you, Holden?”
“Me. There are two of us aboard this ship.” Holden chuckled. “We’re so damned secret we fool each other. Only I’ve got orders that countermand yours. This ship is supposed to get through to Sirius—and we destroy it there!”
“How can I trust you, Holden?” Leslie asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Look here,” Holden said impatiently. “I’ve already given adequate identification. But suppose I add that the name of our leader is Jak Henrix, and that the headquarters are in a tunnel under Chicago, and that—”
“All right,” said Leslie. “It’s incredible, but I’ll have to accept that. No outsider could possibly know what you’ve just told me.” There was the sound of relays turning over, and then the ponderous doors swung open. Holden stepped in.
Leslie was sitting against a pylon, arms folded, holding the microphone.
“Sunflower,” Holden said.
“Zeus,” Leslie responded. He got up and crossed the floor toward Holden, smiling. “It’s hard to believe that you’re one of us, Rex. But—”
And then Holden hit him.
His fist ripped into Leslie’s jaw, snapping his head back. Holden saw the look of open-faced astonishment on Leslie’s face, the accusation of betrayal. Following up his advantage, Holden smashed Leslie to his knees with a right cross, then caught him by the throat, lifted him up, and hit him again. Leslie murmured something indistinctly and started to sag. Holden hit him again, just once, and the fanatic stretched out full length on the floor.
HOLDEN REACHED for the intercom. “All right, Hank—bring a couple of men and come on in.”
A few moments later, Larsen, Judy Foster, Kennedy, and two or three other crewmen entered. “There he is,” Holden said. “Take him upstairs and put him in a deep freeze—and make sure there’s no way he’ll be able to get out of his chamber until we reach Sirius. We can figure out a punishment for him then.”
“But—how did you get him to open up?” Larsen asked wonderingly.
Holden smiled. “The essential nature of a top-secret conspiracy is one that involves passwords—and when it’s as top-secret as this one, you’ve got to trust anyone with the right password implicitly, or else not trust anyone. So I threw some key information at Leslie, and he let me in.”
“I don’t understand,” Judy Foster said. “Where’d you get the password? Are you—”
“A member of the conspiracy? Hardly,” Holden said. “But you have to remember that it’s ten years since we left Earth, even if it only seems like a few hours for most of you. Leslie’s little gang of conspirators couldn’t stay secret forever. I called Earth via subradio, and they told me. what I wanted to hear. The conspiracy was smashed four years ago. Someone high-up spilled the beans.”
“And they gave you all the information you needed,” Judy said.
Holden nodded. “Passwords, leaders, all of it. Leslie swallowed it faithfully.”
Larsen returned. “He’s in deep freeze, Rex. Pickled well enough to stay under till we hit Sirius, at least.”
“Good. And now, I suggest you and the others get back to sleep. There’s fifteen years before we hit Sirius, you know.”
Larsen said, “I’ll spread the word.”.
“Oh—one other thing.” Holden added. He turned to Kennedy. “I’d like you to recompute the cybe controller’s schedule for the watchmen. For the rest of the voyage, I think it’s best if we have two crewmen awake at all times, instead of one.”
