“It won’t be easy to change your children physically so that they can live on a strange world. But it must be done. It is the only way. Be strong. Be brave. Good luck. And good-bye.”
The screen went dead.
For a long half-minute no one moved or spoke. Then one of the Councilmen coughed nervously, and they all turned in their seats, murmuring to each other. Dan remained standing by his chair, visibly trembling with emotion.
Larry said as gently as he could, “Is that what you call proof of murder?”
“What more proof do you need?” Dan blazed back. “He knew this would happen! He knew someone would try to subvert the whole voyage, push on to another star, get us all killed. He warned us.”
“But how does that prove he was murdered?” one of the women asked.
“Or that Dr. Loring’s accident wasn’t accidental?”
Glowering at them, Dan replied, “We all know that if my father were alive now, he’d be revived and we’d vote him Chairman.”
Larry said nothing.
“And we also know that Dr. Loring was looking for another planet around some other star. If he had found such a planet he’d be blathering it all over the ship. He said nothing, because he couldn’t find another Earthlike world. In fact, he must have found evidence for no planets, or hostile planets… because whoever tried to kill him erased his work from the computer memory so that we’d never know what he’d found.”
Larry pointed toward Dan and shouted out, “Or he might have found a new Earth somewhere, much better for us than the Centaurian planet, and his would-be murderer tried to keep us from finding that out!”
They glared at each other from opposite ends of the table, wordless for a moment.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Adrienne Kaufman said.
Larry took a deep, calming breath. “The truth of the matter is that there’s no evidence of murder, not of anyone at any time. All the deaths and near-deaths that we’ve had can be attributed to accidental causes. And anyone,” he stared right at Dan, “who insists on finding foul play behind every accident on this ship is running the risk of being thought insane.”
Dan stood there, shaking with rage, face flaming. Then he spun around and stamped out of the Council room.
Larry turned to the chief meditech, who was sitting halfway down the table.
“I want him in the infirmary immediately. And I want him checked out even if you have to strap him down. We can’t have a madman running loose aboard this ship!”
Because if he is insane, Larry said to himself, maybe he is a murderer!
8
The cryonics room felt like gray November to Larry.
He had never known Earthly seasons, except through poetry and the videotapes he had watched during his school years. But here in the stark, cold, silent area where the frozen members of the ship’s people slept away the years, he shivered with the incipient chill of winter.
The cryonics sections took up two full levels of the ship. The big compartments, called bays, were filled with row after row of massive covered couches, like the granite sarcophagi of ancient Egyptian pharaohs. But these coffins were for the living, not the dead; and they were made of stainless steel and plastic and honeycombed with tubes that carried liquid helium at 4.2 degrees above absolute zero. Instead of elaborate carved hieroglyphics, the cryogenic couches bore dials and gauges, automatic read-out viewers that showed the condition of the sleeper inside. Alive. Frozen, unmoving, unbreathing, silent and still for year after year. But alive.
Larry had never been frozen. The prospect bothered him somehow. It was too much like death.
The entire cryonics bay was like death, like winter; cold, lonely, silent. His breath hung in misty clouds before his face, and he felt chilled to the marrow despite the electric jacket he wore over his coveralls. The glareless lights overhead made everything look even flatter, grayer. The softly padded flooring muffled even the sounds of his footsteps.
Dr. Hsai was already there, Larry saw. The oriental psychotech was waiting for him, several rows up ahead. Larry quickened his pace.
“This is a strange place for a meeting,” Dr. Hsai said as Larry came up to him. He seemed more curious than upset.
“I wanted to talk with you privately,” Larry explained. “This is one of the few places aboard ship where we can be sure of no interruptions or eavesdroppers.”
The psychotech’s thin eyebrows arched upward, “Ahh…just what was it that you wanted to discuss?” If he felt cold, Hsai wasn’t showing it.
“I understand that you want to release Dan Christopher.”
Hsai bobbed his head once. “There is no excuse for keeping him in the infirmary. He has been there for almost a month now. I have seen him every day. There is no evidence of mental abnormality—nor should we expect to find any, under these circumstances.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. Christopher is not suffering from a physically caused abnormality. He is not schizoid, which is the result of molecular imbalances in the nervous system. Nor does he have any brain lesions, nor any other physically connected disease.”
“But…”
Dr. Hsai raised a slim, long-fingered hand. “Please. Allow me to continue. His problems are strictly emotional. Under the controlled conditions of the infirmary, this type of problem doesn’t come to the surface.”
Larry felt himself frowning. “But you can probe his mind … analyze what he’s saying and thinking… his dreams and tests…”
“Alas,” said Dr. Hsai, “I am only a psychotechnician, not a psychiatrist. Our only psychiatrist died in the epidemic a few years ago, you recall; the other two are here, in cryosleep.”
“But can’t you tell…”
“I can tell you that there is no physical reason for abnormal behavior in Mr. Christopher’s case. His behavior in the infirmary was, at first, very hostile and suspicious. He was angry at being… as he put it, ‘arrested and jailed.’ But he adjusted to the situation within a week or so, and has been behaving very calmly ever since.”
Larry muttered, “And there haven’t been any accidents during the past month, either.”
…Dr. Hsai shrugged. “Either there is nothing wrong with him at all, or…”
“Or?”
“Or he is clever enough to hide his emotions from me, and he’s waiting until he’s released to work out his hostilities.”
“Can someone be… well, can he act normal and still be…”
“Neurotic? Psychotic? Insane?” Dr. Hsai smiled sadly. “Oh, yes. The paranoids, in particular, can behave very normally… until they’re placed in a certain stress situation. Then their psychosis shows up.”
Larry shuddered, only partly from the cold. “What can we do?”
“It’s doing no good to keep him in the infirmary. Frankly, he has every right to be released and resume his duties.”
“But if we do, we run the risk of his going amok … causing more ‘accidents.’ ”
Softly, Dr. Hsai said, “My own opinion is that there’s nothing wrong with the young man, except anger and frustration. He feels the loss of his father very deeply; but even more deeply, he feels the loss of his expected position as Chairman and the loss of his chosen girl.”
“In other words, he’s sore as hell at me.”
“Exactly.”
“And he’ll do whatever he can to get Valery back, and get himself elected Chairman.”