"All of us," Joshua replied. "The youngest woman to come aboard was already long past childbearing age. We are all of the long before."
Floating up out of his chair, he gently pushed off to ward the doorway and beckoned for Ian to follow.
They passed out of the docking and reception areas and finally entered the main living area of the sphere.
The smell of antiseptic was overwhelming, and with it that faint, unpleasant scent Ian could not quite place. There was a silence to the colony, as if they were in the realm of the dead.
Occasional white-robed figures would float by, and some would nod a greeting to Joshua. Ian soon noticed that very few of the ghostlike people displayed what he thought should be a natural curiosity over a stranger. The colony's inhabitants drifted by as if lost in a dream.
Joshua finally led the way out of the free-float envi ronment, and, boarding an elevator, they rode down to the one-third-gravity level at the base of the sphere.
Joshua walked with obvious discomfort and unstea diness. This section was almost entirely empty. They slowly walked along a white corridor that looked to Ian to be typical of some early hospital ward.
"Where is everyone?" Ian asked. "I haven't seen any one since we've come down."
"I'll show you," Joshua replied as they came to a dou ble door that opened silently at their approach.
Ian felt a sudden uneasy compulsion. He wanted to break away from this skeletal figure and run. Run out of the hospital with its nightmarish feel of infirmity and death.
He saw Richard, Ellen, and Shelley standing on the other side of the door, the three of them obviously sub dued.
" Ahh, your friends," Joshua said softly. "Dr. Croce, I hope you've found our technology to be of some interest."
Richard nodded slowly but was silent. lan's eyes gradually adjusted to the low level of blue lighting, and he recoiled with horror. The nightmare flashed back for a second and he wanted to scream.
They were standing in a long corridor that curved up ward and away, and he suddenly realized that this hallway completely circled the ship. And it was packed with bod ies.
They were suspended from the ceiling, each one wrapped in a see-through sarcophagus; each sarcophagus was linked with several tubes and monitors to a biosensor.
"Here is our sleep," Joshua whispered, as if afraid that too loud a voice might awaken the sleepers.
"When something finally strikes us that we cannot cure, we take the hormonal injections that trigger our hiber nation. Thus we shall ride out the millennium until at last the cures are found, until rejuvenation itself can be re created, until even we can be made young again."
Ian walked away from Joshua. And stared off aim lessly. The bodies hung around him on either side. All of them old, old and shriveled, yet still alive in their endless sleep journey. To each was affixed a data card, and he quickly scanned some.
JOHN KEENE b. 5-3-1965 HIB. 7-11-2238. ALZHEIMERS, RECURRING
MALIGNANCY.
ANDREW BARRY b. 7-17-1964 HIB. 8-1-2718. INSANITY.
WILLIAM WEBSTER b. 8-18-1945 HIB. 4-4-2110. INSANITY.
Ian looked back at Joshua. All of them born a hundred years before the Holocaust! In their minds were locked the memories. And such memories- memories of a grand and heroic age that he thought was lost. How they must have felt to have been part of the great epic. How they must have been enthralled. But as he looked back at them he also felt a growing sense of uneasiness. And Joshua stood quiet. Watching.
"How many like this?" Ian asked.
"As of yesterday's accounting, 28,455."
Ian turned and started to walk down the corridor, casually glancing at each nameplate.
INSANITY ALZHEIMERS ATTEMPTED SUICIDE SENILITY INSANITY
"What is happening here?" Ian whispered, as if to himself.
"You know," Joshua said, coming up alongside of Ian, "there are only one thousand fifty of us left-those that are still awake. I find it strange somehow to think of it. We have turned ourselves into a company of sleepers. We have cheated death and will continue to cheat him across all eternity, as we fly through the night-forever running. But eternity itself is a trap. We have cheated it. But still it exacts its price."
Ian found he could not look into his eyes. Joshua floated before him, that distant enigmatic smile still on his face.
"Of all the places I have visited or shall visit, this is the one I shall come back to," Ian said.
Joshua nodded.
"You have gazed at man-made eternity," Joshua re plied. "And Ian Lacklin the historian only wishes to visit so that he can look into the past."
Ian did not reply, for what Joshua said was true. If this was the potential of living across the millennium, then he would indeed prefer death. And in that thought Ian Lack lin started to discover something else, as well. All his life he had been a coward. In fact, at times he felt rather proud of his cowardliness and viewed it simply as the proper reaction of any intellectual. But he saw a deeper fear haunting Joshua. A fear of death so all-consuming that life in a mausoleum was thought by him to be preferable. Ian felt that he would never again fear death in quite the same way, having seen what the extreme could bring.
Joshua seemed bowed down, as if the weight of ages was oppressing him. And with that weight had come the loss of all vitality, all life-so that he was nothing but a husk, floating through the motions of living.
"I'll be back, Joshua, and we can spend long days talking, talking of all that you once saw."
"All that I once saw," Joshua said as if echoing his words.
"I've loaded our ship's memory right to capacity with your records, thank you for helping me with that. I know Richard will be fascinated with your medical data, and I can't begin to tell you how your early data library will help my research. Thank you again."
"You're welcome," Joshua replied, his voice barely audible. He seemed to be staring off into the distance, as if looking beyond to something Ian knew he could not see.
"I might not be awake when you return, Ian Lacklin. Just our talking for the last ten days has conjured up so many memories better left undisturbed. And each memory is a weight, a heavy chain dragging me down into a swirling circle of despair that I cannot escape. I may not be awake then when you return, and if not, come and visit me in the corridor of sleep and say hello, Ian Lacklin. Say hello to one who shall outlive you into eternity."
Chapter 8
Looking at the aft viewscreen, he could still see Josh ua's unit, a small sphere of light suspended in the cross hairs of the high-magnification scanner. Ian finally turned his gaze away from the screen and looked over to Richard and smiled.
"Are we going to float out here forever?" Richard asked quietly, while offering a flask of gin. Ian nodded his ap proval and the flask floated across to his outstretched hand. Just as he started to take a pull on the straw, the doorway slid open and Ellen drifted through the hatch into the storage compartment that all knew was lan's se cret hiding place.
"So much for my sanctum sanctorum," Ian muttered.
Ellen settled down by his side and extended her hand to the flask.
"Good gods"-Richard gasped-"is this a sign that our beloved group psychologist is cracking up, running amok, and all that?"
"Shut up," she muttered in reply.
"And so touchy! Truly this is too much."
"Look, Croce, I knew Ian was in here trying to decide, and I thought I'd join him."
"Well, what do you think I should do?" Ian asked.
"I feel the same way you do," Ellen replied. "I'm torn. Our ship's memory banks are filled to capacity. I've got enough forms filled out to last me through half a dozen publications, and most of all I'm just sick. Especially after that one." She gestured toward the screen.