“That means…they’ve been dead for a long time.”
“You could say that.”
“Oh, Christ,” Kelvin whispered. “What a stupid, pointless way to go. It’s as if they’d never lived.”
“Not quite,” Surgenor said. It had just occurred to him that Sergeant McErlain’s wish to help seed a world with new life might have been granted—literally. He did not know enough biology to let him be sure, but it seemed possible that—given, say, a hundred million years—the teeming organisms of a human body could thrive and spread right through a receptive environment, and then begin to evolve. After all, Saladin had produced an intelligent life form…
The scope of the speculation was too great for Surgenor in his shocked condition, but in another mental level he had an illogical flicker of hope that, somehow, the Saladinians would learn what McErlain had done for a member of their race. If that happened, they might just have the beginnings of the basis for a working relationship.
Kelvin sighed tiredly in the darkness. “It’s time we got off this planet anyway.”
Surgenor turned his gaze towards the sky. He could imagine himself back on board the Sarafand—travelling far and fast—but the after-image of the bright circle persisted in his vision for a long, long time, like an insubstantial sun.
McErlain stirred feebly in the dimness of the cave. He tried to call out, but the congestion in his lungs had grown so great that he produced only a faint, dry rattle. The small grey figure at the mouth of the cave did not move, but continued to stare patiently outwards at the rain-soaked banks of foliage. There was no way, even after all the years, of knowing if she heard him or not. He lay back and, as the fever intensified its hold, tried to reconcile himself to dying.
Summing it all up—he had been fortunate. The Saladinian woman had remained as uncommunicative as only an alien member of an alien race could do, but she had stayed with him, accepted his aid. He could swear he had seen something like gratitude in her eyes when he had helped her through the difficult period of the birth and her subsequent illness. That had been good for him.
Then there had been the times when he in turn lay ill; poisoned as a result of trying the wrong fruit or plants or seeds in his quest to find food suitable for her and the children. At those times, he fancied, she had never been far from his side.
Most gratifying of all was the fact that the Saladinian women and her kind were very fertile. The offspring of that first quadruple birth were young adults now, and had produced many more children. As he had watched them multiply, the cancer of guilt which had been devouring him since the Georgetown incident had ceased to dominate his life. It was still there, of course, but he had learned to forget it for hours on end.
If only he had been able to teach the children his own language, to drive one idea through the logic-structure barrier, things would have been better—but there was a limit to what a man could ask. He was a thirty-year man, McErlain decided as the conscious world tilted ponderously away from him, and it was enough that he had been given the chance to put his record straight…
Late that evening, as the sun’s light was fleeing through the trees, the Family gathered around the bed on which McErlain’s body lay. They stood in silence while the Mother laid one hand on the dewed, icy brow.
This being is dead, she told them silently. And now that our debt to him is paid, and his need for us has ended, we shall travel to the great home-time of our own people. The children and adults joined hands. And the Family vanished.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Surgenor was not a superstitious man, nor did he believe in luck—good or bad—but his years in the Cartographical Service had convinced him of the reality of what he called jackpot trips. These were missions on which the law of averages caught up with the Sarafand and its crew members. On a jackpot trip, blind chance—like a worker who has gone to sleep on the job and is belatedly trying to make up a quota—would cram all the incidents and mishaps which had been notably absent from a dozen previous sorties.
As defined by Surgenor, a jackpot trip could not be predicted in advance, but during the preparations for Survey 837/LM/4002a his instincts were curiously aroused.
The first trigger stimulus was the discovery that part of Aesop’s memory, in a section of the astrogation data bank, had unaccountably decayed and needed to be replaced. A team of specialists from a newly registered contractor, Starfinders Incorporated, carried out the necessary substitutions and tests in only two days. The Service’s own maintenance organization would have taken three times as long to perform an operation of similar scope, and Surgenor, who distrusted commercially motivated celerity in matters which concerned his own wellbeing, made his views known throughout the sector transit station.
“All it proves is that our maintenance people spend a lot of time playing cards,” Marc Lamereux assured him. “It’s the same with any big Government outfit—contractors always work faster because they have to be more efficient to show a profit.”
“I still don’t like it.” Surgenor traced a design on the foggy prism of his lager glass and stared bleakly along the swimming pool where several men were playing ball. He had been living at the transit hotel on Delos for ten days and, as usual, was becoming restless.
“There was nothing to the job anyway,” Lamereux said with a peaceful expression on his dark countenance. “Pull out a few equipment trays and shove in replacements. Two hours should be enough, let alone two days.”
“Listen to the intrepid astronaut,” Surgenor gibed, taking refuge in childishness. “I seem to remember that you’re the character who once signed a complaint about the texture of some beefburgers.”
“It was a knitted steak—and I could easily have choked to death that time.” Lamereux scowled, but only momentarily. “Anyway, I’ve made up my mind to stop fretting about crew safety.”
“You’ve got religion.”
“No—my transfer.” Lamereux produced a printed green slip from his pocket. “I’ve hooked that public relations job I’ve been trying for back on Earth. Shipping home tomorrow.”
“Congratulations.” Surgenor suddenly realized that ever since Lamereux had joined him at the pool ten minutes earlier he had been trying to engineer a suitably dramatic opening for his announcement. “Hey, Marc! That’s great! I hate to see you go after all our time together, but I know you’re ready for a change.”
“Thanks, Dave.” Lamereux sipped his own lager. “Five years, it’s been. Five years on the edge of the Bubble. It’s been a long time—but that’s what helped me get the job.”
Five years is a long time in this job, Surgenor thought. And I’ve been riding on the edge of the Bubble for almost twenty years. The continued expansion of the spherical volume of space which men had explored and charted was placing an ever-increasing strain on the Cartographical Service’s resources. That was why the survey missions were getting longer, and why men like him—who lacked the sense to retire—were being allowed to grow old in harness. It was also why the big ships were being kept in service long past their designed lifetimes. The trouble was that plug-in components were available for the ships, but not for their crews, and that he—Dave Surgenor—was bound to be wearing out and becoming obsolete every bit as fast as Captain Aesop.
“…some realism into the recruiting campaigns,” Lamereux was saying. “It won’t matter about pulling in less bodies if we can pare down the drop-out rate.”