Sanctuary in The Sky (11 page)

XIX

The automatic
assumption was: “So that’s where he must be!” For the PA system was centrally controlled from a cabin in the section which the Glaithes had chosen for their own
administrative offices when they were partitioning Waystation —chosen for just that reason, that it included most of the essential services.

The reaction was equally automatic, in light of what Lang had achieved already. “He probably doesn’t have to be there physically!” Indie voiced the first; Raige the second.

But they went there regardless as soon as the elevator reached the level, at a run, and not sparing the mental energy to notice that the Glaithe section was suddenly still, as the Cathrodyne section had been when the Majkos walked in bent on revenge.

It was almost a shock to find that Lang
was
there, seated comfortably in a chair before the master communicator panels, with Sunny on his lap. The animal gave them a curious glance as they rushed in.

For a few moments they confronted one another in silence. Then Lang moved, turning his chair to face them, and spoke almost affably.

“I thought that was a quick way of bringing you here,” he said.

“What
are you trying to do, Lang?” said Raige. Her hands opened and clenched as though she were trying to master an ungovernable anger. “Have you any idea of what you’ve done to Waystation? Have you heard that the Lubarrians have lynched their chaplain? That the Pags have turned loose their males in the Alchmid section? That the Majkos are contemplating tearing the Cathrodynes to bits? What are you doing this for?”

She ended on a note that was almost tearful, pleading for there to be some rational answer. Lang looked her up and down thoughtfully.

“I’ve stopped all that,” he said after a pause.

“You’ve what?”

“I’ve stopped it. Only some Glaithe staff are still awake —and some few people in the Cathrodyne section who have already recovered from their coma. It took me a little while to adjust the commands to their particular personality types; the Pag males were the most difficult of all, because they hardly think rationally.”

“You . . .” began Indie, and had to stop to swallow painfully. It was Vykor, taking a pace forward with his face pale so that the bruise stood out on his forehead, who uttered the important questions.

“Who are you, Lang? And what do you want here?”

“I am one of the people who built Waystation,” said Lang. “And I came here to take back what rightly belongs to us.”

The words died away in the cabin, but they seemed to echo in the minds of each of his listeners, throbbing, like heartbeats when the head is stretched drum-skin tight by fever.

“But—" said Raige faintly after a long silence, and Lang cut her short with sudden severity.

“There is no
but.
I came prepared to see and listen and investigate, with an open mind. I came prepared to live out my role as an ordinary tourist, inquisitively visiting one of the greatest wonders and mysteries of the locality. I have traveled a very long way. Sometimes I managed to continue on regular shipping lines; sometimes I had to buy a spaceship and fly it myself across a gap in the trail. I was following the route that Waystation took, before it became merely Waystation and was still as it was originally: one of the greatest interstellar vessels ever built.”

Raige was nodding slowly.

“But . . . then it was true that you’d never seen Waystation before,” she said.

“Quite true. But I had seen pictures, and read specifications. We have a long history on my world, the longest in the whole galaxy, because it was on my world that man began his journey.”

Vykor shivered suddenly, as though the room in which he stood had suddenly opened to reveal the entire majesty of the universe of stars.

“Oh, miracle!” said Raige with a sudden gusty breath. And as one they all three bent their heads in reverence.

“And yet,” said Indie musingly, as to himself, “though this sounds well . . .” He raised his head again sharply and gave Lang a defiant stare.

“Give proof!” he demanded.

“I have already given it. How, in your view, should anyone know of the secrets Waystation holds unless he is of the people who built it? I stopped the rioting as I stopped the Cathrodynes interfering with my escape from their section, and as I have stopped others from coming into this room since you.”

“What?” Raige swung round and went to the door which Vykor had closed behind him. She thrust aside the sliding panel, and gave a gasp. A Glaithe lay there unconscious on the floor of the passage; another, a few feet beyond him.

“This was the means employed to compress journeys that became unbearably tedious even at speeds many times faster than light,” said Lang shortly. “It is a means of slowing down subjective time—there are rhythms which can be radically altered in the nervous and hormonic systems of the body. It is a small thing, but a valuable tool at times.”

“And how have you achieved all this?" Raige whispered. “How did you enter our private quarters so easily? How did you. enter the memory bank halls without being stopped by our guards? How did you escape pursuit without leaving Waystation?”

As answer, Lang lifted up the pet animal in his lap. “My key,” he said simply.

“How?” They all looked blank.

“Why, it is simple. Sunny was bred to serve as a biochemical analogue of this ship. He is a living radio transceiver, a computer input has been trained into his brain, and while he is here everything he sees, hears, or feels is also perceived by the master memory banks. And they, of course, are far more than just a store of information; the sections which you mistakenly assumed to have been garbled contained the master plan which formerly controlled the ship.”

“Then the—information was all still there? It wasn’t distorted, and we just misunderstood it?” Raige asked.

“Almost all of it is intact. I investigated. But one very important circuit indeed has really been upset—the one which has given me the trouble of coming all the way here to get the ship back.

“You see, when this ship was launched it flew very fast beyond the then limit of human colonization. We met very
few other oxygen-breathing races, and we had hoped to meet alien intelligences with whom we could co-operate. Our own views were, we felt, becoming set, predictable, reactionary— in a word,
dull.
And we feared that dullness might be the prelude to decadence, decay,
death.

"We needed a new stimulus, at all costs. We could not find an alien race to provide it. We therefore planned to achieve the maximum variety we could among the human race itself. We loaded ships like these with people, with sperms and ova in giant sterile refrigeration banks, with the means of getting food, with everything except the history of what man had previously achieved, and sent them out to scatter the race to every world on which we could breathe the air and drink the water.

“There were
thousands
of such worlds! And some of them had life, but none of them had the intelligence we hunted for.

“It has been a long time. It has been ten thousand years. The ships have gone out, discharged their cargoes here, there . . . moving on, circling or driving straight ahead, then moving back when they were empty along the course they had earlier followed, making records automatically so that we, waiting at home, could know what had become of our new cousins.”

He shrugged. “But this ship never came back at all. That was the circuit which really went wrong: the one containing that all-important command.”

“And . . . has the answer been found?” said Raige. Vykor heard her voice tremble, and on glancing at her set face saw in surprise that a tear had run down her cheek.

“No. The new sons of man behave as man has always done. With more enthusiasm for having forgotten that it has been done not once but a million times. But essentially as always.”

There was an alarm light flashing on the communicator panel. Lang, with his face thoughtful and his manner abstracted, answered the call, and Temmis’ angry voice came roaring into the cabin.

“What’s all this garbage about evacuating the station?” he bellowed. “One hour? What right have you to—?”

“Start your preparations if you haven’t yet done so. In
two hours it will be too late. If you wish to see your home planet again, General-Marshal Temmis, you must hurry.”

He cut the circuit; when the light flashed again, he left it flashing.

"So—you mean it?” Indie demanded.

“You can’t!” Vykor burst out. “Where would we go—I and the others in my position? We’re outcasts! We offended the Cathrodynes, and if we set foot again on any world they rule our lives will be forfeit!”

Lang gave him a long compassionate look. "I’m afraid this is a case in which the Glaithes must honor their obligations,” he said. “Raige, you will do that, of course; you must, I think. After all, the ‘free’ Majkos, Lubarrians and Alchmids put themselves under your protection; you must accept them as refugees on Glai.”

The chaotic thoughts racing through their minds could almost be read verbally off their faces. Raige:
so 1 shall have my children
,
my family, my future, sooner than I expected —only I won’t, more probably. For with Waystation gone, lifd on Glai will be terrible.

Indie:
not just the risk that, with the prize of Waystation snatched away, Pags and Cathrodynes will engage in mortal combat over the domination of Glai. There’s also the psychological result; for centuries our whole planetary society has centered on Waystation. It’s been most of our reason for living.

Vykor:
I wished to see Glai, but the Glai I thought I’d find was a proud independent world I could admire. Instead . . .

“It can’t be done in an hour, anyway,” Indie said finally. “Perhaps not in one. It can be done in two, and it is going to be done. If necessary, your men will have to put the unwilling ones aboard their ships under paralysis. But I’ve checked the capacity of the ships at present docked here; it totals more than the amount originally carried—more than the carrying-power of the ships which gave all your worlds their populations, and rested finally on Pagr because the ship was empty of life. Waiting for the automatic order which never came, to depart on its return voyage.”

“So it was due to an error of yours that Waystation was
here, and we found it,” said Indie bitterly. “Have you given thought to what will happen when you’ve taken it away? Or is that of
little
interest, like the death of a priest?”

“You must do with Glai itself what Glaithes have done here with Waystation,” said Lang. “You will begin with a group of people of all races. It will be best to take everyone who is evacuated directly to Glai, including Pags and Cathrodynes.”

Then his mask of impersonal detachment slipped for a moment, and naked pity shone from his eyes like a sword blade. Sunny flinched on his lap and whimpered.

“You are a few among millions upon millions of millions,” Lang said. “I am sorry. We of my world are engaged in a great quest; time is short, even though it is counted in thousands of years. We have watched the sands of time run out, grain by grain, with our desperation mounting as we see the risk of psychological degeneracy increase. Here already you can see the first hints: a man from out of eye-range is a wonder, although the ships
^-
of man weave between almost every system in the galaxy
!
Travel is possible—why do not curious people travel? Is it because we are losing hope, having hunted for a single goal for too long and not having found it?

“However it may be, the die is cast. Man’s existence will be summed up in this search. If it fails, we fail. Our fate is certain.”

“Then,” said Raige in a puzzled voice, “if the galaxy has all been explored, and the answer has not been found, why must you take Waystation from us?”

And then she put her hand to her mouth, as though in asking the question she had realized its answer, and yet did not dare to believe it.

Stroking Sunny’s head with one hand, as casual as though making reference to a self-evident fact, Lang gave her confirmation.

“There are other galaxies . . ."

XX

It
had taken
some considerable time for the fact to sink in that Waystation had to be abandoned. The on-watch ships’ crews, who had only very second hand information about what was happening inboard, responded most readily by jumping to the conclusion that disaster had overtaken either an atomic pile which was liable to hit guncrit or the artificial gravity system.

So when they were faced by an army of Glaithes carrying and guiding would-be refugees, many of them suffering injuries from the recent rioting, they didn’t waste time asking questions. The worst problem lay in preventing Pags and Cathrodynes from boarding one another’s vessels, in making certain that members of all the subject races remained safely away from Pag ships, that Majkos and Lubarrians stayed far from Cathrodynes. But this was dealt with. So convincingly was the impression of controlled panic created that even the most violent of the emotions the rioting had conjured up seemed to melt in the rush of departure.

Vykor was glad to keep out of the way; he early went aboard a Glaithe vessel and reported to the purser, stating that he had had experience as a steward, and was enlisted to help organize the refugees. One of the people he assigned to quarters for the brief journey was Larwik. Neither of them spoke of the bruise on Vykor’s face.

Assigning Lubarrians, Alchmids, Majkos and Glaithes side by side to the available cabins, converted holds, empty storerooms, Vykor gradually came to have a sense of new excitement.

Why,
he thought,
I’m building a new world!

He felt almost the same as he had when he was invited to work with the revolutionary movement on Majkosi—only- the new world he was building now was of a different sort. It wasn’t a new Majkosi; it was going to be a new Glai, a neutral world, a world whose people had acted surely and
swiftly to save men and women of all the races of the Arm from sudden disaster.

It was sure that the disappearance of W
a
ystation would be interpreted in a hundred conflicting ways; it would not be in the interests of Glai to disclose the truth yet. Let people think it had been accident—an accident from whose consequences people had been selflessly saved.

Working alone, fighting more to save themselves than to further an ideal, the Glaithes had never succeeded in keeping Waystation truly neutral ground. In miniature, the hatreds and fears and prejudices of the various worlds whose peoples occupied it flourished as they did throughout the Arm.

Now, maybe, working with others who had suddenly been compelled to seek refuge on Glai itself, rather than merely from Glaithes, they would accomplish what they had previously only half achieved.

Or maybe not. Maybe a disastrous war would rock the worlds of the Arm, as Pag and Cathrodyne jointly blamed the Glai
t
hes and perhaps each other for the loss of their hoped-for prize.

And yet even that did not much matter. So full was Vykor’s mind of the illimitable concept conjured up by Lang’s simple words that he could not really care at the momemt about the fate of a few million people on a few isolated worlds.

There are other galaxies.

A fact. But till now, a fact that had had no meaning.

Now it was done. Vykor and two of the Glaithe stewards waited by the lock of their ship, tensely wondering whether anyone else would come. Search parties, they knew, were still busy in the ship, making doubly, trebly certain that no one was left behind.

Except Lang. But they would not think about Lang, not as anyone special. Those who were in a position to ask pointed questions, like Temmis, who had heard Lang speak in reply to his roaring demand, were under paralysis and would not recover till they had left Waystation behind.

And until Waystation had left them behind, too.

Then there were clattering footsteps as one of the parties that had checked the ship—Vykor realized suddenly that he had been thinking of Waystation as a ship and not just a station ever since he left Lang’s presence—came hurrying to safety. Raige was at their head, and called to the Glaithe stewards as she approached.

"Get ready to blast offl” she ordered. “There’s not much time now!”

The order crackled back into the ship.

Wearily, Raige paused inside the lock as the Glaithe stewards dogged it fast. She passed a tired hand across her face.

“It’s a lot to happen in so short a time,” she said abruptly to Vykor.

Vykor swallowed and made an incomprehensible sound by way of answer. The Glaithes finished their lock-dogging and went in-ship.

"Listen!” said Raige, cocking her head on one side. “That’s a sound I hoped I might never hear.”

Vykor, bewildered, listened, and then heard it. At the very bottom of the audible range, a dull sound like waves hammering on a distant beach. He licked his lips.

"What is it?”

"That’s the engines!” said Raige. “We knew they were there, waiting to be used. And we never dared to test them, or to admit that they existed, even. They’re in the heart of the ship, right inside the memory banks. He said he was going to warm them up.”

“You’ve . . . seen him again?”

“Yes, he came to tell our search party not to waste its time. He had found out somehow that there was no one left in Waystation but ourselves.”

“And—”

“And Lang himself, of course. I asked him what he was going to do during the flight back, and how long it would take. He said it would take years. He said he would sleep, and be glad to rest. Apparently when he was seen coming out of the memory bank halls, he had already adjusted the faulty circuit. It’s been ready for days ”

“I’d like to see it go,” said Vykor half inaudibly. Raige nodded.

“All right,” she said.

She took him to the ship’s observation saloon; it was full of sprawling bodies, and a doctor and a nurse were moving about, checking injuries received during the riots. But the space closest to the observation 'port itself was clear; they picked their way to it and stood watching.

All the ships that had been docked at Waystation were now blasting clear. As they watched, first one, then another, winked into hyperdrive with a flash of rising radiation frequencies.

Tentatively, Vykor let his hand seek Raige’s. She took his fingers in hers, and spoke in a low voice, staring through the port.

“Don’t hope for anything from me, Vykor. It isn’t me, you know. It’s the abstract of what I represent that means so much to you. And I don’t represent it any longer.”

He let go. It was true. Now
he could admit it, he felt a security which was strange and very pleasant.

“And there it goes,” said Raige after a pause.

Under the drive of its colossal engines, turning it slowly to red, to yellow, green, up the spectrum toward departure point, Waystation was once more becoming a ship. Blue . . . violet, unbearable brilliant violet. . .

Then black, flecked here and there with star-gold. The ship was gone.