The Eternal Enemy (3 page)

Just in case the exploratory pod ran across something the instruments might not be able to interpret properly, just in case immediate action was called for, just in case the pod ran across something unexpected, something for which NASA 2 hoped and prayed, Jacob Galley would be there
.

They were prepared for this eventuality. NASA 2 left little to chance, least of all Jacob Galley
.

If contact were established, the ship would activate a sequence and Jacob would lose some of the artificially layered personality the psychologists and geltank had provided. After all, they didn't want an emissary of Earth to appear more alien than any life-form he might run across. Like a clockwork mechanism, like a posthypnotic suggestion, Jacob was two people
—
one who could deal with the immense distances and time of the trip, the other one waiting, invisible until needed
.

Jacob and five others like him left. Only five of the six returned, and Jacob was not one of them
.…

Markos put the dramatized version of Galley's biography aside and picked up the NASA 2 “official” transcription. NASA 2 would not say anything regarding the Galley biography, and after reading it, Markos felt he understood why. It didn't make them look too good at all, and it made Galley look a little stranger than he probably was.

He picked up the report by his bedstand. It was titled “Transcription and Interpretation of Telemetered Data from Pod 6, Manned by Jacob Galley, Assumed Lost.”

“We're here,” Galley said
. (Transmissions reveal the strain in his voice.)

“Approaching, anyway, but there is more,” the ship said
.

“More what?”
(Fear audible in Galley's voice.)
“Increase magnification,” Galley said
.

“Magnification is logarithmic and at maximum,” it said
.

“It looks like a planet
—
the one we've been looking for?”

“It is. If this were all there were to it, I wouldn't have left you in the tank. There is more.”

“More what? More planets?”

“Yes, there are more planets. But there is also a small body, well under planetary mass, traveling the exact orbit of the planet, forty-five degrees above the ecliptic.”

“Give me visual confirmation,” Galley said
.

(A commanding tone could be detected in his voice at this point. His entire personality firmed, a result of the geltank training and imprinting.)

“Impossible. Albedo is less than ten percent, and at this distance, resolution from background radiation is impossible.”

“Graphics, then. Give me something!”

“Screen three,” it said
.

(Telemetered data showed that the third screen held a computer graphic of a large disk, Tau Ceti, and a smaller disk toward the right edge, the planet. Above the graphic of the planet was a point of light, surrounded by a circle.)

“The object in question is within the circle. Scale is nonrepresentational.”

“What do you make of it?” Jacob asked
.

“It is one of two things: an astronomical anomaly in direct contradiction to all presently accepted models for solar system evolution, or it is an artifact of non-Terran origin.”

“Which do you think?”

“Be serious. The odds against it being a natural phenomenon are high enough to rule that out as a possibility.”

“Then why did you keep me in the tank? I should have been out here the second the object was spotted.”

“I thought you enjoyed spending time in the tank,” the ship said. “You have always argued for more time and more frequent immersions.”

“That's irrelevant, and you know it.”
(An audible sigh, let out slowly.)
“Forget it. Have you gathered any data on the planet yet?”

“Yes. We are still too far away for our more sensitive analysis equipment to be effective, so whatever data I have are incomplete. Screen four.”

(Preliminary report on the planet scrolled on screen four. Most of the spaces for information had “UNKN” in place of numbers. The planet was 0.92 Earth mass, rotated every 21 hours, and was just under 0.79 AUs from Tau Ceti. The planet's albedo was 0.32. From the raw data the ship telemetered, the planet seems Terran enough.)

“An additional piece of pertinent data,” the ship said
.

“What is it?”

“The smaller body is sending a beam of coherent green light to the planet's surface.”

(This rules out the natural-phenomenon theory proposed by the antiexploration and antiterraforming lobbies. Coherent light doesn't beam down to a planet's surface in nature. This was sufficient evidence to get funding for the
Paladin
expedition.)

“It appears as if we've activated some sort of warning system,” the ship said
.

“Possibly. Recommendations?”

“None,” it said
.

“You sure are a lot of help when you want to be,” Jacob said
.

“As you've been over the last four decades,” the ship said
.

“More information. Just give me more information. I've got to know what's going on. You're not telling me much of anything.”

“I do what I can. I have very little data on which to base recommendations or draw conclusions.”

“What makes you think it's an early-warning system? Couldn't it be a ship?”

“You asked for conclusions based on raw data. The primary consideration used was our approach. We have entered the Tau Ceti system and are being considerably influenced by Tau Ceti's gravity well. As soon as this influence was significant, the green light appeared”

(This reasoning is sound.)

“With our present position, course, and speed, you have under two hours to make your decision,” the ship said.

“I know.”

“Have you decided, then?”

“Two hours, “Jacob said. ‘You said so yourself. Don't push me or I'll pull your plug.”

“You can't.”

“Don't tempt me. If I can't, I'll still try, and probably end up doing irreparable damage.”

“One hour, fifty-nine minutes, thirty-five seconds.”

“Stop the countdown. Just tell me how much time is left every fifteen minutes.”

(Galley faced the following decisions: return to Earth, or alter his course. The pods were designed to have some advanced science contact them—not to initiate contact, so they were limited in fuel. This decision to limit fuel enabled us to get these exploratory missions funded. Actually there was most probably enough fuel for deceleration into a stable orbit around Tau Ceti and for limited course corrections when reentering our Solar System. But there was a limit to the fuel, and that put a definite limit on the number of course corrections available, and the psychologists stressed the importance of contact. We stacked the odds in favor of his deciding to opt for contact.

If he chose to ignore the possible contact and simply waited another forty-odd years until the pod reentered the Solar System, he would have a safe amount of fuel to adjust his angle of entry and decelerate into a stable orbit around Sol. He would be picked up by a NASA 1 shuttle.

At this point the lights, instruments, and life-support systems shut down for two seconds. End of first telemetry and transcription.)

“How many times you gonna read that?” Jackson asked.

“Huh?” Markos asked, looking up from the papers. “What?”

“I asked how many times you were gonna read that stupid thing. Nothing changes in there, does it? It's not one of those interactive articles.”

Markos shook his head. “That's not the point,” he said. “I read it so I can understand what this guy went through, what he ran into. Maybe it'll help when
we
get there.”

“
If
we get there, you mean.”

“Come on, man. It's not that risky.”

“Yeah? Then where
is
this guy? How come he never came back?”

“I don't know,” Markos said. “That's what we're going there to find out.”

Markos sighed and put the transcription on his nightstand. The guy in the pod, Jacob Galley, had gone a little around the bend. Markos slipped his hands behind his head to stare at the ceiling. Perhaps some of the answers of what really happened to the pod, why it was the only one not to return, would appear there, written in the fused, dull plastic.

“I hear Van Pelt's in the tank now,” Jackson said.

“Yeah. Better him than me,” Markos said. “I didn't test out as a leader, so I don't have to worry about that.”

“You and me both, man. You hear where they found him?”

“I heard. You know the name of the prison?”

Jackson smiled. “Some maximum-security place. That's all I know. That's all he'd say.”

“Straka said that Van Pelt's a psychopath. A real criminal genius.”

“If he makes it out of that tank, he'll be normal enough,” Jackson said.

Markos shook his head, then rolled onto his side so that he could face Jackson. For some reason the tall black man looked even taller when lying down. “You hear how many they carted out of there in a straitjacket?”

“I heard seven so far.”

“Get serious, man. Two or three, tops,” Markos said.

“That's not what Straka says.”

“Don't listen to her. She has a flair for the dramatic.”

Jackson laughed. “You can still go for the testing, become a captain of the first f-t-l ship ever.”

“Yeah, I could. I could also be number eight on the fried-brain list.”

Jackson laughed again.

But Markos hadn't really meant it as a joke. He thought about Van Pelt, a nice enough guy, considering, submerged within the geltank, wired up to a couple of computers, all to find out whether he could withstand the pressures of command. The programs were designed to put you through your paces, and the biofeedback loops made everything seem real enough. When Markos had gone through the xenobiological training procedures, such as they were, he could have sworn he'd actually met and talked to the ridiculous creatures the computers had summoned up. Of course, since no one had ever met an alien creature or even confirmed any alien creature's existence, the training was all pretty fictional in nature.

He wondered what kind of mind trips they were putting Van Pelt through. If the guy was really that smart and that good a leader, then maybe they could fix what made him a psycho. Still, Markos figured, they might end up doing him more harm than good. He was glad he wasn't a shrink and didn't have to deal with those kinds of problems. All he had to do was sit and wait for the rest of the crew to be selected. And after the
Paladin
left the Solar System, all he'd have to do was wait, take orders, and do what was expected. Which was probably wait.

He wasn't a leader, and he didn't need to be one. Markos knew how to wait.

3

The Haber stood a few meters away, waiting, watching.

Markos rose unsteadily to his feet, felt stabs of needle-sharp pain running through the soles of his feet, and advanced on the Haber. Immediately its face emitted pulsating combinations of colors. The patterns were organized and geometric, each pulse with its own color scheme and rhythm. Points of light within the Haber's face sparkled, danced before Markos's eyes in a rapturous display. He stood transfixed, gently swaying in time to the light pulses. The rhythms were soothing and hypnotic, but more importantly, draining away the pain and agony.

The Haber pointed to the bed of grass.

Still staring at its face, Markos backed up and sat on the bed. His body still twitched as its alien biology tried to balance itself.

“What's … going … on?” he asked, trying to ignore the vile sounds he made, but not succeeding.

“You died and then we, we brought you back.”

Brought back? Back to life?

Markos said nothing. A diagonal slash of heat ran through his chest. What was there to say? It was bad enough thinking it, fearing it, seeing it as the only possible answer for what had happened, but it was another thing to hear it spoken aloud, to have his worst fears confirmed.

Dead.

Dead, but alive again—an accomplishment beyond Terran technology. His life had been extended before the journey; due to the prolonging effects of the geltank, he could have lived for centuries, barring accidental death. But piecing together a human being, a body, a corpse, after it had smashed into a boulder at the speed of sound? Impossible. If there hadn't been an explosion—his body jerked and spasmed—he should have been nothing more than protoplasmic goop.

“How?” Markos demanded. He had to shut his mouth with his hand. For some reason it didn't close on its own that time.

“It was not that difficult for us, us to do. The form of a mendil supplied us, us with some of the needed materials for your new body. Your skin had burned off …”

A mendil? One of those obscene birdlike creatures? He thought he shuddered at the thought, but then realized his body did something else—his palms felt cold. He shook his head to try to think this insanity through. How could the Habers do that? He'd never seen any Haber technology. But if the artifact existed, which it did, then there could have been some technology hidden somewhere.

“I can't believe you,” Markos said, wincing at the sound of his voice. “It's your speech and what your eyes did that's convinced me. I know I haven't really changed at all.”

“No,” the Haber said.

“Then where are your machines? Your instruments?” he shouted.

“They are here, all around us, us and here,” the Haber said, touching its chest, “within us, us.”

“I don't see anything,” Markos said.