Tin Woodman (8 page)

“I already have, Captain.” And Ronner’s stiff expression turned into a smile.

As the Mark IV hurled away from the huge starship, Mora clung to a handhold, eyes clenched shut. Suddenly, she was weightless, her body straining lightly against the lengths of straps that held her on the bunklike bed. She craned her neck around awkwardly. Ston was muttering over the controls. He grunted with satisfaction as a dim, badly composed picture resolved into shape on the flat screen. “Garbage, all right,” he said, beginning to fiddle with something else. She stared past him into the star-spattered blackness. Shining brightly to the left of the screen were the two blazing globes of the Aldebaran system. Even on the fickering black and white screen, the sight was majestic, beautiful. And deadly.

She felt suspended in an ambivalence, not entirely sure if dying was that bad, if one died on one’s own terms. But she wanted to live . . .

“Damned chemical engines!” growled Ston. He pounded a control in anger. There was the sudden hiss and clanking of responding machinery. The ship jolted, and Mora could feel a slight measure of gravity again. Its tugging was not unpleasant—an old, familiar friend.

“Well, at least the retros are working,” said Ston, almost to himself. “Damned little fuel in the tanks. Day’s worth at most. Enough to get us to the colony’s shuttle station once we break out of Null-R.”

“Ston?” she asked quietly. “What’s going to happen?”

“Ah, Mora.” He turned around, gave her a comforting smile. “Once I plot the course, we’re going to switch on the Null-R engines they so conveniently tacked on for Div’s journey.”

“But where—?”

“I’ve got that all figured out,” he said. “There’s a colony relatively close—Wilkinson’s Planet. I think they’ll give us haven. You can start a new life, there.”

“But what about you, Ston?”

“I’m sure they’ll have need for someone with my training and knowledge. I’ll have a new life as well. Probably a better one, at that.” He swiveled back to the controls. “But I’d better see to adjusting this boat’s direction to align with the star-chart figures I copied down. No telling how soon it will be before the
Pegasus
sends a shuttle after us—or comes herself.”

“Do you think they’d follow us into Null-R?”

“How are they going to determine either our direction or our destination?” he replied, attending to the instruments. “This is going to be tricky, though. Fairly old equipment. But I think we can pull it off.”

Lapsing into silence, he busied himself setting dials, tapping the course-plot keyboard, occasionally consulting the co-ordinates that popped up on a small monitor screen at his elbow.

She didn’t want to interrupt him. Evidently he knew what he was about. She unstrapped her harness, began to store the supplies—food, water, first-aid equipment—that Ston had packed into the large bag in the available cabinet space. Everything about the cabin looked particularly bare.

A blue light blinked on the console. A crackle rattled in the radio speaker grille, forming into words: “. . . please return immediately lest appropriate action is necess—”

With a brusque jerk, Ston flipped the radio off. “Well, they’ve got a tab on us now. We’ve got to move fast. God knows, they might even use the laser deflectors.” He halted the sentence, backed away from that thought. “Now. I’ve got the course all prepared, punched in. All we’ve got to do is to drop into Null-R. You ready?”

“Yes. Should I strap in?”

“Probably better. You never know.”

She reassumed her former position on the bed. This was it. If they made this jump into Null-R, everything would be okay.

She kept telling herself that.

She closed her eyes, preparing for the jostle of the jump, the lurch into non-relative space.

Nothing happened.

She waited seconds, minutes. She opened her eyes, peered around to Ston at the controls. “What—” she started to say. She stopped when she saw him.

Beads of sweat had popped out on his brow. His eyes were fixed ahead in dull shock. “No,” he whispered, “I don’t believe it.” He turned to face her. “There’s no response.”

“Are the engines dead?”

He shook his head numbly. “I don’t even think they’re there at all.”

EIGHT

Ston wriggled back into the Mark IV’s cabin, shutting the engine access hatch behind him. Frustration was etched on his face. “I should have known,” he muttered, sliding into the pilot’s chair. “Engineering cannibalized the engines. The parts they must have thought they could use—the Null-R drive’s resonating crystal, the jump circuits—they’re gone.” He stared morosely through the forward viewport. “And I thought I was so goddamned smart.”

There was a long silence—the sort of silence that made the faint throbbings and hums of the life-support machinery audible. Mora found herself curiously unshaken at the news. It wasn’t like wanting to cry with no tears left. She felt no emotion at all. “What now?” Her words flowed easily, unstrained by worry. “Will they send a shuttle after us?”

Ston twisted around, regarded her. “Maybe. That is, if they want us back. You know, they just might let us—float away. They know we’re not going anywhere.”

She frowned. “I don’t think Darsen would allow that.”

“Well, and why
not?
He sure as hell didn’t have any qualms whatsoever about having you Doped,” he reminded her loudly. His voice lowered suddenly, his gaze softened. “Must say, though—you’re taking all this very well.”

She gave him a wry smile. “I’m no worse off now than I was in Medsec. Better off, actually. If you hadn’t helped me—well, I suppose you know. They’d have stuck me in some institution back on Earth—finally conformed to their concepts of a co-operative citizen. Thank you.”

Ston chuckled. “You’re very welcome. But thanks for what? In a few hours you’ll probably be back on that operating table.”

“Maybe. But if I get a chance, I’ll kill myself. I won’t surrender quietly—and that’s the important thing, isn’t it?”

“Not much to lose now for me, either, I suppose.” Ston heaved a resigned sigh. He smiled grimly, began miming the act of a popular 3-D entertainer. “I gambled. I lost. I can see the croupier’s stick coming forward to scrape my chips off the table.”

“And what
were
those chips, Ston?” she asked in a quiet voice, suspecting already. Years of dedication to the service, to his career. His position in the ship’s society. Most likely the affection of his friends. All this to help a woman he barely knew? Mora didn’t understand—but it made this man’s sacrifice all the more significant for her.

He looked up and shrugged. “I forget already.” And he smiled bleakly.”

The ship’s private communicator whistled shrilly. He leaned over, thumbed the speaker switch open, let the beamed message pour out. “—calling Mark IV messenger ship. Triunion starship
Pegasus
calling Mark IV. Please acknowledge, Mr. Maurtan . . .”

Ston picked up the mike, pressed a button. “Here we are,
Pegasus
.”

COMMUNICATIONS LOG

STARSHIP
PEGASUS
-frequency 488823

1101 hours to 1105 hours

Spool 14A4b—Section 4C—Computer Partial Text

Captain Edan Darsen—bridge,
Pegasus

Ensign Ston Maurtan—Mark IV messenger ship

DARSEN: I don’t know why you have done this, Mr. Maurtan, but I suggest that you co-operate completely.

MAURTAN: I have a formal complaint, Captain. Why was no mention made in the engineering report on this bolt-bucket that you gutted the goddamned Null-R engine? This will look very bad on your record, Captain, I must warn you.

DARSEN: I don’t find your remarks humorous, Mr. Maurtan. We are sending out a shuttle to pick you up and tow you back. The motives for your apparent lapse of reason will be discussed once you return. I repeat, it is of the highest importance that you co-operate.

MAURTAN: I want to call my lawyer.

DARSEN: Your rights will be acknowledged, Mr. Maurtan—but there are no lawyers aboard the
Pegasus.

MAURTAN: Hey—how come you want us back so badly? It can’t be me. I’m not that important. It must be my fellow passenger here, Mora Elbrun, mustn’t it? It’ll look bad for you if anything happens to her. Is that it? What if I told you that she’s my hostage, and that I expect a good deal of ransom if you expect her back in one piece.

DARSEN: I don’t believe you understand the seriousness of your offense, Ensign. Your levity will be ignored if you simply signal willingness to co-operate.

MAURTAN: Screw you, sir.

DARSEN: What do you mean by—

MAURTAN: Okay, listen up, Captain. I’m onto you now. Something’s happening. You don’t need need me—but you need Mora, right? Unless you deliver her totally Doped to the Tricouncil, you’re in hot water, right? They’ve got to have their sacrifice. Well, I’ll make a deal, Captain. There’s no way you can stop me if I want to just let all that airless space inside this ship. If I did that, you wouldn’t have much to bring back, would you?

DARSEN: You wouldn’t do that, damn you.

MAURTAN: Wouldn’t I? Mora wouldn’t mind. She knows what’s waiting for her back on board your ship—

DARSEN: I assure you, Ensign, that the psychemicidian treatments will be stopped.

MAURTAN: You took the words out of my mouth. It’s a deal. I assume this is going into the communications computer, so you’re going to have to stick to it.

DARSEN: Your little escapade was purposeless, Mr. Maurtan. If you had checked with MedSec, you would have seen that I had ordered the treatments stopped even before you abducted the subject. When you get back, I’ll show you a copy.

MAURTAN: Oh.

Ston pointed out a tiny moving star in the mostly black of the vu-plate. “There’s the shuttle. All we have to do is wait, now.”

She stood by him, her hands on his shoulders. “Your muscles are in knots,” she said, closing her eyes, trying to feel what he felt. Nothing came to her—not via her Talent, anyway.

“It’s called ‘tension.’ I can’t
believe
it was all for nothing. It makes me feel pretty stupid.”

“You mean you really believe Darsen?”

“I guess so.”

“Even if he
is
telling the truth, it doesn’t take away one bit of your heroism, Ston. And it means every bit as much to me.”

He glanced up at her and changed the subject. “It must be strange to you, not being able to read my emotions.”

“It is,” she agreed. “But it’s a relief, in a way.”

“Will it come back?”

“My Talent? Probably. One injection is hardly enough to dampen it permanently. And when it comes, it comes. It’s almost as though it were a freakish deformity that I’m not able to deal with entirely, but I do accept.”

Ston’s eyes searched hers with displeasure.
“Never
say that, Mora. A Talent isn’t a monkey-on-the-back, like you seem to think it is.”

She smiled slightly, curiously. This was a clue to his motivation in helping her—for his interest and concern with her unique nature. She tried to pry it out of him gently. “Most Normals wouldn’t say that to me. You’ve had other contact with Talents?”

“My sister was a Talent,” he replied quietly. “She died. A suicide.”

“I’m sorry. Were you close to her?”

He looked away, nodding silently. His eyes followed the silent sailing light of the shuttle, coming for them.

She realized that she didn’t need her Talent to read this man. The slight gleam of moisture in his eyes, the manner in which he held his head, the way his jaw worked, swallowing his emotions, said it all.

She watched him awhile, then asked, “How far away is the shuttle?”

Ston, yanked from his reverie, was startled. “Hmmm? Oh,” He checked some instruments. “Fifty thousand kilometers or so. It
will take a little while.”

Gently, she touched his arm. “Ston, I think I understand.”

“Do you? Even without the Talent? Thanks.” He peered up into her eyes. “Yes—and I’m beginning to understand, too. But not everything. We have some time. I’d like to know what happened with Darsen on the bridge. I want to know everything about
Tin
Wood
man
you can tell me. It’s something that I can see
in you—it’s very important, isn’t it?”

She thought back on it—and even as she did she felt the faint echoing thrill of the experience, which in its reverberations carried new meaning and the promise of more to come. But how could she possibly communicate the vision that Div had given her so briefly, so that she might tell Ston? Suddenly, in that moment, she had been whisked from the
Pegasus’
bridge. She had been, momentarily, a creature of the spaces between the stars, in flight through a universe of perfect, unbounded freedom and joy. Somehow, with Div as a link, she had glimpsed the truth of
Tin Woodman.
And the stars had stretched out before her, as they must have for Div, like toys awaiting the marvel of a child . . .

There was more—much more—that she had no way of understanding. But perhaps she would, Soon.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I believe it is very important,” She told Ston everything she could.

There was so much beyond his comprehension, although it was a part of his mind, now. Back aboard the
Pegasus,
as soon as he had established peripheral contact with the ship-being they called
Tin Woodman,
Div knew that to obey Darsen in his wishes was not part of the plan. But what exactly that plan was, he had no way of knowing then. He only felt a jumble of emotions within him—the drive to get closer to the alien, and the need to be sure that Edan Darsen was not able to control the creature through him. He didn’t think rationally, then; indeed he wondered now if he had been in control of himself at all, rather than acting on the dictates of a greater consciousness.

But Div realized that it was vital to understand, for things of importance loomed in the gray, veiled areas of his new identity.

What exactly
was
his new identity? He wondered, aware of the steady thrum of the engines as they drove the ship-being forward in Null-R. He replayed his memory again . . .

The corridor is long, with many intersections, but the voice within him beckons him onward, and he feels a slow change take root in his soul as he goes forward, committed now to this quest.

Finally, he enters a large bright chamber: curved walls, gleaming metal, glistening crystal, pulsing light. A chair—no, not a chair, nothing like a chair, but a resting place nonetheless. He senses, perhaps through contact with the alien, that this place is memory-haunted; this was where Vul lived, during the long journeys through interstellar space.

Vul, the dead symbiote. The necessary other part of
Tin Woodman.
The love without which the ship-being waned.

But now, it had Div.

•••
COME TO ME
•••

•••
SIT
•••

Div does so without fear or hesitation, closing his eyes. He reaches out even more with his mind, searching, opening himself, surrendering his spirit.

And meets the alien, fully.

Creation seems to shatter—the tiny little multi-colored sounds spiraling/scattering senseless in the vacuum of space. All that the two creatures have been tumble aimlessly in shards, re-forming slowly and painstakingly, toward the eventual rebuilding of a new, random creature that would be both and yet neither. The mind fragments soar, begin to yield to the thoughts, feelings, fears, and dreams and hopes and memories of the other parts.

And yet the fragments are distinguishable.

“This is the beginning of our love,”
Tin Woodman
says.
“Eventually, the pieces will meld, become one. A new creation, and a new being, will be totally born at last. Our consciousness will expand to feel the whole of space. We will be complete. We will be I. The emptiness that held me prisoner about that star system for so long is being filled. The Talent that separated you from your fellow humans all of your life is being fulfilled. You have found the chains that will set you free.”

“And yet,”
the part of him that was becoming
Tin Woodman
broke into his memory replay,
“this is nothing that will happen quickly. Do not be concerned. The fact that you are not totally like Vul’s kind is a barrier that must be slowly surmounted. Understanding will come, soon enough, and you will see what we have done, what we are doing, and what is to be done. It is all one. There is much to teach you, and much for you to learn.”

“You prevented Darsen from harming me, through Mora. You gave her that power.”

“We both did. And we both have done other things—then. There has been a reason for every motion you made, every thought you had from the moment you felt my existence. The results of what we have done are not finished yet—you have seen to that.”

“Me?”

“
We
, now.”

“But how?”

“Reach out. Reach out into space, and
experience
. It is all written in the cosmic energy flows.”

Div reached out with the arms of his mind that
Tin Woodman
had given him, into the energy.

“Soon, you will understand. And we will be complete,”
said
Tin Woodman,
and Div realized that these thoughts were beginning to feel like his own.

Edan Darsen slouched back into his command desk chair and rubbed his big hand down the side of his face, feeling the light stubble of his beard. Underneath the hand and stubble he was aware that an angry flush painted his broad face. He sucked in a breath and let it out raggedly, calming himself. His ability to command must not be questioned if he hoped to succeed in what he intended to do. And his intentions, after all, were of paramount importance—so important that he was willing to forego his vengeance upon Mora Elbrun for now to succeed in them.