Hot Sleep: The Worthing Chronicle

7

JAZZ WAKENED to see the lid of the coffin sliding back, the amber light winking at the edge of his vision. The memory tape must have just finished, he thought, though of course he had no memory of it happening. His body was hot and sweating — like all somec users, he believed the warmth was caused by the drugs used for waking.

He sat up abruptly, rolled himself over the edge of the coffin, and dropped to the floor in push–up position. Twenty push–ups and thirty sit–ups later, he got to his feet, the blood flowing, feeling refreshed from the long sleep.

Only then did he notice that it was not the amber light flashing in the coffin. It was the red.

He had been reaching into the cupboard for the packet of clothing that would have been prepared by the ship for his waking. But the red flashing light sent him immediately to the control board.

QUERY.

RESPONSE: ENEMY SHIP ROUNDED SIIS III SEVEN MINUTES AGO.

QUERY HOSTILE ACTS.

RESPONSE: Two PROJECTILES LAUNCHED, IMPACT 1.7, IMPACT 3.4.

QUERY ATTACK PATH.

RESPONSE: RANDOM UNPREDICTABLE.

That meant that the enemy pilot was still guiding the projectiles. Jason immediately began searching through space for the enemy captain's mind, even as his fingers automatically sent half of his projectiles — a pitiful two on a virtually unarmed colony ship — and he found, yes, the mind controlling the projectiles. Found in the mind the path the projectiles would follow. And then maneuvered his own ship, just slightly, in a feint. The other captain followed the feint, committed the first projectile, and then when it was too late for the enemy to alter course in time to strike him, Jason shifted again, just enough to keep his ship out of reach.

The second enemy projectile was easier to dodge. And now it was time for the opposite maneuver as Jason controlled his own weapons, seeing in the enemy's mind his evasion plans, countering them just in time each time, until his first projectile made contact with the giant stardrive of the enemy ship, and its image on the holomap became an ever fainter, ever expanding globe.

Just before the contact, Jazz had heard the enemy captain crying out for help, had felt him fumbling with a microphone, had heard in his mind the faintest wisp of a prayer as he realized that contact would be made, and then had heard for an infinitesimal moment the agony of death, and then felt the peace of death, the absence of mind.

Jazz leaned back on the upholstered chair, noticed how cold it felt on his naked, sweating back.

The red light was still flashing. Jazz was puzzled, leaned forward again.

QUERY.

RESPONSE: SECOND ENEMY SHIP, ROUNDED SIIS III FOUR MINUTES AGO.

QUERY HOSTILE ACTS.

RESPONSE: Two PROJECTILES LAUNCHED, IMPACT 0.2, IMPACT 1.9.

Impact 0.2! Jason shouted at himself. And even as his fingers played along the control board and his mind sought the enemy captain's mind, his intellectually unfazeable mind was saying to him, "You fool, he would never have called for help by radio unless he had someone else nearby."

The other mind found; the flight path of the projectile mapped; contact inevitable; and by reflex Jazz did the only possible maneuver that would ensure survival: he swung the starship very slightly — and intercepted the projectile with the payload section of the ship, catching it deftly with the only portion of the ship the weapon could strike without causing a nuclear explosion.

At the same moment, Jazz released his last two projectiles, hoping that there would be no more enemy ships.

And his control room shuddered with the shock of impact. The enemy projectile was not nuclei, of course — on the surface of the stardrive, a nuclear explosion would not penetrate through the shielding. Instead, it was equipped with high intensity fusion–source lasers, and it melted a path ahead of itself for a critical number of seconds. Just long enough, with a few meters to spare, to penetrate the shielding of a stardrive.

Jazz didn't bother to wonder whether the projectile had had to force its way through enough payload that it would run out of fuel before penetrating to the stardrive core. He was too busy moving his ship (the controls still respond, good) to avoid the second enemy missile; and then he immediately shifted his attention to guiding his own projectiles as they homed in on the enemy ship.

He saw the enemy captain's disbelief as he realized that he had made contact — and yet Jason's ship had not exploded. And then the panic as the enemy captain tried to dodge Jason's projectiles, couldn't, and realized horribly that he would die as his fellow captain had just died.

And then the globe of fading light on the holomap.

QUERY.

RESPONSE: No ENEMY ACTIVITY.

QUERY LOCATION.

RESPONSE: SIIS III.

So Jazz had reached his destination; as was often the case, the Enemy had dispatched warships to intercept the colony ship before it could land. Those Enemy craft might have been orbiting Siis in for as much as a century, waking their captains only when Jazz's ship was sensed as it decelerated to subluminous speeds. Traditional pattern, except that there were two ships instead of one.

The tension of battle fading, he remembered how he had stopped the enemy projectile, and felt a horrible burning sensation in his stomach and groin.

He got up from the chair and went to the cupboard, dressed, and then for safety put on a pressure suit with a field helmet. He adjusted it for transparent and semipermeable, and then turned the wheel on the seal lock of the door leading to the back of the payload section.

The storage compartment was completely undamaged — none of the animal coffins had even come loose. Which left only one conclusion: the projectile had entered the payload section in the passenger tubes.

Jazz readjusted for impermeable, and opened the door at the back of the storage section. No rush of air into space — the monitor area was also undamaged.

Jazz looked at the dials that told the condition of all the passengers in each of the tubes. The A section dials were all functioning, and their message was uniform: no life in any of the coffins. The C section was as bad: the dials were all dark, meaning that the life–support system was out.

Only B section was intact, showing no damage. Jazz wasn't sure whether to be horrified at losing two–thirds of his colony, or relieved at still having one–third.

He opened the door to B tube and walked down the rows, inspecting each coffin for damage. There was none that he could detect, not even a shifting of the bodies. Noticing who was still alive also told him who was not. But among the survivors was Hop Noyock, and Jazz felt an unreasonable gladness, as if Hop's survival insured the success of the colony after all.

At the end of the tube was another door, which led to the schoolroom, where all the memory tapes of the colonists were stored, and where at the end of the voyage Jason would waken each of the passengers.

Beside the door a warning light was flashing red.

Jazz punched in the code on the doorbutton that flushed all atmosphere out of the tube. When the green light flashed on, he opened the door and found chaos.

The schoolroom had been directly hit, and from that vantage point he could see the gaping hole left by the projectiles. It had entered near the front of the passenger tubes, cutting a swath between the life–support system of C tube and the coffin racks of A tube, destroying every coffin and every life–support complex on its way down the length of the tubes. Then it had bored through the end, struck the schoolroom, passed right through a corner of the tape rack, and passed on into the shielding in front of the stardrive. Looking down into the hole, Jazz could see the back of the projectile, stopped where it had gone cold, unable to penetrate further. He quickly guessed that two more meters and it would have exploded the ship.

I should feel grateful, he told himself. But when he looked at the tape rack, he couldn't. The left section of the rack, where the projectile had passed, was utterly destroyed — where it wasn't cut away by the projectile's passage, the tapes were melted by the heat. The B section of the rack, in the middle, was also mostly melted. Only a few of the C rack tapes were still usable.

And everybody in C tube was dead.

Jazz knelt down and pulled out every tape in the bottom part of B rack, where the heat was least intense. But tape after tape showed damage — and even the slightest melting made the entire tape unusable. Out of all the tapes, only one was undamaged, the one in the bottom right–hand corner. It belonged to Garol Stipock.

Only one tape.

Which meant that only one single passenger could be revived with his full memory. With any memory at all. Only one that could be revived as an adult human being. If anyone else was revived at all, it would be as empty–minded as an infant, a creature of reflex, unable to walk, speak, even control bodily functions.

Jazz left the schoolroom, clutching the one usable tape, and walked back through B tube. This time as he passed the coffins he didn't see adults whom he knew — he saw huge infants, impossible to care for, utterly cut off from their own life history in the Empire.

Except Garol Stipock. And as Jason looked down at the reposed face of the man who had invented the Stipock geologer and a dozen other devices, he said, "Gadgetry. Gimmicks and games. What a wonderful colony we'll make together. And what wonderful children we'll raise."

He left B tube, sealing the door behind him, and wandered listlessly back into the control cabin. He passed the roster compartment and remembered, bitterly, the two tapes that had been in there, tapes which he had destroyed for a purpose — some purpose — what purpose could possibly compare with the terrible need he had now? He longed for a way to reverse the garbage process, bring back the lost fragments of Hop's and Arran's memory tapes, restore them and waken those two people whom he at least knew. Garol Stipock. Who the hell was Garol Stipock?

A colony of infants.

Here it is, Doon. The perfect society. One you could teach to be anything you wanted. As long as you enjoy changing the diapers of adults who kick like infants with grown–up strength.

He sat down in the control room, and the computer, sensing that he had returned, began readouts on the information that had been kept from him back on Capitol — where the colony ship was supposed to go.

Jazz was past caring, but by reflex he looked, and by reflex he fed back into the computer his confirming orders, his explicit instructions.

Mechanically he carried out his part of the mission, as if there were a mission to perform.

Something was gnawing at his stomach, and it churned within him. But he finished the calculations in only seven hours, and then, exhausted, threw himself on the cot provided for the starpilot.

He dreamed of the Estorian twick, staring at him from a meter away. It just sat and stared, and Jason knew that if he moved, if he made any move at all, the twick would leap, would carve him with its razor teeth, would devour him if it could. How long can I stand without moving, he kept wondering, and the twick only watched, and waited. And then suddenly he heard Doon's voice saying, "You're a survivor. You're a survivor." And then he felt himself swimming in the lake, the twick's body floating beside him, feeling exultant. Survival. That is enough grounds for joy.

He woke needing badly to go to the toilet. He got up, unaccustomedly groggy with sleep. It had not been a restful nap. He closed the toilet stall and showered. Then he stepped out of the toilet and looked at the computer.

The readout board said, "Ready for execute."

Why bother? Jason wondered.

"Why bother?" Jason asked aloud.

But he knew he would bother. He would push the buttons on the computer, and then would climb into his coffin and sleep the years until his new destination. He would waken after 900 years, farther by a dozen times than any starship had ever gone from the human pale. And he would revive, one by one, the huge infants that slept in the back of the ship.

And as he resigned himself to survival, because he really had no other choice, it occurred to him how ignorant his colonists would be. Except for Garol Stipock, they would know only what he told them.

They would have no memory of Capitol, and therefore no memory of any particular system of law or government.

They would not know the technology that would never be possible to them.

They would not remember that they had been arrested as traitors; they would not remember that Jason Worthing had been an enemy to them.

The word Swipe would be meaningless to them.

Except Garol Stipock.

I can make the world the way it ought to be, he thought. A clean slate, Doon. If I can survive the first years, I can make a decent world.

And how ought the world to be? Jason laughed at himself. A chance to make a utopia, and he had no idea where to begin. Well, plenty of time for that later. Plenty of time to work out the details. I have a vision now, at least, Doon. Pat me on the back for that.

Jason Worthing locked the solitary memory tape in the cupboard, punched out the execute code, and climbed into the coffin. He was excited, exultant, and a little mad when the sleep helmet recorded his mind. He would waken with that excitement and madness when the ship woke him a millennium from now.

A needle in his scalp. The hot rush of somec in his veins. The agony, the panic. And then the oblivion.

And the gutted starship turned, fired, and accelerated madly, racing with the light of the star Siis toward another star an unfathomable depth into the broad white lake of the galaxy.