The Star Virus

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Counters clicked and hummed. In the distance, the atomic explosion flared briefly like a lighted match, sending an expanding wave of light and radiation into the eternal night. Patiently Rodrone waited for the debris of released energy to disperse, then the Stator moved silently in, probing with its radar fingers.

A tight little dot appeared on the radar screen, traveling swiftly to zenith-east from the force of the explosion. Effortlessly the Stator tracked it, closed in, extended waldo arms.

Rodrone sighed. The lens was intact. No radiation, no signs of burning, not even a hairline crack on its glossy surface. Spinning unconcernedly in space, it displayed its never-ending picture show to the void.

Apparently the lens was indestructible. Appalled by the fate of the Land planets, appalled by the tales of holocaust that reached them every day from all over the Hub, he had come to the conclusion that it must not be allowed to exist.

In the past weeks he had tried everything. He had tried explosives, he had tried to dissolve it in acids, and he had tried to burn it away in an electric arc. But nothing worked. “Maybe it’s right, boss,” Feeldonet said as they hauled the undamaged lens inboard. “Maybe it should exist. Remember how it influences events. What would happen if we did destroy it?”

Feeldonet was the most intelligent of the deadliners. By watching the Streall technician he had learned the knack of understanding the Stator’s drive, and having only recently joined the crew, he was not quite as far gone as the others. In fact, if he had not taken ship aboard the Stator he might eventually have overcome the personal tragedies that had made him turn his back on normal life. But there was no chance of a recovery among the company he kept now.

“Nothing,” Rodrone answered him simply. “I’ve thought about that. Do you know what I think? I think the Streall have perpetrated an outstanding example of putting the cart before the horse. The galaxy doesn’t have to have the lens controlling it. The lens is a construct, something artificial, extra. Possibly it did kick off the process of life in the first place, I’m not sure about that, but it certainly isn’t vital now. Somehow the Streall came into possession of it millions of years ago and used it to bolster up their own view of the universe, a view which not unnaturally favors them. They used the lens to make themselves the supreme species of the galaxy, while at the same time claiming some kind of divine right.

“There’s another thing, too. I don’t believe in the Streall’s interpretation of the lens. I don’t think it can control a narrow, ordered sequence in the way they prescribe. You wouldn’t be able to make a particular thing happen to a particular person on a particular planet, for instance. I think it deals in probabilities, like endlessly throwing a set of dice. Maybe some of the stories it shows have never happened at all—they merely could have happened.”

“But the war,” Feeldonet objected. “You triggered that off, Captain.”

“I suppose so, but it doesn’t prove anything. It was always a possibility, because there are always points of tension between men and the Streall. Up to now the Streall have always soft-pedaled for reasons of their own. All I did was increase the general tensions until they reached breaking point at some spot or other. You can use the lens to increase the probability of a thing happening, that’s all. In fact,” he added thoughtfully, “I wonder how many races the Streall have exterminated in the past in order to rectify their own ‘errors of control’?”

While they talked, the other deadliners clustered eagerly around the screen of a space-tensor transceiver. During the short periods each day when it was in operation they were in the habit of phasing through all available frequencies to get an exciting, panoramic view of the holocaust as desperation increased on both sides. Rodrone found that his cynicism had finally broken; the spectacle sickened him. But to the deadliners it was the spice of life.

One thing was becoming clear: the Streall were in retreat. They lacked the flexibility to handle the bewildering variety of techniques that were thrown against them by the far-flung patchwork of human-populated planets, by privateer outfits and all manner of independently operating groups. Surprising, too, was the number of alien races that now appeared in space to add their weight against the ages-old supervisors of existence. For centuries many of these races had been quietly learning human techniques of space travel; but they rarely ventured more than a few light-years from their home suns because the Streall, having learned their lesson from the upstart from the outer districts of the galaxy, kept an efficient police watch on the lookout for a repeat performance.

Rodrone felt empty, drained of any reality in life. Behind him, the space-tensor screen faded as space-strains spanning the light-years rippled and smoothed beyond the possibility of continued communication. The deadliners turned away, wiping their mouths.

After a pause Jermy turned to Rodrone. “When’re we gonna go?”

“Go where?” Rodrone asked.

Jermy moved his shoulder uneasily. “We’ve been hanging about for a month. We’re taking no cargo anywhere, we’re not doing anything. The boys wanna know where we’re going.”

Of course, Rodrone thought. These men, whose lives were one long monotony, felt restless if they were not on the move.

Briefly he considered throwing the lens into a sun. No… he did not trust the largely unmapped complexes of energy inside some stars. There was no saying that they would not produce influences on the lens without destroying it.

There was one other alternative: to lose it where there was little chance of its ever being found again, in the deep space beyond the galaxy.

It would be a long journey and time-dilation would remove them from the present time by hundreds of years— nearly a thousand years. But it would be worth it. He did not want to see anything of this age again.

“Were you with Captain Shone when he went out to the Barrier?” he asked.

“I was,” said Jermy. “Not the others, though.”

“Would you go again?”

“Sure.” Jermy shrugged. “Don’t know why, though. Once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it.”

“Well that’s where we’re going.”