Seed of Stars Read online

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  The story of the human race is that of one man and one woman. This is the basic relationship that determines the history of mankind.

  These two have many names.

  Here they are Piet Huygens, Lieutenant j.g. (Medic Branch) Space Corps, and Mia Mizu-no, leading crewwoman, Space Corps.

  These two were complete opposites, totally different in family background, education and personality, but when they met their love was complete and intense, desperate and consuming. That love altered the destiny of an entire planet, Kepler III—altered it at a time when the colonists were seeking something as important and intangible as love—independence.

  Also by Dan Morgan and John Kippax

  A THUNDER OF STARS

  Available from Ballantine Books

  SEED OF STARS

  Dan Morgan

  and

  John Kippax

  BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

  Copyright © 1972 by Dan Morgan & John Kippax

  All rights reserved.

  SBN 345-02503-2-095

  First Printing: February, 1972

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover art by Vincent di Fate

  BALLANTINE BOOKS, INC.

  101 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10003

  an ebookman scan

  Seed of Stars

  They lay side by side on the narrow bunk In the cramped gray-metal box of his quarters. Naked, his long Nordic body close to hers, small, golden, dolllike, Piet Huygens felt a sudden chill as he raised himself on one elbow to look down at her.

  "Escape?" he said. "Surely what you really mean is desert?"

  Mia smiled up at him, her round, exquisite Nipponese beauty lighting up the grayness. "Desert—a word, a Corps word."

  "We are Corps."

  She readied up, her fingers caressing his cheek. "Piet, love. We are also human."

  "Up and leave the Corps—just like that?"

  "Just like that," she murmured.

  Looking down at her, he knew that she meant what she was saying. For her it was a simple matter of feeling and truth.

  "But our obligation," he said.

  "To serve the Corps? To spend the rest of our lives traveling from planet to planet inside this metal hive?"

  "That is what we signed for—the promise we made."

  "And had no right to make," she argued. 'Then, we were filled with the heroic dreams of the Corps. We had no experience of the day-to-day reality, an aseptic, sterile reality that says a man is a man and a woman a woman, but if that man is an officer and the woman crew, then it is wrong for them to follow their natural instincts."

  "But still a promise."

  "We didn't know what we signed for, we didn't understand," she argued quietly. "In our family, father and mother always made sure we knew what we were committing ourselves to before we made a promise. If you find that you can't keep a promise, isn't it honest to—to stop living a lie?"

  In her family . . . were there really such homes, where parents and children lived together, sharing emotions, brawling, laughing, loving? She had told him many times of her family, living at the top of Fuji Tower, the nearest block to Haneda port, Tokyo, but still it was outside his experience. His reality was a big, impersonal apartment in Lake Cities; he was the only child of two academic near-geniuses who had raised him according to the book, molded him into their pattern of mature responsibility, demanding that he act logically at all times. That was his life; he knew no other. And then he became a Space Corps officer, and that was a role for which his previous molding had already fitted him, until now...

  "What about responsibility, Mia?"

  She sighed. "Responsibility..."

  "To the rest of the crew."

  She pulled him down towards her, smiling. "Who'd miss me?"

  The tension in his mind began to ease as he moved closer to her warm body. "I would," he said.

  "Well thank you, sir," she said, laughing.

  "I love you, Mia," he said, clutching her to him, telling himself that this was his reality, this lithe, responsive body so attuned to his own.

  "Then what else matters?" she murmured, her small mouth close to his ear.

  They lay together, complete, the muffled hum and throb of Venturer Twelve all around them, protecting them against the whirling, star-slashed terror of space through which they traveled at many times the speed of light. He caressed her back, the smooth curve of her buttocks, gently; not because he felt a rising of passion so recently slaked, but because he knew she loved to have him stroke her. Times were when she almost purred...

  "It would have been simpler for you if you had chosen an officer to go to bed with," she said teasingly. "Lieutenant Hoffman—she's a beauty, for instance."

  "But I love you," he repeated. "Until I met you I didn't really know what love was."

  "And now?"

  "And now it is different"

  "But only so long as nobody knows," she reminded him. "And how long can that be? One of these times someone, some busy P.O., is going to see me sneaking in here, and then..."

  She was right. For a month, a whole month, they had been lucky, but their luck could not hold forever. And then, for her, disciplinary action, and for him, a swift reprimand. Conduct unbecoming an officer of the Corps...

  'That's why we have to do it, don't you see, Piet, love?" she said quietly.

  "Desertion..."

  "Escape—freedom to live a real, meaningful life together. No barriers, Piet, just you and I."

  "But how? Where?"

  "Where we are going—Kepler III."

  "A colonial planet?"

  "But of course a colonial planet, a new world with space for our children to grow up in, a world where they would be welcomed, not killed at the moment of conception by compulsory birth control."

  Conditioned as he was to life on overcrowded Earth and in the compulsory sterility of the Space Corps the thought was a new, exciting one. Their children, his and Mia's...

  "You realize that the colonists on Kepler III are almost one hundred percent eastern Asiatic in origin?" she said.

  He considered this for a moment in silence. He had tended to look upon her as a doll, a plaything, almost, in the early days of their relationship, but as he grew to know her better he had begun to recognize that beneath the fragile exterior beauty there was a will stronger, perhaps, than his own. This idea of a new life on Kepler III was no snap, impulse decision on her part, it was something she had been dreaming, thinking, planning for the two of them, because she loved him. Then surely it must be what he wanted, too?

  "The Keplerians are proud of their racial heritage— Indonesians, Chinese, Laotians, Malays and, mostly, Japanese. All Keplerians, but my people, don't you see?"

  "Your people, but not mine, Mia," he said.

  Her mouth trembled a little, then set resolutely. "Our people. You are my man, and I will not be parted from you. Neither will I share you with the Space Corps and the rest of the galaxy. As for what you look like—a scrap of surgery on your eyes, and your hair blackened, and you could be a man with a Northern Chinese ancestry."

  "Even so, a strange planet... we would be quite alone, with no one to help us."

  He had anticipated a protest, but instead, oddly, she laughed. "No, that's where you're so wrong, Piet There is a branch of my own family on Kepler."

  He raised himself up on one elbow and looked down at her incredulously. By the door of the cabin, the time numerals changed to 2014 hours, ship time. "A branch of your family? But the last colonists left Earth for Kepler nearly a hundred years ago. There can have been no personal contact between the two branches for several generations. Granted some relationship exists in theory, but in
practice it is surely nothing more than a tenuous matter of record?"

  Now it was her turn to look surprised. "Piet, love, that is not at all so. Two, three, ten generations—we are still family. Though time and space separate us, nothing can change that. We are family, and the family will help us."

  He shook his head in wonder. "You mean it You really do."

  Now she was soft and urgent. "Piet, love, until I met you, I was content with what I had. I was doing what I thought I wanted most of all, right from the time my eldest sister got a job at the Akai factory and brought home her instruction manuals. The day I opened Principles of Electronic Circuitry I was finished with childish books for good. But now that is changed. Now I have you, and I want to settle on Kepler III, and have your children. And if you want me as I want you, then this is what we must do."

  Her assurance was breathtaking and complete, but still he could not share her faith.

  "Even if your family were prepared to help as you say, I would still need a job," he said.

  She laughed. "You wonder about a job? How many Earth-trained doctors do you imagine there could possibly be on Kepler III? You will be more welcome than the spring rains."

  Reason told him that she must be right in this, at least. Even on Earth there were never enough doctors. On a planet like Kepler, isolated from Earth by the vast wastes of space, there must inevitably be a much greater shortage; and such doctors as there were would for the most part be Kepler-trained, without knowledge of new Earth techniques such as lay at his own fingertips. His mood brightened as he considered the prospect Aboard Venturer Twelve he was merely a junior-grade Medic lieutenant, but on Kepler III he would automatically become a person of considerable importance . . . with even minimal help from Mia's relatives this must be so.

  "Piet, love, what are you thinking?" she asked, a touch of uncertainty in her voice.

  Tm thinking that it will be good to be appreciated, to be something more than Maseba's errand boy," he said; "to live and work in a real community."

  Her face brightened. "Then you've decided?"

  "We have decided," he said.

  "Oh, Piet—you won't regret it, I promise you," she said joyfully. "We will be happy together, and I will give you many fine sons."

  "We must make our preparations carefully," he said. "There will be certain things to be taken with us that may be irreplaceable, medical texts, a set of surgical instruments..."

  "And there will be gifts to be selected," she said.

  "Gifts?" he looked at her, jolted out of his consideration of essential items.

  "Of course—for the family," she explained patiently. "It would be unthinkable for us to appear on their threshold empty-handed. Is it not your custom to exchange gifts in this way?"

  He listened with some awe as she explained the Japanese methodical madness of gift-giving; the unending reverberations of presents received and presents reciprocated. It was a game that had to be played according to the rules, sometimes even at the cost of debt and bankruptcy, a continual to-and-fro that once begun only came to an end with the death of the participants. And even then, there was the next generation. He realized that there would be a great deal he must learn if he was to take his place in this strange society.

  "Then. . . ." She sat up, twisting on the bunk until she sat facing him. She brought her arms down and extended the left one towards him. She ran the forefinger of her right hand upwards from her left wrist until it rested on a slight bump just below the elbow joint. "Then there is this."

  He knew immediately that she was referring to the contraception capsule implanted in her, as in every other crewwoman of the Corps.

  "Your capsule?"

  "Yes, Piet, love."

  "What about it?"

  "I want you to take it out."

  He sat up sharply. "You crazy?"

  "No." Her voice sank to dovelike gentleness. "Not crazy, just in love. Deeply, completely. So much so that every time we come together there's a pang, a pang which says—'All that good seed not used.'"

  "But it's against..."

  "Regulations? Piet, we have agreed what we're going to do, haven't we? Then let us make a beginning. If I start a baby straight away we shall be at Kepler in under three months, long before I show."

  But what if something goes wrong, what if we are unable to escape after all? The doubts crowded in on his mind at the thought of such an irrevocable commitment, but he forced them back, because he knew that to speak them would hurt and disappoint her.

  "How do you know that you'll start a baby?" he asked.

  'Trust me," she said, taking his hand and placing it over her navel. "As soon as my bloodstream is free of the neutralizing hormone, I'll take your first offer. I'm fertile, love, I know it. Why should we wait—now?"

  He sat looking at her silently, knowing that the decision was already made, and that he would do as she asked because he loved her, because no other woman had ever given him what she had. Before her, sex had been just a pattern of physical relief; with her, it had a new meaning, as part of a much greater, more embracing relationship. The removal of the capsule would set the seal on that relationship. But...

  In the humming silence between them, just as the door numerals showed 2021 hours, the ship's general alarm sounded.

  Distress Call—Omnidirectional Mayday Mayday Mayday. Excelsior Corporation ship Wangituru twenty two point five light years out of Kepler III. Mayday Mayday Mayday. Two meteors penetrated hull. Eight dead, five needing urgent medical aid. Astrogation computer out, proceeding blind. Loop route five for Sol III. Decelerating now to point zero zero zero zero five light. Mayday Mayday Mayday. Excelsior Corporation ship Wangituru twenty two point five light years out. ...

  The steward had removed the scant remains of the meal, and, at a glance from Tom Bruce, himself. Now the four of them were alone in the commander's standby room.

  Magnus said, 'The trouble with coffee is that it makes me think too hard about the next real meal. I don't suppose... ?"

  Lieutenant Commander Helen Lindstrom, second in command of Venturer Twelve, opened the lid of the pot and looked inside. "I'm afraid that's the ration, Mr. Magnus," she said, with a rueful smile.

  "Anything else you want to drink, it'll be recycled water." Commander Tom Brace's flat, metallic voice was a direct contrast to the leisured, English drawl of Magnus.

  "Charming thought," said Magnus, removing a cigar case from the inside breast pocket of his immaculate civilian jacket. "Well, at least we can enjoy a good smoke while these last."

  Helen Lindstrom declined, as did Joseph Ichiwara, Magnus's zealous number two. She watched as Bruce took one and lit it He was a man with green eyes and red hair beginning to gray. The expression on his hatchet face changed very little, but she knew him well enough to recognize the tension in his manner. It had become increasingly obvious during the past few weeks that Magnus, tall, dark and slightly stooping, with his air of cultured imperturbability, was not Bruce's kind of person, and she fancied that before this mission was complete she would find herself in the uncomfortable position of providing a buffer between her commander and the civilian Explorations Division officer.

  Magnus exhaled a puff of smoke with a sigh of pleasure. "We may be lucky, of course. I understand that there is a certain amount of tobacco grown on Kepler III."

  "Yes indeed, sir," said Ichiwara's high-pitched voice. He beamed at his chief through pebble-thick glasses. "The crop in southern Ayoto over the past few years has been quite remarkable in its quality. According to my reports the tonnage..."

  "I'm sure you have all the figures immediately to hand, my dear Joseph," Magnus said blandly. "But spare us for the moment Commander Bruce is much more interested in the subject of his schedule." He turned his attention to Bruce. "You were asking me earlier if I could give you some accurate estimate of the length of our stay on Kepler III, I believe?"

  "Not an unreasonable request, surely?" Bruce said, with a touch of sharpness that was not lost o
n Helen Lindstrom.

  "Not unreasonable—but I'm afraid, at this stage, unanswerable," Magnus said. "We already have a considerable amount of information about the progress of the colony, of course, and the indications are favorable towards the granting of independence. But it is a maxim of Explorations Division that all such information must be checked out and verified. That is, of course, my job. But even with my able staff and all the help that your specialists will no doubt be able to afford me, I cannot commit myself to the extent of giving you even a rough estimate. One thing I can say with certainty is that I do not intend to be precipitate in reaching my decision. The operation will take as long as I consider necessary. You must understand, commander, that the granting of independence to a colony such as Kepler III is an extremely important affair. From the point of view of the colonists themselves, this is the goal towards which they and their ancestors have been working for a hundred years. There cannot—indeed, must not—be any possibility of error."

  Helen Lindstrom looked across at Tom Bruce, wondering if this was the moment As Explorations Division officer in charge of the Kepler III operation, Magnus held rank equivalent to a World Supreme Court judge, but here on Venturer Twelve he was technically, at any rate, under the command of Bruce. In many ways Magnus must be dependent on the good will and cooperation of Bruce, and yet it seemed that already, at this early stage, he was forcing the pace towards a trial of strength. Bruce was not a man used to dealing with intangibles. Abstract concepts bothered him, and uncertain estimates such as Magnus had voiced were anathema in his universe. Bruce was "all Corps," a solid, dependable officer in the old "damn-the-torpedoes" tradition, but...

  The tension in the small room was broken suddenly, as the raving note of the general alarm sounded. Bruce was on his feet, running for the door almost before the sound had registered in the minds of the others. Lindstrom was close behind him.

  Lieutenant Wiltrud Anna Hoffman sat in the duty chair above main control, in front of the screens, repeaters and command phones which told the continuing story of Venturer Twelve's progress. Below her the duty crew moved, alert and ready, checking and feeding information. A cool, athletic blonde, with short-cut hair and icy pale-blue eyes, she watched and timed as full duty sections checked in on the signal board. She was not impressed by the fact that it had been her unusual duty to sound the general alarm. Very few eventualities in her life as an officer of Space Corps impressed Trudi Hoffman, in fact, sometimes, she found herself impatient with the apparent simplicity of the problem situations with which she was presented. Fortunately there were other areas of experience in which, given the right partner, one could be more adventurous. With Piet Huygens, for instance, there were times when...