Universe 8 - [Anthology] Read online

  While Jill was looking at Lindy, I gave the doc a nod to let him know I understood. Then I went to the computer console and traced a spiral on the maze that put me in direct contact with the Nightwine’s bridge.

  “Greenberg,” I said, “this is David Atkins. “What’s the fastest jump you can make to Earth, decelerating past Luna?”

  “Past Luna? We can’t. That’s against the law...”

  Earth’s laws are archaic. Our equipment can slip into parking orbit right from speed-of-light, but Earth-eaters still worry about deep-space collisions on their slag pile. “The hell with the law,” I said, “the captain’s life hangs on time.”

  “Twenty days,” Greenberg replied promptly. “He’s communicating?”

  “Yes,” I said, regretting I’d forgotten to tell the crews earlier. With few exceptions these people had worked for Lindy for a long time. Their concern was genuine.

  “And the captain agrees to risk Earth’s law?” Greenberg said.

  —No, I don’t,—Lindy straight-lined to me. —Tell him to take time for proper deceleration.—

  “Yes, he does,” I told Greenberg, “but he says to be careful.”

  —Damn you, David. There’s forty good crew on that ship!—

  Earth-eaters would have to catch the Nightwine before they could arrest her crew. Never happen. —Shut up, Lindy. I’m in command.—I turned back to the doc. I’d given him enough time to finish exploring. “Can the medic make the jump?”

  The doc was cautious, rechecked his data: —Printouts are accurate ... no dud, this medic . . . give him a list of the best men . . . Linden Fleet rich enough to offer the right price . . . learn much for my paper by staying . . . be on hand to take more drastic measures than a medic might dare . . .— “Yes,” he finally said. “I’ll . . .”

  I waved off his list of things to do. “Go do it, I know,” I said. Then into the communicator: “Greenberg, I’m sending the medic to the Nightwine. You jump for Earth as soon as he gets there.”

  “We’re transferring cargo, Mr. Atkins. Twenty hours of work...”

  “Stow it”

  “Yes, sir.”

  —They could do some business as long as the trip has to be made,—Linden said.

  —And waste a day? Not on your life.—”Doc, I’ve got things to see to.” It wasn’t necessary for me to be in the same room with Lindy to keep him company and we both had ship worries on our minds that I could soothe with a little checking.

  “Now? So soon? But we haven’t talked. You haven’t told me what his reactions are!” Intoxicated excitement again: —Medical first . . . brain alert . . . need David’s co-operation to learn ...—

  “Later. Right now I’m going to take Jill back to the captain’s cabin.”

  The doc nodded resignedly. “The medic gave her some sedatives. See that she takes one.” He gave Jill a sideways glance.

  —Tell him to give me one too,—Lindy said.

  I responded with confusion.

  —You’re going to talk to Jill, aren’t you?—he said.

  —Yes.—

  —I don’t want to listen.—

  He was anxious that he’d lost something with Jill. It had to do with her faith in his strength and what Lindy got from that faith. It’s just the way it was between them; it was theirs and maybe, now, it was gone. The doctor was still at my side by the console. “If you have something that will make Captain Linden’s brain relax, give it to him.”

  He seemed to understand, for he nodded and left me with his mind muttering about avoiding depression.

  —Try to sleep, Lindy. I’ll be waiting when you awaken.—

  I took Jill’s hand and led her out of the clinic and down the corridor. Her privacy request was ablaze. Even though she was exhausted, it didn’t skip. When I was sure Lindy wasn’t fighting the shot the doc gave him, I asked Jill: “Why won’t you talk to Lindy?”

  “I’m . . . shaken. I don’t want him to see me this way. He’s always been the stronger, but now he can’t help me. I need time to do it on my own.”

  I nodded. Eventually Lindy would reach for Jill, and I hoped she could carry it off when that time came. He’d need her strength. Role reversal? No, that was what it always was. Her love was his strength. We were standing in front of the captain’s cabin. “Will you take the sedative, Jill?”

  She nodded. “I can rest now. You’re here.”

  “Did you doubt I’d come?”

  “No, but it should be me he needs ...”

  But those were fringe thoughts, verbalized. “He’s sleeping now,” I told her. “You do the same.”

  Jill smiled tiredly, nodded, and let the labyrinth sense her body warmth in the proper pattern. I watched until the iris closed between us, then I turned to the bridge. The Dandelion had been orbiting without a captain for weeks. I had much to attend.

  * * * *

  There are few telepaths in the universe, but Earth-eaters are scared of even a minute number. Lindy was one of Earth’s first exiles, only ten years old when he was piped aboard a none-too-willing merchant ship as cabin boy. Twenty years later, I, a comfortably settled man with a nice job, a wife, and two kids, was discovered. I’d barely learned myself that I was telepathic and I wasn’t too happy about leaving Earth. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, didn’t understand why I must be exiled to live the rest of my life in orbital tin cans. I wasn’t piped aboard; they took me to Lindy’s ship in a strait jacket.

  Lindy was a compassionate teacher: I had tried to deny my telepathic abilities, for I thought if I wouldn’t or couldn’t use them, I’d be welcomed home with open arms. Lindy tried to explain that Earth-eaters are not dung beetles. When it didn’t sink in, he showed me why. He put me in an eva-pod and shoved me out the air lock. The comm-system in the pod was inexplicably jammed and I couldn’t operate the confusing labyrinth controls without direction. I learned a lot about my will to live and telepathy that day. For a long time I thought I knew what I hated: Lindy. It gave me something powerful on which to cling. Doesn’t sound like much of a beginning for a friendship, but at that time Lindy knew my mind better than I. He’d seen what was in the fringes of my cortex, hammered there by Earth-eaters’ hatred and fear, and he didn’t let me alone until he’d pried the synapses that let out love, compassion, and joy.

  That was a long time ago. Now there is a fleet of one hundred cargo and passenger ships, blinking between star systems, which is the Linden Fleet. Earth-eaters are suspicious about the cabin boy who became the head of the fantastic fleet. Success stories about telepaths make them tremble. Their fears are well founded; we are powerful and Lindy is ruthless. But he’s also very shrewd, for he knows Earth’s good will is our bread and butter. If there is a mercy trip to be made, the Linden Fleet can be counted on to do it at its own cost. If there is a dangerous cargo to be hauled, we do that too. . . .

  * * * *

  After I’d seen the Nightwine change attitude and leave for Earth, finished going over the damage reports, checked death and injury compensations, revised the repair schedule, talked with the doc, and gone to bed, I felt Lindy’s probe. I was tired, but I didn’t resist his need for communication.

  —Sorry to awaken you.—

  —It’s okay,—I lied, and Lindy knew I lied but such formalities are accepted at face value between telepaths.

  —How’s Jill?—

  —Sleeping, I hope.— But I couldn’t hedge with Lindy. —I don’t know. She’s scared for you and for herself as well.—

  —Keeping her thoughts from you too?—

  —affirmative—

  —David, I want to try something ... for Jill’s sake. Let me borrow your body.—

  I couldn’t help flinching. Protests came unbidden. — She doesn’t know of the method. It might not help the state she’s in. We’ve rarely done it. It frightens me!—

  Eagerness: —It’s power, David, and power will destroy her pity. I can end her fears, and mine. Let me!—

  —It requires m
y submission. I don’t like that.—

  —You fear I’d not release you?—

  —No.— Too slow, the affirmative slipped through. I tried to explain. —I trust you, but I have a ship to run.—

  Lindy laughed. —You forget, I’m the captain.—

  I felt sheepish. —All right, Lindy, but be careful. She may not accept you in my body.—

  —I know how to handle my own wife.—

  I took my conscious and my doubts that anyone “handled” Jill into a far cozy corner of my mind before Lindy could sense them. Then it was like wading through a dream while he sought out my synapses and tripped the right ones in proper sequence. I felt cramped, but not uncomfortable when he began moving fully in my mind, using my body as if it were his own. But I was helpless where I waited. Lindy was in control until he chose to relinquish my body, or until he fell asleep. Briefly, I wondered if men in comas ever slept naturally or only under sedatives. I heard Lindy’s good-humored reply and I relaxed. My fears, brief as they were, seemed groundless just then.

  For all his forethought, Lindy reflexively traced the pattern on the labyrinth of his cabin’s iris and he didn’t realize what he’d done until Jill looked up from where she stood, drawing up her jumper. Her hands tried to cover her naked breasts and Lindy grinned in full appreciation.

  Thrusting her arms into the jumper, she whirled to display backside fabric while she fastened the front out of his sight Then she turned, redfaced and angry. “David!” was all she could manage.

  Lindy was enjoying Jill’s first display of modesty in years, but she was struggling between impulses to throw a boot at him and to reasonably await explanation.

  He spoke when she reached for the boot. “It’s Lindy, not David.”

  Jill’s eyes softened slightly. “You’re relaying for him?”

  “No. It’s Lindy, first hand. I am possessing. David and I have experimented with possession. This seemed a good time to put the experiments into practical use.”

  Jill was nervous. “I don’t know . . . I’m not sure.” Then, with less suspicion. “Why?”

  Lindy walked to his grip-chair, eager to enjoy its comforts again. It dwarfed my small body, the specially made contours didn’t fit and he stood up again, looking around the cabin. It was one that a monk might live in: bed, chairs, and workbench by the computer extension. In ten years, Jill had made no changes except to add her own chair and hang her clothes in the closet. “I lay three weeks in black silence and you need to ask why?” He smiled. “It feels good to flex muscles again, even these small ones of David. But most of all, I needed to talk to you, directly.”

  “David is your friend. He would have relayed precisely what you wished,” Jill said. “Lindy, is it truly you? Or is David Atkins perpetrating some macabre trick?”

  “Would David walk in here without announcing himself?”

  “Not ordinarily. But if it served some obscure purpose, Linden could have shown him the pattern.”

  “What purpose could it serve?” he said.

  When Jill did not answer, Lindy, for the first time in a very long time, deliberately ignored her privacy pattern. He laughed aloud. “Do you really think David would dare seduce my wife? The thought has occurred to him, but he knows it would risk our friendship.”

  Jill frowned. “Nor would David invade my privacy.”

  Lindy still grinned. “No, he wouldn’t.”

  Jill walked across the cabin, staring at David’s face. — Linden? . . . tugs on a beard that isn’t there, but I’ve seen the gesture in Lindy a million times . . . smooth fingers brushing across my cheekbone . . . don’t pull my hair, Lindy! David would not touch me this way . . . your way.—

  “Don’t be afraid, Jill. It is me.” When he saw Jill close her eyes, he drew her near and found his cheek on her breast. There were some compensations for being a short man that he’d not suspected, but it wasn’t all pleasant surprises. He was less enthralled when Jill had to bend to kiss him. Lindy’d had enough with the height reversal and he leveled it. He picked up Jill, a heavier weight than he remembered but not an unreasonable burden for my strong body, and carried her to the bed.

  I’m not a voyeur but I get bored going through state vectors like a computer—especially when there’s something more interesting going on in my own body....

  * * * *

  I felt as anyone feels after missing sleep periods. Coffee helped but it was an effort to resist the temptation of going back to bed. I’d finished another session with the doc in the jury-rigged medical area on the hydroponic level where Lindy’s body lay. The doc was pleased that the captain’s depression had eased after a prolonged discussion with Jill—I didn’t explain how that was accomplished—and pleased that Lindy was resting comfortably now. But the doc was unhappy with the rapid deterioration of Lindy’s body. He was glad he’d stayed, for he’d come close to losing Lindy—unquestionably during the time he was possessing me. Lindy’s kidneys were failing. I was compelled to put off rest for a while longer and tell Jill about his condition. I didn’t even hesitate in front of the iris. I traced a pattern on the labyrinth and started through.

  “Lindy!” Jill said when she saw me.

  I stopped and the iris whooshed behind me. “No,” I said quickly. “It’s David.” I glanced back at the iris, realizing that the day before I’d not known the operational pattern. “Sorry, Jill. I guess some things remain. I didn’t give it a thought.”

  “What else remained?” I saw flickers of disgust and embarrassment.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s insignificant to me, less than a dream.”

  “You forget that I’m a computer programmer. I know how the storage systems work in the mechanical brains and I’ve had experience with the flesh ones too.”

  “Still, it’s less than a dream,” I insisted. “Perhaps there will be times when something will trigger a memory that is not of my own making, but it’s not something I can do voluntarily.” Certain lies comfort and I never hesitate to use them when I know things that are none of my business.

  Jill sat in her chair and gestured for me to use Lindy’s. I would have refused, but even improper contours are some relief to a tired body. “David, don’t let him do it again. It’s not just that.” She gestured toward the iris. “I’m frightened with him in your body. While he was with me he knew exactly what to say and do to soothe my anxieties. As soon as he left, I knew it wasn’t real and that it was wrong.”

  “He may not live through this,” I told her bluntly. “His kidneys are failing. Even forty days may not be soon enough. In light of that, how can I refuse him?”

  Jill was repelled. “Make his dying days as pleasant as possible?”

  “Something like that.”

  She was almost vicious. “Lindy won’t die; he’s too strong! He has too much will power to let go.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Doc thinks that if I hadn’t come, Lindy would have gone insane. I’m still worried about that. Ever thought about an insane telepath?”

  I could tell she hadn’t and she wasn’t going to think about it now either. She was worried about something else.

  “If you continue to let him possess you, he’ll be convinced you’re patronizing him. He’ll find the same pity in you that he feared to see in me.”

  “I can’t hide that from him. But he’s been a telepath long enough to understand it’s human for the mind to go off on tangents.” Lindy’s relation with me was disparate from the one between them. But Jill didn’t quite understand; there was a bit of envy in her.

  Jill shook her head. “As much as I want to be able to talk to him face to face—even if it’s your face—I believe you’re doing him a disservice. It’s not the best thing for him.”

  She believed it. She didn’t consider the disservice possession might do to me. “Jill, unless he agrees to respect my refusal to accommodate him, I’m not going to be able to stop him.”

  —What do you mean?— Her mental query formulated before she could e
ven open her mouth to speak.

  “Awake, I can refuse him.” So far, that was true. “Asleep my conscious is open to invasion from him. Lindy is more powerful than I.”

  —You think he would use you against your will? No!— She hadn’t the slightest doubt in him.

  But I doubted. “I know the part that you have never seen and he’s terrified of death. He’s fighting it now, but later he’ll become resentful and, eventually, accept it. It’s the normal pattern. Using my body gives him a lot of power—at least in his mind—to fight death.”