Icehenge Read online

  * * *

  When I woke up again, Swann was by my bed, tilted in the no-gee so that his head hung over me. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Bad.” I waved him away and he pushed off into the air above the bed. I rubbed my eyes. “What happened, Swann?”

  “A mutiny, you’ve been calling it.” He smiled.

  “And it’s true?”

  He nodded.

  “But why? Who are you?”

  “Did you ever hear of the Mars Starship Association?”

  I thought. “A long time ago? One of those secret anti-Committee groups.”

  “We weren’t anti-Committee,” he said. “We were just a club. An advocacy group. We wanted the Committee to support research for an interstellar expedition.”

  “So?”

  “So the Committee didn’t want to do it. And they took us to be part of the anti-Committee movement, so they outlawed us. Jailed the leaders, transferred the members to different sectors. They made us anti-Committee.”

  “Didn’t all that happen a long time ago?” I asked, still disoriented. “What has that got to do with this?”

  “We regrouped,” he said. “Secretly. We’ve existed underground for all these years. This is our coming out, you might say.”

  “But why? What good does it do you to take over a few asteroid miners? You aren’t planning to use them as starships, are you?” I laughed shortly at the idea.

  He stared at me without answering, and suddenly I knew that I had guessed it.

  I sat up carefully, feeling cold and a touch dizzy. “You must be joking.”

  “Not at all. We’re going to join the Lermontov and the Hidalgo, and complete their life-support systems’ closure.”

  “Impossible,” I breathed, still stunned at the very idea.

  “Not impossible,” he said patiently. “That’s what the MSA has been working on these last forty years—”

  “One of those ships is Hidalgo?” I interrupted. My processing was still impaired by the drugs he had shot me with.

  “That’s right.”

  “So Davydov is alive.…”

  “He certainly is. You knew him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” Davydov had been the captain of Hidalgo when it disappeared in the Achilles group three years before. I had thought him dead.…

  “There’s no way I’ll go,” I said after a pause. “You can’t kidnap me and drag me along on some insane interstellar attempt—”

  “No! No. We’re sending Rust Eagle back with all the non-MSA people from the three ships.”

  I let out a long sigh of relief. Yet sudden anguish filled me at the thought of the mess I was suddenly in, of the fanatics who now had control of my life, and I cried out, “Eric, you knew this was going to happen out here. Why didn’t you arrange to keep me off this flight?”

  He looked away from me, pushed himself down to the floor. Red-faced, he said, “I did the opposite, Emma.”

  “You what?”

  “There are MSA people in the expedition scheduling office, and”—still staring at the floor—“I told them to arrange for you to be aboard Rust Eagle this time.”

  “But, Swann!” I said, struggling for words. “Why? Why did you do that to me?”

  “Well—because, Emma, you’re one of the best life-support systems designers there is on Mars, or anywhere. Everyone knows that, you know that. And even though our systems designers have got a lot of improvements for the starship, they still have to be installed in those two ships, and made to work. And we have to do it before the Committee police find us. Your help could make the difference, Emma.”

  “Oh, Swann.”

  “It could! Look, I knew it was imposing on you, but I thought, if we got you out here ignorant of our plans, then you couldn’t be held responsible. When you return to Mars you can tell them you didn’t know anything about the MSA, that we made you help us. That was why I didn’t tell you anything on the way out here, don’t you see? And I know you aren’t that strong a supporter of the Committee, are you? They’re just a bunch of thugs. So that if your old friends asked you for help that only you can give, and you couldn’t be held culpable, you might help? Even if it was illegal?” He looked up at me, his blue eyes grave.

  “You’re asking for the impossible,” I told him. “Your MSA has lost touch with reality. You’re talking about travel across light-years, for God’s sake, and you’ve got five-year systems to do it with!”

  “They can be modified,” Swann insisted. “Davydov will explain the whole project when you see him. He wants to talk with you as soon as you’d like to.”

  “Davydov,” I said darkly. “He’s the one behind this madness.”

  “We’re all behind it, Emma. And it isn’t mad.”

  I waved an arm and held my head in my hands, as it was pulsing with all the bad news. “Just leave me alone for a while.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I know it’s a lot to take in. Just tell me when you want to see Davydov. He’s over on Hidalgo.”

  “I’ll tell you,” I said, and looked at the wall until he left the room.

  * * *

  I had better tell about Oleg Davydov here, for we were lovers once, and for me the memory of him was marked with pain and anger, and a sense of loss—loss that no matter how long I lived could not be recouped or forgotten.

  I was just out of the University of Mars, working at the Hellas Basin, in the new settlement near the western edge of the Basin where underground reservoirs and aquifers had been discovered. It was a good supply of water, but the situation was delicate, and the use of the water caused ecologic problems. I was set to work with others to solve these problems, and I quickly proved that I was the best among the systems people there. I had a grasp of the whole Hellas set-up that seemed perfectly natural to me, but was (I could see) impressive to others. And I was a good middle-distance runner—so that all in all, I was a confident youth, perhaps even a bit arrogant.

  During my second year there I met Oleg Davydov. He was staying in Burroughs, the big government center to the north, doing some work for the Soviet mining cartel. We met in a restaurant, introduced by a mutual acquaintance.

  He was tall and bulky, a handsome man. One of the Soviet blacks, they call them. I guess some of their ancestors came from one of the USSR’s client countries in Africa. The color had been pretty well watered down over the generations, and Davydov had coffee-and-cream-colored skin. His hair was black and wooly; he had thick lips under a thin, aquiline nose; a heavy beard, shaved so that his lower face was rough; and his eyes were ice blue. They seemed to jump out of his face. So he was a pretty good racial mix. But on Mars, where ninety-nine percent of the population is fish-belly white, as they say, any touch of skin color is highly valued. It made one look so … healthy, and vital. This Davydov was really extremely good-looking, a color delight to the eye. I watched him then, as we sat on adjacent stools in that Burroughs restaurant, talking, drinking, flirting a little … watched so closely that I can recall the potted palm and white wall that were behind him, although I don’t remember a word we said. It was one of those charmed nights, when both parties are aware of the mutual attraction.

  We spent that night together, and the next several nights as well. We visited the first colony in the area, The Can, and marvelled at the exhibits in the museum there. We scrambled around the base of the Fluted Cliffs in Hellespontus Montes, and spent a night out in a survival tent. I beat him easily in a footrace, and then won a 1500-meter race for him at a Burroughs track. Every hour available to us we spent together, and I fell in love. Oleg was young, witty, proud of his many abilities; he was exotically bilingual (a Russian!), affectionate, sensual. We spent a lot of time in bed. I remember that in the dark I could see little more than his teeth when he grinned, and his eyes, which seemed light grey. I loved making love with him … I remember late dinners together, in Burroughs or out at the station. And innumerable train rides, together or alone, across the sere rust deserts between Bu
rroughs and Hellas—sitting by the window looking out at the curved red horizon, feeling happy and excited.… Well, those are the kind of times that you only live through once. I remember them well.

  The arguments began quite soon after those first weeks. We were an arrogant pair and didn’t know any better. For a long time I didn’t even realize that our disagreements were particularly serious, for I couldn’t imagine anyone arguing with me for very long. (Yes, I was that self-important.) But Oleg Davydov did. I can’t remember much of what we argued about—that period of time, unlike the beginning, is a convenient blur in my memory. One time I do remember (of course the rest could be called up as well): I had come into Burroughs on the late train, and we were out eating in a Greek restaurant behind the train station. I was tired, and nervous about our relationship, and sick of Hellas. Hoping to compliment him, I made some comment about how much more fun it would be to be an asteroid miner like he was.

  “We aren’t doing anything out there,” he said in response. “Just making money for the corporations—making a few people on Earth rich, while everything else down there falls apart.”

  “Well, at least you’re out there exploring,” I said.

  He looked annoyed, an expression I was becoming familiar with. “But we aren’t, that’s what I’m saying. With our capabilities we could be exploring the whole solar system. We could have stations on the Jovian moons, around Saturn, all the way out to Pluto. We need a solar watch station on Pluto.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that fact,” I said sarcastically.

  His pale blue eyes pierced me. “Of course you weren’t. You think it’s perfectly all right to continue making money from those stupid asteroids, and nothing more, here at the end of the twenty-second century.”

  “Well?” I said, annoyed myself by this time. “We’re all going to live for a thousand years, so what’s your rush? There’s time for all of your great projects. Right now we need those asteroids.”

  “The corporations need them. And the Committee.”

  “The Committee’s just organizing all of our efforts for our own good,” I said.

  “They just make the trains run on time, eh?” he said, taking a deep swallow from his drink.

  “Yes,” I said, not understanding what he meant. “Yes, they do.”

  He shook his head with disgust. “You’re an all-American girl, all right. Everything is oh kay. Leave the politics to the others.”

  “And you are a true Soviet,” I retorted, struggling away from him in our dining booth. “Blaming your problems on the government.…”

  And we went on from there, senselessly and for no reason but pride and hurt feelings. I remember him making a grim prediction: “They will make a happy American Kremlin up here, and you won’t care, as long as your job is secure.” But most of what we said was less logical than that.

  And a long, miserable week later, a blur of bitter fights, one of those times when you have ruined a relationship though you don’t know how, and wish desperately that time could be reversed and the unknown mistake undone, he left. The Soviet mining people wanted him in space again and he just left, without saying goodbye, though I called his dorm again and again in those last few days. And then I knew—I learned it, in the course of long black walks over the broad basin, standing alone on that rocky plain—that I could be spurned. It was a hard lesson.

  In a few years I was out among the asteroids myself, working for Royal Dutch. I heard stories about Davydov getting in trouble with the Soviet mining command, but I didn’t pay much attention. It was a matter of pride to ignore anything I heard about him. So I never got the full story of what had happened to him.

  Then, many years later—just three years before this mutiny, in fact—the Hidalgo disappeared out in the Trojans, breaking radio contact with the famous last words, “Now wait just a minute.” No wreckage was ever found, the matter was hushed up by the Committee censors, and no explanation was ever offered. Looking over the list of crew members I saw his name at the top—Oleg Davydov—and the pain flooded through me again, worse than ever before. It was one of the worst moments of my life. We had parted in anger, he had left me without even saying good-bye, and now, no matter how many years the gerontologists gave me, I would never be able to change those facts, for he was dead. It was very sad.

  … Thus, when Eric Swann came to take me across to the Hidalgo, to see Davydov again, I did not know exactly what I felt. My heart beat rapidly, I had to strain to make casual, terse conversation with Eric. What would he look like? What would I say to him, or him to me? I didn’t have the slightest idea.

  Well, he looked very much like he had sixty years before. Perhaps a little heavier, bearlike with his dark hair, his broad shoulders and chest and rump. His ice-blue eyes surveyed me without any visible sign of recognition.

  We were on the empty bridge of the Hidalgo. At a nod from Davydov, Eric had slipped away down the jump tube. In the breathy vented silence I walked around the bridge slowly, my velcro slippers making little rip rip rip noises. My pulse was fast. I discovered that I was still angry with him. And I felt that he had personally deceived me with the news of his death. Or perhaps it was the mutiny.…

  “You look much the same,” he said. The sound of his voice triggered a hundred memories. I looked at him without replying. Finally he said, with a stiff, slight smile, “Has Eric apologized for our kidnapping of you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I am sorry we shocked you. I hear you fought hard against the takeover. Eric probably explained that we kept you ignorant for your own protection.”

  So smooth, he was. It just made me mad. He squinted at me, trying to gauge my mood. Hard without a voice.

  “The truth of the matter is,” he went on, “the success of all the MSA’s years of effort depends on the creation of a fully closed life-support system in the starship. I believe our scientists will be able to do it, but Swann has always said your ability with BLS systems is extraordinary, and our scientists agree that you are the best. And they tell me we need your help.”

  Did he think I would still be vain? “You’re not—” I cleared my throat. “You’re not going to get it.”

  He stared at me, calm and bemused. “You still support the Committee? Even though they have jailed your father on Amor, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But the Committee doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “That is the equivalent of saying you still support them. But enough of that. We need your help. Why won’t you help us?”

  After I didn’t reply, he began to stride back and forth, rip rip rip. “You know,” he said with a nervous glance, “what happened between us occurred a long time ago. We were both children then—”

  “We were not children,” I broke in. “We were free adults, on our own. We were just as responsible for our actions then as we are now.”

  “All right,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair. “You’re right. We were not children, admittedly.” This was turning out to be more difficult than he had expected. “But it was a long time ago.”

  “This has nothing to do with that time, anyway.”

  He looked confused. “Then why won’t you help?”

  “Because what you are attempting is impossible,” I cried. “This is all a monstrous fantasy of yours. You’re ignoring the hard cold realities of deep space and leading people to a miserable death out there, all because of some boyish notion of adventure that you’ve been nursing all these years—for so long that you can’t distinguish between fantasy and reality anymore!” I stopped, surprised by my vehemence. Davydov was wide-eyed.

  “It’s not my idea alone,” he said weakly. “Every member of the MSA believes it is possible.”

  “There have been mass delusions larger than this,” I said, “following a fanatic leader.”

  His eyes glittered angrily. (This effect is the result, I believe, of tensing the forehead muscles, thus shifting the layer of water over the eyes.)
“I am no fanatic. We started as a group without a leader. I was made leader by the Committee when they tried to destroy us—they wanted to say it was a single person’s doing. Like you do. When we reorganized, I was the one everyone knew about. But there are other leaders—”

  “You started the reorganization, right?” Somehow I knew this was true. “Started up your little secret society, invented the handshake—”

  “The fact that we had to work in secret,” he said loudly, and then lowered his voice, “is incidental. A political reality, a fact of our time and place. A lot of work had to be done that the Committee didn’t want done. They wouldn’t support us, but that doesn’t make the project bad! We’re free of political motives, we are an act of cooperation between Soviets and Americans—we try to take humanity to permanent homes outside the solar system, while we still can.”

  He stopped for breath, staring at me with his swarthy jaws bunched. “Now you”—pointing at me—“completely ignorant of all this, call me a fanatic. Leading fools in a fantasy world.” He looked away, out the wide bridge window. “I could have told Swann you would react like this.”

  My face burned. There we were, exactly as we had left off sixty years before. Furiously I said, “You kidnap me, put my future in great danger, and then call me a fool because I don’t fall in with your fantastic schemes. Well you aren’t going to get my help, Oleg Davydov, you and your secret club.” I moved to the jump tube. “Just tell me when we can take Rust Eagle back to Mars. Until then I’ll be in my room.”

  Crossing back over to our ship, Eric didn’t dare say a word to me. Once on Rust Eagle I left him and went to my room, hit the desk and nearly cracked my skull on the ceiling. I hate no-gee. I went to the centrifuge and ran, ignoring my complaining knee. Then I went back to my little room to brood and imagine crushing rejoinders to Davydov. Why do all the best lines come to you when the argument is over? What I should have said was … I know, I know. Only serious brooding will hatch those real crushers.

  But why had I fought with him at all, when he was asking for my help?