Open Writing

Three hours later, Holly and Jase were sitting in the
midships dining room, sharing a pot of coffee and
experiencing the first gravity they had felt since leaving
earth orbit, four weeks and almost two hundred years ago.
The computer had turned the ship over; they now faced
the Procyon system tail-first, and it had fired the main
rockets so that they were decelerating at a rate of 0.75
gees. After being weightless for so long, their muscles
were weakened, and they had decided on the less-thanearth
gravity until they became more accustomed to
having weight again.

Selenkov had been returned to his cell and put back to
sleep; Holly had asked Jase if he wanted to do the same,
but the American had refused, at least for the time being.
He preferred to stay with Holly, and she was glad of that.
She didn’t want to be alone again. She had scolded him
for what he had done, but she could tell he knew that she
didn’t really mean it. He told her that the computer had
backed him up, the doctor politely inquiring whether
Holly had thought it needed a baby-sitter. Actually, she
was proud of her man, and of what he had done, and she
wasn’t long in telling him so. But their ebullient mood
didn’t last for long; they had other things to worry about.

Although they and the sleepers were now safe from the
threat Hoddle had posed, they found that they had another
problem. While the computer still continued to run the
basic operations of the ship, the engines, life support and
all, its higher AI functions were, at least for the moment,
off-line. Holly had concluded that its dilemma, having to
choose between two of its basic rules of operation, had
left it severely traumatized, and it had simply shut down
that section of its mainframe. Regardless of the fact that
the computer had obeyed its programming in sacrificing
one human to save three, it was still severely affected by
the experience. How long its artificial intelligence would
remain out of commission was anybody’s guess, but
Holly prayed it wouldn’t be long.

She had become accustomed to having the Doctor for
company, and she missed its wisecracking good humor.
Also, she wasn’t sure how well she could communicate
with it via the old-fashioned keyboard, at least not as
clearly as by a verbal command. She had set it the task of
investigating whether or not the tissue re-animation idea
was feasible, and it seemed to be functioning on that level
at least. Accomplishing turnover and deceleration had
been simply a matter of implementing something that had
been pre-programmed, but for full control of the ship,
particularly to establish orbit around the seventh planet of
the system, she needed the AI on line.

Also, without its full capabilities, they were unable to
recover Hoddle before he got too close to the star. There
was air in the suit for four days, and Hoddle was travelling
towards the massive star at their original velocity of
twenty million kilometers per hour. And, since they were
now decelerating, the gap between them was getting
wider by the second. From this, Holly had calculated that
the Englishman would reach a point where he would
begin to burn up long before his air ran out.

She wondered whether he would have the courage to
lift the faceplate of his helmet before then.

Somehow, despite everything Hoddle had done, Holly
was sure he would. Insane he might have been, but in that
last exchange as he hurtled away from them towards the
fiery bulk of Procyon, the Englishman had sounded
strangely calm, almost conversational. Whatever the state
of his mind, Holly was oddly certain that Doctor Julian
Hoddle lacked neither character nor courage.

Holly shook her head and turned her thoughts to her
lover and herself, and their immediate situation. What had
happened to Hoddle was tragic and unfair, just as it was
for all the other sleepers, including Jase. Holly could only
hope that somehow, sometime, something might be able
to be done for them.

Right now, though, there was nothing for her and Jase
to do but rest. Holly blushed as her head filled with
graphic images of other things they might be doing, none
of which involved resting. Holly watched her man across
the table as she sipped her coffee, thankful for the gravity
that allowed them to use real cups instead of the zero-gee
bulbs. It was the little things you missed, she decided,
glancing again at the man sitting across from her. She
knew, now that the danger was past and they were safe,
that she had to give some thought to exactly what it was
that she was doing.

Did she really love this man, as she thought? In a
worst-case scenario, was she really prepared to spend the
rest of her life with a retarded adult? She looked at him
again, and he smiled at her, making her tingle inside. Yes,
she thought, smiling back at him and articulating the
thought to herself for the first time, that was exactly what
she was going to do. It would be difficult, she knew, but
she also knew that she loved him, and that would make up
for a lot, would enable her to bear almost any difficulty.

They say that a man wants as many women as he can
get, she thought, while a woman just wants the best man.
Well, she thought, looking across the table at him, this
man is not just the best I can get; he’s better than I ever
had a right to hope for. Holly’s smile faded as she thought
again of their situation. She had other problems to think
about right now. For instance, what about the sleepers?
What were they going to do with them? Could she risk
waking any more of them? Remembering the experience
with the Indian captain, she thought it was a pretty safe
bet that Hoddle would not have been the only one with his
kind of brain damage. If they woke others, how could
they be sure that they wouldn’t find themselves in the
same kind of predicament all over again?

Holly stretched tiredly, and looked at Jase. Not now,
she thought. We’ve got at least a week before we reach
the seventh planet, and the deceleration procedure at least
is automatic. Later, I’ll give some thought as to how
we’re going to establish an orbit. Maybe the Doctor will
be back on line by then. Right now, she thought, I need to
curl up in a warm bed with my man. Holly flushed again
as things she hadn’t thought of since her teens flashed
through her mind. She smiled at Jase; he smiled back, and
she stood up and held out her hand.

The American stood and walked around the table to
her, and she moved into his arms and they kissed. “Take
me to bed, Jase,” she said huskily. “I need you quite badly
now.”

Without a word, Jase picked her up in his arms and
headed for their cabin.

* * *

Holly came up from the depths of the best natural sleep
she had enjoyed since the start of the mission to the sound
of a muted alarm resounding throughout the ship. At first,
her sluggish mind, still three or four hours shy of the sleep
it needed, didn’t recognize the sound.

Then, when it finally penetrated to her conscious
mind, she sat up in apprehension to find Jase was already
up. She threw off the single blanket and rolled to the edge
of the bunk.

“What is it, Jase, what’s happening?”

Jase shook his head. “I-I don’t know, H-Holly,” he
replied, shrugging into his one-piece coverall. “It j-j-just
started up a min-minute ago.”

Holly leapt up and pulled on her coverall, then together
they ran to the door of the cabin. Racing through the ship
to the computer room, the alarm louder now that they
were out of their cabin, all Holly could think was, Oh
God, what now? Haven’t we been through enough?
Struggling even under the light gravity, she took Jase’s
hand as they lurched down the corridors.

They reached the computer room and the door slid
aside. Rushing in, Holly cried, out of habit, forgetting that
the computer was down, “What is it Doc, what’s wrong?”
Then she and Jase stopped dead in their tracks as a
familiar sartorially splendid figure materialized in one of
the chairs.

“Ya got me, dollface. I’ve just woken up, myself.”

Holly gasped. “Doc!” she cried. “You’re back!”

The computer image chuckled and stretched,
smothering a yawn. “Yep. Been out of it for a while,
though. Give me a sec, and we’ll see what we can see.”

Next moment, the wall screens came back to life, and
the pair were presented with two views from outside the
ship: fore and aft. The computer panned the exterior
cameras around, and the sight that presented itself to them
took their breath away, so that even the garrulous
computer seemed lost for words.

Hanging off their port side, suspended in space and
seemingly motionless, was another spacecraft.

It was shaped like an almost perfectly round sphere,
and Holly could see engine mounts protruding from one
side, and small, transparent circles, squares and rectangles
dotted across its surface. It had obviously matched course
and deceleration with the Asimov, and appeared to be at
rest alongside them.

Holly and Jase stared at the ship, unable to
comprehend what its appearance meant. Then Holly
noticed the markings on its side; the numbers and letters
meant nothing to her, but they were definitely in English.
The ship was of human origin! Holly stared at the screen
for a moment longer, then said, “Doc, what are our
communications like? Can you raise them?”

“One way to find out,” replied the computer. There
was a few moments’ silence, then it said, “I have the
commander of the vessel for you, Holly. Coming through
now.”

Almost immediately, the image of the ship on one of
the screens was replaced by a head-and-shoulders shot of
a handsome man. He appeared to be in his early forties,
with graying hair and an unmistakably authoritative
appearance. Holly stood before the screen to allow the
tiny cameras within it to record and transmit her image as
well as her words, and spoke to the mysterious ship’s
commander.

“H-Hello. My, um, my name is Holly Parmentier, and I
suppose I’m in command, at least for now, of the colony
ship Isaac Asimov. May I ask who you are, and what is
your ship, and…and where did you come from?”

The figure on the screen regarded her with a mixture of
kindly benevolence and commanding concern. “My name
is Carter Henshaw,” he said, in American-accented
English, “and I am the captain of the United Earth Ship
Arthur C. Clarke. You say that you are in command. May
I ask, Ms. Parmentier, the whereabouts of the other
command personnel? Perhaps Captain Patel, or
Councilman Rattray?”

Hearing the familiar names that it seemed she had last
heard a thousand years ago, Holly put out a hand to steady
herself against the console as her legs threatened to give
way beneath her. Then, taking a deep breath and
gathering herself, she said, “I think you had better send
some people over here, Captain. We’re in fairly poor
shape, and we could use some help.”

The captain replied that he would dispatch a boarding
party, including medical people, immediately, adding that
he would accompany them personally. Then he signed off
with the promise that they would be with them directly.
Holly instructed the computer to monitor the boarding
team’s progress and see them safely aboard. Then she
turned to Jase and sagged with relief into his arms.

“Oh, God! Jase, they’re from earth! How can that be?
How could they get out here so fast?” She turned to the
computer console. “Doc?” she said. “Any ideas?”

The computer replied immediately, its image standing
against a wall with its arms folded. “I see only two ways
that they could have done it, Holly. Either they left earth
immediately after we did, or else they have FTL
capability.”

Holly frowned. “FTL? What’s that, Doc?”

“Faster-Than-Light technology, Holly,” the computer
replied.

Holly stared at the console. “You mean…faster than
light? But that’s…I thought that was impossible. I mean, I
don’t know much science, but didn’t Weinstein or
someone say it couldn’t be done? Isn’t the speed of light
the fastest anything can go in the universe? I thought that
sort of thing was confined to the stories your namesake
used to write.”

The image of the long-dead man of science and fiction
shook its head and smiled. “Actually, it was Albert
Einstein, Holly. And he never said you couldn’t travel
faster than light, only that you couldn’t travel at that
speed. And anyway, particles such as tachyons travel
faster than light. It was only a matter of time before
someone found how to incorporate them or something
similar into a ship’s drive.”

Holly digested this, then said, “So you think that’s how
they did it? With these…what did you call them,
tachyons?”

The computer image nodded confidently. “Yep, has to
be. There’s no other way they could have achieved FTL
travel.”

Holly was about to reply when the computer
announced that the boarding party were entering the
forward airlock, and she and Jase hurried there to meet
them.

* * *

The cloud of vapor that accompanied the five people in
the midships airlock slowly dissipated while Holly and
Jase stood outside, barely able to contain their excitement
as the shapes of the figures within slowly began to
resolve. Then, with an audible pop, the seal was broken,
and the inner door swung inwards towards them.

Holly took an involuntary step back, and felt a moment
of pride as Jase stood his ground against the five suited
figures that emerged from the airlock, amidst the hiss of
equalized pressure as the door swung wide. The central
figure of the group touched a stud on one side of its
helmet, and the faceplate slid up to reveal the man she
knew as Captain Henshaw. He smiled reassuringly at her,
then spoke.

“I know it’s hardly original, but… Ms. Parmentier, I
presume?”

The light-hearted attempt at humor relaxed Holly like
nothing else could have, and she smiled gratefully at the
man, taking his outstretched hand and shaking it
vigorously. “Yes…yes, that’s me,” she said. “My God,
Captain. Where on earth did you come from?”

The man smiled at Holly’s choice of words.
“Pennsylvania, as a matter of fact. But perhaps we could
come in, get out of these suits and get settled
somewhere?” he said. “Then we’ll be only too happy to
answer all of your questions. Also, to see to your other
problems.” When Holly looked confused, Henshaw went
on. “You said you were in poor shape. I assumed that
meant you had casualties of some kind here. Two of my
team…” he indicated the others with a sweep of his
hand… “are medical specialists. What is the nature of
your difficulty? How many are injured?”

Holly looked at Jase, then back at the captain. What
could she tell them? That with the exception of herself, all
of the people on board, her lover among them, ran the
gamut from mildly retarded through drooling idiots and
all the way up to homicidal maniacs? Holly took a deep
breath. “Captain, I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that.”
When he looked at her questioningly, she said, “It’s a
long story. Let’s go to the dining room and have some
refreshments, okay? Then I’ll try to tell you everything
that’s happened, or at least as much as I know.”

With that, she turned and set off down the corridor,
leaving the five suited figures with no option but to follow
as she headed for the midships canteen, while Jase hurried
on ahead to put on the coffee. As she walked, Holly tried
to get straight in her mind exactly what she was going to
tell them, but her overall emotion was one of relief. At
last, someone else was going to take charge, was going to
assume responsibility for the five thousand lost souls of
the UES Isaac Asimov. With a lighter heart, and an easier
step not entirely due to the light gravity, she led the way
to the dining room.

* * *

It took Holly the better part of an hour to explain what
had happened on board the Asimov from the moment she
had first awakened. She described the EVA, the moment
she had sensed that something had happened, and the
shock of seeing for herself the damage that had been
done, both to the ship and its occupants, by the meteorite.

She described, in halting tones, the horror of the
control center and the bloodbath that had occurred there.
She listed, for the first time even for herself, the names of
those who had been in that room when the meteor had
struck; Marc Taggart, Alain Tournier, Jude Mboko and
Serge Volkin, people she had known for only two months,
just two shifts, some of whom she had thought of as
friends. She told the medical people in the team where the
bodies were, and Henshaw immediately dispatched them
to the frozen storage room where the body bags had been
stowed.

Ten minutes later they returned, grim-faced, and
merely nodded at the captain’s unasked query. Holly went
on to tell of the awakening of the seven sleepers. When
she spoke of Chrissie van der Merwe, Cathy Marshal and
Li Chiang, Holly faltered and bowed her head. Jase put an
arm around her protectively, and Henshaw assured her
that she had acted properly, had taken the only action she
could have in the circumstances. She was not to blame for
their deaths; Holly knew this, but still she felt responsible,
and knowing didn’t make the guilt any easier to bear.

She described Hoddle, how he had fooled them all, all
except Jase. Holly looked lovingly at her man, uncaring
of the glances that were exchanged by the visitors. His
condition was obvious to them, as were her feelings for
him, but she didn’t care what they thought. She loved
him; if she had taken the trouble to ask him for his
opinion sooner, what he had thought about Hoddle,
perhaps things might have been different. Aloud, she said
as much, and her visitors had the good grace to look
contrite.

When she came to the end of her narrative, Holly
leaned against Jase and closed her eyes for a moment.
Then she looked at Captain Henshaw. “That’s about it,
captain,” she said. “Thank God you’re here. And that
brings me to the question that I’ve been waiting to ask
you; how are you here?”

Henshaw glanced at a couple of his team and said, with
a slight smile, “That’s not so easy to answer, either. Let’s
just say that, in the two hundred years that you’ve been
away, there have been some…significant advances made
on earth, especially in the sciences.

“In a nutshell, we’ve developed a new ship’s drive that
enables us to reach and exceed the speed of light. That’s
how we were able to get out here so fast.”

Holly nodded, fascinated. “Our computer guessed that
it had to be something like that,” she said. “When did you
leave earth?”

Henshaw glanced at his team again. “Just over a year
ago. Most of that time was taken up with getting the ship
up to lightspeed, then decelerating again. Your mission is
something which every schoolchild knows about. We
knew we would get here at about the same time as you,
and we were looking forward to meeting you all and…
look, it’s complicated,” he said apologetically. “Even I
don’t know exactly how it works.” Then he smiled self-
deprecatingly. “I’m not the engineer, just the driver. And,
with all due respect, Ms. Parmentier, the technical details
are still classified.”

Holly smiled tightly and nodded, clasping her hands in
front of her. “I see. I had hoped, I suppose, that we might
have outgrown all that after a couple of centuries, but it
looks like we still have the old obsession with secrecy.”

Henshaw looked down at his boots, then back at Holly.
“Okay, I guess I deserved that. Call it force of habit. But I
still think we ought to be giving our attention to your
immediate problem.” He turned to indicate one of his
team members, a man of about Jase’s age, with short fair
hair and a somewhat aloof manner. “This is Doctor Larry
Nordstrom, our chief medical officer. I believe he might
have some encouraging news for you regarding your
fellow travelers.”

Holly turned enquiringly to the doctor, who put down
his coffee cup and adopted a more formal and less
optimistic pose than his captain had demonstrated.
“Well,” he began hesitantly, “it’s true that there have been
considerable advances in the field of tissue re-animation
and cryogenics in the last two hundred years, at least
before the development of lightspeed travel, but…well,
with something on this kind of scale, I’m not sure how
much we can do. A lot of the work being done is still
experimental, and I’d have to examine the subjects
carefully before any treatment could be even
recommended, let alone administered.” He looked
sympathetically at Holly. “How many did you say? Five
thousand? My God, that’s…that’s almost inconceivable. I
mean, we can’t exactly call for volunteers, can we?”

“Y-yes, we c-c-can.” Holly started in her seat, and
everyone turned to look at Jase Kerr. He was sitting close
to Holly, but she had almost forgotten that he was there.
Gently, she laid a hand on his arm.

“Jase, we can’t let you be used as a guinea pig for
some experimental treatment. It wouldn’t be fair…”

“Fair for wh-who, Holly? Me? Or f-for them?”

Holly looked at him compassionately. “Oh, Jase. I’m
sure Doctor Nordstrom wants you to get well, just as you
know I do. I’m just afraid that something might…I don’t
know, go wrong, I suppose.” She took his face in her
hands and held him gently. “I don’t want anything more
to happen to you, not after what we’ve been through.”

Jase looked at her a moment, his shattered mind trying
to unscramble the thoughts that were tumbling at random
through it. Then he nodded, and smiled again. “It’s all
right, H-H-Holly. If there is a ch-chance, I w-want to t-
take it. I don’t w-w-want to be like th-this for e-ever.”

Holly looked at him and nodded, her eyes misting. “I
know, Jase, but…”

“I want to be n-n-normal again, Holly,” he said.

She looked into his eyes for a moment longer, then
turned to the doctor. “Is there something that can be
done? Here, I mean. Here and now?”

Doctor Nordstrom shrugged uncomfortably and looked
at his captain. “Well, I suppose if we were going to be
able to do anything for the, er, colonists, we would have
to do a bit of experimenting. But I have to say I’m not
happy about using someone of such obvious…deficiency
as Mr. Kerr. Please understand,” he said, looking at Holly,
“I mean no disrespect. But surely you can see that he is
not competent to make this decision on his own.”

Holly looked at the doctor, then at Henshaw. “Look,”
she said, her voice rising a little, “Jase has been with me
through almost all of this. He’s helped me, he’s stuck with
me through some pretty horrific times, and not once did I
feel that I was…carrying him in any way. In fact, there
have been plenty of times when he’s supported me. In the
end, it was he who saved us from Hoddle, and I wouldn’t
have gotten through this without him. If there’s a chance
that he can be cured, then I support him in his wanting to
take it.”

The captain looked at the doctor, who shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Parmentier,” he said pompously, “but
medical ethics forbid me from conducting experimental
treatment on someone who is not mentally competent.”

Holly felt Jase begin to rise out of his seat, and she put a
hand on his arm to restrain him as the doctor continued.

“And in the absence of evidence of mental competency,
or a legal guardian, or some such thing, I’m afraid I…”

“Wait a minute!” Holly interrupted. “Legal guardian?”
She turned to Henshaw. “If you check your international
law, Captain, I think you’ll find that as the only mentally
competent person on this vessel, I am its captain.”
Henshaw began to look uncomfortable, and Holly went
on.

“And as such,” she said, “I have the authority to give
the go-ahead in matters like this, provided I am satisfied
as to the mental competence,” she turned a withering
glance on the doctor, “of Mr. Kerr.”

She sat back and folded her arms across her chest.
“And I say he can make this decision for himself.”

The doctor smiled condescendingly, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Parmentier,” he said again, “but I
couldn’t possibly allow…”

“She’s right, Larry,” said the captain, interrupting him.
The doctor turned and stared in astonishment at his
captain, who was looking at Holly with a new respect in
his eyes. “She’s the ranking spacer here, and she can
claim the captaincy by right of salvage. Hell, I’m not a
lawyer, but she may even own the entire ship. But,
however you look at it, she does have the authority.” The
doctor tried to interrupt, but Henshaw silenced him with a
look. Then he turned to Holly again. “You do understand
that any responsibility for this action will be yours, and
yours alone?”

Holly looked at Jase, who nodded, then she turned
back to the captain and doctor. “Yes, we do.”

Henshaw nodded reluctantly then stood up, and the
others followed suit. “Very well then. You’d better come
over to the Clarke with us. If we’re going to do this, we
might as well do it now.”

Holly looked at Jase. “Are you absolutely sure about
this, Jase?”

“Y-yes, Holly. I w-w-want to be a normal m-man
again. For you.”

Holly smiled, her eyes brimming again. “All right then.
Let’s go suit up.”