Barrington Bayley - The Star Virus

Rodrone felt uncomfortable, but once he had decided not to answer the captain, he felt strangely relaxed.

Shone coughed. “You feel things too much, you know.” It seemed to Rodrone that the man had somehow deflated, that his moment of penetration had passed. “You ought to live just for whatever comes to hand, like me.”

The remark made Rodrone meditative. Later, when the conversation between the three of them had reached a deeper level of congeniality, and a great deal of foment had been drunk, he asked gently; “Have you happened on a planet called Sunder recently?”

“Sunder?”

“It’s Land V. I’ve got a wife there. I haven’t seen her for five years.”

“You don’t look like a wife deserter to me. How come she doesn’t move with you?”

Rodrone shrugged. Men who spent a lot of time in space generally kept their wives with them, especially in view of the time-dilation effect of interstellar voyaging, but he never had. “Just didn’t get around to it,” he answered simply.

He made no attempt to explain further. How could he explain their attunement with one another, their free attitude that obviated the need to be continually in each other’s presence? It would have embarrassed him to try.

“Sunder,” Shone repeated. That’s a strange kind of name.”

“Yeah.” Rodrone turned away. Most planets—many stars, for that matter—had names connected with their histories, and he did not feel like going into his home world’s now. It was a familiar enough story, in any case, of an emigrant fleet reaching an unknown star after considerable hardship, only to quarrel violently with consequences of disastrous war, when they reached safety.

He felt tempted to hire Captain Shone to make a further detour to the nearby Land system and pick up his wife. It would make a difference of about nine months, Objective Galactic Time, and a few weeks by subjective ship time. But time was one thing he did not wish to waste.

His intention now was to rejoin the squadron which he had learned was cruising somewhere in Skelter, and then continue with his study of the lens. He could not learn much from it on his own; his part of the investigation in the past year had mainly consisted of simply watching its fascinating dramas. He had to find help, but next time he sought that help he intended to take the protection of the squadron with him.

The idea had taken hold in his mind that in the lens he would discover the pattern of history. He was convinced that historical processes could be put on the same firm basis as physics or chemistry; like the ultimate particles of matter, they had to have causes, origins and intrinsic properties.

When Rodrone had first mulled over these questions many years ago, a fantastically simple, apposite guide to his actions had come to him, like a formula to guide a man’s life.

A man could either be an adventurer, taking what came and ready to take on more, or he could be an investigator, the scientific type, and try to discover where it came from. Rarely, individuals like Redace Trudo managed to combine both modes of life. Rodrone would have liked to think that he did, too, but he was aware of how weak he was scientifically.

The only alternative to these two was to stagnate, becoming more and more dull-minded according to the time and place. In this category were the bonded servants of the big merchants. Rodrone scarcely ever thought of these slaves and sycophants. They were like beasts of burden.

And the Streall? Did they actually have the answers to the questions that burned in Rodrone’s mind? Possibly they did, but if so, then Rodrone was almost frightened to learn them, so much was he repelled by their inhuman, predestined outlook.

Shone broke into his sudden moodiness, grinning sheepishly. “Drink up, man! You’ll come out of this all right!”

Wordlessly Rodrone took the proffered foment .

In the next few days Rodrone and Clave had no choice but to fraternize with the crew; their boisterous, nearly violent ways precluded reclusiveness.

There was a weirdness about them that Rodrone couldn’t place at first. There was Jermy, completely without humor, methodical, and with the intentness of a pervert. There was Jublow, an ungainly man with a brick red bull neck and a little-boy enthusiasm for the roughneck entertainments they all indulged in. And so on to unsmiling, melancholiac Krat, Pim, coarse and caustic, and others, about ten in all. They had the unity of a gang, but there was the same seedy, unhealthy aura about them all. Their eyes never really seemed to live, only to peer.

The only man who seemed to be in a brighter state of health was Feeldonet, the beefy man who had helped Rodrone at the portal, and apparently he was new.

Captain Shone ruled over them all like a well-meaning bully. He rarely joined in their more frenetic activities, such as the frenzied dancing and the rapid-fire target practices. Usually he sat back and watched, a bottle of foment leaning against one shoulder, smiling genially.

On the third day the crewmen raided Rodrone’s own quarters and commandeered the lens and carried it up to the control gallery. He flushed angrily at first, but they were unruly and in an advanced state of intoxication, and Shone gave no sign that he intended to control them. Every one on board was in the party except Clave, who had gone off by himself to stargaze in one of the weapons blisters.

The lens slammed to the floor as the men released their burden. There was a scuffle as they all jockeyed for good vantage points around it, then suddenly Pim seemed to assume command.

“Let’s see some pretty pictures,” he said.

They fell momentarily silent and gawped open-mouthed. To be honest with himself, Rodrone couldn’t blame them for not keeping their hands off it. In this frigid ship anything new was an attraction and the lens was certainly a stunner.

Pim squatted and pressed his nose flat against the surface of the lens. Then he stood up and tried to mark the glossy surface with a knife. “I want to see some space battles!”

“Yeah!” It was an enthusiastic chorus.

“There’s no control over it,” Rodrone informed them sourly. “The scenes are all random.”

“Aw.” Pim screwed up his face. “You’d think—here y’are then, what’s this comin’ up? Eh, it looks good!”

Rodron shouldered the others aside to look. Pim was right. From the center, a region of blackness was spreading towards the periphery. In it, ships appeared, rectilinear rods almost as black as space itself but shiny. Partitions continually slid open and shut on the long rods. The ships were fighting one another, directing energy and missiles through the openings and glinting inwardly with the urgency of contention.

It was as compelling and alien a sight as the lens had ever produced.

“Look!” mooed Jublow. “There’s another one!”

On the opposite side of the lens, wedge-shaped vessels stood out against a brilliant globular star cluster. They seemed to be fighting over possession of a nearby planet, and were warding one another off by creating fields of faint blue nimbus. Rodrone could almost hear them humming and crackling.

“How did you do that?” he demanded sharply.

“Do what?”

“How did you control the visions?”

“Who says I did?”

“I’ve never been able to get the pictures I wanted from it.” He did not mention the second reason for the unlikelihood of such scenes, namely the paucity of space-traveling races in the galaxy.

Pim cackled. “You ought to come down with us and play our little game, mate, and you’ll find out what wishing for things can do. I swear I’ve held that pile down by sheer damned willpower more than once!”