Dark Star

  "Shut up, Pinback," Doolittle yelled.

  "Oh, have it your own way, then. Sleep on a lumpy bunk—see if I care." Pinback flopped down on his own mattress. Quick fumbling at his own supplies produced a cigarette.

  Doolittle relaxed on his bunk and produced a packet of cards, began laying them out for yet another game of solitaire. Boiler sat down on his bed and stared at one of the blank wails.

  "For your enjoyment," came the soothing voice of the computer, which in addition to running the ship constantly monitored what it believed to be their needs, "we now present some moonlight melodies of Martin Segundo and his Scintilla Strings.

  "Our first selection is the perennial favorite, 'When Twilight Falls on NGC Eight Nine One'." Soft music filled the untidy alcove. No one bothered to object. The computer's arguments about the importance of mood music as opposed to violent rock could be maddening. Only when its choices grew extremely puerile did they bother to fight it

  Boiler had shuffled about in his own locker, came up with a fat cigar. The computer voice drifted in over the music.

  "I must remind both Corporal Boiler and Sergeant Pinback that more than one person smoking at a time puts an unwholesome strain upon the air-purification system."

  "What air-purification system?" Boiler snorted derisively. "I can still smell last week's smoke." The computer didn't deign to reply.

  Boiler lit up disdainfully, began blowing extremely neat smoke rings. At times the presence of full artificial gravity on the Dark Star was to be regretted. Sleeping hours were among them, especially since their special bunks had been ruined. Now was another of them, as Boiler contemplated his nebula-like creations and considered the possible reactions of smoke rings in zero-gee.

  Pinback was staring at the picture-covered wall, the cigarette still grasped unlit in one hand, the virgin match in the other. Abruptly he let them both drop to the floor. His face took on a decidedly sly expression.

  There was a lively gleam in his eyes as he picked up a large box and set it on his bed. Watching Boiler and Doolittle for signs of reaction, he began fumbling through its contents. Boiler blew contented smoke rings.

  The corporal rolled over, selected another cigar, and lit it. He seemed surprised to discover then that he had another already in his mouth. Without seeming the least bit embarrassed, he put out the second one by pinching the tip into suffocation.

  A moment later he had exchanged it for a switch blade knife—an odd item to bring on board, and one which the mission directors would have banned if they had known about it. But the one thing the psychometricians had insisted on was that every man's four crates of personal effects, barring actual explosives or something equally dangerous, were absolutely private.

  This was why Boiler had had such success in bringing along such unorthodox but decidedly nonexplosive items as his real-sandwich components and the switchblade. The latter snicked open with a wicked metallic whisper.

  Holding the knife in one hand, he used the other to clear everything from the upturned crate alongside his bed. It made a nice makeshift table. This was one of his own, personal, surviving crates. It was made of good solid homey wood, not plastic or free-formed metal.

  Spreading his fingers flat on the surface, he took the knife and began mumblety-pegging with it, jabbing between the closely spaced fingers into the firm wood. He started outside the thumb and worked over to the outside of the little finger. Then he repeated the journey.

  Back and forth, forth and back, and back—and the knife sliced down just outside one of his fingers. He stopped, held up his nicked hand, and stared blankly at it.

  All the attributes and faults that the psyche people had agreed were present in Boiler were apparent right then: that he had ice water in his veins; that he was likely to be the least communicative member of the Dark Star crew; that he would be the one least likely to crack in a pressure situation—except for Powell.

  They had told him all that before they had left for Earth Orbital Station, at the final psyche briefing. He studied the finger, remembered what they had told him, and smiled.

  Since he had only ice water in his veins, then of course there could be only ice water leaking out. And that would stop quickly enough. Indeed, while the knife had been driven into the finger with some force, anyone could see for himself that there was no blood dripping out. That this was due to Boiler's unnatural control of his own body was the explanation of the psychometricians who had first observed the quality in him.

  Of course, the distinct possibility existed that he was imagining his own lack of bleeding, that he was in actuality spurting gore all over the room, and that he had better seek treatment quickly or else bleed to death. In which case he was mad.

  His smile grew broader, then vanished. But he wasn't at all mad. Only Talby was mad, and he was harmless. Boiler wondered if Talby, mad Talby, would bleed.

  One of these days, maybe he'd find out.

  Pinback was having trouble concealing a smile of his own as he removed a strange object from the colorless box. It was a pair of eyeglasses of unusual properties. Possibly two people on Earth would have found it amusing. Despite this, somewhat more than two of these objects had been manufactured on that benighted planet. Pinback put on the glasses.

  They consisted of a cheap plastic frame on which were mounted a pair of grossly bloodshot half-eyeballs made of cheaper plastic and attached to the glasses by means of metal springs.

  Bending his head and carefully concealing the device from view, he moved slowly toward Boiler. The corporal had concluded the extensive examination of his invulnerable finger and was now leaning against the wall and blowing his perfect smoke rings once more. Pinback slowly leaned over and toward him—ever so slowly. He knelt slightly and bent his head, removing his hand at just the right time, and the eyeballs flopped out of their frames to bob wildly on the springs.

  Boiler turned with equal patience and calmly blew a fresh smoke ring into Pinback's waiting face. There was a moment of nonreaction. Then Pinback turned and made his way back to his own bunk, his smile gone. Dejectedly, he removed the glasses and dropped them back into the box.

  Boiler's crazy, the poor slob, he thought. Cuts his own finger and doesn't say a thing. Crazy, but he won't let me help.

  Boiler stared evenly at Pinback, then went back to introspective contemplation of his seemingly uninjured finger. Nuts, the sergeant was certifiably nuts! They were all nuts, except maybe Doolittle—and Doolittle had other problems.

  The silence was getting to Pinback, as it always did. There must be something he could do for the poor guys. Something he could do . . . His gaze left the floor and settled on the nearby form of Doolittle.

  The lieutenant was once again deep into a game of solitaire. Pinback's mouth started to curl mischievously at the corners. He started rummaging through the bottomless box.

  Doolittle, meanwhile, had searched through the deck card by card until he had found a red jack to put on the vacant queen. He was oblivious to Pinback, to Boiler, to the room, and to the ship.

  The voice inside his head was admonishing him again. Most of the time he could shut it out, but sometimes it got so insistent that no wall could dampen it fully.

  "You're cheating again, Doolittle," it claimed angrily, beating at him relentlessly. "You've always cheated, you know that, Doolittle?

  "You cheated to get into flight school, and then you cheated on your astronaut physical when you couldn't pass the pull-ups. They said that was impossible, but you did it, Doolittle. You cheated on the oral exam when you wanted to get on the Dark Star mission to impress your girl friend, and you cheated with the psychiatrist, giving him all the carefully prepared right answers instead of the truthful ones.

  "You cheated your way all the way through your short, miserable, successful life, Lieutenant Doolittle—and you're paying for it, in triplicate. Because right now"—he put a red ten on the jack—"right now you'd like to cheat yourself back home, wouldn't you?

  "But yo
u can't, because now there's nobody left to cheat here but yourself. If you go home without the computer confirming that you've properly utilized all twenty of those expensive little toys in the bomb bay, they'll turn you to powder. And if you try and dump the last one in no particular place, the computer will record it and they won't be complimentary when you get home, will they?

  "No, Doolittle. They'll most likely toss you in the can for observation. Then they'll find out about your other cheating and despite all your successes they'll be most displeased. Your only out was to fool the computer, and you can't do that, can you? So it looks like you're stuck with doing a good job in spite of yourself, hey?

  "You could never fool Commander Powell, either—but then, at least he understood."

  He jerked sharply. Someone was standing next to him.

  The moment of fright passed quickly, turned to anger. It wasn't the long-dead Powell. It was only Pinback. He went back to his game.

  Pinback reached stealthily inside his flight suit, whipped out an object of uncertain shape, and dangled it jerkily in front of Doolittle's face. It was a rubber chicken. Doolittle was not impressed.

  He put a black eight on a red eight: an impossibility to resolve, even for an accomplished cheater. Taking the rest of the cards, he threw them down on top of the pile.

  "Damn it!" He glared briefly at Pinback, who recoiled under that momentary unaccustomed blast of intense hatred, and left the room.

  He was furious at himself. Furious for putting the wrong card on the wrong card. Furious at Pinback and his idiotic rubber fowl. Furious at the universe that mocked him, and worse—ignored him.

  A badly confused Pinback let the rubber chicken hang loosely at his side and looked dazedly over at Boiler.

  "Now what do you suppose is the matter with him?"

  He had to calm down, Doolittle told himself. Had to. The others were depending on him. He couldn't continue to fly off the handle at poor Pinback like that. Of course, the sergeant only invited it with his infantile attempts at humor, but Doolittle ought to be able to cope with that by now. Pinback wasn't responsible for his childish activities.

  In fact, it seemed for a moment to Doolittle that Pinback wasn't even responsible for being on this mission. But that was a ridiculous thought!

  Got to relax, got to take it easy, he instructed himself.

  The music room. That was it, he'd go to the music room. He walked faster. It wasn't far.

  3

  HE SLID BACK to the door. The music room was a subdivided section of the common recreation chamber, walled off for his own use. Closing the door behind him, he turned and gazed reverently at the organ.

  Using up almost all of their preformed wood scraps and everything he could generate out of the glass-making set, he'd made the instrument entirely by hand in the ship's crafts-and-manual-hobby shop.

  Out of what he could create from that, and from material cannibalized from several musical instruments (provided by the thoughtful psychometricians), he had produced something that resembled a cross between a weaver's loom, an upright piano, and a spice vendor's pushcart.

  Dozens of bottles and bells and pieces of wood were suspended from a high wooden rack-and-shelf arrangement. All were connected by a mad spiderweb of strings and wires to a central keyboard.

  Sitting gently in the chair, he took a mallet and tried several bottles for sound. The first few were fine, but eventually he struck one that gave back an inconsistent hollow bong. That same damned half-liter jug. It would never stay tuned.

  A pitcher of water was standing to one side. Half of it had evaporated since he had last played here. Had it been that long? Ah well, nothing was lost. The water was recycled constantly by the ship, from normal breathing, excretion, and standing jugs.

  Taking up the mallet, he tapped the half-liter again, poured some water into it, tapped it. More water, another tap, and a last dram of liquid should make it just right.

  Someday he would finish the organ and get it properly tuned. Someday. Tuning an organ was, after all, a considerable job. But now it was as ready as he could get it. He raised his hands dramatically over the keyboard, brought them down,

  Here, in the isolated corner of the Dark Star, was the one place where he could create; the one place where he desired to produce and not destroy; the one place that reminded him even a little of home. This was his temple, his equivalent of Talby's dome, Boiler's picture-wall, Pinback's comic books.

  Probably it was all the water. The blue rushing water—under him, over him, behind him. The friendly, familiar water lifting him up, up, and then sliding down the glassy green front. Always the blue-blue-green water.

  His hands moved freely over the keys, loosening the final, flowing toccata from Widor's "Sixth Organ Concerto"—a piece of music at once as light and powerful as the deepest ocean swells. It rose up around him, engulfed the tiny room in sound and then in slick sliding wetness.

  He played harder, faster now, riding the fugal structure to its foaming coda—the music building to a crescendo, one trill piling atop another as he kept treading the bass pedals. His toes dug into and became one with the smooth, well-waxed pedals as he slid down the front of the taut, smooth, vinyl-suited tossed crescendo which died slowly behind him . . .

  He blinked.

  The music was done. The ride was over. He was reborn, refreshed, cleansed, and whole again. One with the universe.

  He hesitated, struck one awkwardly placed key. Somewhere within the flimsy maze a mallet or screw driver moved to strike a jar partly filled with water. It made a dull, only vaguely musical sound.

  He smiled to himself. Before the others he never smiled, but he could smile at himself here. It didn't matter that the organ played notes other from those he heard. He'd played the right board all along—the carefully waxed, hand-rubbed, delicately manipulated board, and the sounds had been real to him. He stood, surveyed the organ with pleasure.

  A little of the water had evaporated. That was all. Just a little of the water.

  He left the room.

  Why couldn't the others understand? Pinback and Boiler, and even Powell. Even Powell had never understood what he saw in that "collection of splinters and junk" he persisted in calling an organ.

  So the knowledge was Doolittle's and Doolittle's alone. That made him feel a little better, a little wiser than the others. But what about Talby? He frowned. No, Talby didn't understand the lieutenant's organ, either. His secret was safe.

  Where was Talby's head right now, in fact? Doolittle checked his watch. Probably up in the dome, as usual. Doolittle turned on his heel, heading abruptly toward the food-preparation room instead of returning to their converted living quarters.

  Once there, he dialed a major breakfast. Not for himself. For Talby. He would take it up to the astronomer, up to Talby in his serene contemplation of the heavens, and try to share his organ-ideas with him. Of all the crew, the astronomer might be able to understand.

  There was a short pause, then nothing. The meals computer seemed reluctant to discharge a single breakfast at this hour. Doolittle pushed the activate-request switch repeatedly, until the machine finally coughed up the meal he had ordered. Then he headed for the observation dome access corridor.

  He hesitated on his way up. Talby might not like being disturbed. Doolittle thought about aborting this little expedition, but firmed himself. Talby might not like company, but even he had to eat.

  Putting his head through the open hatch, be called softly, "Talby?"

  There was a buzzing sound, and the chair spun around fast. Then Talby was staring down at him, his expression neutral.

  "Here's some breakfast." He handed the slim metal package up to the astronomer. Talby took it, said nothing, but there was another buzz and the astronomer's cocoonlike chair slid back, making room for Doolittle in the confined space of the dome. It was Talby's way of welcoming him.

  There was a little raised wedge on the far side of the hatch and Doolittle squeezed himself onto
it, his feet framing either side of the opening. Like an upside-down well, light poured into the dome from the corridor below, lighting both faces from beneath. It gave Doolittle an uncharacteristically saturnine cast, while Talby, seated farther away, appeared wreathed in bloody shadows.

  The lieutenant looked cautiously out through the dome. The universe wheeled around them. No, no, that was a phrase from a book. And it didn't apply. The universe was motionless, still, with a solemnity far more impressive than any slow motion.

  They were moving, but even at their supreme speed the galaxy was too vast for any movement to be seen by the naked eye. Hyperspace was different, a comforting blur. You couldn't fear what you couldn't delineate.

  But up here, with everything laid out sharp and uncompromising . . . Doolittle did not like coming up into the dome for too long. For a little while it was impressive, but after too long it began to weigh a man down with his own insignificance. Pinback and Boiler couldn't stand it for even a little while.

  Even a little while was too long, and too long was—

  Stop that, Doolittle. That's not healthy.

  It was different back on Earth. He could remember liking it then. The universe had seemed a friendly place those nights, a magnificient tapestry of suns and nebulae woven solely as a proper background for the blue-white jewel of Earth as seen from the moon.

  But Earth wasn't over his shoulder here. In their present position it was a distant pinprick of light which only the ship's computer could identify.

  Oh, and Talby, of course. He hid his smile. Just like he claimed to be able to identify suns by sight, the astronomer persisted in claiming he could pick Sol out of the sky. That was impossible, considering all the course changes they had made in the lost, gone years.

  But if asked, Talby would unhesitatingly point to some point in the sky and say, "Sol? There it is. But why do you want to know? It's not a very important star?" And he would return to his solemn study of the surrounding heavens.

  Doolittle didn't really know why being up in the dome for a while bothered him. It shouldn't have. That was one thing he didn't have to lie about—he had shown no symptoms of space fear. Fear of the great open spaces between the stars.