Dreams of the Stars

Felter raised one eyebrow in Samuels’ direction. That single look spoke more than all the lofty speeches of friendship and betrayal he might have hurled at the scientist. Again, Jameson was pleased with his course of action; for surely Boddy would not have had such elegance.

Looking back at Jameson, Felter said, “You seem to be the ringleader here. Do you want ‘conspiracy to mutiny’ on your record?”

Although Jameson had indeed considered that—and had even used the word ‘mutiny’ in yesterday’s mutual hallucination with Boddy—Felter’s words stung. “Of course I don’t, but I still believe this to be the proper course of action.”

“I see.”

Felter eased into the command chair—a very good symbolic sign, Jameson noted—and sunk his head between his shoulders, fingers steepled under his chin. “Gentlemen, I want you to pay very close attention to me, because I am only going to say this once. Commander Ed Boddy is the commander of the Eldorado, and anyone who dares plot behind his back or attempt to seize command is doing so in direct violation of his duty. I will not relieve Commander Boddy, I will not presume to violate the chain of command, and I will not tear apart this ship’s team in the pretense of acting for the ship’s good. You have a problem, you go talk to Boddy.” He rose, stepped up into Jameson’s face, and spoke nearly in a whisper—the others could not possibly hear—“Do...I...make...myself...clear?”

Jameson nodded. “You do.”

“Good.” Felter returned to the command seat, swiveled around to face the desk, and said, “This ship’s experiencing some odd phenomena, as your cute little petition pointed out. I suggest you all go about your jobs and figure out what’s going on.”

For a moment, Jameson simply stood, stunned, embarrassed, humiliated. When he turned around, he saw that the others had already dispersed.

For the best, he thought to himself. He’d wanted to get the meeting over with so he could go back to some real science. Well, back to it, then. For the best, for the best.

Garr was angry...and for that very reason, Acker was too. Oh, Acker grumbled and raged, but it was obvious he was delighting in the chance to commiserate with his good friend Garr. Well, for once Garr didn’t care if Acker considered him a friend. For once he even enjoyed the catharsis of including Acker in his raging and complaining. Really, in the long run, Acker might even turn out to be useful. A slobbering, friendless, approval-addicted disciple might be just what he needed.

“Can you believe that man?” Garr thundered for the tenth time, his voice bouncing down the uneven metal halls of the service bay. “I haven’t seen this kind of hypocrisy since that dumbass evangelist started that aerospace company. Felter sticking up for Boddy—Felter turning his nose up at an engraved invitation to be the commander!”

“An engraved invitation!” Acker agreed.

“What are we, mindless followers?”

“Mindless followers?”

“Never mind that our dear commander is an incompetent, cowardly twit; oh, he’s the commander, so that’s the way it is and always shall be, come hell or hard vacuum!”

“Yeah, that’s bullshit.”

Garr pounded on the wall, setting up a chain reaction of percussions and echoes that sounded like kettle drums, rattling and prattling and pounding down the maze of loose-fitting plates. “Goddamn that bastard. His respect for the regulations is why we need him, and it’s why he won’t act.”

“Why he won’t act. Bastard.”

“Well, it’s time for someone with some guts to stand up to the rules.” Garr drummed his hands on the wall, enjoying the march-like sound of drums that accompanied the action; as though some invisible orchestra were cheering him on, as if he were a character in a movie about to set off on his epic quest. The way things had been lately, for all he knew, that might be the literal truth! “If Felter won’t do it, we’ll do it ourselves.”

“Yeah, do it ourselves,” Acker obligingly said.

Yes, now was when he needed a disciple. He took Acker by the shoulders. Acker looked left and right at Garr’s hands, unsure whether he was being embraced or attacked. “You and me, Acker, we can do it. We’re a team, and no one can stop us.”

Acker blanched, overwhelmed by the unaccustomed feeling of acceptance, and by the enormity of being recruited into a plot more dangerous and audacious than what they had just attempted. Going through channels was one thing, but Garr was suggesting something totally different. “Um...what are you...what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you and I, you and I can take care of Boddy and Felter. You and I can take over the ship. How would you like to be my second in command?”

Acker’s face was red now. “What?”

“Trust me, Acker. Once the others see that we’re really serious, they’ll go along with it.”

“But you heard Felter—and Reichmann’s out of the question—and Samuels will never go along with another try—“

“You’re thinking small potatoes, Acker. I’m not talking about going by the book. I’m not talking majority vote. I’m talking a hostile takeover. Everyone will have to go along with it.”

“How?” Acker squeaked.

“One thing at a time. The point is, we force Boddy and Felter out and take over. We’re the engineers, this is our ship and no one else’s. They’ll have no choice but to go along. The only thing that keeps Boddy in command, and even Felter, is the rulebook. What really keeps the Eldorado running? You and I do. Our hands keep the men breathing, eating, walking, they owe their very lives to us. We force their hands, they’re powerless. What do you say? I’m talking the top of the pyramid now, Acker.”

Acker gulped. His eyes were wide, he was speechless. Not for the first time, Garr wondered if NASA had assigned Acker to this mission just to get rid of him; he certainly didn’t have the typical belief in his own invulnerability that characterized most astronauts. “I don’t know, Garr, maybe Felter’s right—“

“I should have known I couldn’t count on you.” Garr let Acker go, turned, and proceeded toward his office. Time to plant some seeds where Acker would feel it the most. “I’m disappointed. I thought we were friends. I thought we came to each other with our problems. Well, if you won’t go along, that’s just great. The whole plan’s useless. We could’ve done it. Well, fine, go back to doing a mediocre job.”

“Now, come on, Garr, that’s not fair.” Acker trailed after him, his chubby feet trotting along as though he were a faithful dog being taken for a walk. “I’m just trying to do my job. You can’t fault me for that, can you?”

“Your job is history, Acker. This ship is falling apart. Hell, we don’t even know what’s real and what’s not! You keep doing your job, who knows? You might phase out of existence and everyone will forget you’re even here. That’s all the good the regs do us now. We’re in deep space and some deeply weird shit is happening to us. It’s time for someone who knows what he’s doing to take command. That’s us. Engineers. We take charge of the situation; that’s what we were trained for.” He stopped. His psychological assault on Acker’s weaknesses would work best through silence, not lectures. “But if you’re not interested, fine.”

He turned away again.

“Wait a minute—Garr? Garr?—Come on, let’s be reasonable. How are we gonna just take over? Boddy and Felter will both accuse us of mutiny, Reichmann and Samuels will back them up, that leaves just Jameson on our side, so that’ll be four against three—and that assumes that even Jameson will be on our side. Face it, Garr, it’s over!”

Garr made no reply.

“Garr?...Garr?...Come on, Garr, don’t be mad at me... . Come on, let’s just put it all behind us.”

Garr simply shrugged and said noncommittally, “Fine.”

Acker slumped. “Well, okay. Let’s get back on that circulator, okay?...Garr? We cool?”

Garr shrugged again.

“Okay... . You’ll just tell me if you need anything, right?...I’ll check the secondary lines, kay?”

Garr shrugged again.

“Okay...I’ll just get on that then.”

Garr heard Acker’s receding footsteps, smiled to himself. He knew Acker would be fretting all day. Of course, he would no doubt do a half-assed job, if not on the secondary lines, then on the cleanup, but he would be such a psychological mess that when Garr brought the subject of mutiny up again, Acker would be smarting so badly from a day of cold treatment that he’d be ripe for a new round of subtle persuasion. Another benefit to a shift of cold silence was that it would buy Garr time to plan the next phase of his psychological game with Acker.

* * *

“He refused?!” Boddy was more astonished by Felter’s rebuttal to the mutiny than he was by the mutiny itself.

“He said you were the commander and that he would tolerate no disruption in the chain of command,” Reichmann said.

Boddy sat in his chair, scratched his head. “There’s got to be a reason. What else did he say?”

“I was not there. Honestly, I did not expect Felter to refuse, so I refused to go along with the mutiny. I am sorry.”

Boddy laughed. “No need to apologize for remaining loyal to me—though I do wish you had gone along.” He wondered if he had misjudged Felter, if perhaps his condescending attitude was more just a by-product of a forceful personality and a claptrap memory than any deliberate attempts to undermine Boddy. But no, that didn’t fit. There had to be something more to this. “Well, Reichmann, thanks. Let me know if Jameson tries anything else.”

“Yes, sir. I am glad this whole affair is over.”

“Yeah...I just hope it is.” Hallucinations yesterday, mutiny today, now back to normal.

Perhaps the whole incident had been a by-product of the hallucinations. The ship “felt” much more normal today. That eerie feeling of detachment was still there, but not as intense. So far today, all had been in its proper place, no brick walls, no giant rats, no rapping ghetto engineers, and no ghosts. Maybe the whole episode was behind them, and all that was left was to find out what had happened.

Once Reichmann had left, Boddy went down to the science lab, where he found Jameson and Samuels clacking away at their softscreens. Typically, the only communication between them was in the formulas they transmitted to one another’s screens. They sat three feet from each other, but might as well be continents apart. Boddy knew that Samuels hated the cold, impersonal nature of the senior scientist, but nothing could be done about Jameson’s personality.

“Dennis, could I talk to you?”

“Oh, sure!” Samuels sounded unusually friendly, relieved—no doubt he had been concerned how Boddy would react to the news that he had participated in the attempted mutiny.

“In the hall,” Boddy said, gesturing with his head.

Jameson made no reaction as Samuels followed Boddy out into the hall.

“So the mutiny didn’t work out,” Boddy said quietly as he led the way out of Jameson’s hearing range.

“Oh, you know about that.”

“It’s a small ship.”

Samuels laughed nervously. “Yeah...I should have known. Look, I didn’t agree with Jameson and the others, I just thought that if the majority wanted it, then I might as well go along so that it would be a nice, clean job without some sort of battle for control.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t turn out to be much of a battle, did it?”

“Nope.” Samuels looked like he wanted to melt into the floor. He shifted back and forth, he absent-mindedly wrung his hands, he couldn’t meet Boddy’s eyes. “Felter, uh, seemed genuinely angry. He said that all our—all their justifications for relieving you of command would be invalidated if he violated the chain of command by relieving you.”

“Hmm...That does sound like Felter, with his memorization of every rule ever written clear back to the Code of Hammurabi.”

“Could be...but he sure took me by surprise.”

“Dennis ...” Boddy gestured for Samuels to come closer. Samuels inched forward, unsure of whether he was about to be punched. “You don’t have to confirm or deny anything,” Boddy said, “but I’ve always suspected you pulled some royally ingenious strings to get me this job. And there can’t be any doubt that Felter was royally pissed off when I replaced James.”

Samuels barked a jarring, sneering laugh. “Ha! You have no idea.”

“What does that mean?”

Samuels immediately looked like he had regretted saying anything. “Well...let’s just say he hit the roof when he found out. He started yelling about—” He cleared his throat. “Started yelling about how could that skinny little incompetent take the place of the finest astronaut in the corps...” He glanced sideways at Boddy. “He went to the Deke and totally chewed him out. I don’t know what he said, but I heard that Skedd came damn close to bumping Felter from the crew and upping Nolan. I think in the long run they decided to send Felter just to keep him away from the office.”

Boddy nodded. Disconcerting preflight events were coming together—himself a less accomplished astronaut than James, or even Felter...Acker a neurotic mess...Jameson a brooding machine...Garr a damn-near psychotic megalomaniac—had the best crew really been picked for this mission? Or had the most expendable astronauts been sent on the mission that would never return?

“I’ve got a hunch you know some things about Felter, some things that you’ve never told me,” Boddy said in a near whisper. “I think now would be the time to tell me.”

“I don’t think so. What would be the point?”

“Then there is something?”

Samuels shook his head. “No, there’s nothing.” He huffed. “Look, I don’t know anything, I can only speculate.”

“So speculate.”

Samuels scratched his beard, wiped sweat from his brow, would probably have liked nothing better than for one of yesterday’s hallucinations to whisk him away from this conversation. “Okay...I speculated...and Skedd agreed with me...that Felter and James were...a little too close.”

If yesterday’s events had intruded into today, then surely Boddy’s jaw would have dropped to the floor like a cartoon character’s. Even as it was, his sudden resemblance to a beached trout elicited a laugh from Samuels that broke the tension. Suddenly both were laughing, all poison from the attempted mutiny forgotten.

“Is that why Skedd bumped him?” Boddy spluttered.

Samuels shrugged, his laugh dissolving into a relieved sigh. “I don’t know. On the one hand, you’d think nobody would care what goes on between astronauts on a mission that’ll never come back, but face it, we were on all the blogs, our pictures on all the e-zines. It wouldn’t do much for NASA’s image if two of its pride astronauts were involved in a Nowak.”

“A homosexual Nowak at that.” Even when the Eldorado had left Earth, there was still a lot of discrimination against gays. God, that would explain so much about Felter’s attitude. Boddy wondered if Felter were bi or strictly homo—or if Samuels was simply imagining things. “Okay, so then what about today? Why in the world wouldn’t Felter take you guys up on the chance to relieve me of command? Finally stick it to the guy who grounded his lover?”

Samuels shrugged. “I don’t know. I told you, I was astonished.”

“Well, more than once, you’ve demonstrated your skill at being nosy. Your discovery of my porn stash proved that.”

“That was an accident.”

“Fine, I believe you. But I want you to dig, find out what’s going on in Felter’s head. If I didn’t trust him before, I really don’t trust him now that he’s on my side.”

Samuels grinned. “I see what you mean. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

Boddy jabbed a finger into Samuels’ chest. “Present company included, traitor.”

Samuels wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He simply nodded, muttered, “Yeah,” turned, and headed back to the science lab.

Lawrence Acker had tried all day to make peace with Garr, but he would hear nothing of it. He tried jokes, he tried silence, he tried professionalism, he tried making speeches about how this tense situation was making him feel, he tried making speeches about his sense of duty, but Garr had closed himself off. The sense of disapproval was almost too much to bear. Acker felt backed into a corner; nothing he could do now would be the right thing. He was stuck between his clearly stated duty to follow the chain of command as established before departure from Earth, and his desperate need to be accepted and liked by his superior and co-worker.

He went off shift unsettled, his nerves tender, his emotions wild. He was able to fly a plane through a hurricane without the slightest rise in blood pressure, he was able to diagnose any electronic problem in an aircraft or spacecraft within minutes, and write out a concise set of repair instructions with little mental effort. But he couldn’t bear conflict, couldn’t stand the thought of someone being angry with him. In short, like many astronauts, his technical competence was without peer, but his social skills left much to be desired. In that, he had not been terribly surprised when he had been assigned to the Eldorado—few social skills would be needed on an endless mission with the same small group of nine—er, no, seven—men, and he was perhaps the best engineer in the corps; better than Garr, really, though Garr had more seniority.

Yet here he found himself an outcast among outcasts. Somehow every time he opened his mouth he seemed to commit some social faux pas. His opinions fell on deaf ears. People interrupted him constantly. Nothing he said or did interested anyone. And relegated to the engineering deck—the underworld of the ship—his only companion was a man who barely tolerated his presence, whose only non-job-related words were usually “Shut up.”

For just a moment today, just a moment, he had felt accepted and liked. The mutiny was a bad idea—boy, Felter had sure put them all in their place—but for once he had been part of something, he had been part of the clique. And when Garr had suggested they take over the ship themselves, goodness, he had been downright effusive. Yet even as good as that felt, Acker knew perfectly well that it was an act. Garr knew Acker’s Achilles Heel, he knew how to manipulate him. The resentment over that fact warred with what a wonderful feeling it had been, just for a moment, to have a friend and an ally. And now his only companion, the only person who ever listened to him, had turned his back on him.

If Acker didn’t go along with the mutiny plan, then he really was an outcast.

He tried not to care, told himself that the only thing that mattered was that he do his job correctly—which he always did—and that he find his own path to happiness. His many self-help books taught him how to do that.

Speaking of which...

As was his usual custom after watch, he neatly arranged the Wednesday titles on his e-reader so that he could read a chapter of each. Then he felt that paralyzing fear, the same fear that had haunted him all his life...for a moment he was too paralyzed to move. But he had to see, to be sure...cautiously he looked up, first only with his eyes, then he slowly raised his head. There was no doubt...he was alone. He was alone in the mall. People bustled back and forth, towering over his small body, their voices comingling into a murmur that sounded like the hollow ring of the waves in a conch shell. His parents had left without him. They didn’t want him. He had misbehaved. His mother had warned him that they would just leave without him if he didn’t stop whining—of course, that had only made him cry.

Now, seeing that they had really done it, that he was alone, he let out a full-throated scream, a scream that seemed to echo down the corridors of his mind ...

The door slid open and Reichmann ran in. “What is it?”

Acker sat, shivering, his face ashen, sweat dripping from his forehead. He looked at Reichmann, his relief almost as palpable as the lingering terror. His knuckles were white, his palms bleeding, so hard had his fingernails thrust into them. He scarcely trusted his own voice to answer.

“I sought I heard something,” Reichmann said. “Are you all right?”

Acker nodded stiffly, then managed to speak, though his throat was dry as parched sand. “Fine. Nothing.”

He might have been amused by the puzzlement on Reichmann’s face, but at the moment there was little room in him for amusement. The German nodded, unconvinced but accepting, and left, pulling the door shut behind him.

Acker feared the vision would return, but it did not. He was on his bed, in his quarters, safe. His parents had never left him at the mall; despite all the times they had threatened to, despite his lifelong, obsessive fear of it, it had never happened. It wasn’t hard to interpret the meaning of the hallucination, even if it was hard to understand why any of these hallucinations were happening. The same fear had been with him all day today, the fear that Garr, his only friend on the ship—if “friend” was the right word to apply to the gruff engineer—would abandon him, just as he had always feared his parents would.

He leaned over his e-reader, chin buried in his chest, eyes clenched shut. Then, inhaling deeply, he stood, looked out at the audience, and doing his best to project his voice, said,

“What days these are that give us such a choice,

That lives and friendships make convergence not,

They are but shadows in a void that knows

Not right from wrong, no more than distant rules.

“What is a friend who asks a friend betray

The principles not only of himself

But of the very soul for which he works

And work us all though this eternal void?

“Yet where be ought of souls whom thus command?

From whence did Boddy claim to hold the whip?

What reckoning can Felter wield on high?

For Garr or Felter, Boddy or e’en I,

“Names upon a page, each justly matched,

Each master of his field, each qualified.

For what if all but one be killed out here?

Whichever one that be must take command.

“Then from whence the sword of justice fall?

From whom shall any order disapprove?

For that, we have but senseless rules and regs

That bind us to a world gone as dead.

“What men that wrote those rules should still survive?

What is a year to us to them is score!

What matters rules or even Felter’s word?

Wherefore should I presume that Garr is wrong?

“Yet why should I assume that he is right?

For what account should I give of mine own?

What place have I, dealt the winning hand

To say ‘thou go, thou stay’ to mine old friends?

“What piteous a creature I become,

That this should even be a question asked!

Betray my captain, twice repeat the same

Folly that hath brought us Felter’s shame!

“But what may Garr do if I should refuse?

I dare not risk the torment of his hell.

He knows well what I fear above all fears—

The purgatory where no man can seek the company of peers.”

Acker’s shoulders sagged, and even as the crowd applauded, he felt so strongly the fierce power of his words that tears ran freely down his cheeks. He turned, the applause sounding now, once again, like the hollow crashing of the surf in a shell. And he felt hollow himself, worthless. The honor that had been done him by assigning him to this mission was no honor at all; it was punishment. He had been rejected by mankind and sent out into space, banished forever from that civilization that had no use for him. All he had was his friends on the Eldorado—yet from this time on, no matter what he did, he must betray at least one of them. Dare he betray the only one who had ever shown him any friendship?

When he awoke the next morning, he was surprised he had slept so well. He chose to believe the experiences of the previous night had been dreams. They certainly felt like dreams. But dreams or not, his dilemma remained.

He procrastinated as he got ready for work. He took as long as he could with his morning routine of changing his twelve daily calendars—six ship time and six Earth time—looking at the day’s pictures far longer than he ordinarily would.

By the time he was finished in the bathroom and reading a short story in bed with his breakfast of hydrated corn flake patties, he was already running late. Still, he took the time to make his way to the central hub and up the shaft to the cupola. He couldn’t stand to go to work without taking a few moments to take in the awesome view of the elemental universe through which they sped faster and faster every day, but which they so seldom took the time to appreciate in its naked glory.

Sure, it was awkward to ride the elevator up to the hub, to feel his weight decreasing and then go through the disorientation of floating out into a seemingly endless chasm. The human mind just couldn’t accept the transfer from full gravity to weightlessness after one quick elevator ride. When those doors opened he expected to fall. But rationality won over—and of course there was a ladder, not because there was any danger of falling, but because even when weightless, you had to be able to control your direction and speed. Centuries ago, Gene Cernan had learned that the hard way when he had attempted the United States’ second spacewalk with no external handholds on his spaceship; as Acker recalled, Cernan had lost twenty pounds during his ordeal.

Acker pulled himself to the top of the shaft using only his arms—trying to “climb” a ladder in zero gee was possible, but laughably awkward. At the top of the shaft was a padded surface, just in case a person overintoxicated by weightlessness happened to hurl himself upward too fast. Acker had done that once; the impact with the padding had been somewhat painful. He probably would have fractured his skull had he hit a metal wall at that speed.

Maneuvering hand-over-hand, he pulled himself into the cupola.

The Universe had been swallowed by blackness. How different relativistic travel was from the colorful streaks of light envisioned by the old movies; the stars were simply gone, their light frequencies folded up into a comfortable existence lost to the Eldorado—except ...

Yes! As the huge box spun, a glorious wonder came into view—seven streaks of color, all the colors of the spectrum, glowing softly, faint but prominent against the all-consuming blackness. A perfect rainbow, winding clear around the ship in a perfect circle. It was the starbow! It had finally appeared!

The light from the stars up ahead, their frequency excited by the Doppler Effect into the ultraviolet, faded into blue radiance at the front of the starbow, a band of blue, then green, then yellow, orange, red, until it disappeared into the red-shifted light that was finally lost in the low frequency behind the ship, where the light waves took so long to reach the ship that the light was lost to all but infrared scanners.

The starbow! And Lawrence Acker was the first man in history ever to see one! Perhaps finally the others would pay attention to him now. Oh, they’d all expected the starbow to appear; in fact the event timer had the exact time that it would become visible. But only Acker had thought to come up to the cupola. He had been the first of them to set eyes on this wonder.

It was a shame, he realized, that history would not record this moment. By the time the Eldorado finished its journey, Earth would no longer exist. The Universe itself might no longer exist. The structure of space might break apart, taking the ship with it, when the end finally came. Only once the ship had circumnavigated the Universe would deceleration begin, and if there was any matter left in the Universe, if proton decay had not simply wiped out all existence by then, if some hyperspace rift hadn’t wormed its way in and destroyed the four dimensions of spacetime, only then would they locate some world and perhaps build a new life. But with no women on board, they would be the last of mankind, the last of the Universe. There would be no history books. And even if they somehow scribed their story, there would be no one to read it.

Enough of the cupola. Cosmic thoughts were too vast for the human mind. Many humans on Earth—mission planners, dreamers, science fiction writers, professors—thought they could comprehend the cosmos, thought they were prepared for infinity, thought their minds could grasp what the Eldorado was built for. But no human mind could. Only once you were out here, only once you saw it for yourself, could you really understand that there was no understanding. Astronauts, a particularly egotistical bunch, routinely had their egos shattered by the Everythingness of the cosmos. The most pretentious minds on Earth thought they could fit the cosmos into their comfy little worldview; they didn’t realize they were simply intellectualizing one tiny facet of it. They could never understand.

In that alone, all the bickering crew members of the Eldorado were united. They didn’t say it to one another, for there were no words to express it; but they understood, for they shared the experience. In that, Acker thought, perhaps there was some hope of holding this crew together.

His mind was still awhirl with the overwhelming hugeness and indifference of the cosmos, and his own smallness and insignificance, when he reached the engine room. He was grateful for Garr’s disapproving sneer, for it allowed his mind to crash back to the comforting mundane details of everyday life, and the petty human animal squabbles that characterized the Eldorado these days.

“You’re late,” Garr said.

“Sorry. I think I’ve got a fix for the circulator. I worked out a procedure—“

“We need to talk,” Garr said. “Come with me.”

Maybe he’s not mad at me after all, Acker thought. Usually when he’s mad, he just doesn’t want to talk to me.

Obligingly, Acker followed Garr out into the corridor, through the service area, and to the outer lock. “In there,” Garr said.

“The outer hull?”

Garr nodded.

Acker checked above the door. The light was green, indicating the outer hull’s integrity was good, and the small service corridor was fully pressurized. He pulled the hatch open, ducked through the narrow hatch, and climbed down a ladder onto the ship’s outer hull. Below him was a tunnel leading into the emergency escape launch.

“Get in there,” Garr said.

“Into the ESL?”

“That’s right.”

“But it’s not powered up, is it?”

“I’ve been powering it up since your scheduled start time.”

“What’s going on here?” Suddenly Acker was reluctant to climb into the launch. It wasn’t that he felt Garr was truly capable of murder, but this had the same eerie feeling as those old high school pranks, when the big guys would lure him into the bathroom and shove his head into the urinal or shove soap into his mouth.

Garr’s large body blocked the tunnel back into the inner ship. If Acker needed to, he could dart down the little service corridor, but it wouldn’t take much effort for Garr to catch up with him. “In the launch!”

Acker cringed, backing up down the ladder. A cool draft wafted from the interior of the small escape craft; it wasn’t fully powered up. He stood in the supply cabin of the launch, staring plaintively up the ladder at Garr.

“Let me explain,” Garr said. “You know my plan now. You know I intend to overthrow Boddy. You chose not to help me, so now you’re a danger to me. I hate to do this, because I really like you and I need you, but I’m going to have to jettison you.”

All that childish horror he had felt last night, that lifelong fear of abandonment, crashed into him like a freight train. Panic seized him and he could barely breathe. “Wait!” he screamed, eyes filling with tears.

Garr was pushing the hatch closed. Acker scrambled up the ladder, pushed against the hatch, but the artificial gravity was on Garr’s side. There was no way Acker could resist. “Wait, Garr! Wait! Just tell me what you need! I’ll help you!”

Garr stopped. “I don’t believe you. Yesterday you turned me down.”

“Well, I thought about it last night.” It wasn’t really a lie, he had indeed thought about it. “I realized the regulations don’t really matter out here. There’s no one to enforce them but us. It’s obvious none of us want Boddy in command, so that’s—that’s it! The decision’s made. To hell with Felter.”

Garr pulled the hatch open. “Why should I believe you? Hell, I’m about to kick your ass out into space. You’ll say anything to stop me from doing that.”

“It’s the truth. Look, Garr, if there’s anything you know about me, it’s that I never lie, right?”

Garr shrugged. “I suppose that’s true. You don’t.”

“And I never break promises, do I?”