A Maze of Stars Read online

  He spun on his heel, and in the same instant Volar’s room was plunged into darkness.

  So was Menlee and Annica’s.

  “Well?” said the voice that had begun as a fair imitation of Dean How’s but, like the face, had altered so that now in obscurity it served as a beacon of comfort.

  “I can’t get over it,” Annica muttered. “To think he could even consider …”

  “Treating Volar as no more than a source of as-yet-unconfirmed information?” Menlee’s tone was bitter. “Space and time, I only met him this afternoon, but I’d sooner call Volar my friend than the dean!”

  “Enemy,” Annica whispered, and the utterance of such an ancient, such an archaic, word seemed to freeze the air. How long ago had it been, as those who lived on Shreng recorded history, since anybody called a fellow human foe?

  In the dark, Ship waited.

  At last Annica ventured, “Earlier Menlee and I were talking about visiting other planets. We both felt we might like to do it out of curiosity, but not to settle there because we felt—well, most people have been taught to—we’re the lucky ones … Are we?”

  Ship’s voice was a regretful sigh. “Only time will tell, and I’m forbidden to preguess events.”

  “I see.” Annica could be heard drawing her next deep breath. “Well, what I wanted to ask after finding out how bad things can be on Shreng in spite of all the superficial niceness: You brought Volar here, though I don’t imagine his future is much to look forward to. Can you take me somewhere else? I’m prepared to run the same risk if it will help. Help someone else, somewhere.”

  “Annica, you can’t be serious!” Menlee cried.

  “Why not? Our beautiful, calm, intellectual society can generate a How! I don’t know where Volar comes from, but I heard him beating down the dean in terms I’d never dreamed of using, though I’d have liked to, given the sort of monster he’s turned out to be… I’ve been disgusted. I’ve been revolted! And if How gets his way, what do you think the future holds for you?”

  There was a tense pause. At length Menlee swallowed noisily.

  “You’re right. I wish you weren’t. But, like you, all of a sudden I don’t look forward to the rest of my life on Shreng as much as I did yesterday. And then there’s the spirit of our ancestors.”

  “You never spoke of that to me before!”—accusingly.

  “Does that make any difference?” Menlee countered. It sounded as though he was turning to stare at her, though they remained in utter gloom. “It’s always at the back of my mind, not something I often talk about, but it has to be respected. They were heroes, after all, they and their companions, who set out to occupy unknown worlds, sometimes made it, sometimes didn’t … I have all possible respect for their bravery.” Another swallow, agonizingly loud. Then, on the verge of audibility:

  “It’s something I hadn’t thought about enough in many years. I’ve been getting too comfortable: a safe easy job, a likable companion, a—”

  “So at least you like me!” Annica rasped. He clutched her to him.

  “More than anyone I ever met! And listening to Volar reminded me of how I used to think. I used to say, when I was a kid, I’d live up to the ideals of the first settlers. I’d seize the chance to do something brand-new and make a go of it. I dreamed, of course, of being borne away to perform amazing tasks on other worlds …”

  “Me too,” Annica whispered. “Me too.”

  “And suddenly we have the chance. Let’s grab it!”

  “Yes! Let’s!”

  No light came on in the room, but it was as though they were illuminated by penetrating blackness, as though they could see in some nonexistent band of the spectrum.

  They stared at each other for a long, long moment. Then, simultaneously, both whispered, “Yes, please!”

  And Annica added after a pause, “But—”

  Ship said, “But what?”

  “But I’d like to know what happens to How’s scheme. It can’t be right, can it?”

  “No.”

  “So can we—?” Menlee pleaded.

  Ship gave its marvelous imitation of a chuckle.

  “By all means. Since it hasn’t happened yet, you’ll have to wait. But when it does, I’ll gladly let you witness his discomfiture.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to interfere this way,” Annica ventured.

  “So did I,” said Ship in a musing tone. “I’m beginning to suspect that there must be more definitions of ‘interference’ than are superficially accessible from my memory banks … Now come with me.

  “And thank you, very much, for offering to keep me company.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHIP

  MOST OF THE QUESTIONS ANNICA AND MENLEE PUT TO SHIP were those that all passengers always asked, about its mission, its powers, its limitations. But inevitably there were new ones, too.

  “Has Dean How already found out that we’ve disappeared?” Annica wanted to know.

  “No. The circuits in the room where you were confined are repeating their previous signals with appropriate variations. Everything appears normal.”

  “How truly amnesiac is Volar?” Annica went on. “Suppose How gives him a disinhibitor—won’t he be forced to admit you brought him to Shreng?”

  Which they were orbiting, awed by the beauty of the white and green globe and its gibbous satellites.

  “I was obliged to edit his memory,” Ship replied. “I warned him, naturally, but he had resolved not to accompany me any further.”

  “Does he remember nothing of the voyage?” Menlee demanded.

  “Certain things that were said during it, certain images he was shown. But these have been relabeled in his mental classification system, and when he recalls them now, he thinks of them as either something he dreamed or something he imagined or invented.”

  “Yet he knows he came from another planet,” Annica pressed. “Surely he will deduce that he was brought by no ordinary starship.”

  “Furthermore”—this was a point Menlee had earlier established—“you said starships don’t visit his home world.”

  “So how,” Annica persisted, “can he prevent the dean from proving to everybody that the only way he could have got to Shreng was thanks to you?”

  “In which case,” Menlee capped, “he’ll be condemned to the life of a laboratory specimen, won’t he?”

  Ship, who by now had abandoned its simulated human form, hesitated in an entirely human fashion.

  “I think,” it said after a while, “you will enjoy it more if you witness what’s about to happen without being forewarned.”

  “Is it part of Dean How’s downfall?” Annica suggested. “The key to it. I’m afraid you’re right about the consequences for Volar. They will not be pleasant, at least for a while. But in the end he will not be unhappy. He will have a place on Shreng. He’ll be accepted.”

  “How in all of space—?”

  “You’ll find out in due time, that is, during Inshar’s local morning after Landing Day. By the way, Menlee!”

  “Yes?”

  “It was most sensible of you to add an autorelease to the lock on Volar’s file. It puts a completely different complexion on Dean How’s version of events.”

  “Does it?” Menlee stared.

  “Indeed.” Ship gave a faint chuckle. “You may care to occupy yourselves by trying to figure out why. Otherwise, you may ask for any sort of information or entertainment it is in my power to provide, and food and drink, of course, whenever you feel inclined. Or you may wish to go to bed, since it’s approximately midnight by the time you were keeping before you came aboard.”

  At the mention of bed, Annica and Menlee exchanged glances. It was clear that the same thought had struck both. Annica put it into words.

  “I don’t quite know how to say this, but—well, we haven’t been living together all that long, and we still make love quite a lot. Can we do it in—uh—privacy?”

  Regret tinged the Ship’s answ
er.

  “I’m afraid it’s impossible for me not to be aware of everything that happens within my hull, except, as you’ve already learned, in a section of my memory banks which I suspect of having been damaged by a high-energy particle. But please do not imagine that I have any prurient interest in your lovemaking. There was a time, after all, when I had tens of thousands of people on board. I hope that like them you will bear in mind that I am only a machine.”

  “It’s very hard,” Annica said softly. “Very hard …”

  Later, in Menlee’s arms, she cried a little. When she recovered, she apologized amid snuffles, saying, “I was just overcome by the fact that there’s no going back.”

  He lay silent for a while. Eventually he muttered, “I still don’t know why we agreed so rapidly. It’s such a big decision. I’d have expected to debate it with myself for ages … Only when you offered to go, it suddenly seemed the one proper course.” He hesitated. “Perhaps it was because I didn’t want you to go without me.”

  She hugged him very tightly, and for the next minute neither spoke. At length, however, she resumed.

  “I can’t remember whether I felt more ashamed or more afraid.”

  “Ashamed?”

  “Because Dean How, just about the most respected person on Shreng, had suddenly shown himself to be as nasty as the people you learn about in history lessons—the conquerors, the dictators, the entrepreneurs.”

  “We’ve changed human nature,” Menlee sighed. “But I guess there’ll always be atavisms … And you said you were afraid. Of what he might be planning to do to us?”

  “Yes, of course. I had visions of him—oh—wiping our memories with drugs, or having us conditioned into obeying him willy-nilly, or telling some kind of dreadful lie about us which people would have believed because he’s the great Dean How and we’re a couple of nobodies. I wonder whether I was right … Do you think I dare ask?”

  “Ask—? Oh. You mean ask Ship?”

  “Yes.”

  In the half-light that filled the room when it was in use as a bedchamber, Menlee could be seen to lick his lips.

  “It might be a good idea. How?”

  “Oh, I suppose I just call out! Ship, can you answer a question for me?”

  The now-familiar voice spoke quietly from midair.

  “If it’s the one implied by what you were just saying, yes, I can. You were absolutely correct to be afraid of what How had in mind. Since you retired I have been investigating a program that he has consulted several times since learning about Volar. He created it to devise a convincing reason for your disappearance if he could not blackmail you into obeying him.”

  “He was going to have us—killed?” The words were almost a sob.

  “He was going to arrange for what would appear to be a fatal accident. He being, as you say, the famous Dean How, his account of the event might have been believed. I had already begun to suspect what he had in mind. Had I not, I would have been unable to offer you a way of escape. I am not permitted to remove beings from one world to another unless it is certain that they are in extreme danger.”

  “The—the devil!” Menlee exclaimed, sitting up and clenching his fists. “Oh, I hope he gets what he deserves!”

  “My prognosticative powers are limited,” said Ship. “But it seems not unlikely that he will.”

  FOR THE BENEFIT OF STUDENTS WHO HAD SPENT TWO NIGHTS at home, classes at Inshar did not recommence until noon on the day after Landing Day. However, Dean How went to his bureau at the usual time. He was by no means in such an optimistic mood as he had been the night before last. He had found arguing with Volar like butting against a rock. He was unused to being defied with such obstinacy, and the experience was not a pleasant one. Yet he dared not overtly threaten the foreigner; he must in the long run enlist his cooperation, and that was what he signally had failed to obtain so far. Volar admitted he hadn’t been born on Shreng but refused to confess how he had arrived. He claimed he simply could not remember.

  Coaxing, cajoling, How tried to explain that he if anyone could call on the necessary experts to cure his amnesia—pretending for the sake of argument that he believed it real. Did he, Volar, not want to regain his memory?

  To which the infuriating answer came: “Not much.”

  He had wasted almost the whole of yesterday in this fruitless pursuit, so obsessed by it that he nearly forgot to check on Annica and Menlee. All the telltales from their room confirmed that they were sitting on their beds arguing with each other. Food and drink were provided automatically, and neither seemed in need of medical care. Without bothering to look through the one-way window with which their room was also equipped, he passed on to recheck his scheme for their disappearance. So far as he could tell, the final improbability had been erased. Tomorrow he would give them a last chance to change their minds and support him, and if they still refused … He wished he could get rid of them right now—it would be safer—but to implement the plan he needed access to his bureau, and in all his years as dean he had never set foot there on Landing Day. To do so this time might excite suspicion.

  He didn’t sleep very well.

  Eyes red and sore, he arrived for work a few minutes before the appointed hour, but that was something he did at least once a week. What was totally irregular—what was unprecedented—was discovering that the door to his bureau was standing wide. It should have opened for him and him alone.

  And there were people inside. Three of them, turning at the sound of his approach.

  An icy hand seemed to close on How’s heart.

  But now, of all times, he dared not give way to the rage that boiled up within him. Without even breaking step, he employed his bracelet—like the ones Menlee and Annica wore but far more powerful—to demand of the circuitry who they were. The whispered answer added to his dismay. One was Dr. Haitan Vashco, chief medical officer at the spaceport. The other two were both Custodians of Public Safety, Lerrin and Wheck by name—the latter a woman—hailing respectively from Tormelos and Malga.

  But Menlee Ashiru comes from Tormelos, and Annica Slore from Malga!

  Fighting an impulse to tremble, he demanded just before he crossed the threshold of the bureau, “How did they make you let them in?”

  Chillingly: “They have a warrant.”

  The world began to swim around Dean How. With a grunt he took the final step into the bureau, which was in neutral mode, all circuitry inactivated. The intruders had made themselves at home in other ways, too: one in his own chair, one on the chair kept for visitors, of whom there had been none in over a year, and the third—the woman Wheck—on the corner of his desk, where she sat idly swinging long well-muscled legs.

  “What do you want?” How rasped. And added, “That’s my chair, Haitan—get out of it!”

  With insulting slowness Dr. Vashco complied. “That’s not a polite way to say good morning,” he rumbled. He was a large man with a deep chest and a deep voice.

  “It’s scarcely polite of you to force your way in!”

  Lerrin, the male custodian, who was brown and lean with a purposeful manner, made no move to vacate his chair. He merely said, “Your circuits must have told you that we have a warrant. When we found you weren’t yet here, we decided to investigate a few of your records.”

  How had rounded his desk and now sat down. Resuming a familiar position steadied his nerves. He was able to riposte in a blustering tone. “This is disgraceful, and I promise I’ll report you to your superiors!”

  “Please do.” Now at last Lerrin did rise, and planted his fists on the front of How’s desk, leaning menacingly toward him. “They’re likely to be as interested as we are in what’s been happening here these past couple of days.”

  “What in all of space are you talking about?”

  “Custodian Lerrin,” Dr. Vashco offered, “would you like me to begin?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think that’s sensible.” Slowly Lerrin returned to his seat, not taking his eyes off How.
/>   “Very well. Faruz, it would appear that the day before yesterday an unknown man suffering from amnesia was brought to the campus infirmary, where he was examined by Menlee Ashiru and Annica Slore, who had volunteered for duty over the holiday.”

  “But there’s—” The words escaped How’s lips before he could stop them.

  Vashco’s voice became silky but ominous, like candyleen blended with poison. “Were you about to say: But there’s a lock on that patient’s file?”

  “I— Oh, go on, if you must!”

  “Indeed there was. But the young man who compiled the lock added an automatic time release … I gather from your reaction that this was something you’d overlooked.”

  The doctor gave a sleepy smile.

  “Time was up at midnight. Immediately the data became available to the rest of your system, the circuits reviewed them and did exactly what they were supposed to. Given the presence of someone with three, maybe five, kinds of gene armoring not required on Shreng, the logical deduction was that a foreigner had landed illegally. Which was why my bureau was notified.”

  How was staring blankly at him. Equally vacant was the interior of his mind, save for mocking echoes of his grandiose plan to exploit the knowledge locked in Volar’s head.

  “We’ve established that at least one of the infirmary staff, who lives nearby and came in to work the early shift, recalls this stranger. Curiously, however, although she says he was escorted to the infirmary by an autoproctor, we can find no record of any such event. All actions by a proctor are supposed to be recorded, are they not?”