17

Linc paced slowly along the bridge, watching the viewscreens and the men and women sitting at their stations tending the instruments. He felt a warm glow of pride.

The ship works beautifully, he said to himself. My ship. I brought it back to life. I made it work again. He wished for a moment that Jerlet could see it all; how the machines hummed and clicked to themselves. How the people had come to him: Jayna first, then Slav, then two more, a handful, a dozen. Now he had enough people to do all the tasks that needed doing. They didn’t even jump when a servomech trundled past them, anymore. The rocket engines tested out; the connections were solid. The computer had worked out a flight plan to put them in orbit around Beryl.

All that remains to do is to test the matter transmitter. Linc knew. But even if it takes time to get it working, once we’re in a stable orbit around Beryl we’ll have plenty of time. Already the main computer up in the hub was going over all the necessary data and working up a program that would tell Linc how to repair and test the matter transmitter system.

If Jerlet could only see this! He’d be proud of me. But Linc frowned to himself. He knew who he really wanted to see his accomplishments: Magda. But she had never once visited the bridge, his domain.

Monel had come.

Red-faced, thinner, and nastier than ever, he had come flanked by six of his guards and watched—angry and snarling—as more than a dozen people worked at the tasks Linc had assigned them.

“You’ll get no food!” he screamed at them. “None at all! Don’t expect to go against my orders and still get fed.”

Linc countered, “We have food processors at the hub and other levels of the ship. The servomechs keep us well-supplied. We won’t starve.”

Monel spun his chair around and wheeled himself away from the bridge. One of his guards stayed with Linc, a fellow named Rix. “He’s gone crazy,” Rix said. “I’m better off with you.”

Linc didn’t tell everyone that the food processors couldn’t feed a large number of people indefinitely. They would need inputs of fresh food eventually. But by that time we’ll either be in orbit around Beryl or dead.

Monel was back a few days later, this time threatening to have the guards tear people away from the bridge by force, if necessary.

“Violence?” Linc asked.

“Justice!” Monel snarled.

Linc went to a desk top and touched a button. A servomech rolled up to Monel’s chair and stood there, its dome sensors pulsing with a faint reddish light. Monel backed his chair away.

“Those metal arms,” Linc said, “can inflict a lot of justice on your guards. Or you.”

Monel left the bridge. He never returned. Neither did his guards.

And Magda never came at all.

I could go get her, Linc thought. But he shook his head at the idea. No! Let her come to me. She’s wrong and I’m right.

Besides, there was Jayna and a dozen other girls who wanted to be with him now. Let Magda sit in her shrine, Linc told himself. Let her meditate ‘til she turns green!

Most of the people came to the bridge to help him every day, then returned to their quarters for meals and sleep. Despite the threats and grumblings, Monel took no action to stop them. Slav and his farmers hardly ever showed up on the bridge, but Linc knew they were on his side.

Linc himself slept in the captain’s lounge, next to the bridge. He ate what Jayna or some of the other girls brought him.

He spent most of his time working on the matter transmitter.

It was incredibly complex, and he didn’t understand the first tenth of what he was doing. But the computer patiently showed detailed diagrams, gave him long lists of parts and instructions on where to find them and how to use them.

And each day the yellow sun grew brighter, bigger. It seemed to be reaching out for them.

Linc was squatting on the floor of the transmitter booth—a» tall cylinder of transparent plastic that stood in front of the system’s roomful of electronic hardware—when Hollie came running up to him.

“Linc,” she called breathlessly, “the astrogation computer is starting to print out the final course corrections!”

Linc scrambled to his feet and wordlessly followed her to the bridge. Hollie was a slim, lanky girl, almost Linc’s own height, and her long legs kept pace with him as they raced down the corridor from the transmitter station to the bridge.

More than a dozen people were crowded around the astrogation computer desk. They moved back when Linc arrived and let him slide into the seat.

Above the desk, the computer’s main viewscreen had split into several different displays. One showed numbers: the exact timing and thrust levels of the rocket burns that must be made. Another showed a picture of their course, laid against a schematic drawing of the solar system that they were finally reaching. Thin yellow lines showed the orbits of the system’s six planets: Beryl was the second-closest to the yellow sun. A glowing blue Linc showed the course that the ship would have to follow; it ended in a circular orbit around Beryl. A flashing green dot showed where the rocket burns had to be made.

Linc studied the numbers and nodded.

“Twelve hours,” he said. “The first rocket burn has to be made in twelve hours.”

They all clapped and laughed. They were excited, eager. Their long weeks of work were finally resulting in something they could see.

But Linc found himself wishing for more time. I’ve got to be in a dozen places at once, he realized. The matter transmitter wasn’t ready for testing yet, and no one else could read or handle the tools well enough to be trusted with it. But he also had to be here on the bridge to make certain that the course-changing maneuvers were done exactly right. Otherwise everything was doomed.

And, he realized, he had to see Magda.

It was night. Everyone was asleep. Linc stood by the astrogation computer and watched all the unsleeping, hard-working instruments of the bridge. The whole ship is at my fingertips. All mine. Just as though nobody else existed.

In three more hours they would all be awake and clustered here at the bridge while the rocket engines roared briefly to life. A few seconds to thrust, that was all that was needed for this first course correction. A quick burn that would swerve them away from Baryta’s glaring hot grasp.

The difference between life and death.

She won’t come to see it happen, he knew. She’ll stay in her little shrine and wail for me to come to her.

He paced the length of the bridge once. Then twice. Abruptly he strode to the hatch and pushed it open. For the first time in many months, he went back to the living area.

It seemed strange to be walking down the old corridor again. His home, for most of life. But now it looked old, worn, and tired, somehow different than Linc remembered it. The walls were stained and discolored. The floor was scuffed and dull.

He passed the big double doors of the farm section. How many lifetimes ago had he repaired the pump that Peta had damaged? How much had happened since then!

Linc found himself slowing down as he neared Magda’s door. He glanced up and saw a long-dead TV camera’s eye staring blindly out of the ceiling. I could fly that and watch the corridor from the bridge, he thought idly.

He finally got to her door, hesitated, then tapped on it lightly.

“Come in Linc,” came Magda’s muffled voice.

The room was the same. The walls glowed dimly. The strange sky shapes shone across the ceiling. Magda sat on the bunk, her face deep in shadow, as Linc stepped in and let the door slide shut behind him.

“How did you know it was me?” he asked. She pushed her hair back away from her face with a graceful hand.

“I’m the priestess. I can see things that other people can’t see.”

He didn’t answer.

“Besides,” she said, “who else would it be? I knew you’d come sooner or later. And probably while everyone else was asleep.”

H e crossed the tiny room in three strides and sat on the floor, at her feet.

“You don’t sleep?” he asked.

“Not very much, anymore.”

From this close he could see, despite the room’s dimness, that her face was even more gaunt and hollowed than his own.

“I’ve got the ship running smoothly now,” Linc said.

She looked down at him and let one hand rest on his shoulder. “Yes, I know.” Her hand felt cold through the thin fabric of his shirt. She seemed tense, almost afraid.

“We’ll be able to make it to the new world.”

“Perhaps.”

“You could help us—”

“I have helped you,” Magda said.

Linc stared up at her. “You have? How? By meditating? A few hours with a screwdriver would have been more help.”

“Don’t joke about serious things,” Magda said softly. “I’ve helped you by staying here and fasting, concentrating, meditating—and by preventing Monel from stopping your work.”

“Monel couldn’t—”

“Monel tried to rouse all the people against you,” Magda said. “But Slav and his farmers refused to follow him. Thanks to the priestess.”

Linc didn’t understand. “What? Are you saying...?”

It was difficult to see her face in the shadows. Magda seemed to be staring off somewhere in the darkness. “Ever since you went to the Ghost Place,” she explained, “Monel has tried everyday to make me say that you are evil, and you must be stopped. I have not said it. Slav asked me for guidance, and I told him that he should not fear you, or the Ghost Place.”

“But you told me—” Linc didn’t bother finishing the sentence. None of it made any sense to him.

Magda went on, “You are such children, all of you. You each want to be the mighty leader, the one who gives orders, who decides what must be done. You know you’re right. Monel knows you’re wrong. At least Slav doesn’t pretend to know everything, he asks the priestess for guidance.”

Shaking his head, Linc asked, “I thought you believed—”

Her hand tightened on his shoulder. “The priestess is always in command. Monel thinks he’s the leader; he’s a fool. You think you can save us all from death; you’re a fool, too. I am the leader here, and all of you do as I wish. I am letting you try to fix the machines because you might be right about them. I am letting Monel think he’s giving orders to everyone because then I can make him give the orders that I want him to give.

“When you tried to overthrow everything we have believed all our lives, even the power of the priestess, I used Monel to balance your new power. When Monel wanted to stop your work in the Ghost Place and have you cast out, I used Slav to balance him. You men do all the struggling and I remain the priestess, the real leader, the one who brings Jerlet’s wisdom into the lives of the people.”

Linc felt stunned. “You’ve been playing us against each other?”

Magda’s voice smiled. “Of course. I’ve been directing all of you ever since I became priestess. Before that time, even when we were children, I could make any one of you do almost anything I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t want me to fix the machines in the bridge.”

“True. I was afraid for you. And afraid that if you succeeded, it would ruin my power and the people’s belief in Jerlet. But when I realized that I couldn’t stop you, I decided it was foolish to resist. This way, you counterbalance Monel’s power. And Slav and his farmers have become a third power, in between the two of you.”

Sagging against the edge of the bunk, Linc said, “I just can’t believe it. You can’t play with people’s lives like that. No one can. You just think—”

“Why do you think you came here tonight?” Magda asked.

“Why do I think... ? I came here because we’re going to light off the rockets tomorrow for the first course change, and I’d like you to be there.”

“No, that’s not why you came.” And her hand gripped his shoulder hard. “Linc, I summoned you. I called you. That’s why I knew who it was when you knocked.”

He puffed out a disgusted breath of air.

“I know you don’t believe me.” Magda’s voice was so quiet that he could barely hear her. “But you might at least ask why I called you.”

“All right: why?”

“Because I have a terrible fear. Your rockets are not going to work tomorrow. We’re all going to plunge into the yellow star and be burned... or... something terrible is going to happen.”

“Don’t be silly.” But her hand was a claw biting into his shoulder now. “Magda, everything’s checked out. The computer—”

“Don’t tell me what machines say!” she snapped. “I know something is wrong. And I need you to help me find out exactly what it is.”

“Need me?”

She nodded and closed her eyes. “I have to touch you, feel your vibrations, to find out what’s wrong.”

He stared up at her. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

But she was no longer listening to him. Her fingers were digging deeply into his shoulder. Her eyes glittered, but she was staring at empty shadows. Her entire body was shaking spasmodically.

Magda’s mouth worked, tried to form words, but no sounds came out. Despite himself, Linc felt drawn into her spell. “What is it? What do you see?”

She didn’t answer.

He waited. The minutes stretched tautly. Still she seemed possessed by something invisible.

Then she sagged and nearly collapsed against him. Linc got to his knees and held her.

“Magda, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She was cold with sweat. “I...trouble—” she gasped weakly. “Trouble with the engines—”

“What kind of trouble? What will go wrong?”

“I don’t know... couldn’t see.”

He held her tightly, his mind racing. Foolishness! You’re letting yourself get caught up in this whole superstitious nonsense. But his own inner voice asked, What could go wrong?

Where could a failure happen? The answer: Anywhere.

“But what’s the most likely way that a failure could happen?” he asked himself. And the answer flashed into his mind like an explosion. “If someone tampered with the engines...or the connections between the astrogation computer and the controls... or—”

Magda stiffened in his arms. She pulled away and stared into Linc’s eyes.

“Monel,” she whispered.