Isaac Asimov's Aurora Page 8

Coren sat down at the desk then. After a few minutes, he opened the disk again and studied the images.

  6

  THE CABIN lights flared brightly and Masid squinted, coming slug­gishly awake. He lurched to a sitting position and blinked furiously at the chronometer across the room; he had only been asleep a few hours. “What—”

  “Get your kit together, Vorian,” Anda said. “You’re leaving.”

  Masid’s eyes adjusted. Two robots stood on either side of the cabin hatch. Anda, hands on hips, loomed over Masid.

  “Tired of my company so soon?”

  “Come on, we don’t have much time. A day at the most. I’m getting you to Nova Levis.” He held up a capsule about two centimeters long and four wide. “Take this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Implant. Immune system augment.”

  Masid came fully awake then. He studied Anda’s face for signs of jest. Seeing none, he accepted the capsule and headed straight for the hygienic. “Talk.”

  “I’ve been ordered to turn over the ship and its cargo, including baleys, to blockade command. We’re rendezvousing with a ship in less than thirty hours, the Coredon. I know that ship. We’ve suspected for a long time that it’s affiliated with blockade runners. Never had any solid proof, though, and since it’s a Terran ship we haven’t been able to convince our own command to challenge. The Terrans, of course, insist that none of their captains are involved, but that if any should be, then it will be a matter for Terran Internal Security, thank you all very much for your concern.”

  Masid filled a cup with water and swallowed the capsule. The lump slid down his throat painfully. He opened his pack and pulled out the clothes he had been wearing when Anda took the transport. “Why are you required to abide by Terran authority?”

  “Partly logistical. We don’t have the space for you all, frankly, so we have to hand the baleys off soon, anyway. We requested a Theian transport, but that request got routed to the blockade and the Coredon was dis­patched. We’re closer to the blockade than any other colony or station anyway, and all the Theian ships manning the ring are like this one.”

  “And the other part?”

  “Aurora wants it this way. Make nice with the Terrans so we can straighten out the mess between us. Normally I wouldn’t accommodate this policy, it’s still my discretion. But I’m doing you a favor.”

  Masid zipped up and began assembling the rest of his belongings. “Why take the baleys to the blockade? I mean, is that standard?”

  “Earth doesn’t want them back. They end up being parceled out to other Settler colonies. There’s a lottery for them. Our job is to just keep them off Nova Levis.”

  “What do you think my chances are of passing as a baley after you so conveniently separated me from them?”

  “Pretty good. As soon as you told me what you were doing, I pulled a dozen more out. You won’t be the first one put back in with them, but you aren’t the last. Just be your usual charming, convincing self and you’ll be fine.”

  “Hm. So what happens if I end up in this lottery instead of going right through?”

  “Send me a thank you note when you get wherever you end up.”

  Masid laughed grimly. “What’s up with the augment I just took?”

  “We have fairly reliable intelligence that Nova Levis is a stew of com­municable disease. What I just gave you is the latest thing in prophylac­tic biotech. It’ll set up a small lab in your endocrine system and boost your natural immunity by a couple of orders of magnitude. Still might not keep you entirely healthy, but maybe it will keep you alive long enough to do some useful work.”

  “So,” Masid said, hoisting his pack. “I imagine you’d be happy to get some kind of corroborative evidence about the Coredon while I’m at it?”

  “The thought had occurred to me.” Anda held up a hand. “If you get there . . . before all this turned to the mess it is, I had a friend who went to Nova Levis.”

  “You had a friend?”

  “Keep it up and I’ll send you through in a bag.”

  “Sorry.”

  “She’s a doctor. Was a doctor. I have no idea if she’s still alive. She was part of the civic health program on Nova Levis, attached to the Fifty Worlds liaison group.”

  “You mean the embassy?”

  Anda shook his head. “Because of Solaria’s involvement, there were no other formal Spacer embassies. Just a representative presence with no authority. Advisors. Anyway, she stayed. She never got out. Knowing her, she probably thought she could do something.”

  “Did she have a name?”

  “Shasma. If she’s still there, maybe she could help. Or you could.”

  Masid waited. Anda seemed to work with his feelings. Finally, he looked up. “It might be useful. If you find her, ask if she remembers Cali­nas Ridge.”

  “Calinas Ridge . . .”

  “Save some time if she knows I sent you.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He hesitated. “Um . . . are you getting physical with your interview subjects?”

  Anda scowled. “Please. We’re Spacers.”

  “Ah, yes. The civilized ones. I forgot. Sorry. Just wanted to make sure you send me back like everybody else.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “No, but let’s do it.”

  Thirty-four hours, Masid thought acidly. Anda lied. I must remind him of that . . .

  Secured in a restraining transport cocoon, Masid was barely able to turn his head to see the gang of men coming down the line of imprisoned baleys. He recognized Terran blue-grey space service uniforms, but the sudden glare of flashlights obscured their faces. Masid flinched as the brilliant beams struck him.

  “Have they been scrubbed?” one of them asked.

  “Surface only,” Masid heard Anda reply. “We don’t have the capacity on this ship to do this many whole body cleanings at once. So we just store them down here until we can deliver them to a better-equipped facility.”

  “Just as well, then. We can tailor the job for the colony they end up going to.”

  They walked past Masid and the beams of light left his eyes. In the dimness he saw Anda give him an encouraging half-grin and a very slight nod. Then they were gone.

  Half an hour later, robots entered the long stowage and began carting the cocoons out. Masid felt himself pulled away from the bulkhead and tilted back horizontally. Then all he could see was the ceiling as it rolled by.

  He stopped moving. He heard shouting, equipment being maneuvered, echoing footsteps. Something metal slammed into something plastic. The queue stood still for several minutes. Masid felt the cocoon lurch to one side.

  Finally, the ceiling began moving backward once more. The rim of a lock passed above him and he was sliding down a long ship-to-ship umbilical.

  “In here, come one now, bring ’em in here!”

  “Excuse me, sir,” the smooth androgynous voice of a robot said, “but this chamber is far too small for safe transport of this number of humans. I am required—”

  “You are required to shut up and move these cocoons where I tell you to.”

  “I am sorry, sir, but it cannot be permitted—”

  “Don’t interrupt me, tinhead—”

  “What’s the problem?” another human asked.

  “Your robots don’t like where we’re putting the cocoons.”

  “Let me—”

  “This is my ship and I don’t like being told how to run it. Now get—”

  “Sir—”

  “Please, Captain, let me take care of this.”

  “Fine, handle it.”

  Masid could not hear the rest of what was said, but soon the storage proceeded.

  An hour or more passed. Then:

  “Now that we’re alone,” the Terran commander said loudly in the cramped, overly-warm chamber, “and those overly-solicitous machines are gone, we can prep you for the rest of the trip. Just so you know, you’re being taken to the Nova Levis blockade where you’ll be proce
ssed for fur­ther transit. This ship doesn’t have much more room or resource than that Spacer hull you just left. But we’re not going to sweat that. The voyage is less than three days. You won’t have to worry about anything because you’re all going to sleep through it. That saves us all a lot of worry.”

  The baleys began mumbling unhappily. Masid heard the soft sounds of aerosols, though, and one by one the voices stilled.

  A face loomed above him suddenly, masked, and a hand came up holding a nossle.

  “Wait—” he began.

  Darkness.

  He awoke thirsty, blinking furiously at the crusting on his eyes, and shiv­ering. A tube was poked at his mouth until he closed his teeth on it and sucked. Lukewarm water flowed.

  Eventually he got his eyes open, enough to see the shapes around him. He lay on a deck, in a line with several others. Above them, in the darkness, machines bulked. Masid saw readylights, could hear their patient hum, and realized quickly that the water tube extended from one of them. Biomonitors, field units, military.

  The shivering subsided. He flexed his fingers, drew his legs up and stretched. Everything began to ache. He had been in one position too long. Unused muscles complained.

  Two people knelt by him. One pushed his eyelids up and shone a light into his pupils. The other prodded his torso. It was then he knew he was naked.

  “Cough,” one of them said, cupping his testicles.

  Masid let go of the tube and cleared his throat.

  “Cough,” the other said and thumped him on the diaphragm.

  He hacked loudly.

  “Looks good,” the first said, standing. A moment later, he said, “This one’s not Terran.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s macro-enhanced . . . look at this . . .”

  The other stood and joined the first. Masid strained to look back, above his head, and saw them studying the readouts on the biomonitor. One of the pair glanced down at him.

  “So what are you, friend?” he asked. “Ex-military? Fugitive?”

  Masid could not speak. He groped for the water tube again and sucked on it.

  “Spy?” the other opined.

  “And leave this in place? I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  He knelt beside Masid again and patted his cheek with mock affection. “You’re healthy enough to survive the drop, my friend, so whatever you are, you get your wish.”

  They laughed then and moved to the next baley on the deck.

  Masid continued to draw water, shuddering from time to time.

  Hours later, he sat up. A drone trundled by slowly. Masid smelled hot food and reached for it. The drone stopped automatically and a door on its featureless body snapped open, revealing stacks of prepared meals. Masid snatched one out, his fingers stinging from the heat. He snapped the spoon from the side of the rectangular platter, peeled back the cover sheet, and hungrily shoveled the nameless food product into his mouth. The drone moved to the next person, who still lay curled fetally to Masid’s right. The person after that reached out and the drone stopped.

  As his hunger abated, he looked up and down the row of baleys. Some still stretched out, but most were sitting up, many of them eating.

  They were in a cargo bay as far as Masid could tell, refitted to receive the living. The temperature was still too low to be comfortable, but he found he could control the shivering now, especially with a hot meal in his belly.

  A row of biomonitors stretched the length of the deck visible to him, one behind each of the eighty-odd people lined up. Their readouts and readylights did little to lessen the dimness. Lights high overhead cast too little illumination to see much more than shadows.

  A hatch opened in the distance and bootsteps echoed. Masid finished the meal and set the tray down. His limbs felt heavy, as though he had been doing hard labor for too many hours. He doubted he could hold his own in a fight just then.

  Three uniformed men appeared, striding purposefully down the length of the row of baleys. As they passed each recumbent figure, the lead offi­cer pointed and the officer behind and to his left made a note on a palm monitor. At the end of the line, they turned around and walked back. After they left, a short time went by. Then four people in dark blue work-togs came with a train of gurneys. They gathered up the baleys who still stretched on the deck and placed each in a gurney.

  Masid counted fifteen and guessed that they had been the oldest and frailest. Judging by his own reactions, the sedative they had been given was designed to place a burden on the body and sort the baleys out by physical condition.

  The collection squad gone, a few people began tentatively talking. The babble was half-hearted and faded out within a few minutes. Masid’s own thoughts seemed sluggish, though he recognized what was happen­ing. The only thing to do was wait.

  His eyes slitted. The silence seemed to be slipping into his brain. Just as his head lolled forward, chin to chest, he came awake to the sound of more people striding into the bay.

  “Sorry to keep you all waiting,” a sharp, authoritative voiced announced.

  Masid looked up at the tall Terran officer who now addressed them.

  “You’ll be on your way soon,” he said. “We’ll be returning your clothes and belongings and moving you to the final stage. This time tomorrow you should be on the ground. After that, you’re on your own. We have fulfilled our contract with you.”

  He paused, letting everyone think about that for a time. Then, hands clasped behind his back, he said, “A few details about your new home. Nova Levis is under quarantine. The blockade has tightened. You will not be able to leave unless the political situation changes. We can no longer get messages out for you. After you ground tomorrow, Nova Levis is your new home, your only home. You will be cut off from the rest of settled space.

  “It is only fair to warn you that this also means there is no chance of appeal to higher authority than the planetary government. More than likely, even that is out of reach. You will be dealing with local authorities in nearly all instances. If things go wrong, you cannot call for help off Nova Levis. Spacers won’t help you, the Settler’s Coalition is cut off from you, and Earth, frankly, could care less if you have a problem here. This is a whole new way to live, even though some of you may feel you’ve just escaped a limited, repressive environment. Maybe you have. But it was completely different and you may come to regret your decision to emi­grate.”

  Dismayed mutterings rippled along the row.

  “That said,” the officer went on, “the flip side is that you have a world with very little to obstruct an enterprising imagination or an assertive will. Opportunity on Nova Levis is pretty much whatever you can make it. You probably heard something like this back where you came from, which is why you’re here now. This is as frontier as you get. The only caveat is, it will be damn hard work and you might suffer unfairly or even fatally in the attempt to realize your dreams.”

  The officer walked up and down the line of baleys, gazing at them with an expression Masid could not identify—a mix of respect, contempt, and puzzlement. He stopped almost directly in front of Masid.

  “That said,” he announced, “welcome to Nova Levis. I hope you like it. You’ll be loading up for your final descent in one hour.”

  A few people laughed in shocked delight. Others sobbed, whether from fear or relief Masid could not tell.

  Anxiety, extended long enough, can put you to sleep, though never a restful sleep. The hour became two and then stretched out for three. Masid started awake twice at new sounds and finally, tentatively, got to his feet. His legs felt infirm at first. He flexed up onto his toes rhythmi­cally, tugging at the muscles and tendons, dropped into quick squats, and then lifted each leg alternately, bringing the knees up to his chest. He avoided anything that might look like a martial exercise, just kept to sim­ple homeogenics to recover control over his limbs. After a time he began to feel warmer, looser, more as he should.

  Well into the fourth h
our they came, dropping bundles before each baley. Masid dropped to the floor and waited. When his clothes and pack came, he snatched them to him. Others were dressing and no one inter­fered, so he quickly untied the bundle and pulled on his clothes.

  Next assignment, he thought, I want somewhere warmer.

  “Come on!” one of the soldiers snapped. “Get your belongings together, get dressed, we’ve got a window!”

  Masid opened his pack and did a quick inspection. It had been gone through, of course—items were no longer quite where he had put them—but nothing seemed to be missing. He sealed it up and slung it over his shoulders.

  He wanted a weapon. He glanced enviously at the sidearms the sol­diers wore.

  “Stay close, single file,” another soldier shouted. “Face right, no talking!”

  Masid turned just as the line began to move.

  Everything was kept dark. They passed through a narrow passage Masid identified as a conduit for automatic maintenance drones. It seemed interminable.

  Finally, he emerged into an oddly-shaped space where the baleys clumped up, out of line. No one spoke. The crowd thinned gradually. Masid got the sense of a huge bulkhead curving in at them, just over their heads. Dense metallic odors permeated the chill air.

  Then he was being ushered into an access tube and he realized that they had come out alongside a transport ship of some kind in a loading bay. He scurried up the tube where a waiting soldier grabbed his arm and escorted him through a passage, into a circular chamber with about twenty other baleys.

  “Sit,” the soldier ordered, pushing Masid to the deck.

  He came up against thick padding. The soldier knelt quickly and began strapping Masid to the bulkhead with padded restraints.

  Deftly, so quickly the thought to act never quite became conscious, Masid reached out and palmed the soldier’s sidearm. He tucked it into a leg pouch.

  “Five minutes,” the soldier announced, standing, “a little more maybe, you’re on your way. We’ve got you going down in four of these. When you ground, leave the ships by the same access as fast as you can. There will be someone groundside to talk you through the port and to your new lives. Luck.”