Authors: Migration
But Korshak was not looking at them, or at the bridge. Something else, above and beyond in the sky, had caught his eye. At first he had thought it was a bird, but it didn’t fly like any bird he’d ever seen – and it was growing larger at a rate faster than any bird could have. It didn’t seem to be a living thing at all, for it didn’t flap or flutter, but moved more like a ship, seen far from a shore. It was closer now, seemingly heading directly toward them as it came lower, as if it knew they were there…. Could it be possible? Surely not, Korshak told himself.
But already he was crossing and uncrossing his arms wildly above his head to attract attention.
“Here! We’re right here!”
he heard himself shouting.
“That’s right! Just like that! Straight on down!”
Zileg, stationed in front of the center, smiled to himself as he watched. Alongside him, Ullatari frowned as he used his spyglass. “What’s come over him?” Ullatari murmured. “He seems to be signaling something urgent. I can hear him shouting.”
“Or making mystical passes and spells,” Zileg said. “Maybe he’s trying to summon his flying ship.” His mouth twisted into a sneer as he continued taking in the spectacle through his own glass. He evidently wanted to enjoy this for as long as possible. Then Ullatari became aware of the sounds of growing agitation among the troopers formed up behind them. At the same time, a low but steadily growing droning noise registered on his senses. The men were staring upward and gesturing. Ullatari raised his eyes to follow their gaze, and sent a startled look back at Zileg.
“Sir…”
The noise swelled to a roar as the object came down right over them. Its lines were smooth and rounded like the body of a fish, its skin white and gleaming in the sun, and it had short wings too small to have fitted any bird, and not moving like those of a bird. Cries of alarm were coming up from the soldiers, with some cringing in fear, others struggling to control their protesting mounts.
“Steady in the ranks!”
Zileg roared, unsheathing his sword.
The vehicle, creature – whatever it was – landed a short distance from the far side of the bridge, on an open, grassy expanse beside the road. The magician had already turned his horse toward it and was calling to the others and waving them in the same direction.
“Order the archers forward,” Zileg snarled. “They’ll not escape me now. Magic or not, I’ll have their heads or die in the attempt.”
“Archers to the fore!”
Ullatari relayed.
Zileg turned in his saddle and called to the whole company. “Are you warriors of Urst, or children who cower at goblins? A dukedom to any man who brings me a head. If their magic would protect them, why do they flee like mice? He who will not follow me now is not worthy of the flag we ride under. Across the bridge and at them! Trumpeters, sound the charge.
Forward!”
The scientist hadn’t been sure exactly how many of his relatives they might have to pick up, so Control had bent the rules and told Ferl to free up an extra seat by flying the lander solo. But somehow the orders had gotten tangled, or somebody forgot to cancel something from the earlier mission, and the same crazy robot that had accompanied him on the Tranth mission showed up in the copilot’s seat. By that time the whole ship was in a tizzy over the news of liftout in under twenty-four hours, and the carrier was expecting to be recalled at any moment, so Ferl had decided to not argue but just go with it. All of a sudden he was grateful for having some help there on the flight deck rather than none.
“Lander to Carrier, yeah, we’ve found them and we’re down,” he barked into his mike. “But I don’t know what’s going on. There’s some kind of a war out there, coming this way fast.” He turned his head to GPT-2D long enough to snap, “Go back there, open up the door, and get all of them inside. Fast!”
The robot hastened to unbuckle and comply. Just as Ferl was about to resume talking into the mike, it said, “The horses won’t fit in.”
Ferl groaned. “Oh shit…. Forget the horses. Just the people, okay?”
The robot lurched back and operated the control to open the door and lower the access steps. Sounds of trumpets and battle cries rising to a crescendo came from outside. Armored horsemen brandishing swords, spears, axes, and bows were streaming onto the bridge, while in front of the lander the four people it had come to collect were dismounting in haste and running toward it. The girl was the first to enter. She stopped in the entrance space, as bewildered by the robot’s appearance as were the faces of the people crammed into the passenger cabin behind. It touched her lightly on the arm with a fingertip and motioned with the other hand. “Must hurry. Sorry, no horses.”
Two men were approaching the steps as fast as they were able while they helped an older one, heavily built and white-haired, clad in a hooded riding cloak. They still had some distance to go. A large black dog was growling and had positioned itself between them and the oncoming horsemen.
“What about the dog?” GPT-2D asked Ferl.
“What?” Ferl jerked his head around again. “Yeah, sure. The dog’s okay.” Then, back into his mike, “I’m telling ya, we’ve got an emergency situation here. I’ve got a full load of people and three outside who look like touch and go. What do you want…”
A rack by the door carried the painted label flare pistol. The robot stared at it and consulted its network of definitions and associations. Flares were pyrotechnic devices used in emergencies. The captain had just said this was an emergency. A “pistol” was a weapon, usually a firearm, that was discharged at enemies. “Enemy” described a relationship between humans in which harm was effected or threatened. The howling horde coming across the bridge waving objects that a quick check of the database showed to be implements specifically designed for the purpose of inflicting homicide and mayhem had all the appearances of harboring intentions that were anything but friendly. The logical inferences were clear enough. GPT-2D took down the flare pistol, descended the steps, and marched out to the center of the roadway to do its duty with the first arrows clattering off its casing.
Streaming a trail of incandescent crimson smoke, the flare tore through the leading ranks and exploded in a blaze of light and starbursts among the close-packed throng in the middle of the bridge behind. The front of the assault broke up amid screams of terror, rearing horses, and unseated bodies, while the panic farther back sent riders colliding in all directions, with men and mounts tumbling into the water on both sides. When GPT-2D looked back at the lander, the older man had reached the steps and was being helped up by one of the others, while the third bundled the dog inside. The robot stood, unsure of whether the pandemonium that it had created constituted an end to the emergency or not. The old man was inside; the doorway stood empty.
Then Ferl’s voice called over the loudhailer from inside. “Hey, Rocketeer, are you gonna stand there all day? Let’s go.”
“Yes, chief.” GPT-2D hurried back and clambered up the steps. The newcomers had found seats and were settling the dog in the aisle. They were looking about strangely at the surroundings, as had the others that had been picked up earlier. GPT-2D closed up the door and steps, and moved back to snap their harnesses for them, which people from these parts didn’t seem to understand. Then it went forward and settled back into the copilot’s seat. The look on Ferl’s face was unlike any human expression that it had seen before. Slipping on a set of phones, it caught the last part of the message coming in from Control.
“… we have recall orders from the ship up here. How much longer are you going to need?”
“Everything’s fine,” Ferl replied in the captain’s seat. “They’re all aboard now. Emergency over. We’re on our way.”
So, finally, the time had come. The decision that would mean spending the rest of one’s lifetime in a way never experienced by any human beings in history was about to be made permanent. And it would be irreversible.
Solemn-faced and brooding, his hair steel-gray, Lund Ormont, director in chief of the
Aurora
mission, sat at his station behind the window of the bridge overlooking the Control Deck. All of the consoles and crew positions were manned. The carrier had returned and been taken on board. The last shuttles had delivered the remaining personnel from the ground bases and attached externally as auxiliary craft. Along with Ormont on the bridge, the ship’s captain and chief of flight engineering were confirming the final countdown details being reported by their staffs.
The position implied far more than ship’s commander, director in chief of a space mission, or even mayor of a large city. The vast enterprise that he was heading would become a nation-state in flight. The role ahead called not just for ability in command and management, but for political leadership. And failure to come up to the challenges and demands that could be expected had destroyed a much larger and more robust world than the microcosm contained in the
Aurora
.
The dominant method of selecting political leaders in the old world had been through a kind of popularity contest in which the citizenry was expected to judge and choose their rulers directly. Such mass-endorsed adulation seemed bound to create inflated self-images and delusions of greatness that would inevitably result in immense power and authority being vested in hands superbly unfit to wield them. Doctors, architects, engineers, and other professionals were appraised and certified by bodies of peers who were expert in the field in question. How much more important was the supreme profession of running a country?
The procedure that had given Ormont his position was modeled on the way the government was formed in Sofi. Eligible candidates had to meet some of the highest educational standards required by any profession, and in addition have demonstrated practical competence in a progression of public offices of increasing responsibility. The final choice was made by an appointing body of individuals in turn elected by the people, who were responsible to them for their decision in the same way that the Highways Department was responsible for the performance of the engineers entrusted with the design and construction of the country’s bridges. The system conferred full authority and demanded acceptance of total responsibility, which suited Ormont perfectly. He believed such conditions were essential to running an operation of any importance effectively, and felt contempt for those who hid behind collective anonymity by attributing their pronouncements to such faceless originators as “The Committee.” A leader not prepared to put his name to his decisions and stand by them was not worthy of the name.
His own background had been with the military, which he had played a part in shaping in earlier years, when Sofi found it necessary to organize more comprehensive defenses. People often expressed surprise that he wasn’t staying on as a Progressive to further develop Sofi’s interests and extend its influence. But he had spent enough time in the thick of Sofian politics to see the way things were heading. Too many strong minds with diametrically opposed ideas were vying with each other, dissipating their energies fruitlessly in mutual obstructionism and achieving little. Ormont liked to see things getting done – and getting done his way.
By temperament he was a commander first and a politician second, and that was the role that the mission required. As was true with most, his reasons for leaving were varied and complex, but high among them was the appeal of the unique form of directorship that the position entailed.
Aurora
’s population was made up to a large degree of intellectuals and idealists – bright and creative people, yes, and sometimes surprisingly obstinate; but in Ormont’s experience they tended to be too trusting in their expectations of human nature, and politically naive. Ormont had long ago made it a first rule never to totally trust anybody.
It was he who had insisted years ago on having eyes and ears inside Sofian military intelligence that would remain loyal to the
Aurora
planners, and found the ideal person in the form of Lubanov. Intellectuals were brilliant when it came to designing starships and making robots, but they would never think of such things or consider them necessary. But had it not been for those precautions, the entire future of the mission might even now have been in question. Sofi was still hidden by Earth’s curvature, but ground observation on the previous orbital pass had shown military units converging on the shuttle bases and support facilities. Electronic intercepts had revealed little more, but that was to be expected.
The captain reported from his station. “Final interlocks at ready and holding.” It meant they were ready to go.
A short distance away on Ormont’s other side, the chief of flight engineering scanned his summary displays. “Drive main and subs confirming. Compensators synched and responding.”
All heads around the bridge turned toward Ormont expectantly. A strange silence descended.
Ormont leaned forward to the console and drew the microphone closer on its flexible support. He had thought a lot about what he would say to those who were about to follow him when this moment arrived. Some of the sentiments and phrases that he had written down seemed, on rereading, too grandiose and lyrical, and when he tried to tone them down, pompous and pretentious. When he tried boiling things down to bare facts, the result carried all the human color and warmth of a military briefing. In the end, he decided to dispense with written notes altogether and let his thoughts speak themselves naturally, which accorded more with his style. He nodded to the bridge communications officer, who put out an announcement that the director in chief would address the ship. Ormont’s console camera lamp came on, indicating that his image was going out to all parts of the
Aurora
.
He began, “This is your director in chief speaking. Very soon now, in a matter of minutes, we will depart on what will possibly be the most stupendous, exciting, and fantastic adventure ever undertaken by members of the human race. One day in the distant future, our descendants will be the seed out of which will grow a new world of our kind. For that world to preserve all the variety, richness, and potential that our kind has come to represent through its millennia of history, we go not just as the Builders from Sofi, but as unique individuals bringing talents of every kind from remote regions of Earth, its nations, races, cultures, and peoples….”