For almost a year the lightship accelerated outward, slowly gaining speed under the constant thrust of the thousand beams of laser light. They were at three hundred astronomical units, ten times farther out than the most distant of the solar system planets. The lightship was now moving at one percent of the speed of light, but it would have to accelerate for nineteen more years before it got up to its coast velocity of twenty percent of the speed of light. They were now far enough away to start using the full potential of their solar-system-sized flashlight.
The lasers in orbit around Mercury flickered off one by one. Their pointing mirrors, which had been tracking a moon-sized speck of sail beyond the solar system, now reconfigured their surfaces to focus on a nearby object—the laser beam combiner out at the L-2 point of Mercury. Once again the sunlight reflected from the thousand large light collectors was injected into the thousand block-long lasers in orbit about the innermost planet. Glowing warmly, the lasers burst into bloom. Their beams of invisible radiance converged on a glistening spider-web that sent the beams on to where they met side-by-side in a crystal-clear cavern of index of refraction, to later emerge as a single coherent beam of pulsating light. Bouncing off a mirror, the light sped outward away from the Sun, channeling the terawatts of sun-power out into the cold of deep space. It traveled for two hours before it reached the first of its targets—the transmitter lens—drifting out in space between Saturn and Uranus.
A thermal sensor on the top-side of a mechanical spider noticed an increase in the temperature of the sun-facing portion of the mechanism it was monitoring. The change in temperature was duly noted and passed on to the control center at the next engineering check period. Although the temperature increase was significant, it was still well within the design limits for the mechanism. The spider continued laying down the thin layer of plastic sheeting between the spoke threads that stretched out ahead of it for hundreds of kilometers. The huge spiderweb was only partially completed, but the finished central portion was adequate for the purpose, and its alternating rings of plastic and nothing sufficed to capture all of the powerful laser beam and send it out of the solar system toward a distant speck of aluminum reflectance.
Two days later most of the crew were down on the control deck, watching the screens showing the output of an infrared telescope focused on the inner solar system. Slowly the bright glare from a point near the Sun faded away as the lasers were turned off one by one, leaving only the Sun on the screen. As the blinding searchlight glare faded away, the crew could feel a lightening under their corridor boots.
The crew waited for the hour it took to reconfigure the laser mirror systems, then they drifted back to the floor as the laser beam relit and the sail billowed again under the light pressure. The light beam was now coming from the transmitter lens, a point far from the Sun in the outer solar system.
"We're finally on our way," said Jinjur. "I guess it's time."
Everyone looked uncomfortable.
"I wonder if we'll notice it?" asked George.
"According to most clinical studies of No-Die," said Doctor Wang. "The effects come on so gradually that most users have no idea they are mentally impaired, unless they are asked to do some difficult task. But even then, there is a tendency to believe it is only because they are 'tired' or 'sick', not because the No-Die has slowed their mental processes."
"I'll be just as happy to be fooled," said Jinjur. "I don't think I could stand knowing I was a drooling idiot."
"It won't be that bad," said Dr. Wang. "We all have high IQ's to begin with. Even when we are reduced to twenty-five percent of normal, we'll still be high-grade imbeciles and can probably even button our own clothing."
David noticed some disgusted expressions and tried to cheer them up.
"Besides, even if we forget how to tell our right shoe from our left, we still have 'Mother' James and the Christmas Bush to take care of us. It can button our shirts, tie our shoes, and wipe our noses."
Jinjur spoke to her imp. "Start putting the No-Die in the water, James."
"It is done," replied a low whisper.
"All of a sudden I don't feel very thirsty anymore," said Sam. "I think I'll go up to my room and open my last bottle of Scotch. Anyone for a drink—straight?" He ambled over under the lift shaft hole in the ceiling, and crouching his two meter high body low, leaped upwards. He was followed by five others.
Meanwhile Jinjur made her way to the galley. George was there, filling his monogrammed drink flask from the water spout. Beneath George's name on the flask was a picture of a T-33 trainer. He glanced up at Jinjur's approach.
"I thought I'd get a head start," said George. "At fifty-two I need to slow down fast if I'm going to make it to Barnard. Suddenly I feel old. I'm afraid that I'll die on the way out there and miss out on all the fun of exploring."
"You're not so old, George," Jinjur said softly. "At least you still have all your hair, and it's beautiful." She brushed her stubby black fingers through the grey waves on George's head and grabbing a handful, gave his head a friendly shake. She turned, lifted her drink-ball, with its two stars and the monogram "THE BOSS" from its place in the rack and filled it from the coffee spout.
"I don't think I could stomach drinking just water, knowing what's in it. At least this way I can blame the taste on the ersatz coffee flavor." She took a deep draught, held the hot liquid in her mouth for a moment, hesitating, then deliberately swallowed. She looked up at George slowly sipping away at his flask of water.
"I hear that this stuff slows everything down. Even your sex drive."
"That's right," said George. "It's one of the first things to go."
"Rowrbazzle!" Jinjur said softly.
"What?" asked George.
"Just swearing," said Jinjur. "Like a good general I've been keeping myself under control, since it doesn't do to have the boss sleeping around with the troops. Now that we're underway and there's nothing to do but coast, I'll soon forget that there's any difference between boys and girls."
"I can still tell the difference," said George. He reached over to her well-stuffed shirt and grabbed the button under the most strain. "Girls button their shirts the wrong way." His fingers slowly and deliberately undid the button to release the tension.
She grinned at him and reaching up to her chest, took his hand in hers. "I'm sure there are other differences," she said. "Let's go up to my room and see if we can find them."
"Let's do a scientific experiment," said David. "Why don't we have a chess tournament. That way we can monitor our mental level. James can keep track. It has the Chess 9.6 program stored in it. It's got a grand master rating."
"Count me out," said Richard. "I played in college a little but I'm not at that level."
"James can adjust the program to different levels of skill," said David.
"OK," acquiesced Richard. "Not much else to do anyway."
"It might even be scientifically valuable," said Dr. Wang. "This is the first time such a large group of people under similar environmental conditions have been taking No-Die at the same time. I'll have James keep track and save it for later analysis. I may even get a paper out of this one for the Journal of Psychology."
"You forget, Dr. Wang," said George. "By the time James collects a significant amount of data you won't be in any condition to analyze it."
Dr. Wang put on a serious expression, as if he were finally realizing for the first time what he was facing. He shrugged and sighed. "I guess I'll have James transmit the results of the experiment back. Someone else will have to write the paper."
"We can't be playing chess all the time," said Shirley. "We do have some things we're supposed to do, even if most of them are makework."
"One game a day with James should be enough," said Dr. Wang. "Just plan a 'chess hour' right after you've had your sleep-shift. You should be at your best then. But the exact time is not important, just that it be consistent."
"I'll think I'll start right now," said David. He pulled himself up to a console. As he was wiggling in the seat to firmly attach the sticky patch on the back of his jump-suit to the console chair, the screen flashed and there was a full color display of a chess-set in perspective.
"White or black?" asked James. "And what level of play?"
"I'm brave enough to take you at full grand master level, James," said David. "But I'll take white just to be on the safe side."
The board rotated in space and David reached out a finger to a pawn on the screen and gave it a push. It was immediately countered by another pawn. A few more pushes, a move of a knight and a bishop, and the game was underway.
"I wonder why I ever had us play these silly games every day," said Dr. Wang. "I'm bored with this board game." He gave a delighted chuckle at his joke. "Get it, James? As a board game it's boring."
"Yes. A real pun, William," said James. "Your last move, however, has a slight problem. When you castle on the Queen's side, you are supposed to move the rook three spaces and the king two spaces, not three spaces for the king."
Dr. Wang looked at the board on the screen and frowned. The king and rook were blinking, indicating an erroneous move. He shook his head and said in an annoyed voice. "Well—fix them!" The pieces were put into their proper place and James made his move. Still angry with himself, Dr. Wang jabbed a finger at a piece on the screen and moved it forward.
James muttered a polite machine cough. "Are you sure you want to make that move?"
Dr. Wang looked carefully at the screen, bewildered. He couldn't see anything wrong. The piece he moved was certainly not in any danger. "Yes. I'm sure," he said, and was relieved to see James move his queen somewhere else on the board, leaving his piece untouched. He moved again. Then it was James's turn. A rook slid across the screen into his back row.
"Checkmate," said James.
David Greystoke slid into the console chair and wiggled his back onto the sticky patch. It had been two weeks since the chess "tournament" had started and he had done well. Six games out of fourteen, although he suspected that James had lowered his level of playing from the grand master level. He had never asked how low. Didn't want to know, really.
"Ready, James," he said. "But just to make it interesting, let's you take blue and I take pink. Pink moves first."
Instantly, the black and white pieces on the screen changed to blue and pink.
"Hmmm," thought David to himself. "I think I'll try a defensive opening." He pushed the rook's pawn on the queen's side forward two spaces. James countered with a move of its king's pawn. Wanting to build up a triangle of pawns as a wall, David pushed the knight's pawn forward on the same side. James moved its queen out to sit in front of the pawn row.
"Now to beef up the triangle," said David under his breath. He hopped the knight up into the upper corner. James moved his bishop up as if to threaten the rapidly building defense formation. It stopped short of the wall by a square. It could have taken the knight, but the rook was protecting it. David grinned internally at his cleverness in making sure his knight was protected. He reached out to touch the pink colored bishop next to his pink queen and slid it diagonally forward to fill up the inner wall of the defensive triangle.
"Are you sure you want to make that move?" asked James.
David looked carefully at the board. The right hand side of his line of pieces had been untouched and were still as impregnable as they had been at the beginning of the game. His left bishop was uncovered, but there was no piece within striking distance, and besides, after James made its next move, he would move the queen over to form the third line of defense. Then, after a castle, his defensive fort would be completed.
"Sure," he replied. "You're in for a long hard game, James."
The blue queen slid slowly forward through the empty battleground on David's right and entered his front line, taking the pawn in front of the king's bishop.
"Fool's mate," said James.
"James is no fun to play chess with," complained Jinjur. "That old game is too stuffy. I wanna play a tough game with lots of hard things." She and George were sitting on either side of a table in the lounge and she was moving the pieces around on the board. She put all the pawns to one side.
"Those are dumb pieces. Can't do anything except stumble forward." She took the other pieces and put them on the black squares of the first two rows.
"I'll call this Super-Chess," she said. "It'll be a hunnerd times harder than chess. All the pieces are bishops and can only move diagonally, and when they meet an enemy they jump over them and take them. Then if they get to the back row they get made into queens, and can jump backward and forward."
George followed her example and soon the two of them were having the time of their lives.
"Double jump!" hollered George. "Got you that time Jinjur. Now you have to give me a kiss!"
"No! That wasn't part of the game. I made up the rules and that wasn't part of the game."
"It is now!" said George. "Cum'on, you gotta give me a kiss."
Jinjur squealed as George reached clumsily for her. She swept the pieces off the table in her scramble to get away from the pest. The pieces tumbled through the air, to settle slowly to the floor, where a busy Christmas Bush found them and put them back in the toy chest.
"What'cha do'in, Jinny?" asked William. He gazed vacantly at the black smudges that Jinjur was marking on the floor, wall, and ceiling of the exercise room with a black crayon. They were big squares—big enough to stand in.
"Making a chess game," said Jinjur, marking up another square, and staying inside the lines most of the time.
"On the ceiling?" asked Dr. Wang.
"Sure, Billy," she said. "This is going to be the neatest chess game ever. Three-dibenshenal."
"Three dibensinal?" asked Dr. Wang.
"You know. Three-D. Up and down and sideways," she replied. "See. I'll show you." She stood in one of the crayoned squares. "Each one of us will be a chess piece, and we can jump anyway we want." She jumped to the mat hanging on one wall. Her feet, clad in corridor boots with sticky bottoms, slammed into the wall and she stuck there. She then slowly pulled herself to the wall by bending her knees, then jumped to the ceiling, where she stuck again. She hung downward in the light gravity.
"Tell the rest of the gang to come here," she said. "Then we can all play."
"OK, Jinny," he said, and started out the door.
"And tell them they'd better come," she hollered after him. "Or I'll tell James to turn off their cartoons. After all, I'm the boss."
Soon fifteen of the crew were bouncing around the exercise room, playing 3-D "chess".
"I jumped you, Richie," screamed Jinjur. "I'm the boss and I say I jumped you first."
"No you didn't!" hollered Richard. "I jumped you first. Didn't I Georgie?"
"I'm jumping you both now," said George. "So you're both out and I win."
"No you didn't! You cheater!" screamed Jinjur, so mad that she was jumping back and forth from the ceiling to the floor, making a half-somersault each time.
"I am not a cheater," replied George, getting angry. "You're the cheater."
"Cheater! Cheater! Georgie is a cheater!" sang Jinjur as she back away and pushed herself out the door.
"I'll get you, Jinny," said George, moving after her as fast as he could go in the low gravity. "I'll get you yet."
The game broke up with everyone following along as George, his face livid with anger at the insult, chased after Jinjur. The chase took them all the way up the lift shaft, around the hydroponics tanks and back down the shaft again. By the time everyone had reached the living area deck again, they were all tired. Their imps buzzed in their ears.
"Time for a rest, everyone," said James. "I've got a nice movie for you to watch. It's an old Roadrunner cartoon that you haven't seen before."
"Oh! Boy! A Roadrunner cartoon!" exclaimed Shirley. She led the way to the theater. The crew settled down in a heap on the long bench seats as the music started and the video wall flickered into life. George was exhausted and lay back to rest. He was probably going to go to sleep before the cartoon was over, and he fought to keep his eyes open. Somebody lying half on him moved to a new position and his view was blocked. It was Jinjur. Her shirt had come unbuttoned while she was racing through the ship and James had not made sure that she had put on all her underclothing before letting her out of her room. George stared at the large black mound blocking his vision. Grunting, he pulled it down with one hand and rested his cheek on it. He could see the cartoon now, and the soft part of Jinjur made a good pillow. He soon fell asleep.
Senator Beauregard Darlington Winthrop III was in his third term of office, and as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee he wielded an influence only slightly less potent than the Senate Majority Leader. GNASA officials winced when they heard that budget-hearing time was coming around again.
"Now. Ah'm sure you honorable gentlemen realize that this nation, as rich and as glorious as it is, cannot afford every space boondoggle there is. Ah trust that you've come up with a budget that realizes that there are people here on the ground that desperately need money to keep their family businesses alive..."
"He probably means subsidies for the tobacco farmers," thought the Honorable Leroy Fresh, as he prepared to defend GNASA's budget before the committee.
"There is one item that the Chairman noticed in the preliminary reports that he would like to question the Honorable Dr. Fresh about, if he may." Without waiting for a reply, Winthrop continued. "I notice this line-item number one hundred eight, for four hundred million dollars to expand the transmitter lens for the Barnard laser propulsion system. I didn't notice that in the previous year's budget, and since the mission is not slated to reach Barnard for another twenty years or so, surely this item could be deferred a year or two to release a few funds to succor the poor people of this nation?"
Leroy was ready for this one. "May I remind the Chairman, the reason the item was not in last year's budget was that it was removed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, as it has each year for nearly the past decade. The transmitter lens doesn't have to be full size at the start of the mission, and can be built slowly as time passes and the Barnard expedition moves further away, but the lens must be made ready for the deceleration phase, which requires it to be at maximum diameter. The amount of money in the budget is that needed to bring us back on schedule."
"But the lasers are turned off, and the Barnard lightsail is merely coasting on its way to its destination. Surely we can defer work on the lens expansion since it's not being used. Especially since I notice in line-item one hundred ten the fifty million dollars for the construction of the Tau Ceti lens. The increase in diameter planned for each lens is fifty kilometers. Surely that indicates that they should have equal budgets. Perhaps we should just make those two lens-construction items both equal in size at fifty million?" Senator Winthrop looked around at his committee and smiled.
"Is that agreeable, gentlemen? ...Oh, yes. Excuse me, Madam Ledbetter. Is that agreeable, gentlemen and lady?" He raised a blue pencil and scratched away at his copy of the budget.
"But Senator Winthrop, Sir," Leroy protested. "The Ceti lens is going from a diameter of twenty kilometers to seventy kilometers, while the Barnard lens is going from three hundred and twenty to three hundred and seventy kilometers. Even though both have the same increase in diameter, the increase in area of the Barnard lens is eight times larger than that of the Ceti lens. The cost goes as the square of the diameter."
"Well, Ah must admit Ah'm a little 'square' when it comes to that scientific math, Dr. Fresh, but Ah'm pretty good at figures when they have a dollar sign in front of them." There was a polite laugh at the Chairman's joke from the committee and staff. Fresh was silent, knowing that he had lost another skirmish. "After all," said Senator Winthrop with a smile that seemed entirely sincere over the TV cameras. "That's what we have you scientific types at GNASA for, to take care of all that 'square root' and 'cube root' type math stuff. And Ah must say," he said, with only a trace of sarcasm, "You've been doing an excellent job on an austere budget—like the true Greater American patriots that you are. Now, let's go on to line-item one hundred thirty-three, the million-channel receiver to search for signals from aliens. Surely a single channel is all that you need. It's obvious. One receiving antenna, one receiving channel..."
"Carmen's got the mumps! Carmen's got the mumps!" teased Billy. He bounced after her and attempted to jab his sharp skinny fingers into the plump jowls of his curvaceous playmate. James admonished him to stop through his imp, but it took the Christmas Bush to separate them. The Bush paused to allow its sensors to look carefully at the thin young man with the brain of a child. There was something bothering him.
"But she's got the mumps," Billy protested. "And she should stand still while I poke them, since I'm the doctor."
"I will take care of Carmen," replied James, then noticing the disturbed look on Billy's face, it softened the rest of its response.
"But if you promise to not tease Carmen any more, I'll let you play Dr. Wang and help me," said James.
Billy contorted his face at the seldom-used title. He seemed to go into a trance as he tried to marshal his weakened brain to place on the tip of his tongue what many months of nagging thought had been trying to bring to the surface.
"Not mumps...Ho-Ha-Hansen..." His normally clear yellow cheeks grew flush with the effort to find the word.
"Hansen's disease? No, Billy, that's leprosy. Carmen does not have leprosy," James said firmly.
"Ha-Ho-Hodge..." said Billy determinedly.
"...Hodgkin's disease," intoned James. "Cancer of the lymph glands."
"Yeah!" said Billy, beaming at having been relieved of the responsibility of trying to think anymore. Good ol' James would take care of things now. He returned to his normal self and bounced out the door, alternating between floor, wall, and ceiling in the zero gravity, leaving a stationary Christmas Bush in the playroom. The incessant play of lights from its many strands were strangely subdued, as though its master computer was busy analyzing years of accumulated medical data and trying to fit them into a pattern.
James had been programmed to look for changes in the health of the crew. It had measured and reported every tiny detail of response of each of the twenty human bodies entrusted to its care under the unusual combination of weightlessness and the still experimental drug No-Die. Even now, the latest strange behavior of Billy—Dr. Wang—had been recorded and duly transmitted. It would reach the medical monitors on Earth in a little over two years. Any recommendation they may make on that unusual outburst would be received by James back at Prometheus another three years later, for the lightship was moving away from the solar system at one-fifth of a light year per year and the distance from Prometheus to Earth was widening rapidly.
After thinking for two hours, James completed its evaluation. Billy, trying to act as Dr. Wang would have, had come to a tentative diagnosis that Carmen Cortez had Hodgkin's disease, a usually fatal glandular cancer. Hodgkin's disease usually starts in the neck glands, but then spreads to the other glands and the spleen. Carmen certainly showed the initial signs of the disease—a swollen neck gland. Yet according to the medical documentation in James's files, the disease only struck one out of one hundred thousand in any population, while nineteen out of the twenty people onboard Prometheus had swollen neck glands, including Billy. It was obvious from the high statistical correlation that the swollen glands were due to the strange combination of years in free-fall and years on the body-disrupting drug No-Die. There was no need for James to be concerned.
By his fifth term in the Senate, Winthrop had developed a very effective and loyal cadre of "monitors". They were not "informers" in the usual sense, since they only did their duty as they saw it. Just because Senator Winthrop would often hear of their concerns before they told their immediate supervisors in the federal bureaucracy did not seem important. After all, Senator Winthrop was a Senator. Besides, he always took good care of those that assisted him in monitoring the slackers and hoodlums who would disrupt the smooth flow of government.
One day Winthrop heard a buzzer attached to the gray telephone that reposed in the bottom drawer of his desk. As he pulled the drawer open and lifted the receiver, he carefully listened to the conversation taking place between the caller and Ernest Masterson, one of his personal aides. Ernest was quizzing the caller, knowing that the Senator was probably listening while at the same time looking at a "Reagan-raster" display Ernest had prepared for him. The three line liquid crystal display gave the name of the caller, his present position in the federal bureaucracy, and a short summary of why he had called.
JAMES MALLOY (Son of Billy Roy Malloy, Myrtle Beach.)
GNASA Deep Space Network, Barnard Mission
Medical problem with crew.
It took only a second for Senator Winthrop to remember that he had recommended young Jimmy Malloy for a job many years ago. The young man had been deeply grateful at the time, especially since he was black and he and his dad had never expected to receive anything from a honky, especially a multi-descended white aristocrat like Winthrop. But Winthrop was neither altruistic or dumb. Jimmy's daddy, Billy Roy, had pasted together a black-jewish political combine that had run Myrtle Beach for nearly two decades, and in the process had kept that city clean of street, clean of beach, clean of violence, and clean of debt. Winthrop admired a man like that, even if he was a negro. Billy Roy's boy, Jimmy, had all the smarts of his old man, but wanted to go into space instead. Winthrop had used his influence to help, and had already collected from Jimmy's dad in his last election, when only the late votes from Myrtle Beach had saved him from an ignominious defeat for his fourth term. Jimmy didn't need to know that, for Winthrop had visited him personally nearly a decade ago and had used his massive presence, Sistine mane of hair, and commanding manner to recruit young Jimmy into his network of monitors.
"As a 'monitor', you are not expected to do anything that would be in conflict with your normal job. However, if you hear or see something that would be of concern to the SENATE OF THE GREATER UNITED STATES (Winthrop always dropped into his declaiming voice at that point), you should call and let my office know so that we can be prepared to take the appropriate action."
Jimmy Malloy was quite impressed with his important mission and with the personal attention that the Senior Senator from South Carolina had lavished on him. He never forgot it and even turned down two promotions to stay in a position where he would be able to intercept the information that the Senator needed.
Winthrop heard the voices coming from his desk drawer and listened carefully. Ernest was doing his job. Not admitting that Winthrop was there and trying to make sure that the call was worth bothering the Senator with, even if it had come in over one of his confidential lines.
"Could I please have you repeat that again, Mr. Malloy," said Ernest.
"The Barnard crew is dying of cancer," came the strained voice, a mixture of cool, calm space-controller combined with the frantic worry of someone who has tied his whole life up into monitoring the future of twenty brave people, and now those people had no future.
"I'm here, Masterson," said Winthrop. He waited for a click that indicated that Ernest had cut off his connection while continuing to record the input side of the conversation. (Winthrop had learned from Nixon. There were no records of Winthrop's voice. Let them learn what they may from the caller's side of the conversation.)
"This is SENATOR WINTHROP, Jimmy. How's your father? And what can I do for you today?"
"Just fine, Sir," said Jimmy. "I just wanted to tell you that there is something wrong on the Barnard starship Prometheus."
"WHAT?!" demanded Winthrop, putting on his Senator voice.
"I...I think it's cancer, Sir," came the hesitant reply.
Winthrop thought for a moment. In a crew of twenty over a period of twenty years, it was not surprising to have one of the crew members come down with cancer. It was worth knowing, but not really something to tie up his grey-line network with. Still, Jimmy had been helpful, and he didn't want to lose his carefully cultivated sources.
"Ah want to thank you for your report, Jimmy. Ah appreciate it. Please let me know if anything else happens, but as for this crew member, Ah guess it would be just as good if we let any further reports on his progress trickle in through regular channels."
"Oh! But it isn't a him, Sir. It's a her. Actually, it's nearly all of them."
"All of them?" echoed Winthrop.
"Yes'sir, Senator Winthrop, that's what the report says, nearly all of them have a fatal cancer. Hoskin's disease, or something like that."
Winthrop looked at the sender end of the grey telephone handpiece. "All of them?" Winthrop said again.
"All but one," admitted Jimmy Malloy.
"Who is the one?" said Winthrop, braced to hear that one name that he despised the most. It would be just like that goddamned Gudunov to be the one to escape the plague.
"Don't know, sir," said Jimmy, trying to be as helpful as he could. "But I'll look into it and let you know."
"Thanks, Jimmy," said Winthrop. "You've been a real help, and Ah'll let your daddy know." He hung up and leaned back in his swivel chair to stare up at the ceiling. The fluorescent fixture had a bunch of dead flies lying on its diffuser. He counted them. There were nineteen, with a single live one buzzing erratically among the drying corpses of its comrades.
Senator Winthrop asked for video time from the networks. With his political stature he could have gotten a half-hour on prime time except during Monday-night football. As it was, he only asked for fifteen minutes of Sunday morning Bible-Belt time. It was readily granted despite the protests of some airways ministers who had been counting on the "free-will" offerings that they would have generated during that time.
The publicity that Winthrop organized before his speech was effective. Priests and ministers preached to empty pews, and golf links heard the chirp of birds instead of the plop of birdies. Everyone got up on that Sunday morning and turned on their video. Winthrop was quiet as the camera picked him up, standing in front of an ordinary wood podium. He stood majestic and solemn as the announcer's voice intoned. "Senator Beauregard Darlington Winthrop the Third."
The Senator looked out from the screen with a stern visage. A low backlight on his mane of pure-white hair gave his head a halo of light. His voice started low and slow.
"A score and two years ago this nation sent forth its sons and daughters into the black void of chaos—deliberately casting the lives of their children away in a grandiose suicide mission. Ah struggled, Ah fought, Ah pleaded, Ah prayed—to get that mission halted so that the lives of those dear people could be spared.
"It was all for naught... Smiling happily the twenty went cheerfully to their deaths."
His voice grew louder and sterner as his accusations rang from the echoing walls of the empty studio. "Not since the barbarous days of the Children's Crusades, when tiny tots were shipped off in boats to slavery and death, have the leaders of a people so betrayed those who trusted them. It was not the engineers who turned on the lasers that are to blame, it was not the planners in GNASA who authorized the mission that are to blame, it was not the leaders of this country that are to blame, it was you!" His stern finger rose abruptly and jabbed at the screen.
"You! The people of this country who allowed this to happen. You are the sinners and you are being punished. Yes, Ah said, 'You are being punished.' Right now. This very instant. And for an eternity of instants in the future. You say you don't feel any different? You aren't hurting? You aren't being punished? But Ah say you are, and Ah have proof of it right here." Winthrop grabbed a handful of papers off the podium and crumpling them into a splayed sheaf, he shook them at the screen.
"Personal pain and torment is too good for murderers such as you are. Instead, the pain and endless torture that should rightfully be yours is being visited right now on your innocent victims. Every single one of the crew on Prometheus has developed a hideous form of cancer called Hodgkin's disease. The cancer first attacks the glands. They swell painfully. It's like having mumps, but worse, for you never get better. The swelling spreads to all the glands in your body, then the rest of your organs. Then finally comes the slow and painful death."
There was a long pause as Winthrop slowly bent his head, shook it a few times in sorrow, then slowly lifted it up. The expression on his face had changed to that of firm determination.
"The doctors don't understand how so many people can catch the same kind of cancer at the same time. Ah say to those doctors that Ah can understand it only too well. That is a sign that God is displeased with us. God has spoken and we must respond. We must stop this defilement of his heavens with the murder of innocent children. We must stop these insane, sinful launchings of suicide missions to the stars. We must turn off the lasers. We must destroy the lenses. We must bring back those that we can, and must abandon those that we cannot. The crews that are too far away to rescue, such as those on Prometheus and the others going to Alpha Centauri, Lelande, and Sirius are fortunately under the influence of the drug No-Die. Their minds are as those of innocent children. They are happy, though sinned against. It is better that they never be allowed to return to full mental capacity, for as intelligent adults they will experience the double torture of mental as well as physical anguish. For they will know that they have thrown their lives away in a vain attempt to satisfy the grandiose dreams of a foolish world of sinners."
Winthrop paused, then his already large body seemed to grow in stature as he grasped the corners of the lectern, squared his shoulders, and raised his chin determinedly into the air.
"I, Senator Beauregard Darlington Winthrop the Third, do hereby now, and in front of these witnesses, swear a mighty oath that Ah shall do everything in my power to halt this abomination in the heavens of God. Ah will not rest until the lasers are turned off, the lenses dismantled, and this whole sinful project is stopped. Ah do so swear, in the name of GOD! May-God-give-me-the-strength-to-carry-out-his-call." His thumb pressed a button on the podium, and the screen flickered to black.
Dr. Susan Wang flicked off the video as an announcer tried to pick up the slack. Winthrop had given a short speech, but an effective one. Susan sat pensively as she thought about the speech. She finally stirred into action.
Long ago, Susan had met the President of the Greater United States during one of the publicity functions that had preceded the launch of Prometheus. Susan and the President had developed an instant rapport since they were both career women with husbands and families. Susan had never misused that instant friendship by bothering Margaret Weaver with requests for favors. Margaret had been out of office for sixteen years, but she was still the Grand Dame of the Democratic Party and had a good deal of influence on the present President. After all, he was her son. Susan flicked on the videophone and called up information. She finally got through.
"President Weaver," said Susan, "This is Dr. Susan Wang. Ex-wife of Dr. William Wang, the medical doctor on the interstellar starship, Prometheus."
"Hello there, Susan," said the warm wrinkled face on the screen. "But only 'ex-wife' on paper, I'm sure. What can I do for you, Dearie? I'm sure Beauregard's speech has something to do with it. I only wish that old bastard would spend as much energy managing Timmy's bills on the Senate floor as he does fighting the space program."
"I'm not a medical doctor, but I picked up a lot when Bill was going through medical school," started Susan. "From what I have been able to learn from people at GNASA, there are nineteen of the crew with the preliminary symptoms of Hodgkin's disease, although the other one is certainly suspect until he has been cleared by a thorough examination. Hodgkin's disease is one of the few forms of cancer that have been definitely been shown to be associated with a virus infection. The close quarters of Prometheus probably made sure that everyone was thoroughly infected with the virus, although why it turned into cancer in nearly all of them is unknown. The problem that the GNASA doctors have is that although the computer on Prometheus is smart enough to act as a nurse, it doesn't have the memory or training to be a surgeon, except for preprogrammed operations like an appendectomy. They are now light-years away, and the round trip communication time is about five years and growing, so instructions from Earth are practically useless. Fortunately, the viral infection is being slowed by the No-Die to the same rate as the rest of the reactions in the body, so the disease will take some time to spread. It's difficult to do, but the disease can be cured with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment. It's doubtful, however, that the single computer motile on the ship can take care of nineteen or twenty very sick mentally-retarded people at the same time, when physically it is barely a match for one of them."
"It sounds pretty desperate, doesn't it," said Margaret with a frown on her wrinkled brow.
"William wanted so much for this mission to succeed," pleaded Susan. "In his present mental state he is incapable of making any decision, but I know that if he could be asked, he would insist on being taken off the drug long enough to help the computer save the crew. Could you please get President Weaver to give the orders to wake him up?" she pleaded. "Please?"
"I'll mention it to Timmy," said the kindly grandmotherly face over the screen. "And if the experts agree that it would be a wise thing to do, then I'm sure it will be done. You do realize, however, that if your husband is taken off the drug, his cancer will be too, and it will start to spread at its normal rate."
"I KNOW!!!" screamed Susan, her control breaking. She burst into tears.
"There, there, dearie," said the soothing voice, trying to break through the sobs. Margaret had always wished that these videophones had hands. "There, there. I'll talk to Timmy as soon as I can. There, there..."