Dennis Schmidt - Wayfarer 1 - Way-Farer.pdf - Dennis Schmidt - margozap

WAY-FARER

Portions of this novel appeared in somewhat dif-ferent form in the October 1976 and May 1977

issues of Galaxy Magazine.

for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is

purely coincidental.

An ACE Book

Cover art by Ben Venuti

First Ace printing: June 1978

Printed in U.S.A.

PROLOGUE

Something’s got to be wrong. It’s just too damn perfect! Paul Suarez leaned on his shovel, let

his gaze pass over the gently rolling hills to the distant mountains, purple in the slight haze.

No question about it, it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen: oh, sure, the light’s a little

bluer than Sol’s, and the vegetation’s a bit queer-but these are little things. He’d been, he knew,

con-ditioned to absorb much greater stresses.

So what could it be? Why do I feel so uneasy? A shadow swept over him. He looked up

quickly: more of the one-way orbit-to-ground airfoil type transports, with their loads of Pilgrims

and their meager possessions. The transports would slip gently to earth not far from where he

was working, there to be unloaded and then dismantled to sup-ply building components for

Base. As he watched, a bigger, multiple-use type shuttle came to a roaring touch-down farther

off in a separate area al-ready blackened by exhaust flames.

That must be about the last load. Even the kids are down. Nobody left in orbit except for the

Flag-ship’s Command Staff-and the Admiral, of course. They must still be re-checking the

Planet-ary Analysis data brought in by the probes and survey teams. They had been 95 percent

sure be-fore they’d let even the first landing party go down, 99 percent before they’d

dispatched the Main Sur-vey. Before the first load of Pilgrims had debarked that “99” had

been carried to four decimal places. But the Admiral was still checking, and would continue to

do so until the Flagship left its parking orbit for the return trip to Earth. Suarez knew all this.

So why do I feel this way? Kensho has no intelli-gent native life, nor any animal remotely

danger-ous to an armed man. No inimical micro-organisms. No weird proteins. It’s like

somebody had set out to create the perfect planet for human colonization ... or the perfect trap.

Death wears many beautiful masks.

For the Virgin’s sake, stop! This is not the slums of Ciudad-this is Kensho, a new planet. Your

new planet! For you the rat-infected ruins of Earth no longer exist. You’ve escaped; you’re free!

Your children will grow up proud and strong, and their children, and their children’s children. Be

happy, idiot!

But somewhere in the back alleys of his mind a cynical little voice chuckled: “You may not

get what you pay for,” it whispered, “but you always pay for what you get. Did not all your

years in the street teach you that there is no such thing as a free lunch?”

Jesu! Basta! Silence! The voice snickered quietly.

“Sure beats that damn cesspool, Earth, eh, Mex?” commented a gruff voice beside him.

Star-tled, Suarez turned his head to find Wes Banner-man leaning on another shovel. “Yeh,”

he replied laconically, not really in the mood for conversa-tion.

Bannerman had no such reluctance; he obvi-ously wanted to talk. “Damn, but I’m sure glad

I joined the Pilgrimage! She-it, hornbre, nowI got a chance to do all the things I always

wanted to do! You know what? First thing they get the animals quickened and matured, I’m

gonna apply for a horse. They brought ‘em-I saw the manifest while we were unloading the

zygotes. And when I get my horse I’m gonna make mea saddle and ride across those hills, like

a goddamn Texan should! This colony’s gonna need explorers, and Fm gonna be one or know

why!

“By God, Mex, don’t you laugh-I mean it! It’s something I’ve dreamed of all my life.”

Suarez smiled in spite of his dark mood. Bannerman’s rough good humor and enthusiasm were

conta-gious.

Hell, Texas is damn near as bad as Ciudad. It took quite a few hits during the Co-Dominium

War. Mostly slagged rubble and desert now. Yet look at Bannerman. The big loco jerk is as

excited as a kid. Rarin’ to go, not wasting any energy worrying about how good things have

turned out, just accepting his luck and riding with it.

The big Texan straightened up and looked over at Suarez out of the corner of his eye,

uncertainly, with a quality almost of coyness that would have been hilarious were it not so

touching. “You’d... uh. . . maybe you’d like to ride with me, amigo?”

For a moment Suarez continued to gaze out over the hills. “Hell,” he finally said, “maybe I

would.” He turned to look directly at Bannerman.

Why don’t I hate this gringo? He calls me, “Mex” all the time, and he uses pidgin Spanish

whenever he talks to me. . . but he doesn’t seem to mean anything bad by it-it seems to be his

way of showing affection. I think he wants to be my friend.

Friend. It was a new idea to Suarez. One didn’t have friends in the teeming warrens of

Ciudad. It was every man for himself, and root, hog, or die. Friend. . . it made him feel good

and strange at the same time.

Bannerman held out his hand. “Compadre, I’d be proud to have you.” Suarez took the

hand and shook it.

“Well,” the big man turned back to his shovel, “guess we better quit the jawbonin’ and start

diggin’ muy pronto or that damn Looie will be over here beatin’ out chingas.” Suarez glanced

over his shoulder and nodded. Bannerman continued, his words matching the rhythm of his

work. “Don’t know why .. . the Admiral couldn’t. . . let us use.. . lasers. . . for this damn job . . .

what’d it hurt?. . . gonna hafta work. . . hard enough once the Flagship leaves . . . deserve a

little help now. . . you know. . . break us in. . gradual like . . .“

Murmuring token agreement, Suarez dug steadily. Bannerman knew as well as he did why

Admi-ral Nakamura was making them set up Base with hand tools. Once the Flagship left, the

Pilgrims on Kensho would be without the advanced technol-ogy of Earth. Oh, they’d have a

basic industrial capacity of their own, the ability to manufacture the simple tools and

implements needed for their spread over Kensho. But they were destined to be an agricultural

society for many generations to come.

When they were ready they’d build their own technology, based on the information stored in

the Central Library here at Base. For now, though, the Laws of the Pilgrimage demanded that

they prepare themselves for the kind of lives they and their children would be living. And they’d

be dig-ging with shovels for a long time to come.

Suarez stopped and leaned on his shovel again.

What was that? Maybe I’m working too hard. There it was again! A strange tingling feeling,

almost like heat, at the edge of his mind.

Odd. Maybe the sun. The feeling came stronger, in a great wave. He stood, looked wildly

about.

I need help! Others were also standing. Oh, my God-the lunch isn’t free after all!

Bannerman looked up. “Hey, Mex, you OK?”

Mex! That hated slur again! Fucking Gringo spitting . on la Raza! Hijo de puta! Filthy Texan.

‘bastard! Always giving me all kinds of shit, spouting rotten Spanish! Jesus howl hate that pedaze

de carraco! Hate him! HATE HIM! HATE!

Screaming, Suarez split his friend’s skull with the blade of his shovel.

(background of hunger hunger hunger hunger)

Flicker of awareness

Tentative search

Energy source!

Alertness of totality.

Viable energy source!

Quantity? Extensive and growing.

Quality? Superior.

Decision of totality:

Gather and await full realization of potential.

Acceptance.

(gather gather gather gather gather gather)

TOTALITY UNIFIED

Period of waiting.

Analysis of potential.

Judgement.

Decision.

Attack!. Attack!

Feed!!!

Feed!

Feed.

Satiation.

Qulessence.

Awareness of status.

Quantity of source seriously diminished.

Concern.

Viability endangered? Possibility.

Recall of previous experience:

Source attacked.

Viability destroyed.

Source destroyed.

Hungerhungerhunger...

Totality diminished.

DANGER!

Problem. Grave concern.

Solution? Withdraw. Wait.

The whole area was littered with corpses. Here and there a body writhed in its final death

throes, or a drooling, jibbering hulk shambled insanely by, while a few stunned survivors huddled

off to one side, clinging to each other for mutual support against the horror of the scene. In a far

corner, one last dying killer was tearing at the throat of another.

Admiral Y. Nakamura, Commander of the Flag-ship Mushima, Leader of the Pilgrimage

Expedi-tion, High Master of the Universal Way of Zen, switched off the hologram and sat back

with a sigh. It was his twelfth time through the scene. Un-pleasant, but necessary.

He sat alone in the Command Conference Room aboard the Flagship, which hung in

synchronous orbit directly over First Touch. His crew and offi-cers had been sent down to

organize relief for the survivors of the attack, and to gather information.

So far, he had reached several conclusions. First, whatever had decimated the Pilgrims at Base

was either invisible or microscopic. He had viewed the event in everything from infra-red to

ultra-violet light and found no sign of the attacker. A vastly enlarged projection had been equally

un-productive, nor had a scrutiny of the records of the ship’s other sensors turned up anything of

interest.

Forced to choose between an invisible enemy or a microscopic one, he chose the latter and

checked the autopsy reports on several of the victims. There was no sign of any foreign body,

cellular, viral, or chemical. Indeed, the only unusual thing about the dead Pilgrims was that their

systems were flooded with adrenalin and the synapses of some of their neurons appeared to have

“burned out,” as if overloaded. He had never heard of such a thing and had no idea what it could

mean.

Reluctantly returning to the alternate theory- that the source of the attacker was invisible-he

realized his only source of information would be the actions of the men who had experienced it.

He ran the hologram through twice more at normal speed, then slowed it down considerably,

espe-cially the opening sequences.

In creeping slow motion, he watched a calm Pilgrim turn into a raving beast. He could see the

first shock, the fear, the growing, upward-spiraling surge of horror that finally exploded into

madness. Again and again, he watched the same process unfold in other victims.

Having discovered the similarities, he began searching for differences. The first that caught his

eye was the time differential in the passage from calmness to insanity in each individual. Some

seemed literally to erupt. Others appeared to be able to fight it off for a time.

Then he remembered the survivors. Quickly he ran the hologram to the end, identified one of

those who had not succumbed, and followed that indi-vidual backwards to the opening sequence.

In-tently, from the beginning, he watched that face.

There was the same initial fear. But what followed was not increasing terror. Rather there was a

brow-wrinkling, sweat-producing effort to fight back, to control the emotions, to get hold of

one’s self! A cross-check on other survivors produced confirmation.

Sure of what he would find, Nakamura punched up the psych-profiles of the survivors and a

ran-dom sample of those who had died. Even a quick survey showed what he had suspected: to a

man, those who had beaten off the attack had stable, strong personalities. Curious, he

cross-tabulated the data in terms of religious affiliation. The result was revealing: 50% of the

members of sects which practiced mind control had lived through the at-tack, against 14% for

other groups. Only one fol-lower of the Universal Way of Zen had died, a pickaxe sunk eight

inches into his neck.

Nakamura’s third conclusion was now obvious. Whatever it was, it affected men’s minds. It

started small, apparently working within the mind on whatever emotional instability was present. It

grew rapidly, perhaps enhancing the existing in-stability by feeding it back into the mind in ah

ever-increasing spiral of emotion. If the individual did not clamp down on it with iron control, he

would quickly be driven into raving madness.

He sighed again and rubbed his temples with tired fingers. He had learned all he would learn by

reviewing the past. Precious little it was, too! Now it was time to bring himself up to date on the

current ‘situation. His officers would have had time to beam up their respective reports by now. If

he needed more data, he could probably ferret it out of the ship’s computer.

Within an hour, he knew the worst. About 80% had perished in the first attack. Things were

temporarily quiet, but it was clear that the assault could be renewed at any moment. Given the

condi-tion of the survivors, he doubted any would be able to withstand the shock. There was no

way he could organize a defense since he only knew what the enemy did, not what it was. Hence

the only sensible choice was to cut and run for it.

Which was impossible. The fatality rate among the crew and officers who had been present at

First Touch when the attack struck, and had been caught in the middle trying to stop the

slaughter, had been even higher than among the Pilgrims. There were barely enough Men left to

man the Flagship, let alone the four Arks.

In addition, the vehicles that had taken the Pil-grims down had been one-way transports with

just enough fuel capacity to enter atmosphere safely and make minor course corrections; once

grounded they could never fly again. And all but one of the heavy-duty shuttles had been

planetside at the time. They all had sustained heavy damage and would require extensive repairs

before they could be made spaceworthy. He had neither the engineers to do the work nor the time

in which to do it. And even if he had both, there was insufli-cient fuel to evacuate more than a

third of the survivors.

So he couldn’t run.

And he couldn’t stay.

A logical analysis of the problem indicated that the answer was a-logical. So much for

Aristotle! So much for Science, too, he mused. Even before the third Probe had returned, the

planet had rated over 97%. At the time of the attack, the computer was just completing a final

analysis which would have put the figure so close to 100% that the differ-ence would have been

meaningless. A paradise! Hanging there in space, its beauty had so im-pressed him that he had

named it Kensho after one of the stages of Enlightenment. But now 80% of the expedition’s

personnel-Pilgrims, crew and officers-were dead. And the survivors couldn’t stay and couldn’t

leave. Since they couldn’t do either, they’d have to do both. Or neither.

Well, he thought, since neither Aristotlian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer

much hope, it’s time to go beyond them.

He stood, turned the holoiewer off, and walked slowly over to his meditation spot. On the wall

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