Stories: All-New Tales

“I might jump you, too,” Leif said.

“Sure.” Brennan grinned. “Want to try?”

“He will try,” Ena said thoughtfully. “He might even succeed, if he catches you off guard. Now stop arguing with him.”

She pointed to Leif. “You’re to be quiet until it’s your turn to talk. We’ll tape your mouth if we have to.”

Brennan cleared his throat. “You’re right. I don’t think he’d succeed, but he’ll try. Sooner or later, he’ll try to jump me. If he does succeed, the mission is shot. Finished. Ruined. Six lives and billions of dollars, all wasted.”

Ena nodded.

“That’s not the only danger. This ship wasn’t built as a prison. No matter where we lock him up, he’ll have years to try to figure some way out. I’ve never wanted to kill anybody, and God knows I don’t want to kill Leif. We’re going to have to do it just the same. Can we keep him sedated for fifteen years? Have you got enough dope for that?”

Ena shook her head.

“For one year?”

“We might keep him lightly sedated for a year or more. Not for two.”

“How do you know lightly would be enough?”

“I don’t,” Ena said.

Brennan sighed. “Okay, you’ve got my case. Can he be killed, legally? I don’t know and you don’t either, but we both doubt it. So I’m not asking you to kill him or even help me to. I’ll do it alone. I’ll stick him in the airlock without a suit, and we’ll write it up in the log. Maybe they’ll try me for murder when we get home. Maybe they won’t. I’ll take my chances. Now let’s hear Leif.”

“I didn’t endanger the mission,” Leif began. “I’ve explained that already. There’s plenty of food and plenty of fuel. The air plant’s running fine. What I tried to do would have delayed the ship’s return to earth by a few days. No more than that. You two are perfectly capable of taking the ship back. If you were to die, it’s perfectly capable of taking itself back. The six of us were put on board to take care of emergencies, and because we’d be needed once the ship got to Beta Andromedae. We’ve done all that, or at least we’ve done it as well as three people could, taking pix, measuring the magnetic field, mapping, and all the rest of it.”

“You finished?” Brennan asked.

“No. You blame me for bringing the birds. If what you say were correct—it’s not, but if it were—I’d deserve a medal. Neither of you found alien life. Not a speck. Not a trace. I found it, and returned to the ship with live specimens. You won’t concede a thing, I know. But if your accusation were correct, that would be the fact and I would be a hero.”

Ena said, “You say it’s not.”

“I do. The birds came into me while I was suited up, out in space. I told you they were there.”

Reluctantly, Ena nodded.

“I didn’t want to come back onto the ship, infected as I was. Brennan forced me to. If bringing my birds onto the ship was a crime, Brennan is the criminal. Not me.”

“You’re the one who sabotaged our mission,” Brennan said.

Ena raised her hand. “We’ve heard the accusation and Leif’s defense. I don’t want to get into it again.”

Leif said, “You promised me a chance to defend myself. I have one more thing to say. It will take less than a minute. May I do it?”

She nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Brennan threatens me with death. Surely you can see that I wanted to return to Beta Andromedae so that I could die there. I’ll suit up and go out again. You need only let me do it. Put a K beside my name in the log, and note that I was a suicide. It will be true, and if either of you is accused of my murder a veriscope reading will prove your innocence.”

Ena smiled. “Brennan?”

“I’m willing if you are.”

“I’m not. Not as it stands. You’ll have to do us a service first, Leif. Go through the ship and collect the birds. All of them. Get them back inside you. They went in once, and I think they’ll go in again if you approach them right. Do it, and we’ll go back as you ask and put you out.”

HE HAD SPREAD HIMSELF like a starfish, and the birds had flown. All of them—or nearly all. Now he blew like a dry leaf in the solar wind, revolving like a cartwheel.

His air was running out. His body would die; and that which would not die would be free at last, free to rove the universe and beyond.

Death waited beside him, warm and dark and friendly, and Leif could hardly wait.

IN HER CABIN, ENA smiled to herself as she shook the small brown bottle. She had caught the faint fragrance of Brennan’s aftershave when he relieved her on the bridge. He could not possibly have brought enough to last for half the voyage; thus he had hoarded some and was using it now.

The odor haunted her, delightful and unidentifiable. What aftershave had Walt used, what cologne? She had known those things once, but they were gone and only the memory of Brennan’s faint fragrance remained. Russian leather? Spice? Neither seemed correct.

Turning the bottle over in her hand, she reread the label she had read so often since finding the bottle in a food locker: ¬ËÊ£ÌÌË ¤ÎŸ¢ËØŸ.

She would smell like a cookie.

Opening the bottle, she applied the thin brown liquid it contained to five strategic spots.

Brennan would welcome her return. They would kiss, and she would unbutton his shirt. And then—

She interrupted the daydream to listen. A bird sang in her right wrist.

UNWELL

Carolyn Parkhurst

I WAS FEELING A BIT UNWELL, so I called Yvonne to come and sit with me. I believe that sisters have a responsibility to look out for one another, even though that doesn’t seem to be a popular view with everybody these days. I think that if more people would take their family responsibilities more seriously, then the world wouldn’t be in the kind of trouble…But the phone was ringing.

“Hello,” said Yvonne.

“Yvonne, I need you to come over this afternoon. I’m not well.”

I heard her sigh on the other end; I don’t believe she even tried to mask it. “Is it really important, Arlette? I’ve got a million wedding things to do.”

“Oh, the wedding. Is that coming up soon?”

“It’s Saturday, Arlette, and you know it.”

“Well, I hope I’ll be able to make it. I’ve been feeling weak all day, and I’m not at all sure I’ll be myself by Saturday.”