Part 27 (1/2)

”Oh, Frit,” Viktor said, despairing, ”how can I make you understand? What could be grander than answering the question of what happened to the entire universe? Maybe Balit can discover that! He's interested. He's smart. He simply doesn't have the education. First he needs a grasp of cosmology and nuclear decay and-”

”No one knows those things anymore, Viktor. Truly. They simply aren't interesting to us.”

”But they must be on record somewhere,” Viktor said, clutching at straws. ”I know the data banks in Ark Ark and and Mayflower Mayflower had all that material-” had all that material-”

”They don't exist anymore, Viktor. What was left of them must have been salvaged for structural materials thousands of years ago.”

”But they were copied onto the files on Newmanhome.”

Frit gave Forta a meaningful look. ”Yes, Newmanhome,” he said.

Forta sighed. For some reason the thought of the files on Newmanhome seemed to make him uncomfortable. ”Well,” he said, ”we'll see what we can do.”

”I hope I can repay you,” Viktor said.

Forta gave him a strange look. ”That's all right,” he said, sounding insincere. Then, ”Do you know a lot of stories like the Big Bang one you were telling Balit?”

”Oh, dozens,” Viktor told him, aware for the first time that the parents had been listening in. In fact he did. In fact he had all the stories his father had told him still well in mind-the story of the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle that fueled the stars, the story of the death of ma.s.sive stars in supernovae and the birth of pulsars and black holes, the stories of Kepler's Laws of Motion and of Newton's, and of Einstein's superseding laws, and of the rules of quantum mechanics that went beyond even Einstein.

”Yes, of course,” Forta said, yawning. ”Those are very interesting. I know Balit loves to hear about them-”

”But not all the time, please, Viktor,” Frit finished. ”If you don't mind.”

Then the long-awaited transmission came in from Newmanhome, and it was not at all what Viktor had expected.

To begin with, of course it wasn't Pelly calling-the s.p.a.ce captain had to be halfway back to Nergal by now. The face on the screen was a man wearing a sort of floppy beret, pulled down almost to his eyebrows; he was a habitat person, all right, but he was actually wearing clothes. ”Viktor,” he began without preamble, ”I'm Markety. I'm just here for a short time, but I've managed to collect some of the material for you. Give my respects to Forta, please-he is one of my heroes, as I am sure he knows. Here's the material.”

Eagerly Viktor watched the screen on the desk as new pictures began to appear. Puzzledly he stared at them. After months he knew what sort of thing the desk produced when interrogated; these were quite different. They were simply a series of-well, photographs! The first batch was pictures of bits and pieces of machinery, some of it the same s.h.i.+ny lavender metal as the keepsake Balit proudly kept by his bedside, some of unidentifiable materials that could have been steel or gla.s.s or ceramic. It dawned on Viktor that they were the odds and ends that had been salvaged from the surface of the planet Nebo-but there was no explanation for any of them, no hint of what they might be for, or what studies might have been made of them.

The next batch was more puzzling still.

It had to do with astrophysics, all right, but it was not data displayed from a computer file. It was pictures-pictures of pages of ma.n.u.script, or log books, or even a few pages from a book here and there. They seemed to have been taken from the freezers.

They were all fragmentary-a couple of pages of something, without beginning or end; the pages themselves as like as not torn or frayed or spotted into illegibility. Some of them made Viktor blink. Some of it went so far back that his father's own observations were there.

For a while at least, someone had been faithful at keeping records. (Billy Stockbridge, perhaps, loyal to Pal Sorricaine to the last?) There were spectrograms of the sun as it cooled; of the star burst as it grew; of the dozen stars that still remained in their sky-dimmer than before, but not swallowed into the star burst.

None of them were anything like the spectrograms Pal Sorricaine had so doggedly gleaned of the stars that had flared and died all about them. The Sorricaine-Mtiga objects were still unique.

None of the spectrograms made any sense to Viktor, either. The dead observers had left their own speculations, but none of them was convincing. None of them explained what it was that had stolen most of the stars out of the sky. And they were all so very old that there was nothing at all about the fireball that had dominated the sky for so long.

When Balit came back from school Viktor was still puzzling over the transmission. He displayed it all over again for Balit, but repet.i.tion didn't make it clearer. Balit didn't do any homework that night. He and Viktor ate quickly and returned to the desk. It was the objects from Nebo that seemed most fascinating to the boy. ”But what can they be?” he asked, not for the first time, and, not for the first time, Viktor shook his head.

”The only way to find out is to investigate them. Somebody made them, after all-somebody from Gold, or somewhere else, but still some person. person. They can be opened up.” They can be opened up.”

Balit s.h.i.+vered. ”People did try, Viktor. More than twenty of them were killed.” killed.”

”People die for a lot less important reasons,” Viktor said roughly. ”Naturally it would have to be done with a lot of precautions. Systematically. The way people used to defuse bombs in wars.

”What are 'wars,' Viktor?”

But Viktor refused to be sidetracked. They pored over the material until it was late and Balit, yawning, said, ”I don't know if I understand, Viktor. Are our stars the only ones still alive, anywhere?”

”That's the way it looks, Balit.”

”But stars live forever, forever, Viktor,” the boy said drowsily. Viktor,” the boy said drowsily.

”Not forever. For a long time-” Viktor stopped, remembering a joke. He laughed as he got ready to tell it. ”There used to be a story about that, Balit. A student is asking his astronomy teacher a question: 'Pardon me, professor, but when did you say the sun would turn into a red giant and burn us all up?'

”The professor says, 'In about five billion years.'

”So the student says, 'Oh, thank G.o.d! I thought you said five million.' million.' ” ”

But Balit didn't laugh. He was sleeping. And as Viktor carried the boy to his bed, he wasn't laughing, either.

Viktor sought out the one of Balit's parents at home. He found Frit painting something on a large screen. ”I'm sorry I kept him so late. We got to talking about why all these things had happened-”

”Where you go wrong, Viktor,” Frit told him serenely, ”is in always asking why. There doesn't have to be a why. You don't have to understand things; it's enough to feel.” feel.”

Viktor looked uncomprehendingly at the designs Frit was painting on the screen. The screen, he saw, was flimsy, it would be transferred to the wall of the room that would some day be Ginga's. It was a wall poem. He laughed. ”So I shouldn't try to understand why you're doing that? When Ginga isn't even born, and won't be able to read for years yet?”

”No, Viktor, that is very easy to understand,” Frit said indulgently. ”When Ginga learns to read I want her first words to come from her father. No,” he went on, brus.h.i.+ng in another character in a chartreuse flourish and looking critically at the result, ”it is this obsession of yours for understanding the sky that worries me. It upsets Balit, I'm afraid. What's the use of it? The sky is the sky, Viktor. It has nothing to do with our lives.”

”But you've written poems about the sky!”

”Ah, but that is art art. I write poems about what people feel feel about the sky. No one can experience the sky, Viktor; one can only look at it and see it as an object of art.” He shook his wooly head in reproof. ”All these things you tell to Balit-hydrogen atoms fusing into helium, suns exploding and dying-there's no about the sky. No one can experience the sky, Viktor; one can only look at it and see it as an object of art.” He shook his wooly head in reproof. ”All these things you tell to Balit-hydrogen atoms fusing into helium, suns exploding and dying-there's no feeling feeling there. They're just horrid mechanical things.” there. They're just horrid mechanical things.”

In spite of himself, Viktor was amused. ”Aren't you even curious?”

”About stars? Not at all! About the human heart, of course.”

”But science-” Viktor stopped, shaking his head. ”I don't see how you can talk that way, Frit. Don't you want to know things? Don't you want to have Balit understand science?” He waved an arm around the future nursery. ”If it weren't for science, how could you and Forta have had a child?”

”Ah, but that's useful useful science, Viktor! That's worth knowing about-not like your worrying about whose lines are where in which spectra. It's good because it makes our lives better. But I'm not at all curious about why stars s.h.i.+ne and what makes them hot-and least of all about where they've all gone-because there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway. Is there?” science, Viktor! That's worth knowing about-not like your worrying about whose lines are where in which spectra. It's good because it makes our lives better. But I'm not at all curious about why stars s.h.i.+ne and what makes them hot-and least of all about where they've all gone-because there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway. Is there?”

By the time word came that Pelly was back in the habitats Viktor was beginning to feel as though he had seriously out-stayed his welcome on Moon Mary. Balit was still loyal. Frit was unfailingly polite. Forta, at least, had a use for their guest; he borrowed Viktor for an hour or so almost every day to dance with him. Forta appreciated it, and for Viktor it seemed good exercise for his nearly healed leg, though Frit did not seem to approve. Viktor heard them talking, not quite out of earshot, and Frit was being reasonable. ”Folk dancing? Oh, yes, Forta dear, but what is folk dancing, after all? It's simply what primitive people used to do when they didn't have professionals to watch. But you are an artist!”

”And you,” Forta told him good-humoredly, ”are a little jealous, aren't you?”

”Of course not! On the other hand, dear . . .”

And the rest of the conversation Viktor could not hear, which was probably just as well.

Viktor was leading Forta through the familiar, sweet Misirlou when the package arrived from Pelly. Viktor opened it with excitement-something from Nebo for him to study, something more informative than the broken bits and pieces like Balit's keepsake?

It was not from Nebo. It was human-made and very old. Pelly's message said, ”This appears to have come from one of your old s.h.i.+ps, Viktor. I thought you'd like to listen to it.”