Joan D Vinge - Lost in Space Read online

  "Navigational holographies on line," he said, into the mike on his headset; and, to himself, "Fifty combat missions." The points of light flirted eerily over his face and body as he moved among them. He highlighted the ship's trajectory past Mercury, around the sun in a U-shaped arc, and into space beyond. "Course confirmed for slingshot exit of the solar system," he reported dutifully.

  He crossed the bridge toward the cryo tube that lay waiting for him. "Just so I can take the family camper on an interstellar picnic…" He climbed in and the preset controls activated. The monitored biopads of his suit closed him into their insensate embrace; he tried not to squirm. "Ten World Series," he said, raising his voice. "My nephews' high school and college graduations. A decade's worth of Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions! Lord knows how many wives—" He took a last look at the fully automated bridge; listened to his music playing. "Noah," he murmured, "ten years is a lifetime…" The final pad slid across his face, shielding his eyes.

  "Sleep well, old friend." He heard Noah's voice, like a benediction.

  "I never liked these freezing tubes," he murmured, his muscles tensing as the pod began to close. Nor even hearing about them… "Bad dreams." He'd never dreamed he'd ever have to—

  The cryo field engulfed him, and his brain whited out for the duration.

  The last pod rose slowly into its chamber in the hull, joining the five already resting there, enshrouded in stillness and blue light. The ship flew on through the darkness toward its rendezvous with the sun, accompanied bv music that no one heard.

  Smith started awake from a nightmare into… a nightmare. Memory goaded him like an electric prod, and he scrambled up the lightless disposal chute into the robot bay. The bay's dim illumination seemed as bright as day to him now. Blinking, he focused on his throbbing hand; saw the impression of the overloaded communicator's circuits burned into his palm.

  He looked right and left, still only half certain that he was not trapped in a horrible dream. He looked down at his watch, checking the time, and the feeling only grew stronger.

  Stumbling toward a viewport, he hit the stud on the display panel below it. The blast shield opened.

  He looked out on deep space.

  Smith stared at the view for a long time, with the interior of his mind as empty as the night outside.

  The computer console behind him abruptly came online, shocking him back into his senses in time to see something move on the other side of the room. Expecting to see a crew member, his mind struggled to comprehend the alien thing detaching itself from an alcove along the wall.

  The robot. A huge industrial machine with two sets of arms, it looked like some monstrous gene-meld of man and beetle. It had been designed for construction work in space, but programmed to maintain Jupiter Two during its journey to Alpha Prime.

  Surely it should not be doing anything yet.

  Except that he had changed its programming.

  "No — " he whispered. He tried to activate the burned-out programming module he had used last night. The keypad was as dead as he should have been.

  "Disable program," he ordered aloud.

  Oblivious, the robot used its skilled-work arms to finish disengaging from its mooring. It rolled forward into the bay on flexible tractor treads. "Robinson family," it said. "Destroy." The flatness of its machine voice made his flesh crawl.

  "Cease," he ordered, more loudly. "Desist!"

  The robot rolled on by, never hesitating. "All operating systems: Destroy."

  He realized where it was headed… to the bridge, on the upper level. He jerked a wrench from a tool bracket and ran after it. He didn't care if the Robinsons died. He didn't care if the entire world died. But if the robot got to the control room, he was a dead man —

  As he caught up to it, the robot swung a massive grappling arm at him without even looking back. It caught him in the chest, and hurled him aside like a fly. He slammed into the console that linked the service bay with the ship's main computer; its systems bleated and crackled as he slid down to the floor.

  The robot rolled on, unconcerned, with only one command in its logic systems: "Jupiter Two: Destroy."

  Roughly sixty million miles away, and currently on the night side of Earth, darkened screens flickered to life in the now peaceful Mission Control room. Annie, the lone technician on midnight watch, looked up in surprise from her guitar. She leaned forward, stared, and switched on her mike. "Somebody wake up the Chief," she said.

  Chapter Seven

  The robot entered the Jupiter's bridge and halted, as the ship's central processing unit brought up the lights and provided it with instant schematics for every piece of equipment its sensors registered. It moved toward the cryo sleep array, raw energy arcing between its extended welding claws as it raised its arms.

  The main computer, which controlled the robot's every action, knew all about the humans held in suspended animation here: those strange, organically based computers; such fragile systems, so easily disrupted. It knew how to maintain them, how to repair them… how to terminate them. Humans had programmed it, and it knew its duty: "Cryo sleep systems: Destroy."

  The robot released a burst of energy, blasting the cryo sleep control console. Alarms sounded as the tubes began to descend; electricity sparked across the sleeping bodies.

  The robot moved on, toward the navigation pedestal. It stopped, facing the navigational holograph in the center of the bridge, observing the eerie beauty of the display. The air laced with lightning between its claws as another charge began to build. The robot understood the function and maintenance of these systems much more clearly. It understood what it must do. "Navigational systems: Destroy."

  The Mission Control room lit up like a navigational display, as exhausted techies booted up their consoles to the flashing of alarms.

  Noah strode into the room, looking much as he always did except for the expression on his face. He stood staring at the signs of disaster unfolding across one monitor after another. What in hell—? What in hell… ? "This mission's over!" he shouted. "Wake them up!"

  His people were on it before he could finish the sentence. Annie looked up from her console, her face stricken. "No response, sir," she said.

  Smith arrived on the bridge, his head bleeding from the robot's blow, just in time to see the robot fire on the navigational array. He cried out as the pedestal exploded and the holographic starmap blinked out of existence. More alarms began to sound as the ship's navigational systems went down, leaving it a rudderless boat, caught in the tidal drag of the sun's gravitational pull…

  The robot moved on, toward the command center.

  Smith stumbled to the cryotubes as he saw them swallowed in flames and smoke. "Wake up, damn you!" He worked frantically at the console, not even sure if he was speaking to the Robinsons or the ruins of the controls, "I can't stop this infernal contraption on my own!"

  His eyes fell on a protected array that read EMERGENCY DEACTIVATE. He smashed it open with his fist. Looking up, he saw the figures inside the erratically descending tubes begin to glow… all but one.

  At the side of his vision lightning arced again between the robot's pincers. "Command systems: Destroy." The robot lifted its arms, taking aim.

  More alarms sounded as the cryotubes began to open. The robot spun back on its treads. "Robinson family: Destroy."

  As it rolled forward, Smith dove into the smoke and found a hole to crawl into.

  John Robinson came suddenly, terribly, awake— pitched headlong out of the deepest dreams of nothingness by braying alarms, smoke, and explosions. He took one vertiginous step out of the cryotube and stopped, staring at the naked face of chaos worn by a berserk maintenance robot.

  And then he threw himself out of the tube and rolled, drawing the robot's aim away from the cryo array, as his survival instincts were commandeered by the military training of his youth. "Maureen — " he shouted, driven by an instinct equally hard-wired. "The children!"

  Maureen gaped for the len
gth of a heartbeat, before the same unquestioning instinct set her moving. She dragged Penny and Will from their units, pulling them under cover behind a work station just as the robot's blast destroyed the place where they stood.

  John wrenched a pistol from a wall mount. "Disengage safety," he gasped, swinging back around.

  "Voiceprint confirmed," the gun said.

  John fired. The laser burst struck the robot's head and set it reeling on its swivel.

  The robot stabilized, and turned to face him. No effect.

  John ducked behind a control pedestal as lightning lanced from its upraised claws. The concussive blast took out the pedestal in front of him and hurled him back against a wall; his gun went flying.

  "Dad!" Will cried out, watching in anguish from his place beside his mother. If even a laser couldn't stop the robot— But you don't fight fire with fire; you fight fire with water. Will slammed his hand against the elevator call button on the support beside him; as it began to descend, he slipped under his mother's arm and bolted toward it.

  "Will, wait!" Maureen dove after him, but he escaped her like a startled rabbit. Across the room the robot turned, tracking him with upraised arms.

  Don West flung himself onto the machine's back as it fired; the blast went wide, and Will slid across the floor into the disappearing elevator. West clung to the robot's carapace, struggling to dislodge its power pack.

  The robot sent a pulse of electricity through its metal shell, and West went flying. He hit the floor across the room like a rag doll, his cryo suit glowing with witchfire as its circuitry seared and fused.

  The robot's platelike skull swiveled; it fixed the glaring red eye of its sensor array on the final spot where humans were still hiding. Its hulking, insectoid body wheeled on its treads in the smoking ruins; telltale lightning arced between its claws.

  Maureen turned her back on it, shielding her daughter's body with her own. "Look away, baby,'' she whispered. She shut her own eyes, her body paralyzed with anticipation, waiting for the blast to strike her, waiting-Nothing happened. Still nothing happened.

  An eternity of heartbeats later she looked around again, her face clenched—

  The robot stood motionless, its arms harmlessly at its sides. As she watched, its displays blinked from online to standby mode.

  Across the room, Will stepped from the rising elevator with his hacking deck—the one that she had sworn more than once he would never see again—held triumphantly in his hands. "Robot," he said. "Return to your docking bay and power down."

  "Command accepted," the robot said.

  As Maureen watched in stunned disbelief, the robot headed obediently through the smoke toward the elevator. Her husband and Don West stirred, pushing themselves up to watch it pass.

  Will grinned at her, with something gleaming in his eyes that could have been, Told you, Mom…

  A note of hysterical laughter escaped her; she laughed again, her eyes filling with pride and love as she looked back at him. Like father, like son…

  "If the family won't come to the science fair," Will said, gazing around the room in satisfaction, "bring the science fair to the family."

  "Show off," Penny murmured, as she edged out from behind her mother. But a reluctant smile of genuine admiration pulled up the corners of her mouth.

  "Where's Judy—?" Maureen said suddenly. She started back through the miasma of smoke and sparking circuitry toward the cryo array.

  John reached down, offering his hand to Don West, who was struggling to get to his feet. "Next picnic, no robots," West muttered thickly, shaking himself out. He pushed away from John's support with a nod, coughing as he headed through the smoke toward the helm.

  The bridge had become a scene out of Dante's Inferno: fire and smoke and twisted ruins everywhere. The navigation array was gone from the air, its pedestal destroyed.

  My God… John's gaze went to the viewport, shuttered by blast shields. He ran to his seat at the com and began to work.

  Next to him, Penny sat down at another intact console, and began trying to bring up the fire control systems. FIRE SYSTEMS flashed on her displays—and then the screen suddenly went dark. The console died in a shower of electrical sparks. Penny's hands made fists as she jerked away from the keyboard. "I want to go home now…" she said, her voice caught somewhere between joking and tears. She massaged her stinging hands, and went back to work.

  "No course data," John called out to West. "System shorts everywhere." He hit a stud on his seat arm. The chair ascended, taking him up to the overhead access panel. He pried it open and went to work on the circuitry inside.

  Below him, Penny got the fire control systems stabilized. Extinguishers activated around the room, smothering blazes with chemical foam.

  "I can't open her blast shields," Don reported. "I'll try remote ops."

  He started across the room through the pall of smoke. As he passed Will's work station, someone groaned. He ducked down into the reeking smoke, groping on the floor until he found what felt like a human body, and dragged it upright. "Smith?" he said in disbelief. "What the hell-"

  Smith began to struggle, shouting, "Get back! Leave me alone!" Don fended off the incoherent blows, holding on to the other man until Smith's mind cleared.

  "Major West," Smith gasped, with actual recognition. "Thank God it's you! I… I was making a last-minute check… someone hit me from behind." He raised his hand to his head, wincing. Don saw the smear of drying blood on the side of his face.

  And then his surprise and concern immolated. He reached out, grabbing Smith's upraised hand.

  Seared into Smith's palm was the perfect image of a reprogramming module… but not one he had ever used. "Sedition technology," Don said hoarsely. "You're a goddamned spy!" Before the words were even out of his mouth, their full implication hit him. "You did this-"

  He slammed Smith against the wall with all his strength, then dragged him toward the airlock. He hit the access button with his fist, and the airlock's inner hatch swung open.

  "Stop," Smith gasped in disbelief. "What are you doing?"

  "Throwing out the trash." Don shoved him backward, trying to force his rigid body through the hatchway.

  "Help, somebody! Please—" Maureen Robinson's desperate voice barely penetrated his rage.

  Don looked over his shoulder, holding Smith pinned. He saw Maureen standing by the cryo console, only realizing then that one of the units had never opened. Its cryofield sparked on and off; the sight made his stomach turn. Whose— ? Judy's.

  "Her thawing engine is broken!" Maureen said. "I can't get her out. She's dying—" Her eyes searched the room for someone who knew cryo technology.

  He didn't. Who did?… Only Judy.

  Smith wrenched a hand free and drove it upward, the palm catching Don under the chin. Don staggered; came back at him, as fury anesthetized the pain of the blow.

  "Touch me and the girl dies—" Smith said, his eyes burning.

  Don froze, inches away from breaking Smith's neck like a stick.

  "Your mission physican is indisposed," Smith murmured, glancing at the cryo array. Don thought he actually heard an edge of mockery in the words, as if Smith's brain was something alien, inhabiting the man's cringing body. "I can save her life," Smith said. "But only if you spare mine."

  You psychopathic bastard. Don tightened his grip. "I don't deal with dead men," he said. He had never meant anything so completely in his life.

  "Kill me, kill the girl," Smith gasped. "How much is your revenge worth?… Major?" Smith looked into Don's eyes; a faint smile pulled at his lips. "I will, of course, need your word as an officer that you will let me live."

  Don hesitated, barely able to control his trembling hands. Then, finally, he let Smith go. "Help her."

  He backed off, letting Smith pass. He watched the doctor cross the room, making certain Smith went directly to the cryo console.

  Abruptly, the command console where John Robinson was working squawked to life. "… is Missi
on Control. Do you read? Jupiter Two, this is—"

  Don glanced away from Smith, up at Robinson. "Power reserves online," Robinson called down from the access, oblivious to what was happening below. "Blast shields…got it!"

  Don started toward the viewport as the blast shields began to open. Agonizing brightness struck him in the eyes. The sun, enormous and inescapable, filled his entire vision.

  "Uh-oh…" he whispered, as words failed him.

  The face of Noah Freeman appeared on his displays. "You're way off course!" Noah said. "We show you in the sun's gravitational pull."

  Don looked away from the sun's face to Noah's. He grimaced. "Is that what that big round ball is—?" Mission Control had a real gift for understatement.

  Back on Earth, Noah looked up at his own screens, seeing what Don saw now. Noah's lips moved, off-mike; Don realized he was swearing.

  "Noah," he said, as John's chair descended beside him, "how come we never talk when things are going well?"

  "We count seven minutes before your outer hull begins to melt," Noah said, as calmly and to-the-point as if he hadn't just taken the same psychological hit in the gut.

  Easy for him to stay cool, damn him. Don settled into the pilot's chair. He's sixty million miles away.

  Sitting in the ruins of the bridge, staring down the throat of the sun, he realized at last why they had wanted a real pilot for this mission…

  "I'm going to try for the Mercury Mines," he said, his hands already at work on the console's keyboard.

  Chapter Eight

  Hcrass thE bririgE Maureen Robinson worked with Smith, following his terse instructions to the letter as they tried to save her daughter from the damaged cryotube. She observed his obvious skill and expertise; respecting them, as she had during all the months the family had been preparing for this mission. She glanced up occasionally to see John and Don West working like men obsessed at the com; she saw the sun, bloated and violently yellow, filling the viewport. She felt absolutely nothing, beyond her overwhelming need to save Judy's life.