Joan D Vinge - Lost in Space Read online

  So she'd nearly died a couple of hours ago. So what—?

  If only he could keep his mouth shut…

  Don stood as still as possible in the center of sickbay while Judy finished freeing him from his cryo suit. He'd been in crisis mode until now, running on adrenaline, feeling no pain. But as soon as he'd had time to draw a calm breath, he'd realized that he had to get out of this thing—and he couldn't. He felt bruised and singed all over from the electrical charge that damned robot had sent through the suit. He was lucky nothing worse had happened; hell, he was lucky he was alive. They all were.

  He glanced again at the medical lab where John Robinson had imprisoned Smith: just one more specimen trapped in a jar. Smith was beating his fists on the shatterproof window again, shouting something inaudi-bly. Judy Robinson went calmly about her business, never even acknowledging Smith's presence; as if having a homicidal lunatic locked in her closet was No Big Deal either. Don met the malevolent fury in Smith's eyes, and grinned nastily.

  "Hold still," Judy murmured.

  "I'm trving to," he protested, scratching his suit-covered shoulder fruitlessly. "Can't you hurry it up?" By now nagging itches and his stressed-out nerves were beginning to plague everv centimeter of his body that didn't already hurt… not to mention the fact that he really, really needed to take a leak.

  Judy made a small, sympathetic noise, and touched his still-armored shoulder. 'The cryo suit absorbed most of the robot's electrical charge," she said. "You're luck't this isn't your hide…"

  He twisted around to look at her. "Doctor, is that concern I detect in your voice?" he asked hopefully.

  Judy ripped the recalcitrant piece of seared suit from his shoulder like a swath of adhesive.

  "Ouch" Don protested. "Great bedside manner."

  Judy looked up at him, and what he saw in her eyes then made his heart jump. Her gaze dropped away to the scar on his upper arm. "What's this?" she asked, running her fingers lightly down it. "A battle scar?"

  Goose bumps started on his flesh at her touch, spreading down his arm. He hoped she didn't notice. "Kind of," he said, smiling. "Was a tattoo. Ex-girlfriend. I had it removed."

  Judy looked back him. She raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it be easier just to use a Magic Marker?"

  Another direct hit. Even time he thought he had her in his sights, she jagged. This one was an ace. He shaped his grimace into a grin. "That's me…" he said. "A girl in every port."

  Judy stared at him for a long moment, as if she'd heard how hollow that sounded; just like he had. "So, no family,

  Major?" she asked, turning back to her work. She wasn't baiting him now; he had no clue where her thoughts were. "Nothing to tie you down? Nothing to miss… ?" She looked up at his face, and away again. She peeled another piece of suit off him, carefully this time.

  He didn't know how to answer her, because he didn't know what kind of answer she expected from him. So he told her the truth "I've never been the fit-in-and-play-nice type. After a while, the part of me folks want to see most is my back, going out the door."

  He remembered his parents suddenly; remembered the slam of the broken screen door, the blistered paint peeling from the side of the house and how the red dust had clung to his pants legs, as he walked away . . . He looked down, even though she was no longer looking at him.

  "I guess you think that's romantic." Judy murmured, peeling away the last of the ruined cryo suit from his chest.

  He looked back at her. "No," he said. "No, I don't."

  She met his stare, her green eyes targeting his soul.

  "How about you, Doc?" He fired a personal question at her, before she could nail him. "Is there some luck't little nerd you left behind?"

  He'd almost blown it; let her slip through his defenses. He told himself it was just that way too much had happened to him, way too fast, these past few days. But something eeled through the depths of his brain, reminding him that now he was trapped with these people, on this ship, indefinitely…

  Somehow that was worse than being alone. We're not lost! I can find the way home; I'm the best there is —

  "I have spent the last three years preparing for this mission," Judy said, folding her arms. Her eyes were cold as he looked back at her, letting him know his evasive maneuver had worked all too well. "We are trying to save the planet here, Major. I haven't had time for fun."

  Inside the words he heard depths of frustration and loss he didn't want to feel… feelings she didn't even seem to be aware of.

  He shrugged on the neatly folded gray T-shirt she had laid out for him. The cloth felt like sandpaper against his skin… or maybe a hair shirt.

  He started for the door; stopped, midway across the room. He looked back at her where she stood, her body still clenched and unforgiving. Two hours ago she'd almost died, because of this mission… "If there's no time for fun, Doc," he asked gently, half smiling, "then what are we saving the planet for?"

  She stared at him, motionless and silent. She watched him all the way across the room and out the door.

  Will Robinson stood on tiptoe in the robot bay, trying to dislodge a giant bubble diode from the wall. He glanced around in surprise as Penny's arms suddenly reached in beside his own, and helped him pull the component free.

  "Thanks." Will smiled and sat down, settling the diode carefully in his lap. He looked up at her, making a rueful face. "I hate being little."

  Penny held out her cam/watch in response. "I think it broke."

  Will took it from her and looked it over, suddenly not feeling so small and useless; instead feeling the sense of confidence and competence that he onlv had when he looked at something mechanical. He almost knew, just by looking at it, how it should work; where the malfunction was, if it didn't. He picked a tool out of his kit and began to tinker with the camcorder.

  "Why aren't you up on deck with Mom and Dad?" Penny asked.

  He glanced up. "Have you met our parents?" he said sullenly.

  Penny made a prune face. "Good point." She sighed, looking at the wall.

  Will hit the camcorder's playback button, and grinned as it began to speak, in Penny's voice. ". . Popcorn. Orchids. Waves. Billy. Kissing…"

  Penny snatched it out of his hands and shut it off, her face reddening. "It's a list," she said, to his curious stare. ''Of everything we left behind ' All at once there were tears in her eyes. She refused to let them fall, fixing him with a red-rimmed stare. "Never love anything, kiddo," she said angrily. "Because you just end up losing it! She turned on her heel and strode out of the room.

  Will watched her go, silentlv.

  Maureen and John Robinson worked together at the Life Sciences console on the bridge, trying to restore as much of the life support system as they could salvage. Maureen watched her husband out of the corner of her eye, occasionally glancing over to give him input on the job he was doing as she concentrated on her own work. A small back corner of her thoughts drifted to the uniqueness of having her chronically preoccupied husband in a place where he actually had to listen to what she was saying.

  Not that anyone wouldn't be preoccupied, under these circumstances…

  "What was I thinking," he muttered, "dragging my family out into space?"

  "What could we do, John?" she said, rerouting a segment of circuitry. "Leave them on Earth? Rob them of their parents, miss their growing up?"

  He didn't answer, rummaging among the ruined components for something he could work with. "Smith can still hurt us," he said after a moment, and she realized that he hadn't really required an answer; his worries had simply gone on in silence. "Maybe I shouldn't let him live___But—"

  "But," she finished his thought, splicing wires, "'how can we bring civilization to the stars if we can't remain civilized'… right, Professor?" She knew he would recognize the words. They were his own; he repeated them every time he watched the news report.

  John raised his head from the entrails of the console to give her an annoyed look. "Have you ever noticed yo
u take the opposite position on whatever I say?"

  "Of course I do," she said calmly, surprised that he had noticed. "We're married."

  "What the hell—?" John exclaimed.

  She looked back at him in genuine surprise, and then concern as she saw where he was looking now. She followed his gaze to the viewscreens across the room.

  The uncharted planet in the center of the screens had begun to glow. As she watched, some sort of energy field flowed outward from its surface, distorting its image. The star-pricked blackness of space seemed to sear away around the edges of the distortion, leaving a glowing portal.

  Beyond the portal, a long gleaming spindle of star-ship caught the light of this system's binary suns.

  Across the bridge Don West echoed, "What the hell?"

  Don pulled his gaze away from the anomaly that had seared a fire-ringed hole in space ahead of them, and turned in his seat to look at his mismatched crew. His crew. It was hard even to think of that word when he looked at them. But the entire Robinson family was here on the bridge with him, each of them working competently at an assigned station as they tried to get some kind of fix on what was out there. He had to admit, reluctantly, that there was no deadwood along on this family picnic.

  "It appears to be some kind of rend in space," John Robinson reported.

  "Where does it lead?" his wife asked.

  "A reasonable question," Don murmured. He turned back to the console and engaged the thrusters.

  "Major, wait—" Robinson said.

  Don punched in the coordinates and sent the ]upiter into the glowing gap. "I'll wait later." He felt his pulse pick up as the gigantic silver ship loomed in their viewport.

  "Pull back!" Robinson said sharply, crossing the room toward him. "That's an order—"

  "Let there be light," Don said, as if he hadn't heard. He turned on the ]upiter's forward searchlights. And gaped.

  So did Robinson, standing beside him now.

  "If this is all a dream,'' Don said plaintively, "why can't there be more girls?"

  Caught in their spotlight beams, the hull of the unknown spindle-form ship stood out in gleaming detail, pied with what appeared to be scabs of metal plates. On its side was the designation PROTEUS. And beneath that, the same logo he wore on his uniform sleeve: ASOMAC.

  "She's one of ours, all right," he said finally. "But I've never seen a ship like that." God, it was enormous… it was beautiful. But how—?

  "No response to hails," Judy said.

  "I'm getting inconsistent life signs," Maureen Robinson said, "but they may be sensor ghosts."

  "Her computer could still be up." John worked at the copilots' console, his objections forgotten. "I'll try standard docking codes."

  Ahead of them a docking ring on the ship's immense side came to life; lights illuminated the aperture that gave access to the ship's airlock as it rotated open.

  Don guided the Jupiter toward it, passing a smaller secondary ring. Moored there already was another, far smaller craft; its sinuous, anthropomorphic lines were not even vaguely like anything he'd ever seen. "That's not one of ours."

  "Bovs," Maureen said, "that's not even human."

  Chapter Eleven

  LüBlhing the corridors of the lower deck, Don found Penny Robinson at work repairing a monitor as she emoted into the cam/watch on her wrist: "As a part of her enslavement, the Brave Space Captive, Penny Robinson, is forced to utilize her skills—" She broke off as she heard footsteps, and turned abruptly toward him. "Identify yourself, soldier," she said, hiding her embarrassment behind a halfhearted scowl.

  He came to attention smartly. "West, Major, United Global Space Force, requesting permission to see the prisoner."

  The muffled sound of something smashing into a wall punctuated his words. This was the place where they'd locked Smith up, all right.

  Penny stepped aside, poker-faced. "Proceed, Major West."

  Don smiled, and threw in a wink as he moved past her to the door. He was glad the kids were doing okay. Behind him he heard her mutter, "Ouch. Could he be any cuter? I don't think so…"

  "Breathe, Penny, breathe," her little brother said, as he passed her in the hall.

  Don's smile faded as he entered Smith's cell. The room's interior had been completely trashed, it looked like the robot had been in here. He was surprised Smith had the strength to throw a tantrum that big.

  Smith sat in a chair, looking indignant, as if all the destruction had been done by poltergeists. "These quarters are totally unacceptable," he said

  Don ignored him, tossing the bundled fieldsuit he carried onto the cushions beside Smith. "We're going to check out the probe ship. Maybe we can figure out how the) got here. And how to get home."

  Smith settled himself more deeply in his seat. "Ta-ta. Have a wonderful trip." He bent his head at the door.

  "You're coming with us," Don said, feeling Smith's sarcasm peel his nerves like fingernails on a blackboard.

  Smith laughed once "Out of the question," he said. "I'm a doctor, not a space explorer."

  Don crossed the room in two strides, caught Smith by the front of his coveralls, and dragged him up out of his seat. "What you are is a murdering saboteur," he said furiously, "and I am not leaving you on this ship so you can do more harm than you've already caused!"

  Smith pulled back, his jaw set. "I absolutely refuse — "

  Don jerked him closer. "Give me an excuse to kill you. Please," he whispered He let go, holding Smith with his gaze until he was absolutely sure Smith believed he meant every word.

  Smith smoothed his rumpled clothing. He smiled, as if they had been discussing the weather, and picked up the fieldsuit. "Black always was my color," he said, looking up again. His smile widened like a stain.

  * * *

  John entered the robot bay and took a plasma rifle out of the weapons locker. "Deactivate safety," he said

  "Voiceprint confirmed," the gun's microprocesser answered. "Rifle is armed" A small light blinked from red to green.

  "Crush."

  John spun around with the rifle ready in his hands His heart lurched as he saw the robot come through the doorway, waving its arms like a berserker.

  "Crush! Kill! Destroy!" the robot blared.

  John raised the gun, taking dead aim at the machine's control nexus. He almost fired, blasting it apart—would have, if the conditioning that had made him an expert marksman had not been so complete; if his father had not been so good, at everything.

  He hesitated the extra fraction of a second, reconfirming his target—and saw the robot roll to a stop. Saw Will step out from behind it, hacker's deck in hand.

  John lowered the rifle as if it suddenly weighed a ton. He stared at his son in disbelief. Will pulled a tim microphone from his deck, and lifted it to his lips.

  "Crush. Kill. Destroy," Will said

  "Crush! Kill! Destroy!" the robot echoed

  Will leaned familiarly on its humanoid carapace, and began to point out jury-rigged modifications. "I hacked into his CPU, bypassed his main operating system and accessed his subroutines." He looked up into his father's eyes. "He's basically running on remote control." / saved all your lives, and you didn't even thank me! Look

  at what I did! Look at me, Dad—! Will held his gaze, until John was the one who abruptly looked away.

  "Will…" John began, trying to find a smile, "I know I haven't—"

  Don West entered the room then, and said, "Professor, we're ready."

  John glanced at West and frowned, before he looked back at his son. I know you need me… But I have to remember the big picture … I have to protect you, and keep our family alive. That's what being a parent means. Will stared at him with silent resignation. "We'll talk later, son," he said wearily.

  He walked past Will and the robot, shouldering his gun as he went out of the room with West.

  Will watched in silence as his father left him behind, again.

  Why couldn't he be big enough to use a gun and go with his
father like Don West, facing the same dangers, protecting him… doing something that would make Dad need him enough that he'd never leave him behind again. He hated feeling small, and helpless, and useless—He bit his lip.

  He glanced at the robot, at its enormous, solid strength hovering protectively at his side. He turned, staring at it a moment longer. And then he input a command on his deck.

  "Take care of my dad, okay, Robot?"

  The robot rolled obediently out the door, following his father and West.

  His voice still sounded very- small in the vast, echoing space of this room. He hated being small, and useless. But now that he had the robot, he'd never have to be small and useless again.

  Chapter T ulj e I v e

  H long, dark corridor lay waiting for them as the Proteus's airlock cycled open. Don activated the helmet light on his environmental suit; glanced back over his shoulder at the Jupiter's airlock hatch before he took the first step into the unknown. Judy followed on his heels, with Smith behind her. John Robinson brought up the rear, to make sure Smith didn't cut and run.

  And behind them all, incongruously, came the robot that was responsible for their being in this mess.

  He shook his head. No … It hadn't been responsible. It was just a machine. Smith had reprogrammed it, that was all. The robot followed their orders now, and it gave them access to the Jupiter's analytical systems as they explored.

  "Oxygen levels are normal," he heard Judy say through his helmet speakers, as the airlock resealed behind them. "Microbe scans are negative. Clear."

  He raised a gauntleted hand, retracting his helmet into the yoke of his equipment harness, as the others did the same.

  Judy took a deep breath as they started on again. "The air is stale," she said. "Old."

  "That's the smell of ghosts…" Smith said.

  Don spotted a control panel set into the wall —clearly identifiable, even though its design was unusual. He went to it and input the security codes he knew, hoping for the best. He grinned, as the ship's CPU came online like it had been waiting for him. "I've got her onboard computer up… Whoa!" he breathed, staring at the displays.

  "Not working?" Robinson asked him, coming alongside.