The Castaways of Tanagar, page 1
26-01-2024
REPRIEVE FROM
ETERNAL LIFE
“We haven’t brought you hack from the freeze-chamber because we’ve had any change of heart about the treatment of condemned criminals. You’re aboard a starship—a long,long way from Tanagar.
“You’ve been sleeping for a long time. The only way you can actually find out if someone will last a million years is to try it. You were put away in the earliest years of the penal system—one of the first individuals sentenced to eternal life. We chose you partly for that reason—all the others we’ve revived come from a more recent period. You’ve been frozen for eight thousand years, Cheron Felix. You’re the oldest active human being in the universe
The
Castaways
of
Tanagar
Brian Stableford
DAW BOOKS, INC.
DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, PUBLISHER
1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
Table of Contents:-
Part One POISONED DREAMS
Part Two THE PRICE OF SURVIVAL
Part Three THE COST OF PROGRESS
Part Four MANIFOLD HORIZONS
Copyright ©, 1981, by Cosmic Perspectives, Ltd.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
COVER ART BY H. R. VAN DONGEN.
For Sheila
First Printing, April 1981
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. OFF. MARCA
REGISTRARDA. HECHO EN U.S.A.
PRINTED IN U.S.A
Part One
POISONED DREAMS
1
Burning.
The sensation drowned him. He had no thoughts, only the pain.
I—
It was the only concept that his mind could frame, but it was enough. There is a thought that is “I,” therefore “I” exist Without that desperate clutch at the straw of identity, he would have doubted.
Burning.
From a sea of yellow light swam shadows, Slowly taking shape. Rounded, coming closer.
Heads. Bending over. I am flat on my back. And burning.
There was sound, too. White noise that coalesced into slow syllables. He remembered that life was all questions, always questions. He could make no sense of the words, and tried to shake his head. He failed, but his eyes must have signaled. The heads bobbed, exchanging noises.
Too soon…
The first words that his mind understood told him nothing, and yet they seemed significant. They echoed in his mind, until their meaning was drowned by die next word uttered—a word directed at him; a word whose significance could not be doubted; a word trailing streamers of memory extending back into the further reaches of his clouded past
“Control.”
The word echoed, too, reverberating in his mind long after the shadows retreated into the pool of light and the light itself withdrew into tender darkness. It floated in his mind while the burning ebbed away, and like a magic wand it seemed to force the pain down and away, lightening his burden at every ritual repetition. Control of self; control of body; endorphin control; control of destiny…
Control.
Mens sana in corpora sano.
Men sana.
Poor sensual.
Victim of passion,
The seven temptations: recklessness, anger, and malice; ecstasy, love, and fear: and the seventh is…
The cloak of darkness swept across his consciousness, and the train of thought ran into a tunnel from which it never emerged. He did not follow through to the catalog of the virtues, nor did he complete the list of the temptations.
The name of the seventh temptation, which was pleasure, retreated into the safekeeping of memory.
2
He opened his eyes, blinking. The light was dull and orange-colored. There was a shadow to the left, but the source of the light was above it, and his eyes shied away from the prospect of looking directly into it He tried to move his arms, but they were trapped inside some kind of mesh. His fists clenched convulsively, but the tension was draining out of him into a flood of well-being. He felt numb and weightless.
“Do you know your name?” The voice Seemed slow, the words heavy. His thoughts were sluggish, and for a moment he did not know his name. He had to grope for it It was as if the sudden challenge had made him forget how to use his memory, how to use his mind.
Finally, he managed to say “Cheron.” The syllables were slurred, and it was not enough to satisfy him. After a long moment of hesitation, he added: “Cheron Felix.”
“Good,” said the voice. The voice was female. He forced his eyes to look to the left, despite the hazard of the direct light, and fought to resolve the image.
She had dark hair cut short, and was wearing some kind of uniform. She seemed to be moving slowly upward, but without getting anywhere. Relative to the light, she was motionless, and he decided that it must be an illusion. He had been drugged, obviously.
“Don’t try too hard,” she said, her voice unnaturally deep because of the sensation of slowed time. “You’ve had a rough ride. Can you count to ten?”
He counted to ten. Then he recited the alphabet. Then he started on the table of temptations, but she stopped him after six. He felt curiously relieved, as if he might not have been able to go on.
“Never mind that,” she said. “Can you remember the last thing that happened to you?”
He tried.
“You’ve been asleep for a long time,” she told him, trying to prompt his reluctant memory. “Asleep without dreaming.”
Eternal life.
Guilty of a crime of passion.
Eternal.…
He struggled to speak, and managed to say: “Why…T
She didn’t reply. Perhaps she hadn’t understood the slurred syllable, or perhaps there was just too much that might be said in response to such a simple question.
He struggled against the effect of whatever drug was confusing his thoughts and perceptions, but the moment his head began to clear, the pain began to rise inside him.
Control.
It was useless. He didn’t have control. Between the devil pain and the deep blue sea of synendorphin he was caught tight. The problem was beyond him, and he felt as if a shadow of shame had been cast across him.
Poor sensual. Born Hedonist.
He felt a sudden impulse to laugh.
“What is it?” asked the woman, obviously seeing some expression cross his face.
“Did I…serve out…my sentence?”
Eternal life!
“Yes,” she said, softly, and without humor. “In a manner of speaking, you did. You won remission.” She interrupted herself with a sardonic cough, and added: “For good behavior”
He didn’t see the joke. The phrase meant nothing to him. He tried to move his head, but couldn’t. Only his eyes were free to move.
“I can’t move,” he said.
She leaned across him, and put something in front of his face. At first, he couldn’t make out what it was, and was slightly alarmed by what he saw. Then he realized that it was a mirror. She was holding it so he could see himself, flat on his back, encased in some kind of rubbery web from the neck down. His head was supported by some kind of plastic molding. It had been shaved, and there were silver wires laid across his skull, disappearing into the flesh above and behind his ears.
“Sensory bypass,” he said, in a whisper. “You’ve wired my head. You can’t…” The effort required to go on was too great.
She removed the mirror.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have shown you. I’d forgotten. In your day…
She let the statement dangle.
Control.
He fought against the drug, and almost welcomed the tide of pain. He needed something sharp to feed his senses, something that would force his brain to be active.
“Illegal,” he muttered, his voice slurring again as he gasped out the word.
“It’s not illegal,” she said, slowly. “It hasn’t been illegal for quite some time. You served quite a stretch of your sentence. You’ve been asleep a long time. The wires are for piping dreams, not for changing your personality. There won’t be any destruction of memories. We only want to add to your repertoire of skills. New languages, new abilities, new responses. You’ll still be Cheron Felix. That won’t be changed.”
He knew she was lying. She was drawing false distinctions. What does it take to change a man’s identity? New skills, new responses, new dispositions. He’d still be Cheron Felix, but he wouldn’t be the same Cheron Felix. Whatever they sent along those silver wires, bypassing his senses, would go clean through the censorship devices by which he held something inviolate and constant that he called his mind, his personality, his essentia] self.
“You can’t.” was all that he could find to say.
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
Obviously, she could.
“Where am I?” he asked. His voice was twisted with fear now, though he had better control of the slurring effect induced by the drug.
“It’s not what you think,” she said. “We haven’t brought you back from the freeze-chamber because we’ve had any change of heart about the treatment of condemned criminals. We aren’t going to readjust you for life in our society. You’re aboard a starship—a long, long way from Tanagar.”
His immediate response, absurdly, was to think: That’s the uniform. Interstellar exploration.
“It wasn’t easy, bringing you around,” she said. “You’ve been sleeping for a long time. We weren’t entirely certain that we could revive you. There’s supposed to be no damage, physical or psychic, no matter how long you’re frozen, but there’s never been any real test of that supposition. The only way you can actually find out if someone will last a million years is to try it. You were put away in the earliest years of the penal system—one of the first individuals sentenced to eternal life. We chose you partly for that reason—all the others we’ve revived come from a more recent period. You’ve been frozen for eight thousand years, Cheron Felix. You’re the oldest active human being in the universe.”
He stared up into her face.
I ought to be stunned with astonishment, he thought, but “I’m not. What’s the difference between eight years and eight thousand in the vaults? Or is it the drug, protecting me from panic?
He decided, after a moment’s hesitation, that it wasn’t the drug. He really didn’t care.
He tried to remember that infinitely dreamless sleep, but couldn’t Naturally not All he could remember was the burning pain of returning consciousness. There had been no such pain when they put him away. The anesthetic had taken care of everything. There was no gap in his memory between the execution of the sentence and that brief sojourn in hell that was the moment of his reawakening. If they were to be decoupled in his memory, then it would have to be a conscious act of intervention. What could he interpose between them?
Eight thousand years.
Only the words. What else was there?
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Teresa Janeat. I’m an officer in Interstellar Exploration. You’re aboard the Sabreur, a special-project ship.”
“You’re the captain?”
“Starships don’t have captains. They don’t have crews, either. They have passengers, who work on projects.”
“You’re no Intel.”
“There’s an Intellectual on board, in charge of the project His name is Cyriac Salvador. You’ll meet him, in time.”
His gaze rested on the insignia that dressed the collar and shoulder of her tunic. They were, of course, quite meaningless so far as he was concerned.
“You’re just the one who gets things done,” he said, feeling more relaxed with every minute that passed. Both the pain and the cushioning effect of the drug had retreated a little now, leaving him a margin of existence that he could occupy in reasonable comfort and with moderately good control of his faculties.
Eight thousand years, he thought, calmly, is a dozen lifetimes for an Intel, forty for a sensual. Among my kind, my lifetime must be ancient history.
“You say there are others—from the vaults?”
“That’s right,” she said.
He realized that she wasn’t looking at him. She was studying something beyond his head—presumably the display panel of the medical monitor. He tried to detect some change in her expression that would tell him how he was faring, but her face was quite relaxed and impassive. She had good control, considering that she wasn’t an Intel. But then, she wasn’t a Hedon either. Striver through and through, he decided. Perfectly stable. Rumor said—had said, eight thousand years ago—that the ones who looked most relaxed, most perfectly composed, were the jeckles; but there always had to be exception. Teresa Janeat must be exactly what she seemed. There couldn’t be much scope for hydeyhigh on a starship.
“How many?” he asked.
’Twenty,” she replied. “You may see one or two of the others in time. Some freedom of movement will be permitted. The wires can be disconnected temporarily. The traction web is for exercising your muscles by induced calisthenics. It shouldn’t be necessary after the first few days—there’s been very little tissue wastage. Effectively, you’re almost as fit right now as you were when you were put away.”
“Not only eternal life,” he whispered, “but eternal youth.” He wanted to look around, but his head was held fast. All he could see was the ceiling and the light. The walls were quite featureless. All the display panels were above bis head, out of view. Life was going to be very boring, if he was intended to spend much time awake. The sensory bypass suggested, though, that there was no such intention. He would be drugged into trance while the wires fed him synthetic experience: powerful dreams that would take their place in the array of his memories, adding to his stock of skills and languages.”
“Languages!”
The incongruity of it had only just struck him.
“Yes,” she said, quietly. She was looking at him again, staring calmly into his eyes. “That’s right.”
“I’m on a starship,” he said, as though the words had suddenly turned deadly. “Where am I going?”
“A new world,” she told him. “As I told you, your sentence has been commuted. From eternal life—to exile.”
She reached out and touched something beyond the reach of his eyes. Immediately, he began to feel the change. The synendorphin was being fed directly into his bloodstream; now something else was substituting for it. His consciousness was being put out like a light bulb that was no longer necessary. He was being switched off.
He opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came out Apparently, she had found out what she needed to know.
He was alive, and his mind was working. She had been talking only to make sure. The information he had gleaned was a kind of bonus.
The impulse to scream some kind of insult died with the retreat of his consciousness. He could not have carried it out Teresa Janeat, however, noticed the brief flare in his eyes before they shut
Stupid sensual, she thought, her reactions dancing on the puppet strings of her educational programming. Victim of passion, Murderer.
3
Cyriac Salvador was hunched over his desk like a perching bird, the material of his jacket gathering at the shoulders into the suggestion of folded wings.
Deliberately ill-fitted, thought Teresa Janeat A petty symbol of unworldliness. How ironic that Intellectuals should be just as childish, in their way, as Hedonists.
She was, of course, committed to the view that the middle way was the best way—the only truly adult way. As Cheron Felix had correctly judged, she was Pragmatist through and through. Jeckling was not one of her vices. The only temptation to which she frequently fell prey was malice.
Salvador studied the screen before him for a few more seconds, and then placed his bony finger firmly on the PAUSE button.
’They’re all revived,” she said. “You have the data on Felix. I’ve just talked to him. He seems to be as well as can be expected.”
“Have you talked to Jerome?”
“Yes. He doesn’t like what we’re doing to him. The others, beyond token complaints, don’t really seem to care. It’s not costing them any effort, and it’s not particularly unpleasant—in fact, they appreciate the sweetening. It’s only to be expected that Jerome would feel different His only real thought is the attempt to analyze what it’s all for. I’ve never understood that. Why just one Pragmatist among nineteen Hedonists?”
“He’s supposed to become the leader,” said Salvador.
“He won’t. He’ll abandon the Hedonists and strike out on his own.”
“You underestimate his sense of soda] responsibility,** replied the Intellectual, dryly. “Also, his need for civilized companionship. Not to mention the extent of his self-confidence. He won*t abandon the Hedonists until he’s sure that it’s safe to do So—and that will be never, unless he’s forcibly separated from the others. Did you tell Felix how long he’s been frozen?”
“Yes. It didn’t bother him. I cut him off when he began to get too inquisitive about where he’s going, but I gave him enough data to give him a reasonable knowledge of his situation. He’s alarmed, for the moment, but he’ll soon come round to the same point of view as the others. Any kind of life is better than eternal life. Effectively, they’ve been brought back from the dead. What can they lose, even by dying again?”
