'Of course you are. We'll see what we can do.'
It was 7.46 p.m.
Time passes so slowly,' she said.
'It depends how you look at it,' he replied.
*
She suffered a lot, thinks Ryan. Maybe I could have been more helpful.
He shrugs the thought off. A pointless exercise. There was nothing to be gained from self-recrimination. If one didn't like what one had done, the best thing was to decide not to do it again and leave it at that. That was the pragmatic attitude. The scientific attitude.
He looks down at the sleeping face of his wife and he smiles tenderly, touching the top of the container.
Even her condition improved once they had decided on their goal. She was basically a sensible woman. Her condition was no different from that of millions of others in the cities all over the world.
If they had taken one of the abandoned houses in the country, perhaps she would have been happier. But probably not. The isolation of the places beyond the cities was pretty unbearable.
She had liked the country as a girl, of course. That was partly what the dream was about, he guessed. That dream of hers. It had recurred relatively frequently. Not unlike that recurring dream of his.
He starts to pace between the containers, checking them automatically.
What is Time, after all? Do we meet in our dreams?
Pointless, mystical speculation.
*
Everything seems to be in order. The containers are functioning correctly. Ryan yawns and stretches, fighting off the sinking feeling in his stomach, ignoring the impulse to wake at least some of the occupants of the containers. They must not be awakened until the ship nears the planet that is its destination.
This is his penance, his test, his reward.
*
He has one last look at his sleeping boys, then he leaves the compartment and makes his way back to the main control cabin, sends his report back to Earth. All is well aboard the spaceship Hope Dempsey.
He writes a short entry in bis red log-book: On the other side of those thin walls is infinite space. There is no life for billions of miles. No man has ever been more alone.
*
In his cabin he takes three pills, disposes of his clothes, lies down.
As he begins to fall asleep a numb, desperate feeling tells him that tonight could be another of those nights of fitful, nightmareridden sleep. His routine demands that he sleep regularly. His health will break if he does not. Ryan lies on his narrow couch willing himself not to rise. The pills take effect and Ryan sleeps.
*
He dreams that he is in his office. It is dark. He has drawn the blinds to shut out the city noise and the view of the shining office towers opposite. He sits at his desk doing nothing. His hands are curled on the desk before him. The fingernails are torn. He is afraid.
He sees his wife in their flat. She is sitting in the darkened livingroom doing nothing.
He sees the bedroom in which his two sons lie sleeping under heavy sedation. The youngest, five-year-old Alexander, groans in his sleep, thrusts an arm, thin as a Foreigner's, out of the covers.
The arm dangles lifelessly down from his bed. He moans again.
His brother Rupert, who is twelve, lies on his back, eyes half open in his coma, staring blindly at the ceiling.
Back in the living-room Ryan sees the hunched figure of his wife. Again he sees himself sitting at his office desk staring into the half dark.
The family is waiting.
It is waiting in fear.
It does not know what to expect.
It knows that it will come from the others.
There is a scratching noise behind him. Ryan, half-paralysed with terror, turns slowly round to see what it is. He faces the window now. The blind is shaking, as if it were being blown by the wind. There is something behind the blind, something from outside, trying to enter the office. Ryan breathes in, holds his breath hard in some animal instinct to make himself so immobile that he will not be noticed. The blind shakes and shakes. A bony hand comes through the fabric, leaving no gap or tear, merely sliding through as if the material were smoke, or air. Ryan gazes at the hand. It belongs to an old woman, thin fingered, with pronounced tendons. The nails are painted red. There are three large rings; two diamond ones on the middle finger, a large amethyst on the slender, slightly curved, little finger. The hand appears to part the blind and a face peers in.
It is the face of an old woman. The wrinkled eyelids are carefully painted blue. The mouth is blackened, the lined cheeks powdered.
The old woman looks Ryan straight in the eyes and smiles, revealing yellow teeth, the edges slightly serrated with age. Ryan stares at the old woman. She continues to give him a confidential, intimate smile.
Her hand appears again, through another part of the blind.
It holds a pair of round, dark glasses.
The hand moved towards her face. It places the glasses over her eyes. Then the hand disappears through the blind again, leaving no gap or rent in it.
The old, blackened mouth continues to smile below the obliterated eyes.
Then the old woman's face, in the centre of the blind, begins to droop. The smile disappears, the lips begin to curve in a snarl.
Ryan is terrified.
He cannot scream.
He wants to say the following words: I—DID—NOT —but he cannot.
He cannot say the...
I __
He gets up from his bed. He is sweating. Naked, he leaves the cabin and walks down the bright corridor, enters the main control cabin and stares at the dancing, shifting indicators, at the ever busy computer.
He listens to the faint hum of the engine which is propelling the little pellet of steel through the void.
The computer has left him a message. He walks over to the machine and reads it.
It says: *******THERE IS A LOSS OF COMMUNICATION*******
******** *987654321000000000000'"
"/* ***********
****A LOSS**'"
"PLEASE ENSURE THAT IN FUTURE***INFORMATION IS GIVEN IN THE CORRECT FORM"
"REPEAT THE**CORRECT FORM"
WHAT IS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE******SITUATION REPEAT WHAT IS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE**
SITUATION REPEAT WHAT IS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE*******SITUATION "
"'"
"***************
Uncomprehendingly Ryan stares at the message.
What has gone wrong?
He has carried out his duties impeccably.
His days have been dedicated to order, the routine of the ship.
What has he done wrong?
Or—worse—what mistake can be occurring inside the computer?
He rips off the printout and reads it, seeking a clue. It has all the fluency and random lack of sense of a message from a ouija board.
And as he reads the computer spills out more: ******! CANNOT READ YOUR LAST MESSAGE UNLESS **********INFORMATION IS GIVEN IN THE CORRECT FORM"
"I CANNOT**ASSIST"
"PLEASE REPEAT YOUR LAST MESSAGE IN THE****CORRECT FORM****
Wearily Ryan organises the machine to rerun his last message.
It reads: *******TRIUMPHANT IN THE BLOODY SKY AND THE HUMAN FORM*IS NO MORE******************
I must control this sort of thing, thinks Ryan.
He wanders to the desk and takes out his red log-book. He writes: I must keep better control of things.
He struggles back to the computer and realises he has left his red log-book on the desk. He weaves back to the desk and carefully, but with great difficulty, puts the book in its drawer. Slowly, he closes the door. He returns to the computer. He erases the messages as best he can by condemning them to the computer's deepest memory cells. He walks wearily from the control room.
I must control this sort of thing,
I must forget these nightmares.
I must maintain order.
It could wreck the computer and then I would be finished.