The Stowaway

Excerpt: A Science Fiction Novel

by Ben Easton

Copyright © 2002

*

In the middle of the clearing, there stood a pile of rocks.

*  *  *  *

Although at rest, there was a peculiar tension within.  At the bottom, there were three large boulders forming the basis of the foundation.  The rocks had been exactly positioned.  The pile consisted of variously shaped rocks and stones, some spherical, some irregular.  The structure was triangular, whether viewed from the side or from above – isosceles in every elevation.  The stack seemed to be pointing in a particular direction.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The progression from the base to the upper vertex was not random, nor was it simple.  Each stone had been selected with care and placed delicately within the structure.  Most pieces were held in place by gravity alone, but several of the prominent ones were cantilevered.  The colors of the rocks were intentional.  They matched the facing canyon walls which created the clearing.  The prominent stones, or keystones, one in the center of each of the three faces, were smoother than the rest – polished.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

In the late afternoon light, the landscape was set in a glowing bed of fire.  The keystones stood out in particular contrast, the minerals within emitted complimentary colors of the spectrum.  The stack of rocks defied the flatness of the valley floor – it was over four meters high.  Not even the wind knew the spaces between the stones.  The pinnacle was a small, ivory white marble.

*  *  *  *

It lay undisturbed in the silent stillness.

*

Chapter 1

Blackout

Opening his eyes was painful.  His head throbbed from his temples to the base of his skull, where the throb turned into a splitting and tearing sensation at the point where his shoulder blades and neck vertebrae meet.  This was more than a hangover.

Bern managed to roll over on his back, relieving part of the pain.  He had been lying with his right elbow bent under his stomach; his head had been cocked toward his breast, restricted by some dull metallic surface.  How he had assumed this unflattering face-down posture was beyond his recall.  Bern was used to such blackouts, but he was not accustomed to the literal blackout in which he found himself when he opened his eyes.

At least, he thought that he had opened his eyes.  Blinking didn’t enlighten him any, so he resorted to manual inspection.  Bringing his right hand to his head and wincing slightly at the prickly sensation of an arm returning from “sleep,” induced by poor circulation, Bern groped for his eyes.  It was so dark that he needed to start from the top of his head for orientation.  He would have flunked a sobriety test for sure; he didn’t even attempt to zero in on his nose or eyes.  As he located his forehead and slowly drew his fingers down to his eyes, he made an intermediate discovery: a huge knot above his right eyebrow.  Moving fingertips lightly, he came to his eyebrows, eyelashes and, yes, they were indeed open.  They were if he were actually awake.

Bern didn’t need to pinch himself to assure himself of this.  Just a slight turning of his head shot a very adequate pain down his spine.  He was awake!

“Where in the hell am I?” Bern mumbled in a cracking, practically inaudible tone.  His cottonmouth told him a good idea of where he had been, but his mind could hardly focus on his present whereabouts.  He knew one thing: he was alone in a pitch black room.  If there were anybody else with him, they were in worse shape than he and could not answer.

Grunting and gasping for a deep breath of air, Bern maneuvered himself onto his elbows, then into a sitting position.  He gratefully acknowledged the carpet under him, and he realized that a hard floor would have compounded his body ache.  Proceeding to a kneel and then a very unsteady stance, Bern was greeted by another telltale of too much intoxication: nausea and dizziness.  Before falling right down again – in bewilderment – he saw stars.

“Wait a second!” he choked, after fighting back a violent urge to throw up.  He thought to himself that these weren’t the “stars” that you see in those old cartoons.  They weren’t the random scurrying of points of light that swirl, disappear, and reappear in your field of vision, like when you get hit on the head, or when you stand up too quickly.  These looked like real stars!

It had been several minutes since coming to, and Bern was certain that his eyes had adjusted to whatever light was present.  There was still only the velvet stillness of pitch black.  He looked around, unable to make out anything . . . furniture or windows, much less stars.  So, taking a deep breath, he attempted to stand again.  He wavered, but his knees were locked and his hands were out, ready to grasp anything which could offer an anchor for his balance.  Not finding any grips, he slowly backed up, remembering the metallic bulkhead which gave him the crick in his neck.  Yes, it was a wall, cool to the touch, and, oddly enough, it seemed to be slightly curved.

With his nausea temporarily contained, Bern decided to focus his attention on finding a light switch.  He turned towards the wall and slowly shuffled along its breadth, sweeping his right hand along its surface like a radar, and using his left hand as a guide.  Immediately his hand sensed a strip of molding; it was circular.   It obviously wasn’t a door, so he continued his slow rightward movement, groping hopefully for a light switch.  He was growing tired of looking but seeing nothing.

Suddenly the stars returned.  This time Bern was sufficiently sure that it was not dizziness . . . he was not “seeing stars.”  In the second it took him to confirm that the stars were in a circular pattern and that they were within the bounds of the molding he had just discovered, he came to the mind-blowing reality of his whereabouts.  This nearly caused him yet another fall to the floor.

Bernard Fortune Hill was on some sort of spacecraft, and the spacecraft was apparently in deep space!  He had seen stars.  The molding encircled a viewport, and, as he passed it, the field of stars had become visible for the second time.  The obscure constellations and relatively dim stars visible through the portal were the only sources of light available.  Bern welcomed the feeble light instinctively, though, for it was his only visual link to reality.

As he took another deep breath, he continued to his right, still in search of some toggle switch that could be flipped to reveal his closer surroundings.  Bern Hill was not enjoying the mystery or the excitement of his one discovery.  He was too busy racking his brain, straining to remember what had happened the night before.  That is – if it were now morning.  How could one tell what time it was in deep space?!  Brushing his sleeve back, he pushed the button on his watch – nothing.  He must have broken it somehow during his little adventure.  How long had he been unconscious?  Now he really had something to worry about, not to mention his physical discomfort.

Perhaps three meters had been covered, which included a second viewport, by the time Bern’s hand finally came to rest on what felt like a light switch.  After only the briefest hesitation, he flipped it.  Nothing happened.  Wait . . . a strange silence sank in, making the room a deeper black it seemed.  When Bern flipped the switch again, a faint whirring sound resumed.  He hadn’t been conscious of it until he had triggered its absence.  Whatever it was, it was not a light.  At this point, he began to worry about all sorts of imagined sounds and non-sounds.  Only a few seconds had passed before he came across a panel of switches.  This was fortunate because Bern was very susceptible to audio hallucinations in this virtual sensory deprivation tank, especially since he was, at the moment, also deprived of his short-term memory.

This time he braced himself mentally for some unexpected sort of reaction to be set off by his finger tips, and he flipped the first switch.  A ring of neon lights set into the wall bulkhead just above the floor were lighted.  They gave off a soothing glow as they outlined the room.  Happy at the results, Bern flicked another switch.  The contrast blinded him momentarily, and he slammed his eyelids shut.  The pain returned to his eyes, and his head throbbed in a renewed wave of rhythmic hurt.  It was a couple of minutes before he could keep his eyes fully open: that switch had activated the full array of overhead lights.  Soon, though, Bern began to survey his surroundings.

He was in some sort of bedroom.  Perhaps “quarters” was more accurate, for on the opposite wall there were three sets of bunks and three plain wardrobes with double doors.  Some basic graphics adorned the walls; there was no sign of frills or personal touches.  There were no chairs or desks, although one couch was set against the outer wall.  It was the sole piece of furniture on the curved wall.  Bern wondered how he had ended up on the floor, missing three bunks and a sofa.  But what really bothered him was that he still had no idea where he was.

Then he noticed his clothes.  What in the world was he doing wearing a tuxedo?!!  He recognized that it was his own tuxedo; the cufflinks were his, too – the fancy pearl ones that his father had given him.

It was the greenish bottle on the floor, though, half hidden behind the far side of the sofa, which caused something in his mind to click.  Bern remembered.

Chapter 2

The Reception

Chateau Lagrange 2124.  He had promised to go find one of Jared’s favorite wines and return for a friendly toast.  That particular bottle was now lying on its side, halfway across the room – unopened.

Jared and Judy . . . Mr. and Mrs. Jared Sendi.  They were married in a grand ceremony at a palace in the old world city of Barcelona, Spain.  Then, in the style of Jared Sendi, the entire wedding party was shuttled by hover-jet to Morocco where the Sendi spaceyacht, the E.S. Foudroyant, was moored.  Of course, the Foudroyant was not large enough to hold all the reception guests at one time, so there were tents erected especially for the occasion, and no expense was spared.

The wedding had been at three in the afternoon and had lasted just under one hour.  This gave the guests plenty of time to be ushered to the hover-port and shuttled in daylight.  It was typical Sendi luck that the weather was delightful across the western Mediterranean that particular Saturday on May 10.

The more than one thousand guests, requiring the majority of the Gibraltar fleet of hover-jets, issued into the port of Melilla; the city was nestled geographically into the northern coast of Morocco, but it was politically governed by Spain.  When the men and women arrived and filtered off the caravan of hover-jets at the northern edge of the port, they were subsequently transferred to the awaiting mag-rails adjacent to the Sendi Dock.  These linked cars fulfilled the last and shortest leg of the trip, which was under five minutes.

In a world in which people of means were accustomed to being transported here and swept there, it was not too unwieldy, especially in such a deluxe and choreographed manner.  It helped that there was a warm and pleasant afternoon glow emanating from the sculpted lowland mountains, the ecological threshold between the remote and harsh North African desert and the salty spray of the Mediterranean Sea.

When they finally descended to the cool tiles of the plaza in front of the spaceport complex, the view was breathtaking.  What had once been the outback of a third world country had become the backyard and playroom of the super-rich.  The landscape, as far as the eye could see, was terraced and stepped according to the natural mountains and canyons.  The arid environment did not seem to inhibit the incredible gardens and lawns which were interspersed between the buildings and the concrete roads and pathways.  Enormous financial undercurrents were visible only in the result: a crystalline garden of Eden.  The several native guides were quite unnecessary as the colorful stream of dignitaries and debutantes experienced no difficulty in locating the site of the reception.  The crowd of people, although it had just traveled eight hundred kilometers in barely over an hour, was still fresh and buoyant.  The Earth Ship Foudroyant was perched between several freshly cut fields of grass; it was skirted in a spray of immaculately starched tents.

The traditional wedding and festival attire of the ladies and gentlemen was strangely anachronistic next to the gleaming curves of the starships.  The elegant crafts, many of which were sprawled outside their hangars, spotted the gigantic field like sleeping giants, awaiting the opportunity to spring to life at the orders of their masters.

*******

Bern’s headache did not prevent him from smiling as he remembered the childlike anticipation on the faces of the attendees, his included.  The guest list was comprised of friends from every facet of the bride’s and groom’s lives, including sports figures, royalty, elected officials, businessmen, and entertainers.  Most of them were accustomed to gala events, but one wouldn’t know it by the way they practically skipped across the grass to the reception tents.  They were like children attending their first circus.  men and women such as these are not easily impressed, but they knew that their host was capable of stunning even the most seasoned of party-goers.

Bern remembered arriving at the docks to join the other reception guests in the crossing.  He had not been invited to the wedding, only to the reception, as had about three quarters of the guests.  He resented this about his old friend, Jared.  They had grown up together and had attended the same university, and this seemed to Bern to be plenty of reason to be included in the wedding invitations – if not in the wedding party itself.  He conveniently evaded the responsibility of considering the terms on which his and Jared’s friendship had been for the past several years; they had not been good by any stretch of the imagination.

For the moment, though, Bern looked past his social behaviour and enjoyed the feelings of self-pity and resentment.  He did not bother identifying the methods he used to get himself invited to the reception.  That would spoil his little game and sour his self-image.  This was something Bernard Fortune Hill could not afford, for the deficiency in his self-esteem was overshadowed only by the red ink in his bank accounts; he was virtually bankrupt already without the added burden of a round-trip ticket to Spain from New York City.

Why he thought he needed to appear at such an affair was not clear to Bern; subconsciously, though, there was a political reason.  Also, he was a human being.  Human beings were social animals, and therefore it was necessary for him to invest in social occasions.  Safely out of reach of his conscious mind, however, and buried beneath the strata of rationale, was the real reason: Bern hoped to take advantage of his implied association with Jared and come away with some sort of material gain.

There was an even deeper aspect of this game.  It was something which, it is doubtful, Bern knew himself.  Why would he jeopardize his financial security to such an extent as to arrange to be guest at a party halfway around the world?  Granted, travel was cheaper than in the old days, and halfway around the world was as accessible as a trans-continental flight to Los Angeles used to be.  There had to be some other motivation.

Well, the matters of bank accounts and airfares didn’t seem relevant as Bern grew farther and farther from Earth at several times the speed of light.  This was more than the trip he had bargained for, and he was able to turn it into fuel for his resentment towards Jared Sendi.  From Bern’s point of view, his existence on the Foudroyant, as well as his generally horrible feelings, had to be due to someone else’s mistakes.  He was not inclined to claim responsibility to any significant degree.

*******

Bern had slumped down against the wall under the view portal.  His unkempt figure gave him a Raggedy Andy look – the subconscious pout gave him, ironically, a look of an older man than his twenty-seven years should have, and he had long acquired a paunch through physical inactivity.

His head reeled from divergent inputs.  On the negative side, he had given up hope of being home on time or making any of his few appointments.  On the positive side, Bern smiled at the thought of his new contacts – that is, the ones he could remember prior to his blackout.  On the negative, he reasoned that he must have gotten quite drunk early on, for his memory didn’t register more than two hours into the reception.  On the positive, he had met several interesting women – one particularly gorgeous girl . . . .  Oh, then the negative side again: had he made a complete ass of himself?  Bern instinctively winced at the “probably” in his mind, and he turned his attention back to the hover-jet ride.

“May I order you a drink?” the conservatively dressed young man asked the woman at the rail.  Bern had noticed her as he was scoping out the aft deck and had paused to muster the courage to approach her.  When he moved in to introduce himself, he felt his confidence slip, and he could only manage a stock opener as the young brunette turned.

Bern was already on his third drink, and he tried hard to act fresh and nonchalant with the young lady.  She must have approved of his manners though, because she answered in the affirmative.

“Yes, please.  I’m drinking a scotch and soda.”  Bern turned, hailed a waiter and ordered: one scotch, and one gin martini.  By the time he turned back to the rail, Bern had successfully hidden the smug little smile that he flashed to nobody in particular to signal his first contact of the evening.

“May I introduce myself?  My name is Bernard Hill, but please call me Bern.”  He extended his hand to the woman.

“Bonnie Teachworth, here.  Pleased to meet you.”  Her accent was British, or Irish, or from somewhere in the U.K.  Anyway, Bern’s attention was on her slim figure, not her heritage.  Her crisp, light gray dress gave her an almost martial appearance, like that of a naval officer.  The rest of her features were distinguished; it was clear that she came from a wealthy family.

Bowing slightly, Bern proceeded with small talk.  He consciously avoided his own background, for he considered it uninteresting and without any real sparkle.  And so he talked with Bonnie, hoping that she might reveal her situation.  He did not think about it in these terms, but Bern Hill was fortune hunting.  Evidently, all the joking that his father had done earlier in Bern’s impressionable years had registered: “If you can’t make it son, marry it!”  The jokes were doubly barbed: one laugh was directed at women as convenience, the other at men who were financially incapable.  Bernard Hill was not aware of the nature behind this humor.  He merely rode the custom as he saw it.  Although his inquisitive nature tended to make him wonder how things worked; this curiosity rarely turned inward or dealt with human relations.

On the surface, Bern would simply think: it’s a waste of time to worry about why I don’t want to talk about me.  Let’s talk about you.  How can I convince you to let me take you out for drinks and dancing.  He recalled the rest of his conversation with Miss Teachworth.

“Hmm, it’s incredible —  We must be making 400 knots and yet I can light your cigarette on this open deck.”  As she allowed him to light her cigarette, Bern took the opportunity to check her left had for a ring.  He noticed the absence of any ring, and his interest instantly increased.  Bonnie took a deep drag from her cigarette and exhaled almost immediately – the smoke rose several feet above their heads, became fragmented and was sucked out of the envelope.  Bern thought he sensed some agitation in the way she aggressively took another drag.

“The force field envelopes have always amazed me,” Bern continued in a genuine tone.  “The sound of the rushing air should be practically deafening at this speed, yet we can’t hear anything except conversation on the deck and the tinkling of cocktail glasses.  I wish I had the understanding to design such a con–”

“Do you have any idea how long this trip will take?”  Her intent was, undoubtedly, to change the subject.  She shifted her stance distractedly and looked out over the ocean.  Bern decided to oblige her by sparing the technical talk, and his interest dropped by a discreet, although subconscious, degree.

“I believe we’ll arrive about an hour before sunset.  You see, the time zone in Morocco is . . . .”  Bern found himself trailing off as the woman showed visible signs of being bored.  She slouched unattractively, inhaled, and then exhaled almost directly at him.  Before he could even think of what kind of treatment he was apparently getting, the woman moved across the deck toward a group of youngish executive types that were obviously having a damn good time.  Bern chose to ignore the brush off and gulped down the remainder of his drink.  He needed to move about, so he decided to go below and find the head.  Maybe he needed to straighten his tie.

Chapter 3

The Stowaway

An uncertain amount of time passed as Bern continued his recall of the wedding reception.  The now vivid memories of the party cut through the discomfort of the present memory train, and, when followed to their eventual destination, reminded Bern of the painful and awkward behaviour which he had been exhibiting of late.  His reverie dissipated as the cumulative negativity forced him back to the reality of his present.

He straightened his back as he sat against the bulkhead, inhaled as deeply as he could, and then sighed.  Self-pity overcame him as he softly and consciously knocked his head dejectedly against the wall.  What would Jared say when he realized there was an unwanted passenger on board?  Bern didn’t want to face the wrath of his old friend; he knew all too well how doubly unwelcome he would be.

A puzzled look settled on his face for a moment as he wondered why he hadn’t yet been detected.  Perhaps Sendi knew of his presence and . . . .  No! Nobody in his right mind would allow someone to tag along in his staryacht – especially on his honeymoon! Bern suddenly felt very, very small.

Fear overtook Bern as he faced the fact that he would have to get up, compose himself, walk to the bridge and reveal himself.  He felt a tangible anxiety as the guilt twisted his gut.  With another forced sigh, Bern rose to his feet and steadied himself.  He still felt very nauseous.  Correctly inferring that the door beyond the third set of bunks led to a bathroom, he walked through the door and flipped a light switch to find the sink.

All the accessories in the fully stocked washroom were battened down in the style of an old ocean-liner or sailing yacht of Earth.  Bern instantly reacted to his bloodshot and crusty reflection in the mirror.  He looked as bad as he felt.  Glancing to the shower stall at his left, he momentarily considered taking a shower.  God knew he needed one.  He snapped back and realized though that he was not in a hotel, and he had not “checked in.”  With no warning, Bern threw up.

Tears began to run down his unshaven face and mix with the vomit in the other-wise spotless sink.  He recoiled at the smell of stale and undigested whiskey and wine, and other unrecognizable party tidbits.  After several minutes, Bern was able to straighten up a bit and wash his face.  His eyes were still moist, but he actually felt some relief.  A short search through the teak cupboard produced a toothbrush and some toothpaste; they looked new, and he didn’t hesitate to use them.  After he was done, he splashed water on his face, took several sips, and washed the sink out.

As he walked back into the quarters, Bern combed his hair by running his damp fingers through his hair.  He hadn’t wanted to soil any of the monogrammed towels he had seen in a drawer.  Using a full-length mirror on the side of one of the wardrobes, he tucked in his shirt and tried to figure out how to hide a wine stain.  He brushed off his jacket.  Although wrinkled, the tuxedo gave Bern a certain dignity that he knew he would soon need.

He walked to the door of the quarters, hesitated, and turned back for moment.  As to what he would say to Jared, Bern didn’t have a clue.  Then, once again, he recalled the reason he was actually on the Foudroyant.  He walked over to the couch, leaned down, and picked up the unopened bottle of wine that had been the object of his errand some unknown amount of time in the past.  Somehow this protected him.  Practically hugging the bottle, Bern took a deep breath, pressed the keypad which controlled the door, and then moved out into the corridor.

Before he had time to compose or rehearse an excuse, Bern found himself face to face with a distinguished, white-haired gentleman with heavy eyebrows and a permanent tan.  The man had just walked through a doorway not three meters from the one through which Bern had just come.  Startled and practically frozen for an immeasurable moment, the two men simply stared at each other.  Bern might have been concerned about scaring the older man to the point of a coronary, but his own chest seemed ready to explode.  Bern was unable to move or to say anything.  He had been prepared to see only Jared and Judy.  This new face removed the last vestige of balance and decorum that he had managed to regain.

“Who, in God’s name, are you?!!” the older man asked with an obvious note of disdain and disbelief.  “And what are you doing on my ship?”  The man’s eyes moved to the wine bottle clutched in Bern’s hands; he blinked curiously.  As he uttered this, Bern correctly figured that he was, in fact, staring at the captain of the Foudroyant.  At the same moment, he happened to notice an insignia on the man’s jumpsuit confirming this.

“I . . . my name is . . . uh, my . . . —”

“Mr. Sendi will not be pleased.”  The captain’s voice cut through Bern like a knife and silenced him.  “Speak up, boy!  Who are you?”

My name is Bernar—” and again Bern was cut off, this time by another voice.

“Captain?  Captain Van Leeuwen, what is going on back there?”  Bern recognized the warm, breathy voice of Judy Hour – that is, Judy Sendi, and it managed to calm him slightly.  “I hear voices!”  The woman’s voice had come from an intercom just inside the door.

“Believe it or not, Mrs. Sendi, we seem to have a visitor!?!”  The man’s steady and imperious voice trailed off to an almost inaudible whisper.

“What?!!”  Judy Sendi’s voice was devoid of any control.  She repeated and got no answer, for Captain Van Leeuwen had regained his composure and had proceeded to escort Bern to the bridge.  The trip up the corridor seemed to Bern as if he were being escorted to the painful end of a firing squad.  As the airlock door slid smoothly open with a whoosh and then clicked shut again, Bern recoiled unconsciously, as if in reaction to the cocking of a trigger.

Jared Sendi spun around in his “v-chair,” entirely unprepared for the sight before him.  A flash of the slightest confusion passed over his face before he sat bolt upright, staring at the absurd figure of Bernard Hill, standing there in a disheveled and soiled tuxedo. Anger and disbelief were replaced in Jared’s facial expression by the one look which delivered the most pain and which stirred the deepest guilt in Bern: utter contempt devoid of sympathy.

“Jared, I . . . I don’t know what to say . . .” was all Bern could manage.  Even this was not very articulate as he half-turned toward Judy with a pitiful look of surrender, his eyes sadder than any she had ever seen.  Judy was herself barely recovered from the shock of the moment.  She was not so much unwilling as unable to say or do anything at this point.  With effort, she tore her eyes away from Bern’s forlorn figure and gently indicated to Bern that he should direct his plea to Jared.  Inwardly, she was thankful that she didn’t have to preside over what would surely be a very messy and tormented situation.

“Bern! – . . . What in the galaxy are you doing here?!!”  Jared glanced quickly at his wife and then at the captain, who was still standing next to Bern, ominously at attention, as if he were a sentry who was escorting a prisoner to death row.  Jared seemed to be looking at them to see if his own senses were really registering the data which he still could not quite believe.

He pulled himself up with a sudden burst of energy by gripping the control arms of the v-chair and practically launching himself across the room.  Judy had never seen that look on Jared’s face before; she was on the verge of intercepting him before he could do bodily harm to their visitor.  She relaxed slightly when Jared’s look slowly gave way to a bizarre smile – it was not one of delight, but of dark amusement.  He laughed and shook his head slowly.  Judy and Captain Van Leeuwen weren’t convinced that the situation had transformed into one of levity, and they remained tense.

Bern was nervously turning the bottle of wine around and around, trying not to look directly into anybody’s eyes, yet searching the expression on Jared’s face for a signal that he could relax.  He was also feeling another resurgence of his nausea, so he decided to jump in at the sound of Jared’s laughter.  “I know what you’re —”

“No!”  Jared’s voice cut through the liquid heaviness of the air.  He added in an exasperated tone, turning to sit once again in his chair.  “No, Bernard, you don’t.  I doubt seriously that you know what I am thinking right now.”  Showing still only the barest willingness to let up on the pressure, Jared prompted Bern with a minute nod.  Bern saw only the stern poker face which at least gave him the relief of familiarity.  He had seen this look on his old friend before. It was a look for which Sendi was famous; it signaled that he had assumed his most notable role: that of a shrewd businessman.

“No, Jared, You’re right.  I have no idea what you are thinking.  But . . . – I would like to have the opportunity to explain myself.”  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and continued to turn the bottle around and around.

“Go ahead, Bern.  I wouldn’t miss this for the Sun.”  Jared seemed to relax a little more as he settled into his vari-chair.  He tapped the left control panel with his index finger, and the chair silently transformed into a chaise lounge.  With a leisurely gesture, he motioned to Bern to begin his explanation, and at the same time he tapped out a short combination of commands with his right index finger on the right panel.  It was the bridge monitor recorder.  He saw that Bern was hesitating and that he was staring at his chair control panel.

“Oh, this?  I just instructed the computer to record our conversation – for posterity and, perhaps, . . . amusement.”  Jared was now sitting up comfortably, with one leg outstretched and the other bent at the knee.  Judy and the captain took this as a cue to get comfortable themselves, and they moved for the first time in several minutes.  Judy sat in one of the three vari-chairs next to the bridge viewing port.  Jared was in one of two vari-chairs on the starboard side of the bridge – at the computer and communications station.  Captain Van Leeuwen chose to remain standing, although he decided to lean against the bulkhead on the port side of the cabin.  He crossed his arms and peered uneasily across the room.  He knew vaguely that he, too, was on the witness stand.

“Proceed, Bern.  We’re all waiting.  And do put down that goddamned bottle!  This is no time for a drink.”

“I wasn’t going to take a –.  I mean, I didn’t bring that here to have –.  Oh, shit!”  Bern took a deep breath and sighed deeply.  He shifted his weight again, still clutching the wine bottle to his breast.

“Look, Jared, . . . I want to be here much less than you want me to be here.  It just so happens that my being here is accidental.  That’s why I brought this bottle out here with me.  When I came to – you see, I had passed out – I remembered that I had come on board your ship to get something.  Actually, I didn’t remember that right away.  At the party . . . uh, at your weeding reception, I was pretty drunk.”  He glanced around the room briefly to see if his understatement had been too blatant.  There was no hint of pity or sympathy.  Their eyes all registered the same thing: obviously.

“Go on,” Jared urged.

“Well, I was drinking and enjoying myself, and I recall going over to congratulate the two of you on your marriage.”  Bern turned his eyes on Judy, but she remained still, like a judge holding court.  “I remember that you – the two of you – were talking to some friends.  I couldn’t understand you; you were speaking French I think.  Anyway – one of you turned and asked me to go get some wine, for a toast or something.  So, I went -”

Judy suddenly interrupted, her voice was icy.  “Bern, it was I that asked you to go in search of some wine.  Do you know why?”  She didn’t wait for his response.  “It was because you were embarrassing us in front of —”

“Judy, please.”  Jared had cut her off with a gentle, but firm, voice.

Bern had been standing for fifteen minutes by this time, and he was beginning to feel faint.  Although he stood on the softly lit command bridge of one of the most advanced spacecrafts ever built, it seemed to Bern that he was seated under a spotlight in a police station.  He was sweating profusely, and this caused him to imagine that his interrogation was taking place under exceedingly bright lamps.

His eyes were fixated on the bobbing motion of Jared’s slippers.  Bern didn’t know whether the rapid wagging was nervousness or just habit, but the movement drew his attention nevertheless.  He was too stressed to acknowledge the fine silk out of which they were made; they simply provided a marginal distraction from the oppressive stillness of the ship’s bridge.

Bern was about to resume his explanation – Jared had nodded for him to continue – but he found himself unable to focus on the faces of his inquisitors.  He looked apologetically toward Judy and was opening his mouth when his legs gave out.  He fainted.

Captain Van Leeuwen reacted swiftly, but was unable to catch Bern in time to prevent the young man’s head from hitting the floor.  Jared and Judy both sprang out of their chairs to kneel beside the captain, who took Bern and laid him out straight on the floor.  All three of them knew first aid; it was Judy, though, that assumed command for the first time in the proceedings.  She abruptly ordered her husband and the captain to lift Bern up and place him on one of the forward vari-chairs.  She quickly punched the position controls to make the chair into a sort of bed.

“Captain, please wet a towel with cold water.”  Turning to her husband, she ordered softly, “Honey, you get the first aid kit.  He doesn’t appear seriously hurt, but just in case.”  She gave Bern a quick and thorough examination.  She inspected first his pulse and his breathing rate, then his eyes to check for abnormal dilation.  Jared returned immediately with the first aid kit and opened it – more for his wife’s convenience than out of consideration for Bern’s welfare.  She went straight for a small electrical device that looked like a voltmeter with several sets of fine wires attached.  Placing them on Bern’s head in precise positions, she flipped the instrument on and waited.

The captain returned to the bridge, crossed to the vari-chair and awaited instructions.  He held a damp towel wrapped around some cubes of ice.  While Judy was studying the digital readout on the meter, Sendi motioned the captain over to the console.  Judy was too intent to notice what they were discussing.  She removed the electrical contacts, apparently satisfied that Bern’s condition was stable and not serious.  She then removed a small vial of smelling salts and wafted its contents under Bern’s nose.  He exhaled violently in an unconscious snort of protest.  Then he came to, blinking his eyes rapidly.

“Ah!  This was more like it,” he thought.  The lighting had not been altered, but it seemed to Bern that the lights had been dimmed.  In the softer light, Judy took on the appearance of a merciful attendant, an avenging angel.  He was prepared to believe that he was having one of his best dreams in a long while, but Judy’s steady gaze and blank expression gave him reason to sit up slightly.  Her matter-of-fact questioning precluded any chance of his enjoying her attention.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”  She held up three fingers.

“Three, I think.”  Bern squinted his eyes to focus.

“Yes, correct.  What day is it?”

“I . . . don’t know.”

Hmm.  What’s your full name?”  Bern eased himself up on his elbows, but Judy indicated that he should lie back down.  Instead, she inclined the chair with one of the controls on the arm panel.  His memory was once again coming back to him.

“Bernard Fortune H— No, Judy, wait!  A minute ago, I meant that I really don’t know what day it is.  Remember?  I passed out.”  She looked at him curiously, as if she were considering for the first time the prospect of believing him.  “I have no idea how long I was out.  I don’t even know what time it is!”

Satisfied that Bern was okay, Judy turned to her husband.  He was involved in a heated discussion with the captain, and he was gesturing almost violently between one of the computer monitors and the laid out figure on the vari-chair.  The captain was not able to explain whatever it was that he was expected to know; he simply nodded deferentially to the proprietor of the staryacht, bowing his shoulders ever so slightly.

Leaving Bern to stare at the ceiling, Judy moved over to the readout panels and placed her hands on her husband’s shoulders.  “Jared?  Look at me,” she said, in her trademark tone of soft assertiveness.

Sendi spent one last instant with his eyes locked onto Van Leeuwen’s before turning: he wanted to make clear that such a breach in the future would be very much more costly than this one, which cost was not even approximately known yet.  He was not aware of the wink that the captain gave to Judy, a brief flash of gratitude for ending an uncomfortable rebuke.  Van Leeuwen rotated in his chair to face the terminal; he began to type in commands that would initiate a set of instructions ordering the security net to undergo self-examination.  Although the question of how Bern had not been detected by the biosensor during the comprehensive pre-launch checklist was now academic, the captain was now doubly motivated to find the reason of failure.

“. . . I think I believe him,” Judy was saying.  “This is the last thing in the world I would have expected to interrupt our honeymoon, but we have to deal with it.  Honey, the fool doesn’t know how long he’s been out, and I believe his story about the wine bottle.  Let’s face it – he screwed up, and we have an uninvited guest on our hands.”  She shrugged her shoulders in resignation.

“Well, I suppose Bernard is too much of a non-entity to scheme his way into such a predicament.  At least, I can’t see why anyone would want to spoil our time together.”  Sendi, too, showed an unusual look of resignation and exasperation.  He shook his head as if to see if that would shake this scene out of reality, knowing full well that such efforts were in vain and, furthermore, knowing that it was just this type of behaviour that he despised and against which he was usually known to act.

The couple casually walked the short distance across the bridge to the fully-reclined vari-chair where they found Bern apparently studying the ceiling.  He was still rather incapacitated, and just as he was prepared to make a comment he found himself interrupted by Sendi.

“Bernard, as much as I want to blame you for fouling up our plans and reeking havoc on our serene recreation, I must also face the obvious fact that I cannot simply snap my fingers and have you banished to the void of space.  Nevertheless, you should realize that you are not welcome here.  You are a stowaway on board this spacecraft.  You were not invited, and I will do my best to see that you are removed from the Foudroyant as soon as possible.”  He paused slightly to see if his message was registering on Hill.  Judy, realizing that the gravity of the lecture was not being fully appreciated as long as he was able to lie down, tapped the chair’s controls and caused Bern to sit up and face Jared.

Although his anger was abating, Sendi consciously maintained the tone of an authority who scolds one who has breached some basic principle of conduct, which, in effect, had been the case.  “As a stowaway, Mr. Hill, you have, practically speaking, no rights.  Under the Interplanetary Space-Maritime Decree of 2155, you shall be treated – and I quote, ‘. . . at the whim of the commanding officer of the vessel in question, according to the circumstances of the voyage, the harshness of said treatment not to exceed that meted out to a convicted Class II felon.’ ”

Jared knew that this had caught their guest’s attention.  The pale and sickly face seemed to shrink into the rumpled collar of his tuxedo; Bern was on the verge of tears.  He was unable to read the strange calm on his old friend’s face.  There was no anger now, but there was something even worse: ruthless discipline.  This was something with which Bern knew not how to deal.  he stared dully at his host, trying to avoid his status, but the reality of it was palpable; he could literally taste the defeat in his mouth.  The ammonia smell in his nostrils made him sit up, and he was momentarily reminded of a distant memory of his childhood.  Before he could retreat, though, to the comfortable familiarity of his insular past, the safe haven of his carefully filtered memories, Jared Sendi prompted him to acknowledge his understanding of the terms under which his continued presence would be allowed.

“Well?!” Sendi commanded, his arms crossed imperiously.

Judy, who had positioned herself opposite her husband, on the other side of the chair, was standing as sternly as she could manage, so as to reflect back any wandering look for pity from Hill.  She instinctively knew that Jared’s objective was to evoke an apology, or, in the very least, an admission that he had behaved in an utterly irresponsible fashion.

“Jared, what can I say?  I realize that I screwed up.  I’m at your mercy.”  Bern said this with such genuine sincerity that Sendi actually smiled and nodded.

“That you did, and that you are.”

“Judy, what shall we do with our poor friend here?”  He turned, clasping his hands together, as he did when he was thinking of business options.  Judy knew that his mood was lifting, but Bern apparently wasn’t able to recognize this yet.  He didn’t dare relax.

“Captain, what do you think?”  Sendi had walked over to the computer console, regarding the readouts with open expectancy.

“Nothing conclusive yet, Sir.”  Van Leeuwen then looked up and realized that Sendi was asking him about something different.  “What was that, Mr. Sendi?”

“Captain, I asked you what you think we ought to do with our stowaway.”

“Oh.  Hmmm . . . well, it’s too late to simply return him Earth-side.  We’re not only in hyper-drive, but we’ve completed three spatial jumps.”

“Captain Van Leeuwen, what does that mean?  I mean, why does that necessarily preclude our turning around and dropping him at the nearest orbital station?”  Judy asked, hoping that her understanding of celestial mechanics was not too obviously lacking.

“Well, —”

“Judy, what Van Leeuwen means is that it would require complex re-programming of our flight plan and would expend a significant portion of our fuel which will be needed later in our voyage.”  Although Sendi was fairly confident of his explanation, he still glanced at the captain for reassurance.

Van Leeuwen nodded and added, “That’s exactly right, Mr. Sendi.  There is also the problem with the asymmetry of 5-dimensional hyperspace – in other words, super-accelerated inertial frames.  When using the propulsion system currently employed by today’s more advanced crafts, which would certainly include this one, we must remember that we can only travel along iso-Czerns, lines of congruent time dilation compo—-”

“Captain, I think you lost Mrs. Sendi . . . .  I know you lost me.”  Jared turned to Judy with a humorous shrug of the shoulders, then back to the navigator.  “In plain English please, what can we do from here?”

“As I was saying, Mr. Sendi, we would have a hell of a time trying to backtrack.  Therefore, our best bet is to simply proceed to the first port of call, and drop the boy there.”

Bern, who was being ignored through all of this, sat up as the insulting reference was made to him.  He did not have the courage to challenge the captain’s opinion.  He had no choice but to eat humble pie and accept the verdict of the others.  Bern suddenly recalled the fleeting memory that he had forgotten several minutes before when Jared had startled him.

It was of a time when he had been sent to the headmaster’s office while at The Turner Academy, a prep school.  He had been twelve years old and in the seventh grade.  His teacher had reported him for plagiarism; his parents had been summoned to meet with the head of the school.  Bern had had to sit there and listen to his future being discussed – powerless to affect the outcome.  He had been at the mercy of the adults then, and they had not even asked him for an explanation or excuse.  Now, on board the Foudroyant, Bern was once again at the mercy of adults.  It did not occur to him that he, too, was an adult.  He was frozen in a past where he was not capable of making responsible decisions.  It did not occur to Bernard Hill that he was glad that others were once again deciding his fate, but that was the message that his gut received from his subconscious.  He breathed a deep, but silent, sigh of utter resignation.  He would do whatever they told him to do.

“That sounds reasonable.”  Jared turned to his wife, looking to her for a vote.  She nodded.

“All right, Bern, that settles it.  You will be allowed to continue with us until we reach our first destination.  We will then drop you there, and it will be up to you to arrange for your return to Earth.”  Jared peered at Hill, but did not get any acknowledgement.  “Well?”

“That’s fine, Jared.  Whatever – uh, . . . whatever you say.”

“Good.”  Then, turning to Van Leeuwen, “Captain, how long will it take us to reach Deszintis?”

“We are making good time through Aurigan space and should arrive at the Elnathian System in approximately 75 hours, Mr. Sendi.  Then figure another four to five hours of interplaning before we settle into high orbit.”

“I suppose we can handle this little inconvenience for that short period.  Good.  Please make haste, Captain, toward this destination.  Also, I want you to continue your search for the source of the security breach.”  Then, gazing at Judy, he added, “Mrs. Sendi and I will be in our quarters for a while.  Do not disturb us.  When Mr. Hill recovers his equilibrium, Captain, I want you to acquaint him properly with the crew’s quarters, . . . and please show him what he may and may not touch.”  The newlyweds moved into the corridor and disappeared into the master stateroom; the door slid, almost silently, to lock in place.