The Stars My Brothers Read online

freezinginsects and thawing them out, and they think the process might bedeveloped someday to where it could revive frozen spacemen. It's an iffyidea. I'll burn Meloni's backside off for bringing it up at a time likethis."

  Garces, after a moment, shook his head. "No, wait. Let me think aboutthis."

  He looked speculatively out of the window for a few moments. Then hesaid,

  "Message Meloni that this one chap's body--what's his name, Kieran?--isto be preserved in space against a chance of future revival."

  Hausman nearly blotted his copybook by exclaiming, "For God's sake--" Hechoked that down in time and said, "But it could be centuries before arevival process is perfected, if it ever is."

  Garces nodded. "I know. But you're missing a psychological point thatcould be valuable to UNRC. This Kieran has relatives, doesn't he?"

  Hausman nodded. "A widowed mother and a sister. His father's been dead along time. No wife or children."

  Garces said, "If we tell them he's dead, frozen in space and thenburied, it's all over with. Won't those people feel a lot better if wetell them that he's _apparently_ dead, but might be brought back when arevival-technique is perfected in the future?"

  "I suppose they'd feel better about it," Hausman conceded. "But I don'tsee--"

  Garces shrugged. "Simple. We're only really beginning in space, youknow. As we go on, UNRC is going to lose a number of men, space-struckjust like Kieran. A howl will go up about our casualty lists, it alwaysdoes. But if we can say that they're only frozen until such time asrevival technique is achieved, everyone will feel better about it."

  "I suppose public relations are important--" Hausman began to say, andGarces nodded quickly.

  "They are. See that this is done, when you go up to confer with Meloni.Make sure that it gets onto the video networks, I want everyone to seeit."

  Later, with many cameras and millions of people watching, Kieran's body,in a pressure-suit, was ceremoniously taken to a selected position whereit would orbit the Moon. All suggestions of the funerary were carefullyavoided. The space-struck man--nobody at all referred to him as"dead"--would remain in this position until a revival process wasperfected.

  "Until forever," thought Hausman, watching sourly. "I suppose Garces isright. But they'll have a whole graveyard here, as time goes on."

  As time went on, they did.

  2.

  In his dreams, a soft voice whispered.

  He did not know what it was telling him, except that it was important.He was hardly aware of its coming, the times it came. There would be thequiet murmuring, and something in him seemed to hear and understand, andthen the murmur faded away and there was nothing but the dreams again.

  But were they dreams? Nothing had form or meaning. Light, darkness,sound, pain and not-pain, flowed over him. Flowed over--who? Who was he?He did not even know that. He did not care.

  But he came to care, the question vaguely nagged him. He should try toremember. There was more than dreams and the whispering voice. Therewas--what? If he had one real thing to cling to, to put his feet on andclimb back from-- One thing like his name.

  He had no name. He was no one. Sleep and forget it. Sleep and dream andlisten--

  "Kieran."

  It went across his brain like a shattering bolt of lightning, that word.He did not know what the word was or what it meant but it found an echosomewhere and his brain screamed it.

  "Kieran!"

  Not his brain alone, his voice was gasping it, harshly and croakingly,his lungs seeming on fire as they expelled the word.

  He was shaking. He had a body that could shake, that could feel pain,that was feeling pain now. He tried to move, to break the nightmare, toget back again to the vague dreams, and the soothing whisper.

  He moved. His limbs thrashed leadenly, his chest heaved and panted, hiseyes opened.

  He lay in a narrow bunk in a very small metal room.

  He looked slowly around. He did not know this place. The gleaming whitemetal of walls and ceiling was unfamiliar. There was a slight,persistent tingling vibration in everything that was unfamiliar, too.

  He was not in Wheel Five. He had seen every cell in it and none of themwere like this. Also, there lacked the persistent susurrant sound of theventilation pumps. Where--

  _You're in a ship, Kieran. A starship._

  * * * * *

  Something back in his mind told him that. But of course it wasridiculous, a quirk of the imagination. There weren't any starships.

  _You're all right, Kieran. You're in a starship, and you're all right._

  The emphatic assurance came from somewhere back in his brain and it wascomforting. He didn't feel very good, he felt dopey and sore, but therewas no use worrying about it when he knew for sure he was all right--

  The hell he was all right! He was in someplace new, someplace strange,and he felt half sick and he was not all right at all. Instead of lyinghere on his back listening to comforting lies from his imagination, heshould get up, find out what was going on, what had happened.

  Of a sudden, memory began to clear. What _had_ happened? Something, acrash, a terrible coldness--

  Kieran began to shiver. He had been in Section T2, on his way to thelock, and suddenly the floor had risen under him and Wheel Five hadseemed to crash into pieces around him. The cold, the pain--

  _You're in a starship. You're all right._

  For God's sake why did his mind keep telling him things like that,things he believed? For if he did not believe them he would be in apanic, not knowing where he was, how he had come here. There was panicin his mind but there was a barrier against it, the barrier of thesoothing reassurances that came from he knew not where.

  He tried to sit up. It was useless, he was too weak. He lay, breathingheavily. He felt that he should be hysterical with fear but somehow hewas not, that barrier in his mind prevented it.

  He had decided to try shouting when a door in the side of the littleroom slid open and a man came in.

  He came over and looked down at Kieran. He was a young man,sandy-haired, with a compact, chunky figure and a flat, hard face. Hiseyes were blue and intense, and they gave Kieran the feeling that thisman was a wound-up spring. He looked down and said,

  "How do you feel, Kieran?"

  Kieran looked up at him. He asked, "Am I in a starship?"

  "Yes."

  "But there aren't any starships."

  "There are. You're in one." The sandy-haired man added, "My name isVaillant."

  _It's true, what he says_, murmured the something in Kieran's mind.

  "Where--how--" Kieran began.

  Vaillant interrupted his stammering question. "As to where, we're quitea way from Earth, heading right now in the general direction of Altair.As to how--" He paused, looking keenly down at Kieran. "Don't you knowhow?"

  _Of course I know. I was frozen, and now I have been awakened and timehas gone by--_

  Vaillant, looking searchingly down at his face, showed a trace ofrelief. "You do know, don't you? For a moment I was afraid it hadn'tworked."

  He sat down on the edge of the bunk.

  "How long?" asked Kieran.

  Vaillant answered as casually as though it was the most ordinaryquestion in the world. "A bit over a century."

  * * * * *

  It was wonderful, thought Kieran, how he could take a statement likethat without getting excited. It was almost as though he'd known it allthe time.

  "How--" he began, when there was an interruption.

  Something buzzed thinly in the pocket of Vaillant's shirt. He took out athin three-inch disk of metal and said sharply into it,

  "Yes?"

  A tiny voice squawked from the disk. It was too far from Kieran for himto understand what it was saying but it had a note of excitement, almostof panic, in it.

  Something changed, hardened, in Vaillant's flat face. He said, "Iexpected it. I'll be right there. You know what to do."

  He did somethin
g to the disk and spoke into it again. "Paula, take overhere."

  He stood up. Kieran looked up at him, feeling numb and stupid. "I'd liketo know some things."

  "Later," said Vaillant. "We've got troubles. Stay where you are."

  He went rapidly out of the room. Kieran looked after him, wondering.Troubles--troubles in a starship? And a century had passed--

  He suddenly felt an emotion that shook his nerves and tightened hisguts. It was beginning to hit him now. He sat up in the bunk and swunghis legs out of it and tried to stand but could not, he was too weak.All he could do was to sit there, shaking.

  His mind could not take it in. It seemed only minutes ago that he hadbeen walking along the corridor in Wheel Five. It seemed that Wheel