Lightspeed: Year One

“Our past is recorded in places other than the Ship’s systems, Mr. Bridge Officer,” Huong said with deliberate irony.

“Tell us what you’ve learned,” Wayne ordered impatiently.

Huong spoke slowly, methodically, as if to impress each word on them all. “Did Randall mention his wife to any of you?”

They didn’t look at Susan, but she felt their focus on her. Everyone knew she and Randall had been lovers until his death. “Is this relevant?” she asked coldly.

“Very.”

“Then, no. I didn’t know he had ever married.”

“Oh yes. In fact, Randall was supposed to board with his wife. Yet Tony’s checked the manifest; Ship’s records clearly show Randall arriving alone.”

“Where did you find this information?” Tom demanded. He’d found the datacube giving directions to this place in Randall’s cabin safe—otherwise they might never have discovered it. Sometimes the thought made Susan weak. The beauty and richness of the Artist’s work, languishing as dust-covered rolls on the floor where the automatics dumped them. No classes of school children seeing His work, awed by their own past made manifest. They’d have reached orbit around New Earth 17, moved to the surface and started their new lives all unaware, while the great seed ship reconstructed itself as an orbital platform, its automatics sweeping up and recycling the dead organics of the Artist and His Art. She shivered.

Their attention was distracted by the Artist as he stretched then scratched one wrinkled buttock absently before settling back to his labours.

“Corridor sale.”

Susan blinked, trying to imagine staid, conservative Huong visiting one of the hundreds of junk sales that went on throughout the colonists’ section of the ship. They weren’t particularly legal, but the Captains had long ago relented, second-gen officers tending to be more practical than those raised and trained Earthside. Besides being a useful diversion for the colonists, the sales redistributed personal goods no longer obtainable from their source.

“I picked up a collection of gossip mags in the last one.” Huong paused patiently as Natalie laughed. “It was worth it. I found our late psychologist—and his wife.”

“In a gossip mag?” Susan said with disbelief.

“The wife, Charlette d’Ord, was an athlete turned sports broadcaster. A bit of a celebrity in her way. I found several images of them together—the captions refer to Randall only as her husband, but you can see him plainly enough. Here.” Huong drew a datacube out of his pocket and tossed it to Susan.

Numbly, she walked over to the nearest reader panel and inserted the ’cube. The rectangular screen produced an image of a group of people at some public event. Randall’s thin face with its surprisingly sensual lips was easy enough to recognize despite the passage of years. He had one arm possessively around the shoulders of an incredibly beautiful woman. Susan smoothed the skirt over her ample hips before she could resist the impulse.

“I know that face,” Natalie breathed.

So would anyone on the Ship, Susan thought. Those classic features and warm smile were straight from the Artist’s most popular work. Almost every cabin had its copy of the angelic figure hovering, arms spread to shield the Earth from the dark of space, the serene loveliness of the perfect yet so-human face a comfort to folk all too aware they were separated from vacuum by only a hull and skills both a generation stale.

“Pull up the faces behind them,” Huong ordered, as if this revelation wasn’t enough.

Susan did so, watching with the others as three faces from the background became clearer. The centermost, a young man, was plainly not paying attention to the photographer or event. His dark, familiar eyes were fixed on Charlette. Susan turned off the image, inexplicably frightened by the longing captured in that one look.

Huong didn’t object, trapping them instead with his slow voice. “Charlette died in a car accident six months before Pilgrim III began final assembly. The accident took place over one hundred miles from their home. The car contained her luggage and there was an unconfirmed witness’ report that someone else had been driving the car. Randall was apparently questioned by police then released. After all, he was going offworld for the rest of his life. What point in pursuing an investigation?”

Wayne moved closer to the viewscreen covering the opposite wall, his face shadowed and grim as he stared at the Artist. Susan wanted to refuse his vision, to see a patient under sophisticated care, not a victim. Her lips moved numbly: “You’re saying the Artist is that young man in the image. You’re accusing Randall of murdering his wife and somehow arranging to kidnap and imprison her lover, bringing him on the Ship.”

“Randall was on the planning team,” Natalie said reluctantly. “He had the access and opportunity to make modifications.”

“Why?” Susan breathed. “Why—like this?”