Voyagers II: The Alien Within By Ben Bova - Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so Chapter 1.3 Chapter 2.5 Chapter 3.7 Chapter 4.11 Chapter 5.15 Chapter 6.18 Chapter 7.22 Chapter 8.26 Chapter 9.31 Chapter 10.36 Chapter 11.43 Chapter 12.49 Chapter 13.55 Chapter 14.62 Chapter 15.67 Chapter 16.72 Chapter 17.77 Chapter 18.82 Chapter 19.87 Chapter 20.93 Chapter 21.97 Chapter 22.102 Chapter 23.107 Chapter 24.112 Chapter 25.117 Chapter 26.122 Chapter 27.128 Chapter 28.136 Chapter 29.144 Chapter 30.150 Chapter 31.154 Chapter 32.159 Chapter 33.164 Chapter 34.172 Chapter 35.176 Chapter 36.182 Chapter 37.187 Chapter 38.193 Chapter 39.198 Chapter 40.202 Chapter 41.207 Chapter 1 Slowly, reluctantly, Keith Stoner awoke. The dream that had been swirling through his mind over and over again wafted away like drifting smoke, evaporated, until the last faint tendrils of it vanished and left him straining to remember. Faintly, faintly the dream sang to him of another life, another world, of beauty that no human eye could see. But as he reached out with his mind to recapture the joy of it, the dream disappeared forever, leaving only a distant echo and the inward pain of unfulfilled yearning. He opened his eyes. A smooth gray expanse encompassed him. He was lying on his back. He could feel the weight of his body pressing down on a soft, flat surface. Instead of the deathly cold of space, he felt comfortably warm. Instead of the sealed pressure suit and helmet he had worn, he was naked beneath a smooth clean white sheet. I'm back on Earth, he realized. I'm alive again. He reached a hand upward. His outstretched fingertips touched the cool smooth curve of gray a scant few inches above his face. It felt like plastic, or perhaps highly polished metal. Something went click. He jerked his hand away. A series of high-pitched beeps chattered, like a dolphin scolding. The gray eggshell slid away, silently. For long moments Stoner lay unmoving, his eyes focused on the white ceiling overhead. It looked like a normal ceiling of a normal room. It glowed faintly, bathing the room in pale light. Turning his head slightly, he saw that he was not lying on a bed, but on a shelflike extension built into a massive bulk of intricate equipment. A whole wall of gleaming metal and strange, almost menacing machinery, like the cockpit of a space shuttle combined with the jointed arms and grasping metal claws of robot manipulators. The machinery was humming faintly, and Stoner could see a bank of video display screens clustered at the far end of it. He recognized the rhythmic trace of an EKG on one screen, patiently recording his heartbeat. The wriggling lines of the other screens meant nothing to him, but he was certain that they were monitoring his body and brain functions, also. Yet he felt no electrodes on his skin. There were no wires or probes attached to him, not even an intravenous tube. It was a hospital room, but unlike any hospital room he had ever known. No hospital smell, no odor of disinfectants or human suffering. More electronics and machinery than an intensive care unit. Stoner felt almost like a specimen in a laboratory. Propping himself on his elbows, he saw that the other half of the room was quite normal. The ceiling was smooth and creamy white, the walls a cool pale yellow. Sunlight slanted through the half-closed blinds of a single window and threw warm stripes along the tiled floor. An ordinary upholstered armchair was positioned by the window, with a small table beside it. Two molded plastic chairs stood against the wall. The only other furniture in the room was a small writing desk, its surface completely bare, and a walnut-veneer bureau with a mirror atop it. Stoner looked at himself in the mirror. None the worse for wear, he thought. His hair was still jet black, and as thick as ever. His face had always been longer than he liked, the nose just a trifle hawkish, the chin square and firm. But there was something strange about his eyes. They were the same gray he remembered, the gray of a winter sea. But somehow they looked different; he could not pin down what it was, but his eyes had changed. He sat up straight and let the covering sheet drop to his groin. No dizziness. His head felt clear and alert. His naked body was still lean and well muscled; in his earlier life he had driven himself mercilessly in the discipline of tae kwan do. In my earlier life, he echoed to himself. How many years has it been? He gripped the sheet, ready to pull it off his legs and get out of bed. But he stopped and looked up at the ceiling. The smooth white was translucent plastic. There were lights behind it. And video cameras, Stoner knew. They were watching him. He shrugged. Take a good look, he thought. Yanking the sheet away, he swung his long legs to the floor and stood up. The machinery on the other side of the bed emitted one small, faint peep. Stoner flinched at it, startled, then relaxed into a grin. His legs felt a little rubbery, but he knew that was to be expected after so many years. How long has it been? he wondered again as, naked, he padded to the door that had to be the bathroom. It was. But when he came out and surveyed his room again, he saw that there was no other door to it. Half stainless-steel laboratory, half cozy bedroom--but there were no closets, no connecting doors, no door anywhere that led out of the room. Chapter 2 "I am not going into a board meeting until the experiment is decided, one way or the other." Jo Camerata said it quietly, but with an edge of steel. The two men in her office glanced at each other uneasily. The office was clearly hers. The textured walls blazed with slashing orange and yellow stripes against a deep maroon background, the dramatic colors of theMediterranean . The carpet was thick and patterned in matching bold tones. If she wished, Jo could change the color scheme at the touch of a dial. This morning the fiery hues of her Neapolitan ancestry suited her mood perfectly. Two whole walls of the office were taken up by floor-to-ceiling windows. The drapes were pulled back, showing the city ofHilo and, off in the distance, the smoldering dark bulk ofMauna Loa . Through the other window wall the Pacific glittered alluringly under a bright cloudless morning sky. Although she was president of Vanguard Industries, Jo's office held none of the usual trappings of power. It was a modest-sized room, not imposing or huge, furnished with comfortable chairs and sofas and a small round table in the corner by the windows. No desk to form a barrier between her and her visitors. No banks of computer screens and telephone terminals. No photographs of herself alongside the great and powerful people of the hour. There was nothing in the room to intimidate her employees, nothing except her own dominant personality and unquenchable drive. Jo sat in an ultramodern power couch of butter-soft leather the color of light caramel. Designed to resemble an astronaut's acceleration chair, it held a complete communications console and computer terminal in its armrests. Within its innards, the chair contained equipment for massage, heat therapy, and biofeedback sessions. It molded itself to the shape of her body, it could swivel or tilt back to a full reclining position at the touch of a fingertip. But Jo was sitting up straight, her back ramrod stiff, her dark eyes blazing. The two men sitting side by side on the low cushioned sofa both looked unhappy, but for completely different reasons. Healy, chief scientist of Vanguard