The Old Man of the Stars. John Burke

The Old Man of the Stars

Published by Wildside Press LLC

www.wildsidebooks.com

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

These stories were previously published in magazine form as follows, and are reprinted by permission of the author:

THE OLD MAN OF THE STARS

CHAPTER ONE

In the green twilight, warm with the promise of the long Elysian summer, the young men and women were strolling and talking below the white steps of the Community Palace. The pliant trees murmured in the faintest of breezes, and the planet’s two moons were rising above the distant hills.

The old man on the terrace sat with his eyes half-closed and thought about home—about Earth.

He did not look old. He had the smooth, handsome face of a young man of twenty-five, and there was no grey in his hair. There was something almost youthfully arrogant about his lean features and jutting chin. Only in his eyes was there the weariness of age. Brooding over the scene before him, he was conscious of the heavy weight of centuries on his shoulders. A great time and a great space separated him from the world of his birth.

A young woman walked slowly past him. She wore the loose, casual tunic and shorts that were customary during the leisure hours on Elysium: and most hours on this tranquil planet were leisure hours.

The old man reached out and caught hold of her golden-brown arm for a moment. She stopped, with a slight grimace of distaste.

He said: “This evening it is just like it was in the old world.”

“Indeed, Matthew?” she said politely.

“But of course we didn’t get this green light. The glow of sunset was something that nobody here but myself remembers. You’ve never known anything like it.”

“No, I’m afraid we haven’t.”

He was aware of the scent of her fresh young body; and aware also of the restraint and pity behind her politeness. Pity? There were times when he was sure it verged on contempt. Contempt...for him, the oldest and wisest of them all, who had been on this planet for centuries before any of them had existed!

He let go of her arm. A young man hurried up beside her. They exchanged smiles, nodded briefly to Matthew, and walked away.

“A romantic evening, isn’t it?” he called after them, but they did not reply. Perhaps they had not heard him. Or perhaps, like so many of their contemporaries, they could no longer be bothered with him.

Matthew sighed. They were bored by his reminiscences, and the young woman shrank from his touch. However young he might remain in appearance, he was too old.

He looked up into the heavens, where the stars seemed brighter and more magnificent than they had ever seemed on Earth. But at least on Earth they had been regarded as a challenge. Men had stared up and vowed to reach those distant worlds: they had launched themselves into space, braving its hazards and accepting the demands their explorations made on them. Men had been ambitious then.

Here on Elysium the challenge was ignored. Across the generations ambition had died. This was a planet of warmth and contentment, and today there were few who wished to reach any further.

There were even fewer who were interested in the prospects of a return journey that they would not live to finish. Only a handful of social misfits listened to Matthew’s pleas.

Thinking of his vain plans, he noticed Raymond in the distance, and beckoned him over. Raymond was a tall, middle-aged man with dark features, creased by lines of impatience. He walked with an aggressive briskness that was uncommon on this world. His gestures were curt and decisive. When he reached Matthew, he gave him a sort of mock salute and stood looking down at the older man with an air of exasperation that meant nothing—it was the expression he always wore.

Matthew said: “How are things going? I haven’t been over for a day or two.”

“I know that,” was the brusque response. “And you won’t find much change when you do come.”

“That hold-up over materials was settled, though, wasn’t it?”

“After a fashion. But it’s never really been a question of materials. Elysium is rich enough in mineral wealth. It’s the men themselves. They’re losing interest again.”

Matthew began to push himself up from his chair, then slumped back again. He said:

“But that new group seemed quite keen at first.”

“They always do,” said Raymond sardonically, “at first. Then they began to feel there’s no point in the whole thing; They start asking questions about why we want to send a ship back to Earth, and what good it will do anybody.”

“But that has all been explained and given official sanction by the Community Delegates.”

Raymond shrugged. “It’s being said that the Delegates only do it to humour you.”

“To humour me?”

“Of all the men and women who would come with you on the voyage,” said Raymond, “you would be the only one to reach the destination.”

“We’ve gone into all that before.”

“And quite apart from that,” the other went on, “there’s a very strong body of opinion that holds there isn’t any destination. There are experts who say that Earth is only a myth—a myth you’ve talked yourself into believing.

Matthew gave vent to a wild splutter of indignation. The presumptuousness of these idlers, these lotus-eaters, was becoming quite fantastic.

And yet he had had ample warning of this tendency in recent times. In the past, long ago, he had been respected by historians and scholars. They had come to him to check their facts. He had actually lived through the past ages, and was therefore a source of first-hand information. He could verify things, explain details that baffled the historians. Once or twice, though, they had caught him out in trivial errors. No one man could know everything that had happened at any given time, even if he had been alive then; but these mistakes made one or two experts say that Matthew was not reliable. He was accused of inventing things. His stories of the conquest of the far reaches of space, which had once been regarded as accurate history, came to be viewed with reserve. Gradually it was murmured that he was a maker of fables rather than a reliable chronicler. His reminiscences of life on Earth took on the character of a mythology. Historians who had worked along certain theories and then had them denied by Matthew, openly stated that Matthew was wrong. If he verified their findings, they quoted him. If he contradicted them, they shook their heads and said that he didn’t know what he was talking about. They were men of great learning, and who was this relic of the past that he should dare to question their knowledge?

There came the time when few referred to Matthew at all. They said his memory wandered. They said he was at best inaccurate and feeble-minded, and at worst a teller of tall stories.

But it was not true. Matthew remembered all right: clearly and nostalgically across the centuries, he remembered everything.

* * * *

He remembered his friend Philipson, a biologist at a time when physicists were the great lords of the scientific world. Philipson professed to have no great interest in the conquest of space, but he pointed out one of the major problems that would confront the explorers when the time came.

“It’s all right to talk of new power drives that will send a ship to our neighbouring planets in a matter of months,” he said many times to Matthew; “even at the greatest speed that

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