Nemesis - Isaac Asimov_玖贝云文库

Version 1.0

Please correct any errors and increase the version number for redistribution.

ISAAC ASIMOV

NEMESIS

To Mark Hurst,

my valued copy editor,

who, I think, works over

my manuscripts

harder than I do

CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

ONE: MARLENE

TWO: NEMESIS

THREE: MOTHER

FOUR: FATHER

FIVE: GIFT

SIX: APPROACH

SEVEN: DESTRUCTION?

EIGHT: AGENT

NINE: ERYTHRO

TEN: PERSUASION

ELEVEN: ORBIT

TWELVE: ANGER

THIRTEEN: DOME

FOURTEEN: FISHING

FIFTEEN: PLAGUE

SIXTEEN: HYPERSPACE

SEVENTEEN: SAFE?

EIGHTEEN: SUPERLUMINAL

NINETEEN: REMAINING

TWENTY: PROOF

TWENTY-ONE: BRAINSCAN

TWENTY-TWO: ASTEROID

TWENTY-THREE: AIRFLIGHT

TWENTY-FOUR: DETECTOR

TWENTY-FIVE: SURFACE

TWENTY-SIX: PLANET

TWENTY-SEVEN: LIFE

TWENTY-EIGHT: TAKEOFF

TWENTY-NINE: ENEMY

THIRTY: TRANSITION

THIRTY-ONE: NAME

THIRTY-TWO: LOST

THIRTY-THREE: MIND

THIRTY-FOUR: CLOSE

THIRTY-FIVE CONVERGING

THIRTY-SIX: MEETING

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is not part of the Foundation Series, the Robot Series, or the Empire Series.

It stands independently. I just thought I’d warn you of that to avoid misapprehension.

Of course, I might someday write another novel tying this one to the others, but, then

again, I might not. After all, for how long can I keep flogging my mind to make it work

out these complexities of future history?

Another point. I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my

writing--to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or

experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a

Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm

relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics--Well, they can

do whatever they wish.

However, my stories write themselves, I’m afraid, and in this one I was rather

appalled to find out that I was writing it in two strands. One set of events was taking

place in the story’s present, and another set was taking place in the story’s past, but

steadily approaching the present. I am sure you will have no trouble following the

pattern, but since we are all friends, I thought I would let you know.

NEMESIS

PROLOGUE

He sat there alone, enclosed.

Outside were the stars, and one particular star with its small system of worlds.

He could see it in his mind’s eye, more clearly than he would see it in reality if he

merely de-opacified the window.

A small star, pinkish-red, the color of blood and destruction, and named

appropriately.

Nemesis!

Nemesis, the Goddess of Divine Retribution.

He thought again of the story he had once heard when he was young--a legend,

a myth, a tale of a worldwide Deluge that wiped out a sinful degenerate humanity,

leaving one family with which to start anew.

No flood, this time. Just Nemesis.

The degeneration of humanity had returned and the Nemesis that would be

visited upon it was an appropriate judgment. It would not be a Deluge. Nothing as

simple as a Deluge.

Even for the remnant who might escape--Where would they go? Why was it he

felt no sorrow? Humanity could not continue as it was. It was dying slowly through its

own misdeeds. If it exchanged a slow excruciating death for a much faster one, was that

a cause for sorrow?

Here, actually circling Nemesis, a planet. Circling the planet, a satellite. Circling

the satellite, Rotor.

That ancient Deluge carried a few to safety in an Ark. He had only the vaguest

idea of what the Ark was, but Rotor was its equivalent. It carried a sampling of

humanity who would remain safe and from which a new and far better world would be

built.

But for the old world--there would be only Nemesis!

He thought of it again. A red dwarf star, moving on its inexorable path. Itself and

its worlds were safe. Not so Earth.

Nemesis was on its way, Earth!

Wreaking its Divine Retribution!

ONE: MARLENE

1.

Marlene had last seen the Solar System when she was a little over one year old.

She didn’t remember it, of course.

She had read a great deal about it, but none of the reading had ever made her

feel that it could ever have been part of her, nor she a part of it.

In all her fifteen years of life, she remembered only Rotor. She had always

thought of it as a large world. It was eight kilometers across, after all. Every once in a

while since she was ten--once a month when she could manage it--she had walked

around it for the exercise, and sometimes had taken the low-gravity paths so she could

skim a little. That was always fun. Skim or walk, Rotor went on and on, with its

buildings, its parks, its farms, and mostly its people.

It took her a whole day to do it, but her mother didn’t mind. She said Rotor was

perfectly safe. “Not like Earth,” she would say, but she wouldn’t say why Earth was not

safe. “Never mind,” she would say.

It was the people Marlene liked least. The new census, they said, would show

sixty thousand of them on Rotor. Too many. Far too many. Everyone of them showing a

false face. Marlene hated seeing those false faces and knowing there was something

different inside. Nor could she say anything about it. She had tried sometimes when she

had been younger, but her mother had grown angry and told her she must never say

things like that.

As she got older, she could see the falseness more clearly, but it bothered her

less. She had learned to take it for granted and spend as much time as possible with

herself and her own thoughts.

Lately, her thoughts were often on Erythro, the planet they had been orbiting

almost all her life. She didn’t know why these thoughts were coming to her, but she

would skim to the observation deck at odd hours and just stare at the planet hungrily,

wanting to be there--right there on Erythro.

Her mother would ask her, impatiently, why she should want to be on an empty

barren planet, but she never had an answer for that. She didn’t know. “I just want to,”

she would say.

She was watching it now, alone on the observation deck. Rotorians hardly ever

came here. They had seen it all, Marlene guessed, and for some reason they didn’t have

her interest in Erythro.

There it was; partly in light, partly dark. She had a dim memory of being held to

watch it swim into view, seeing it every once in a while, always larger, as Rotor slowly

approached all those years ago.

Was it a real memory? After all, she had been getting on toward four then, so it

might be.

But now that memory--real or not--was overlaid by other thoughts, by an

increasing realization ‘of just how large a planet was. Erythro was over twelve thousand

kilometers across, not eight kilometers. She couldn’t grasp that size. It didn’t look that

large on the screen and she couldn’t imagine standing on it and seeing for hundreds--or

even thousands--of kilometers. But she knew she wanted to. Very much.

Aurinel wasn’t interested in Erythro, which was disappointing. He said he had

other things to think of, like getting ready for college. He was seventeen and a half.

Marlene was only just past fifteen. That didn’t make much difference, she thought

rebelliously, since girls developed more quickly.

At least they should. She looked down at herself and thought, with her usual

dismay and disappointment, that somehow she still looked like a kid, short and stubby.

She looked at Erythro again, large and beautiful and softly red where it was lit.

It was large enough to be a planet but actually, she knew, it was a satellite. It circled

Megas, and it was Megas (much larger still) that was really the planet, even though

everyone called Erythro by that name. The two of them together, Megas and Erythro,

and Rotor, too, circled, the star Nemesis.

“Marlene!” Marlene heard the voice behind her and knew that it was Aurinel.

She had grown increasingly tongue-tied with him of late, and the reason for it

embarrassed her. She loved the way he pronounced her name. He pronounced it

correctly. Three syllables--Mar--LAY--nuh--with a little trill to the “r.” It warmed her just

to hear it.

She turned and mumbled, “Hi, Aurinel,” and tried not to turn red. He grinned at

her. “You’re staring at Erythro, aren’t you?”

She didn’t answer that. Of course that’s what she would be doing. Everyone

knew how she felt about Erythro. “How come you’re here?” (Tell me you were looking for

me, she thought.)

Aurinel said, “Your mother sent me.” (Oh well.) “Why?”

“She said you were in a bad mood and every time you felt sorry for yourself, you

came up here, and I was to come and get you because she said it would just make you

grumpier to stay here. So why are you in a bad mood?”

“I’m not. And if I am, I have reasons.”

“What reasons? Come on, now. You’re not a little kid any more. You’ve got to be

able to express yourself.”

Marlene lifted her eyebrows. “I am quite articulate, thank you. My reasons are

that I would like to travel.”

Aurinel laughed. “You’ve traveled, Marlene. You’ve traveled more than two light-

years. No one in the whole history of the Solar System has ever traveled even a small

fraction of a light-year. --Except us. So you have no right to complain. You’re Marlene

Insigna Fisher, Galactic Traveler.”

Marlene suppressed a giggle. Insigna was her mother’s maiden name and

whenever Aurinel said her three names in full, he would salute and make a face, and he

hadn’t done that in a long time. She guessed it was because he was getting close to

being a grown-up and he had to practice being dignified.

She said, “I can’t remember that trip at all. You know I can’t, and not being able

to remember it means it doesn’t matter. We’re just here, over two light-years from the

Solar System, and we’re never going back.”

“How do you know?”

“Come on, Aurinel. Do you ever hear anyone talk about going back?”

“Well, even if we don’t, who cares? Earth is a crowded world and the whole Solar

System was getting crowded and used up. We’re better off out here--masters of all we

survey.”

“No, we’re not. We survey Erythro, but we don’t go down there to be its masters.”

“Sure we do. We have a fine working Dome on Erythro. You know that.”

“Not for us. Just for some scientists. I’m talking about us. They don’t let us go

down there.”

“In time,” said Aurinel cheerfully.

“Sure, when I’m an old woman. Or dead.”

“Things aren’t that bad. Anyway, come on out of here and into the world and

make your mother happy. I can’t stay here. I have things to do. Dolorette”

Marlene felt a buzzing in her ears and she didn’t hear exactly what Aurinel said

after that. It was enough to hear--Dolorette!

Marlene hated Dolorette, who was tall and--and vacuous.

But what was the use? Aurinel had been hanging around her, and Marlene

knew, just by looking at him, exactly how he felt about Dolorette. And now he had been

sent to find her and he was just wasting his time. She could tell that was how he felt

and she could also tell how anxious he was to get back to that--to that Dolorette. (Why

could she always tell? It was so hateful sometimes.)

Quite suddenly, Marlene wanted to hurt him, to find words to give him pain.

True words, though. She wouldn’t lie to him. She said, “We’re never going back to the

Solar System. I know why not.”

“Oh, why’s that?” When Marlene, hesitating, said nothing, he added,

“Mysteries?”

Marlene was caught. She was not supposed to say this. She mumbled, “I don’t

want to say. I’m not supposed to know.” But she did want to say. At the moment she

wanted everyone to feel bad.

“But you’ll tell me. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Are we?” Marlene asked. She said, “Okay, I’II tell you. We’re not ever going back

because Earth is going to be destroyed.”

Aurinel didn’t react as she had expected. He burst into a loud squawk of a

laugh. It took him a while to settle down, and she glared at him indignantly.

“Marlene,” he said, “where did you hear that? You’ve been viewing thrillers.”

“I have not!”

“But what makes you say anything like that?”

“Because I know. I can tell. From what people say, but don’t say, and what they

do, when they don’t know they’re doing it. And from things the computer tells me when

I ask the right questions.”

“Like what things it tells you?”

“I’m not going to tell you. “

“Isn’t it possible? Just barely possible”--and he held up two fingers very closely

together--”that you’re imagining things?”

“No, it isn’t possible. Earth won’t be destroyed right away--maybe not for

thousands of years--but it’s going to be destroyed.” She nodded solemnly, her face

intense. “And nothing can stop it.”

Marlene turned and walked away, angry at Aurinel for doubting her. No, not

doubting her. It was more than that. He thought she was out of her mind. And there it

was. She had said too much and had gained nothing by it. Everything was wrong.

Aurinel was staring after her. The laughter had ceased on his boyishly

handsome face and a certain uneasiness was creasing the skin between his eyebrows.

2.

Eugenia Insigna had grown middle-aged during the trip to Nemesis, and in the

course of the long stay after arrival. Over the years she had periodically warned herself:

This is for life; and for our children’s lives into the unseen future.

The thought always weighed her down.

Why? She had known this as the inevitable consequence of what they had done

from the moment Rotor had left the Solar System. Everyone on Rotor--volunteers all--

had known it. Those who had not had the heart for eternal separation had left Rotor

before takeoff, and among those who had left was--

Eugenia did not finish that thought. It often came, and she tried never to finish

it.

Now they were here on Rotor, but was Rotor “home”? It was home for Marlene;

she had never known anything else. But for herself, for Eugenia? Home was Earth and

Moon and Sun and Mars and all the worlds that had accompanied humanity through

its history and prehistory. They had accompanied life as long as there had been life. The

thought that “home” was not here on Rotor clung to her even now.

But, then, she had spent the first twenty-eight years of her life in the Solar

System and she had done graduate work on Earth itself in her twenty-first to twenty-

third years.

Odd how the thought of Earth periodically came to her and lingered. She hadn’t

liked Earth. She hadn’t liked its crowds, its poor organization, its combination of

anarchy in the important things and governmental force in the little things. She hadn’t

liked its assaults of bad weather, its scars over the land, its wasteful ocean. She had

returned to Rotor with an overwhelming gratitude, and with a new husband to whom

she had tried to sell her dear little turning world--to make its orderly comfort as

pleasant to him as it was to her, who had been born into it.

But he had only been conscious of its smallness. “You run out of it in six

months,” he had said.

She herself hadn’t held his interest for much longer than that. Oh well

It would work itself out. Not for her. Eugenia Insigna was lost forever between

worlds. But for the children. Eugenia had been born to Rotor and could live without

Earth. Marlene had been born--or almost born--to Rotor alone and could live without

the Solar System, except for the vague feeling that she had originated there. Her

children would not know even that, and would not care. To them, Earth and the Solar

System would be a matter of myth, and Erythro would have become a rapidly

developing world.

She hoped so. Marlene had this odd fixation on Erythro already, though it had

only developed in the last few months and might leave just as quickly as it had come.

Altogether, it would be the height of ingratitude to complain. No one could

possibly have imagined a habitable world in orbit about Nemesis. The conditions that

created habitability were remarkable. Estimate those probabilities and throw in the

nearness of Nemesis to the Solar System and you would have to deny that it could

possibly have happened.

She turned to the day’s reports, which the computer was waiting, with the

infinite patience of its tribe, to give her.

Yet before she could ask, her receptionist signaled and a soft voice came from

the small button-speaker pinned to the left shoulder of her garment, “Aurinel Pampas

wishes to see you. He has no appointment.”

Insigna grimaced, then remembered that she had sent him after Marlene. She

said, “Let him come in.”

She cast a quick look at the mirror. She could see that her appearance was

reasonable. To herself, she seemed to look younger than her forty-two years. She hoped

she looked the same way to others.

It seemed silly to worry about her appearance because a seventeen-year-old boy

was about to enter, but Eugenia Insigna had seen poor Marlene looking at that boy and

she knew what that look portended. It didn’t seem to Insigna that Aurinel, who was so

fond of his own appearance, would ever think of Marlene, who had never been able to

rid herself of her childhood pudginess, in any way other than as an amusing child. Still,

if Marlene had to face failure in this, let her not feel that her mother had contributed to

that failure in any way and had been anything but charming to the boy.

She’ll blame me anyway, thought Insigna with a sigh, as the boy walked in with

a smile that had not yet outgrown its adolescent shyness.

“Well, Aurinel,” she said. “Did you find Marlene?”

“Yes, ma’am. Right where you said she’d be, and I told her you wanted her out of

there. “

“And how is she feeling?”

“If you want to know, Dr. Insigna--I can’t tell if it’s depression or something else,

but she has a rather funny idea in her head. I don’t know that she’d like my telling you

about it.”

“Well, I don’t like setting spies on her either, but she frequently has strange

ideas and she worries me. Please tell me what she said.”

Aurinel shook his head. “ All right, but don’t tell her I said anything. This one is

really crazy. She said that Earth was going to be destroyed.”

He waited for Insigna to laugh. She did not. Instead, she exploded. “What? What

made her say that?”

“I don’t know, Dr. Insigna. She’s a very bright kid, you know, but she gets these

funny ideas. Or she may have been putting me on.”

Insigna cut in. “She may have been doing exactly that. She has a strange sense

of humor. So listen, I don’t want you to repeat this to anyone else. I don’t want silly

stories to get started. Do you understand?”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

“I’m serious. Not a word.” Aurinel nodded briskly.

“But thanks for telling me, Aurinel. It was important to do so. I’ll speak to

Marlene and find out what’s bothering her--and I won’t let her know you told me.”

“Thank you,” said Aurinel. “But just one thing, ma’am.”

“What’s that?”

“Is Earth going to be destroyed?”

Insigna stared at him, then forced a laugh. “Of course not! You may go now.”

Insigna looked after him and wished earnestly that she could have managed a

more convincing denial.

3.

Janus Pitt made an impressive appearance, which had helped him in his rise to

power as Commissioner of Rotor. In the early days of the formation of the Settlements,

there had been a push for people of no more than average height. There had been

thoughts of having a smaller per capita requirement for room and resources.

Eventually, the caution had been deemed unnecessary and had been abandoned, but

the bias was still there in the genes of the early Settlements and the average Rotorian

remained a centimeter or two shorter than the average citizens of later Settlements.

Pitt was tall, though, with iron gray hair, and a long face, and deep blue eyes,

and a body that was still in good shape, despite the fact that he was fifty-six.

Pitt looked up and smiled as Eugenia Insigna entered, but felt the usual small

surge of uneasiness. There was something always uneasy-making about Eugenia, even

wearying. She had these Causes (capital C) that were hard to deal with.

“Thank you for seeing me, Janus,” she said, “on such short notice.”

Pitt placed his computer on hold, and leaned back in his chair, deliberately

producing an air of relaxation.

“Come,” he said, “there’s no formality between us. We go back a long way.”

“And have shared a great deal,” said Insigna.

“So we have,” said Pitt. “ And how is your daughter?”

“It’s about her I wish to speak, as a matter of fact. Are we shielded?”

Pitt’s eyebrows arched. “Why shielded? What is there to shield and from whom?”

The very question activated Pitt’s realization of the odd position in which Rotor

found itself. To all practical purposes, it was alone in the Universe. The Solar System

was more than two light-years away, and no other intelligence-bearing worlds might

exist within hundreds of light-years or, for all anyone knew, billions of light-years in

any direction.

Rotorians might have fits of loneliness and uncertainty, but they were free of any

fear of outside interference. Well, almost any fear, thought Pitt.

Insigna said, “You know what there is to shield. It was you who have always

insisted on secrecy.”

Pitt activated the shield and said, “ Are we to take that up again? Please,

Eugenia, it’s all settled. It was settled when we left fourteen years ago. I know that you

brood about it now and then--”

“Brood about it? Why not? It’s my star,” and her arm flailed outward as if in the

direction of Nemesis. “It’s my responsibility.”

Pitt’s jaw tightened. Do we have to go through all this again? he thought.

Aloud, he said, “We’re shielded. Now, what’s bothering you?”

“Marlene. My daughter. Somehow she knows.”

“Knows what?”

“About Nemesis and the Solar System.”

“How could she know? Unless you’ve told her?”

Nemesis - Isaac Asimov

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: