Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers Read online

  “You said you read some of my articles,” the doctor said to Julie, cigarette still in hand. “If that’s the case, you understand a little of how difficult space travel is.”

  “To be truthful, I’m only beginning to understand. I’ve been reading a great deal about it. I know how far we would have to travel, that our closest stellar landfall is in the Alpha Centauri system, which is still 4.3 light years away.”

  The doctor’s lips curved. “That’s twenty-five trillion miles, in case you haven’t figured it out.”

  Patrick’s gaze moved away from the chart he had been studying. “Space travelers face enormous obstacles,” he said. “Besides the problem of radiation—a flood of it during magnetic solar storms—there’s rocky debris from asteroids and comets which could easily destroy the hull of a ship.”

  Julie eyed him strangely, but Patrick simply shrugged. “I went to college, too, you know. I’m bound to remember at least a little of what I learned.”

  “You’re both correct. Space travel is fraught with hazards—the body’s reaction to extended periods of weightlessness, the problem of communicating through vast empty stretches of space, but the biggest problem is the time it takes just to get there.”

  “Which, I gather,” said Patrick, “is where you come in.”

  “That’s right. My expertise lies in theoretical astrophysics—developing ideas that allow scientists to eventually reach their goals.”

  Julie studied one of the charts. It diagrammed what was labeled a rotating skyhook, some sort of catch-and-release satellite station that could pluck an orbiting spaceship from a low Earth orbit and hurl it at a much greater speed on its journey into space.

  She turned back to the doctor. “The article you wrote said you believe, at least in theory, man can eventually reach the speed of light.”

  Smoky unconsciously took a pull on her unlit cigarette. “The speed of light—186,283 miles per second. Yes, I believe in time it can be done, just the way speed of sound was reached and eventually surpassed. Still, even at light speed, it would take more than ten years to reach a system with a planet or planets that could support the existence of life.”

  “Surely such a system is rare,” Julie said.

  Dr. Stover laughed, a rather unnerving, slightly raspy chuckle. “That’s what most people think. Maybe that’s what they want to think. The truth is, planetary systems like the one around our sun may be the rule rather than the exception. There are two hundred billion stars in Earth’s galaxy alone. Which means there may be hundreds of thousands, even millions of inhabitable planets in the universe.”

  Julie fell silent, staggered by the thought.

  Patrick looked back toward the charts on the wall. “Then it’s simply a matter of getting there,” he said mildly. “Which brings us right back where we started.”

  “Distance is definitely the problem. Which is why we’ll have to go even faster than light speed to achieve the sort of interstellar travel man dreams of.”

  “Is that possible?” Julie asked.

  “Theoretically, yes.” She pointed toward the wall. “Take a look at those graphs up there. Each line shows various methods of spacecraft propulsion.”

  She ran a thin finger beneath one of the lines. “Metallic Hydrogen and Nuclear Fusion are already in the exploratory stages, but they can’t reach faster than thirty percent light speed.” She pointed to another line. “Negative Matter could get us up to seventy percent. Combined Matter-Antimatter could go as fast as ninety-nine percent of the speed of light.”

  “If I remember correctly,” Patrick put in, “Einstein believed we could never achieve light speed because we create infinite mass.”

  Julie’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe Patrick was standing there calmly discussing Einsteinian theory as if he studied it every day. All those years, she had underestimated his intelligence. Or maybe he had simply gone out of his way not to show it.

  “Albert Einstein never heard of tachyon particles,” Dr. Stover said. “We think—if they actually exist—they can’t travel slower than the speed of light. If that’s the case, all we have to do is get beyond the light speed barrier and there’s no limit to how fast we can go.”

  It was mind-boggling, no doubt about it. But the one thing Julie was convinced of was that if highly educated scientists like Meryl Stover and her colleagues believed space travel was possible, and if there really were hundreds of thousands of potentially habitable planets, odds were darned good that some other life form, superior to man, also sought to travel through space and might have already done it.

  “We’re looking to quantum mechanics for the answer,” the doctor was saying. “It’s extremely complicated, but we believe, once we’ve quantumly jumped the light-speed barrier, some sort of tachyon booster could kick in. It could wind up carrying the ship as fast as three hundred times the speed of light.”

  Julie looked at Patrick, whose face looked decidedly grim.

  “Add to that the existence of black holes or wormholes a spacecraft might travel through, and the distance between galaxies could be shortened even more. Or there may be a way to collapse the vast distances in space, or ways to combine several different modes of travel—”

  A knock sounded and the door swung open. “Sorry to bother you, Smoky, but that reporter from the Tribune is here.”

  The doctor sighed and rolled her eyes, then nodded to the man at the door. “Apparently duty calls,” she said to Julie. “We’re always trying to raise money to further our studies. Any publicity we can get is helpful.” She called back to her assistant. “Thanks, Tom. Tell him I’ll be right there.”

  “We appreciate your time, Dr. Stover, and I think I’m beginning to get the picture.”

  “As you can see, there are dozens of possibilities. As I said, so far they’re mostly theoretical, but that’s the way scientific advances are made.”

  Julie stared triumphantly at Patrick. “Well, are you satisfied there might really be a way for a spaceship to travel to Earth?”

  For a moment his features looked dark, then he actually smiled. “After hearing Dr. Stover, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t believe it could be done.”

  “There are a couple of good books on the subject,” the doctor said. “Stephen Hawking wrote one called A Brief History of Time. Wrinkles in Time, by Smoot and Davidson, is another.”

  “Perhaps I’ll read them,” Julie said. But as they walked out the door, she was thinking she really didn’t need to.

  After hearing Dr. Stover, as far as she was concerned space travel wasn’t all that far-fetched. The thought occurred, if a spaceship from another world actually did come to Earth, what would the travelers do once they got here?

  Perhaps a study of Earth’s inhabitants, as Laura continued to insist, wouldn’t be so difficult to imagine.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Val sat in the study of his penthouse apartment reading the Los Angeles Times. Patrick Donovan had enjoyed reading the paper. Val couldn’t read the front page without chills running up and down his spine. Murder, rape, gang violence, child abuse—earth’s inhabitants were unaccountably savage. Their primitive drives made them reckless, often governed by emotion or instinct, rather than common sense. In Los Angeles alone, not a single day seemed to pass without total mayhem and dozens of heinous crimes.

  Val folded the paper and tossed it onto his desk. There was no crime on Toril. No murder, no mayhem, no hideous disease, no suicide, rarely even an accident. Not even the weather played a part in the life or death cycle as it did here on Earth. There the weather never changed. The clear, acrylic-like dome that housed the cities of the planet were all thermostatically controlled.

  Life was controlled as well, planned in an orderly fashion from birth to death. From test-tube conception to the end of a normal five-hundred-year cycle. Any reckl
ess, self-destructive urges had been bred out of Torillian genes ten thousand years ago.

  Yet history told of a time when they weren’t so civilized, so completely controlled. A time they weren’t all that much different from people here on Earth.

  And in truth, though the violence chilled him, it also gave rise to certain forms of beauty that no longer existed on Toril. In art and in music, the violence, the passion portrayed made the work come to life. Just as it did the residents of Earth themselves. The challenge to survive brought out the best in people, helped them grow and change and achieve a new awareness.

  And he had discovered that as much as he was appalled, he was also drawn to the life-or-death struggle people faced each day on Earth. Watching them battle the forces of a tornado or the destructive power of a hurricane was wildly compelling. A man with the courage to face and overcome cancer, or, like Patrick’s father, battle to recover from a debilitating stroke, was an inspiration to Val and to others.

  In essence, life on Earth was fraught with risks, but it was balanced by incredible rewards.

  Val mulled over the notion as he unlocked his middle desk drawer and removed the journal he wrote in each day. He opened it to the latest entry and picked up a pen, tapped it lightly against the blank page.

  Here life is struggle, he began, randomly scratching out his thoughts.

  The strong survive over the weak. Individuality is key. People live their lives independent of each other. They value their differences, even praise them. To us this attitude seems awesome, unsettling, perhaps even dangerous. A human being, free-willed and driven by his passions, might pose a threat that goes far beyond his small place in the world.

  He paused a moment, then the pen moved again.

  Perhaps it is not man’s savagery we fear, but his capacity for independent action.

  Val closed the journal, his thoughts moving backward, returning to the charts he had observed on Dr. Stover’s wall. Graphs that demonstrated all too clearly several different avenues that would indeed lead to space travel at speeds far greater than the speed of light. Though the actual accomplishment would surely occur at some point in the future, Torillians had reason to be concerned.

  But did that also give them the right to interfere?

  Val stood up and began to pace the floor, his mind shifting to Julie, to the Ansor’s proposed experiments, to how they might affect her—and any number of others. Though they hadn’t set out with that purpose, the testing aboard the ship was no less violent, no less savage than the acts he read about in the paper.

  More and more, Val was convinced he had to make them stop.

  * * *

  Laura paced the floor of her tiny apartment. The phone had just quit ringing—again—and the answering machine kicked on. “Laura, it’s Brian. I know you’re in there. Damn it, pick up the phone.”

  She didn’t, of course. Instead she just listened to him demanding, then pleading, determined it would do him no good. She cared for Brian Heraldson, more than cared for. Physically, she was wildly attracted to him. But he was wrong about her, and she wasn’t going to let his doctor-patient attitude become the driving force of their relationship.

  Not that they really had a relationship, she told herself firmly. So Brian had been kind to her. He was a nice man—most of the time. The steady sort women looked for in a man they might want to marry—if she were interested, which she was not. He was also arrogant and domineering, opinionated and determined to sway her to his will.

  So what if he was handsome. So what if just noticing the way his bottom lip curved when he smiled stirred funny little flutters in her stomach. Jimmy Osborn was handsome, too. And though he was a little bad-tempered on occasion, he didn’t try to run her life.

  As luck would have it, Jimmy had called just that morning, right after her fight with Brian. Determined to forget Brian Heraldson and his overbearing ways, she had agreed to a date.

  Laura glanced at the clock. Jimmy would be there any minute.

  He was only half an hour late—right on time for Jimmy—when she heard his too-loud knock at the door. Hurrying over, she unlocked the double latches, unfastened the chain and pulled it open.

  “Hey, babe, what’s happenin’?” He was dressed in jeans and a tank top, his thick black hair slicked back, a toothpick stuck between his white teeth. The tattoo of a rose covered a portion of his oversized biceps.

  “Hi, Jimmy.”

  “So…you ready to shit-can this joint and grab a beer?”

  She wet her lips, suddenly a little uncertain. She hadn’t remembered Jimmy being quite so rough-looking the last time they had gone out. “Yeah…sure…let me get my purse.” She grabbed the fringed, quilted shoulder bag she had made herself, stopped a second in front of the mirror to check her appearance—a yellow halter top, jeans, and sandals—and they headed out the door.

  They went to Ernie’s, a local Venice beer bar that was a favorite of Jimmy’s. They played pool and drank pitchers of beer, ate greasy hamburgers and fries. Amazingly, by ten o’clock, Jimmy was ready to go home.

  Laura was ready, too. In the course of the evening, she had discovered she was no longer interested in Jimmy Osborn. She didn’t enjoy hearing how he’d “beat the shit out of that no-good Buddy Taylor.” She didn’t like hearing him snicker with his friend, Joe Rizzoli, about the great bod Teresa Wilson had, or how tight her pussy was when Joe had finally screwed her.

  All she could think of was that Jimmy was short on brains and that the way the guys talked about Teresa was the way they must talk about her.

  She couldn’t help thinking of Brian. Whenever they had been together, they had talked about interesting, important things. He had challenged her, made her remember things she had learned in school, made her want to learn more. Even when they were fighting, he made her think instead of just react. And she had to admit there were times he was right.

  Jimmy pulled his ten-year-old, dented black Camaro over to the curb and Laura opened the door and got out, knowing Jimmy would never come around to help her as Brian always did. Besides, she was eager to get home. She had never been so grateful to reach the front door of her apartment.

  “Thanks, Jimmy.” Standing on the cement step, she unlocked both door locks and walked inside. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  He braced a hand on the door frame above her head. “Hey, wait a minute. You trying to give me the brush-off or something?”

  “No, no, of course not. I’m just tired, is all. I haven’t been sleeping very well. I thought tonight I’d go to bed early.”

  “Good idea,” he said with a leer.

  “That isn’t what I meant.” She tried to close the door, but he slammed a heavy boot against the jamb.

  “Listen, baby, I bought you dinner, remember? I bought you drinks.” He shoved hard on the door, pushing her inside, then followed her in. “You ain’t gettin’ off so easy.”

  “Get out, Jimmy. I’ll give you the damn money for your lousy hamburger, just get out of my house.”

  “No dice, baby.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her hard against him, brutally gripped her jaw and forced her mouth open, then shoved his tongue halfway down her throat. Gagging, Laura raked her nails down his cheek and jerked away, taking several hasty steps backward.

  “Get out!” she shouted. “Get out or I’m calling the police!”

  Jimmy rubbed his cheek, noticed a trace of blood on his hand. His eyes narrowed and darkened. “I ain’t leavin’, baby. I’m gonna stay right here and teach you some manners.” His lips curled faintly. “I’m gonna fuck you good, Laura. Maybe next time you’ll know better than to mess with Jimmy Osborn.”

  Laura made a strangled sound in her throat and tried to run, but Jimmy caught her arm and shoved her up against the wall. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back.

 
“You’re gonna get it, baby. You’re gonna get it real good.”

  “Jimmy, don’t!” Laura pleaded. “Please let me go.”

  A slight noise came from the doorway. “You heard what the lady said. Let her go.” The door swung wide and Brian stood framed in the opening. “Get away from her and get out of her house.”

  “Brian…”

  His hands were balled into fists, his mouth a grim line. He was taller than Jimmy, but Jimmy was younger, with a more wiry build. And utterly ruthless. If the two men fought, Brian was bound to get hurt.

  Jimmy’s lip curled. “Get outta here, man. This ain’t no business of yours.”

  “I said to let her go,” Brian repeated, legs slightly splayed, every muscle taut.

  “Be careful, Brian!”

  Jimmy yanked so hard on her hair tears sprang into her eyes. “Shut up, bitch! I’ll take care of you when I’m through with him.”

  He let her go and turned to Brian and the instant she was free, Laura bolted into her bedroom. Her hands were shaking so hard she had trouble with the drawer in her bedside table, but eventually it moved and she jerked it open. The .38 special she had purchased through a friend sat exactly where she had left it.

  She gripped the gun with both hands as she had been taught in her one-and-only lesson and tried to hold it steady. Taking a deep, calming breath, she raced back to the living room just in time to see Jimmy Osborn standing in front of Brian, his mouth a tight line, bloodlust shining in his dark eyes.

  Laura raised the gun, her hands shaking but steadier than she would have expected. “Hold it, Jimmy! Stop right there.” Standing with her legs slightly spread, she kept her arms straight in front of her, just as she had learned. Her knees were trembling, but she held her ground, pointing the pistol straight at Jimmy’s heart. “I don’t want any trouble, Jimmy. I just want you to leave.”