Free Voyagers II - The Alien Within by Ben Bova Page A

spacecraft was a treasure house of technology. Who knew what secrets it would reveal to those who captured it? And if they could revive the frozen astronaut, bring him back to life, that alone would be worth untold billions.
    She succeeded. The price of success was marrying Nillson and letting him parade her before former lovers and future possibilities as his possession.
    But the rewards! Once they had brought the alien spacecraft back into a safe orbit around the Earth, Vanguard’s scientists had dug into it like a swarm of ants stripping a carcass. In the first five years they found enough to change the world several times over, and to make Vanguard virtually an autonomous nation, such was the wealth and power uncovered.
    And now, at last, they had brought the frozen human being back to life. Like Sleeping Beauty, they had revived the seemingly dead. Immortality was at hand. For that, the world would pay anything that Jo wanted.
    But Keith Stoner had to be controlled now. At least for a while. Controlled and kept safe from harm. It wouldn’t do for the world’s first immortal man to disappear.
    Or die.

CHAPTER 10
    It was past eleven o’clock and Richards had not shown up yet. Stoner sat patiently in the chair by the window, reading Don Quixote , part of the lifetime’s worth of literature that he had never gotten into before. He laughed at the antics of the emaciated old madman and his stout, earthy squire, Sancho. Like all the generations before him, Stoner saw something of himself in the earnest lunacy of the Knight of the Sad Countenance.
    But within his mind, it was as though he were discovering facets of the human race that he had never understood before. It’s all a sham, a voice within him whispered. Each human being plays a role, presents a mask to the others around him, and the others all hold up their own masks to hide their own vulnerabilities.
    No human is ever totally honest, Stoner realized. Not even with himself. He put the book down on his lap and stared out at the ocean. You knew that, he told himself. You’ve known that almost all your life.
    Yet there was a part of him that found the understanding new and fresh and fascinating. A part of him that seemed to be perceiving the human drama for the first time.
    When the portal opened it made no sound, but the glow of the wall’s transmutation caught Stoner’s eye. He turned to see Richards stepping through.
    The psychiatrist stared at the book in Stoner’s lap. “You just started reading that this morning,” he said, his tone almost accusing.
    “Yes,” answered Stoner, getting to his feet.
    “You’re damned near finished!”
    Stoner glanced at the book, still in his hand. He turned and put it down carefully on the windowsill next to the chair. “My reading speed is increasing, I guess.”
    Richards bustled past him and picked up the book. “Seven hundred and thirty-two pages! You’ve read it? Without skimming?”
    Stoner smiled. “Want to quiz me?”
    “Should I?”
    “Is it because psychiatry began among Middle European Jews that you tend to answer a question with a question?” Stoner asked.
    Richards scowled.
    “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from Cervantes,” Stoner volunteered. “And from the other authors I’ve been reading. All of fiction is basically about one subject, and only one: women choosing their mates.”
    “Women choosing…?”
    With a nod, Stoner said, “Yep. That’s the common denominator of all fiction.”
    “Not in Don Quixote ,” Richards objected.
    “The don’s adventures are just a frame to hold together a lot of little stories,” Stoner said. “All of those little stories concern women deciding whom they’re going to marry.”
    “But not all fiction! A lot of it’s about men.”
    Stoner’s grin widened. “Some of it seems to be about men and their adventures. But when you look closer, you see that what the men are really doing is trying to get certain women. And it’s always the woman who