Table Of ContentThe Death of Sleep
Anne McCaffrey and Jody Lynn Nye
© 1990
Scanned October 2002
Confusion alert: The last chapter of this book is actually the two books in the
“dinosaur planet” series, compressed into just a few pages. I dont know which
was written first.
THE DEATH OF SLEEP
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are
fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 1990 by Bill Fawcett and Associates
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof
in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
260 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10001
ISBN: 0-671-69884-2
Cover art by Stephen Hickman
First printing, July 1990
First printing, July 1990
Distributed by
SIMON & SCHUSTER
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10020
Printed in the United States of America
COLD COMFORT
For all her theoretical training, this was the first time she would experience the
cryogenic process. Lunzie gazed into the lucite block, smiled into the image of
Fiona’s eyes. “What an adventure I’ll have to tell you about when I see you, my
darling.” She pressed the nozzle of the spray against her thigh. It hissed as the
drug dispersed swiftly through her body. Where it passed, her tissues became
leaden, and her skin felt hot. Though the sensation was uncomfortable, Lunzie
knew the process was safe. “Initiating,” she told the computer indistinctly. Her
jaw and tongue were already out of her control. Lunzie could sense her pulse
slowing down, and her nervous responses became lethargic. Even her lungs were
growing too heavy to drag air in or push it out.
Her last conscious thoughts were of her daughter, and she hoped that the rescue
shuttle wouldn’t take too long to answer the Mayday.
All lights on the shuttle except the exterior running lights and beacon went
down. Inside, cold cryogenic vapor filled the tiny cabin, swirling around
Lunzie’s still form… .
THE DEATH OF SLEEP
BOOK ONE
Chapter One
The single engaged engine of the empty spherical ore carrier thrummed hollowly
through the hull. It set the decks and bulkheads of the personnel quarters
vibrating at a frequency which at first, depending on one’s mood, could be
soothing or irritating. After four weeks aboard the Tau Ceti registered mining
vessel Nellie Mine, Lunzie Mespil had to think about it to remember that the
hum was there at all. When she first boarded, as the newly hired doctor for the
Descartes Mining Platform Number 6, the sound drove her halfway to
distraction. There wasn’t much to do except read and sleep and listen, or rather,
feel the engine noise. Later, she discovered that the sound was conducive to easy
sleep and relaxation, like being aboard a gently swaying monorail passenger
carrier. Whether her fellow employees knew it or not, one of the chief reasons
that the Descartes Mining Corporation had so few duels and mutinies on delivery
runs was due to the peace-inducing hum of the engines.
The first few days she spent in the tiny, plain-walled cubicle which doubled as
her sleeping quarters and office were a trifle lonely. Lunzie had too many hours
to think of her daughter Fiona. Fiona, fourteen, lovely and precocious in
Lunzie’s unbiased opinion, had been left behind in the care of a friend who was
the chief medical officer on the newly colonized planet of Tau Ceti. The
settlement was surprisingly comfortable for one so recently established. It had a
good climate, a biosphere reasonably friendly toward humankind, marked
seasons, and plenty of arable land that allowed both Earth-type and hybrid seeds
to prosper. Lunzie hoped to settle down there herself when she finished her tour
of duty on the Platform, but she wasn’t independently wealthy. Even a
commodity as precious as medical expertise wasn’t sufficient to buy into the Tau
Ceti association. She needed to earn a stake, and there was little call on an
atmosphere-and-gravity world for her to practice her specialty of psychological
space-incurred trauma. There was no help for it: she was compelled to go off-
planet to earn money. To her great dismay, all of the posts which were best
suited to her profession and experience - and paid the most - were on isolated
facilities. She would not be able to take Fiona with her. After much negotiation,
Lunzie signed on with Descartes for a stint on a remote mining platform.
Fiona had been angry that she couldn’t accompany her mother to the Descartes
Platform, and had refused to accept the fact. In the last days before Lunzie’s
departure, Fiona had avoided speaking to her, and stubbornly unpacked Lunzie’s
two five-kilo duffels as often as her mother filled them up. It was an adolescent
prank, but one that showed Lunzie how hurt Fiona felt to be abandoned. Since
she was born, they had never been apart more than a day or so. Lunzie herself
was aching at the impending separation, but she understood, as Fiona would not,
the economic necessity that caused her to take a medical berth so far away and
leave Fiona behind.
Their spacefare to Tau Ceti had been paid on speculation by the science council,
who were testing the viability of a clone breeding center on the newly colonized
planet. Lunzie had been approached by the ethics council to join them, their
interest stemming from her involvement as the student advisor on a similar panel
during her days in medical school which had resulted in an experimental colony.
Surprisingly, the data on that earlier effort was unavailable even to the
participants on the panel. Her former term-husband Sion had also given her his
recommendation. He was becoming very well known and respected in genetic
studies, mainly involved in working on controlling the heavyworld human
mutations.
There were four or five meetings of the ethics council, which quickly determined
that even so altruistic a project as fostering a survival-oriented genome was self-
defeating in just a few generations, and no further action was taken. Lunzie was
out of work in a colony that didn’t need her. Because of the classified nature of
the study, she was unable even to explain to her daughter why she wasn’t
employed in the job which they had traveled to Tau Ceti to take.
After the fifth or sixth time she had to repack her case, Lunzie knew by heart the
few possessions she was taking with her, and locked her luggage up in the
poisons cabinet in the Tau Ceti medical center to keep Fiona away from it.
By then, the protests had degenerated into a mere sulk. With love, Lunzie
watched Fiona patiently, waiting for her to accept their parting, placing herself
where she would be available to the troubled youngster when she decided she
was ready to talk. Lunzie knew from experience that it was no good chasing
Fiona down. She had to let Fiona come to her in her own time. They were too
much alike. To force an early confrontation would be like forcing a nuclear pile
to overload. She went about her business in the medical center, assisting other
medical personnel with ongoing research which the colony had approved. At
last, Fiona met her coming out of the medical center one sunny day after work,
and presented her with a small wrapped package. It was a hard triangular
cylinder. Lunzie smiled, recognizing the shape. Under the paper was a brand
new studio hologram of Fiona, dressed in her feastday best, an outfit in the latest
style for which she had begged and plagued her mother to supplement the
amount she’d saved to buy it from her allowance on their last planetary home.
Lunzie could see how much of her own looks were reflected in Fiona: the
prominent cheekbones, the high forehead, the warm mouth. The waves of
smooth hair were much darker than hers, nearer black than Lunzie’s golden
brown. Fiona had long, sleepy eyes and a strong chin she inherited from her
father that made her look determined, if not downright stubborn, even as a baby.
The ruby-colored frock enhanced the girl’s light skin, making her exotic and
lovely as a flower. The translucent flowing cape which fell from between the
shoulders was in the very height of fashion, a field of stars in pinpoint lights
which swirled like a comet’s tail around Fiona’s calves. Lunzie looked up from
the gift into her daughter’s eyes, which were watching her warily, wondering
what she would say. “I love it, darling,” Lunzie told her, gathering her close and
tucking the hologram safely into her zip pouch. “I’ll miss you so much.”
“Don’t forget me.” A broken whimper was muffled against Lunzie’s tunic front.
Lunzie drew back and took her daughter’s tear-stained face between her hands,
studying it, learning it by heart. “I never could,” Lunzie promised her. “I never
will. And I’ll be back before you know it.”
During her remaining days planetside, she had turned over her laboratory work
to a co-worker so she could spend all her time with Fiona. They visited favorite
spots, and together moved Fiona’s belongings and the rest of her own from their
temporary quarters to the home of the friend who would be fostering the girl.
They asked each other, ‘Do you remember this? Do you remember that?’,
sharing precious memories as they had shared the events themselves. It was a
glowing, warm time for both of them, too soon over for Lunzie’s taste.
A silent Fiona walked her to the landing bay where the shuttle waited to
transport her to the Nellie Mine. Tau Ceti’s pale lavender-blue sky was overcast.
When the sky was clear, Lunzie could often see the sun glint off the sides of
visiting ships high above Tau Ceti in parking orbit, but she was just as happy
that she could not now. She was holding back on her emotions. If there was any
way to spare Fiona her own misery, she would do it. Lunzie promised herself a
really good cry once she was shipside. For one moment, she felt like ripping up
her contract and running away, telling Descartes to chuck it, and pleading with
the Tau Ceti authorities that she would work at any job, however menial, to stay
here with Fiona. But then, good sense took over. Lunzie remembered crude
financial matters like making a living, and assured herself that it wouldn’t be that
long before she could return, and they would have a comfortable life thereafter
with what she’d earned.
“I’ll negotiate for an asteroid miner as soon as I can afford it,” Lunzie offered,
breaking the silence. “Maybe I’ll stake a few.” Her words echoed among the
corrugated metal walls of the spaceport. There seemed to be no one there but
themselves. “We’ll strike it rich, you’ll see. You’ll be able to go to any
university you like, or go for officer training in Fleet, like my brother. Whatever
you want.”
“Mm,” was Fiona’s only comment. Her face was drawn into a mask so tragic
that Lunzie wanted to laugh and cry. Fiona hadn’t used any makeup that
morning, so she looked more childlike than her usual careful teenaged self.
It’s manipulation, I know it, Lunzie told herself severely. I’ve got to make a
living, or where’s our future? I know she’s grieving, but I’ll only be gone two
years, five at the most! The girl’s nose was turning red, and her lips were white
and pressed tightly closed. Lunzie started to offer another pleasantry, and then
realized that she was trying to manipulate her daughter into foregoing her
legitimate feelings. I don’t want to make a scene, so I’m trying to keep her from
acting unhappy. She pressed her own lips shut. We’re too much alike, that’s the
trouble, Lunzie decided, shaking her head. She squeezed Fiona’s hand tighter.
They walked in silence to the landing bay.
Landing Bay Six contained a big cargo shuttle of the type used by shippers who
hauled more freight than passengers. This craft, once nattily painted white with a
broad red band from its nose to tail, was dinged and dented. The ceramic coating
along the nose showed scorching from making descents through planetary
atmospheres, but the vehicle seemed otherwise in good shape and well cared for.
A broad-shouldered man with black curly hair stood in the middle of the bay,
waving a clipboard and dispensing orders to a handful of coveralled workers.
Sealed containers were being forklifted into the open top hatch of the shuttle.
The black-haired man noticed them and came over, hand out in greeting.
“You’re the new doctor?” he asked, seizing Lunzie’s free hand and wringing it
companionably. “Captain Cosimo, Descartes Mining. Glad to have you with us.
Hello, little lady,” Cosimo ducked his head to Fiona, a cross between a nod and a
bow. “Are those your bags. Doctor? Marcus! Take the doctor’s bags on board!”
Lunzie offered Cosimo the small cube containing her contract and orders, which
he slotted into the clipboard. “All’s well,” he said, scanning the readout on his
screen. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before we lift off. Hatch shuts at T-
minus two. Until then, your time’s your own.” With another smile for Fiona, he
went back to shouting at one of his employees. “See here, Nelhen, that’s a
forklift, not a wee little toy!”
Lunzie turned to Fiona. Her throat began to tighten. All the things she wanted to
say seemed so trivial when compared to what she felt. She cleared her throat,
trying not to cry. Fiona’s eyes were aswim with tears. “There’s not much time.”
“Oh, Mama,” Fiona burst out in a huge sob. “I’ll miss you so!” The almost-
grown Fiona, who eschewed all juvenile things and had called her mother
Lunzie since early childhood, reverted all at once to the baby name she hadn’t
used in years. “I’ll miss you, too. Fee,” Lunzie admitted, more touched than she
realized. They clutched each other close and shed honest tears. Lunzie let it all
out, and felt better for it. In the end, neither Lunzie nor any member of her
family could be dishonest.
When the klaxon sounded, Fiona let her go with one more moist kiss, and stood
back to watch the launch. Lunzie felt closer to her than she ever had. She kept
Fiona in her mind, picturing her waving as the shuttle lifted and swept away
through the violet-blue sky of Tau Ceti.
Now, with the exception of today’s uniform, one music disk, and the hologram,
her baggage was secured in the small storage chamber behind the shower unit
with everyone else’s. Lunzie had cropped her hair practically short as most crew
members did. She missed the warm, fresh wind, cooking her own food from the
indigenous plant life, and Fiona.
Without other set duties to occupy her, Lunzie spent the days studying the
medical files of her future co-workers and medical texts on the typical injuries
and ailments that befall asteroid miners. She was looking forward to her new
post. Space-incurred traumas interested her. Agoraphobia and claustrophobia
were the most common in space-station life, followed by paranoid disorders.
Strangely enough, frequently more than one occurred in the same patient at the
same time. She was curious about the causes, and wanted to amass field research
to prove or disprove her professors’ statements about the possibility of cures.
