Starfarers

by Poul Anderson

  “Destiny? Yes, I daresay he does. And you don’t?”

  “No. I believe in—slogging, is that your word? Slogging ahead, the best way we can; and if we fail, then we fail. Bad luck, nothing else.”

  “I feel there must be some purpose to existence. But the purpose can’t be that we take over everything at the expense of … everybody else.”

  “Words, just words. I tell you, don’t worry about Al Brent. I’ve known men with wilder notions who operated perfectly well. Captain Nansen wouldn’t have accepted him—no matter how scarce qualified volunteers have been—if he was any kind of danger.”

  She eased. “You two should be shrewd judges.” Slyly: “And I confessed he’s attractive.”

  “That is something our crew members will decide about each other,” he answered.

  She smiled. “We could begin now.”

  The evening and the next few days passed very pleasantly.

  7.

  Seen from afar, against blackness cloven by the Milky Way and crowded with stars, Earth a blue spark lost in the glare of the dwindling sun, spaceship Envoy was jewelwork, exquisite in her simplicity. Two four-spoked wheels spun with glittering speed, an axle motionless between them. From the after hub projected a lacy cylinder, the plasma drive accelerator. From the forward hub reached, far and far, thin and bright as a laser ray, a lance, the wave-guide mast for the shielding force field. Both were now inactive. The ship had reached the desired velocity and was outbound on a cometary orbit. There was no immediate radiation hazard.

  Hurtling closer, Jean Kilbirnie saw the true enormousness swell before her. Those wheels were four hundred meters across, their toroidal rims ten meters thick, each spoke a six-meter tube. They counterrotated almost one hundred meters apart. The accelerator extended 40 meters, the mast a full kilometer. Other starcraft had similar lines, but none were like unto this. Envoy bore a quantum gate with capacity to give a gamma, a relativistic mass-length-time factor, of a full five thousand. She must carry everything that ten humans and their machines might imaginably need on a journey into the totally unknown.

  Not yet had she embarked on it. This was a one-month shakedown cruise within the Solar System. The zero-zero drive would not awaken. Nothing about the ship required testing. Robots had done that, over and over, and all flaws were mended. The crew were testing themselves.

  Kilbirnie peered at viewscreens and instruments. Subtler clues flowed into her through the bioelectronic circuits. Almost, she was the spaceboat. The ship waxed as if toppling upon her. The axial cylinder filled her vision, a curving cliff of sheening metal plated on composite whose strength approached the ultimate. Turrets, bays, dishes, tracks, ports, hatches, the whole complexity leaped forth athwart shadows. It was the outer hull, fifty meters in diameter. The inner hull projected slightly at either end, twenty meters wide, encased there in sleeves that held the magnetic bearings of the wheels. Kilbirnie was overtaking from aft, as doctrine required. No person was in that wheel, only machinery, supplies, and equipment awaiting whatever hour they would be wanted.

  Time! Her fingers commanded full thrust. Deceleration crammed her back into the recoil chair. Blood thundered in her ears, red rags flew across her sight. The brief savagery ended and she floated weightless in her harness. She had not set those vectors. Living nerves, muscles, brains were too slow, too limited. Yet hers was the mind that directed the robotics that animated them. “Ki-ai!” she shouted, and spun Herald around.

  The next maneuver was actually trickier, but did not rouse the same exuberance. Having matched velocities just as she came even with her dock, half a kilometer off, she boosted delicately inward. The dock extended arms, caught hold, swung the boat parallel to the ship, drew her in, and made her fast.

  Kilbirnie sat still, letting her heartbeat quiet down. The comscreen lighted. Captain Nansen’s image looked grimly out. “Pilot Kilbirnie,” he said, “that approach was total recklessness. You left no margin of safety.”

  She pressed for transmission. “Och, Herald and I knew what we were doing,” she replied.

  He glared at her. Blood still atingle flushed a narrow face with strong bones, straight nose, broad mouth, and blue eyes under thick black brows, framed in light brown hair bobbed below the ears. Coverall-clad, her body was rangy to the point of leanness. It was thirty-three years old, but Tau Ceti had added twenty-five to its calendar.

  “You endangered your boat, the ship, the whole mission,” he snapped.

  Lajos Ruszek broke in, though he didn’t bother with splicing to video. His vessel, Courier, sister to Herald, had barely come into naked-eye view, a blunt bullet tiny among stars. “Captain, I gave her leave to do it,” he said. “I knew she could. We’ve maneuvered enough together, we two.”

  “Why did you?” Nansen demanded of Kilbirnie.

  “Not to show off or experiment, sir,” she explained, slightly chastened. “That would have been foul, taking unnecessary chances. It was to practice. We’ve unco short time left for reinforcing our skills. Then we’re off on the big jump and can’t again for a year. Who kens what we’ll meet at the far end? Lajos and I had better be well drilled.”

  “Pilot’s judgment, Captain,” Ruszek reminded.

  Nansen relaxed a little. “Very well,” he said. “I withdraw the reprimand. But do not repeat this or anything like it, either of you.” He gave her a wry smile. “We aboard want to keep our sanity in condition!”

  Kilbirnie lowered her head. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t think of that.”

  “We learn by mistakes.” Nansen switched off.

  “Including you by yours?” she muttered. “Dinna think I havena heard what a hotshot you were in your own piloting days.”

  Her cheerfulness revived. She disengaged the sensory interfaces attached to her skin, unharnessed, and floated to the bow airlock. The dock had mated a transit module to it. She passed through. Inside the great hull, a passage stretched bare and bleakly lighted. Maybe someone would brighten it up in the course of the journey. Hands grasping, feet thrusting at inset rungs, Kilbirnie sped forward. At the end, a perpendicular corridor brought her to a lock near the inner hull. Beyond it she entered a padded compartment with several seats, into one of which she secured herself.

  The compartment was the cabin of a shuttle. It did not jet, it jumped across the ten meters to the wheel. Magnetohydrodynamic forces captured it along the way and eased it into contact with a port in that spoke which happened to be whirling past at the right instant. The radius here being short, the impact was slight, as was the weight Kilbirnie suddenly felt. She unbuckled, cycled through this pair of locks, and emerged on a platform projecting into the cylinder. From there she could have taken a railcar to the rim. She preferred to climb the fixed ladder.

  The climb could as well have been called a descent. Weight increased as she proceeded, until at the end it was a full Earth gravity. She came out into a corridor, lined with doors, which curved upward to right and left, although the deck was always level beneath her feet. The overhead cast gentle light. At the moment, a breeze bore an odor of pine. She inhaled gratefully. While a boat trip might be exciting, undeniably the ship had a better air system.

  Tim Cleland stood jittering to and fro. He was a tall young man, carelessly clad, sparely built, his countenance round and snub-nosed, with brown eyes and curly brown hair. “Jean,” he croaked.

  She halted. “Losh, what a face on you,” she said.

  “I was … terrified.” In haste: “Not for me. For you. If you’d crashed—” He reached toward her.

  She ignored the gesture. “No danger of that,” she assured him. “I like being alive.”

  His arms dropped. He stared at her. The ventilation whispered.

  “Do you?” he asked slowly.

  Her smile died. Her look defied him.

  “Do you?” he insisted. “Then why are you throwing it away, ev—everything that is your life? … Ten thousand years sealed inside this shell.”

  Kilbirnie strength
ened her burr. “Nobbut two years altogether, ship time. In between them, five years of Elvenland.”

  “You don’t like what Earth’s become,” he pleaded. “In ten thousand years, it’ll be—what?”

  Her teeth flashed in the wide white smile that was especially hers. “A high part of the whole faring, to see what.” The husky voice went low. “But if you feel like this about it, why are you bound along?”

  His shoulders slumped. “You know why. I’ve told you, how often?”

  She nodded: “It’s because I am. Tim, Tim, that’s not a sane reason.”

  He attempted playfulness. “I’ll wear you down.”

  “I think not, Tim. You’re a dear, but I think not. Best you resign, before ’tis too late. We do have some standby volunteers, you remember.”

  Cleland shook his head. “No. They’re second choices. By now, I’d feel like a traitor.” He caught a breath. “Besides, well, the scientific prospects are dazzling, that’s true. What kinds of planets, what kinds of beings? And—and, uh, I’ve explained how I never was very adept socially. Not a leader, not a follower, not a joiner. I’m giving up less than most men would.” He gulped. “But I’m not giving up on you.”

  “Forgive me,” she said softly. “I must go now. I have a date.”

  He stared as if she had slapped him. She laughed. “With Mamphela in the gym. We’ll trade teachings of old dances, Highland and Zulu.”

  He gaped. “Right after … getting back from space … the way you did?”

  “When would a girl more want to kick up her heels?” she answered joyfully, and left him.

  The engines of the plasma and zero-zero drives were aft in the inner hull. Most of their servicing facilities were nearby. However, the forward wheel held lesser workshops of various kinds, as well as laboratories. Its circumference gave ample room.

  Passing by one of these, Chief Engineer Yu Wenji heard sounds through the door, opened it, and went in to see. Alvin Brent, her second, sat hunched over a table, at work on a circuit board. Tools and materials lay scattered before him. A faint ozone pungency in the air spoke of an ion torch lately used. Computer screens displayed diagrams.

  “What are you doing?” Yu asked.

  Brent twisted around on his stool. For an instant he glowered. She stood her ground, a short, sturdy woman with blunt features between high cheekbones, bronzy complexion, black hair swept up and held by a comb. Her embroidered jacket and blue trousers seemed to rebuke his soiled work clothes.

  He smoothed the irritation off his face and said carefully, “I’ve worked out an idea for an improvement in our missile launch control. Minor, but it could make a difference someday. Now I’m putting together the hardware. There’ll be time on this cruise to install and test it.”

  She stiffened. “You told me nothing about this.”

  “I saw no reason to, ma’am. It’s not connected to your engines. Not your responsibility.”

  “Every apparatus aboard and every program to run it is my responsibility. Bad enough that we carry weapons—”

  “How do you know we won’t need them?” he interrupted.

  She sighed. “I don’t, of course. But I cannot believe that civilizations thousands or millions of years old continue such obscene follies.” Coldly: “You will consult me in advance about any further ideas you may have, Mr. Brent. Meanwhile you will stop this project until I have evaluated it.”

  “What harm?” he protested. “You’d have known before I tried anything. Everybody would have.”

  “I would not have had an opportunity to analyze it for any effects on the entire, integrated system. Have you thought of every possibility? Furthermore, this is a matter of principle. You cannot decide unilaterally what use of your time is best for the ship.”

  He slammed the board down on the table. “Use?” he exploded. “What do you expect me to do? Stand idle like another of your machines till you feel like switching me on?”

  She lifted a palm and replied with quick mildness, “I have wondered if you would care to teach our shipmates something of what you know and can do, in case you suffer misfortune. I need not explain to you the value of redundancy. We do not have nearly enough.”

  “Who in this gang of freaks has that kind of talent?”

  “Why, surely Mate Ruszek, Pilot Kilbirnie, and Dr. Dayan, at least. Probably more. They will be wanting worthwhile occupation on our journey. We all will.”

  “You the most,” broke from him.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You probably have more need to forget than anyone else does. Or do you imagine your precious Chinese culture will still be here when we get back?”

  “That will do, Mr. Brent,” she clipped.

  He swallowed, stood up as if at attention, and conceded stiffly, “I apologize, ma’am. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Again she softened. “Well, but you are under stress. We must not make it worse. If you will prepare a report on this device of yours, I will be glad to review it and, if it has merit, discuss it with the captain. Good daywatch.”

  Before he could reply, she turned and left. Her strides down the corridor were quick but not entirely even. Tears glimmered in her eyes. She blinked them away.

  Presently she reached the common room. As yet it was plain, monotone, like most of the interior. Decoration would help occupy the time of voyage. Already it reached spacious, comfortably furnished, equipped for games, recorded entertainment, or live performances. Interference projectors could block sound from those who might want to sit undisturbed. It offered a change from their private cabins.

  At this hour it was generally deserted. People were more actively engaged. As Yu entered she saw Ajit Nathu Sundaram in an armchair.

  He rose and bowed. She returned the courtesy. He was a small man on the verge of middle age, fine-featured, chocolate-colored, the black hair beginning to frost. As usual, he wore merely pajamas and sandals. “Good afternoon, Engineer Yu,” he greeted. His voice was rather high, its English devoid of any regional flavor.

  “Yes, it is afternoon by the clock, is it not?” she responded more or less automatically. “Likewise to you, sir. You look happy.”

  “I have no reason not to be.” He regarded her. She had not hidden every sign of distress. “A few of our friends are less fortunate.”

  She grabbed after conversation. “What were you doing, if I may ask?”

  “Thinking. Not very productively, I fear.”

  She in her turn gazed long at him. “Can anything shake you?” she murmured.

  “Too many things. They should not, true.” He smiled. “Since you are here, apparently at loose ends, would you care for a game of chess?”

  “I—I suspect you notice more than you pretend.”

  “Not really. I am a theorist. Whatever expertise I may have is abstract, in the underlying structure and logic of language,” said humankind’s most famous linguist and semantician. “But perhaps I can put some blood and fire into my chessmen.”

  “Thank you,” she said low. “A game is exactly what I would like.”

  At 1930 hours the crew came to the wardroom from wherever they had been in the wheel. Selim ibn Ali Zeyd encountered Hanny Dayan near the entrance.

  He halted to look her up and down. “Quelle surprise délicieuse,” he greeted, politely but with unmistakable appreciation.

  She stopped, too. Her lips quirked upward. A deep blue gown, full-length and low-cut, hugged her figure. The Egyptian pendant was colorful above her breasts and a silver fillet held the red hair. “Thank you,” she said.

  “When the captain requested that henceforward we dress for dinner, I did not expect anything so splendid.”

  “We knew he would.”

  This was to be after acceleration ended, weight became purely centrifugal, and the travelers had moved from the cramped gimballed decks. This gathering would celebrate the completion of settlement in their proper quarters.

  “So I brought a few extra clothes along,”
Dayan finished.

  “Greatly to the gain of the gentlemen among us,” Zeyd told her.

  She gave him a glance as frank as his own. “You are quite elegant yourself.”

  The biochemist stood slim and dark, hawk-faced, with sleek black hair and closely trimmed mustache, in well-tailored whites. “How kind of you,” he answered. “Also to wear that ornament. I am an Egyptian, you may recall.”

  “Not yet mummified.”

  “You seem in a merry mood.”

  She grew briefly thoughtful. “I’ve … put regrets behind me, as best I could. Let’s move onward.”

  “An attitude more than sensible. It confers radiance.”

  Wariness edged her tone. “Thank you, Dr. Zeyd.”

  “Since we are to play at formality,” he said, his geniality undiminished, “may I?” He offered her his arm. She smiled back at him and took it. They went into the wardroom and sat down together.

  Savory smells mingled. The nanotechnics of the adjacent galley could provide everybody with his or her choice from the menus of the world. Tonight it was to be a surprise, but individual preferences, religious injunctions, and the like were in the database. Napery rested snowy beneath a gleam of tableware. A servitor rolled about, its arms deftly placing the hors d’oeuvres and the first bottles.

  When the whole company was seated, Nansen tapped his goblet with a knife. The chime brought talk buzzing to a halt. Attention swung toward him, at the head of the table in a gray tunic with gold trim. “Silence, please,” he said. “A moment for those who wish to bless our meal.”

  He crossed himself. He was nominally a Reform Catholic, as observant as he felt good manners required. Ruszek did likewise. Zeyd bowed his head. Mokoena looked down at her folded hands and whispered. Yu and Sundaram grew meditative. The rest waited respectfully.

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Nansen resumed, “now that we are properly on our cruise, let’s do more than practice being a crew. Let’s take pleasure in each other and in the voyage we’ll share.” His cordiality gave way to seriousness. “I promise not to make speeches at you as a regular thing, but on this first occasion a few remarks do seem in order. You are all aware of these matters and have given them much thought. I would simply like to set them forth in a few words, to make sure we share the same understanding. Anyone who feels I am wrong about anything, please say so, if not here then at our regular discussion sessions.