Starfarers

by Poul Anderson

  “I daresay his behavior accords ill with your standards.”

  “Yes.” She was objective again. “My upbringing. Not that I’ve lived by it especially well. In my parents’ eyes I was a sinner. That they could forgive me, over and over, made me love them even more. But some of their teaching stayed. Drunkenness has always disgusted me.”

  “You are not compelled to put up with it.”

  “No.” Her mood went over to sadness. “He is a good man, basically. We used to be happy together, most of the time. Not in love, but we enjoyed each other’s company. I shouldn’t abandon him. I keep hoping he’ll … recover. Meanwhile, though, I feel overborne, confined, in a rage.”

  “Work is often a blessing. How goes your research?”

  “Poorly. I can’t concentrate. Not that it’s anything important. Marking time, maintaining the skills, till we get to where the real work is.” A hint of fear: “Will I be fit to do it?”

  “I think so. We have months of travel yet. Time for coming to terms with reality, time for healing. You are a good person yourself, Mamphela, and a strong person, and you are able to see things clearly. That is not as common a gift as one would wish. It bears hope with it.”

  As the slow words flowed, her muscles began to loosen. When Sundaram had finished, Mokoena stood for a minute or two, breathing. Then she said low, with a catch in her tone, “Thank you, Ajit. Already that helps. Thank you.”

  He smiled. “No thanks are due me. I merely listened.”

  “You listened in the right way. And—Could we sit down and talk some more? I don’t want to impose, but—”

  “I shall be honored,” he said. His touch on her hand guided her to a chair.

  Envoy fared onward, each hour of her nightwatch seven months among the stars.

  A park occupied three hundred meters of outer deck circumference. Terraces rose at one end to a flower-surrounded well in the inner deck, on which people lived. Planning, planting, and tending had been the particular, though not exclusive, pleasure of Yu, Mokoena, and Zeyd. To all, the park became a sanctuary.

  Fragrance breathed from the well, out into the dim lighting and cool air of a deserted corridor. On the path to it Yu brushed against hollyhocks and lilies gone slumberous. The way down the terraces was broader, moss moist and resilient underfoot. A streamlet wound through rosemary, clover, and pampas grass. It sparkled and trilled where it fell over an edge. Here the overhead illumination was a little more bright than on the upper deck, but still meant for darktime, about like a full Moon above Earth. Glowbulbs set widely apart along the footways gave guidance, muted ruby, emerald, topaz.

  The gardens were various, intricately laid out, mostly screened by hedges or vines, so that it was as if a visitor passed from one miniature world to another. Yu chose a track that took her between tall ranks of bamboo to the place she sought: a circle of turf, fringed by the bamboo and by privet and camellias, open to the overhead. At its center lay a pool in which played a fountain.

  Yu stopped. A man slumped on a bench. In spite of the dimness she recognized Ruszek’s bald head and arrogant mustache—not that she could ever fail to tell her nine shipmates apart. He gripped a bottle.

  “Oh,” Yu murmured, surprised.

  “You, too?” Ruszek called hoarsely. He pondered. “No. You wouldn’t come here to get drunk.”

  “Pardon me.” She started to go.

  “No, wait,” he said. “Please. Don’t let me drive you away. I’m harmless.”

  She couldn’t avoid smiling a trifle. “I think I can take your word for that, Lajos.”

  “I’d like some company. Yours would be very nice. If you can stand it. Though I sus-sus-suppose you came looking for peace and quiet.”

  “And beauty and memories,” she admitted. Compassion mingled with courtesy. “If you wish to talk, by all means let us.”

  “You are a sweet lady.” He beckoned.

  She joined him on the bench, keeping well aside. For a span the fountain alone had voice, rushing and splashing, white beneath the gray-indigo false sky. Ruszek held the bottle out to her. She made a fending motion and shook her head. He tilted it and swallowed.

  “Forgive me,” she ventured, “but is this wise?”

  “Who cares?” he growled.

  “We do. Your comrades.”

  “After they’ve made us gone on to nowhere? And on and on.”

  “That isn’t fair. The nature of our mission may have changed, but they feel it is still our mission.”

  “Yes, yes. Everybody honest, everybody honorable. Except me. The captain doesn’t approve of getting drunk. Mam doesn’t. You don’t. I’ve been smuggling flasks out of stores. Bad. Wicked.” He glugged.

  “Does the new knowledge really make such a difference?”

  “You’ve heard me on the subject. We thought we were bound for another race of starfarers. Now—It’ll get skull-crack boring, relics, ruins, tombs, bones. Archeology. Why? We’ll never learn anything, not in five years, not in a hundred. And I didn’t sign on for archeology.”

  “It need not be like that at all.”

  He ignored her rejoinder. “Meanwhile, Earth—Earth may not be completely alien yet. If we went straight home. We might still find taverns and wenches and … and bands playing in the street, picnics in the countryside, life not too much changed—if we don’t come back too God damn late. But we will. And for what?”

  “I am afraid we are already too late.”

  He squinted at her. “Eh? You’ve raised the same argument. I heard. I remember how we both tried to convince Hanny Dayan.”

  Yu shook her head. “You misremember, Lajos. I simply felt that someone should point out the possibility. I know well how faint the hope—even if we started back at once—how faint the hope would be that anything is left of what we knew.”

  “Your government?” he gibed.

  She forgave the cruelty, dismissed it. “Certainly not. It must be extinct, forgotten, like all the troubles that drove some of us to enlist. But so, too, almost certainly, are the things we … loved.” Staring at the fountain, she folded her hands. The fingers strained against each other. “The land, mountains, rivers, grass, trees, the sea, Earth, maybe they survive. Then they can for another few thousand years. No, we do best to continue.”

  He rasped forth a sigh. She caught a whiff of gin breath. “The best of a bad bargain. Maybe. At best.”

  She turned her head to regard him through the deep twilight. “I can imagine why Timothy Cleland and Alvin Brent are less than happy. But you? Frankly, your attitude has astonished me.”

  “Why? Earth might still be where I could feel—argh, not at home—feel free, able to find my way around and roam and cope, with my enemies gone.”

  “Was that your reason? Enemies? I thought—you gave us to understand—you joined for the sheer adventure of it, like Jean Kilbirnie.”

  “Plenty of adventure closer to home. Closer in space and time. Except home got too hot for me.”

  “You have never said—”

  Ruszek drank again. “Nansen knows. I had to explain to him and the board. He was glad to get me. Anyway, he said he was. At least I had space experience, piloting, commanding men, navy and civilian—the Space War—That’s why I am the mate, you know. If something happens to him, I won’t be the same fine, correct, spit-and-polish kind of gentleman, but I can lead us home. So he used his influence with the directors, and got them to put pressure where it counted, and the authorities didn’t bring charges. They stayed quiet. After all, they’d soon be rid of me. Yes, I’m grateful to Ricardo Nansen. In spite of everything, I’ll serve him the best way I can.” Ruszek brooded. “Shouldn’t feel sorry for myself. I’ll probably enjoy part of what happens. Maybe most of it. But tonight I want to forget, and Mam will be furious with me and I want to forget that, too.”

  “You are giving her cause,” said Yu sharply.

  “I know. And she’s giving me cause. She told me, our last fight, if I keep this up, there are othe
r men aboard. For all I know, she’s with one of them tonight.” Ruszek drank.

  “She is a free person. If she does … give others some kindness … it will somewhat relieve a difficult situation.”

  Ruszek leered, though he kept his free hand at his side. “You could, too, Wenji.”

  “We should have been pairs to begin with. But the Foundation had to take whatever qualified persons were available. And it was not a libertine, sex-obsessed era, like some in the past. We ought to be sensible and self-controlled.”

  Blood had mounted hot into Yu’s face. She turned it back to the coolness of the water.

  “Later?” Ruszek asked.

  Yu hesitated. He had not done or said anything actually offensive, and she didn’t want to hurt him. However, this line of thought must stop. She mustered will and sprang to another, stronger question.

  “Were you in conflict with the law, then, Lajos? Do you care to discuss it?”

  “Nothing crooked!” he barked. “Nothing I’m ashamed of or sorry for.”

  She recalled her accusers in China. “The self-righteous never regret what they did. I do not say this is true of you. But I do say no man can judge his own case.”

  “Can a woman?” he retorted. “All right, if you insist. I didn’t want to d’sturb anybody. But if you insist.”

  “I don’t—”

  His words rushed on, slurred, yet sufficiently organized to show they had long been gestating and now the shell was broken.

  “You know my career. Tramped ’round Earth, got into Space Command of th’ Western Alliance, got commission, got in trouble, a brawl, broken in rank, got it back, lost it again for in—in-sub-or-dination, didn’t re-enlist when my term was up but went to piloting for the Solmetals Consortium.

  “Space War broke out, Chinese ship missiled an asteroid base of ours. China not offish’ly in war, but I was there, I saw what I saw. Yes, we were shipping out str’tegic materials, but it was lawful. Good friends of mine killed. Couple of them died pretty horribly. Then some of us borrowed an engineering rig and put a big rock on a new orbit. It hit an Asian naval base a year afterward. Demolished it.

  “By then Europe had pulled completely out o’ the war. The Asians could tell the strike was engineered and’d used European gear. Military denied having anything to do with it. Asians demanded investigation. Europe obliged. Soon whole bloody FN did. My comrades and me, we’d covered our tracks best’s we could, but evench’ly we knew they were on our trail. And, yes, we were civilians when we launched that rock.

  “We scattered. I got to Nansen and he saved me like I told you. If most of the blame could get shifted onto me, it wouldn’t matter, and my friends sh’d get off lightly.

  “I am not ashamed!” Ruszek shouted.

  Yu shrank from him. “You killed men you never knew,” she whispered, “for revenge?”

  “It was war. I felt cheerful enough. Even looked forward to this voyage.” He sagged. “Shouldn’t ’a’ said anything, sh’d I? To you espesh’ly. But it happened three thousand years ago, Wenji. Nobody remembers.”

  “We shall.”

  He nodded, a heavy movement, and spoke more clearly, quietly. “Yes. The news from ahead got me thinking too much, remembering too much. We are all damned to remember, aren’t we? They believed in damnation where I am from.”

  Yu sat silent. The fountain leaped and sang.

  “We must forgive,” she said at last. “All of us must forgive. We are so alone out here.” She rose. “Good night, Lajos.” Her tone was gentle. She stroked a hand across the bare head and down a cheek before she left him.

  And again two people were in the common room, with another smuggled bottle, this one of champagne and in a refrigerator jacket. Here, too, lay dusk, though lighter, making stars in the viewscreens doubly radiant. Music lilted. Zeyd and Dayan had moved furniture aside to clear a broad space for themselves. They danced over it, an archaic dance that was revived during a wave of historical nostalgia on the Earth of their day, a waltz. As “The Blue Danube” flowed to a close, they laughed aloud.

  Disengaging, they looked into one another’s eyes. A hint of perspiration shimmered on skin and gave a slight, human pungency. Dayan’s hair had become tousled. Half breathless, she said. “We should not be this happy.”

  “Why not? We celebrate a victory. Foreordained, symbolic, nonetheless a victory.”

  Her smile sank. “Was it? Not for some of us. And we may be on our way to discovering a cosmic tragedy.”

  “Maybe we are not,” he answered easily. “Who knows? The point is, we will discover.”

  “Yes. That makes up for much.”

  He bowed. “Not to mention the pleasure en route. The delightful company.”

  Unable to stay serious, she smiled anew, lowered her head, and gazed up at him through her lashes. “Likewise, kind sir.”

  Hand in hand they went to the table and refilled their goblets from the bottle, which was already half empty. He raised his. “To us,” he proposed. “Saha wa ’afiah.”

  “Mazel tov.” Rims clinked.

  Sipping, she teased: “You really should not be doing this, should you?”

  “You have seen me at dinner. I am not a very good Muslim, I fear.”

  “But an excellent dancer.”

  “Thank you, Hanny, dear.” He leaned closer. “Dear indeed.”

  Color came and went and came again across her face. “This nightwatch—oh, it’s a night to forget everything else … even those stars—”

  His months-long siege of her ended as she moved into the circle of his arms.

  19.

  The clocks in Envoy had counted one year and thirty-seven days. By computation she had been under way, including time spent in the normal state, four millennia, nine centuries, fifty-six years, and eight days. Somewhere near the middle of the region she had been seeking, Envoy once more halted her zero-zero engine, lowered her defenses, and peered about with every relevant instrument at her command.

  Naked vision would have availed little. Stars teemed through crystalline dark. They were no longer in their familiar constellations, though you might have recognized pieces of a few, partial and distorted, in the direction of vanished Sol; but it was hard to pick any array out of such a multitude. The Milky Way still girdled heaven, bayed with the same nebular blacknesses; you had to look closely and remember well if you would find the changes brought by this perspective. Neighbor galaxies glimmered as remote as ever.

  Devices capable of registering single photons were soon overflowing with news. When it seemed enough, the ship made a leap of some two hundred astronomical units and repeated the observations. Automated and computer-evaluated, they went quickly. Again she jumped, again, again. Interferometry thus evoked further data. After less than a week, during which some aboard went short on sleep and excitement mounted in everyone, the picture was complete.

  Not surprisingly, the region resembled that around Sol. A thirty-parsec radius, the approximate practical limit for the equipment available, defined a sphere containing perhaps ten thousand stars. A thousand or so rated as “Sol-like”—single, main sequence, spectral class from middle F to late K—and therefore prime candidates for closer examination. Fifty-three proved each to have a planet at a distance where it would be reasonable to expect liquid water. Some of those planets were probably giants or otherwise unsuitable. Dayan’s team did not spend time on that. Instead, spectroscopy searched out indications of atmospheres in chemical disequilibrium, which ought to betoken life. Identifications were uncertain at greater distances, but within forty light-years it found three.

  And this was well out in a spiral arm, where the stars thinned away toward emptiness. Most were crowded close to the galactic nucleus, with a radiation background that made organic evolution unlikely almost to the point of unthinkability. Life must be rare in the universe, hardly ever burgeoning into sentience, and the chance of a high technology vanishingly small.

  Notwithstanding, when Envoy left Sol h
umans had found spoor of four spacefaring civilizations, widely separated. More must exist, their traces hidden by the dust clouds around the nucleus—unless all had perished by now. So enormous is the number of the stars.

  When knowledge is slight, making every action a gamble, you play the odds, as nearly as you can judge them. One sun with a presumably life-bearing planet was a middle-aged G8 dwarf, less bright than Sol but virtually a twin of Tau Ceti, twenty-seven light-years from Envoy’s last stop. With a short burst of plasma drive, she aimed her velocity at it. The interstellar crossing took two of her days.

  It ended at a distance of nine astronomical units. She could have come somewhat closer before getting so far down in the sun’s gravity well that zero-zero was forbidden. The maneuvers would have been trickier than they were worth. She simply trudged ahead on jets, correcting her vectors as she accelerated toward rendezvous, reversing herself at midpoint and braking. At one-half g, a compromise between impatience and reaction-mass economy, the passage took a pair of weeks. Nobody commented on the irony. Well before Envoy left home, starfarers had grumbled it threadbare.

  Dayan returned from the reserve saloon-galley bearing a tray with a teapot, two cups, and a few cookies. She set it down on a tiny table unfolded at the middle of the cabin and herself on her bunk alongside. Yu already sat on the one opposite. Dayan poured. “Here,” she said, “To steal a phrase from an old book I once read, the cup that cheers but does not inebriate. Unfortunately.”

  “Thank you.” The engineer sipped. “It’s good.”

  “Anything would be, wouldn’t it, at this stage of things?”

  Dayan gestured about her. The low, cramped space held the table, a cabinet, and two curtained bunks tiered on either side. Doors at the foot ends gave on a corridor, barely wide enough for one person to squeeze past another, and on the bath cubicle shared with the men, whose dormitory lay beyond. Except for the captain, the men were worse off than the women, since an extra bunk had had to be fitted in. Again the crew perforce spent most of their waking hours in the saloon-galley, which offered screens, games, and a few hobby materials, or in the exercise chamber, where workouts were possible if they didn’t require much room. Such were conditions on the gimballed decks.