Starfarers

by Poul Anderson

  “We have four days for that,” he replied. “The first breakfast shall be when the Freelady wishes.” It was not convenient for him, but somehow he did not now resent it.

  Emerging from his berth after a few hours’ sleep, he was again surprised by finding her already up. Her tunic would have been provocative were they of equal status. As it was, he merely admired the view. She had started his readscreen, evidently curious to know what interested him, and sat pondering Murinn’s text. She nodded at his salutation and said, “I don’t understand a word of this. Does he ever use one syllable where six will do?”

  “He cared for precision, Freelady,” answered Kenri. On impulse: “I would have liked to know him.”

  “You people do a lot of reading, don’t you?”

  “Plenty of time for that in space, Freelady. Of course, we have other recreations as well. And communal activities, such as educating the children.” He wouldn’t discuss the rituals with an Earthling.

  “Children—Do you truly need hundreds in a crew?”

  “No, no. Uh, Freelady. When we’re on a planet, though, we often need many hands.” And all want to travel, to walk on those worlds. It’s in our blood.

  She nodded. “M’hm. Also, the only way to keep a family, no? To keep your whole culture alive.”

  He stiffened. “Yes, Freelady.” What business was it of hers?

  “I like your Town,” she said. “I used to go there. It’s—quaint? Like a bit of the past, not virtual but real.”

  Sure. Your sort come to stare. You walk around drunk, and peek into our homes, and when an old man goes by you remark what a funny little geezer he is, without bothering to lower your voices, and when you haggle with a shopkeeper and he tries to get a fair price you tell each other how this proves we think of nothing but money. Sure, we’re happy to have you visit us. “Yes, Freelady.”

  She looked hurt. A while after breakfast she withdrew behind her screen. He heard her playing a portable polymusicon. He didn’t recognize the melody. It must be very old, and yet it was young and tender and trustful, everything that was dear in humankind.

  When she stopped he felt an irrational desire to impress her. The Kith had their own tunes, and many were also ancient. Equally archaic was the instrument he took forth, a guitar. He tuned it, strummed a few chords, and left his mind drift. Presently he began to sing.

  “When Jerry Clawson was a baby

  On his mother’s knee in old Kentuck,

  He said, ‘I’m gonna ride those deep-space rockets

  Till the bones in my body turn to dust.’—”

  He sensed her come out and stand behind him, but pretended not to. Instead he regarded the stars.

  “—Jerry’s voice came o’er the speaker:

  ‘Cut your cable and go free.

  On full thrust, she’s blown more shielding.

  Radiation’s got to me.

  “‘Take the boats in safety Earthward.

  Tell the Blue Star Line for me

  I was born with deep space calling.

  Now in space forevermore I’ll be.’”

  He ended with a crash of strings, turned his head, and rose.

  “No, sit down,” she said before he could bow. “We’re not on Earth. What was that song?”

  “‘Jerry Clawson,’ Freelady,” he replied. “A translation from the original English. It goes back to the days of purely interplanetary flight.”

  Star-Frees were supposed to be intellectuals as well as aesthetes. He waited for her to say that somebody ought to collect Kith folk ballads in a database.

  “I like it,” she said. “Very much.”

  He glanced away. “Thank you, Freelady. May I make bold to ask what you were playing?”

  “Oh, … that’s even older. ‘Sheep May Safely Graze.’ By a man named Bach.” A slow smile crossed her lips. “I would have liked to know him.”

  He raised his eyes to hers. They did not speak for what seemed a long while.

  Hith Town lay in a bad district. It didn’t always. Kenri remembered a peaceful lower-class neighborhood; his parents had told him of bourgeoisie; his grandparents—whom he had never met, because they retired from starfaring before he was born and were therefore centuries dead—had spoken of bustling commerce; before the city was, Kith Town stood alone. Forever it remained Kith Town, well-nigh changeless.

  No, probably not forever, the way the traffic was dwindling. Nor really changeless. Sometimes war had swept through, pockmarking walls and strewing streets with corpses; sometimes a mob had come looting and beating; often in the last several Earthside lifetimes, officers had swaggered in to enforce some new proclamation. Kenri shivered in the autumn wind and walked fast. He’d learned that nowadays, except for where the monorail from the spaceport stopped, there was no public transport within three kilometers.

  Light became harsh as he entered the Earthling neighborhood, glare from side panels and overhead fixtures. He had heard this was decreed less to discourage crime than to keep it in its place, under surveillance. Vehicles were few. Inhabitants slouched, shambled, shuffled along littered walkways between grimy facades. Their garments were sleazy and they stank. Most of them were loose-genes, but he saw the dull, heavy faces of Normal-Ds among them, or the more alert countenance of a Normal-C or B. Twice a Standard thrust them aside as he hastened on his errand, ashine in the livery of the state or a private master. Then Kenri imagined he saw an electric flickering in the eyes around. Though still ignorant of current politics, he had caught mention of ambitious Dominants who were courting the poor and disinherited. Yes, and the Martians were restless, and the Radiant of Jupiter openly insolent. …

  But the state should be more or less stable through his and Nivala’s lifetime, and they could make provision for their children.

  An elbow jabbed his ribs. “Out o’ the way, tumy!”

  He tensed but stepped off the walk. The man strutted on by. As Kenri went back, a woman, leaning fat and frowzy from a second-floor window, jeered at him and spat. He dodged, but could not dodge the laughter that yelped around him.

  Has it gotten this bad? he thought. Well maybe they’re taking out on us what they don’t yet dare say to the overlords.

  The long view gave thin consolation. He felt shivery and nauseated. And the sadness in his father and mother—Though Nivala awaited him, he needed a drink. A lightsign bottle winked above a doorway ahead.

  He entered. Gloom and sour smells closed in on him. A few sullen men slumped at tables. A mural above them jerked through its obscenities. A raddled Standard-D girl smiled at him, saw his features and badge, and turned away with a sniff.

  A live bartender presided. He gave the newcomer a glazed stare. “Vodzan,” Kenri said. “Make it a double.”

  “We don’t serve no tumies here,” said the bartender.

  Kenri sucked in a breath. He started to go. A hand touched his arm. “Just a minute, spaceman,” said a soft voice; and to the attendant: “One double vodzan.”

  “I told you—”

  “This is for me, Ilm. I can give it to anyone I want. I can pour it on the floor if I so desire. Or over you.”

  The bartender went quickly off to his bottles.

  Kenri looked into a hairless, dead-white face. The skull behind had a rakish cast. The lean gray-clad form sat hunched at the bar, one hand idly rolling dice from a cup, scooping them up, and rolling again. The fingers had no bones, they were small tentacles, and the eyes were cat yellow, all iris and slit pupil.

  “Uh, thank you, sir,” Kenri stammered in bewilderment. “May I pay—”

  “No. On me.” The other accepted the goblet and handed it over. He put no money down. “Here.”

  “Your health, sir,” Kenri said, emboldened. He lifted the vessel and drank. The liquor burned his throat.

  “Such as it is,” said the man indifferently. “No trouble to me.” He was doubtless a petty criminal of some sort, maybe an assassin, if that guild still flourished. His somatype was not quite human.
He must be Special-X, created for a particular job or for study or for fun. Presumably he’d been released when his master was done with him, and had ended in the slums.

  “Been away long?” he asked, his gaze on the dice.

  Kenri couldn’t immediately remember. “About a hundred years.” Or more?

  “Watch out. They really hate Kithfolk these days. Hereabouts, anyhow. If you get slugged or robbed, it’ll do you no good complaining to the militia. You’d probably get your butt kicked.”

  “It’s kind of you—”

  “Nothing.” The supple fingers gathered the dice, rattled them in the cup, and tossed. “I like having somebody to feel superior to.”

  “Oh.” Kenri set the goblet down. “I see. Well—”

  “No, don’t go.” The yellow eyes lifted toward his and, astonished, he saw tears glimmer. “I’m sorry. Sometimes the bitterness breaks loose. No offense to you. I tried to sign on as a spaceman once. Naturally, they wouldn’t have me.”

  Kenri found no response.

  “A single voyage would have been enough,” said the X dully. “Can’t an Earthling dream, too, now and then? But I realize I’d have been useless. And my looks. Underdogs don’t like each other.”

  Kenri winced.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t envy you at that,” the X muttered. “You see too much history. Me, I’ve made my place. I don’t do badly. As for whether it’s worth the trouble, staying alive—” He shrugged. “I’m not, anyway. A man’s only alive when he has something bigger than himself to live and die for. Oh, well.” He rolled the dice. “Nine. I’m losing my touch.” After a moment: “I know a place where they don’t care who you are if you’ve got money.”

  “Thank you, sir, but I’ve an appointment,” Kenri said. How awkward it sounded. And false, in spite of being true.

  “I thought so. Go ahead.” The X glanced elsewhere.

  “Thank you for the drink, sir.”

  “Nothing. Come in whenever you want. I’ll tell Ilm to remember you and serve you. I’m here pretty often. But don’t yarn to me about the worlds out there. I don’t want to hear that.”

  “No, sir. Thank you. Good night.” Kenri left most of his drink untasted.

  As he went out, the dice clattered across the bar again.

  While she waited on Maia for Fleetwing’s departure, Nivala had taken the opportunity to see the Tirian Desert. She could have had her pick of the colony for escorts, but when she heard that Kenri had been there before and knew his way around it, she named him. Less annoyed than he would have expected, he dropped promising negotiations for vivagems and made the arrangements. An aircamper brought them to the best site. He had proposed that from this base they tour the area for two days, overnighting here in between. She readily agreed, though they’d be alone. Both knew he wouldn’t touch her without leave, and to a person of her status scandal was as irrelevant as the weather on another planet.

  For a while they rode quietly in the groundcar he had rented. Stone and sand stretched around them, flamboyantly colored. Crags lifted from the hills in fantastic shapes. Scattered thornbush breathed a slight peppery odor into thin, cool air. Overhead the sky arched cloudless, royal blue.

  “This is a marvelous world,” she said at last. “It’s just as well we’re leaving soon. I might come to like it too much.”

  “Aside from the scenery, Freelady, I should think you’d find it rather unexciting,” Kenri ventured. “Hardly even provincial.”

  The fair head shook. “Things here are real. People have hopes.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  After a few more minutes she murmured thoughtfully, “I envy you, Kenri Shaun. All that you’ve seen and done. That you will see and do. Thank you for the data your ships bring. Infinitely better than any fiction or … entertainment. On Earth I spent much of my virtuality time playing Kith documentaries—riding along with you like a ghost. You live it.”

  The wistfulness made him feel he could ask: “Was that why you came here, Freelady?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Inspecting the property was an excuse. Worth doing, but an agent, or perhaps even a robot, could have done it better. I wanted the experience. A taste of the reality.”

  He thought of weeks and months on end in a flying metal cave, of huddling in a groundside shelter while deadliness raged outside, of toil and danger, hurt and death—fleeting days of friendship, and then your friends were gone on their next voyage and you wondered if you’d ever meet them again; sometimes you didn’t, and then maybe you wondered how they had come to die. “Reality doesn’t always taste good, Freelady.”

  “I know. Because it is reality. But I didn’t quite know how hungry I was till I made this trip.”

  The words stayed with him. When they returned to camp he suggested that he build a fire and cook their evening meal over it, primitive style. Her delight chimed in him.

  The sun set while he worked. A small, hasty moon rose, nearly full, to join the lesser half-disk already aloft, and argency rippled over the dunes. Afar a creature wailed—a hunting song? Warmly clad, they squatted close to the fire. Flamelight and shadow played across her, and her hair seemed as frosty as her breath. “Can I help?” she offered.

  “It isn’t fitting, Freelady.” You’d make a mess of it. The filets in the skillet sizzled, savory-smelling. They were natural food, purchased at a waterfarm.

  She regarded them. “I didn’t think you people ate fish,” she said.

  By now he knew she didn’t intend any condescension. “Some do, some don’t, Freelady. You’ve seen we grow fruits and vegetables aboard, along with flowers, more for the sake of the gardening than to supplement the nanosystems; and we often have aquariums, also mainly for pleasure but sometimes for a special meal. In early days, when ships were smaller, an aquarium would have crowded out a substantial piece of garden far the benefit of a very few. Crews couldn’t afford the resentment that would cause. Abstention acquired almost the force of a taboo. Even offship; it was a symbolic act of loyalty. Nowadays, mostly, only older folk observe it.”

  She smiled. “I see. Fascinating. One doesn’t think of the Kith as having a history. You’ve always simply been.”

  “Oh, we do, Freelady. Maybe we have more history and tradition than anybody else.” He considered. “Or maybe it’s just that we pay more attention to what we have, study and talk about it more. Another thing that helps hold us together, keep us what we are.”

  Her gaze dwelt on him through the smoke, above the sputtering flames. “And it’s an intellectual activity, isn’t it?” she said. “You Kithfolk are a brainy lot.”

  His cheeks grew warm. He concentrated on his cooking. “You flatter us, Freelady. We’re not exactly Star-Frees.”

  “No, you’re more whole.” She jumped back toward impersonality; it was safer. “I did do research on you before leaving Earth. Spacefolk always had to be intelligent, with quick reactions but stable personalities. It was best they not be too big, physically, but they must be tough. Dark skin gives some protection against soft radiation, though I suppose genetic drift, happenstance, has been at work, too. Over generations, those who couldn’t fit into your difficult life dropped out. The time factor, and the widening cultural gap, made recruitment more and more unlikely, till now it’s essentially impossible. And we have the race of starfarers.”

  “Not really, Freelady,” he protested. “Anybody who wants to can build a ship and flit away. But it’s a big investment, of lifetime still more than capital, for small profit or none; so nobody does. We, though—we never attempt the kind of voyage they embarked on aboard Envoy, before there ever was a Kith.” Does that name mean anything to you?

  And the profits shrink century by century, as demand shrinks; and so we do not replace our losses any longer, and our numbers grow less and less.

  “Small profit or none? No, you gain your lives, the freedom to be what you are,” she said. “Except on Earth—You’re aliens there; because the profit is small, you have to se
t high prices; you obey our laws, but you don’t submit in your hearts; and so you come to be hated. I’ve wondered why you don’t abandon Earth altogether.”

  The idea had passed through his mind occasionally. Veer off. Don’t speak it. Dangerous, also to his soul. “Earth is our planet too, Freelady. We get by. Please don’t feel sorry for us.”

  “A stiff-necked people,” she said. “You don’t even want pity.”

  “Who does, Freelady?” He laid her meal on a plate and handed it to her.

  Where the slum ended, Kenri found a monorail nexus and took an ascensor up to the line he wanted. Nobody else boarded the car that stopped for him and nobody else was on it. He sat down and looked out the canopy. The view speeding past was undeniably superb. Towers soared in columns and tiers and pinnacles; streets and skyways glowed, phosphorescent spiderwebs; lights blazed and flashed in strings, arcs, fountains, every color eyes could know; scraps of dark sky heightened the brilliance. Was any world anywhere more exotic? Surely he could spend a lifetime exploring this, with Nivala for guide.

  As he neared city center, the car paused to admit four young persons. They were Frees, he saw, though styles of appearance and behavior had changed. Filmy cloaks streamed from luminous draperies or skintights; jewels glittered in headbands; men sported elaborately curled short beards, women wore twinkling lights in flowing hair. Kenri hunched in his seat, acutely aware of his drabness.

  The couples came down the aisle toward him. “Oh, look, a tumy,” cried a girl.

  “He’s got a nerve,” said a boy. “I’ll order him off.”

  “No, Scanish.” The second female voice sounded gentler than the first. “He has the right.”

  “He shouldn’t have, I know these tumies. Give ’em a finger and they’ll take your whole arm.” The four passed by and settled behind Kenri. They left three rows vacant between themselves and him. Their conversation still reached his ears.

  “My father’s in Transsolar Trading. He’ll tell you.”

  “Don’t, Scanish. He’s listening.”