Starfarers

by Poul Anderson

  Having collected them, she whooped back to Envoy, made a contact that by rights ought not to have been as smooth as it was, mid cut power. “Don’t bother neatening inboard,” she said. “We’d promptly make a new mess tomorrow. I’m for a cold beer and a hot shower.” She led the way into the hull, through it, across to the forward wheel, and onto the railcar.

  As usual, Nansen waited in the common room to receive them. He was conversing with the Tahirian they named Indira. Sundaram’s close collaborator had come along on this visit to study the layout. It would influence the technical arrangements by which they hoped to communicate with the dwellers yonder.

  The captain was not paying much attention. Perhaps for that reason, the semantician had begun to set forth elementary facts. “(… Do you realize how scant the earlier contact with the aliens was? We do not know if we can re-establish it on a regular basis, or at all. If we do, that will be the commencement of our true difficulties. We are ignorant of their nature …)”

  Kilbirnie stopped in the doorway, so as not to rudely interrupt. Dayan caught up with her. They could read Indira’s screen from there, hear ens voice and watch ens stance. “Yes,” the human physicist said low, “I do believe the Tahirians of that time were afraid of what they might learn. It could overthrow the whole philosophical basis of the Eden they were building at home. That may have predisposed them to conclude that starfaring is a threat to everything.”

  Kilbirnie shrugged. “Myself, I’ve always felt grateful to Eve, that she succumbed. Eden strikes me as an unco dull place.”

  Nansen grew aware of them and turned on his heel. “Jean!” he cried.

  Kilbirnie entered. “Dinna look so terrified, skipper, my jo. I was a good girl today. I flew strictly within the safety rules.”

  He frowned. “I followed your maneuvers on the ’scopes before I came down here. You pushed the envelope so hard that it crackled.”

  “Well, I need practice with more than routine. Wha’ when we reach the black hole?”

  His face went bleak. “Yes, what then?”

  “Och, there I’ll be vurra, vurra canny. It will make my recklessness for me.”

  “We’ll have to talk about that.”

  “Richt the noo?” She stood before him, disheveled, sweaty, smiling her wide white smile. “Aweel, as you like. I can postpone my shower.” She glanced at the others. “If ye will excuse us till dinnertime?”

  Nansen reddened, harrumphed, and said quickly, “We don’t seem to have anything more to do till tomorrow morn-watch. And I’m sure everyone would like to rest awhile before we meet this evening.”

  “Oh, yes,” Dayan replied, flat-voiced. Her gaze trailed the captain and the pilot as they went out, side by side.

  When she looked back, she saw Esther’s parleur signaling. “(Why did those two leave abruptly?)”

  “(They wish to be by themselves,)” Dayan said.

  “(What is their motivation?)”

  Sometimes speaking with a nonhuman through a device made frankness all too easy. “(She is a desirable person. He is the best man in five thousand light-years. Or maybe anywhere.)”

  34.

  Once in the primeval galaxy, soon after the first burst of star-birth, a blue giant sun came to the end of its short and furious life. It exploded, the stupendous violence of a supernova. Briefly, it outshone its whole island universe. The gas it blasted out into space held elements heavier than iron, which could have formed no other way: nickel, copper, silver, tin, gold, uranium, and more. Some of this would later enter into the nascence of newer stars, together with hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen; and around some of these would arise living creatures.

  The wreckage did not collapse to a neutron globe. The sun had been too great, its eruption too mighty. Any planets were vaporized. A remnant mass, ten times that of the Sol that did not yet exist, fell in on itself. So huge did the gravitational force become that it overwhelmed all resistance, and the mass contracted without limit. Beyond a certain point, even light could not break free. Therefore nothing could that was drawn in. The star took on the aspect of a sphere absolutely black, 185 kilometers in circumference.

  You could not calculate a radius from this. In the distorted space-time geometry within, as the mass approached the pointlike state of a singularity, such concepts lost their familiar meanings. Nor could you have discovered what was going on inside; whatever information the matter had borne was lost. There was only that black, slightly flattened sphere, the event horizon.

  The body did retain properties of angular momentum, corresponding to a wildly fast spin, and magnetic field, immensely strong. It could also keep an electric charge, though slight, because ions and electrons from the interstellar medium effectively neutralized any. Through these, and the gravity of its mass, it still interacted with the outside cosmos.

  At the event horizon, space and time were deformed, twisted, virtually dragged along by the whirling. Now and then, one of the nuclear pairs that seethed in and out of existence in the vacuum happened to appear in just such a position that a single member was captured while the other flew off, energized. In this fashion, the black hole evaporated, radiated—but insignificantly while it was its present size, so slowly that the last red stars anywhere would burn out before it was gone.

  Atoms and dust sucked in from the environs kindled the real fire. Gathering velocity as they streamed inward, they began colliding near the blackness. Energy shot off as photons. The forces drew much of the plasma into an accretion disk, a maelstrom gyring about the black hole, to plunge at last down the throat of the vortex. Matter was also carried to the north and south magnetic poles and there hurled in beams back across light-years.

  Without a companion star to strip, this body did not appear spectacular. Its luminance, X rays, was weaker than the X-ray band of all but the dimmer red dwarf stars. Through a telescope the eye saw the disk as a small, flickery ring of wan blue-white. The beams were only visible to radio receivers. But the intensity of either shining would be lethal to any traveler who came within tens of thousands of kilometers.

  The maelstrom did not quern steadily. Waves billowed through, clashed together, flung flares like spume; great coils flamed forth, arching a million kilometers or more until they sleeted back; magnetic convulsions made the plasma shudder across still wider distances; and chaos, less well understood than these unforeseeables, wreaked havocs stranger yet.

  Envoy took orbit at ten million kilometers’ remove.

  In the launch control center, Yu and Emil worked silently, deftly together. The Tahirian had learned well how to operate human devices. Instruments and consoles filled the rest of the cubicle. Nansen, come to watch, stayed in the entrance.

  He heard nothing but breathing, felt nothing but a ventilation current on his cheek and his weight under spin. Suddenly, however, a new shape appeared among the stars in the viewscreen before him. Slim and sleek, faintly ashine by their light, it dwindled fast to his vision, accelerating. A second followed, a third, a fourth.

  “Bravo!” he exclaimed. “They’re well off, no?”—the first scientific probes.

  Momentarily, as often in the recent past, he wished for more craft than these with the efficient field drive. But it had not been feasible. Except for adding the Yu-Dayan acceleration compensator, any retrofit of Envoy, the sole starship on hand, would have been an impossibly long and complex task, and what came out of it would not have been reliable. Likewise for the boats. Envoy was designed for Herald and Courier. The facilities for launching, docking, housing, and synergy with the ship could not be modified without affecting the entire integrated system. It was not even practicable to carry along a Tahirian boat secured to the outside of the hull. The Tahirian probes had been specially made to fit in the missile bays—arrows of peace, he prayed.

  Well, Jean and Lajos are used to what we have anyway, Nansen thought. As I was once.

  He forgot about it when Yu turned to look at him and reply quietly, “Yes.” As their gazes
met, the weariness of the journey seemed to drop from them. “May they go safely and make many discoveries.”

  Emil took up ens parleur. En had learned some English, but Tahirians were nonetheless apt to say the obvious over and over to humans, evidently unsure whether a meaning had gotten across. How much do we to them? wondered Nansen. “(This is entirely preliminary, you know,)” en said. “(The probes will simply confirm what the ancient expeditions found, and possibly report changes in conditions since then.)”

  Nansen nodded impatiently.

  “(They will also give us experience prior to the main effort,)” Yu reminded. To respond with an equal truism had somehow become polite, as relationships developed between the races.

  Emil’s mane stirred. Ens antennae quivered. “(I could almost wish I were one of the new robots we will dispatch at that time,)” en said. “(To sense these marvels directly—)” En broke off. Cambiante did not handle emotions well.

  What an un-Tahirian feeling, even for an astronomer, Nansen thought. Or is it? Envoy and what she does have been transforming them. He harked back to Fernando, Stefan, Attila, all who had been eager to go, left behind and … grieving? But when six Tahirians was as many as the ship could reasonably provide for, and when the conservative faction made their demand stick that three of their own number be included— At what personal sacrifice to them, who hate the whole idea? How devoted they must be. Or fanatical?

  “Well done,” he said aloud. “Now let’s be about our other business.”

  If only everyone aboard had some.

  The station that was to orbit closer in, base and proximate command center for machines more powerful and sophisticated than the probes, had arrived dismantled. Robots could take most of the parts outside and assemble them, with Yu or Brent keeping an eye on progress from within the ship. But the core components, brain and heart of the entirety, required joining and testing in space by physicists—Dayan and Colin. Ruszek went along to assist. His former work among the asteroids of Sol qualified him uniquely.

  It was an exacting task. Undiffused lamplight cast deep, sharp-edged, confusing shadows. In weightlessness, any slight blunder could send objects bobbing away. Usually, gloved hands must control manipulators, which had more sensitivity and precision, while a helmeted head strained against a microviewer. The humans needed frequent breaks. The Tahirian seldom did, although Ruszek muttered in English that en handled enself sloppily. Dayan replied that few of that race had had much practice in space. Besides, after hours with no sense of a magnetic field, en was not quite comfortable.

  He and she agreed on a pause, one certain hour. They racked their tools and strolled off, around the curve of the hull. Boots swung to and fro, alternately in gripping contact. Safety lines unreeled, slack trailing loosely, as if rippled by some phantom wind. When the two stopped, shielded from lamps, they regained dark vision. Stars and Milky Way appeared to them like an epiphany, frosty, regal.

  They had posted a small telescope at this spot. A bit of amateur astronomy was relaxing. This time Ruszek aimed it at the black hole. Through the eyepiece he made out a vague glimmer, no larger or brighter than a nebula his unaided sight had found in the same part of the sky.

  Straightening, he sighed, “I have trouble believing. That monster—is that all we can see?”

  Dayan spread her palms. “The nature of things,” her radio voice answered.

  He grinned sardonically. “Well, I’ve always said God has a sense of humor.”

  Her mood was more serious. “I wonder about that. As I wonder about His benevolence. Life, the universe, they can be dreadful.”

  “Practical jokes, maybe.”

  A cry cut into their earplugs. They twisted about where they stood. Flailing, Colin’s form tumbled from the hull. No line followed it.

  “Vér és halál!” Ruszek roared. “Damned clumsy fool—”

  The Tahirian drifted outward, toward the whirling after wheel. “Colin!” Dayan wailed. She gauged speeds and distances, crouched, sprang free, and soared.

  “No!” Ruszek bawled too late.

  A jetpack was ready at the workplace. He hadn’t time to go for it. Nor could he grab her line and haul her back. It was already out of his reach. He made his own swift estimate and leaped.

  Dayan neared Colin, overshot, tried to check herself and swing sideways by a tug on her line. She wobbled, and still the cable unreeled.

  Ruszek passed in arm’s length of the Tahirian. He clamped a hand on a leg. They lurched onward together. “Stop squirming, you,” he grated. He had judged his vectors well. He didn’t quite encounter Dayan, but his free hand laid hold of her line.

  By now he and Colin were on the same trajectory. He could let go and yank her tether. She jarred to a halt relative to him and rebounded back. The wheel was close, enormous, each spoke a club that would smash a spacesuit and the body within asunder.

  Ruszek braced himself. “Hang on to me, Colin,” he ordered. Whether or not the Tahirian understood the words, en got the idea and clung to his right calf.

  Dayan bumped into him. He laid an arm around her. “You bang on, too,” he said. She had not panicked. She clutched at the biounit on his back. He gathered a bight and gave his cable the kind of tug that locked the reel at the other end. Thereafter it was to pull himself and the others along, back to the hull.

  “Bloody stupid safety features,” he growled. “Leashes should be too short to reach a wheel. But then some jelly-brain would find some different way to—Argh.”

  They thudded against the ship. Boots clung. Colin crouched low. Dayan stood shaking. The lights that drowned out stars made the sweat sheen on her face.

  Ruszek seized her by the shoulders. “Listen—God damn it, you could have been killed,” he choked. “Didn’t you expect I’d go after this idiot here?”

  “I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “It was so sudden. I didn’t stop to think—”

  “No, you did not. Idiot number two.”

  She straightened. He saw the abrupt chill upon her. “If you please,” she said.

  Instantly contrite, he dropped his hands and backed away a step, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “I hope not.”

  “It seemed like—like I might lose you, Hanny—”

  She thawed. “I did act recklessly. It won’t happen again! Shall we leave it at that?”

  “If you want,” he mumbled.

  She had not said that she might have lost him.

  He guessed that she didn’t appreciate how close the brush with death had been, as quickly as she calmed. Helping Colin rise, she led the Tahirian over to their parleurs to inquire about the cause of the trouble. Ruszek heard later that ens line, floating about, had gotten in the way of delicate manipulations, until en unsnapped it. Then when en tried to shift a loosely secured cabinet—weightless, but with inertia unchanged—and didn’t take proper care about footgrip, reaction flung en free.

  Nansen could not give en a suitable tongue-lashing in Cambiante, but Dayan got one, and the captain suspended work while further precautions were devised.

  At the moment, the mate struggled to regain his own equilibrium. Thereafter he resumed the relatively unskilled task she had assigned him. I do still have her, he thought.

  Three little Tahirians seemed lost in the wide, high human gymnasium. Several of the machines outbulked them. And yet to Cleland they dominated the space, filled it from end to end and deck to overhead with their alienness.

  And with what they stood for?

  He stopped in the doorway. “I don’t understand, I tell you,” he protested. “Why this rush?”

  Hand to elbow, Brent urged him onward. “It’s a chance that won’t come again. The other three are playing in their gym. Ivan fixed that; he’s a clever customer. And I’ve been watching, listening, made sure all our breed are elsewhere. We can talk privately. If somebody does happen to see us, it won’t seem as odd as if we were crowded together in a cabin.”

  Cleland shuffled
ahead. “Talk? What about?”

  “What do you suppose?”

  Cleland stared at the trio who waited. Leo, Peter, and the—social technologist?—they called Ivan gave him back his gaze out of their multiple eyes. Ripples went through their manes, antennae trembled, he caught metal-sharp odors.

  Stopping in front of them, he said, “Uh, yes. The … opposition,” agents of that party on Tahir which did not want a revival of starfaring to trouble their world’s millennial calm.

  “Right,” Brent replied. “Now that we know how the situation is shaking down here, we can start planning.”

  “Planning?” Cleland asked.

  “Contingency plans, of course,” the crisp voice told him. “Nothing’s certain. But we can lay out ideas, arguments, tactics, whatever might bring an early end to this dangerous misery.”

  Hesitation yielded to bleakness. “I see. Our ship does seem to have become a Flying Dutchman, doesn’t she?”

  “And not even guaranteed eternal punishment. That thing out there can kill us, Tim.”

  “All right.” A flick of humor twitched Cleland’s mouth. “The loyal opposition will please come to order.”

  Brent remained grim. “Loyalty can be misplaced.”

  “I’m thinking of, well, survival. Everybody’s.”

  “Me, too. I wish Nansen and his gang would.”

  Brent unslung his parleur and addressed the Tahirians: “(Our common purpose is to stop this undertaking, bring you home, and ourselves turn homeward. Let us consider ways and means.)”

  Ivan responded. “(If no signs of intelligent beings become manifest, presumably the effort will cease before long.)”

  Peter spoke in ens body language and harshened tones. Perhaps Leo translated, perhaps en commented: “(That is nothing we can count on.)”

  “(I have been considering how we could see to it,)” Ivan said.

  Cleland tautened, shocked. “Sabotage?”