by Steve White
In search of something to say, he looked around and noticed Rosen's faraway expression. "Yakov, we haven't heard anything from you lately."
Rosen turned to him with an ironic little smile. "Oh, I was just thinking of a conversation that is supposed to have occurred in the last century, between two very brilliant men. You may have heard the first half of it; it's one of Albert Einstein's most famous quotes. He said, as nearly as I can recall it, 'The good Lord is subtle, but He is never malicious.'"
DiFalco nodded. "Yes, I've read that."
"Ah, but you may not have heard Enrico Fermi's rejoinder: 'Albert, stop telling God what to do!' "
* * *
The orbital tower had been built before the days of artificial gravity and this geostationary terminal station had been designed to rotate, producing a forged gravity that equaled one Raehaniv gee at the outer edge. So in the older areas the stars seemed to march in an unending circle in the viewports. But this was a newer addition, and the firmament held steady in the lounge's wide-curving transparency. And in the center of the floor, a circular well surrounded by small tables sloped down to a lens-like transparency in which Raehan's night side, almost thirty thousand kilometers down, was like a black shield bejeweled with lights. The outlines of seas and oceans could be traced by the shining necklaces of coastal cities.
The tower, and its antipodal twin, had survived both occupation and war. The economic usefulness of virtually cost-free orbital interface had been as clear to the Korvaasha as to humans; and when they had withdrawn to their urban strongholds, the possibility of booby-trapping had deterred the liberating forces from using them. So the towers stood unharmed, and DiFalco was glad of it. He had been able to see an engineering feat far beyond the capabilities of Terran humanity, riding up with Aelanni in the kind of passenger module he had previously experienced by computer-generated proxy.
Now they had this lounge to themselves, waiting to catch a glimpse of the incoming ship before it docked and they went to greet their son.
It had made its way from Terranova to Seivra just before space had shifted shape. The captain, mindful of her precious cargo of children, had waited there with Golovko's fleet until the courier had arrived by continuous-displacement drive from Tareil. Afterwards, Golovko had made the decision to abandon Seivra, whose now-nonexistent displacement points had always been its only points of interest or significance. He had divided his forces, taking to Tareil those ships for which the long voyage was practicable. The others, mostly Terran ones carrying Americans and Russians (and, in some cases, their Raehaniv spouses), had returned to Terranova. Some of the children had gone back with the second group, but others had continued on with Golovko, and had now entered the Tareil system with his and were on their final approach.
Fortunately for both of them, the age of space had brought with it a return to a kind of patience that had passed away with the age of sail.
The thought of the children, and their parents, who by now were on Terranova reminded DiFalco of the infant colony. Aelanni had clearly been thinking of it too.
"Will they be all right on Terranova?" she wondered aloud.
"Sure they will," DiFalco stated positively. "They—we—have a solid foothold there by now. And they won't really be isolated, even though they're over a hundred light-years from here. We can keep in contact by means of the ships that have the powerplant modifications to make the trip, as more and more ships will. They'll be okay. And," he grinned, "once they have the time to spare for it, Terranovan politics should be lively." Aelanni laughed, knowing exactly what he meant. The noncombatants had been left there under the leadership of a council whose most prominent members were George Traylor and Liz Hadley.
"Am I interrupting anything?"
Varien stood in the entrance, silhouetted against the light beyond. With a rustle of his long traditional cloak he stepped forward into the lounge's dimness and joined them.
"No," Aelanni told him. "We were just thinking about the colony on Terranova. The courier we sent there should be returning soon, so we'll know for certain how they're faring, and whether their system has any displacement points now."
"Yes—Terranova." Varien's voice trailed off into thoughtful silence. Then he straightened and spoke briskly. "I hadn't mentioned it, but soon after Jason arrives I intend to go forward with my plan to relocate there"
"What?" Aelanni looked at him sharply. "But father, you made that decision when Terranova was one displacement transition and ten light-years by continuous-displacement drive from here. Now it's . . ."
"Yes, I'm fully aware of the changed circumstances," Varien cut in just a bit testily. "Undeniably, Terranova is more isolated from the Tareil system than it was. But it is still accessible, albeit less conveniently. And all the arguments in favor of my decision still have as much validity as ever."
"Well," DiFalco spoke awkwardly, "as you know, we're staying here. There's a lot to do; we're still getting the search for Sol organized. Of course, for a while it will have to take a back seat to the work of rebuilding here on Raehan. But," he continued stoutly, "once we get a breather and can concentrate on it . . ."
"Of course." Varien nodded politely. "You can be sure I will be giving much thought to the problem." He paused, seeming to hesitate. "I knew the two of you would be staying here. But I have come to feel that I can leave with a certain degree of confidence. You see . . ." He hesitated again, then plunged in.
"As you both may be aware, I originally was not altogether in favor of your relationship. I had," he added quickly, turning to DiFalco, "always recognized that you were not without many excellent qualities, if perhaps a bit . . . ahem!" He pulled back and regrouped. "Nevertheless, I felt that you were perhaps not the best possible choice Aelanni could make. I was . . ." He tried unsuccessfully to continue, then took a deep breath and began again. "I was . . ." He seemed to be experiencing some obstruction of his ability to speak, and Aelanni began to look concerned. Varien visibly gathered himself for a supreme effort. "I was . . . wrong."
After a long, speechless moment, DiFalco grew aware that his mouth was hanging open. So was Aelanni's. Always a first time for everything, he reflected. The Hell of it is, nobody will ever believe us. If only we had witnesses!
"At any rate," Varien went on, palpably relieved that it was over, "I have no hesitancy about retiring. I meant what I said before about a sense of completion—and I meant more than just the success of our joint enterprise. It is time for me to go, and I do so, content."
He turned and walked along the curved transparent wall. Then he stopped and turned to face them, and for an instant that DiFalco would remember to the end of his days he stood silhouetted against the star-blazing blackness, his features only dimly visible, gazing at the two of them—at them and into them and through them. Then he spoke a phrase he had picked up from Rosen.
"Bless you."
And Varien was gone.
After a time of silence, Aelanni sighed deeply.
"What do you suppose will happen now?"
DiFalco straightened. "We'll continue to do what we can. One good thing: we don't have to worry about defense against the Korvaasha, at least for the foreseeable future. The displacement connection between us and them has been severed. And," he continued grimly, "I don't think the universe will have to worry about their Unity any more. It was overextended even before this happened. Now its component parts are strictly on their own. The ones that can't figure out how to function in the absence of centralized control will die like all life forms that lose the ability to adapt. The ones that do adapt will change in the process. The Korvaash race will survive, but the Unity is dead."
"From what Tarlann has told us, it's been dead for a long time. A rotting corpse in armor, polluting the galaxy." She shuddered. "I wonder if we'll ever encounter any of those 'component parts' after we start exploring through the new displacement point in earnest?"
They were silent. Like everyone else in the system, they were still adjust
ing to the news that one of the survey ships had found a displacement point in a region of Tareil's outer system where none had been before—a telling confirmation of Varien's theory. A well-armed squadron had cautiously transited it, to find an unoccupied system, heretofore unvisited, with two more displacement points leading no one knew where.
"We'll find out," DiFalco finally said. "Of course, given the small percentage of stars that have displacement points at any given time, the odds are against it. And, of course, we have to get back on our feet here on Raehan before we can launch any extensive exploration program." A program which will drain resources and talent from the search for Sol, he did not add. Aloud: "I think we'll want to proceed cautiously in displacement point exploration from now on. We'll never really be able to trust them again, or let ourselves get too dependent on them. Your father's right; we don't know whether the new displacement alignments will last ten millennia or ten weeks."
"Still," Aelanni insisted, "we must explore these new displacement connections. If there is a surviving fragment of the Korvaash Unity at the other end of a displacement chain, we need to know it. And . . . one of those chains might lead back to the vicinity of Sol."
He looked at her sharply. He hadn't considered that. "Yeah. Who knows? Maybe Sol itself has one or more displacement points now. Maybe they'll find us eventually! And maybe . . ." He held her eyes with his and spoke the thought that no one else had been allowed to hear.
"And maybe it doesn't really matter very much. All of us have begun building new lives here or on Terranova. I wonder if the inevitable return to Earth was ever anything more than an assurance we needed to give ourselves, a kind of justification for what we were doing? I, at least, had to present it to myself as a way of saving my country from itself." He paused and, with a kind of purgative rush, pushed relentlessly on with thoughts he had not shared even with her, nor even with himself. "Maybe I was just whistling in the dark about that. Oh, Earth will endure, in the long run. But as for my country . . . I don't know. I can see now that I came to manhood in its Indian summer, which I mistook for springtime. If it survives to play a part in the future, it won't be in any form I'll recognize. There'll be just enough familiarity to hurt." He gave a wry grin. "Listen to me! I sound like Varien!"
She smiled at him with the gentleness of strength under the guidance of loving wisdom. "But we'll keep searching for Sol, of course. We have to try. For you to not try would be self-betrayal. And yet . . . you're right. It doesn't really matter very much. For you have saved what was best of what your country once was—yours and Sergei's. You've saved it by bringing it here. It isn't dead; it's scattered among the stars for all time! Nothing can kill it now! It will live regardless of what your people manage to do to themselves on Earth."
For a long time he gazed at her in the starlit dimness, wishing he could put into words what was in his heart but happy in the knowledge that he didn't need to. All he said was: "I hope you're right. And, yes, we have to try."
Suddenly her eyes blinked and she took on the attentive look that he had learned heralded the arrival of a message via her implant communicator. Then her features awoke in pure joy.
"The ship is about to dock!"
They looked outward through the transparency, seeking a glimpse. But for an instant DiFalco's eyes strayed downward to the central well and the darkened world below. And as he looked, Tareil broke blindingly over Raehan's edge, flooding the lounge with light.
Arm in arm, they stood watching the ship approach, its silvery flanks reflecting the light of their home sun.
THE END
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