Fontana’s first thought was to say an immediate, My goodness, no! Don’t be silly, Ching! But a second’s thought changed that impulse; it would seem to take all too lightly what was all too evidently troubling Ching. She asked, choosing her words carefully, “Do you think I have some reason to be angry with you about that, Ching?”
Ching said, fiddling with the cup and not looking up at her, “Did you know about — about Teague and — and me?”
Once again Fontana wondered at Ching’s naivete; surprising in the self-sufficient, competent Ching. She, and the other four members of the crew, had all had a very good idea what was going on, when Teague had carried Ching out of the main cabin. What else did Ching think they could have thought? But she only said, “Yes, I knew. You weren’t making any special effort to hide it, were you?”
“You really don’t seem angry,” Ching said, surprised, and Fontana shook her head.
“No, I’m really not angry. Teague isn’t my property, and anyhow — well, Moira said it; it’s like one of those old-fashioned arranged marriages, only there are six of us. We are going to spend a long, long time together, all in the same boat and isolated. If any of us starts to feel as if any other is property, we’re in for trouble. I don’t know how much you know about group psychology and social dynamics — I remember you saying you didn’t think of them as very exact sciences, wouldn’t dignify them by the name of sciences or something like that — but it is one of the things people have found out; that in order to tolerate exclusive or monogamous sexual ties, a group has to be above a certain crucial number — I think it’s eighteen or twenty — so that the remaining members will have an even chance at partnerings. We’re too small a group to tolerate monogamy, Ching.”
In some obscure way Ching wondered if Fontana were warning her.
“I’m — well, I’m not used to such things, Fontana. It was the first time I ever — got myself into a relationship like that. So close.”
Fontana, in the calm, rather blank face, saw a sudden heartbreaking innocence and vulnerability. She said, very gently, “Do you care about Teague very much, Ching?”
Ching said, hesitating, “I’m very fond of him. He’s — well, he made it all seem very natural and ordinary, I always thought I’d be frightened, and I wasn’t. I liked being with him, I enjoyed it. I don’t think it was anything like — well, like it was with Peake and Jimson, I don’t think I’m all — all wrapped up in him the way they were in each other. Only I feel very strange, different inside. Not knowing what to expect of myself any more, and I’ve always been so sure. And I don’t think that has anything to do with Teague at all. It has to do with me.”
“Good,” Fontana said softly. “You do understand what I’m saying to you then.”
“Only — Fontana, I’m sorry. I mean, because I did take Teague away from you — if you miss him, I’m sorry—”
Fontana shrugged and laughed. “That doesn’t matter. Teague is old enough to choose for himself, and so am I.”
“Only — it’s what you said. In a group this small there aren’t many choices. It’s not as if there were a lot of men for you to choose from, and you’ve always had someone or other, haven’t you?”
Ching, Fontana thought, could be so forthright it was almost alarming. She said, “Well, it’s a problem; I suppose it will iron itself out. I don’t know what will happen with Ravi and Moira, either. That affair seems to be rather more off than on, these days. Teague might decide he wants you for a while, or that he wants me, or that he wants us both — would that bother you, Ching?”
She shook her head. She said, “I don’t know, I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I told him I wanted to think it over before — before it happened again. I want to be sure how I feel. I don’t think it’s very nice to use a man to give myself confidence.”
But even so, Fontana saw her spontaneous bright smile as Teague came into the main cabin, and almost envied her. She wasn’t jealous about Teague; but she wished she could recapture that first kind of excitement. Maybe, she thought, it only happens once.
And I had mine, a long time ago; why envy Ching her own time of discovery? She’s waited long enough.
It came back to her, later, when the festive meal was only a few scraps on the plates, and she had begun to collect them and put them into the disposer. After a moment Moira joined her, and said, looking at Teague and Ching, snuggled into one chair, “It looks as if we had the kind of situation aboard that they left Jimson behind to prevent.”
“Well, it happens,” Fontana said, “and I think Ching has a right to it. But I doubt if it will last long enough to be a threat to the rest of us. Ching’s very sensible about it.”
“Sensible!” It was a snort, almost a small giggle. “Do you really think that’s important?”
“I think she knows what’s necessary, for all of us,” Fontana said quietly. “For a while I thought it would be you and Ravi.”
“Which wouldn’t suit you at all, would it,” said Moira sharply, “because that wouldn’t leave anyone for you except Peake!”
“Why do you assume we have to pair off that way?” Fontana asked.
“No. Seriously, Fontana. What are we going to do about Peake?”
“What makes you think it’s up to us to do anything at all about him?” Fontana asked. “He’s a grown man, and quite old enough to make his own choices in life. Why do you think we have to do anything?”
“Damn it,” Moira shouted so loud that the heads in the room turned to look at them all, “when will you stop answering every question I ask you with another question?”
Fontana said sharply, “When you stop acting as if it was my business to give you answers!”
“You’re the psychologist, aren’t you?”
Slowly, Fontana shook her head. She said in a low voice, “I’m not anything, Moira, just what the rest of you are. A crew member on the Ship, brainwashed like all the rest of us, to think that making Ship was the end of all our problems. And when I made it, I find out that it’s just the beginning of a whole new set of problems! The Academy just threw us out, half-trained, our minds crammed with facts and no real experience. We’ve already seen that Ching hasn’t got all the answers for the computer. Peake’s not a doctor, he’s a very well-trained medical student. I’m not a psychologist, I’ve graduated in courses in psychology. You’re not an engineer — though you had the experience of assembling the drives in space; you and Teague have had more experience than all the rest of us put together. They throw us out, half trained, to sink or swim, and the odds against any of the Ships surviving are enormous — but just think what’s happened to Earth since the first colony was established! They can have their success, it’s worth everything to train us and give us these Ships, even if one in ten of us get through — and they can afford not to care about the other nine!”
She stopped herself, forcibly, fighting waves of recurrent horror. They had been used. All of them! Used, their lives forfeit, since they were five years old. Never told how enormous the odds were against their survival. Yes. The laboratory guinea pig thinks he is petted, pampered, cared for, because he is important in himself. But he is important only to the ones who are using him in their experiment.’
We are all of us just guinea pigs, and probably we are ail going to die. And nobody even cares.’ They put a new crop of guinea pigs aboard Survey Ship 103, and threw us out to Jive or die.’
And I can’t even throw this out at the others, because they don’t know it yet, they haven’t realized…. Moira thinks it’s important how our group dynamics work for survival. Who sleeps with whom. We could all collapse into anarchy, nihilism, kill one another — we’ll die anyhow!
“What’s the matter, Fontana?” Peake asked, corning up and taking the stacked armful of disposable plates from her. “You look awfully tired. Here, let me take those for you.”
She Wanted to scream at Peake, don’t be so nice to me, don’t you know we’re all going to die, that they threw us all out to die? We sur
vived the meteor by pure damn dumb luck…. why should I think we’ll be one of the ten who lives instead?
But before Peake’s dark, ugly, kindly face she could not speak the words. She said, “Thank you, Peake, I — I guess I am tired.”
“Let me get you a glass of wine,” Moira said, and turned to dial the controls. Fontana, controlling herself by a rigid effort, curled up in a soft chair beside Moira.
“Look,” Moira said, “I wasn’t trying to intrude on Peake’s private life. But you can’t tell me you haven’t thought of it. They sent out three men and three women, only one of the men is inaccessible, which means two men for three women, and nobody for Peake. That doesn’t seem to make sense, if they choose the crews as carefully as they say they do—”
Haven’t you figured it out yet, Moira, that they don’t care, that it’s completely random? There are all kinds of theories about what kind of crew mix will survive, they can afford to try them all. For a moment she was so confused by the words in her mind she wondered if she had actually spoken them aloud, But Moira was still waiting for her answer. Into the silence Moira said, with unusual shyness, “I — I offered — he turned me down flat. He’s all right. For now, anyhow. But it’s going to be years, Fontana…”
Assuming we live so long. Fontana was growing used to two sets of conversations: what she wanted to say and dared not say, what she really said. Sighing, she said the correct thing.
“Moira, my dear, there is nothing either of us can do about Peake; it’s his problem, to face in his own way. Sooner or later, either he will face how he feels about women, and decide to experiment with one of us; or he will persuade one of the men to experiment with him; or he will make a conscious decision to remain celibate and let the rest of us do what we like. And in any case it is his decision. The voyage is only a few days old. We have to give him time. At present it’s much more important to you to decide how you feel about Ravi, than to worry about Peake and his problems — or Ching and Teague and theirs.”
Moira’s smile was just a flicker. “I’d swap my problems for Ching’s, right now, but I don’t know if she’d care to trade. I’m glad she’s enjoying herself, anyhow. I wish I were.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ching startled awake with a cry, the sharp nightmare shock, the old atavistic terror of falling… no, she was not falling, the sleeping net held her closely restrained; but it was the floor that was not anywhere, she was floating, spinning, no down or up, no orientation — she felt her stomach heave, heard herself moan, and shut her eyes against the impact of it, struggling with sickness.
This was absurd; of course there was only one explanation, the damned DeMag units were off again in her cubicle. Was it through the whole of the living quarters? Or only in her own cubicle, or what? She clung to the bunk, frozen, incapable of what she knew she ought to do; clamber down and turn the DeMag unit firmly off, then on again, to bring back the needed gravity. She fought to force her fingers to unclip the sleeping net, let herself slide along the bunk, clinging to the rails as to a crawl bar. Yet her inner-ear channels convinced her that the bunk, which ought to be in an orderly spot halfway between floor and ceiling, was somehow suspending her upside-down at a crazy, sickening angle.
She shouted, “Hey!” Had this happened in all the cubicles? Had anyone else been awakened by it? Would anyone else even notice, far less be awakened by that nightmare plunge? They all seemed to manage, somehow, none of the others felt that sickening physical disorientation and terror. In response to her cry there were a few sleepy sounds, and then Teague thrust his sinewy shoulders through the opening of the cubicle, and made strong swimming motions up toward the bunk where she clung. He undipped the safety net and, clasping her tight in his arms, propelled them both down to the floor.
“Poor love, poor little thing,” he murmured, stroking her hair, “were you frightened? You should have called out before, only I thought it was only in my own cubicle; I should have come in and checked to make sure you were all right.”
She hid her face against Teague’s naked chest, wondering why she felt so boneless, so wholly devoid of strength in his arms. Could a simple biological process, even when aided by hormones, do that to her, or was it simply a matter of suggestion and psychology, was it all in her mind after all?
Still holding her in the circle of one arm, he slid down toward the DeMag unit, turned the dial firmly off and then on again. Ching, still holding her breath and struggling against nausea, felt the world blessedly settle down to normal again.
“Are you all right, sweet? I’d better check up on the others, and then I’ll be right back,” Teague promised. She heard his voice, calling out to the rest of them, one after the other, reassuring them.
“I guess it was only your cubicle, and mine, Ching, everyone else seemed to be all right.”
“Did — it — wake you?”
He shook his head. “No, I was awake, working. Working on my string quartet; it’s not going the way I want it to go. I really don’t have the training in theory that I need. And I’m not a good enough violinist to know whether the things I write are playable or not. Theoretically, they should be, but I can’t really imagine if they would sound the way I expect them to sound. And I don’t know how to resolve it,”
“Ask Peake to play them for you,” Ching suggested. Teague had crawled into the bunk beside her, clipped the safety net over them both: he lay on his side, facing her, his face almost invisible in the dimness; there was no light except the dim rim of illumination just outside the door of the cubicle, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark she could make out that he looked dejected.
“Peake? No, I couldn’t. He’s a real musician. He’s used to great music, or at least to the computer doing things right, and my stuff is so crude. I’d be ashamed to show it to Peake.”
“Don’t be foolish, Teague. He likes you, he’d be glad to tell you what’s good about it and what’s wrong with it—”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Teague muttered.
“Even if it was awful, Teague — and honestly, I don’t think it is — Peake is much too nice to be rude to you about it, or make fun or you. He’d understand what you were trying to do, and I’m sure he’d be nice and helpful.”
“That’s not what I’m worrying about,” Teague said, his face buried in her neck, so that she could hardly hear the words. “I wouldn’t mind how rude he was, or how much he made fun of it, if he levelled with me. What I’m afraid of is that he’d just be — be nice about it. Nice and polite, and not take it seriously. How could anybody take it seriously, writing string quartets in this day and age? It’s like writing sonnets. Peake would think it was sort of quaint and cute and be ever so nice about it. Kind and, well, condescending, but he wouldn’t take it seriously as music, he couldn’t.”
“How can you possibly know that without asking him?”
“Oh, well, maybe I will,” said Teague, in such an offhanded way that Ching knew he wouldn’t. “Are you all right now, not feeling sick any more?”
“Oh, yes. Thank you, Teague, you don’t have to stay with me any more…”
“But I want to,” he whispered holding her close. “You don’t mind, do you? Let me stay, Ching.”
She knew that she should make him go, she had resolved that she would make him go, it was not right to use Teague this way, to give herself confidence, to hold her fears and loneliness at bay.
We are all foolish, she thought. Teague is foolish about showing his music to Peake. And I am foolish too, I let Teague stay when I should make him go, learn to cope with these fears on my own.’
“Have you tried making in love free-fall?” Teague urged. “It’s fun, it’s like flying…”
Much as she wanted to please him, Ching flinched from the idea. She said ruefully, “I don’t think you’d have much fun with me vomiting all over you.”
“Oh, you’re doing better, you didn’t get sick this time—”
“I almost did, though. If it had
lasted any longer, I would have,” Ching said, and Teague hugged her. “Well, we’ll work on it. But it’s a good thing, sometimes, free-fall. For instance, my weight wouldn’t be so heavy on you — you’re so tiny, I’m always afraid I’ll crush you beneath me!”
“I don’t mind,” she murmured, drawing him down to her, and for a time they did not talk at all, only murmuring, soft love-sounds.
A considerable time later, she asked him, “Where did you have experience making love in free-fall? Was it in Lunar Dome?”
“No, it was here on the Ship,” Teague said. Her eyes were dilated enough to the dark now that she could see his face clearly. “Fontana — you don’t mind my talking about that, do you, Ching?”
“No, no, of course not,” she said, “Fontana and ! were talking about that. I know there aren’t enough of us for — for any kind of permanent pairings. And, Teague, you don’t have to choose between us, really. 1 don’t mind, if you want Fontana sometimes—”
“I know that,” he said gently, petting her, “but I’m glad you can be sensible about it, too, Ching. It’s going to be a long trip Even provided we get the computer fixed.”
“We will,” she said, “I’ve gone through a lot of the connections, and found out where some of the trouble might be. I can’t imagine what they were thinking of in Lunar Dome when they assembled it; I wish I’d been there when it was done, it would have made my work so much easier now. At least you had a chance to help install the drives!”
“Along with Fly and Dolly and Duffy and Perk,” he said, smiling, “and each of us wondering if it would be our one and only sight of the Ship.”
“Are you glad you were chosen, Teague? Really?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, at last, slowly. “It happens, it’s done, there’s no chance for second thoughts. I spent my life wanting to be Ship when our class graduated. Now, I wonder. Maybe that’s just let down. But yes, I suppose I’m glad. It’s an adventure. It’s real.”
She yawned, tucking her hands behind her head. She said, “I think we ought to try and get some more sleep; I have work to do. I would think making love in free-fall would be a lot of trouble. Every time you moved, you and — the other person — would go flying apart…”
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