Crashlander

This is how they travel. A starseed spends most of its time folded into a compact egg shape, falling through the galaxy on its own momentum. But inevitably there come times when it must change course. Then the sail unfolds, a silver mirror thinner than the paint on a cheap car but thousands of miles across. A cross-shaped thickening in the material of the sail is the living body of the starseed itself. In the knob that hangs from the shrouds is more living matter. There are the muscles to control the shrouds and set the attitude of the sail, and there is the egg, fertilized at the Core, launched near the galactic rim.

The sail came free, and nobody breathed. The sail expanded, filled the screen, and swung toward us. A blue-white point crossed in front of it, a newsman's shit, a candle so tiny as to be barely visible. Now the sail was fully inflated by the light from behind, belling outward, crimped along one side for attitude control.

The intercom said, «And that's it, ladies and gentlemen and other guests. We will make one short hyperspace hop into the system of Gummidgy and will proceed from there in normal space. We will be landing in sixteen hours.»

There was a collective sigh. The Kdatlyno sculptor took his horn out of my sleeve and stood up, improbably erect.

And what would his next work be like? I thought of human faces set in expressions of sheer wonder and grinning incredulity, muscles bunched and backs arched forward for a better view of a flat wall. Had Lloobee known of the starseed in advance? I thought he had.

Most of the spectators were drifting away, though the starseed still showed. My tea was icy. We'd been watching for nearly an hour, though it felt like ten minutes.

Emil said, «How are you doing with Captain Tellefsen?»

I looked blank.

«You called her Margo a while back.»

«Oh, that. I'm not really trying, Emil. What would she see in a crashlander?»

«That girl must have hurt you pretty bad.»

«What girl?»

«It shows through your skull, Bey. None of my business, though.» He looked me up and down, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that my skull really was transparent. «What would she see? She'd see a crashlander, yes. Height seven feet, weight one sixty pounds — close enough? White hair, eyes blood-red. Skin darkened with tannin pills, just like the rest of us. But you must take more tannin pills than anybody.»

«I do. Not, as you said, that it's any of your business.»

«Was it a secret?»

I had to grin at that. How do you hide the fact that you're an albino? «No, but it's half my problem. Do you know that the Fertility Board of Earth won't accept albinos as potential fathers?»

«Earth is hardly the place to raise children, anyway. Once a flatlander, always a flatlander.»

«I fell in love with a flatlander.»

«Sorry.»

«She loved me, too. Still does, I hope. But she couldn't leave Earth.»

«A lot of fladanders can't stand space. Some of them never know it. Did you want children?»

«Yeah.»

In silent sympathy Emil dialed two Bloody Marriages. In silent thanks I raised the bulb in toast and drank.

It was as neat a cleft stick as had ever caught man and woman. Sharrol couldn't leave Earth. On Earth she was born, on Earth she would die, and on Earth she would have her children.

But Earth wouldn't let me have children. No matter that forty percent of We Made It is albino. No matter that albinism can be cured by a simple supply of tannin pills, which anyone but a full-blooded Maori has to take anyway if he's visiting a world with a brighter than average star. Earth has to restrict its population, to keep it down to a comfortable eighteen billion. To a flatlander that's comfortable. So … prevent the useless ones from having children — the liabilities, such as paranoia prones, mental deficients, criminals, uglies, and Beowulf Shaeffer.

Emil said, «Shouldn't we be in hyperspace by now?»

«Up to the captain,» I told him.

Most of the passengers who had watched the starseed were now at tables. Sleeping cubicles induce claustrophobia. Bridge games were forming, reading screens were being folded out of the walls, drinks were being served. I reached for my Bloody Marriage and found, to my amazement, that it was too heavy to pick up.

Then I fainted.

* * *

I woke up thinking, It wasn't that strong!

And everyone else was waking, too.

Something had knocked us all out at once. Which might mean the ship had an unconscious captain! I left the lounge at full speed, which was a wobbly walk.

The control-room door was open, which is bad practice. I reached to close it and changed my mind because the lock and doorknob were gone, replaced by a smooth hole nine inches across.

Margo drooped in her chair. I patted her cheeks until she stirred.

«What happened?» she wanted to know.

«We all went to sleep together. My guess is gas. Stun guns don't work across a vacuum.»

«Oh!» It was a gasp of outrage. She'd spotted the gaping hole in her control board, as smooth and rounded as the hole in the door. The gap where the hyperwave radio ought to be.