Starborne

He decides that it has to do with the symbolic function of this voyage to the people of Earth: the fact that the voyagers are the focal point of so much aspiration and anticipation. If contact is lost, their achievements in planting a new Earth on some far star, whatever they may ultimately be, will have no meaning for the people of the mother world.

And then, too, it is a matter of what he is experiencing on the voyage itself, in relation to the intense throbbing grayness of nospace outside: that interchange of energies, that growing sense of universal connectedness. He has not spoken with any of the others about this, but the year-captain is certain that he is not the only one who has felt these things. He and, doubtless, some of his companions are making new discoveries every day, not astronomical but — well, spiritual — and, the year-captain tells himself, what a great pity it will be if none of this can ever be communicated to those who have remained behind on Earth. We must keep the link open.

“Maybe,” he says, “we ought to let you and Yvonne rest for a few days.”

A celebration: the six-month anniversary of the day the Wotan set out for deep space from Earth orbit. The starship’s entire complement is jammed into the gaming lounge, overflowing out into the corridor. Much laughter, drinking, winking, singing, a happy occasion indeed, though no one is quite sure why they should be making such a fuss about the half-year anniversary.

“It’s because we aren’t far enough out yet,” Leon suggests. “We still really have one foot in space and one back on Earth. So we keep time on the Earth calendar still. And we focus on these little milestones. But that’ll change.”

“It already has,” Chang observes. “When was the last time you used anything but the shiptime calendar in your daily work?”

“Which calendar I use isn’t important,” Leon says. He is the ship’s chief medical officer, a short, barrel-chested man with a voice like tumbling gravel. “As it happens, I use the shiptime calendar. But we still think in reference to Earth dates too. Earth dates still matter to us, after a fashion. All of us keep a kind of double calendar in our heads, I suspect. And I think we’ll go on doing that until—”

“Happy six-month!” Paco cries just then. His broad face is flushed, his dark deep-set eyes are aglow. “Six months cooped up together in this goddamned tin can and we’re still all on speaking terms with each other! It’s a miracle! A bloody miracle!” He holds a tumbler of red wine in each hand. For tonight’s party the year-captain has authorized breaking out the last of the wine that they brought with them from Earth. They will be synthesizing their own from now on. It won’t be the same thing, though; everyone knows that.

Paco may not be as drunk as he seems, but he puts on a good show. He caroms through the crowd, bellowing, “Drink! Drink!” and bumps into tall, slender Marcus, the planetographer, nearly knocking him down, and Marcus is the one who apologizes: that is the way Marcus is. A moment later Sieglinde drifts past him and Paco hands his extra wineglass to her. Then he loops his free arm through hers. “Tanz mit mir, liebchen!” he cries. The old languages are still spoken, more or less. “Show me how to waltz, Sieglinde!” She gives him a sour look, but yields. It’s a party, after all. They make a foolish-looking couple — she is a head taller than he is, and utterly ungraceful — but looking foolish is probably what Paco has in mind. He whirls her around through the crowd in a clumsy galumphing not-quite-waltz, holding her tightly at arm’s length with a one-armed grip and joyously waving his wineglass in the other.

The year-captain, who has come late to the party and now stands quietly by himself at the rear of the lounge near the tables where theGo boards are kept, sees Noelle on the opposite side, also alone. He fears for her, slim and frail as she is, and sightless, in this room of increasingly drunken revelers. But she seems to be smiling. Michael and Julia are at her side; Julia is saying something to her, and Noelle nods. Apparently she is asking if Noelle wants something to drink, for a moment later Mike plunges into the melee and fetches a glass of something for her.