Starborne

Wild fear swept her like fire in a parched forest. She trembled, and the trembling turned into an anguished shaking, and she clasped her arms around her shoulders and doubled over, sick, miserably frightened, gasping in terror. But then, somehow, some measure of calmness returned. She closed her eyes — that always helped — took deep breaths, compelled herself to unfold her clasped arms and stand straight, forced the knotted muscles of her shoulders and back to uncoil. It would all work out, she told herself fiercely. It would. It would. Yvonne would be there after the shunt just as before.

It was time to go back to the lounge. The captain was going to make a speech to the assembled crew just before the launch itself. Coolly Noelle moved through the corridors of the ship, touching this, stroking that, drawing its strange sterile air deep into her lungs so that she would begin to feel native to it, familiarizing herself with textures and smells and highly local patterns of coolness or warmth. She had already been aboard twice before, during the indoctrination sessions. They had built the starship up here in space, for it was a flimsy thing and could not be subjected to the traumas of the acceleration needed to lift it out of a planetary gravitational field. For months, years, hordes of mass-drivers had come chugging up from bases on the Moon, hauling tons of prefabricated matériel as the great job of weaving and spinning went on and on. And gradually the members of the crew had been chosen, brought together here, shown their way around the strange-looking vessel that would contain their lives, perhaps, until the end of their days.

Yvonne will still be there once we have set out, she told herself. Why should the link fail?

There was no reason to think that it would; but none to think that it would necessarily hold, either. She and Yvonne were something new under the sun. No body of experimental study existed to cover the case of telepathic twin sisters separated by a span of dozens of light-years. Noelle had nothing but faith to support her belief that the power that joined their minds was wholly unaffected by distance, but her faith had been secure up till that moment of sudden panic just now. She and Yvonne had often spoken to each other from opposite sides of the planet without difficulty, had they not?

Yes. Yes. But would it be so simple when they were half a galaxy apart?

The last hours before departure time were ticking down. The ship was full of people, not all of them actual members of the crew. Noelle felt their presences all around her: men, a lot of them, deep voices, a special sharpness to their sweat. Some women too. The rustle of different kinds of garments, thin robes, crisp blouses, the clink of jewelry. Everybody tense: she could smell it, a sharpness in the air. She could hear it in the subliminal hesitations of their voices.

Well, why not be tense? Switches would be thrown and incomprehensible forces would come into play and the starship would vanish with all hands into nowhere.

There had been test voyages, of course. This project was almost a century old. The unmanned nospace ships, first, going out on short journeys into absolute strangeness and successfully sending radio messages back, which arrived after the obligatory interval that radio transmission imposes. And then two manned journeys into interstellar space, small ships carrying unimaginably courageous volunteers — theColumbus and theUltima Thule, names out of antiquity given new gloss. TheColumbus had traveled eleven light-months, theUltima Thule fourteen; and both had returned safely. The second of those voyages had been carried out seven years ago. Members of its crew had spoken to them, trying to explain what nospace travel would feel like to them. No one had grasped anything of what they were saying, least of all Noelle.

Now the Wotan — more ancient mythology, a ship named for some shaggy savage indomitable headstrong god of the northern forests — was ready to go. And am I? Noelle wondered. Am I?

Final speeches. Much orotund noise. Drums and trumpets. The exit of the high governmental officials who bad come aboard to see them off. The year-captain — they had elected him yesterday, the dour Scandinavian man with the wonderfully musical voice — telling them to prepare themselves for departure, by which he meant, apparently, to say any sort of prayers that they might find meaningful, or at least to do whatever it was they did to compose their minds as they prepared to make the irrevocable transition from one life to another.

— yvonne? Do you hear me?

— Of course I do.

— We’re about to get going.

— I know. I know.