Starborne

TheColumbus, after making a journey of not quite one light-year from Earth in a period of eleven Earth-days, was able successfully to reenter Einsteinian space, accurately measure its distance from its starting point, and, returning to nospace without difficulty, carry out its homeward voyage in the same span of time. TheUltima Thule, going in a different direction, found itself a little more than a light-year from home after just nine days: it, too, was able to move out of nospace and back into it and to aim itself satisfactorily toward Earth. Despite Sieglinde’s sudden willful skepticism, the year-captain prefers to think that there is every reason to believe that the Wotan would have just as little difficulty redirecting itself in nospace in order to head itself toward the Einsteinian location of the star it meant to visit, and then in leaving nospace to execute a survey of the habitability of that star’s planet. He understands her point that there is some risk with every shunt and that the more shunts they make, the greater is the number of times they place themselves in jeopardy. But they must find a world where they can live; and for that, the taking of certain risks is unavoidable. She is simply overwrought. He has no regrets about quashing her objection to the survey shunt.

The year-captain,ex officio, is the head of the team that will calculate and achieve this maneuver. But he is no expert on such things; the real work of the group will be done by five other crew members. Roy and Sieglinde will handle the mathematical aspects. Paco is the master navigator. Julia programs and operates the star drive. Heinz, the ship’s designer, is the prime generalist who comprehends all of the specialties of the other members of the team; he will be the interface, the grand communicator, the true captain of the enterprise.

This first meeting of the group has been only a preliminary one. Hesper was there for the beginning of it. He has shown the others where, in normal-space reckoning, the star of Planet A is located, according to the set of correlatives that he has worked out. After Hesper goes, there is much consulting of star-maps and the ship’s navigation circuitry. There will be need for much more, before the actual jump is attempted. Ultimately the drive intelligence itself is going to do the real work of getting them there; but the intelligence, clever though it is, is as finite as the minds of its makers. It has only limited ability to compensate for bungled instructions. They must figure out precisely what it is they want to do before they authorize the drive intelligence to do it. Or as precisely as they are able to manage. And then pray. But to whom? And with what hope that their prayers will be heard?

Sieglinde’s outburst convinces the year-captain that the meeting has gone on long enough. He keeps them together only a few minutes more, so that he can summarize this day’s work and get a consensus vote for the log. Then he adjourns.

Sieglinde is the first to leave, a fraction of a second later, striding from the room without a word, the implacable stride of a Valkyrie. She was poorly named, the year-captain thinks: Brünnhilde should have been her name, not Sieglinde. Paco and Roy go out together, arm in arm, bound for the lounge and their millionth game of Go. Julia trails after them.

Heinz alone remains with the year-captain. He stands before him, rocking lightly back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Are you worried?” he asks, after a moment.

The year-captain looks up. “About what?”

“Sieglinde’s hypothesis. Drive malfunction.”

“No. Not in the slightest. Should I be?”

Heinz smiles oddly, as though he is smiling within his smile. “That drive will take us from one end of the galaxy to another, a thousand times in and out of nospace and no problem. I promise you that.”

Their eyes meet for a moment. The year-captain searches them. It is always hard to tell whether Heinz is being sincere. His eyes are blue like the year-captain’s, but much more playful, and of an altogether different kind of blueness, a soft sky-blue greatly unlike the fierce ice-blue of the year-captain’s. Both men have fair Nordic hair, but again there is a difference, Heinz’s being thick and flowing and a burnished glowing gold in color, whereas the year-captain’s is stiff and fine and almost silver, not from aging but from simple absence of pigment. They are oddly similar and yet unalike in most other ways too. The year-captain does not regard Heinz as a friend in any real sense of that word; if he were to allow himself friends, which has always been a difficult thing for him, Heinz would probably not be one of them. But there is a certain measure of respect and trust between them.

The year-captain says, after a little while, “Is there something else you want to tell me?”

“To ask, rather.”

“Ask, then.”

“I’ve been wondering if there’s some difficulty involving Noelle.”