Starborne

Hesper has told him, more than once, what the blazing swirls and squiggles on the screen are supposed to signify. The sequence of criteria for habitable worlds. The raw astronomical data, first. Each sun’s place on the main sequence, the indications of the presence of planetary bodies in constructive positions. Mean orbital distances plotted against luminosity. And then a spectroscopic workup. Evidence for the presence of an atmosphere. The chemical components thereof: suitable or not? And then — biospheric analysis — conditions of thermodynamic disequilibrium, indicating the possible presence of transpiration and respiration — the temperature range, probable mean highs and lows—

The starship has data-gathering tentacles reaching far out into the incomprehensible void. A host of sensory receptors, mysteriously capable of piercing the nospace tube in which the ship travels and extending into the dark reality beyond, collects information tirelessly, information that is not actual realspace data but is somehow a usable equivalent of such data, and processes it into these bright designs. Over which this bubbly little man hovers, evaluating, discarding, reconsidering, unendingly searching for the ultimate new Eden that is the goal of their quest.

Hesper wants to discuss his newest prospects. The year-captain listens with half an ear. He wants nothing more just now than the simple relaxation that watching the screen affords. The abstract patterns, so very bright and cheerful. The wild swirls of color that whirl and clash like crazed comets. Is there any real meaning in them? Only Hesper knows. He devised this information-gathering system; he is the only one, really, who can decipher and interpret the mysterious factoids that the ship’s sensors suck in. When the time comes, the year-captain will pay close attention to the little man’s data. But this is not yet the time.

The year-captain stands and watches for a while, mindlessly, like a small child, taking innocent pleasure in the colors and patterns, admiring them for their own sake. There are few enough pleasures that he allows himself: this one is harmless and comforting. Stars dance on the screen in wild galliards and fandangos. He imagines that he identifies steel-blue Vega and emerald Deneb and golden Arcturus, but he knows that there is no way he can be correct. The patterns he sees here are not those of the constellations he watched so often soaring across the icy sky over Norway in his long vigils of the night. What Hesper views here is not the sky itself, nor even any one-to-one equivalent of it, but simply the nospace correlative of the sky, a map of energy sources in realspace as they have been translated into utterly alien nospace terms. No matter; let these seeming stars be any stars at all, let them be Markab or Procyon or Rigel or Betelgeuse or ones that have no names at all — let them, for all he cares, be nothing more than imaginary points of light. He wants only to see the dance.

He savors the light-show gratefully until his eyes begin to ache a little and the wild spectacle starts to weary his mind. Then he thanks Hesper gravely and goes out.

Noelle’s cabin is neat, austere, underfurnished: no paintings, no light-sculptures, nothing to please the visual sense, only a few small sleek bronze statuettes, a smooth oval slab of green stone, and some objects evidently chosen for their rich textures — a strip of nubby fabric stretched across a frame, a sea urchin’s stony test, a collection of rough sandstone chunks. Everything is meticulously arranged. Does someone help her keep the place tidy? She moves serenely from point to point in the little room, never in danger of a collision, moving this object a centimeter or two to one side, lifting another and fondling it a moment before returning it to the exact place where it had been. The supreme confidence of her movements is fascinating to the year-captain, who sits patiently waiting for her to settle down.