Raft

16

As the flight through space wore on, again and again Rees was drawn to the hull's small window space.

He pressed his face to the warm wall. He was close to the waist of the Bridge here: to his left the Nebula, the home they had discarded, was a crimson barrier that cut the sky in half; to his right the destination nebula was a bluish patch he could still cover with one hand.

As the ship had soared away from the Core the navigation team had spent long hours with their various sextants, charts and bits of carved bone; but at last they had a

But then the Bridge had left behind the familar warm light of the Nebula.

Most of the hull had been opaqued to shut out the oppressive darkness of the internebular void. Bathed in artificial light, the reconstructed shanty town had become once more a mass of homely warmth and scents, and most of the passengers had been glad to turn inwards and forget the emptiness beyond the ancient walls of the ship.

But despite this the mood of the people grew more subdued — contemplative, even somber.

And then the loss of one of their two supply machines had started to work through, and rationing had begun to bite.

The sky outside was a rich, deep blue, broken only by the diffuse pallor of distant nebulae. The Scientists had puzzled over their ancient instruments and assured Rees that the internebular spaces were far from airless, although the gases were far too thin to sustain human life. "It is as if," Jaen had told him excitedly, "the nebulae are patches of high density within a far greater cloud, which perhaps has its own internal structure, its own Core. Perhaps all the nebulae are falling like stars into this greater Core."

"And why stop there?" Rees had gri

Jaen's eyes sparkled. "I wonder what the inhabitants of those greater Cores would look like, what gravitic chemistry could do under such conditions…"

Rees shrugged. "Maybe one day we'll send up a ship to find out. Travel to the Core of Cores… but there may be more subtle ways to probe these questions."

"Like what?"

"Well, if our new nebula really is falling into a greater Core there should be measurable effects. Tides, perhaps — we could build up hypotheses about the mass and nature of the greater Core without ever seeing it."

"And knowing that, we could go on to validate whole families of theories about the structure of this universe…"

Rees smiled now, something of that surge of intellectual confidence returning briefly to warm Mm.

But if they couldn't feed themselves all these dreams counted for nothing.

The ship had picked up enormous velocity by its slingshot maneuver around the Core, climbing into internebuiar space within hours. They'd traveled for five shifts since then… but there were still twenty shifts to go. Could the ship's fragile social structure last so long?

There was a bony hand on his shoulder. Hol-lerbach thrust forward his gaunt face and peered through the window. "Wonderful," he murmured.

Rees said nothing.

Hollerbach let his hand rest. "I know what you're feeling."

"The worst of it is," Rees said quietly, "that the passengers still blame me for the difficulties we face. Mothers hold out their hungry children accusingly as I go past."

Hollerbach laughed. "Rees, you mustn't let it bother you. You have not lost the brave idealism of your recent youth — the idealism which, untem-pered by maturity," he said drily, "drove you to endanger your own skin by associating yourself with the Scientists at the time of the rebellion. But you have grown into a man who has learned that the first priority is the survival of the species… and you have learned to impose that discipline on others. You showed that with your defeat of Gover.»

"My murder of him, you mean."

"If you felt anything other than remorse for the actions you have been forced to take, I would respect you less." The old Scientist squeezed his shoulder,

"If only I could be sure I have been right," Rees said. "Maybe I've seduced these people to their deaths with false hope."

"Well, the signs are good. The navigators assure me our maneuver around the Core was successful, and that we are on course for our new home… And, if you want a further symbol of good fortune—" He pointed above his head. "Look up there."

Rees peered upwards. The migrating school of whales was a sheet of slender, ghostly forms crossing the sky from left to right. On the fringes of that river of life he caught glimpses of plate creatures, of sky wolves with firmly closed mouths, and other, even more exotic creatures, all gliding smoothly to their next home.

Throughout the Nebula there must be more of these vast schools: rank on rank of them, all abandoning the dying gas cloud, scattering silhouettes against the Nebula's somber glow. Soon, Rees mused, the Nebula would be drained of life… save for a few tethered trees, and the trapped remnants of humanity.

Now there was a slow stirring in the whale stream. Three of the great beasts drifted together, flukes turning, until they were moving over and around each other in a vast, stately dance. At last they came so close that their flukes interlocked and their bodies touched; it was as if they had merged into a single creature. The rest of the school drifted respectfully around the triad.

"What are they doing?»

Hollerbach smiled. "Of course I'm speculating — and, at my age, mostly from memory — but I believe they're mating."

Rees gasped.

"Well, why not? What better circumstances to do so, than surrounded by one's fellows and so far from the stresses and dangers of nebular life? Even the sky wolves are hardly in a position to attack, are they? You know, it wouldn't surprise me — given these long, enclosed hours with nothing much to do — if we too didn't enjoy a population explosion."

Rees laughed. "That's all we need."

"Yes, it is," Hollerbach murmured seriously. "Anyway, my point, my friend, is that perhaps we should emulate those whales. Self-doubt is part of being human… but the main thing is to get on with the business of survival, as best one can. And that is what you have done."

"Thanks, Hollerbach," Rees said. "I understand what you're trying to do. But maybe you need to tell all that to the passengers' empty bellies."

"Perhaps. I… I—" Hollerbach collapsed into a bout of deep, rasping coughing. "I'm sorry," he said at last.

Rees studied the old Scientist with some concern; in the blue internebular light it seemed he saw the lines of Hollerbach's skull.

The Bridge entered the outermost layers of the new nebula. Thin air whistled around the stumps of the control jets.

Rees and Gord manhandled Nead into the corridor close to the port. The young Scientist's legs — rendered useless by the smashing of his spine during his fall at closest approach — had been strapped together and stiffened with a length of wood. Nead insisted that he felt nothing below his waist, but Rees saw how his face twisted at each jarring motion.

Studying Nead he felt a deep, sick guilt. The lad was still barely eighteen thousand shifts old, and yet by following Rees he had already been maimed; and now he was volunteering for still more peril. The stumps of snapped rivets at the supply machine's vacant mount reminded Rees of the sacrifice Roch had made at this place. He was, he found, deeply reluctant to witness another.