Tau Zero

On a particular Sunday, he had asked Ingrid Lindgren to meet him in his cabin afterward. She was waiting there when he entered. Her fairness and a short red gown cast her vivid against books, desk, papers. Though he rated a double section to himself, its austerity was relieved by little except a few pictures of family and a half-built model of a clipper ship.

“Good morning,” he said with accustomed solemnity. He laid down his Bible and loosened the collar of his dress uniform. “Won’t you be seated?” The beds being up, there was room for a couple of folding armchairs. “I’ll send after coffee.”

“How did it go?” she asked, sitting down opposite him, nervously trying to make conversation. “Did Malcolm attend?”

“Not today. I suspect our friend Foxe-Jameson is not yet sure whether he wants to return to the faith of his fathers or stay a loyal agnostic.” Telander smiled a bit. “He’ll come, though, he’ll come. He simply needs to get it through his head that it’s possible to be a Christian and an astrophysicist. When are we going to lure you, Ingrid?”

“Probably never. If there is any directing intelligence behind reality — and we’ve no scientific evidence in favor of that — why should it care about a chemical accident like man?”

“You quote Charles Reymont almost precisely, did you know?” Telander said. Her features tensed. He hurried on: “A being that concerns itself with everything from quanta to quasars can spare attention for us. Rational proof — But I don’t want to repeat stale arguments. We’ve something else on hand.” He tuned his intercom to the galley: “A pot of coffee, cream and sugar, two cups, in the captain’s cabin, please.”

“Cream!” Lindgren muttered.

“I don’t think our food technicians fake it badly,” Telander said. “By the way, Carducci is quite taken with Reymont’s suggestion.”

“What’s that?”

“Working with the food team to invent new dishes. Not a beefsteak put together out of algae and tissue cultures, but stuff never experienced before. I’m glad he’s found an interest.”

“Yes, as a chef he’s been slipping.” Lindgren’s garb of casualness fell off. She struck her chair arm. “Why?” burst from her. “What’s wrong? We’ve been under weigh scarcely half as long as we pla

“We’ve lost every assurance—”

“I know, I know. And shouldn’t people be stimulated by danger? As for the chance we won’t ever end our voyage, well, it hit me badly too, I admit, at first. But I think I’ve rallied.”

“You and I have an ongoing purpose,” Telander said. “We, the regular crew, we’re responsible for lives. It helps. And even for us—” He paused. “This is what I wished to talk over with you, Ingrid. We’re at a critical date. The hundred-year mark on Earth since we departed.”

“Nonsensical,” she said. “You can’t speak of simultaneity under these conditions.”

“It’s far from psychologically nonsensical,” he answered. “At Beta Virginis we would have had a thread of contact with home. We would have thought that the younger ones we left behind, given longevity treatments, were still alive. If we must return, surely enough continuity would have persisted that we didn’t come back as utter aliens. Now, though — the fact that in some sense, whether a mathematical one or not — at best, babies whom we saw in their cribs are nearing the end of life — it reminds us too hard, we can never regain any trace of what we once loved.”

“M-m-m … I suppose. Like watching somebody you care about die of a slow disease. You aren’t surprised when the end comes; nevertheless, it is the end.” Lindgren blinked. “Damn!”

“You must do what you can to help them through this period,” Telander said. “You know how better than I.”

“You could do a good deal yourself.”

The gaunt head shook. “Best not. On the contrary, I’m going to withdraw.”

“What do you mean?” she asked with a touch of alarm.

“Nothing dramatic,” he said. “My work with the engineering and navigation departments, in these unpredictable circumstances, does take most of my waking hours. It’ll provide a cover for my gradually ceasing to mix in shipboard society.”

“Whatever for?”

“I’ve had several talks with Charles Reymont. He has made an excellent point — a crucial one, I do believe. When uncertainty surrounds us, when despair is always waiting to break us … the average person aboard has to feel his life is in competent hands. Of course, no one is going to suppose consciously that the captain is infallible. But there’s an unconscious need for such an aura. And I — I have my share of weakness and stupidity. My human-level judgments can’t stand up to daily testing under high stress.”

Lindgren crouched in her seat. “What does the constable want of you?”

“That I stop operating on an informal, intimate basis. The excuse will be that I mustn’t be distracted by ordinary business, when my whole attention must go to getting us safely through the galaxy’s clouds and clusters. It’s a reasonable excuse, it will be accepted. In the end, I shall be dining separately, in here, except on ceremonial occasions. I shall take my exercise and recreation here too, alone. What personal visitors I have will be the highest-ranking officers, like you. We will surround me with official etiquette. Through his own assistants, Reymont will pass the word that polite forms of address toward me are expected of everyone.

“In short, your good gray friend Lars Telander is about to change into the Old Man.”

“It sounds like Reymont’s kind of scheme,” she said bitterly.

“He’s convinced me it’s desirable,” the captain replied.

“With no thought for what it can do to you!”

“I’n manage. I never was hail-fellow-well-met. We have many books along in the microtapes that I always wanted to read.” Telander regarded her earnestly. Though the air was nearing the warmest part of its cycle and was tinged with a smell like new-mown hay, the fine hairs were standing erect on her arms. “You have a role also, Ingrid. More than ever, you will handle the human problems. Organization, mediation, alleviation … it won’t be easy.”

“I can’t do it alone.” Her words wavered.

“You can if you must,” he told her. “In practice you can delegate or divert much. That’s a question of proper pla

He hesitated. Uneasiness came upon him; color actually entered his cheeks. “Ah … a matter in that co

“Yes?” she said.

The door chime rescued him. He accepted the coffee tray from the bull cook and made a performance of carrying it to his desk and pouring. It enabled him to keep his back to her.

“In your position,” he said. “That is, your new position. The necessity of giving officers a special status — You needn’t hold aloof like me, entirely — but a certain limitation of, well, accessibility—”

He couldn’t see if it was actual amusement coloring her voice. “Poor Lars! You mean the first officer should not change boy friends so often, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t suggest, ah, celibacy. I myself must, of course, ah, hold back from such things hereafter. In your case — well, the experimental phase is past for most of us. Stable relationships are forming. If you could make one—”

“I can do better,” she said. “I can turn solitary.”

He could delay no further handing her a cup. “Th-that isn’t required,” he stammered.

“Thanks.” She inhaled the coffee’s fragrance. Her eyes crinkled at him over the rim. “We don’t have to be absolutely abbot and nun, we two. The captain needs a private conference once in a while with his first officer.”

“Er — no. You are sweet, Ingrid, but no.” Telander paced the narrow width of the cabin, back and forth. “In as little and cramped a community as this, how long can any secret last? I dare not risk hypocrisy. And while I … I would love to have you for a permanent partner … it can’t be. You have to be everyone else’s liaison with me: not my, my direct collaborator. Do you follow me? Reymont explained it better.”