Tau Zero

Already. Irrevocably. No longer simply our kinfolk must be extinct. Our civilization must be. What has happened on Earth? Throughout the galaxy? What have men done? What have they become? We will never share in it. We ca

He tried to break her apathy with sharpness: “What of that? On Beta Three, the maser would have brought us words a generation old. Nothing else. And our individual deaths would have closed us off from the universe. The common fate of man. Why should we whine if ours takes an unexpected shape?”

She regarded him gravely before she told him, “You don’t really want an answer for yourself. You want to pull one out of me.”

Startled, he said, “Well … yes.”

“You understand people better than you let on. Your business, no doubt. You tell me what our trouble is.”

“Loss of control over life,” he replied at once. “The crew aren’t in such bad condition yet. They have their jobs. But the scientists, like you, had vowed themselves to Beta Virginis. They had heroic, exciting work to look forward to, and meanwhile their preparations to make. Now they’ve no idea what will happen. They know just that it’ll be something altogether unpredictable. That it may be death — because we are taking frightful risks — and they can do nothing to help, only sit passive and be carried. Of course their morale cracks.”

“What do you think we should do, Charles?”

“Well, in your case, for instance, why not continue your work? Eventually we’ll be searching for a world to settle on. Planetology will be vital to us.”

“You’re aware what the odds are against that. We are going to keep on this devil’s hunt until we die.”

“Damnation, we can improve the odds!”

“How?”

“That’s one of the things you ought to be working on.”

She smiled again, a little more alive. “Charles, you make me want to. If for no other reason than to make you stop flogging at me. Is that why you are so tough with the others?”

He considered her. “You’ve borne up better than most thus far,” he said. “It might help you get back your purpose if I share what I’m doing with you. Can you keep a trade secret?”

Her glance actually danced. “You should know me that well by now.” One bare foot rubbed across his thigh.

He patted it and chuckled. “An old principle,” he said. “Works in military and paramilitary organizations. I’ve been applying it here. The human animal wants a father-mother image but, at the same time, resents being disciplined. You can get stability like this: The ultimate authority-source is kept remote, godlike, practically unapproachable. Your immediate superior is a mean son of a bitch who makes you toe the mark and whom you therefore detest. But his own superior is as kind and sympathetic as rank allows. Do you follow me?”

She laid a finger to her temple. “Not really.”

“Take our present situation. You’d never guess how I juggled, those first few months after we hit the nebulina. I don’t claim credit for the whole development. A lot of it was natural, almost inevitable. The logic of our problem brought it about, given some nursing by me. The end result is that Captain Telander’s been isolated. His infallibility doesn’t have to cope with essentially unfixable human messes like the one today.”

“Poor man.” Chi-Yuen looked closely at Reymont. “Lindgren is his surrogate for those?”

He nodded. “I’m the traditional top sergeant. Hard, harsh, demanding, overbearing, inconsiderate, brutal. Not so bad as to start a petition for my removal. But enough to irritate, to be disliked, although respected. That’s good for the troops. It’s healthier to be mad at me than to dwell on personal woes … as you, my love, have been doing.

“Lindgren smooths things out. As first officer, she sustains my power. But she overrules me from time to time. She exercises her rank to bend regulations in favor of mercy. Therefore she adds benignity to the attributes of Ultimate Authority.”

Reymont frowned. “The system’s carried us this far,” he finished. “It’s begi

Chi-Yuen went on gazing at him until he shifted uncomfortably on the mattress. At last she asked, “Did you plan this with Ingrid?”

“Eh? Oh no. Her role demands she not be a Machiavelli type who’d play a part deliberately.”

“You understand her so well … from past acquaintance?”

“Yes.” He reddened. “What of it? These days we keep it purely formal. For obvious reasons.”

“I think you find ways to continue rebuffing her, Charles.”

“M-m-m … blast it, leave me alone. What I’m trying to do is help you get back some real wish to live.”

“So that I, in turn, can help you keep going?”

“Well, uh, yes. I’m no superman. It’s been too long since anybody lent me a shoulder to cry on.”

“Are you saying that because you mean it, or because it serves your purpose?” Chi-Yuen tossed back her locks. “Never mind. Don’t answer. We will do what we can for each other. Afterward, if we survive — We will settle that when we have survived.”

His dark, scarred features softened. “You are for a fact regaining your balance,” he said. “Excellent.”

She laughed. Her arms went about his neck. “Come here, you.”

Chapter 13

The speed of light can be approached, but no body possessing rest mass can quite attain it. Smaller and smaller grew the increments of velocity by which Leonora Christine neared that impossible ultimate. Thus it might have seemed that the universe which her crew observed could not be distorted further. Aberration could, at most, displace a star 45°; Doppler effect might infinitely redden the photons from astern but only double the frequencies from ahead.

However, there was no limit on inverse tau, and that was the measure of changes in perceived space and experienced time. Accordingly, there was no limit to optical changes either; and the cosmos fore and aft could shrink toward a zero thickness wherein all the galaxies were crowded.

Thus, as she made her great swing half around the Milky Way and turned for a plunge through its heart, the ship’s periscope revealed a weird demesne. The nearer stars streamed past ever faster, until at last the eye saw them marching across the field of view: because by that time, years went by outside while minutes ticked away within. The sky was no longer black; it was a shimmering purple, which deepened and brightened as interior months went by: because the interaction of force fields and interstellar medium — eventually, interstellar magnetism — was releasing quanta. The farther stars were coalescing into two globes, fiery blue ahead, deep crimson aft. But gradually those globes contracted toward points and dimmed: because well-nigh the whole of their radiation had been shifted out of the visible spectrum, toward gamma rays and radio waves.

The viewscope had been repaired but was increasingly less able to compensate. The circuits simply could not distinguish individual suns any longer at more than a few parsecs’ remove. The technicians took the instrument apart and rebuilt it for heightened capacity, lest men fly altogether sightless.

That project, and various other remodelings, were probably of more use to those able to do the work than they were in themselves. Such persons did not withdraw into their own shells as did too many of their shipmates.

Boris Fedoroff found Luis Pereira on the hydroponics deck. An alga tank was being harvested. The biosystems chief worked with his men, stripped like them, dripping the same water and green slime, filling the crocks that stood on a cart. “Phew!” said the engineer.

Teeth gleamed under Pereira’s mustache. “Do not deprecate my crop that loudly,” he replied. “You will be eating it in due course.”

“I wondered how the imitation Limburger cheese got so realistic,” Fedoroff said. “Can you come for a discussion with me?”