Tau Zero

‘‘Hm. I see why Lindgren insisted I let you come along.” Fedoroff cleared his throat. “About her.”

“Yes.”

“I … 1 was angry … at your treatment of her. It was mainly that. Of course, I was, uh, humiliated personally. But a man should be able to get over that. I cared for her, though, very much.”

“Forget it,” Reymont said.

“I ca

“Surely. I’ve wanted this myself. Good men are hard to come by.” Gauntlets groped to find each other in the murk and clasp.

‘‘All right.” Fedoroff switched his transmitter back on and pushed clear of the ship. “Let’s get aft and have a look at the problem.”

Chapter 17

Light began to glimmer ahead, a scattering of starlike points which waxed, in numbers and brightness, toward glory. Their dominion widened; presently the viewscope showed them occupying nearly half of heaven; and still that area grew and brightened.

They were not stars forming those strange constellations. They were, at first, entire families of galaxies making up a clan. Later, as the ship advanced, they broke into clusters and then into separate members.

The viewscope’s reconstruction of this stationary-observer sight was only approximate. From the spectra received, a computer estimated what the Doppler shift, and thus the aberration, must be, and made corresponding adjustments. But these were nothing except estimates.

It was believed that the clan lay about three hundred million light-years from home. But no charts existed for these deeps, no standards of measurement. The probable error in the derived value of tau was huge. Factors like absorption simply were not in any reference work aboard.

Leonora Christine might have sought a less remote destination, for which more reliable data were tabulated. However — bearing in mind that at ultra-low tau she was not very steerable — that route would have taken her through less matter within the Milky Way-Andromeda-Virgo clan. She would have gained less speed; and now she was ru

And it was not known, either, how long her people could endure.

The cheer brought by the repair of the decelerator was short-lived. For neither half of the Bussard module could work in interclan space. Here the primordial gas had finally gotten too thin. For weeks, therefore, the ship must go powerless on a trajectory set by the eldritch ballistics of relativity. Within her hull was weightlessness. There was some talk of using lateral ion jets to put a spin on her and thus provide centrifugal pseudo-gravity. Despite her size, it would have generated radial and Coriolis effects that were too troublesome. She had not been designed nor had her folk been trained for such.

They must bear the weeks, while the geological epochs passed by outside.

Reymont opened the door to his cabin. Weariness made him careless. Bracing himself a trifle too hard against the bulkhead, he let go the handhold and was propelled away. For a moment he cartwheeled in mid-air. Then he bumped into the opposite side of the corridor, pushed, and darted back across. Once within the cabin, he grabbed another bar before shutting the door behind him.

At this hour, he had expected Chi-Yuen Ai-Ling to be asleep. But she floated wakeful, a few centimeters off their joined beds, a single line anchoring her. As he entered, she switched off the library screen with a quickness that showed she hadn’t really been paying attention to the book projected on it.

“Not you too?” Reymont’s question seemed loud. They had been so long accustomed to the engine pulse as well as the force of acceleration that free fall still brimmed the ship with silence.

“What?” Her smile was tentative and troubled. They had had scant contact lately. He had too much work under these changed conditions, organizing, ordering, cajoling, arranging, pla

“Have you also become unable to rest in zero gee?” he asked.

“No. That is, I can. A strange, light sort of sleep, filled with dreams, but I seem fairly refreshed afterward.”

“Good,” he sighed. “Two more cases have developed.”

“Insomniac, you mean?”

“Yes. Verging on nervous collapse. Every time they do drift off, you know, they wake again screaming. Nightmares. I’m not sure whether weightlessness alone does it to them, or if that’s only the last thing needed for breaking stress. Neither is Urho Latvala. I was just conferring with him. He wanted my opinion on what to do, now that he’s ru

“What did you suggest?”

Reymont grimaced. “I told him who I thought unconditionally had to have them, and who might survive awhile without.”

“The trouble isn’t simply the psychological effect, you realize,” Chi-Yuen said. “It is the fatigue. Pure physical tiredness, from trying to do things in a gravityless environment.”

“Of course.” Reymont hooked one leg around the bar to hold himself in place and started to unfasten his coverall. “Quite u

“How much longer, Charles?”

‘‘Like this? Who knows? They plan to reactivate the force fields, at minimum strength off the interior power plant, tomorrow. A precaution, in case we strike denser material sooner than expected. The last estimate I heard for when we’ll reach the fringes of the clan is a week.”

She relaxed in relief. “We can stand that. And then … we will be making for our new home.”

“Hope so,” Reymont grunted. He stored his clothes, shivered a little though the air was warm, and took out a pair of pajamas.

Chi-Yuen started. Her tether jerked her to a stop. “What do you mean by that? Don’t you know?”

“Look, Ai-Ling,” he said in an exhausted tone, “you’ve been briefed like everybody else on our instrumentation problems. How in hell’s flaming name can you expect an exact answer to anything?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Are the officers to blame if the passengers don’t listen to their reports, won’t understand?” Reymont’s voice lifted in anger. “Some of you are going to pieces again. Some of you have barricaded yourselves with apathy, or religion, or sex, or whatever, till nothing registers on your memories. Most of you — well, it was healthy to work on those R D projects, but that’s become a defense reaction in its own right. Another way of narrowing your attention till you exclude the big bad universe. And now, when free fall prevents you carrying on, you likewise crawl into your nice hidey-holes.” Lashingly: “Go ahead. Do what you want. The whole wretched lot of you. Only don’t come and peck at me any longer. D’you hear?”

He yanked the pajamas on, soared to the bed, and clipped the safety line around his waist. Chi-Yuen moved to embrace him.

“Oh, love,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. You are so tired, are you not?”

“Been hard on us all,” he said.

“Most on you.” Her fingers traced the cheekbones standing out under taut skin, the deep lines, the sunken and bloodshot eyes. “Why don’t you rest?”

“I’d like to.”

She maneuvered his mass into a stretched-out position and drew herself closer yet. Her hair floated across his face, smelling of sunshine on Earth. “Do,” she said. “You can. For you, isn’t it good not to be heavy?”