Tau Zero

“Th-th-three months,” she stammered through her weeping.

He let her cry while he stroked the matted hair. When she was done, he helped her to a bathroom. They sponged each other fairly clean. The organic liquid they used had a pungency overriding the stench on them, but its volatilization was so rapid and thorough that Jimenes shuddered with chill, Fedoroff chucked the sponges into the chute of a laundry-bound conveyor and turned on a hot-air blower. He and she basked for minutes.

“Do you know,” he said after much silence, “if we have solved the problem of hydroponics in zero gravity, we should be able to design something that will give us a real bath. Or even a shower.”

She didn’t smile, only huddled near the grille. Her hair billowed backward.

Fedoroff stiffened. “All right,” he said, “how did it happen? Isn’t the doctor supposed to keep track of every woman’s contraceptive schedule?”

She nodded, not looking at him. Her reply was scarcely to be heard. “Yes. One shot a year, though, for twenty-five of us … and he had, he has many things on his mind other than routine …”

“You didn’t both forget?”

‘‘No. I went to his office on my usual date. It’s embarrassing when he has to remind a girl. He wasn’t in. Out taking care of someone in trouble, maybe. His chart for us lay on his desk. I looked at it. Jane had been in for the same reason, I saw, this same day, probably an hour or two earlier. Suddenly I snatched his pen and wrote ‘OK’ after my own name, in the space for this time. I scribbled it the way he does. It happened before I really knew what I was doing. I ran.”

“Why didn’t you confess afterward? He’s seen battier impulses than that since this ship went astray.”

“He should have remembered,” Jimenes said louder. “H he decided that he must have forgotten I was in — why should I do his work for him?”

Fedoroff cursed and grabbed after her. He stopped his hand short of the bruised wrist. “In the name of sanity!” he protested. “Latvala’s worked to death, trying to keep us functional. And you ask why you should help him?”

Her defiance grew more open. She faced him and said: “You promised we could have children.”

“Why — well, yes, true, we want as many as we can, once we have a planet—”

“And if we do not find a planet? What then? Can’t you improve the biosystems as you’ve been bragging?”

“We’ve put that aside in favor of the instrumentation project. It may take years.”

“A few babies won’t make that much difference meanwhile … to the ship, the damned ship … but the difference to us—”

He moved toward her. Her eyes widened. She crawled from him, handhold to handhold. “No!” she yelled. “I know what you’re after! You’ll never take my baby! He’s yours too! If you … you cut my baby out of me — I’ll kill you! I’ll kill everyone aboard!”

“Quiet!” he bellowed. He backed off a little. She clung whereshewas, sobbing and baring teeth. “I won’t do a thing myself,” he said. “We’ll see the constable.” He went to the exit. “Stay here. Pull yourself together. Think how you want to argue. I’ll fetch clothes for us.”

On his errand, the sole words he uttered were through the intercom, requesting a private talk with Reymont. Nor did he speak to Jimenes, or she to him, on their way to their cabin.

When they were inside, she seized his arms. “Boris, your own child, you can’t — and Easter coming—”

He tethered her. “Calm down,” he warned. “Here.” He gave her a squeeze bottle with, some tequila in it. “This may help. Don’t drink much. You’ll need your wits about you.”

The door chimed. Fedoroff admitted Reymont and closed it again. “Would you like a dram, Charles?” the engineer asked.

The features he confronted might have been a vizor on a war helmet. “We’d Setter discuss your problem first,” said the constable.

“Margarita is pregnant,” Fedoroff told him.

Reymont floated quiet, lightly gripping a bar. “Please—” Jimenes began.

Reymont waved her to silence. “How did that happen?” he inquired, softly as the ship’s breath from the ventilators.

She tried to explain, and couldn’t. Fedoroff put it in a few words.

“I see.” Reymont nodded. “About seven months to go, hm? Why do you consult me? You should have gone directly to the first officer. She’ll be the one in any event who disposes of the case. I have no power except to arrest you for a grave breach of regulation.”

“You — We are friends, I thought, Charles,” Fedoroff said.

“My duty is to the whole ship,” Reymont answered in the same monotone as before. “I can’t go along with anyone’s selfish action that threatens the lives of the rest.”

“One tiny baby?” Jimenes cried.

“And how many more desired by others?”

“Must we wait forever?”

“It would seem proper to wait till you know what our future is likely to be. A child bom here could have a short life and a grisly death.”

Jimenes locked fingers over her abdomen. “You won’t murder him! You won’t!”

“Be still,” spat from Reymont. She choked but obeyed. He turned his gaze on Fedoroff. “What are your views, Boris?”

Slowly, the Russian retreated until he was beside his woman. He drew her to him and said: “Abortion is murder. This should not have happened, maybe, but I ca

“We’d be in bad shape without you.”

“Exactly.”

“Well—” Reymont averted his eyes. “You haven’t yet told me what you imagine I can do,” he said.

‘‘I know what you can,” Fedoroff answered. “Ingrid will want to save this life. She may not be able without your advice and backing.”

“Hm. Hm. So.” Reymont drummed the bulkhead. “It isn’t the worst thing for us, this,” he said at length, thoughtfully. “There might even be some gains to make. If we can pass it off as an accident, an oversight, whatever, instead of a deliberate infraction… It was, at that, in a way. Margarita acted insanely; still, how sane are any of us by now? … Hm. Suppose we a

Briefly, his voice rose. “Also, by God, they’re apledge of confidence. And a fresh reason to survive. Yes!”

Jimenes tried to reach him and embrace him. He warded her off. Above her weeping and laughter, he ordered the engineer: “Get her calmed. I’ll discuss this with the first officer. In due course, we’ll all confer together. Meanwhile, no word or sign to anybody.”

“You … take the affair … coolly,” Fedoroff said.

“How else?” Reymont’s answer was edged. “Been too bloody much emotion around.” For another instant, the vizor lifted. This time a death’s head looked out. “Too bloody clawing much!” he shouted. He flung the door wide andi whipped into the corridor.

Boudreau peered through the viewscope. The galaxy toward which Leonora Christine rushed showed as a blue-white haze on a darkling visual field. When he had finished, a scowl bent his brow. He walked to the main console. His footfalls thudded in the restored weight of an intrafamilial passage.

“It is not right,” he said. “I have seen plenty of them; I know.”

“Do you mean the color?” Foxe-Jameson asked. The navigator had bidden the astrophysicist come to the bridge. “Frequency seem too low for our speed? That’s mainly due to simple space expansion, Auguste. The Hubble constant. We’re overhauling galactic groups whose velocity gets higher and higher with respect to our starting point, the farther we travel. Good thing too. Otherwise the Doppler effect might present us with more gamma radiation than our material shielding can handle. And, to be sure,.as you very well know, we’re counting heavily on the same space expansion to help us into a situation where we can stop. Eventually the velocity changes in themselves ought to overbalance their reduction of Bussard efficiency.”