Tau Zero Read online

  “Please go elsewhere,” the astronomer said.

  Williams plumped himself onto a chair. He leaned forward on both elbows. “You don’t know what day this is,” he said. “Do you?”

  “I doubt you do, in your present condition,” Nilsson snapped, remaining with Swedish. “The date is the fourth of July.”

  “R-r-r-right! Y’ know what ‘at means? No?” Williams turned to Freiwald. “You know, Heinie?”

  “An, uh, anniversary?” the machinist ventured.

  “Right. Anniversary. How’d yuh guess?” Williams lifted his glass. “Drink wi’ me, you two. Been collectin’ f’ today. Drink!”

  Freiwald gave him a sympathetic glance and clinked rims. “Prosit. ” Nilsson started to say, “Skal,” but set his own liquor down again and glared.

  “Fourth July,” Williams said. “Independence Day. My country. Wanted throw party. Nobody cared. One drink with me, two maybe, then gotta go their goddam dance.” He regarded Nilsson for a while. “Swede,” he declared slowly, “you’ll drink wi’ me ’r I’ll bust y’r teeth in.”

  Freiwald laid a muscular hand on Williams’ arm. The chemist tried to rise. Freiwald held him where he was. “Be calm, please, Dr. Williams,” the machinist requested mildly. “If you want to celebrate your national day, why, we’ll be glad to toast it. Won’t we, sir?” he added to Nilsson.

  The astronomer clipped: “I know what the matter is. I was told before we left, by a man who knew. Frustration. He couldn’t cope with modern management procedures.”

  “Goddam welfare state bureaucracy,” Williams hiccuped.

  “He started dreaming of his country’s sovereign, imperial era,” Nilsson went on. “He fantasized about a free enterprise system that I doubt ever existed. He dabbled in reactionary politics. When the Control Authority had to arrest several high American officials on charges of conspiracy to violate the Covenant—”

  “I’d had a bellyful.” Williams’ tone rose toward a shout. “‘Nother star. New world. Chance t’ be free. Even if I do have to travel with a pack o’ Swedes.”

  “You see?” Nilsson grinned at Freiwald. “He’s nothing but a victim of the romantic nationalism that our too orderly world has been consoling itself with, this past generation. Pity he couldn’t be satisfied with historical fiction and bad epic poetry.”

  “Romantic!” Williams yelled. He struggled fruitlessly in Freiwald’s grip. “You pot-gutted spindle-shanked owl-eyed freak, wha’d’you think it did to you? How’d it feel, being built like that, when the other kids were playing Viking? Your marriage washed out worse’n mine! And I did cope, you son of a bitch, I was meet’n’ my payroll, something you never had to do, you — Lemme go an’ we’ll see who’s a man here!”

  “Please,” Freiwald said. “Bitte. Gentlemen.” He was standing, now, to keep Williams held in the chair. His gaze nailed Nilsson across the table. “And you, sir,” he continued sharply. “You had no right to bait him. You might have shown the courtesy to toast his national day.”

  Nilsson seemed about to pull intellectual rank. He broke off when Jane Sadler appeared. She had been in the door for a couple of minutes, watching. Her expression made her formal gown pathetic.

  “Johann’s telling you truth, Elof,” she said. “Better come along.”

  “And dance?” Nilsson gobbled. “After this?”

  “Especially after this.” She tossed her head. “I’ve grown pretty tired of you on your high horse, dear. Shall we try to start fresh, or drop everything as of now?”

  Nilsson muttered but rose and offered her his arm. She was a little taller than he. Williams sat slumped, struggling not to weep.

  “I’ll stay here awhile, Jane, and see if I can’t cheer him up,” Freiwald whispered to her.

  She gave him a troubled smile. “You would, Johann.” They had been together a few times before she took up with Nilsson. “Thanks.” Their glances lingered, each on each. Nilsson shuffled his feet and coughed. “I’ll see you later,” she said, and left.

  Chapter 5

  When Leonora Christine attained a substantial fraction of light speed, its optical effects became clear to the unaided sight. Her velocity and that of the rays from a star added “vectorially; the result was aberration. Except for whatever lay dead aft or ahead, the apparent position changed. Constellations grew lopsided, grew grotesque, and melted, as their members crawled across the dark. More and more, the stars thinned out behind the ship and crowded before her.

  Doppler effect operated simultaneously. Because she was fleeing the light waves that overtook her from astern, to her their length was increased and their frequency lowered. In like manner, the waves into which her bow plunged were shortened and quickened. Thus, the suns aft looked ever redder, those forward bluer.

  On the bridge stood a compensating viewscope: the single one aboard, elaborate as it was. A computer figured out continuously how the sky would appear if you were motionless at this point in space, and projected a simulacrum of it. The device was not for amusement or comfort; it was a valuable navigational aid.

  Clearly, though, the computer needed data on where the ship really was and how fast she was traveling with respect to objects in heaven. This was no simple thing to find out. Velocity — exact speed, exact direction — varied with variations in the interstellar medium and with the necessarily imperfect feedback to the Bussard controls, as well as with time under acceleration. The shifts from her calulated path were comparatively petty; but over astronomical distances, any imprecisions could add up to a fatal sum. They must be eliminated as they occurred.

  Hence that neat, stocky, dark-bearded man, Navigation Officer Auguste Boudreau, was among the few who had a full-time job en route that was concerned with operating the ship. It did not quite require him to revolve in a logical circle — find your position and velocity so you can correct for optical phenomena so you can check your position and velocity. Distant galaxies were his primary beacons; statistical analysis of observations made on closer individual stars gave him further data; he used the mathematics of successive approximations.

  This made him a collaborator of Captain Telander, who computed and ordered the needful course changes, and of Chief Engineer Fedoroff, who put them into execution. The task was smoothly handled. No one sensed the adjustments, except as an occasional minute temporary increase in the liminal throbbing of the ship, a similarly small and transitory change in the acceleration vector, which felt as if the decks had tilted a few degrees.

  In addition, Boudreau and Fedoroff tried to maintain contact with Earth. Leonora Christine was still detectable by space-borne instruments in the Solar System. Despite the difficulties created by her drive fields, the Lunar maser beam could still reach her with inquiries, entertainment, news, and personal greetings. She could still reply on her own transmitter. In fact, such talk back and forth was expected to become regular, once she was well established at Beta Virginis. Her unmannned precursor had had no problem with sending information. It was doing so at the present moment, although the ship could not receive that and the crew intended to read its tapes when they arrived.

  The present trouble was this: Suns and planets are big, staid objects. They move through space at reasonable speeds, seldom above fifty kilometers per second. And they do not zigzag, however slightly. It is simple to predict where they will be centuries from now, and aim a message beam accordingly. A starship is something else. Men don’t last long; they must hurry. Aberration and Doppler shift affect radio too. Eventually the transmissions from Luna would enter on frequencies that nothing aboard the vessel could receive. Well before then, however, through one unforeseeable factor or another, when travel time between maser projector and ship stretched into months, the beam was sure to lose her.

  Fedoroff, who was also the communications officer, tinkered with detectors and amplifiers. He strengthened the signals which he punched Solward, hoping they would give clues to his future location. Though days might go by without a break in the silenc
e, he persevered. He was rewarded with success. But the quality of reception was always poorer, the interval of it shorter, the time till the next longer as Leonora Christine entered the Big Deep.

  Ingrid Lindgren pushed the buzzer button. The cabins were sufficiently soundproofed that a knock would never pass. There was no response. She tried again, drawing another blank. She hesitated, frowning, shifting from foot to foot. At length she laid hand on catch. The door wasn’t locked. She opened it a crack. Not looking through, she called softly, “Boris. Are you all right?”

  Sounds reached her, a creak, a rustle, slow heavy footsteps. Fedoroff threw the door wide. “Oh,” hesaid. “Good day.”

  She regarded him. He was a burly man of medium stature, face broad and high in the cheekbones, brown hair salted with gray although his biological age was a mere forty-two. He hadn’t shaved for several watches and wore nothing except a robe, obviously thrown on this minute. “May I come in?” she requested.

  “If you wish.” He waved her past him and closed the door. His half of the unit had been screened off from the part currently occupied by Biosystems Chief Pereira. An unmade bed filled most of it. A vodka bottle stood on the dresser.

  “Pardon the mess,” he said indifferently. Lumbering past her: “Would you like a drink? I didn’t bring tumblers, but you needn’t fear a pull on this. Nobody has anything contagious.” He chuckled, or rather rattled. “Where would germs come from, here?”

  Lindgren sat down on the edge of the bed. “No, thanks,” she replied. “I’m on duty.”

  “And I’m supposed to be. Yes.” Fedoroff loomed over her, slumping. “I informed the bridge I feel indisposed and had better take a rest.”

  “Shouldn’t Dr. Latvala examine you?”

  “What for? I’m physically well.” Fedoroff paused. “You came to make sure of me.”

  “Part of my job. I’ll respect your privacy. But you are a key man.”

  Fedoroff smiled. The expression was as forced as the prior noise had been. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I am not breaking down in the brain either.” He reached for the bottle, then withdrew his arm. “I am not even glugging myself into a stupor. It is nothing except a … what do the Americans call it? … a glow.”

  “Glows are best in company,” Lindgren declared. After a moment: “I believe I will accept that drink.”

  Fedoroff gave her the bottle and joined her on the bedside. She raised it to him. “Skal.” A scant amount went down her throat. She returned the bottle, and he gave her “Zdoroviye.” They sat in silence, Fedoroff gazing at the bulkhead, until he stirred and said:

  “Very well. Since you must know. I wouldn’t tell anyone else, especially not a woman. But I have come to learn something about you, Ingrid … Gunnar’s daughter, is that correct?”

  “Yes, Boris Ilyitch.”

  He gave her a glance and a more nearly genuine smile. She sat relaxed, body curving out her coverall, a hint of warmth and human odor around her. “I believe—” his tongue fumbled — “I hope you will understand, and not repeat what I tell you.”

  “I promise the silence. For understanding, I can try.”

  He put elbows on knees, hands straining against each other. “It is personal, you see,” he said slowly and not quite evenly. “Yet no great matter. I will be over it soon. It is simple … that final cast we received … upset me.”

  “The music?”

  “Yes. Music. Signal-to-noise ratio too low for television. Almost too low for sound. The last we will get, Ingrid Gunnar’s daughter, before we reach goal and start receiving messages a generation old. I am certain it was the last. Those few minutes, wavering, fading in and out, scarcely to hear through the fire-crackle of stars and cosmic rays — when we lost that music, I knew we would get no more.”

  Fedoroff’s voice trailed off. Lindgren waited.

  He shook himself. “It happened to be a Russian cradle song,” he said. “My mother sang me to sleep with it.”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder and let it rest, feather-light.

  “Do not think I am off on an orgy of self-pity,” he added in haste. “For a short while I remember my dead too well. It will pass.”

  “Maybe I do understand,” she murmured.

  He was on his second interstellar trip. He had gone to Delta Pavonis. Probe data indicated an Earthlike planet, and the expedition left with flying hopes. The reality was so nightmarish that the survivors showed rare heroism in remaining and studying for the minimum planned time. On their return, they had experienced twelve years; but Earth had aged forty-three.

  “I doubt if you do, really.” Fedoroff turned to confront her. “We expected people would have died when we came home. We expected change. If anything, I was overjoyed at first that I could recognize parts of my city — moonlight on canals and river, domes and towers on Kazan Cathedral, Alexander and Bucephalus rearing over the bridge that carries Nevsky Prospect, the treasures in the Hermitage—” He looked back away and shook his head wearily. “But the life itself. That was too different. Meeting it was like, like seeing a woman one loved become a slut.” He fleered. “Exactly so! I worked in space for five years, as much as I was able, research and development on improving the Bussard engine, as you may remember. My main purpose was to earn the post I have. We can hope for a fresh beginning on Beta Three.”

  His words grew barely audible: “Then my mother’s little song reached me. For the last time.” He tilted the bottle to his lips.

  Lindgren gave him a minute or two of silence before:

  “Now I can see, Boris, in part, why it hurt you so. I’ve studied a bit of sociohistory. In your boyhood, people were less, well, less relaxed. They’d repaired the war damage in most countries and brought population growth and civil disorder under control. Now they were going on to new things, imagination-staggering projects, on Earth as well as in space. Nothing seemed impossible. At the core of their йlan was a spirit of hard work, patriotism, dedication. I suppose you had two gods you served with a whole heart. Father Technics and Mother Russia.” Her hand slipped down to lie upon his. “You returned,” she said, “and nobody cared.”

  He nodded. Teeth caught at his lower lip.

  “Is that why you despise today’s women?” she asked.

  He started. “No! Never!”

  “Why, then, have none of your liaisons lasted beyond a week or two — mostly a single offwatch at a time?” she challenged him. “Why are you only at ease and merry among men? I believe you don’t care to know our half of the human race except as bodies. You don’t think there’s anything else worth knowing. And what you said a minute ago, about sluts—”

  “I came from Delta Pavonis wishing for a true wife,” he answered as if being strangled.

  Lindgren sighed. “Boris, mores change. From my viewpoint, you grew up in a period of unreasonable puritanism. But it was a reaction to an earlier easiness that had perhaps gone too far; and earlier yet — No matter.” She chose her words with care. “The fact is, man has never stayed by a single ideal. The mass enthusiasm when you were young gave way to cool, rationalistic classicism. Today that’s being drowned in turn by a kind of neoromanticism. God knows where that will lead. I probably won’t approve. Regardless, new generations grow up. We’ve no right to freeze them into our own mold. The universe is too wide.”

  Fedoroff was unmoving for so long that she started to rise and go. Suddenly he whirled, caught her wrist, and pulled her back down beside him. His speech labored. “I would like to know you, Ingrid, as a human being.”

  “I’m glad.”

  His mouth tightened. “You had better leave now, though,” he got out. “You are with Reymont. I don’t want to cause trouble.”

  “I want you for a friend too, Boris,” she said. “I’ve admired you since we first met. Courage, competence, kindliness — what else is there to admire in a man? I wish you could learn to show them to your shipmates that happen to be female.”

  He opened his grasp on her. “I warn you to
go.”

  She considered him. “If I do,” she asked, “and we get to talking another time, will you be at ease with me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I hope it, but I don’t know.”

  She thought awhile further. “Let us try to make sure of it,” she suggested finally, gently. “I don’t have to be anywhere else for the rest of my watch.”

  Chapter 6

  Every scientist aboard had planned at least one research project to help fill the half decade of travel. Glassgold’s was tracing the chemical basis of the life on Epsilon Eridani Two. After setting up her equipment, she began putting her protophytes and tissue cultures through their experimental paces. In due course she got reaction products and needed to know exactly what they were. Norbert Williams was performing analyses for several different people.

  One day late in the first year, he brought his report on her most recent sample to her laboratory. He had taken to doing this in person. The molecules were strange, exciting him as much as her, and the two of them often discussed the findings for hours on end. Increasingly, the conversation would veer toward other topics.

  She gave him cheerful greeting as he entered. The workbench behind which she stood was barricaded with test tubes, flasks, a pH meter, a stirrer, a blender, and more. “Well,” she said, “I’m quite agog to learn what metabolites my pets have been making now.”

  “Damnedest mess I ever saw.” He tossed down a couple of clipped-together pages. “Sorry, Emma, but you’re going to have to run it over. And over and over, I’m afraid. I can’t get by with micro quantities. This wants every type of chromatography I’ve got, plus X-ray diffractions, plus a series of enzyme tests I’ve listed here, before I’d venture any guess at the structural formulas.”

  “I see,” Glassgold replied. “I regret making more work for you.”

  “Shucks, that’s what I’m here for, till we reach Beta Three. I’d go nuts without jobs to do, and yours is the most interesting of the lot, I’ll tell you.” Williams ran a hand through his hair; the loud shirt wrinkled across his shoulder. “Though to be frank, I don’t understand what’s in it for you, other than a pastime. I mean, they’re tackling the same problems on Earth, with bigger staff and better facilities. They ought to’ve cracked your riddles before we come to a stop.”