Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

He and Hideo-san and Dugal Beader did their best for us, and managed to hold out for longer than anyone thought they could. The first time the drive went out, a week later, Hideo got it restarted in a matter of minutes. Four days after that it failed again, for the last time, on Solomon’s watch.

Nothing we could possibly do would ever allow us to drop below ninety-five percent of the speed of light again, now. We were going to reach Brasil Novo at something ironically very close to the time we’d expected to—and sail right on past, too quickly to do much more than wave good-bye to our dreams.

In theory, we could then persist for another three or four useless, pointless generations. But a century after our departure from the Solar System, when we were 444 light-years from where it had been, the gamma rays from its annihilation were going to catch up and complete the job. Sterilize the Sheffield .

Mankind was down to eighteen scattered outgrowths. And we weren’t one of them.

That old song was wrong. We were going to die on the way to the stars… and it was lonelier than I had thought it would be.

Existence had lost all point.

For the first time ever, it was not hyperbole. It really had.

Fine. Tell that to the goats. Their existence had a point: being fed and milked. It seemed enough to them. Tell it to the rabbits. Their existence had all the purpose it would ever need: fucking. The chickens thought the point of existence is hatching eggs; the rooster held a different opinion; but both were convinced. The vegetables did not even dignify the question with an asking.

Being around that kind of naïve certainty was soothing. And I had made a deal with those critters. It did not contain an escape clause letting me off the hook in the event of solar disruption or even disappearance of local gravity. They had kept their end, so far, by living.

Also, I needed to be somewhere that was not Rup-Tooey. I had been sleeping like a baby there, lately. Alone, waking up wailing every few hours, wetting the bed. Not a good thing in free fall.

So I was on the Bravo Ag Deck. I’d thought of going up to the Horn and playing Anna for whoever was there. But I’d decided that if somehow I did succeed in blowing everything that was in my heart out the end of my sax, I might fail to inhale again. And so might my listeners.

By now I found the steamy smells of Bravo—or what we had imagined they might be like—conducive to inhaling. It would have been a terrific planet, if we could have gotten there, I remember thinking.

But of course, the smells were much less intense and local than I was used to. Now that the Sheffield was in free fall again, we were back on free-fall air-conditioning. That translates to constant heavy airflow in any cubic where humans spent time. It has to. In zero gee, unless the air is kept very well stirred at all times, the carbon dioxide you exhale tends to form a sphere around your head and smother you.

The mood I was in, I’d almost have accepted that to have the good Bravo smells back, rich in my nose again. But of course, I never would, now.

I was wearing the Zog’s treasured old Japanese gardening shirts, which he’d picked up on a trip to Terra in his youth. Tiger Kotani owned a similar one. It was a PreCollapse garment, made in prerepublican Japan in respectful imitation of an even older style, cream with turquoise trim, covered with colorful images of samurai, peasants, beautiful maidens, pagodas, mountains, and tall Noble fir trees. Just wearing it made me feel I could talk to plants, and understand their replies. In zero gee it flapped around me like wings.

I had no responsibilities at the moment. Over a dozen of us had chosen to emulate Peter Kindred—so far—but fewer than half of those had left instructions to bury them. I guess if they’d seen any point in contributing to our ecosystem, they would not have opted to leave it. Those few who had chosen the oldest form of eternal rest had long since been tucked beneath soil. Admittedly it had proven more difficult without gravity to help keep the dead moving in the desired direction. I decided to see how the goats were doing in their improvised zero-gee enclosure. I had a pretty good idea I knew what the rabbits were doing.

“Citizen Johnston,” the Sheffield said softly, “Captain Bean requires your presence on the Bridge immediately. Acknowledge, please.”

Requires? Of a free citizen?

I thought about how much the Captain must be in the mood for backtalk, right about now. That he was still functional at all was a miracle. He had expected to carry the heaviest of responsibilities for another fourteen years. Now he had none. No further piloting was ever going to be needed.

“I’m on my way.”

He’s going to announce his retirement, and ask me to take his job , I thought. Joel Johnston, Star Pilot! How old was I the first time I ever thought those words—six?

It was the first even mildly humorous thought I could recall having in… some period of time. That couldn’t be good, could it?

Along the way, I checked both the official news site, Sheffield Steel , and the barely tolerated unofficial one Jules ran despite Richie’s help, The Straight Shit . Neither had word of anything unusual or even interesting. In fact, each had barely been updated since the day before Kindred had wasted us all. Who cared anymore if RUP-0 sector got their plumbing problem under control, or young Sparks Reilly succeeded in adding another thousand digits to pi?

I was surprised to note that one of the few headings showing new material at each source, besides obits, was the wedding announcements. The same news that had triggered fifteen suicides had also apparently inspired nineteen couples, one triad, and one quartet to get off the dime and make a commitment for the future. Since there wasn’t going to be one, it seemed incredibly sad to me. What shall it profit a man if he gaineth his soul, yet he loseth the whole universe? How could you have children now?

Kathy’s group, I noticed, had replaced a suicide husband with a new wife. Until then, I had not consciously realized I’d been toying with the idea of trying to get back together with her, in some way, on some basis. As soon as I did realize it, I knew it had been a bad idea—sheer loneliness, looking to get comfort without the trouble of pretending to get to know someone first. I’d already screwed up Kathy quite enough. I had come aboard this bucket of mildew loudly proclaiming my intention to die a bachelor—it was time to put my vast, useless money where my big dumb mouth was.

I had a momentary image of myself dying all alone. And suddenly I saw that the me in it was the same age I was now. Right then and there in the corridor, I became aware for the first time that if I continued as I was going, if I did not make some kind of drastic change, it might be no more than a week or two before the Zog would be planting me .

I would like to say I froze in my tracks, consumed with horror at this revelation, and resolved to race to Dr. Amy for help as soon as I’d finished whatever the Old Man had in mind. It did disturb me, but I didn’t break stride. And I was pretty sure I’d already seen Amy’s best moves.

Well, when you reach that mental state, about the only thing that can save you is for random chance or intelligent design or the Lord God of the Heavenly Host or whatever you want to call the source of all the irony in this universe to come kick you square in the ass with His almighty reinforced boot.