Marion Bradley - Survey Ship

“I’m not sure,” he said, at last, slowly. “It happens, it’s done, there’s no chance for second thoughts. I spent my life wanting to be Ship when our class graduated. Now, I wonder. Maybe that’s just let down. But yes, I suppose I’m glad. It’s an adventure. It’s real.”

She yawned, tucking her hands behind her head. She said, “I think we ought to try and get some more sleep; I have work to do. I would think making love in free-fall would be a lot of trouble. Every time you moved, you and — the other person — would go flying apart…”

“Oh, you do, unless you’re careful,” Teague said. “You have to do it with a safety net clipped on, or one of you could crack your head against the wall and get a concussion. But it’s fun. Free-fall is fun, Ching, only you have to learn to relax, to go with the flow, be willing not to be in control all the time. Just let it happen. Just surrender to it.”

Although he had spoken gently and without any personal emphasis, Ching felt her cheeks flushing with heat, aware that she had still the horror of losing control, surrendering — whether in free-fall or in sex. She said, trembling, “I don’t want to be afraid of free-fall. Teach me to like it, Teague, the way you do.”

“I will,” he promised, “Later today. But sleep now, Ching. We have a lot to do — and everything should be verified and the final course corrections made before we leave the Solar System.”

“We still have three days,” Ching murmured. “Anything could happen in that time.”

Curled against Teague, she slept.

“Did you find anything in the DeMag tie-ins?” Moira asked.

Ching stretched, wriggling free of the computer module. “So far, nothing. There is absolutely no reason why the DeMag units should go on and off like that, and therefore, going by pure logic, they should stay on unless they are turned off, and stay off unless they are turned on.”

“But the fact is that they don’t,” Moira said, “and it doesn’t make sense! Dammit, Ching, I like machinery to make sense, to do what it’s designed to do. When it starts acting temperamental, it’s no better than a man!”

“Are all men really that bad, Moira?” Ching murmured.

“All of them. No exceptions. Believe me.”

“Well,” Ching said, with a wisp of a smile, “you should know.”

Moira flung back her head and laughed. “I think you’ll do, Ching. I was beginning to think you were just too sweet and kind to be true, but that remark sounded quite normally catty!”

Ching raised her straight brows, ironically. “Thank you, my dear. Coming from you, I’m sure that’s intended for a compliment!”

They laughed together. Ching found herself wondering why, suddenly, Moira treated her as one of them. Was it, simply, that she had felt different, before this — and that Moira had been reacting to her, Ching’s, perceived difference, instead of any real difference? Did the fact that she was a G-N really make as much difference as she had always believed? If she had felt more like one of them, would they have treated her that way?

Had her isolation been, somehow, of her own making?

“I promised to meet Teague in the gym,” Ching said, moving past her, and Moira, suddenly frightened, caught at her arm to detain her. But what was she going to say? It was not as clear as a psychic warning, just a faint, strange unease. She tried to make a joke of it.

“You should always keep a man waiting, just a little. Never let them be sure of you.”

Ching laughed gently. “Is that the way you treat Ravi? I’d rather make Teague happy than unhappy, Moira.”

“Yes, I suppose you would,” said Moira, with a strange bitterness. But again she touched Ching’s arm, as if to hold her back.

“Ching — be careful.”

“I will,” Ching promised, startled, and, seeing the troubled look in Moire’s green eyes, sensed that the other girl was distressed; though she didn’t know why. She hugged Moira, gently, and kissed her cheek. She had never felt close enough to either of the other women to do this before.

“I will, Moira. Don’t worry,” she promised, and went. Moira stood looking after her for a little while, frowning, wishing she could identify the angry unease she telt. That damned gym, she thought with sudden violence, I wish the meteor had carried it right away off the Ship! Is any of us ever going to feel safe there again? Here I am dithering for no reason!

Ravi found her in the main cabin, idly leafing through some music.

“Are you going to the Bridge?”

“In a minute,” she said absently. “It’s time to make the routine sail-trim.” She drew a deep breath. She enjoyed manipulating the sails to optimum light-pressure; since the meteor damage and the varying DeMag failures, and the terrifying failure of the computer, she felt a definite pleasure in something like the sails, which did exactly what she wanted them to do, exactly as she wanted them.

When I was in primary division they called me manipulative. I suppose, when you come right down to it, I am.

“The sails can wait a minute.” said Ravi firmly. “I have to talk to you, Moira. Why are you avoiding me?”

“Don’t be silly, my dear,” Moira laughed, “I see you all the time, just as I do all the rest of us.”

“You know what I mean.” He took her hand lightly in his; she started to pull it away, then sighed and let it lie in his; but so limp and passive that he knew she was simply avoiding an argument. Pulling her hand away would have been less offensive.

“Why have you changed, Moira?” he asked, “We were happy for a few days, and then — then you turned me right off. Don’t you care at all about me?”

She said, irritably, “Oh, Ravi, don’t. I’m your friend, and we agreed to keep it that way. I’m not ready for any kind of emotional, romantic relationship — I don’t think I ever will be. Most people believe as I do, that romance is a kind of mental aberration. We’ve got sex and we’ve got friendship, and if that’s not enough for you — well, I’m sorry, but I won’t be pressured into something I don’t want. If you’re horny, go and sleep with Fontana — now that Teague’s all wrapped up in Ching, she’s probably lonely and hard up for a man in her bed.”

Ravi said quietly, “How can you be so cynical, Moira? Don’t you even know how much I care about you?”

“I know,” she said languidly, “and nothing has ever bored me so much in my life.”

Ravi recoiled as if she had struck him. But he resolved to make one further effort. Surely, if she understood, she would be less unkind.

“Moira, I don’t know how to say this. Ever since — since before we left Earth, I’ve been looking — looking for something. Please don’t think I am foolish — it’s a kind of,” he hesitated, “a spiritual search, a longing for something greater than humanity, and I, I think I’ve found it. It’s what Peake and Jimson were groping toward, trying to find a kind of completion in each other. A fulfilment. I, I, I—” he was stammering in his urgency to communicate something of what he felt, “I’m trying to find the Cosmic, the universe, God if you like, and I am trying to find it, to worship God in you, Moira — do you see what I’m trying to say?”

Moira stared at him, appalled, bored, angry, half tempted to puncture him with a flippant obscenity. Instead she said, in a flat hard voice, “I can only imagine that you are going insane, Ravi. Maybe you’ve been staring out the window too much. You’d better keep your eyes on the Navigation instruments, or it won’t take a computer failure to send us to nowhere. I never heard such rubbish in my life.”

Ravi drew a sharp, shaking breath, wounded, and for a moment she hoped he would fling something insulting at her, give her a chance to justify her words. Instead he kept on looking at her, and finally said, almost inaudibly, “I suppose I can’t expect you to feel any other way. But I love you, Moira. Try and remember that.” He stood up and went out of the cabin.