Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years

Yukiko nodded. ‘”Nobody can foresee everything,” she said. “Nothing can.”

“But when we’re surprised, we can Investigate and learn.” Hanno’s words rang. “We can.”

Their looks shot to him and struck fast, all but Svoboda’s. The color mounted in her cheeks.

“What do you mean?” Tu Shan rumbled after several breaths.

“You know what,” Hanno replied. “We’ll change course and go to Star Three.”

“No!” Aliyat screamed. She half sprang to her feet, sank back down, and shuddered.

“Think,” Hanno urged. “The diagram. That line between our course, this very point of our course, and Three. What is it but an invitation? They must be lonely too, and hopeful of hearing marvelous things. Pytheas calculated it. If we change direction now, we can reach them in about a dozen years, ship’s time. It’s three light-years more than we planned, but we are still at close to light speed and— A dozen little years, to meet the farers of the galaxy.”

“But we only had four to go!”

“Four years longer to our home.” Tu Shan knotted his fists on the tabletop. “How far from it would you take us?”

Hanno hesitated. Svoboda answered: “Between Three and Phaeacia Sun is about three hundred light-years. From a standing start, sixteen or seventeen ship years. We won’t abandon our original purpose, only postpone it.”

“The hell you say,” Wanderer rapped. “Whichever star we go to, we’ll need more antimatter before we can take off for anywhere else. Building the production plant and then making the stuff, that’s probably ten years by itself.”

“The aliens should have plenty on hand.”

“Should they? And will they share it, freely, just like that? How do you know? How can you tell what they want of us, anyway?”

“Wait, wait,” Macandal broke in. “Let’s not get paranoid. Whatever they are, it can’t be monsters or, or bandits or anything evil. At their stage of civilization, that wouldn’t make sense.”

“Now who’s being cocksure?” Aliyat shrilled.

“What do we know about Star Three?” Yukiko asked.

Her quietness smoothed bristles down a little. Hanno shook his head. “Not much, beyond its type and inferred age,” he admitted. “Being normal, it’s bound to have planets, but we have no information on them. Never been visited. My God, a sphere eight or nine hundred light-years across holds something like a hundred thousand stars.”

“But you say this one’s not so bright as ours,” Macandal reminded him. “Then the chances that it’s got a planet where we could breathe are poor. Even with much better candidates—”

The table thudded beneath Tu Shan’s smiting. “That is what matters,” he said. “After fifteen weary years, we were promised, we shall walk free on living ground. You would keep us locked in this hull for ... eight years longer than that, and then at journey’s end we still would be, for decades or centuries or forever. No.”

“But this chance, we cannot pass it by,” Svoboda protested.

Wanderer spoke crisply. “We won’t. Once we get to Phaeacia, we’ll have the robots build us a proper transceiver and send a beam to Three, start conversation. Eventually we’ll go there in person, those of us who care to. Or maybe the aliens will come to us.”

Hanno’s countenance was stark. “I told you, it’s about three hundred light-years between Phaeacia and Three,” he said.

Wanderer shrugged. “We have time ahead of us.”

“If Phaeacia doesn’t kill us first. We were never guaranteed safety there, you know.”

“Earth should be getting in touch too, once we’ve informed them,” Macandal said.

Svoboda’s tone lashed. “Yes, by beam, and by robots that beam back. Who but us will ever go in person, and get to know the Others as they are?”

“It is true,” Yukiko said. “Words and pictures alone, with centuries between, are good, but they are not enough. I think we here should understand that better than our fellow humans. We knew the dead of long ago as living bodies, minds, souls. To everyone else, what are they but relics and words?”

Svoboda regarded her. “Then you want to set for Star Three?”

“Yes, oh, yes.”

Tu Shan’s look upon her was stricken. “Do you say that, Small Snow—Morning Glory?” He straightened. “Well, it shall not be.”

“Absolutely not,” Patulcius vowed. “We have our community to found.”

Aliyat caught his arm and leaned close against him. Her eyes defied Hanno. “Our homes to make,” she said.

Macandal nodded. “It’s a hard decision, but ... we should go to Phaeacia first.”

“And last?” Hanno retorted. “I tell you, if we let this chance escape us, we can very well never get it back. Do you want to change your mind, Peregrino?” Wanderer sat expressionless for a while before he answered, “It is a hard decision after all. The greatest, most important adventure in history, which we risk losing, against—what may be New Earth, a fresh start for our race. Which is better, the forest or the stars?” Again he was mute, brooding. Abruptly: “Well, I said it before. The stars can wait.”

“Four against three,” Tu Shan reckoned, triumphant. “We continue as we were.” Softening: “I am sorry, friends.”

Hanno’s voice, face, bearing went altogether bleak. “I was afraid of this. Please think again.”

“I have had centuries to think,” Tu Shan said.

“To wish for the Earth of the past, you mean,” Yukiko told him, “an Earth that never really was. No, you wouldn’t deny humankind such a chance for knowledge, for coming closer to oneness with the universe. That would be nothing but selfish. You are not a selfish person, dear.”

He shook his head, ox-stubborn.

“Humankind has waited a long time for contact, and on the whole has not actually shown much interest,” Patulcius said. “It can wait a while longer. Our first duty is to the children we shall have, and can have only on Phaeacia.”

“They can better wait than this can,” Svoboda argued. “What we learn from the aliens, the help they give us, should make us the more secure when we do take our new home.”

“The opportunity may well be unique,” Hanno joined in. “I repeat, the aliens at Three are likely few, and pretty newly arrived. Else the Web at Sol would have picked up trace of them, or spacecraft of theirs would have arrived there. Unless— But we simply don’t know. Are they necessarily settled at Three? If we don’t accept their invitation— and they have no way of telling whether we’ve gotten it— will they stay, or will they move on? And will they necessarily move on toward Sol?”

“Will they necessarily still be at Three when we come?” countered Macandal. “If they are, will they necessarily be anything we can communicate with? No, it’s a long, dangerous detour for the sake of something that may be grand but may just as well prove futile. Let’s get on with our real business first.”

“As the computers and overlords on Earth planned for us,” Hanno gibed. He turned toward Wanderer. “Wouldn’t you, Peregrine, like for once to do something that wasn’t planned, that broke through the whole damned scheme of the world today?”

The other man sighed. “A tough call. Yes, I want to go to Three so bad I can taste it. And someday I hope to. But first and foremost, free life in a free nature—“ Pleadingly: “And I couldn’t do it to Corinne and Aliyat. I just can’t.”

“You’re a knight,” Aliyat breathed.

Yukiko smiled sadly. “Well, Hanno, Svoboda, we three are no worse off than we were yesterday, are we? Better, in fact, with a new dream before us.”

“For someday,” Svoboda mumbled. She lifted her head. “I am not angry with you, my friends. I too am weary of machines and hungry for land. So be it.”