Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years

The tension began to ease. Smiles flickered.

“No,” said Hanno.

Attention stabbed at him. He rose. “I am more sorry than you’ll ever guess,” he stated. “But I believe our need and our duty have changed. They are to go to Three. Till now, this venture was desperate. We pretended otherwise, but it was. Our chances looked about equal for perishing as miserably as the Norse did in Greenland, or settling into a sameness like the Polynesians in the Pacific.”

“You promoted it,” Patulcius virtually accused.

“Because I was desperate too. We all were. At least we’d be trying. We might, againsUthe odds, eventually fill our planet with people who kept on looking and searching outward. What had we to lose? Well, this day we’ve discovered what. The universe.

“I am the captain. I am taking us to the Others.”

Tu Shan was first onto his own feet. “You can’t!” he bellowed.

“I can,” Hanno said. “Pytheas obeys me. I will order the course change at once. The sooner it’s made, the sooner—”

“No, not against our will,” Wanderer interrupted.

“It would be wrong,” Yukiko pleaded.

Svoboda regarded Hanno with something akin to horror. “You, you don’t mean what you said,” she stammered.

“Don’t you want me to do this?” he cast back.

Her jaw clenched. “Not like that.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. Still, I am going to issue the order. You’ll thank me afterward.”

“Bozhe moi—“ She raised her voice. “Pytheas, you won’t .heed a single man, will you?”

“He is captain,” replied the ship. “I must.”

“No matter what?” Patulcius shouted. “Impossible!”

“Such is the programming.”

“You never told us,” Macandal whispered.

‘T didn’t expect the occasion would ever arise,” Hanno said, not quite firmly. “I arranged it as a provision in case of emergency, best kept secret till then.”

“Jesus Christ!” Aliyat yelled. “This is the emergency! You’re making it yourself!”

“Yes,” Wanderer said. Sweat studded his skin. “We didn’t bargain for a dictator, and we’re not going to knuckle under to any. We can’t.” He looked upward, as if to find another face in the air. “Pytheas, it’s become seven against one.”

“That is not a consideration,” the ship answered.

“It never was, at sea or anywhere men voyaged,” Hanno said. “It couldn’t be, if they were to make shore alive.”

“What if the captain is—is incapacitated?” Wanderer called. “Insane?”

Did the ship take a few extra microseconds to scan its bio-psychologieal database and draw its conclusion? “Derangement is impossible for any of you without the severest trauma,” it declared. “That has not occurred.”

Tu Shan snarled. He started around the table. “It can. A dead captain doesn’t give orders.”

Svoboda moved to block him. “Now you’re the crazy one,” she groaned. He sought to push her aside. She resisted. “Help me! A fight, no, we can’t!”

Wanderer joined her. They gripped Tu Shan by the arms. He halted. The wind sobbed hi and out of him.

“See what you nearly caused, Hanno.” Macandal spoke softly, though tears coursed down her cheeks. “Your command would destroy us. You can’t issue it.”

“Can and will.” The Phoenician stepped to the doorway, turned back toward them, stood alert but unmoving. His tone mildened. “Once the decision’s made, you won’t go tq pieces. I know you too well to believe you would. Nor will you try violence against me. You realize you can’t spare one-eighth of our strength, one-fourth of the forefathers to come. And I am the one of us who’s held command, not simply leadership but command, hi ships and wars, trades and ventures beyond what was known, over and over for thousands of years. Without me, your survival on Phaeacia or anywhere else is more than doubtful.”

Gentler still: “Oh, I’m no superman. All of you have your own special gifts, and we need them all. I’m as open as ever >.’ to your thoughts, advice—yes, your wishes. But someone has to take the final responsibility. Someone always had to. The captain.

“We’ve another dozen years ahead of us, with God knows what at the end. Don’t make them any harder on yourselves if than they must be.”

He left. The seven stood mute, half stupefied. At last § Wanderer released Tu Shan, as Svoboda did, and said dully, “He’s right about that. We have no choice.” I’ “The course change process will commence in an hour,” i Pytheas announced. “In order to conserve fuel and minimize the undesired vector, it begins at that time with going free. Please make ready for a weightless period of approximately six hours.”

“That ... is ... it,” Aliyat choked. Hanno returned. They knew he had sought the control room partly to look at its displays, as if that mattered, but mainly as a sign unto them. “We’d better get busy,” he said. “Here, I have printout copies of a checklist. Done is done. We’re on our p way.” He half smiled. “Not everybody hates this.”

“Perhaps not,” Svoboda replied. Sobaka. You dog. You total son of a bitch.” She took Wanderer by the hand.

And Christ appeared before Aliyat where she knelt. His aadiance was not what she had imagined, brilliant as desert noonday; it filled the darkened hollowness of the church With a blue dusk and the last sunset gold. Almost, she Brought she heard bells from a caravan returning home. Warmth glowed into the stones beneath and around her. JNor was his visage gaunt and stern. In the West (she had Heard?) they showed him like this, a man who had tramped loads, shared wine and honeycomb, taken small children jjoto his lap. He smiled when he bent over her and with his shirt sleeve dried the tears off her face.

Straightening again, he said—oh, tenderly, “Because you have kept your vigil, though the smoke of Hell blew about you, I have heard the prayer you dared not utter. For a time and a time, that which was lost shall be restored to you, and the latter end blessed more than the beginning.” He lifted both scarred hands on high. “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”

He was gone. Young Barikai sprang down from the beraa and raised her into his arms. “Beloved!” he jubilated before she stopped his mouth with hers.

Together they went out. Tadmor slumbered beneath a full moon, which frosted spires and dappled paving stones. A horse waited. Mane and tail were streams of moon-silver. Barikai swung into the saddle. He reached down. She answered his clasp by soaring up to settle against him.

Briefly, hoofs rang, then the horse leaped aloft and galloped the ways of air. Wind lulled. Stars gleamed soft, everywhere around, in violet heaven. Aliyat’s loosened hair blew backward to make a tent for her and Barikai. She was drunk with the odor of him, the strength that held her, the seeking lips. “Where are we bound?” she asked.

“Home.” His laugh pealed. “But not at once!”

They hastened onward, around the curve of the world into morning. His castle gleamed on its mountaintop. The horse came to rest in a courtyard of mosaics and flowers where a fountain danced. Aliyat gave them scant heed. Later she noticed that she had been unaware whether the servants who met their lord and lady had bodies.

They did provide feast, music, spectacle, when such was wanted. Otherwise Aliyat and Barikai kept to themselves, tireless until they fell embraced into a half-sleep from which they roused joyous.

That happiness grew calmer, love lingered more and more, so that at last it was a new bliss when he said, “Now let us go home.”

Their horse brought them there at dawn. The household was just coming awake and nobody saw the arrival. Indeed, it was as if nothing had happened and they had never been away. Manu received her hug with some surprise, then much boyish dignity. Little Hairan took it for granted.