Arthur Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth

“He’s not an easy person to know,” Moses Kaldor answered. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to him in private more than a dozen times. And he’s the only man on the ship who everyone calls ‘Sir’ — always. Except maybe Deputy Captain Malina, when they’re alone together… Incidentally, that notice was certainly not a genuine Beybolt — it’s too technical. Science Officer Varley and Secretary LeRoy must have drafted it. Captain Bey has a remarkable grasp of engineering principles — much better than I do — but he’s primarily an administrator. And occasionally, when he has to be, commander-in-chief.”

“I’d hate his responsibility.”

“It’s a job someone has to do. Routine problems can usually be solved by consulting the senior officers and the computer banks. But sometimes a decision has to be made by a single individual, who has the authority to enforce it. That’s why you need a captain. You can’t run a ship by a committee — at least not all the time.”

“I think that’s the way we run Thalassa. Can you imagine President Farradine as captain of anything?”

“These peaches are delicious,” Kaldor said tactfully, helping himself to another, though he knew perfectly well that they had been intended for Loren. “But you’ve been lucky; you’ve had no real crisis for seven hundred years! Didn’t one of your own people once say: “Thalassa has no history — only statistics”?”

“Oh, that’s not true! What about Mount Krakan?”

“That was a natural disaster — and hardly a major one. I’m referring to, ah, political crises: civil unrest, that sort of thing.”

“We can thank Earth for that. You gave us a Jefferson Mark 3 Constitution — someone once called it Utopia in two megabytes — and it’s worked amazingly well. The program hasn’t been modified for three hundred years. We’re still only on the Sixth Amendment.”

“And long may you stay there,” Kaldor said fervently. “I should hate to think that we were responsible for a Seventh.”

“If that happens, it will be processed first in the Archives’ memory banks. When are you coming to visit us again? There are so many things I want to show you.”

“Not as many as I want to see. You must have so much that will be useful for us on Sagan 2, even though it’s a very different kind of world.’ (‘And a far less attractive one,” he added to himself.)

While they were talking, Loren had come quietly into the reception area, obviously on his way from the games room to the showers. He was wearing the briefest of shorts and had a towel draped over his bare shoulders. The sight left Mirissa distinctly weak at the knees.

“I suppose you’ve beaten everyone, as usual,” Kaldor said. “Doesn’t it get boring?”

Loren gave a wry grin.

“Some of the young Lassans show promise. One’s just taken three points off me. Of course, I was playing with my left hand.”

“In the very unlikely event he hasn’t already told you,” Kaldor remarked to Mirissa, “Loren was once table-tennis champion on Earth.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Moses. I was only about number five — and standards were miserably low towards the end. Any Third Millennium Chinese player would have pulverized me.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve thought of teaching Brant,” Kaldor said mischievously. “That should be interesting.”

There was a brief silence. Then Loren answered, smugly but accurately: ‘It wouldn’t be fair.”

“As it happens,” Mirissa said, “Brant would like to show you something.”

“Oh.”

“You said you’ve never been on a boat.”

“That’s true.”

“Then you have an invitation to join Brant and Kumar at Pier Three — eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”

Loren turned to Kaldor.

“Do you think it’s safe for me to go?” he asked in mock seriousness. “I don’t know how to swim.”

“I shouldn’t worry,” Kaldor answered helpfully. “If they’re planning a one-way trip for you, that won’t make the slightest difference.”

Only one tragedy had darkened Kumar Leonidas’s eighteen years of life; he would always be ten centimetres shorter than his heart’s desire. It was not surprising that his nickname was ‘The Little Lion’ — though very few dared use it to his face.

To compensate for his lack of height, he had worked assiduously on width and depth. Many times Mirissa had told him, in amused exasperation, “Kumar — if you spent as much time building your brain as your body, you’d be the greatest genius on Thalassa.’ What she had never told him — and scarcely admitted even to herself — was that the spectacle of his regular morning exercises often aroused most unsisterly feelings in her breast as well as a certain jealousy of all the other admirers who had gathered to watch. At one time or other this had included most of Kumar’s age group. Although the envious rumour that he had made love to all the girls and half the boys in Tarna was wild hyperbole, it did contain a considerable element of truth.

But Kumar, despite the intellectual gulf between him and his sister, was no muscle-bound moron. If anything really interested him, he would not be satisfied until he had mastered it, no matter how long that took. He was a superb seaman and for over two years, with occasional help from Brant, had been building an exquisite four-metre kayak. The hull was complete, but he had not yet started on the deck.

One day, he swore, he was going to launch it and everyone would stop laughing. Meanwhile, the phrase ‘Kumar’s kayak’ had come to mean any unfinished job around Tarna — of which, indeed, there were a great many.

Apart from this common Lassan tendency to procrastinate, Kumar’s chief defects were an adventurous nature and a fondness for sometimes risky practical jokes. This, it was widely believed, would someday get him into serious trouble.

But it was impossible to be angry with even his most outrageous pranks, for they lacked all malice. He was completely open, even transparent; no one could ever imagine him telling a lie. For this, he could be forgiven much, and frequently was.

The arrival of the visitors had, of course, been the most exciting event in his life. He was fascinated by their equipment, the sound, video, and sensory recordings they had brought, the stories they told — everything about them. And because he saw more of Loren than any of the others, it was not surprising that Kumar attached himself to him.

This was not a development that Loren altogether appreciated. If there was one thing even more unwelcome than an inconvenient mate, it was that traditional spoilsport, an adhesive kid brother.

“I still can’t believe it, Loren,” Brant Falconer said. “You’ve never been in a boat — or on a ship?”

“I seem to remember paddling a rubber dinghy across a small pond. That would have been when I was about five years old.”

“Then you’ll enjoy this. Not even a swell to upset your stomach. Perhaps we can persuade you to dive with us.”

“No, thanks — I’ll take one new experience at a time. And I’ve learned never to get in the way when other men have work to do.”

Brant was right; he was beginning to enjoy himself, as the hydrojets drove the little trimaran almost silently out toward the reef. Yet soon after he had climbed aboard and seen the firm safety of the shoreline rapidly receding, he had known a moment of near panic.

Only a sense of the ridiculous had saved him from making a spectacle of himself. He had travelled fifty light-years — the longest journey ever made by human beings — to reach this spot. And now he was worried about the few hundred metres to the nearest land.