Poul Anderson - Tau Zero

Reymont scowled. “You overlook a third chance. We may survive, but in bad shape.”

“How the devil could we?”

“Hard to say. Perhaps we’ll take such a buffeting that personnel are killed. Key personnel, whom we can ill afford to lose … not that fifty is any great number.” Reymont brooded. Footsteps thudded in the mumble of energies. “They reacted well, on the whole,” he said. “They were picked for courage and coolness, along with health and intelligence. In a few instances, the picking may not have been entirely successful. Suppose we do find ourselves, let’s say, disabled. What next? How long will morale last, or sanity itself? I want to be ready to maintain discipline.”

“In that connection,” Telander responded, cold once more, “please remember that you act under my orders and subject to the articles of the expedition.”

“Damnation!” Reymont exploded. “What do you take me for? A would-be Mao? I’m requesting your authorization to deputize certain trustworthy men and prepare them quietly for emergencies. I’ll issue them weapons, stunner type only. If nothing goes wrong — or if something does but everybody behaves himself — what have we lost?”

“Mutual trust,” the captain said.

They had come to the bridge. Reymont entered with his companion, arguing further. Telander made a hacking gesture to shut him up and strode toward the control console. “Anything new?” he asked.

“Yes. The instruments have begun to draw a density map,” Lindgren answered. She had flinched on seeing Reymont and spoke mechanically, not looking at him. “It is recommended—” She pointed to the screens and the latest printout.

Telander studied them. “Hm. We can pass through a slightly less thick region of the nebula, it seems, if we generate a lateral vector by activating the Number Three and Four decelerators in conjunction with the entire accelerator system… A procedure with hazards of its own. This calls for discussion.” He flipped the intercom controls and spoke briefly to Fedoroff and Boudreau. “In the plotting room. On the double!”

He turned to go. “Captain—” Reymont attempted.

“Not now,” Telander said. His legs scissored across the deck.

“But—”

“The answer is no.” Telander vanished out the door.

Reymont stood where he was, head lowered and shoulders hunched as if to charge. But he had nowhere to go. Ingrid Lindgren regarded him for a time that shivered — a minute or more, ship’s chronology, which was a quarter hour in the lives of the stars and planets — before she said, very softly, “What did you want of him?”

“Oh.” Reymont fell into a normal posture. “His order to recruit a police reserve. He gave me something stupid about my not trusting my fellows.”

Their eyes clashed. “And not letting them alone in what may be their final hours,” she said. It was the first occasion since their breach that they had stopped addressing each other with entire correctness.

“I know.” Reymont spat out his words. “There’s little for them to do, they think, except wait. So they’ll spend the time … talking; reading favorite poems; eating favorite foods, with an extra wine ration, Earthside bottles; playing music, opera and ballet and theater tapes, or in some cases something livelier, maybe bawdier; making love. Especially making love.”

“Is that bad?” she asked. “If we must go out, shouldn’t we do so in a civilized, decent, life-loving way?” “By being a trifle less civilized, et cetera, we might increase our chance of not going out.”

“Are you that afraid to die?”

“No. I simply like to live.”

“I wonder,” she said. “I suppose you can’t help your crudeness. You have that kind of background. What about your unwillingness to overcome it, though?”

“Frankly,” he answered, “having seen what education and culture make people into, I’m less and less interested in acquiring them.”

The spirit gave way in her. Her eyes blurred, she reached out toward him and said, “Oh, Carl, are we going to fight the same old fight over again, now in what’s maybe our last day alive?” He stood rigid. She went on, fast: “I loved you. I wanted you for my life’s partner, the father of my children, whether on Beta Three or Earth. But we’re so alone, all of us, here between the stars. We have to give what kindness we can, and take it, or we’re worse than dead.”

“Unless we can control our emotions.”

“Do you think there was any emotion … anything but friendship, and wanting to help him get over his hurt, and — and a wish to make sure he did not fall seriously in love with me — with Boris? And the articles state, in as many words, we can’t have formal marriages en route, because we’re too constricted and deprived as is—”

“So you and I terminated a relationship which had become unsatisfactory.”

“You made plenty of others!” she flared.

“For a while. Till I found Ai-Ling. Whereas you’ve taken to sleeping around again.”

“I have normal needs. I’ve not settled down … committed myself” — she gulped — “like you.”

“Nor I, except that one does not abandon a partner when the going gets bad.” Reymont shrugged. “No matter. As you implied, we’re both free individuals. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve finally convinced myself it’s not sensible or right to carry a grudge because you and Fedoroff exercised that freedom. Don’t let me spoil your fun after you go off watch.”

“Nor I yours.” She brushed violently at her eyes.

“As a matter of fact, I’ll be occupied till nearly the last minute. Since I wasn’t allowed to deputize, I’m going to ask for volunteers.”

“You can’t!”

“I wasn’t actually forbidden. I’ll brace a few men, in private, who’re likely to agree. We’ll constitute ourselves a stand-by force, alerted to do whatever we can that’s needed. Do you mean to tell the captain?”

She turned from him. “No,” she said. “Please go away.”

His boots clacked off down the corridor.

Everything that could be done had been. Now, spacesuited, strapped into safety cocoons that were anchored to the beds, the folk of Leonora Christine waited for impact. Some left their helmet radios on so they could-talk with their roommates; others preferred solitude. With head secured, no one could see another, nor anything except the bareness above his faceplate.

Reymont and Chi-Yuen’s quarters felt more cheerless than most. She had stowed away the silk draperies that softened bulkheads and overhead, the low-legged table she had made to hold a Han Dynasty bowl with water and a single stone, the scroll with its serene mountainscape and her grandfather’s calligraphy, the clothes, the sewing kit, the bamboo flute. Fluorolight fell bleak on unpainted surfaces.

They had been silent awhile, though their sets were tuned. He listened to her breath and the slow knocking of his own heart. “Charles,” she said finally.

“Yes?” He spoke with the same quietness.

“It has been good with you. I wish I could touch you.”

“Likewise.”

“There is a way. Let me touch your self.” Taken aback, he had no ready reply. She continued: “You have always held most of you hidden. I don’t imagine I’m the first woman to tell you so.”

“You aren’t.” She could hear the difficulty he had saying it.

“Are you certain you weren’t making a mistake?”

“What’s to explain? I’ve scant use for those types whose chief interest is their grubby little personal neuroses. Not in a universe as rich as this.”

“You never mentioned your childhood, for instance,” she said. “I shared mine with you.”