Poul Anderson - Tau Zero

“Can this not wait till we have made our passage, Constable?” she asked, alike in anger and weariness.

“I don’t think so, madame,” Reymont replied. “Should an emergency arise, we need people convinced it’s worth coping with.”

“You accuse Professor Nilsson of spreading disaffection. The articles provide for free speech.”

His chair creaked beneath the astromoner’s shifting weight. “I am a scientist,” he declared waspishly. “I have not only the right but the obligation to state what is true.”

Lindgren regarded him with disfavor. He was letting a scraggly beard grow on his chins, had not bathed of late, and was in grimy coveralls.

“You don’t have the right to spread horror stories,” Reymont said. “Didn’t you notice what you were doing to some of the women, especially, when you talked the way you did at mess? That’s what decided me to intervene; but you’d been building up the trouble for quite a while before, Nilsson.”

“I merely brought out into the open what has been common knowledge from the start,” the fat man retorted. “They hadn’t the courage to discuss it in detail. I do.”

“They hadn’t the meanness. You do.”

“No personalities,” Lindgren said. “Tell me what happened.” She had recently been taking her meals alone in her cabin, pleading busyness, and was not seen much off watch.

“You know,” Nilsson said. “We’ve raised the subject on occasion.”

“What subject?” she asked. “We’ve talked about many.”

“Talked, yes, like reasonable people,” Reymont snapped. “Not lectured a tableful of shipmates, most of them feeling low already.”

“Please, Constable. Proceed, Professor Nilsson.”

The astronomer puffed himself up. “An elementary thing. I cannot comprehend why the rest of you have been such idiots as not to give it serious consideration. You blandly assume we will come to rest in a Virgo galaxy and find a habitable planet. But tell me how. Think of the requirements. Mass, temperature, irradiation, atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere … the best estimate is that 1 per cent of the stars may have planets which are any approximation to Earth.”

“That,” Lindgren said. “Why, certainly—”

Nilsson was not to be deprived of his platform. Perhaps he didn’t bother to hear her. He ticked points off on his fingers. “If 1 per cent of the stars are suitable, do you realize how many we will have to examine in order to have an even chance of finding what we seek? Fifty! I should have thought anyone aboard would be capable of that calculation. It is conceivable that we will be lucky and come upon our Nova Terra at the first star we try. But the odds against this are ninety-nine to one. Doubtless we must try many. Now the examination of each involves almost a year of deceleration. To depart from it, in search elsewhere, requires another year of acceleration. Those are years of ship’s time, remember, because nearly the whole period is spent at velocities which are small compared to light’s and thus involve a tau factor near unity: which, in addition, prevents our going above one gravity.

“Hence we must allow a minimum of two years per star. The even chance of which I spoke — and mind you, it is only even — the odds are as good that we will not find Nova Terra in the first fifty stars as they are that we will — this chance requires a hundred years of search. Actually it requires more, because we shall have to stop from time to time and laboriously replenish the reaction mass for the ion drive. Antisenescence or no, we will not live that long.

“Therefore our whole endeavor, the risks we take in this fantastic dive straight through the galaxy and out into intergalactic space, it is all an exercise in futility. Quod erat demonstrandum. ”

“Among your many loathsome characteristics, Nilsson,” Reymont said, “is your habit of droning the obvious through your nose.”

“Madame!” the astronomer gasped. “I protest! I shall file charges of personal abuse!”

“Cut back,” Lindgren ordered. “Both of you. I must admit your conduct offers provocation, Professor Nilsson. On the other hand, Constable, may I remind you that Professor Nilsson is one of the most distinguished men in his vocation that Earth has … Earth had. He deserves respect.”

“Not the way he behaves,” Reymont said. “Or smells.”

“Be polite, Constable, or I’ll charge you myself.” Lindgren drew breath. “You don’t seem to make allowance for humanness. We are adrift in space and time; the world we knew is a hundred thousand years in its grave; we are rushing nearly blind into the most crowded part of the galaxy; we may at any minute strike something that will destroy us; at best, we must look forward to years in a cramped and barren environment. Don’t you expect people to react to that?”

“Yes, madame, I do,” Reymont said. “I do not expect them to behave so as to make matters worse.”

“There is some truth in that,” Lindgren conceded.

Nilsson squirmed and looked sulky. “I was trying to spare them disappointment at the end of this flight,” he muttered.

“Are you absolutely certain you weren’t indulging your ego?” Lindgren sighed. “Never mind. Your standpoint is legitimate.”

“No, it isn’t,” Reymont contradicted. “He gets his 1 per cent by counting every star. But obviously we aren’t going to bother with red dwarfs — the vast majority — or blue giants or anything outside a fairly narrow spectral range. Which reduces the field of search by a whopping factor.”

“Make the factor ten,” Nilsson said. “I don’t really believe that, but let’s postulate we have a 10 per cent probability of finding Nova Terra at any one of the Sol-type stars we try. That nevertheless requires us to hunt among five to get our even chance. Ten years? More like twenty, all things considered. The youngest among us will be getting past his youth. The loss of so many reproductive opportunities means a corresponding loss of heredity; and our gene pool is minimal to start with. If we wait several decades to beget children, we can’t beget enough. Few will be grown to self-sufficiency by the time their parents start becoming helpless with advancing age. And in any case, the human stock will die out in three or four generations. I know something about genetic drift, you see.”

His expression grew smug. “I didn’t wish to hurt feelings,” he said. “My desire was to help, by showing your concept of a bold pioneer community, planting humankind afresh in a new galaxy … showing that for the infantile fantasy which it is.”

“Have you an alternative?” Lindgren inquired.

A tic began in Nilsson’s face. “Nothing but realism,” he said. “Acceptance of the fact that we will never leave this ship. Adjustment of our behavior to that fact.”

“Is it the reason you’ve been soldiering on the job?” Reymont demanded.

“I dislike your term, sir, but it is true there is no point in building equipment for long-range navigation. We are not going anywhere that makes any difference. I cannot even get enthusiatic about Fedoroff’s and Pereira’s proposals concerning the life support systems.”

“You understand, I suppose,” Reymont said, “that for maybe half the people aboard, the logical thing to do once they’ve decided you’re right, is to commit suicide.”

“Possibly.” Nilsson shrugged.

“Do you hate life so much yourself?” Lindgren asked.

Nilsson half got up and fell down again. He gobbled. Reymont surprised both his listeners by turning soft-mannered:

“I didn’t fetch you here only to get your gloom-peddling stopped. I’d rather know why you haven’t been thinking how to improve our chances.”