Poul Anderson - Tau Zero

“We don’t want that,” he said stupidly.

“No. What do we want?” Strange that she was not crying. “I think — Carl, shouldn’t we say good night? All of us, to each other? A last festival, with wine and candlelight. And afterward go to our cabins. You and I to ours. And love, if we can, and say good night. We have morphine for everyone. And oh, Carl, we’re so tired. It will be so good to sleep.”

Reymont drew her close to him again.

“Did you ever read Moby Dick? ” she whispered. “That’s us. We’ve pursued the White Whale. To the end of time. And now … that question. What is man, that he should outlive his God? ”

Reymont put her from him, gently, and sought the view-scope. Looking forth, he saw, for a moment, a galaxy pass. It must be only some ten thousands of parsecs distant, for he saw it across the dark very large and clear. The form was chaotic. Whatever structure it had once had was disintegrated. It was a dull, vague, redness, deepening at the fringes to the hue of clotted blood.

It drifted from his sight. The ship went through another, storm-shaken by it, but of that one nothing was visible.

Reymont hauled himself back to the command deck. Teeth gleamed in his visage. “No!” he said.

From the stage, he and she looked upon their assembled shipmates.

The gathering was seated, safety-hamessed into chairs whose legs were secured with bond grips to the gymnasium deck. Anything else would have been dangerous. Not that weightlessness prevailed. The past week had seen conditions change so rapidly that those who knew could not have deferred an explanation longer had they wanted to.

Between the tau which interstellar atoms now had with respect to Leonora Christine ; and the compression of lengths in her own measurement because of that tau; and the dwindling radius of the cosmos itself: Her ramjets drove her at a goodly fraction of one gee across the outermost abysses of interclan space. And oftener and oftener came spurts of higher acceleration as she passed through galaxies. They were too fast for the interior fields to compensate. They felt like the buffeting of waves; and each time, the noise that sang in the hull was more shrill and windy.

Four dozen bodies hurled together could have meant broken bones or worse. But two people, trained and alert, could keep their feet with the aid of a handrail. And it was needful that they do so. In this hour, folk must have before their sight a man and a woman who stood together unbowed.

Ingrid Lindgren completed her account. “—that is what is happening. We will not be able to stop before the death of the universe.”

The muteness into which she had spoken seemed to deepen. A few women wept, a few men shaped oaths or prayers, but none was above a sough. In the front row, Captain Telander bent his head and covered his face. The ship lurched in another squall. Sound passed by, throbbing, groaning, whistling.

Lindgren’s fingers momentarily clasped Reymont’s. “The constable has something to tell you,” she said.

He trod forward. Sunken and reddened, he eyes appeared to regard them in such ferocity that Chi-Yuen herself dared make no gesture. His tunic was wolf-gray, and besides his badge he wore his automatic pistol, the ultimate emblem. He said, quietly though with none of the first officer’s compassion:

“I know you think this is the end. We’ve tried, and failed, and you should be left alone to make your peace with yourselves or your God. Well, I don’t say you shouldn’t do that. I have no firm idea what is going to become of us. I don’t believe anyone can predict any more. Nature is turning too alien for that. In honesty, I agree that our chances look poor.

“But I don’t think they are zero, either. And by this I don’t mean that we can survive in a dead universe. That’s the obvious thing to attempt. Slow down till our time rate isn’t extremely different from outside, while continuing to move fast enough that we can collect hydrogen for fuel. Then spend what years remain in our bodies aboard this ship, never glancing out into the dark around us, never thinking about the fate of the child who’ll soon be born.

“Maybe that’s physically possible, if the thermodynamics of a collapsing space doesn’t play tricks on us. I don’t imagine that it’s psychologically possible, however. Your expressions show you agree with me. Correct?

“What can we do?

“I think we have a duty — to the race that begot us, to the children we might yet bring forth ourselves — a duty to keep trying, right to the finish.

“For most of you, that won’t involve more than continuing to live, continuing to stay sane. I’m well aware that that could be as hard a task as human beings ever undertook. The crew and the scientists who have relevant specialties will, in addition, have to carry on the work of the ship and of preparing for what’s to come. It will be difficult.

“So make your peace. Interior peace. That’s the only kind which ever existed anyway. The exterior fight goes on. I propose we wage it with no thought of surrender.”

Abruptly his words rang loud: “I propose we go on to the next cycle of me cosmos.”

That snatched them to attention. Above a collective gasp and inarticulate cries, a few stridencies could be made out: “—No! Lunacy!” — “Great!” — “Impossible!” — “Blasphemy!” Reymont drew his gun and fired. The shot shocked them into quiet.

He grinned. “Blank cartridge,” he said. “Better than a gavel. Naturally, I discussed this beforehand with the officers and the astronomical experts. The officers, at least, agree the gamble is worth taking, if only because we haven’t much to lose. But equally naturally, we want general accord. Let’s discuss this in regular fashion. Captain Telander, will you preside?”

“No,” said the master faintly. “You. Please.”

“Very well. Comments … ah, probably our senior physicist should begin.”

Ben-Zvi declared, in an almost indignant voice: “The universe took between one and two hundred billion years to complete its expansion. It won’t collapse in less time. Do you seriously believe we can acquire a tau that lets us outlive the cycle?”

“I seriously believe we should try,” Reymont answered. The ship trembled and belled. “We gained a few per cent right there, in that galactic cluster. As matter gets more dense, we accelerate faster. Space itself is being pulled into a tighter and tighter curve. We couldn’t circumnavigate the universe before, because it didn’t last that long, in me form we knew it. But we should be able to circle the shrinking universe repeatedly. That’s the opinion of Professor Chidambaran. Would you like to explain, Mohandas?”

“If you wish,” the cosmologist said. “Time as well as space must be taken into reckoning. The characteristics of the whole continuum will change quite radically. Conservative assumptions lead me to the conclusion that, in effect, our present exponential decrease of the tau factor with respect to ship’s time, should itself increase to a higher order.” He paused. “At a rough estimate, I would say that the time we experience under those circumstances, from now to the ultimate collapse, will be three months.”

Into the hush that followed another rustle of stupefaction, he added: “Nevertheless, as I told the officers when they asked me to make this calculation, I do not see how we can survive. Our present observations vindicate the empirical proofs that Elof Nilsson found, these many eons ago in the Solar System, that the universe does indeed oscillate. It will be reborn. But first all matter and energy must be collected in a monobloc of the highest possible density and temperature. We might pass through a star at our current velocity and not be harmed. We can scarcely pass through the primordial nucleon. My personal suggestion is that we cultivate serenity.” He folded his hands in his lap.