Robert Heinlein - Starman Jones

Max started for his room. Eldreth caught up with him. "Max! I want to talk with you."

"All right." He started back toward the lounge.

"No, I want to talk privately. Let's go to your room."

"Huh? Mrs. Dumont would blow her top, then she'd tell Mr. Walther."

"Bother with all that! Those silly rules are dead. Didn't you listen at the meeting?"

"You're the one who didn't listen."

He took her firmly by the arm, turned her toward the public room. They ran into Mr. and Mrs. Daigler coming the other way. Daigler said, "Max? Are you busy?"

"Yes," answered Eldreth.

"No," said Max.

"Hmm ... you two had better take a vote. I'd like to ask Max some questions. I've no objection to your being with us, Eldreth, if you will forgive the intrusion.

She shrugged. "Oh, well, maybe you can handle him. I can't."

They went to the Daiglers' stateroom, larger and more luxurious than Max's and possessing two chairs. The two women perched on the bed, the men took the chairs. Daigler began, "Max, you impress me as a man who prefers to give a straight answer. There are things I want to know that I didn't care to ask out there. Maybe you can tell me."

"I will if I can."

"Good. I've tried to ask Mr. Simes, all I get is a snottily polite brush off. I haven't been able to get in to see the Captain--after today I see that there wouldn't have been any point anyhow. Now, can you tell me, with the mathematics left out, what chance we have to get home? Is it one in three, or one in a thousand--or what?"

"Uh, I couldn't answer it that way."

"Answer it your own way."

"Well, put it this way. While we don't know where we are, we know positively where we aren't. We aren't within, oh, say a hundred light-years of any explored part of the Galaxy."

"How do you know? It seems to me that's a pretty big space to be explored in the weeks since we got off the track."

"It sure is. It's a globe twelve hundred trillion miles thick. But we didn't have to explore it, not exactly."

"Then how?"

"Well, sir, we examined the spectra of all first magnitude stars in sight--and a lot more. None of them is in our catalogues. Some are giants that would be first magnitude anywhere within a hundred light-years of them--they'd be certain to be in the catalogues if a survey ship had ever been that close to them. So we are absolutely certain that we are a long, long way from anywhere that men have ever been before. Matter of fact, I spoke too conservatively. Make it a globe twice as thick, eight times as big, and you'd still be way over on the conservative side. We're _really_ lost."

"Mmm ... I'm glad I didn't ask those questions in the lounge. Is there any possibility that we will ever know where we are?"

"Oh, sure! There are thousands of stars left to examine. Chief Kelly is probably shooting one this minute."

"Well, then, what are the chances that we will eventually find ourselves?"

"Oh, I'd say they were excellent--in a year or two at the outside. If not from single stars, then from globular star clusters. You realize that the Galaxy is a hundred thousand light-years across, more or less, and we can see only stars that are fairly close. But the globular clusters make good landmarks, too." Max added the mental reservation, _if we aren't in the wrong galaxy_. There seemed no point in burdening them with that dismaying possibility.

Daigler relaxed and took out a cigar. "This is the last of my own brand, but I'll risk smoking it now. Well, Maggie, I guess you won't have to learn how to make soap out of wood ashes and hog drippings after all. Whether it's one year or five, we can sweat it out and go home."

"I'm glad." She patted her ornate coiffure with soft, beautifully manicured hands. "I'm hardly the type for it."

"But you don't understand!"

"Eh? What's that, Max?"

"I didn't say we could get back. I just said I thought it was fairly certain we would find out where we are."

"What's the difference? We find out, then we go home."

"No, because we _can't_ be less than a hundred light-years from explored space."

"I don't see the hitch. This ship can do a hundred light-years in a split second. What was the longest leap we made this cruise? Nearly five hundred light-years, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but--" Max turned to Eldreth. "You understand? Don't you?"

"Well, maybe. That folded-scarf thing you showed me?"

"Yes, yes. Mr. Daigler, sure the _Asgard_ can transit five hundred light-years in no time--or any other distance. But _only_ at calculated and surveyed congruencies. We don't know of any within a hundred light-years, at least ... and we won't know of any even if we find out where we are because we know where we _aren't_. Follow me? That means that the ship would have to travel at top speed for something over a hundred years and maybe much longer, just for the first leg of the trip."

Mr. Daigler stared thoughtfully at his cigar ash, then took out a pen knife and cut off the burning end. "I'll save the rest. Well, Maggie, better study up on that homemake soap deal. Thanks, Max. My father was a farmer, I can learn."

Max said impulsively, "I'll help you, sir."

"Oh yes, you did tell us that you used to be a farmer, didn't you? You should make out all right." His eyes swung to Eldreth. "You know what I would do, if I were you kids? I'd get the Captain to marry you right away. Then you'd be all set to tackle colonial life right."

Max blushed to his collar and did not look at Ellie. "I'm afraid I can't. I'm a crew member, I'm not eligible to colonize."

Mr. Daigler looked at him curiously. "Such devotion to duty. Well, no doubt Ellie can take her pick among the single men passengers."

Eldreth smoothed her skirt demurely. "No doubt."

"Come, Maggie. Coming, Eldreth?"

"Charityville" was a going concern within a week. It had a mayor, Mr. Daigler, a main street, Hendrix Avenue, even its first wedding, performed by the mayor in the presence of the villagers--Mr. Arthur and little Becky Weberbauer. The first cottage, now building, was reserved for the newlyweds. It was a log cabin and a very sloppy job, for, while there were those among them who had seen pictures or had even seen log cabins, there was no one who had ever built one before.

There was an air of hope, of common courage, even of gaiety in the new community. The place was fragrant with new starts, forward-looking thoughts. They still slept in the ship and breakfasted there, then carried their lunches and labored mightily, men and women alike, through the short day--Charity spun on her axis in twenty-one-plus hours. They returned at nightfall, dined in the ship, and some found energy to dance a bit before going to bed.

Charity seemed to be all that her name implied. The days were balmy, the nights were mild--and beautiful beyond anything yet found in the Galaxy. Its star (they simply called it "the Sun") was accompanied by more comets than had yet been seen around any star. A giant with a wide tail stretched from zenith to western horizon, diving at their Sun. Another, not yet so grand but awesome enough to have caused watchers for the end of the world on Earthly hilltops, approached from the north, and two more decorated the southern sky with lace of icy fire.

Concomitant with comets was, necessarily, an equal abundance of meteors. Every night was a shower of falling stars, every day ended like Solar Union Day with a display of fireworks.

They had seen no dangerous animals. Some of the settlers reported seeing centaurlike creatures about the size of Shetland ponies, but they seemed timid and had scurried away when discovered. The prevalent life form appeared to be marsupial mammals in various sizes and shapes. There were no birds, but there was another sort of flying life not found elsewhere-- jellyfishlike creatures four or five feet high with dangling tendrils, animated balloons. They appeared to have muscular control over their swollen bladders for they could rise and fall, and could even, by some not evident means, go upwind against a gentle breeze--in higher winds they anchored to treetops, or floated free and let the wind carry them.