Дэймон Найт: Orbit 11

“You don’t want to talk about Erika, Cullins. You just want to talk. If you can’t swing one kind of ejaculation, you settle for another. By the way, you should give me a list of the Senators on our side. If I have to testify before that damned committee one more time, I’ll go berserk and start rending senators all around me. Sure wouldn’t want to kill the ones on our side.”

“You know, I’ve explained to her that it’s natural for the Seed to occupy my mind at such times. It’s all part of the same instinct. The urge that the race survive the death of the individual. And for the race to survive the death of the individual universe is the next logical step.”

“And that instinct is why you are balling a gal who’s on the vaccine?”

“Well, the instinct easily satisfied on the emotional level, and on the intellectual level I realize that there are too many people reproducing already for the size of the solar system. But the Seed cries out on both levels to be born. And I’m more of a mother than a father to it.”

“In that case, you had better get Erika to make an honest man out of you.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Outstanding. When you can’t think of a comeback, you’ve stopped feeling sorry for yourself. Take a cold shower and go to bed. After you dry off, that is.”

“I’ve had one already.”

“Then I’ll have one. Good night. And quit calling me!”

“Get an unlisted number.”

“This number is supposed to be unlisted.”

“Get a listed number. You’ll throw me off the track.”

“I’ll throw you off something higher if you keep phoning in the dead of the night.” Click.

Cullins took another cold shower.

Q: When one man calls another, seeking counsel regarding an emotional disturbance, is it common for the other to greet him with levity?

A: It is when the disturbed caller averages one point two three calls per night not earlier than one thirty a.m. and not later than four thirteen a.m.

Q: Still, does this not indicate a certain insensitivity and even cruelty on the part of callee?

A: It might indicate that the counselor has his own problems and is using levity to conceal them and remain uninvolved. Look at this:

She had black hair and blue eyes of the sort that do not really seem to be part of the face they are in. Cain liked the way the muscles in her legs moved when she walked. (Sociological context: Hemlines were in the rising phase of their cycle that year.)

He had been watching the way she moved for a month and a half now. Today he managed to head for the computer programming department where she worked and to keep moving in that direction without veering off and breathing a sigh of relief, hating himself at the same time. He informed her, clumsily, that there was a good show in town and maybe. . . . She was busy that night.

He mumbled his way from the computer programming department and knew that he would never work up the nerve to speak to her again.

Maybe some other girl. . . .

In talking to himself (mentally, fortunately, rather than audibly) he often used that word: maybe.

Q: These two emotional cripples are the ones working to save the human race from extinction?

A: Irrelevant. The nobility-ignobility of a cause is not determined by the suitability of its adherents as models after which one might pattern one’s life. Moreover, it is possible that a more well-adjusted or more self-confident person might be completely uninterested in fighting for such a near-abstract cause.

Q: I reject that notion.

A: You may be correct, but you are supposed to be asking questions, not advancing opinions.

Beyond the orbit of Pluto the Seed orbits, dimly shining with the light of stars, including the sun, which is only slightly brighter than the other pinpoints of light. The surface of the McJunkins field is a perfect sphere and a perfect reflector, for no light can enter the field of timeless space. Contained in the zone of the field when it was activated was a starship. To speak of anything being inside the field now is to speak gibberish. Nothing can penetrate the field to determine what is within and no statement about the interior can be verified. Therefore there is no interior. Thus speaks positivism. In no way can it be proven that the nine figures still exist within and that they do no move.

The Seed is not yet fully explained:

Billions thought this: Dr. Roy Cullins is speaking. Cullins himself, while watching and listening with the billions, thought this: a pattern of phosphor dots excited by electricity forms an image resembling me while other electrical impulses create sounds similar to my voice and both sets of impulses are controlled by sensitized molecular layers in a block of alloy, which is a recording made of my image and voice a few hours ago.

When he was very young, Roy Cullins had developed the habit of thinking that way. He thought it was the mark of a precise, analytical mind. He still thought that.

Cain thought this: Cullins is speaking. Again.

Erika’s thoughts were not of the stereovision screen. She wanted to get laid. Again.

The pattern of phosphor dots, etc., said, “It is necessary that the Seed be a starship. The cosmic egg will explode and the cosmic debris will fill the small but expanding universe with hydrogen gas which will condense into planets, stars, and nebulae. The new universe will not have been expanding as long as our older one has and will contain less empty space in proportion to solid matter, but the distances between spiral nebulae will still be immensely greater than between stars in our present galaxy. And, though it is not impossible that the Seed will be in the midst of an infant galaxy when the McJunkins field collapses, its most likely location at that time will be in intergalactic space. The average distance between galaxies in our universe is about three million light-years, though the galaxy M33 in Andromeda and the galaxy M31 are closer than that to our galaxy, and we have taken into consideration that the Seed may have to travel across such intergalactic gulfs. If the crew find themselves between galaxies, they will simply select the closest one and accelerate in that direction, using the del Gatto field drive, until they are traveling at a velocity which is within a hairsbreadth of the speed of light. Though the voyage will take more than a million years from the point of view of an observer in the galaxy ahead, only a few weeks will have elapsed from the viewpoint of the crew, as a consequence of the usual effects of Classical Relativity. At an appropriate distance within the galaxy they will begin deceleration, at the same time using the usual methods of selecting a sunlike star that has planets.”

“Then they will colonize that planet, Dr. Cullins?” That came from another pattern of phosphor dots, etc., which was an analog of the reporter doing the interviewing.

“Not necessarily. The first star selected might lack planets at the proper distance for a reasonable temperature. Or the planet might be at the right distance but have such a slow rotation period that the extremes of temperature would be too great. In that case, they would accelerate again and try another likely star. With the del Gatto drive, a suitable planet could be found in a few months. But there is also the possibility that the planets would not yet have cooled enough to develop life. In that event, the crew would send the Seed away from the planet and travel at near light speed until sufficient time has passed and the planet has cooled and oceans have formed. Then spore pods will be discharged into the oceans.”