Robert Silverberg: Starborne

“We have to talk about them, Noelle,” says Elliot, sounding a little abashed at persisting. No one wants to be on the wrong side of a discussion with Noelle, because she is widely believed to possess a kind of innate incontrovertible wisdom. And also they all have a horror of involving her in any kind of confrontation, so fragile does she seem to them. “Ever since we lost contact with Earth,” Elliot goes on, “can it really be said that the expedition still has a purpose?”

“Its purpose is to find another world where people can live,” says Noelle. “And we haven’t lost contact with Earth.”

There is a general gasp of amazement in the room.

“We haven’t?” several of them ask at once.

Noelle smiles. “Not forever. I’m sure of that. It’s just a temporary thing, this interference, these ‘angels’ that Heinz was talking about—” Every one of them is staring intently in her direction now. “I’m going to try to speak with them,” she says. “You know that I promised to do that. To speak with them, to ask them to let me make contact with my sister again. If I can do that — and if they agree—”

So the project of making contact with the angels is alive once again, at Noelle’s own instigation, after having been in suspension the whole time of the Planet B event. The hope of regaining contact with Earth inspires them all; the mood of despair that has enshrouded so many of them since the return of Huw and the year-captain from Planet B begins to lift.

The project is alive, yes, but nothing actually is attempted just yet. The days go by — they are heading now toward Planet C, a hundred fifteen light-years from Earth in some entirely different part of the galaxy from the one they have just visited — and it is assumed by everyone that Noelle is preparing herself to reach out in some telepathic fashion toward the extraterrestrial beings that supposedly have interrupted the contact between her and her sister. But the two people who are most closely concerned with the project — the year-captain, who must give Noelle the order to make the attempt, and Noelle herself — are both in their separate ways uneasy about the enterprise to which Noelle has so publicly committed herself. And so both of them in their separate ways have hesitated to move forward with it.

Noelle has never so much as experimented with opening her mind to anyone but her sister, and the idea is a little troublesome to her. It seems almost like an act of infidelity. But, on the other hand, doing it might very well restore the contact with Yvonne that has been the most precious thing in her life. Therefore Noelle remains willing to try it, if uncertain about how the task is actually going to be accomplished, when and if. But she is waiting for the year-captain to tell her to initiate the maneuver.

The year-captain is holding back, though, as he has from the moment any of this first surfaced, because he is afraid that Noelle will somehow be damaged in the attempt.

He has had a classical education. The myth of Semele is very much on his mind.

“Who was she?” Noelle asks him when he allows some of his concern to slip into view.

“Semele was the daughter of an ancient Greek king,” he tells her. They are in the ship’s recreation area, where they have just been swimming in the long, narrow lap-pool, and now they are sitting along the edge of the pool with their legs dangling in the water. “Zeus had taken her as one of his lovers.” Noelle has turned toward him, and she seems to be listening carefully, but her face is completely expressionless. “You know who Zeus was? The chief of the Greek gods, the ruler of the universe.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“And quite a ladies’ man. Zeus was completely infatuated with beautiful young Semele, and had a child with her, who was destined to grow up to be the god Dionysus; and Hera, Zeus’s wife, who had had to put up with much too much of this stuff during the course of her marriage and didn’t care for it, decides to take action. She dons human disguise and goes to visit Semele and asks her if she knows who it is that she’s been sleeping with. Yes, says Semele proudly, he is Zeus, the father of the gods. And have you ever seen him in all his glory? Hera asks. No, says Semele, never, he always comes to me in the form of a man. Well, then, says sly Hera, you should ask him to reveal himself to you in his full majesty. Now, that would be something to see!”

“I think I know this story,” Noelle says.

Nevertheless the year-captain does not halt in his telling of the tale. “The next time Zeus comes to her, Semele says to him, ‘You never show yourself to me as you really are.’ And Zeus says, ‘No, no, that would be too much for you, the sight would be overwhelming.’ But Semele insists. She reminds Zeus that he had promised her, long ago, to grant any wish that she might make. To refuse her nothing. Zeus is trapped. He can’t go back on his promise, though he knows what’s going to happen. So, reluctantly, he gives Semele what she’s asking for. There is a tremendous clap of thunder and Zeus appears before her in his chariot in a great aurora of light. No human being can look upon the true form of Zeus and survive. Semele is destroyed by the heat that emanates from the god. She is burned utterly to ashes by it; and so Hera has had her revenge.”

Noelle has drawn back into herself during this part of the story. She has wrapped her arms tightly around her body, and it seems to the year-captain that she is trembling a little.

“But something good came forth out of that, didn’t it?” she asks. “There was Dionysus the god. Semele’s son. He survived the flames, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He survived. Zeus spared him, and scooped him up in the moment of Semele’s destruction, carrying him off and hiding him from Hera’s wrath until he was grown.”

“So, then. That’s the point of the story. The miraculous birth of the god Dionysus.”

She is definitely trembling, he sees. Shivering, even. They are still naked after their swim, but it is, as always, quite warm here in the recreation area.

“The point of the story is that Semele overreached herself and died,” the year-captain says. “Dionysus is just an incidental part of the myth. The point is that ordinary mortals can’t hope to have unrestricted contact with gods.”

“The birth of a new god can’t just be an incidental part of anything,” Noelle says. The year-captain thinks he hears her teeth chattering.

“Are you feeling all right, Noelle?”

“Just a little chilly.”

“It isn’t chilly in here, though.”

“But I feel that way. Maybe we should go on across into the baths.”

“Yes. Yes. A little time in the hot tub will get you feeling better in no time.”

The baths are just on the other side of the corridor from the lap pool. They collect their towels and discarded clothing and go across. The room is empty when they get there.

“Why did you tell me that story?” Noelle asks him.

“You know the answer to that, don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“I can’t help feeling worried about what will happen when you try to—”

“It isn’t the same in any way. I’m not Semele. The angels aren’t Zeus.”

“How do you know what they are?”

“I don’t,” she says. “Not really. How could I? But I just don’t think — I’m quite confident that I — that they — that when I—” She is really shaking now. They are at the edge of the hot tank. The usual procedure is to step quickly into the cold tub, then go on to the hot one, and finish by returning to the tepid tank or even the cold one. But instead of going into any of them now Noelle stands trembling at the brink of the hot tub for a long moment; and then she turns, suddenly, and presses herself into his arms.