Island Worlds (30 page)

"Of course," Linde said, "if my work is successful, it may affect in the most fundamental way the traditional concept of causality."

"Zero-gee agriculture was my field," Brunhilde said. "Are you saying that, if you're right, we've always been wrong about reality?" She smoothed the folds of her diaphanous gown, which she insisted on wearing no matter what the gravity.

"There shouldn't be any irreconcilable dilemma. Every few years, some discovery comes along that forces us to adjust our picture of reality. They aren't all crucial like the Copernican theory or special relativity. Usually, only specialists take notice. The universe is always self-consistent, it's only our
perceptions
of reality that prove faulty. Most often, the readjustment is a matter of degree, not something that calls for a complete overhaul of every system."

"If the war comes before the drive is perfected," Thor said, "we'll move you and Ugo's lab out past Neptune."

"You couldn't have a better scientist working on the problem," Brunhilde said.

"I know," said Thor, smiling proudly at his wife.

"I meant," Brunhilde said, "that she knows that the war will come, if your projections are correct, just about the time her children reach military age. I can't imagine a better motivation for devising a way to get the hell out of here."

"You'd better believe I've taken that into account, too," Linde said. She made some minute notations on the calculator, using the tiny stylus built into the nail of her right forefinger.

"I fear," Brunhilde said, sadly, "that you two will be seeing very little of each other for the next few years."

"We'll get reacquainted on the way out to Altair or wherever. There's no reason why we can't live for at least another hundred years. Hell, old Roseberry's still going strong and he's already talking about interstellar real estate." He stuck his bulb into the complicated decanter and refilled it. "Enough of this gloomy talk. They should be starting soon." He floated to the window and looked out at the pioneer asteroids. The speeches had all been made and the voyagers were too busy with countdown phase to socialize with those they were leaving behind, perhaps forever.

"I wish Martin was here," he said.

"He's disappeared again," Brunhilde said, "along with Caterina and most of his old gang. Running another illegal immigrant racket, I hear. But if I know him, he's around here someplace. He wouldn't miss an event like this, he has too strong a sense of drama."

Linde stopped her spinning and drifted to the window. "Is it set to opaque instantly? We don't want to be blinded and even at full opacity it'll be pretty bright in here."

"All set," Brunhilde reported. They crowded together, waiting for the big event.

"What was it old Ugo used to say," Thor asked, putting an arm around Linde's expanding waist, "when he sent out another record-breaking expedition?"

Brunhilde smiled. "Hey out there," he used to say. "Here we come!"

The thrusters of the orientation rockets glowed as, slowly and majestically, the first expedition set forth to make humanity an interstellar species. Warning flashers began to blink along the anti-matter engines as they neared the finish of their ignition sequence.

Then the blinding, supernova brilliance of pure, glorious white light was all they could see.