Nemesis (11 page)

“What? Oh no. She used to say she read expressions and listened to intonations. She said no one could hide what they were thinking. No matter how you laughed, you could not hide the tragic undercurrent; no smile sufficed to hide bitterness. She tried to explain, but I could never grasp what it was she did. She was something special, Garand. I was in
awe
of her. And then my child was born. Marlene.”

“Yes?”

“She had the same eyes.”

“The baby had your sister’s eyes?”

“Not immediately, but I watched them develop. When she was six months old, those eyes made me flinch.”

“Your wife flinched, too?”

“I never noticed her being affected, but then, she never had a sister Roseanne. Marlene hardly cried at all; she was
peaceful
I remember Roseanne was like that as a baby. And Marlene didn’t show any signs that she was going to be particularly pretty either. It was as though Roseanne had come back to me. So you see how hard it turned out to be.”

“Coming back to Earth, you mean.”

“Doing that and leaving them behind. It was like losing Roseanne a second time. I’ll never see her now. Never!”

“But you came back anyway.”

“Loyalty! Duty! But if you want the truth, I almost didn’t. I was standing there, torn. Torn
apart
. I was
desperately
wanting not to leave Roseanne—Marlene. You see, I confuse the names. And Eugenia—my wife—said to me in a heartbroken way, ‘If you knew where we were going, you wouldn’t be so ready to turn back.’ And at that moment I didn’t want to leave. I asked her to come to Earth with me. She refused. I asked her to let me take Ro—Marlene, at least. She refused. And then, when I might have given in and stayed, she went wild and ordered me out. And I went.”

Wyler stared at Fisher reflectively. “ ‘If you knew where we were going, you wouldn’t be so ready to turn back.’ Is that what she said?”

“Yes, that’s what she said. And when I said, ‘Why? Where is Rotor going?’, she said, To the stars.’ ”

“That can’t be right, Crile. You
knew
they were planning to go to the stars, but she said, ‘
If
you knew where we were going—’ There was something you didn’t know. What was it you didn’t know?”

“What are you talking about? How can anyone know what he doesn’t know?”

Wyler shrugged it off. “Did you tell this to the Office during the debriefing?”

Fisher considered. “I guess not. I didn’t even think of it till I started telling you the story about how I nearly stayed.” He closed his eyes, then said slowly, “No, this is the first time I’ve talked about that. It’s the first time I’ve let myself think about it.”

“Very well, then. Now that you think about it—where was Rotor going? Did you hear any speculations on Rotor about that? Any rumors? Any guesses?”

“The assumption was that it would be to Alpha Centauri. Where else? It’s the nearest star.”

“Your wife was an astronomer. What did she say about it?”

“Nothing. She never discussed it.”

“Rotor sent out the Far Probe.”

“I know.”

“And your wife was involved—as an astronomer.”

“She was, but she never discussed it either, and I was careful not to do so. My mission would have been aborted, and perhaps I might have been imprisoned—or executed, for all I know—if I displayed an unhealthy curiosity too openly.”

“But as an astronomer, she would know the destination. She as much as said so. ‘If
you
knew—’ You see? She knew and if you knew, too—”

Fisher didn’t seem interested. “Since she didn’t tell me what she knew, I can’t tell you.”

“Are you sure? No casual remarks whose significance you didn’t note at the time? After all, you’re
not
an astronomer and she might have said something you didn’t quite get. Do you remember anything at all she said that set you to puzzling?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Think! Is it possible that the Far Probe located a planetary system around one or both of the Sun-like stars of Alpha Centauri?”

“I can’t say.”

“Or planets about any star?”

Fisher shrugged.

“Think!” said Wyler urgently. “Is there any reason for you to think that she meant, ‘You think we’re going to Alpha Centauri, but there are planets circling it and we’re heading for those.’ Or could she have meant, ‘You think we’re going to Alpha Centauri, but we’re going to another star where we’re sure there will be a useful planet.’ Something like that?”

“I couldn’t possibly guess.”

Garand Wyler’s generous lips compressed themselves tightly for a moment. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what, Crile, my old friend. There are three things that are going to happen now. First, you’re going to have to undergo another debriefing. Second, I suspect we’re going to have to persuade the Ceres Settlement to allow us the use of their asteroid telescope, and use it to inspect, very closely, every star within a hundred light-years of the Solar System. And, third, we’ll have to whip our hyper-spatialists into jumping a little higher and farther. You watch and see if that’s not what happens.”

There were times, once in a while, once in an ever longer while as the years passed (or so it seemed to him), when Janus Pitt found time to sit back in his chair, alone and silent, and just allow his mind to relax. Those were moments when there were no orders to give, no information to absorb, no immediate decisions to make, no farms to visit, no factories to inspect, no regions in space to penetrate, no one to see, no one to listen to, no one to foil, no one to encourage—

And always when such times came, Pitt allowed himself the final and least exhaustible luxury—that of self-pity.

It was not that he would have anything different than what it was. He had planned for all his adult life to be Commissioner because he thought that no one could run Rotor as he could; and now that he was Commissioner, he still thought so.

But why, among all the fools of Rotor, could he find no one who could see long-range as he could? It was fourteen years since the Leaving, and still no one could really see the inevitable; not even after he had explained it carefully.

Someday, back in the Solar System, sooner rather than later, someone would develop hyper-assistance as the hyperspatialists on Rotor had—perhaps even in a better form. Someday humanity would set out in its hundreds and thousands of Settlements, in its millions and billions of people, to colonize the Galaxy, and that would be a brutal time.

Yes, the Galaxy was enormous. How often had he heard that? And beyond it were other galaxies. But humanity
would not spread out evenly. Always, always, there would be some star systems that, for one reason or another, were better than other star systems, and they would be the ones snarled and fought over. If there were ten star systems and ten colonizing groups, all ten would zero in on one of the star systems, and one only.

And sooner or later, they would discover Nemesis and the colonizers would appear. How would Rotor survive then?

Only if Rotor gained as much time as possible, built up a strong civilization, and expanded reasonably. If they had enough time, they might expand their hold over a group of stars. If not, Nemesis alone would be enough—but it must be made impregnable.

Pitt did not dream of universal conquest, of conquest of any kind. What he wanted was an island of tranquillity and security against the days when the Galaxy would be aflame and in chaos as a result of conflicting ambitions.

But he alone could see this. He alone bore the weight of it. He might live another quarter century and might remain in power through all that time, either as actual Commissioner or as an elder statesman whose word would be decisive. Yet, eventually, he would die—and to whom could he then bequeath his far-sightedness?

Then Pitt felt a twinge of self-pity. He had labored for so many years, would labor for so many more, yet was appreciated—truly appreciated—by none. And it would all come to an end anyway, because the Idea would be drowned in the ocean of mediocrity that constantly lapped at the ankles of those few who could see beyond the years.

It was fourteen years since the Leaving and when, at any time, had he been able to be quietly confident? He went to sleep each night with the fear that he would be awakened before morning with the news that another Settlement had arrived—that Nemesis had been
found
.

He passed through every day with some hidden part of him paying no attention to what was immediately on the agenda, but listening—listening for the fatal words.

Fourteen years and they were still not safe. One additional Settlement had been built—New Rotor. There were people living on it, but it was a new world, of course. It still smelled of paint, as the old saying had it.
Three more Settlements were in various stages of construction.

Soon—within the decade, at any rate—the number of Settlements under construction would increase, and they would be given that oldest of all commands: Be fruitful and multiply!

With the example of Earth before them, with the knowledge that each Settlement had a narrow and unexpandable capacity, procreation had always been under strict control in space. There the immovable needs of arithmetic met the possibly irresistible force of instinct and immovability won. But as the number of Settlements grew, there would come a time when more people would be needed—many more—and the urge to produce them could be unleashed.

It would be temporary, of course. No matter how many Settlements there were, they could be filled without effort by any population that could easily double its numbers every thirty-five years, or less. And when the day came when the rate of Settlement formation passed through its inflection point and began to diminish, it might be far harder to stuff the djinn back into its bottle than it had been to release it.

Who would see this well in advance, and prepare for it once Pitt himself was gone?

And there was Erythro, the planet that Rotor orbited in such a way that huge Megas and ruddy Nemesis rose and set in an intricate pattern. Erythro! That had been a question from the beginning.

Pitt remembered well the early days of their entry into the Nemesian System. The limited intricacy of the planetary family of Nemesis had exposed itself little by little, as Rotor raced toward the red dwarf star.

Megas had been discovered at a distance of four million kilometers from Nemesis, only one fifteenth the distance of Mercury from the Sun of the Solar System. Megas obtained about the same amount of energy as Earth got from its Sun, but with a lesser intensity of visible light and a higher intensity of infrared.

Megas, however, was clearly not habitable, even at first glance. It was a gas giant, with one side always facing Nemesis. Both its rotation and revolution were twenty days long. The perpetual night on half of Megas cooled it
only moderately, since its own interior heat rose to the surface. The perpetual day on the other half was unendurably hot. That Megas kept its atmosphere under this heat was entirely because, with its mass higher and its radius smaller than that of Jupiter, its surface gravity was fifteen times that of Jupiter, and forty times that of Earth.

Nor did Nemesis have any other sizable planet.

But then, as Rotor drew closer, and Megas could be seen more clearly, the situation was altered again.

It was Eugenia Insigna who brought Pitt the news. It was not that she had made the discovery herself. It had merely showed up on the computer-enhanced photographs, and had been brought to Insigna’s attention since she was Chief Astronomer. With considerable excitement, she had brought it to Pitt in his Commissioner’s chambers.

She had begun simply enough, keeping her voice level, though it was shaking with emotion.

“Megas has a satellite,” she said.

Pitt had lifted his eyebrows ever so slightly, but then he said, “Isn’t that to be expected? The gas giants of the Solar System have anywhere up to a score of satellites.”

“Of course, Janus, but this is not an ordinary satellite. It’s large.”

Pitt kept his cool. “Jupiter has four large satellites.”

“I mean, really large, with almost Earth’s size and mass.”

“I see. Interesting.”

“More than that. Much more than that, Janus. If this satellite revolved about Nemesis directly, tidal influences would cause only one side to face Nemesis, and it would be uninhabitable. Instead, only one side faces Megas, which is much cooler than Nemesis. Furthermore, the satellite’s orbit is tilted substantially to Megas’ equator. This means that in the satellite’s sky, Megas is seen from only one hemisphere and it moves north and south with a cycle of about one day, while Nemesis moves across the sky, rising and setting, again with a cycle of one day. One hemisphere has twelve hours of darkness and twelve hours of light. The other hemisphere has the same but during its daytime, Nemesis is frequently in eclipse for up to half an hour at a time, with the cooling made up for
by Megas’ mild warmth. During the dark hours, in that hemisphere, the darkness is ameliorated by Megas’ reflected light.”

“The satellite has an interesting sky, then. How fascinating for astronomers.”

“It’s not just an astronomical lollipop, Janus. It’s possible that the satellite has an equable temperature at the right range for human beings. It may be a habitable world.”

Pitt smiled. “Even more interesting, but it wouldn’t have our kind of light, though, would it?”

Insigna nodded. “That’s true enough. It would have a ruddy sun and a dark sky because there would be no short-wave light to be scattered. And there would be a reddish landscape, I suppose.”

“In that case, since you named Nemesis, and one of your people named Megas, I’ll take the privilege of naming the satellite. Call it Erythro, which if I recall correctly, is related to the Greek word for ‘red.’ ”

The news remained good for quite some time thereafter. An asteroid belt of respectable size was located beyond the orbit of the Megas-Erythro system, and those asteroids would clearly be an ideal source of material for building more Settlements.