Starborne (10 page)

The sudden awareness coming over them all that the
Wotan
is their world now, that they are stuck with each other and no one else for all eternit
y.

Music over the ship
’
s speakers. Beethoven, was it? Something tita
n
ic-sounding, at any rate. Something chosen for its sublime transcende
n
tal force, too. That added up to Beethoven. “
Prepare for launch,”
the year-captain announced, over the music. “
Shunt
minus ten. Nine. Eight.”
All the old hokum, the ancient stagy stuff, the stirring drama of takeoff. The whole world was watching, yes. The comfortable happy people of Earth were sending forth the last of their adventurers, a grand exploit indeed, ridding
t
hemselves of fifty lively and troubled people in the fond hope that they would somehow replicate the vigor and drive of the h
u
man species on some brave new world safely far away. “
Six. Five. Four.”

His counting was meaningless, of course. The actual work o
f the launch was being done by hidden mechanisms in some other part of the ship. But he knew the role he was supposed to play.

“
Shunt,”
he said.

Drama in his voice, perhaps, but none in the actuality of the event. There was no special sensation at the mome
nt the stardrive came on, no thrusting, no twisting, nothing that could be felt. But the Earth and Sun disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by an eerie pearly blan
k
ness, as the
Wotan
made its giddy leap into a matter-free tube and began its long jou
rney toward an unknown destination.

***

Someone is standing beside him now, here at the six-month-anniversary celebration. Elizabeth, it is. She puts a glass of wine in his hand.

“
The last of the wine, year-captain. Don
’
t miss out.”
She has obv
i
ously alrea
dy had her share, and then some. “
 
‘
Drink! For you know not whence you came, nor why: Drink! For you know not why you go, nor where.
’
 
”
She is quoting something again, he realizes. Her mind is a warehouse of old poems.

“
Is that Shakespeare?”
he asks.

“
The
Rubaiyat
,”
she says. “
Do you know it?
‘
Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring the winter garment of repentance fling.
’
 
”
She is very giddy. She rubs up against him, lurching a little, just as he puts the wine to his lips; but he keeps his balance an
d not a drop is spilled. “
 
‘
The bird of time,
’
 
”
she cries, “
 
‘
has but a little way to fly
—
and lo! The bird is on the wing.
’
 
”

Elizabeth staggers, nearly goes sprawling. Quickly the year-captain slips his arm under hers, pulls her up, steadies her. She pre
sses her thin body eagerly against his; she is murmuring things into his ear, not poe
t
ry this time, but a flow of explicit obscenities, startling and a little funny coming from this bookish unvoluptuous woman. Her slurred words are not entirely easy to mak
e out against the roaring background of the pa
r
ty, but it is quite clear that she is inviting him to her cabin.

“
Come,”
he says, as she weaves muzzily about, trying to get into p
o
sition for a kiss. He grips her tightly, propelling her forward, and cuts a p
ath across the room to Heinz, who is pouring somebody else
’
s di
s
carded drink into his glass with the total concentration of an alchemist about to produce gold from lead. “
I think she
’
s had just a little too much,”
the year-captain tells him, and smoothly hands Elizabeth over to him.

Just beyond him is Noelle, quiet, alone, an island of serenity in the tumult. The year-captain wonders if she is telling her sister about the party.

Astonishingly, she seems aware that
someone is approaching her. She turns to face him as he comes up next to her.

“
How are you doing?”
he asks her. “
Everything all right?”

“
Fine. Fine. It
’
s a wonderful party, isn
’
t it, year-captain?”

“
Marvelous,”
he says. He
stares shamelessly at her. She seems to have overcome yesterday
’
s fatigue; she is beautiful again. But her bea
u
ty, he decides, is like the beauty of a flawless marble statue in some museum of Greek antiquities. One admires it; one does not necessarily want
to embrace it. “
It
’
s hard to believe that six months have gone by so fast, isn
’
t it?”
he asks, wanting to say something and unable to find an
y
thing less fatuous to offer.

Noelle makes no reply, simply smiles up at him in that impersonal way of hers, as th
ough she has already gone back to whatever convers
a
tion with her distant sister he has in all probability interrupted. She is an eternal mystery to him. He studies her lovely unreadable face a moment more; then he moves away from her without a further word
. She will know, somehow, that he is no longer standing by her side.

***

There is trouble again in the transmission the next day. When Noelle makes the morning report, Yvonne complains that the signal is coming through indistinctly and noisily. But Noelle,
telling this to the year-captain, does not seem as distraught as she had been over the first episode of fuzzy transmission. Evidently she has decided that the noise is some sort of local phenomenon, an artifact of this particular sector of nospace
—
someth
i
ng like a sunspot effect, maybe
—
and will vanish once they have moved farther from the source of the disturbance.

Perhaps so. The year-captain isn
’
t as confident of that as she seems to be. But she probably has a better understanding of such things than he
has. In any event, he is pleased to see her cheerful and serene again.

What courage it must have taken for her to agree to go along on this voyage!

He sometimes tries to put himself in her place. Consider your situ
a
tion carefully, he thinks, pretending tha
t he is Noelle. You are twe
n
ty-six years old, female, sightless. You have never married or even e
n
tered into a basic relationship. Throughout your life your only real h
u
man contact has been with your twin sister, who is, like yourself, blind and single. He
r mind is fully open to yours. Yours is to hers. You and she are two halves of one soul, inexplicably embedded in separate bo
d
ies. With her, only with her, do you feel complete. And now you are asked to take part in a voyage to the stars without her
—
a voya
ge that is sure to cut you off from her forever, at least in a physical sense.

You are told that if you leave Earth aboard the starship, there is no chance that you will ever see your sister again. Nor do you have any a
s
surance that your mind and hers will
be able to maintain their rapport once you are aloft.

You are also told that your presence is important to the success of the voyage, for without your participation it would take decades or even centuries for news of the starship to reach Earth, but if yo
u are aboard
—
and if,
if
, contact with Yvonne can be maintained across inte
r
stellar distances, which is not something that you can know in a
d
vance
—
it will be possible for the voyagers to maintain instantaneous communication with Earth, no matter how far int
o the galaxy they jou
r
ney.

The others who undertake to sail the sea of stars aboard the
Wotan
will be making painful sacrifices too, you know. You understand that everyone on board the ship will be leaving loved ones behind: mothers and fathers, perhaps, o
r brothers and sisters, certainly friends, lovers. There will be no one in the
Wotan
’
s complement who does not have some Earthbound tie that will have to be severed forever. But your case is special, is it not, Noelle? To put it more precisely your case is
unique. Your sister is your other self. You will be leaving part of yourself b
e
hind.

What should you do, Noelle?

Consider. Consider.

You consider. And you agree to go, of course. You are needed: how can you refuse? As for your sister, you will naturally l
ose the oppo
r
tunity to touch her, to hold her close, to derive direct comfort from the simple fact of her physical presence. You will be giving that up forever. But is that really so significant? They say you must understand that you will never “
see”
her a
gain, but that
’
s not true at all. Seeing is not the i
s
sue. You can “
see”
Yvonne just as well, certainly, from a distance of a million light-years as you can from the next room. There can be no doubt of that. If contact can be maintained between them at two
or three continents
’
distance
—
and it has
—
then it can be maintained from one end of the universe to another. You are certain of that. You have a de
s
perate need to be certain of that.

You consult Yvonne. Yvonne tells you what you are hoping to hear.

Go, lov
e. This is something that has to be done. And everything will work out the right way.

Yes. Yes. Everything will work out. They are agreed on that. And so Noelle, with scarcely a moment
’
s hesitation, tells them that she is wil
l
ing to undertake the voyage.

T
here was no way, really, that she could have known that it would work. The only thing that mattered to her, her relationship with her si
s
ter, would be at risk. How could she have taken the terrible gamble?

But she had. And she had been right, until now. Un
til now. And what is happening now? the year-captain wonders. Is the link really breaking? What will happen to Noelle, he asks himself, if she loses contact with her sister?

***

For a moment, right at the beginning, sitting in her cabin aboard the
Wotan
as
it lay parked in orbit above the Earth with launch only an hour or two away, Noelle had given some thought to such matters too, and in that moment she had nearly let herself be overwhelmed by panic. It seemed inconceivable to her, suddenly, that she woul
d
really be able to maintain contact with her sister across the vast span of interstellar space. And she could not imagine what life would be like for her in the absence of Yvonne. A sword suddenly descending, cutting the thread that had bound them since t
h
e moment of their birth, and even before. And then that dreadful silence
—
that awful unthinkable isolation
—
she was asto
n
ished, suddenly, that she had ever exposed herself to the possibility that such a thing might happen.

What am I doing here? Where am I? G
et out of this place, idiot! Run, home, home to Yvonne!

Wild fear swept her like fire in a parched forest. She trembled, and the trembling turned into an anguished shaking, and she clasped her arms around her shoulders and doubled over, sick, miserably fri
ghtened, gasping in terror. But then, somehow, some measure of calmness r
e
turned. She closed her eyes
—
that always helped
—
took deep breaths, compelled herself to unfold her clasped arms and stand straight, forced the knotted muscles of her shoulders and bac
k to uncoil. It would all work out, she told herself fiercely. It would. It would. Yvonne would be there after the shunt just as before.