Starfarers (6 page)

He shaped a smile. “Fair is fair. Now explain yourself to me.”

“You have seen my résumé, and surely a fat dossier as well. We have talked.”

“In some offices. Over some dinner tables. It’s time for me to get to know
you.”

“And decide if you want me aboard.”

“Yes. No offense. You seem too good to be true. As you say, the volunteers have been few, and nearly everyone wrong in the head or unfit for anything at home or otherwise useless. You are
young, healthy, apparently well-balanced. You have proven your competence. You are personally attractive.”

Despite the reserve he wore like a cloak, he knew how to say that, and how to regard her while he did. He saw a woman small but firm and rounded of figure, with high forehead and cheekbones, eyes large and hazel between long lashes, curved nose, mouth full and accustomed to laughter. Red hair fell wavy to her shoulders. A pendant in ancient Egyptian style gave a touch of flamboyancy to her coverall.

“Then why,” he demanded, “do you want to go on a voyage that will be like traveling beyond death?”

She straightened in the saddle. “You know why. I’m in danger of my life.”

He drew rein: She followed suit. They sat confronted. The horses lowered their heads to graze. Butterflies and a hummingbird flashed above rippling green. Wings beat on high, cries drifted through the wind.

“Is that really true?” he asked.

She met his eyes. “You want to be sure I am not a hysteric.”

“I’ve read the biographical material you submitted. More than once. But would you care to tell me the parts you think are important, face-to-face?”

“For you to judge my personal style?” She had done some of her graduate studies in North America; occasionally it showed in her speech. “How far back shall I go?” She threw him a grin. “Your family claims a distant kinship with Fridtjof Nansen. I’m a direct descendant of Moshe Dayan. What else is so special about my life?”

“Almost everything,” he said.

She was born in Latakia, where her father was stationed, an officer of the Israeli Hegemony. Her mother was a reclamation engineer. Thus, as a child, she was exposed to considerable foreignness, until they returned to Jerusalem. Having taken her doctorate in physics, rather precociously, she went to work for the Central Technical Supply Company, mostly among the asteroids but also in the Jovian and
Saturnian Systems, helping develop instruments for operations in a variety of surroundings.

“You should have a brilliant future,” he added.

She grimaced. “Yes. I should have had. Then I ran afoul of the Cosmosophists.”

“That was a foolish thing you did.”

“Probably. An impulse.” Blood rose under the clear skin. Her words throbbed. “But I hated them so. I always will.”

His gaze measured her. “I agree in principle. Philo Pryor was an outrageous charlatan, and his successors have done questionable things. However, I am not violent about it.”

“They are.”

“What you did was provocative.”

She tossed her head. “It needed doing.”

Every northern summer solstice on Mars, the Order of the Received Cosmosophy brought forth from Pryor’s tomb the device he related finding in a cave on Ascraeus Mons, left by the Galactics to await a genius who could endure to use it. Since his translation to a higher existence, it again lay inert; but a procession carried it to the Temple of Truth for solemn ceremonies before returning it to its resting place. Perhaps another genius would appear, in whose brain the quantum mechanical resonances would pulse anew, bringing further manifestations from the Ones. Meanwhile its appearances reminded the faithful of the doctrines their prophet had received, which the Synod of Interpreters rendered into day-by-day commandments. Such a communion will not take kindly to an outsider who loads with instruments an apartment that the procession must pass, afterward publishing her data and explaining how they show that the circuits in the box do nothing and never could do anything.

“Why did you?” Nansen pursued.

“I’ve told people over and over,” she spat. “To expose the fraud.”

“You haven’t, you know,” he said. “Devout believers go on believing, and call you the liar. You are not stupid. Nor do I think you are completely naive. It was a good deal of trouble
to go to, for what you should have foreseen was a pointless prank. Why? What drove you to it?”

She swallowed hard, red and white surging across her face. The sun made flame of her hair. He waited.

“All right,” she got out. “I didn’t put this in my file because I didn’t think it was anybody else’s business. But I suppose it is yours, and you’ll keep it to yourself. I had a dear friend. He owned property on Mars. The Order wanted it, and did him out of it, blackening his name in the process. He … got drunk, got careless about his air supply in the desert, died. The body wasn’t found till too late for revival. I was angry”

Nansen nodded. “I see.” He refrained from inquiring about the friend. Instead, after a pause, he said, “Your account describes several attempts on your life since then. Police records corroborate three of them. How do you know the Order is responsible?”

“Who else would be?” Dayan looked past him, toward the horizon. “Oh, I have my connections in Israel. I could arrange a well-guarded cocoon for myself. But what sort of life is that? Or I could sign onto an interstellar expedition, if one will take me, and come back after my enemies are dead. But I doubt fifty years will be enough, and nothing longer is planned, except yours.” She was still for another moment. The wind in the grass, the sound of the horses cropping, seemed to louden. “How very much longer!”

“An extreme way to go for safety.”

“I’d rather shoot those swine, of course. But the law doesn’t allow, and anyhow, I can’t identify the individuals who’ve tried for me.”

“You would hardly be going into a safe refuge.”

“I know!” As she went on, allurement overtook rage and her mood brightened. “That’s one thing making it… not a loss to me. Yes, I’ll mourn for the people I love, everybody, everything I’ll never see again, but—what’ll we find out there? What’ll we
do
? And when we return, this will be a whole new world, too.”

“We must explore the question further,” he said quietly. “I like your spirit.”

“And I—I—well, I don’t expect your company will be dull,” she told him.

For two or three seconds they considered one another.

Nansen touched heels to horse and took up the reins. His briskness declared that the captain should not allow any sudden, real intimacy to flower. “Come, that’s plenty for the time being. Let’s enjoy the day. You’re not an experienced
caballista
, are you?”

She chuckled. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“Let me show you a bit of technique, and then we’ll ride!”

From the
stoep
of Mamphela Mokoena’s little house, Lajos Ruszek saw widely. Westward the Transkei heights rose green with plantations, shrubs and trees producing their various organics under a hard blue sky. Northward and southward the city reached beyond sight, towns swollen until they ran together, brightly colored modules clustered along traffic-swarming streets, towers rearing among them, hovercars weaving above, and everywhere people on foot or on motor-skates, their voices a daytime overtone to a machine throb that never ceased. Eastward the Indian Ocean glared with sunlight. The city sprawled out into it: platforms for residence, thermal energy, and mineral extraction; maricultural mats; boats and attendant robots plying between. No matter how pure the industry, a faint reek lay in the air—chemicals, particulates, humanity.

Mokoena came from inside bearing a tray with a pitcher and two tumblers of iced tea. She set it down on a table and
herself in a woven chair across from Ruszek’s. Her guest snatched his drink and gulped.

“Ah-h-h!” he exhaled. “Goes good. Thank you, mademoiselle.”

Mokoena smiled. “That title doesn’t fit me well, I fear,” she replied in English less accented than his.

“Eh? I meant—I understood you have not married.”

“True. However—” She waved a hand at herself, a gesture half humorous, half rueful. Her dashiki covered a frame fairly tall and formerly slender but putting on weight now that she was in her late thirties. Her face, brown-skinned, broad-nosed, under bushy black hair, remained smooth, and the eyes still shone like a girl’s.

“No matter,” she said. Her voice sounded twice melodious after his gravelly basso. “I appreciate the thought. And it is most kind of you to have come all this way just to pay a visit.”

“I want to meet everybody in the crew,” Ruszek admitted in his blunt fashion. “Get some beforehand knowledge of them. We’ll be a long time together.”

Mokoena’s smile faded. “Long—” It was as if the shade in which they sheltered had gone chill.
Ten thousand years and more.

Ruszek’s prosaic question brought her back, “What should I call you?”

She studied him. Neither his manner nor his appearance suggested courtliness. Of medium height but powerful build, he had made the mistake of wearing a naval-style tunic and trousers, and was sweating copiously and pungently. The bullet head was totally bald except for bushy brows and sweeping black mustache. Brown almond eyes looked out of a broad, rather flat countenance. His age was fifty-five.

She relaxed. “Oh, I suppose ‘Dr. Mokoena’ will do till we feel free to be less formal. What do you prefer for yourself?”

Ruszek poured more tea. Ice cubes clinked. “Whatever you want. I’ve been many things.”

“So I’ve gathered. Although the information’s remarkably
scanty, considering how the journalists are after us. Did you make them hostile to you on purpose?”

“I give the pests what they deserve.”

“Forgive me, but is that quite wise? Especially when you will be second in command.”

“And a boat pilot,” he reminded her, veering from a subject he disliked. “That interests me much more.”

She went along with him. “I’m sure it does, from what I’ve heard about you.”

“Besides, Captain Nansen won’t really need any second.”

His tone had altered. “You sound as though you admire him,” she said.

“There’s no better man, in space or on the ground.”

“Is that why you enlisted? To serve under him? I didn’t know you’d met before.”

“We hadn’t, till I applied. Then I found out.”

“May I ask why you did join?”

Ruszek forced a laugh. “I came here to ask you that, Dr. Mokoena.”

“It works both ways, Mr. Ruszek.”

“Well, adventure, challenge, if you must have big words.”

“There are closer stars, shorter voyages, no dearth of discoveries and great deeds.”

“Could I get a berth on any such expedition? Not fucking likely—uh, pardon me. Too few starships so far. Too much competition.”

“Yes, I suppose so. As you say, adventure and challenge, and the time away from home isn’t usually too many years.”

He grinned. “Don’t forget the profits. Crew members get their lecture fees, endorsements, book contracts, fat Earth-side jobs. The Foundation, or whoever has built and backed the ship, gets the specimens and samples to sell—and the entertainment rights, the documentaries and dramas. Oh, it pays.”

“It pays us all, in knowledge, in hope—hope of meeting other intelligences, settling new worlds,” she said earnestly.

“Why are we trading these duck-billed platitudes?” he
retorted. “To get to your point, Dr. Mokoena,
Envoy’s
the one starship with no serious competition for berths.”

“Nevertheless—”

He cut her off. “All right, God damn it, all right, I’ll tell you about myself. Don’t blame me if you already know everything.

“Born in Budapest, lower middle class, rough-and-tumble boy, left home at sixteen and odd-jobbed around the world a few years—yes, sometimes had to dodge the busybody law—till I joined the Peace Command of the Western Alliance. Surprise, I liked that and buckled down to getting an education. Got posted to military construction on Luna and in free space, got piloting skills, but kept being broken in rank for this or that trouble. At the end of my hitch I found me a civilian post, with the Solmetals Consortium, and piloted around, everywhere from Mars to Saturn. Saw some action in the Space War.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? But you were a civilian then, you said. And a European.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t a decent old-time kind of war, remember. A nasty, drawn-out, sniping thing between the cat’s-paws of the big powers, for who should control this or that out there. Even after Europe withdrew, the Chinks—Argh, it’s years past. I came through with experience, a record, that made Captain Nansen push hard for the Foundation to accept me. Are you satisfied?”

“An active life,” she murmured, her gaze contemplative upon him. “Often harder than you admit, I’m sure.”

His irritation subsided. “You have an eye for people, Dr. Mokoena.”

She smiled. “Perhaps. My business.”

“Your turn. I know hardly anything about you.”

“There isn’t much to know. Quiet years, unlike yours.”

“Then why are you going?”

“I can be of service.”

He sat back, ran a palm over the sweat that sheened across his pate, and said, “Well, we certainly do need a biologist
and a physician, and if they come in the same package, God is very obliging. But you do well enough on Earth, no? Why should you want to leave it?”

She sipped her tea, buying time, before she answered slowly, “The reasons are personal. Captain Nansen and the Foundation directors know, of course. You shall eventually. I would rather it not come out before the public, to avoid embarrassing … certain persons.” Decision: “Well, you won’t spill it to the media.”

He grinned again. “Guaranteed.”

“What do you know about me?”

“Um … you studied medicine, and worked for years among the poor, first in this kingdom, later with relief missions elsewhere in Africa. At last you stopped, went back to school, became a biologist, and did good science, especially on the specimens brought back from Tau Ceti. Is this why you want to go with us, research?”

“It will be fascinating.”