Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (71 page)

*

The Captain invited everyone to move up to deck A, since this would bring us into closer physical proximity, offering more opportunities for daily encounters and reducing the tendency to isolation. Some of the private rooms, on closer inspection, were found to be suites for the privileged. Now everyone learned that there had been an appalling discrepancy between the single rooms of most people and the residences of very important figures such as the trillionaires, the nephew of the World President, Skinner, and others who had rated a higher place in the classless society. We looked and ogled and admired their former lifestyles (they were, after all, dead). I found it interesting that no one moved into those luxury suites. They were converted into social lounges and game rooms.

Don and Raydawn’s fireplace, with its real logs and real flames, became a huge draw. There must have been a dozen reasons why fire was an outrageous risk, but the former tenants had got away with it, and we did too. The boost to morale was more than worth it. Love of the true hearth appeared in all hearts. Though the ship’s systems functioned perfectly as always, maintaining a constant comfortable warmth, people would often kneel before the fire and extend their open hands toward it—an instinctive gesture. I did it myself, inhaling the incense of burning apple wood, cedar splints, and aged pine knots as I ached with longing for my cabin. I became territorial over the issue of splitting kindling and starting the fire in the morning. I was the first to locate the wood shed, a room just down the hall from Don’s place, eighteen by forty-eight meters by three meters high, with three quarters of its wood supply still there. From then on, I reigned over it like a benevolent tyrant.

There was a lot of mixed emotion when it was discovered that a freezer compartment in the ballroom-size pantry attached to the trillionaires’ suite contained hundreds of beefsteaks and limitless shelves of prepackaged Cajun food. There was also a wine cellar that staggered the imagination. When these rooms were first opened, lowly staff just stared, feeling delight at their newfound abundance and, I think, some resentment against the idle rich. In any event, the steak was gone within a month, consumed by us all at communal feasts. These feasts helped cement the fellowship among us, which would be crucial, considering the nine years still to be spent in each other’s company.

The deck-A cafeteria was the main place where the ship’s company ate. A majority of the food service staff had died at the bases on Nova, and the surviving cooks became highly valued people. Like self-respecting cooks everywhere, they did not stint on their creative abilities and foraged daily for specialty items in the vast holds of PHM. They continued to serve us with dedication and good humor, and we the idle less-than-rich were deeply grateful for it. In fact, we revered them.

Our social order was now considerably changed. There were too many missing executives in all the departments, except for KC. Certain flight staff people had natural leadership skills that were not dependent on rank, and these good men and women helped in the initial stages of organizing division of labor. Among us all there was a general mood of generosity that helped pull us together. We became that which the combined powers of our home planet’s government had failed to make—a team, a community.

Inexplicably, considering the crisis we had endured, certain undefined atmospheric tensions seemed to have disappeared. Social gatherings tended to be less planned and less class conscious: for example, maintenance people would joke around with, or engage in serious discussions with, the high-tech people; lieutenant commanders would go courting among the nursing or laundry staff—respectfully, with new manners. Smoking cigarettes and drinking various forms of contraband—both illegal activities—were now open practices. I think there may have been DSI people at public gatherings, but none who appeared in uniform. If there were animators or facilitators present, they did not bother to reinforce the old rules. A lot of “mandates” had been abandoned without a vote being cast or a shot being fired. It was our first, though transient, experience of freedom. Perhaps most people realized that if we wanted to return to Earth without killing each other or otherwise going mad, we would have to take responsibility for our little society. There were no enforcers, no responsibility police.

I might mention at this point that my area of expertise was cleaning public washrooms—a task for which I volunteered.

*

During the second week after departure, the
Kosmos
was still cruising at relatively low speed under nuclear propulsion, passing through the orbits of AC-A’s outer planets. Within a few days, we would be in open space and altering course for home. Anti-matter would be initiated, and we would begin acceleration toward our maximum velocity.

Late one afternoon, I was lying on my bed reading Stron’s book on quasars. I was missing my old friend, wishing we could talk over all that had happened. Ao-li kept coming to mind too. On a whim, I flipped through a little hand-bound booklet I had found a few days earlier among the scanty belongings in his room—
Beijing Poems
. I now saw that it was a collection of verse he had written when he was a young man. I wondered why he had given me poetry written by Li Po but had not given me his own. Had this been due to his natural diffidence, or to the intimacy of his reflections—had he been writing only for himself?

Dated more than fifty years ago, the poems were penned, not printed; the text was Chinese characters on one page, with the English translation on the facing page.

The first was titled “Departure”.

     By the gate of your small orchard, three trees in blossom,

     I take my leave of you, knowing that I shall never again eat its fruit

     (for the sea is wide).

     With a bow that veils your hidden tears and silences mine, you bid me go.

     Yet I cannot go.

     This once, breaking the customs of time,

     I kneel and kiss the old hands that carved the sign of covenant,

     the ivory word you made for me.

     I carry it, I carry you

     Into the heartless land.

I wanted to read more, but I choked up and couldn’t go on.

My door was open. Like many others on board, I was no longer as intent on preserving my privacy. Perhaps I hoped for a visitor to drop by and save me from myself.

Paul appeared in the doorway.

“Neil, hello. Would you like a big swim with me in pool?”

I sat up and wiped my eyes. “Thank you for asking, Paul, but there’s no longer any need for us to make clandestine cover stories.” I put Xue’s booklet carefully away on a shelf.

“Would you like to read my dark ruminations?” I said, rummaging for the most recent pages of my journal entries.

“Is a good book?” he asked.

“A bad book. My journal, I meant.”

“Ah. Yes, I would like to read your new thought. So, no swimming for you?”

“No swimming for me.”

“Okay. Pia tell me you will say no. Now, plan number two. She want you to visit for supper in our house. Will you?”

“Yes, I’ll come.”

“Okay. Eighteen hundred hours, our place.”

I knocked on the frame of their open doorway at 6
P.M.
, welcomed by the sound of the baby making cooing noises and the aroma of Cajun cooking. Pia had done some plundering in the trillionaires’ pantry, I realized, and was completing last-minute preparations in her small kitchen.

We sat around the table in the dining alcove, with our knees touching throughout the meal, and tried to make happy talk. But it didn’t fly too well. I could see that something heavy was on their minds.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

Pia answered: “Nothing’s wrong, Neil. It’s something Paul and I have been discussing over the past week. We should have been thinking about it and praying about it long before this.”

“About what, may I ask?”

“We’re going back to Nova.”

“But it’s too late. The ship’s coordinates are set for Earth, aren’t they?”

“Yes, it cannot be change now”, said Paul. “We must intersect with her orbit at a specific time and place; you know how it is.”

I said I didn’t really know how it was exactly, though I could guess. As he expanded on the astronomical data and technical side of things, I realized what they were planning.

“The shuttle?” I interrupted.

They nodded.

“But you aren’t a pilot, Paul.”

“Volodya is pilot. He is coming. Others are coming too.”

“Does the Captain know?”

“We ask permission. He tell us yes, go.”

Once again it struck me that this was one unusual captain. By giving his permission, he would doubtless be breaking all manner of global and fleet rules.

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning, Neil”, Pia answered. “And that’s why we wanted to talk with you. Not to say good-bye but to ask you to come with us.”

“Back to that planet? What about the radioactivity? What about Katherine’s future, her health, the risks?”

“Does she have a future on Earth, our illegal child? Where would we hide her? How could we raise her in that sterile place, ruled by madmen and tyrants?”

“A dose of rads can be tyrannical too.”

Paul said, “Dr. Barton tell us whole planet is now about same as rads on Earth from atomic weapons, long ago. C-1 is worse, but it is falling fast.”

“That’s unlikely.”

“It’s true”, Pia answered. “He showed us the instrument readings, and the Captain verified them. Whatever it was that exploded had a short life unlike any of our nuclear material. No one knows what it was, but we have a reasonable assurance that we’ll survive.”

“Surely, you won’t go anywhere near C-1.”

“Not for a long, long time. We’ve talked with everyone who wants to return, and we’ve agreed on C-4, the second largest continent, on the other side of the planet and every bit as good as C-1 was.”

“I see. Will you be taking an axe and a box of matches with you?”

“The shuttle can hold over a hundred people for a three-week flight, as well as enough food and survival equipment for a year. It will give us a head start, building a village and farms.”

“Watch out for snakes”, I said with a note of bitterness.

“You come too”, said Paul.

I shook my head. “Sorry. You don’t need a decrepit old cowpoke to carry around on your backs while you get started. I think I’ll just stay on this ship and go home to my own mountains. Besides,” I said, averting my eyes, “I destroyed what we had on Nova. I killed all those people.”

“Don’t be absurd!” Pia erupted fiercely, leaning toward me.

“Daedalus, that’s who I am”, I snorted bitterly. “I made their wings, and they flew too close to the sun.”

“But how could you have known! We were tricked by those monsters. We were seduced, and we believed them.”

“Yeah, well Xue didn’t believe them.”

“Don’t start taking on guilt that isn’t yours, Neil, not now. That would be a lie on top of a lie.”

I disagreed, but I refrained from saying so.

“I’m touched by your concern, Pia. But I need to return to Earth and tell my part of the story. Maybe the authorities will learn something from this. I can do that much to make up for—”

“Stop. Stop it now. Stop apologizing for inventing the wheel. You need to hop on the cart with us.”

“How many of you are going?”

“About sixty definites. Maybe tomorrow morning some undecideds will show up.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“You missed a few meetings. Don’t you read your mail?”

“Nope.”

“Well, now you can think about it. Think about it seriously and carefully. We need you.”

“You don’t need me.”

“We need physicist”, said Paul. “Dr. Barton is not going back to Nova.”

“The last thing in the world you need is a theoretical physicist.”

“Okay, is true, physicist is not so important. We need
old
people.”

“What?”

“We need
dedushka
, the grandpa. We have three or four grandpa and grandma only. Not good. Not enough.”

I almost laughed it was so quaint, so ridiculous.

“Well, if you can find me a rocking chair”, I mumbled.

Pia put a hand on mine. “You’ll consider it, won’t you?”

“All right, I’ll consider it. Let me sleep on it.”

Paul told me that the departure next day would be at 0800 hours. Presuming upon my capitulation, Pia instructed me to bring all my possessions, including the latest installments of my journal, if I had any.

As I made my way back to my room, I knew full well that I would not sleep and that I would not consider their invitation. I would not be returning to Nova.

But I resolved to do one thing for them. I would get into the ship’s records of orbit scans. I would erase the good news about radioactivity. I would give testimony at the debriefings back home. I would write papers and articles. I would tell the authorities that Nova would be uninhabitable for another thousand years. That way, Earth’s glorious expeditions would go elsewhere and leave my beloved people alone. Undisturbed, they would have a chance to build what mankind might have been, and might yet become. I would smother the lies of our ancestors and our contemporaries with my own little corrective lies.

I wrote
beloved
, didn’t I? Yes, I loved them. They were the family I never had. But I knew that in the long run they would be better off without me.

*

After a terrible night of tossing and turning, I went down to the shuttle bays at 7:45
A.M.
and stepped out of the elevator bearing nothing in my arms. The Captain was standing with a group of people by the shuttle’s loading ramp, shaking hands and giving his final best wishes. Paul was among them, and I noticed that he had his sword and scabbard strapped to his belt. Pia stood beside her husband, looking resolved. When she spotted me without baggage, her face fell. She turned away and lowered her head.

As I approached the edge of the crowd, I met Maria Kempton, who was carrying a knitting handbag, a backpack, and her purse.