“Huh? You know. He’s an able physicist, specializing in astronomical problems. Bachelor, no particular attachments, easily persuaded to join an expedition whose purpose he won’t learn till we’re in space. If anybody should be loyal to us, that’s Esker.” You made him what he is, Dad, recognized the talent in a ragged patronless kid, sponsored him, funded him through school, got him his position at the Institute.
Davy frowned. “Yes, I assumed as much myself, till it occurred to me to order an inquiry. I’d lost touch with him. Well, it turns out he’s not popular—”
“Abrasive, yes. I’ve generally gotten along with him. Consulted him about stuff relating to various explorations, you remember.”
Davy’s lips, quirked a bit. “You don’t feel his arrogance, as his inferiors do.” Earnestly: “Also, I suspect that— Never mind. The fact is, he is… no gentleman. Less than perfectly honest, in spite of that raspy tongue. And I daresay an impoverished childhood like his would leave many people somewhat embittered, but most wouldn’t make it an excuse for chronic ill behavior.”
“As long as he can do the job—”
Lissa broke off, went back to the parapet, gazed over the vast billows of land. After a moment she said, “I think I know where part of his trouble stems from. He’s a scientist born. Nature meant him to make brilliant discoveries. But there aren’t any to make anymore, not in fundamental physics. Nothing new for—centuries, isn’t it? The most he can do is study a star or a nebula or whatever that’s acting in some not quite standard way. Then he puts the data through his computer, and it explains everything in conventional terms, slightly unusual parameters and that’s all. When I hinted we might be on the trail of something truly strange—you should have seen his face.”
“Scientific idealism, or personal ambition?” Once more, Davy sighed. “No matter. Too late now in any event. I’m simply warning you. Be careful. Keep on the watch for… instability. If he proves out, fine, then I’ve misjudged him; no harm done.”
Lissa turned to face him again. “Have you anything against the rest of the team?”
“Noel, Elif, Tessa? Well, you told me he nominated them to you, but otherwise— No, they appear sound enough, except that they lack deep space experience.”
“
She saw the change in him. It was as if the wind reached in under her coat. “All right, what is it, Dad? Speak out.”
“Gerward Valen,” he said bleakly. “Seemed to me, too, as good a choice as any, better than most. But why did he abandon his career, drift away, finally bury himself among us? That’s what it’s amounted to. If he’s certificated for robotic ship command, he was near the top of his profession. Here, the best he might ever get was a captaincy on some scow of an interplanetary freighter—until you approached him. What happened, those many years ago?”
Lissa stood braced against the stones. Their hardness gave strength. “None of our business,” she replied. “A tragedy he doesn’t want to talk about, probably not think about. My guess—a few words that slipped loose a couple of times, when we were sitting over drinks—he does drink pretty fast—I think he lost his wife. If they’d been married a long time, maybe since his first cycle, her death would hit hard, wouldn’t it?”
“Not that hard, that permanently, if his spirit was healthy,” Davy said. “Why has he postponed his next rejuvenation so long? Another two or three decades at most, and it will be too late, you know. I wondered, and got background information on him. He’s making no provision for it, financial or otherwise. How much does he want to live?” He raised a palm. “Yes, of course I had no legal or ethical right to pry. To destruction with that. My daughter’s life will be in his hands.”
“Not really.”
“By now he’s integrated with the ship. Her skipper. His orders will override anyone else’s.”
Defense: “Yes, down underneath, he is a sad man. I think this voyage, this fresh beginning may rouse him out of that. But mainly—Dad, I haven’t survived so far by entrusting myself to incompetents. Look at Gerward—at Valen’s record, just in this system. The
“I took that for granted, given the facts,” Davy pursued. “But were they sufficient? Finally I sent an agent to Brusa, Valen’s home planet.”
She gasped. “You did? Why, the—the cost—”
“It was your life.”
She flared. ‘‘‘And you didn’t see fit to tell me.”
“I did not,” he replied. “You’d object. Even if you promised to keep silent, I feared you’d let something escape to him.”
We know each other too well, Dad and I, she thought.
“Well,” Davy continued, “the spoor was cold, and it led off Brusa, and the upshot is that I only got the report yesterday. I think you’d better hear what it said.”
Her neck had stiffened till it was painful to nod. “Go ahead.”
He regarded her with a pain of his own behind his eyes before he asked low, “Do you remember the Naia disaster?”
The foreboding in her grew colder. “Yes, of course I’ve read about it. But it was long ago and far away. Who on Asborg has given it any thought for decades? I’ve almost forgotten.”
Remorselessly: “Let me refresh your memory, then. Human-colonized planet. A large asteroid was perturbed into a collision orbit. It happened suddenly and unpredictably. A recently settled planet, the system not yet properly charted, no adequate skywatch yet established. The asteroid passed near a gas giant with many moons. Chaotic events occur sometimes in celestial mechanics, as well as on smaller scales. Factors are so precariously balanced that an immeasurably small force can make them go one way rather than another. This asteroid was flung almost straight at Naia.
“Almost. It plowed through the atmosphere. That would have been catastrophe enough, the shock wave, a continent ignited, but friction slowed it into capture. An eccentric, decaying orbit, bringing it back again and again. At each approach, more broke off, huge chunks crashing down on unforeseeable spots. They touched off quakes and volcanoes. The tsunamis from ocean strikes were nearly as bad. A war passing over the planet would have done less harm than that asteroid did, before the last fragment of it came to rest.
“Meanwhile, naturally, as many people as possible were evacuated. Temporary shelters were established on the Naian moon, to hold the refugees till they could be transported outsystem. Spacecraft shuttled between planet and moon. An appeal went out, and ships arrived from far and wide to help. Yes, some of them were nonhuman.
“Your friend Valen was among the newcomers. He commanded a robotic vessel chartered by the Cooperative Stellar Survey. Her owners put her at the disposal of the rescue effort. For a short while, Valen was a busy ferryman.
“Then the asteroid returned. The next bombardment began. He got in his ship and fled. Raced out of the gravity well, sprang through hyperspace, slunk home to Brusa.
“He could offer no excuse. The owners fired him. His wife left him. He went on the bum, drifting about, living hand to mouth off odd, unsavory jobs, now and then wangling a berth in a ship that’d take him to some different system. Finally, when he reached Sunniva, he pulled himself together and got steady employment. But his promotions—I’ve verified this for myself—they haven’t been due to any particular ambition on his part. He’s merely moved up the seniority ladder.
“That is your captain, Lissa,” Davy finished.
She stood a long while mute. The wind skirled, the cloud shadows hunted each other across the downs.
“I’m afraid it’s too late in this case, also,” she said finally, dully.
“No, we can replace him. Chand or Sara aren’t really totally unsuitable. Or I can look outside our House.”
She shook her head. “Any replacement would take too long. Ship-captain integration. Orichalc keeps reminding us that the climax will come soon. Any day now, perhaps. If we showed up afterward, could we discover what the Susaians did? Besides, it’s a cosmic-scale thing. The environment later may be lethal.”
She attempted a grin. “Anyhow,” she said, “aren’t you glad we’ve got a cautious man in charge?”
