18
Stranger and ever stranger gjew the cosmos that the ship beheld. Aberration of light sent star images crawling aside, while Doppler shift blued those forward and reddened those aft until many no longer shone at any wavelength the eye could perceive. In the ship’s measure, the mass of the atoms that its fields scooped up increased with the rising velocity; distances that it was traversing shrank, as if space were flattening under the impact; time passed more quickly, less of it between one atomic pulsebeat and the next. Pytheas would never reach the haste of light, but the closer it sped, the more foreign to the rest of the universe it became.
Alone among the eight, Yukiko had taken to seeking communion yonder. She would settle in the navigation chamber, otherwise unused until journey’s end drew nigh, and bid the screens give her the view. It was a huge and eerie grandeur, there around her shell of humming silence— blacknesses, ringfire, streams of radiance. Before the spirit could seek into it, the mind must. She studied the tensor equations as once she studied the sutras, she meditated upon the koans of science, and at last she began to feel her oneness with all that was, and in the vision find peace.
She did not let herself go wholly into it. Had she become able to, that would have been a desertion of comrades and dereliction of duty. She hoped she might help Tu Shan, and others if they wished, toward the serenity behind the awe-someness, once she herself had gone deeply enough. Not as a Boddhisatva, no, no, nor a guru, only as a friend who had something wonderful to share. It would help them so much, in the centuries to come.
They had need of every strength. Hardships and dangers counted for little, would often be gladdening, a gift of that reality which had slipped from their hands on Earth. The loneliness, though. Three hundred years between word and reply. How much more distanced might Earth become in three hundred more years?
Never before had the eight been this isolated for this long; and it would go on. Oh, it was scarcely worse than isolation had grown at home. (And if shiploads of settlers arrived, once Pha-eacia was proven habitable—if it was; if they did—what would they really have in common with the Survivors?) But it worked on them more than they had foreseen. Forced in upon themselves, they discovered less than they perhaps had looked for.
Horizons and challenge should open them up again. Yet they might always be haunted by the understanding that they were not actually pioneers, mightily achieving what they had determined they would do. They were ... not quite outcasts ... failures, leftovers from a history that no longer mattered, sent on their way almost casually, as an act of indifferent kindness.
Their children, however; there was the future that Earth had lost. Yukiko ran a hand down her belly. Mother of nations! This body was not foredoomed in the way that women otherwise were, even today. The technology could keep you youthful, but it could not add one ovum to those with which you were born. (Well, doubtless it could, if people so desired, but of course they didn’t.) Hers made new eggs as it made new teeth, during her entire unbounded life. (Don’t scorn the machines. They’ll save you from ever again having to watch your children grow old. They’ll create the genetic variety that will allow four couples to people a planet.)
Yes, hope ranged yet. May it never go out of reach.
“Ship, what of the flight?” she called.
“Velocity point nine-six-four c,” sang the voice, “mean ambient equivalent matter density one point zero four proton, all mission parameters within zero point three percent, navigating now by the Virgo cluster of galaxies and seven quasars near the limits of the observable universe.”
19
After seven and a half of its own years, ten times as many celestial, Pytheas reached the halfway point of its journey. There was a brief spell of weightlessness as the vessel went on free trajectory, lasers and force-fields withdrawn except for what was required to shield the life within. Majestically, the hull turned around. Heavily armored, robots went out to reconfigure the generator net. When they were back inside, Pytheas unfurled snare and kindled engine. Fire reawakened. At one gravity of deceleration, the craft backed down toward its goal. Trumpet notes rang through the air.
Surely the travelers had spesial cause for festival. Macan-dal took three days preparing the banquet. She was in the galley, chopping and mixing, when Patulcius appeared. “Hi,” she greeted him in English, which remained her language of choice. “What can I do for you?”
He barely smiled. “Or I for you. I think I have remembered what went into that appetizer I mentioned.”
“Hm?” She laid down her cleaver and brought finger to chin. “Oh ... oh, yes. Tahini something. You made it sound good, but neither of us could recall what tahini was.”
“How much else has faded out of us?” he mumbled. Squaring his shoulders, he spoke briskly. “I have brought the memory back, at least in part. It was a paste made from sesame meal. The dish I thought of combined it with garlic, lemon juice, cumin, and parsley.”
“Splendid. The nano can certainly make sesame, and here’s a grinder, but I’ll have to experiment, and you tell me how wide of the mark I am. It ought to go well with some other hors d’oeuvres I’m planning. We don’t want anything too heavy before the main course.”
“What will that be, or is it still a secret?”
Macandal considered Patulcius. “It is, but Til let you in on it if you’ll keep mum. Curried goose. A twenty- one-boy curry.”
“Delicious, I’m sure,” he said listlessly.
“Is that all you’ve got to say, you, our champion trencherman?”
He turned to go. She touched his arm. “Wait,”_she murmured. “You’re feeling absolutely rotten, aren’t you? Can I help?”
He looked elsewhere. “I doubt it. Unless—“ He swallowed and grimaced. “Never mind.”
“Come on, Gnaeus. We’ve been friends a long time.”
“Yes, you and I, we could somehow relax with each other better than— Okay!” he spat. “Can you speak to Aliyat? No, surely not. Or if you do, what use?”
“I thought that was it,” said Macandal low. “Her sleeping around. Well, I can’t say I’m overjoyed when Johnnie spends a night with her, but it is something she needs. I’ve been thinking Hanno does wrong to ignore her passes at him.”
“Nymphomania.”
“No, not really. Grabbing out for love, assurance. And ... something to do. She spends too much time in the dream box as is.”
He struck fist in palm. “But I am not something for her to do, am I?”
“Not any more? I suspected that too. Poor Gnaeus.” Macandal took his hand. “Listen. I know her well, better than anybody else. I don’t believe she wants to be unkind. If she avoids you, why, she feels—ashamed? No, more like being afraid of hurting you worse.” She paused. “I’m going to take her aside and talk like a Dutch aunt.”
He flushed. “Not on my account, please. I don’t want pity.”
“No, but you deserve more consideration than you’ve gotten.”
“Sex isn’t that big a thing, after all.”
