established, observe the conditions near there, and go on to found neighbor colonies by mapping and surveying the next dozen star-systems or so.”
“That at least gives us a place to start,” Fontana said, “and it would make for an orderly approach.”
“And I’m willing to bet,” Moira said, “that the last fifty or sixty Ships have done exactly that.”
“Why shouldn’t they?” Ching asked. “It seems the logical thing to do.”
“We’ll never know,” Teague said, “because we are Survey Ship one hundred and three. The colonies were founded, as I remember, by year-ships seven, ten, eleven, and nineteen. The crews of those Ships are probably in their thirties or forties by now — I’d have to figure out the time-dilatation equations, and I don’t have them on the tip of my tongue the way Ravi probably does — but we have no news of any later Ships, though ships twenty-four and twenty-five could, theoretically, be reporting any day now. Depending on where they went; and we may or may not ever know that.”
“Which is one reason for heading toward an established colony,” said Peake. “It might be our only chance for any contact with the human race again in our lifetime.”
“You’re talking as if we were going to age at Earth-time,” Teague said. “As we approach light-speed, our age will slow down and for us, biologically speaking, time will virtually stop. Of course we can’t be sure we’ll see them for years, unless we choose to visit one of the established colonies first. But I think we’re expected to find a planet and report it ready for colonization first. Then we can visit already-established colonies, and by that time there will certainly be others.”
Peake thought; even if I could ever come back, jimson would be an old man and I still young. He had known that, intellectually. Now it became suddenly personal, and frightening. And meaningful, with a horrible personal meaning that left him speechless, staring into the console of the navigation instruments.
“I still think it makes sense to explore outward from the known colonies, in an orderly fashion,” Ravi said. “We should stay in contact with the known human settlements; otherwise the chances we’d ever run across one by accident — well, the old needle in a haystack analogy would be very good odds by comparison.”
“But if we find a planet in a wholly new direction,” Moira argued, “then humanity can spread in that many more new directions without being wholly lost. We’d establish a new beachhead in the Galaxy—”
“You’re speaking as if this were a military conquest,” Fontana said.
“Well, it is, in a sense,” Moira said, “us against an empty universe, and we’re going and making new paths for ourselves—”
“As we did in America and Australia?” Ravi asked dryly, “by wiping out the Amerinds and the aborigines?”
“We haven’t found any trace of intelligent life anywhere,” Moira said. “There was none anywhere in the Alpha Centaurus system, and none on any of Wolf 459’s five planets. We may just be alone in the entire Galaxy.”
“I find that approach thoroughly offensive,” Fontana said, “that we have the right to do whatever we please, anywhere, just because we have the technology to come and take over—”
Teague said, ironically, “I thought one of the reasons for getting out into space was to be free of you ecological nuts who want the planet left in perfectly unspoiled primitive conditions!”
“Look, none of this is relevant,” Ching said sharply. “We can debate our various philosophical positions at our leisure, for the next four light-years or so at least! Just now we have to decide in which direction we leave the Solar System!”
“And we asked you to decide that,” Peake said.
“And I told you then, and I tell you again, I will not play God that way! For a decision this big, we need a consensus!”
“You were telling us, a while ago, that we should choose a commander and let the commander make those decisions,” Fontana argued, “and then when we ask you to take that responsibility, you cop out and demand a group consensus!”
Ching felt overwhelmed by the hostility in Fontana’s voice. Somehow she had fell that if she won a place on the final crew she would have proved her right to belong, she would have been accepted. Now she realized that nothing had changed; she was simply alone within the smaller group of hostile strangers, that was all. But still alone.
She said quietly, “I don’t think you understood me, Fontana. Certainly, if you all agree that it is my decision to make, I’ll make it, but I don’t think, at this moment, that I have enough information. Moira, you want to establish a new beachhead for mankind — no, wait, we’ll argue over definitions later — and Ravi, I think, suggested heading for the known colonies and exploring outward from there in an orderly fashion.”
“I agree with Ravi,” Peake said, “somehow I doubt if our Survey Ships have managed to find every habitable planet in that quarter of the Galaxy.”
Fontana said, “There’s good reason for going in that direction. Before the first Survey Ship left, a hundred and five years ago, they surveyed everything they could from Base One on Alpha Centaurus, and decided it was the most promising area to find new planets and probably intelligent life — or conditions favoring it.”
Teague said, diffidently, “Considering that we have a good deal of information about that part of the Galaxy, isn’t it time some crew explored in another direction, and started feeding back information?”
“I don’t think that’s the point of the Survey Ships,” Peake argued. “We were sent to find a habitable planet, not to add to the general sum total of information. The best place to look for new planets is where planets have already been found.”
Moira demanded, “Why should we do just what other ships have done?”
Ching raised her smooth eyebrows. “Why not?”
“We have here,” said Ravi, “the ultimate difference between the pure scientist and the applied scientist; to find new information about the nature of the universe, or to apply that information to use by mankind. Personally, I think the Academy is applied science; we were given orders to find a planet, not find out new things about the universe. Our job is to find a new planet, and I think we owe it to them. After all—” suddenly his voice cracked, “we’ll certainly find out new things, wherever we go. There’s — there’s plenty to find, out — out there.”
Fontana thought, with detachment, he’s scared. After twelve years of supervision in the Academy, we’re all scared to death of being on our own. But we’ve got to get used to it.
Moira, with that eerie responsiveness, almost telepathic, asked, “Isn’t all this delay just a way of trying to cling to some — some lifeline of the familiar? Are we afraid to take off into the unknown?”
“If we are,” said Ching, “I don’t think it will do us any good, not in the long run. For what it’s worth, I agree with Peake and Ravi; the best place to look for a shell is on the beach, and the best place to look for a planet is where it’s been demonstrated that there are many of them.”
Teague said, “Creation doesn’t differ from one quarter of the universe to another. It all came from the Big Bang and if there are planets in one place, there are certain to be planets in any other.”
Ching asked, “Do we have a clear majority, then? Peake, Ravi, Fontana, and I prefer to proceed toward previously established colonies; Moira and Teague vote for a new and unknown direction—”
Teague shook his head. “I was commenting about the nature of the universe, not voting. I’m willing to go along with the majority.”
“As far as that goes, so am I,” Moira said. “My objection was purely philosophical; I don’t approve of majority decisions or majority rule. Historically speaking, democracy is the worst tyranny ever invented by humanity — if we’d left it to majority rule, Peake’s people would still be slaves, we’d all have been brought up praying in school, and there would never have been a space program at all. Majorities always settle for the lowest common denominator and the rule of the uninformed.”
Ching’s eyebrows went up again. She said, “Are you going to take the part of the philosophical rebel among us, Moira, always taking the minority position just to prevent any consensus decision?”
Moira’s freckled face flushed bright pink. She said, “I don’t think that’s a fair way of putting it, Ching.”
“No? How would you put it, then?”
Fontana, watching in silence, realized that this was the first head-to-head confrontation any of them had known. The discipline of the Academy, the knowledge that open hostility would not be tolerated, had downplayed this kind of thing since they were kindergarten age. Should she intervene, tactfully, to defuse it; was this her job as the only psychologist on the crew?
Damn it, she thought, no! Not me! And faced the knowledge that, although she had been crammed with
