The Shoulders of Giants

Bokket cleared his throat. “We didnt know about you.”

“But you called us by name: Pioneer Spirit.”

“Well, it is painted in letters three meters high across your hull. Our asteroid-watch system detected you.

A lot of information from your time has been lost — I guess there was a lot of political upheaval then, no? — but we knew Earth had experimented with sleeper ships in the twenty-first century.”

We were getting close to the space station; it was a giant ring, spinning to simulate gravity. It might have taken us over a thousand years to do it, but humanity was finally building space stations the way God had always intended them to be.

And floating next to the space station was a beautiful spaceship, with a spindle-shaped silver hull and two sets of mutually perpendicular emerald-green delta wings. “Its gorgeous,” I said.

Bokket nodded.

“How does it land, though? Tail-down?”

“It doesnt land; its a starship.”

“Yes, but—”

“We use shuttles to go between it and the ground.”

“But if it cant land,” asked Ling, “why is it streamlined? Just for esthetics?”

Bokket laughed, but it was a polite laugh. “Its streamlined because it needs to be. Theres substantial length-contraction when flying at just below the speed of light; that means that the interstellar medium seems much denser. Although theres only one baryon per cubic centimeter, they form what seems to be an appreciable atmosphere if youre going fast enough.”

“And your ships are that fast?” asked Ling.

Bokket smiled. “Yes. Theyre that fast.”

Ling shook her head. “We were crazy,” she said. “Crazy to undertake our journey.” She looked briefly at Bokket, but couldnt meet his eyes. She turned her gaze down toward the floor. “You must think were incredibly foolish.”

Bokkets eyes widened. He seemed at a loss for what to say. He looked at me, spreading his arms, as if appealing to me for support. But I just exhaled, letting air — and disappointment — vent from my body.

“Youre wrong,” said Bokket, at last. “You couldnt be more wrong. We honor you.” He paused, waiting for Ling to look up again. She did, her eyebrows lifted questioningly. “If we have come farther than you,” said Bokket, “or have gone faster than you, its because we had your work to build on.

Humans are here now because its easy for us to be here, because you and others blazed the trails.” He looked at me, then at Ling. “If we see farther,” he said, “its because we stand on the shoulders of giants.”

* * *

Later that day, Ling, Bokket, and I were walking along the gently curving floor of Derluntin station. We were confined to a limited part of one section; theyd let us down to the planets surface in another ten days, Bokket had said.

“Theres nothing for us here,” said Ling, hands in her pockets. “Were freaks, anachronisms. Like somebody from the Tang Dynasty showing up in our world.”

“Soror is wealthy,” said Bokket. “We can certainly support you and your passengers.”

“They are not passengers,” I snapped. “They are colonists. They are explorers.”

Bokket nodded. “Im sorry. Youre right, of course. But look — we really are delighted that youre here.

Ive been keeping the media away; the quarantine lets me do that. But they will go absolutely dingo when you come down to the planet. Its like having Neil Armstrong or Tamiko Hiroshige show up at your door.”

“Tamiko who?” asked Ling.

“Sorry. After your time. She was the first person to disembark at Alpha Centauri.”

“The first,” I repeated; I guess I wasnt doing a good job of hiding my bitterness. “Thats the honor — thats the achievement. Being the first. Nobody remembers the name of the second person on the moon.”

“Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.,” said Bokket. “Known as ‘Buzz.”

“Fine, okay,” I said. “You remember, but most people dont.”

“I didnt remember it; I accessed it.” He tapped his temple. “Direct link to the planetary web; everybody has one.”

Ling exhaled; the gulf was vast. “Regardless,” she said, “we are not pioneers; were just also-rans. We may have set out before you did, but you got here before us.”

“Well, my ancestors did,” said Bokket. “Im sixth-generation Sororian.”

“Sixth generation?” I said. “How long has the colony been here?”

“Were not a colony anymore; were an independent world. But the ship that got here first left Earth in 2107. Of course, my ancestors didnt immigrate until much later.”

“Twenty-one-oh-seven,” I repeated. That was only fifty-six years after the launch of the Pioneer Spirit.

Id been thirty-one when our ship had started its journey; if Id stayed behind, I might very well have lived to see the real pioneers depart. What had we been thinking, leaving Earth? Had we been running, escaping, getting out, fleeing before the bombs fell? Were we pioneers, or cowards?

No. No, those were crazy thoughts. Wed left for the same reason that Homo sapiens had crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. It was what we did as a species. It was why wed triumphed, and the Neandertals had failed. We needed to see what was on the other side, what was over the next hill, what was orbiting other stars. It was what had given us dominion over the home planet; it was what was going to make us kings of infinite space.

I turned to Ling. “We cant stay here,” I said.

She seemed to mull this over for a bit, then nodded. She looked at Bokket. “We dont want parades,” she said. “We dont want statues.” She lifted her eyebrows, as if acknowledging the magnitude of what she was asking for. “We want a new ship, a faster ship.” She looked at me, and I bobbed my head in agreement. She pointed out the window. “A streamlined ship.”

“What would you do with it?” asked Bokket. “Where would you go?”

She glanced at me, then looked back at Bokket. “Andromeda.”

“Andromeda? You mean the Andromeda galaxy ? But thats—” a fractional pause, no doubt while his web link provided the data “— 2.2 million light-years away.”

“Exactly.”

“But … but it would take over two million years to get there.”

“Only from Earths — excuse me, from Sorors — point of view,” said Ling. “We could do it in less subjective time than weve already been traveling, and, of course, wed spend all that time in cryogenic freeze.”

“None of our ships have cryogenic chambers,” Bokket said. “Theres no need for them.”

“We could transfer the chambers from the Pioneer Spirit.”

Bokket shook his head. “It would be a one-way trip; youd never come back.”

“Thats not true,” I said. “Unlike most galaxies, Andromeda is actually moving toward the Milky Way, not away from it. Eventually, the two galaxies will merge, bringing us home.”

“Thats billions of years in the future.”

“Thinking small hasnt done us any good so far,” said Ling.

Bokket frowned. “I said before that we can afford to support you and your shipmates here on Soror, and thats true. But starships are expensive. We cant just give you one.”

“Its got to be cheaper than supporting all of us.”

“No, its not.”

“You said you honored us. You said you stand on our shoulders. If thats true, then repay the favor.

Give us an opportunity to stand on your shoulders. Let us have a new ship.”

Bokket sighed; it was clear he felt we really didnt understand how difficult Lings request would be to fulfill. “Ill do what I can,” he said.

* * *

Ling and I spent that evening talking, while blue-and-green Soror spun majestically beneath us. It was our job to jointly make the right decision, not just for ourselves but for the four dozen other members of the Pioneer Spirit s complement that had entrusted their fate to us. Would they have wanted to be revived here?

No. No, of course not. Theyd left Earth to found a colony; there was no reason to think they would have changed their minds, whatever they might be dreaming. Nobody had an emotional attachment to the idea of Tau Ceti; it just had seemed a logical target star.

“We could ask for passage back to Earth,” I said.

“You dont want that,” said Ling. “And neither, Im sure, would any of the others.”

“No, youre right,” I said. “Theyd want us to go on.”

Ling nodded. “I think so.”

“Andromeda?” I said, smiling. “Where did that come from?”

She shrugged. “First thing that popped into my head.”

“Andromeda,” I repeated, tasting the word some more. I remembered how thrilled I was, at sixteen, out in the California desert, to see that little oval smudge below Cassiopeia for the first time. Another galaxy, another island universe — and half again as big as our own. “Why not?” I fell silent but, after a while, said, “Bokket seems to like you.”

Ling smiled. “I like him.”