Amund was ready to feel surprised, yet he wasn’t. He anticipated being enraged, but nothing like anger offered its help. One life? Not only did that seem reasonable, it was such a tiny gesture, and he was instantly thinking about the people that he grew up with. Idiots who wouldn’t be missed, at least after a few happy years.
“Two officers will accompany our offering,” Washen continued.
It was the first and only time someone used that word.
“Offering.”
She said, “My finest exobiologist and my best diplomat are going. The goal is to change the terms of this agreement. Surrender an arm or kidney, or give away a beating heart that we can replace without fuss. But I can’t guarantee survival for anyone. This will be a long sprint through deep space, and shit happens. Yes, it does. But if this mission does reach Where-the-rivers-live, and if any deal is struck, then more starships will be dispatched. Slower, much larger and safer vessels will drop away from the Great Ship, make some complicated dances with other stars, and after a few centuries, your descendants will set down on your new home.”
She paused, and most of the audience imagined Paradise.
“I won’t make your choices,” she said. “And I wish I could explain more and answer every question. You must have endless questions. But there’s a timetable at work. Moments matter. The second streakship has to carry passengers, which means that it can’t accelerate as quickly. And it has to launch within two hours and seventeen minutes, or it doesn’t leave. Which might be the best solution. That could be argued.
Do nothing, let this opportunity pass, and consider ourselves fortunate, even if we aren’t.”
On the one hand, Amund was listening carefully. Yet he was also thinking about nothing. An empty place waited inside his skull, black and ready. Ready for what? Then it arrived. The obvious, unavoidable idea. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of luddite communities were scattered across the Great Ship. “Luddies.” That’s what the machines called humans. Luddite was an ancient word that was never charitable, never endearing. And if time was critical, then dozens of captains must be standing inside those enclaves. Right now, each persuasive machine was making her best plea to the silly luddies. One tiny, awful sacrifice. That’s all that was needed, and the gods were playing a very cruel game.
Infuriated, the boy felt justified as he marched straight toward an entity who couldn’t have looked taller or more formidable. His plan was to smack Washen and get killed for it. Which almost certainly wouldn’t happen. What harm could he do to any captain? But no, that promise of violence made him brave, and the courage lasted until she smiled at him, revealing what on any face looked like grave, sorrowful pain.
A step short, he paused.
His little world fell silent, every eye fixed on the empty air between the two of them.
And that’s when Amund finally realized what was obvious. That he wasn’t angry at captains or distant alien rivers. Not then, not ever. The emotions lived inside him, and they couldn’t be anywhere else. Self-doubt and self-loathing had eaten away too much. He was a frail incurious idiot, suddenly looking back at the elders and up at the woman that he had slept with and probably would have had children with.
“Except I won’t sleep with her again,” he was thinking.
Why was he thinking that?
Standing at the center of the only world he knew, Amund was utterly helpless, trying and failing to see where any silly idea came from.
3.
Exobiologists didn’t take worlds as lovers, and no mission deserved to be confused for an elaborate, high-stakes courtship. Missions were missions. That was the blunt, clean, simple, and inescapable truth. Civilians, ignorant captains, and even a few of Mere’s colleagues insisted on confusing the exploration of new realms with sex. But sex was simple. Lust wanted to be kindled again and again, and that’s why it was so very easy to lose one object of affection and find another. For Mere, an impressive sequence of temporary husbands had proven the fallibility of love. She had had alien ex-husbands and the rare human, plus hundreds of intense brief passions. Well-schooled in every aspect of coupling, Mere enjoyed herself well enough, thank you. But walking gracefully across the face of a new world was something else entirely—an undertaking so much larger and richer and far more rewarding than any fireball infatuation.
In love, there was a rough sense of equality. Two souls in harmony, and so on and on. But even the ugliest little world was far greater than any soul. There were missions where Mere’s footsteps and her shadows were never noticed. And even if her presence was experienced by the natives, what did that mean? Very little. No world ever dreamed about Mere’s touch or the heat of her breath, and even if ten billion citizens knew Mere’s face, it didn’t mean that one of them ever woke up expecting her beside him in bed.
Missions were asymmetric, and because of that, they were infinitely beautiful. Standing where no human had stood was so much richer than copulating with a beast or high officer. Romance meant choice, but Mere never had choices with worlds. She went where she was needed and did what she did very well, and for as long as necessary, too. Had she ever studied a realm that didn’t deserve to be admired, if not outright worshipped? Once, perhaps twice, but no more than that. Love held the promise of disappointment, even out and out treachery. But the sane mind couldn’t be disappointed by worlds, much less blame them for their failures. Creative, experienced eyes could see the momentums that defined a planet, and Mere understood firsthand how the great momentums refused to be changed. Orbits and seasons were decided by suns
