“Oh, no,” Li said. “Psychiatrists are nuttier than most people you’ll meet. I suppose it comes of listening all day to complaints and traumas. Doubtless I’m still in denial. Give me time and I’ll get insufferable.”
“Something to look forward to,” Blake said.
Dana asked, “Any more professional advice?”
“We’re confronting a terrible ending. It would do us all good to refocus on new beginnings.” Li tipped her head, considering. “Just a crazy idea, but suppose we rename the ship? Suppose that as a crew we come together on a new name?”
“Interesting,” Dana said. And at worst, harmless. “Why don’t you make the proposal?”
“Very well.” Li flipped on the intercom. “Everyone, this is Li. Despite the tragic events that have set us on our course, a part of me can’t help but be excited at the prospect of exploring a new world. We’ll be building a new home, establishing a new civilization, beginning new lives. What better way to mark this rebirth than with a new name for our ship?”
“I propose…Santa Maria.” As Antonio turned off his intercom pick-up, Marvin was saying something cryptic about string.
“Excellent,” Li said. “Other suggestions?”
“Mayflower,” Blake offered. “Of course that’s just the Bostonian in me talking.”
“Isn’t renaming a ship considered bad luck?” Carlos called. “Not that I believe in luck.”
“From the Department of Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud,” Blake whispered.
Dana went on the intercom. “If so, Carlos, that ship has sailed. So to speak. When the university bought this vessel, it was named Beaumont. That was fine for a delivery truck, but then Blake and I started flying around with experimental drives. At Blake’s suggestion we renamed the ship Clermont, after the first commercial steamship.”
Because I can pilot a ship knowing as little about its experimental drive as Robert Fulton knew about thermodynamics.
“As it happens, the name Clermont was Rikki’s suggestion,” Blake said. “I just passed it along. She’s the science historian.”
The intercom offered the clatter of things plastic and metallic, and then Carlos said, “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
“And you, Rikki?” Li asked. “What are your thoughts? How do you feel about a change from Clermont?”
“I’m for calling it Endurance,” Rikki said. “After the Antarctic exploration ship.”
Blake’s eyes flicked forward toward life support, where Rikki remained at work.
Dana toggled off the cargo hold’s intercom mike. “Blake, is something wrong?”
He shook his head, and she reactivated the control.
“How about you, Captain?” Li asked. “What name appeals to you?”
Dana said, “How about Endeavour? HMS Endeavour was a ship that James Cook sailed around the world, on the trip in which he discovered Australia and New Zealand. And by the way, he had renamed his ship; Endeavour wasn’t the original name. NASA called one of its Apollo command modules Endeavour; and also one of its early space shuttles. And the ship that Johansson first flew to Ceres was likewise an Endeavour. It’s an honored name, but I believe our aspirations are worthy of it.”
“I withdraw my suggestion,” Antonio said from the bridge. “I like Endeavour. That’s what we’re…doing: embarking on a great endeavor. And as unscientific as luck…is, we can use some. Endeavour sounds like an…auspicious name.”
A judgmental-sounding sniff came over the intercom. Carlos?
“I also like Endeavour,” Li said.
“Me, too,” Blake said.
“Carlos?” Li asked. “What’s your opinion?”
“I don’t care,” Carlos said. “Endeavour is as good a name as any.”
“I’ll make it unanimous,” Rikki said.
“Can I get back now to my skilled labor of counting?” Carlos asked.
Li mouthed, “Give him time.”
So much for the benefits of psychiatry, Dana thought. Picking up a lead sheet, she said, “Let’s all return to work.”
10
The hardest part was the not knowing.
Would Endeavour get clear in time? If not, its crew would die unaware. Without a planetary atmosphere to cushion the blow, the blast of the GRB would kill them in an instant. They could only keep running and hope for the best.
While they waited, they dug through the cargo, including things thrown aboard at the last minute. They sorted and stowed it all. They installed shielding. They ran full diagnostics on every ship’s system and cold-sleep pod, every cryostat and liquid-helium backup loop. They tweaked and tuned, calibrated and recalibrated everything.
Marvin assessed it all, assessed itself, and declared itself ready to take charge of the vessel—
Only to have its offer rebuffed.
As difficult as it was not to know, for as long as familiar planets shone brightly to stern no one wanted to withdraw into cold, dark oblivion.
*
The days since departure had become a blur.
Blake climbed up and down the ladder in Endeavour’s central corridor, his muscles aching. If he caught anyone but Dana doing this, he would read them the riot act. A tumble down the shaft under acceleration guaranteed broken bones, if not worse.
If anyone caught him, he’d assert his Earth-grown skeleton, med nanites that maintained it, and lots of shipboard experience—knowing that he was rationalizing. With Dana pounding away on the ship’s one piece of exercise gear, he had nowhere else to work out the stress.
If only he could sleep.
At two gees, no one slept well. At two gees, the usually comfortable knotted-rope hammocks became torture devices, determined to slice a person into stew meat. He had tried sacking out in one of the jump seats. He might have dozed in fits and starts.
Rikki somehow managed. When he had last peeked into the crew cabin, she’d been softly snoring.
Farther from home than Pluto was from the sun, they had gone farther than any human ever. Their speed, still climbing, verged on nineteen thousand klicks per second.
And yet they had gone only a small fraction of one percent of their way.
“Marvin,” Blake whispered. “What time is it?”
“Twenty minutes before eight,” the AI said.
Twenty minutes then until Blake was due for another cross-training session with Carlos. Today’s lessons: more on DED diagnostic modes in exchange for more tricks of nanotech-fabricator programming.
Twenty minutes was more than ample for a homeward look. No one had
