captaincy are either unwilling to take the job or else unsuitable by virtue of their existing responsibilities.
In the end, they decide quietly to canvass the ship’s entire complement and present the year-captain with the results of the tally. This is done; and the vote confirming his reelection is unanimous. Huw, Heinz, Julia, and Leon agree to be the members of the delegation that will bring this news to the year-captain. At the last moment Noelle, who has been present in the gaming lounge while this part of the operation is under discussion, asks to be included in the group.
“No,” says the year-captain instantly when he is apprised of what has been going on. “Forget it. Don’t waste your time even thinking about it. My term is coming to its end, thank God, and you have to start finding somebody else to be captain.”
“The vote, you know, was unanim—” Leon begins.
“So? What of it?” the year-captain demands, speaking over him. “Did anyone consult me? Did anyone take the trouble to ask me whether I was going to be a candidate for reelection? Which I most emphatically do not intend to be. I took this second term with the greatest reluctance and I’m not going to take a third term under any circumstances whatsoever. Is that clear?”
Of course it’s clear; it’s been clear to everybody for a long time. But they can’t accept his refusal, because the ship must have a captain, and no other satisfactory and electible prospect for that job is on the horizon. They tell him this, and he tells them once again how adamant he intends to be about his desire to give up his office, and for a time everyone is speaking at once. A great deal of heat is generated, but not much light.
In a moment of sudden stillness that pops with almost comic predictability into the general hubbub, Noelle’s quiet voice abruptly is heard for the first time: “Is the rule about not being able to be part of the landing expedition the thing that makes you not want to go on being captain?”
“Of course it is.”
“And that’s the only reason? There’s nothing else?”
He considers that for a moment. “Nothing of any real significance, I suppose.”
“Then why don’t we change the rule?” Noelle asks.
They all look thunderstruck by the sheer simplicity of her suggestion, even the year-captain. Leon is the first to speak, finally. “The rule isn’t just an arbitrary nuisance. Planetary landings are risky things, and we are under orders not to risk the life of the year-captain in adventures of that sort.”
“But if there isn’t going to be any year-captain at all unless we allow the one we have to take that risk,” Julia says, “then what good is the—”
“Besides,” Leon continues implacably, “we have all agreed
Now it is Noelle who cuts in. “There’s no way we can consult with Earth,” she points out. “The contact has been severed. You know that.”
“Even so,” says Leon, “we have an obligation to maintain and uphold—”
“What obligation? To whom?” Heinz says. And Huw calls out boomingly, “Hear, hear! Hear, hear!”
There is another round of hubbub. This time the year-captain restores order by rapping on the cabin wall with the flat of his hand until they are all silent.
Then he says, in a chilly take-no-prisoners voice, “We have here the seeds of a compromise, I think. I’ll agree to accept the captaincy for another year provided we amend the Articles of the Voyage to permit me to take part, at my sole discretion, in any future missions of planetary exploration that may occur during my term in office.”
“It can’t be done,” Leon cries. “Earth will have a fit!”
“Earth won’t ever know a thing,” says Heinz. “We’re permanently out of touch with Earth. Isn’t that so, Noelle? No contact with your sister any more, and no hope of restoring it?”
“That’s so,” Noelle says, in a tone that barely rises above a whisper.
“Well, then. We’re on our own from now on, right?” declares Heinz triumphantly. “Sorry, Leon. We can’t let ourselves worry about what positions Earth may take about decisions that we choose to make. We just have to make the best possible decisions for ourselves in the light of changing circumstances that Earth couldn’t begin to understand anyway.” He turns toward the year-captain. “Let’s hear it once more, captain, just to be sure that we have it right. You’ll take the job for another year, under the condition that we change the rules so that you can go off for a look at Planet B, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“And if we don’t change the present rules about planetary landings, there’s nothing else that could induce you to stay on in office?”
“Nothing.”
Now Heinz faces the others again. “So it’s a take-it-or-leave-it situation, friends. We can have the year- captain on his terms or not at all. Under the circumstances, considering that Earth’s wishes in this matter are not only unknown but are unknowable and irrelevant as a result of the unfortunate breakdown in communications with Earth, I propose that we regard ourselves as free agents from this point onward, and that we call a general assembly and put the matter of amending the Articles to a vote.”
“Seconded,” Huw and Julia say at the same time.
Leon sputters but says nothing.
So there is an agreement of sorts. The delegates leave, and later in the day the proposal is put to a vote of the entire voyage, and it is passed handily, with Leon the only voice in opposition. The year-captain accepts the outcome with reasonably good grace. Despite it all, he is almost as uneasy as Leon about amending the Articles; there is something disturbingly nihilistic about doing that, a kind of blithe lawless willfulness that offends his sense of the proper order of things. They
But Heinz is right. With contact apparently lost for good — Noelle continues to have no luck in reaching Yvonne — Earth has ceased to be a major factor in their calculations: has ceased to be a factor at all, really. Where an Article proves itself to be unworkable, they themselves must be the only judges of whether it is to be amended. Besides, the Articles call for a change in the captaincy every year, and that rule has been, if not amended, then simply ignored. And so, in consequence of that, they must now dispense with the one about penning up the year- captain aboard the ship. Once again some new planet is about to swim into their ken, as Huw likes to say, and this time the year-captain does not intend to be left behind when they go down to look at it. That’s the essential thing now. He does not intend to be left behind.
So my third term as year-captain now begins. I think I should perhaps get used to the idea of bolding this job for the rest of my life.
The election was a grubby thing, of course, a lot of shameless political bargaining. But the deal is done: they have their quid, I have my quo, and that’s that. I’m used to being captain by now. Ironic, considering how elaborately I always used to go out of my way to spare myself from taking on the responsibilities of society; but what I used to do can’t be allowed to control my sense of what must be done now.
The ship has to have a captain. I seem to be the right person for the job. What I need is to continue traveling the course I chose for myself long ago, which means continued exploration of one kind or another. What Earth needs—
Yes, what Earth needs. I must never forget about that.
Poor old Earth! All the ancient squalor is gone, most of the pain — and yet something is wrong. Disease and hunger are conquered. Life is just about eternal if you want it to be that way. War is something we read about in history texts, something anthropological and remote, an odd obsolete practice of our ancestors, like cannibalism or bloodletting. And yet! Something wrong! I think back through all that I know of human history, and I know a great deal, really — the plagues, the massacres, all the episodes of torture for the sheer fun of it, the great and petty vilenesses, the whole catalog of sins that Sophocles and Shakespeare and Strindberg understood so well — and I wonder why we aren’t more jubilant about what we have attained in our own time. What I have to conclude is that we are a driven race, never satisfied with anything, even with utter blissful contentedness. There’s always something missing, even in perfection. And our awareness of that missing something is what drives us on and on and on, forever looking for it.
