Starborne (40 page)

But there are some aboard who have become deeply bemired in funk. Thes
e are the ones who had chosen, for whatever reason, to put a great many emotional chips down on the success of the Planet B mission, and were devastated by the spectacular failure of their wagers. Elizabeth is part of this group, and Imogen, and Sylvia, a
n
d several of the men: Roy, Elliot, Chang, Jean-Claude. Among these, who now spend most of their time at
Go
in the gaming lounge, there has begun to be some talk of giving up the voyage entirely, of swinging around and heading back to Earth.

“
Don
’
t be idiot
s,”
Paco says. “
I can
’
t even imagine creeping back there.”

“
You can
’
t imagine it,”
says Elliot. “
But I can.”

Elliot
’
s specialty is urban planning; it is Elliot who will design the future extraterrestrial settlements that the
Wotan
people hope to found. Sin
ce the Planet B fiasco he has convinced himself that he will never get a chance to practice his profession among these alien worlds, that the enterprise on which they all are bound is quixotic and foolish. Marcus
’
s death has affected Elliot deeply; so has
the loss of contact with Earth.

Paco says to him, “
If you want to go back, Elliot, why don
’
t you go? Maybe Huw will let you have one of the drone probes, and you can ride back to Earth in that. You and whoever else wants to go home. It
’
ll take you about th
ree hundred years, give or take five or six, but if you
’
re as homesick as all that you won
’
t mind waiting a
—”

“
Stop it, Paco,”
Elizabeth says.

Paco turns to her. “
You
’
d like to go with him, wouldn
’
t you? Well, that
’
s fine with me. I
’
ll even calculate the c
ourse for you, if you like.”
The Paco-Heinz-Elizabeth triad has just about collapsed in recent weeks; Heinz has been sleeping in a random, intermittent way with Jean-Claude and sometimes with Leila; and Paco, though he still spends some of his nights with
Elizabeth and the occasional one with Heinz, has drifted off into a collateral entanglement with Giovanna. “
Here,”
Paco says, grabbing Elizabeth roughly and shoving her against Elliot. “
She
’
s all yours. My blessings.”

Elliot is so annoyed that he pushes he
r back. Heinz gathers Elizabeth up as she rebounds from Elliot and tucks her against the side of his chest. To Paco he says quietly, “
Can you try to calm down a little?”

“
I hate all this talk of giving up and going back to Earth. It
’
s co
m
pletely insane.”

“
Is it, now?”
Roy asks, looking up from the game of
Go
he is playing with Noelle. He is another who has let it be known that he may have a
l
ready had a sufficiency of nospace travel.

“
Of course it is. We
’
re here to do a job, and we
’
re going to do it. Julia
’
s
right
—
one or two bad planets, that doesn
’
t mean a thing. We
’
ve only begun to search. Besides, do you think anyone could ever talk the captain into turning back? Has that man ever turned back from anything in his life?”

“
He doesn
’
t necessarily have to go o
n being captain forever,”
Elliot says, a little sullenly. “
The job was supposed to be for one year. We gave him three. We could replace him.”

“
With someone who wants to bring the voyage to an end?”
Paco asks. “
Somebody willing to turn back, you mean?”

“
Abs
olutely.”

Huw says, from the corner where he is playing a languorous game of
Go
with Chang, “
He would never step down in favor of anyone who would take that position. He may not have wanted to keep the job this long, but he
’
ll keep it forever rather than h
and it over to someone who
—”

“
I
’
m not talking of asking him voluntarily to step down,”
says Elliot. “
I
’
m talking of replacing him.”

“
Mutiny?”
Huw asks. “
Is that the word you
’
re looking for?”

“
A new captain,”
says Elliot doggedly. “
That
’
s what I
’
m looking f
or. And a new direction for the voyage.”

“
You
’
re talking mutiny,”
Huw says, lost in wonderment. “
You
’
re talking a coup-d
’
etat aboard the ship, overthrowing the captain by force, abandoning the Articles of the Voyage completely
—”

“
He
’
s talking idiocy,”
Paco
says. “
He
’
s talking like a lunatic. He ought to be sedated. Where
’
s Leon?”
Leon is playing
Go
with Sylvia. He looks up, scowling. “
Leon, we
’
ve got a crazy man here for you to take care of! Give him an injection of something, will you?”

“
Please,”
Noelle sa
ys, very softly.

She has been silent up until now, concentrating entirely on her game, bending over her
Go
board as though it is the entire universe. As it so often does, the very softness of her tone succeeds in drawing the atte
n
tion of everyone in the ro
om, and they all look in her direction.

“
Please,”
she says again. “
We mustn
’
t fight like this. The voyage is going to continue. You know it will, Elliot. It
has
to. So why even talk about these things?”

“
We have to talk about them, Noelle,”
says Elliot, so
unding a little abashed at persisting. No one wants to be on the wrong side of a discu
s
sion with Noelle, because she is widely believed to possess a kind of innate incontrovertible wisdom. And also they all have a horror of i
n
volving her in any kind of con
frontation, so fragile does she seem to them. “
Ever since we lost contact with Earth,”
Elliot goes on, “
can it really be said that the expedition still has a purpose?”

“
Its purpose is to find another world where people can live,”
says Noelle. “
And we haven
’
t lost contact with Earth.”

There is a general gasp of amazement in the room.

“
We haven
’
t?”
several of them ask at once.

Noelle smiles. “
Not forever. I
’
m sure of that. It
’
s just a temporary thing, this interference, these
‘
angels
’
that Heinz was talking a
bout
—”
Every one of them is staring intently in her direction now. “
I
’
m going to try to speak with them,”
she says. “
You know that I promised to do that. To speak with them, to ask them to let me make contact with my sister again. If I can do that
—
and if
t
hey agree
—”

***

So the project of making contact with the angels is alive once again, at Noelle
’
s own instigation, after having been in suspension the whole time of the Planet B event. The hope of regaining contact with Earth i
n
spires them all; the
mood of despair that has enshrouded so many of them since the return of Huw and the year-captain from Planet B begins to lift.

The project is alive, yes, but nothing actually is attempted just yet. The days go by
—
they are heading now toward Planet C, a hu
ndred fi
f
teen light-years from Earth in some entirely different part of the galaxy from the one they have just visited
—
and it is assumed by everyone that Noelle is preparing herself to reach out in some telepathic fashion t
o
ward the extraterrestrial beings
that supposedly have interrupted the contact between her and her sister. But the two people who are most closely concerned with the project
—
the year-captain, who must give Noelle the order to make the attempt, and Noelle herself
—
are both in their separat
e
ways uneasy about the enterprise to which Noelle has so publicly committed herself. And so both of them in their separate ways have hesitated to move forward with it.

Noelle has never so much as experimented with opening her mind to anyone but her sister,
and the idea is a little troublesome to her. It seems almost like an act of infidelity. But, on the other hand, doing it might very well restore the contact with Yvonne that has been the most pr
e
cious thing in her life. Therefore Noelle remains willing to
try it, if u
n
certain about how the task is actually going to be accomplished, when and if. But she is waiting for the year-captain to tell her to initiate the maneuver.

The year-captain is holding back, though, as he has from the moment any of this first
surfaced, because he is afraid that Noelle will somehow be damaged in the attempt.

He has had a classical education. The myth of Semele is very much on his mind.

“
Who was she?”
Noelle asks him, when he allows some of his co
n
cern to slip into view.

“
Semele
was the daughter of an ancient Greek king,”
he tells her. They are in the ship
’
s recreation area, where they have just been swi
m
ming in the long, narrow lap-pool, and now they are sitting along the edge of the pool with their legs dangling in the water. “
Z
eus had taken her as one of his lovers.”
Noelle has turned toward him, and she seems to be listening carefully, but her face is completely expressionless. “
You know who Zeus was? The chief of the Greek gods, the ruler of the un
i
verse.”

“
Yes. Yes.”

“
And qui
te a ladies
’
man. Zeus was completely infatuated with bea
u
tiful young Semele, and had a child with her, who was destined to grow up to be the god Dionysus; and Hera, Zeus
’
s wife, who had had to put up with much too much of this stuff during the course of h
er marriage and didn
’
t care for it, decides to take action. She dons human disguise and goes to visit Semele and asks her if she knows who it is that she
’
s been sleeping with. Yes, says Semele proudly, he is Zeus, the father of the gods. And have you ever
seen him in all his glory? Hera asks. No, says Semele, never, he always comes to me in the form of a man. Well, then, says sly Hera, you should ask him to reveal himself to you in his full majesty. Now, that would be something to see!”

“
I think I know this
story,”
Noelle says.

Nevertheless the year-captain does not halt in his telling of the tale. “
The next time Zeus comes to her, Semele says to him, You never show yourself to me as you really are. And Zeus says, No, no, that would be too much for you, the
sight would be overwhelming. But Semele insists. She reminds Zeus that he had promised her, long ago, to grant any wish that she might make. To refuse her nothing. Zeus is trapped. He can
’
t go back on his promise, though he knows what
’
s going to happen. S
o
, r
e
luctantly, he gives Semele what she
’
s asking for. There is a tremendous clap of thunder and Zeus appears before her in his chariot in a great a
u
rora of light. No human being can look upon the true form of Zeus and survive. Semele is destroyed by the he
at that emanates from the god. She is burned utterly to ashes by it; and so Hera has had her revenge.”