Lissa sat and looked at the landscape. The lack of any trees in the tall grass made it seem as if someone had peeled off some prairie and pasted it around the inside of the hollow like a rug. There was no wildlife, except for some earthworms. More would be done with the hollow’s ecology someday, but for now it was only a camping place for people who worked under the land. Suddenly, the barracks and dirt roads looked shabby to her. It was all comfortable enough, but it was not Bernal One, with its sophisticated urban elegance, or Earth, with its awesome beauty and haunting sense of history.
Her father’s last screen letter had told her that the experience of this journey would teach her a lot; but he didn’t know what was really going on, or that all humanity might be in danger.
I’m just slightly homesick
, she told herself.
“It is a dangerous journey,” Dr. Shastri had said when she had asked him about possible dangers to the asteroid. “But our advantage is that we’re housed in a large structure, and that with its new drive we can make the trip quickly.”
“What if the drive fails?”
“We have the torch cluster as backup, and we could even build a mass driver track if we had to. Those two methods would get us back to inner Sunspace very slowly, but we would get back. We’ve taken a lot of trouble to be able to carry so many trained people such a distance and back in such comfort. We want them to have no worries except their work. I don’t think we’ll have much to worry about with our equipment. It’s the unknown, the things no one can foresee, that may pose dangers.”
She had known everything Dr. Shastri would say. For much of the journey she would have nothing to do but continue with her studies and familiarize herself with theories about the structure of the outer solar system. The asteroid could stay out there indefinitely, she told herself, for years if it had to. There wasn’t much to worry about. Dr. Shastri had stressed the importance of the students to the expedition. Their minds would provide the least-conditioned reactions to the alien artifacts that might be found, and their fresh approaches might make all the difference. Their entire scientific careers would be shaped by what they did on this expedition.
Lissa and Susan had attended various meetings and listened to older teams discussing the problems that might be encountered. There were only four other students on the asteroid, two boys and two girls, but Lissa and Susan rarely saw them, since they lived in one of the overhead barracks complexes. Their own building housed a dozen physicists, men and women who got up early and came back very late. Occasionally one of the women would say hello, but most of the time Lissa and Susan were left alone.
Lissa took a deep breath and looked around at her new, still unformed world, feeling sympathy for its in-between condition. But there had been a time, she reminded herself, when Bernal One had been a complete blank on its inner surface, long before she had been born, before her father had arrived there. Everything begins shapeless and unaware, but already there was a sun here, greenery, and fresh air; and it was the same with her—she was already something, trembling on the edges of becoming more, despite her unhappy restlessness.
Maybe a walk would help. She could circle the inner world in less than two hours. She got up and went down the dirt road toward the watercolor sun. But after a few minutes she began to think again about why Dr. Shastri had chosen her for the expedition. All her ideas to date had been put forward by other people. What did it matter that she had been thinking along similar lines? What did Dr. Shastri expect her to accomplish? She told herself again that he was thinking of the future, that older researchers had once been young, but she still felt unconvinced. Dr. Shastri didn’t know for sure what she might be able to do, and she didn’t know either. Maybe it would be nothing at all, and she would disappoint everyone as well as herself.
The dusty road in front of her seemed to run straight into the sun. The light was warm on her face, but unlike that of the real Sun, it would not burn her skin or eyes; it was a tamed sun, a light plate, for human use only. She quickened her pace, feeling the gritty dirt crunch under her boots. She looked around, telling herself that she was lucky to be here, that there was no reason at all to feel lost and alone, not even Alek’s absence. Everything mattered and nothing mattered. He had put a spell on her, made her sick inside, and it was getting worse after she had thought it had gone away. Alek’s parting words had helped for a while only, and now she hovered on the edge of dismay. He should have been here, walking beside her, smiling and being himself, squeezing her shoulders, joking and brushing her cheeks with his lips… he should have been here!
She felt ashamed. There was something terribly wrong with the whole idea of love. It got in its own way, bringing pain and even greater obstacles. Human beings got together to be happy, to bring in the next generation and guide it to maturity because they themselves couldn’t live forever; but it seemed too complicated, too roundabout, to feel love and pleasure, to be rewarded and denied, to dream of other things and then be stricken with needs that were just waiting to spoil everything…
She looked at the timer on her wrist and saw that she had been walking for nearly an hour. She kept on and came to a high metal fence, where she stopped and looked out over the canyon at this end of the world. The sun plate stood on the other side, doing its job without a thought of pain or doubt.
She turned right and walked along the fence, running her palm across the metal weave. Listening to her own thoughts had made her jumpy, and the walk had not calmed her down.
The road veered away from the fence and headed back across the length of the asteroid toward another block of barracks. She realized that she was walking toward a complex that would be at a right angle to her own barracks; but as long as her feet stayed on the ground and her head pointed toward the empty space, the land directly ahead would seem level, curving away left and right, and closing above her head. And this worldlet, she reminded herself, was moving toward the outer solar system, slowly building up an awesome velocity. The asteroid’s path would resemble a very flat parabola, tending toward a straight line; and somewhere beyond the Orbit of Pluto, the worldlet might slip into a wide orbit around a dark body, a dead world of planetary size, and the search for the source of the alien signal would reach its final moments…
Ahead, among the buildings she was approaching, people were still doing some construction, molding ceramic materials into building components and fitting them together. She stopped and looked around the hollow. Barracks clusters now stood in every quadrant. The group she was approaching was the last to be completed; it would house the most recent arrivals, They had come in the last hours before the drive had been switched on, and had gone immediately to prepare their quarters.
She drew closer, wondering if Alek thought about her as often as she did about him. Maybe he had already forgotten her.
I’m so green
, she thought suddenly. It didn’t seem right when viewed from the outside, but it felt right from the inside no matter what she told herself; deep down, her feelings for Alek seemed strong and immovable. He was alive inside her. Images of him changed and spoke to her. She listened and watched within herself, tingling at times, yearning, reaching out toward him. It seemed that she might be able to steal into his mind and surprise him; but she always fell back into herself, dismayed by the distance between them.
Power tools hummed as she came along the road. Buildings in various stages of completion stood at her left and right. Men and women in helmets and goggles were heating sections together with white-hot probes.
Did growing up mean becoming emotionally dependent on a person who had once been a stranger? She had needed her parents, but they had chosen to have her; parents had to raise their kids, make them strong enough to go on their own. But Alek was someone she had found, a stranger who now held her feelings by long strings, pulling her toward him all the time despite what he had said; and part of her was glad the strings were there, attached to the mushy, weak parts of her that she didn’t understand…
She stopped and watched the construction. There was a worker kneeling on the roof of one barrack. He wore no shirt. She took a few steps closer. He stood up. The sweat glistened on him as he turned around, and she saw that it was Alek.
Lissa’s feelings raced.
He hadn’t noticed her yet. She probably looked very different in her blue coveralls and boots. She wanted to shout to him, but held back. What was he doing here? If he had taken the work to be with her, then why hadn’t he come to see her upon arrival? He might have called or sent a message easily. Suddenly she had the feeling that he might be embarrassed by her seeing him like this.
Slowly, she turned away, hoping that he wouldn’t see her.
“Lissa!” he shouted before she had gone ten paces.
She stopped, confused by her own feelings and the tone of his voice. He sounded harsh, and suddenly she didn’t want to see him, but she turned around in time to watch him leap down from the roof of the single story structure. He landed unsteadily on his feet, then fell on his hands in front of her.
“Are you hurt?” she asked as he looked up at her with a dirty face.
“No,” he said. “I should have realized that a small place like this would have a noticeable coriolis effect.”
“Didn’t they warn you that if you jump you might not come down where you planned?” she asked sternly.
“Yeah, they did,” he said, getting up and brushing dirt from his jeans.
She was looking at his face, but he avoided her eyes.
“Hello,” she said awkwardly.
He looked at her finally. “Hello. I guess you distracted me. I’ve made that jump before with perfect counterbalance.” He smelled sweaty and his hands were dirty. “Dr. Shastri got me this job,” he went on. “It’s not anything like yours, but I like it well enough, and there may be other opportunities.”
“I’m not doing much,” she said softly, feeling a bit guilty.
“But you will.”
She smiled. He smiled back.
“Come see me later?” she asked, feeling strange.
He nodded. “Sure, soon as they let me free for the day. I’d better get back, or I won’t have a place to live.” He turned away and climbed the ladder carefully.
Lissa started back toward her quarters, cutting across the tall grass instead of following the road. Once she looked back and saw Alek watching her from the roof. She waved, and he waved back. His barracks complex seemed to be at the top of a rise now, due to the inward curve of the asteroid.
Suddenly she had the feeling that she was being managed by Dr. Shastri. Alek was here to keep her happy, so that she would study and work. She wondered if that meant that Dr. Shastri thought little of Alek, and anyone else might have done just as well, as long as she was interested in him.
Alek was still looking at her. Neither of them had moved. He held up his hands in a questioning gesture. She waved again and turned away.
That evening, as she waited for Alek to come by, she sat at her desk worrying again about what Dr. Shastri expected of her. Because if he had gone to so much trouble to keep her happy, then he must be expecting something special, she told herself. The possibility of accomplishment excited and depressed her at the same time.
There was a knock on her door.
“Come in,” she said as faint laughter exploded from one of the nearby rooms, reminding her again that the sound insulation was not perfect in these barracks. It sounded like Susan again.
The panel slid aside after a moment. Alek came in, closing the door behind him. As he turned to face her, she noticed he had washed and put on fresh coveralls.
He smiled. “Hello, Lissa,” he said shyly, almost as if he were afraid of her.
She turned her chair and sat back as he went over and sat down on the corner of her bunk.
“So how have you been?” he asked.
“Okay, I guess. You sent no messages.”
“I know.” He looked at her. “Lissa, what is it? Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“You signed up for this only because of me, didn’t you?” She suddenly wanted him to say yes, and another part of her wanted him to say no.
“Well, not entirely. They needed craftsman trainees, and if I was willing, Dr. Shastri said, then I would be preferable to candidates from outside the Institute.”
Lissa’s pulse quickened in disbelief. “Don’t you see?” she demanded. “He let you come because of me!”
“I thought of that, but who cares? I
can
do the work, Lissa. Don’t you want me here?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that … It’s, well, I think it lowers you. You should be doing something else.”
He took a deep breath and stared at the floor. “Like what? Working for my father’s firm? I don’t know why this is a problem for you. I accepted Dr. Shastri’s offer, not you. I like what I’m doing. Besides, there’s a chance—”
“Do you, really?” She looked at him with surprise.
He stood up suddenly. “You know, I may have misjudged you. You’re just a snob, that’s all.” There was a bitter, sarcastic tone in his voice that made her afraid of him. She looked up at him and shook her head in denial, opening her mouth to say no and that she loved him, but her throat tightened and she couldn’t. “I guess we just didn’t know each other very well,” he said sadly.
“No,” she managed to say as she stood up.
“Oh, yes,” he replied firmly. “I’m here for myself. The pay is very good, the experience is interesting, and I’m looking forward to what I can learn, no matter how small my contribution. So you go about your business and I’ll go about mine.”
“Alek,” she started to say as he went to the door, opened it, and was gone. She stood there, unable to go after him, unable to feel what she thought she should feel. Maybe it was better to be free of him, she thought coldly as the faint sound of laughter crept again through the walls.
It seemed strange to her, in the following weeks, that she was able to continue with her studies so easily and with so much interest. The fact that Alek was nearby, and probably doing what he wanted, quieted her doubts and enabled her to work. She continued her routine degree work and tried to keep up with the progress of the tachyon engineers and the signal deciphers. Much of what was going on was still beyond her technical skills, but Augie broke it down into simple English: The transmitter was far from being ready, and the decipherers were now putting major effort into extracting pictures from the alien signal. Pictures were probably the sign language of interstellar communication, and might one day make it possible to build up a common language with the alien senders. But the number of pictures that were being fished out of the signal were few and far between. The one clear series, suggesting danger from the Oort Cloud, seemed to be the only real information that the senders cared to have understood.