Tau Zero

Chapter 13

The speed of light can be approached, but no body possessing rest mass can quite attain it. Smaller and smaller grew the increments of velocity by which Leonora Christine neared that impossible ultimate. Thus it might have seemed that the universe which her crew observed could not be distorted further. Aberration could, at most, displace a star 45°; Doppler effect might infinitely redden the photons from astern but only double the frequencies from ahead.

However, there was no limit on inverse tau, and that was the measure of changes in perceived space and experienced time. Accordingly, there was no limit to optical changes either; and the cosmos fore and aft could shrink toward a zero thickness wherein all the galaxies were crowded.

Thus, as she made her great swing half around the Milky Way and turned for a plunge through its heart, the ship’s periscope revealed a weird demesne. The nearer stars streamed past ever faster, until at last the eye saw them marching across the field of view: because by that time, years went by outside while minutes ticked away within. The sky was no longer black; it was a shimmering purple, which deepened and brightened as interior months went by: because the interaction of force fields and interstellar medium — eventually, interstellar magnetism — was releasing quanta. The farther stars were coalescing into two globes, fiery blue ahead, deep crimson aft. But gradually those globes contracted toward points and dimmed: because well-nigh the whole of their radiation had been shifted out of the visible spectrum, toward gamma rays and radio waves.

The viewscope had been repaired but was increasingly less able to compensate. The circuits simply could not distinguish individual suns any longer at more than a few parsecs’ remove. The technicians took the instrument apart and rebuilt it for heightened capacity, lest men fly altogether sightless.

That project, and various other remodelings, were probably of more use to those able to do the work than they were in themselves. Such persons did not withdraw into their own shells as did too many of their shipmates.

Boris Fedoroff found Luis Pereira on the hydroponics deck. An alga tank was being harvested. The biosystems chief worked with his men, stripped like them, dripping the same water and green slime, filling the crocks that stood on a cart. “Phew!” said the engineer.

Teeth gleamed under Pereira’s mustache. “Do not deprecate my crop that loudly,” he replied. “You will be eating it in due course.”

“I wondered how the imitation Limburger cheese got so realistic,” Fedoroff said. “Can you come for a discussion with me?”

“Could it not be later? We can’t stop until we are through. If spoilage set in, you would be tightening your belt for a while.”

“I don’t have time to waste either,” Fedoroff said, turning astringent. “I believe we’d rather be hungry than wrecked.”

“Carry on, then,” Pereira told his gang. He hopped from the tank and went to a shower stall where he washed quickly. Not bothering to dry or dress himself, on this warmest level in the ship, he led Fedoroff toward his office. “Confidentially,” he admitted, “I’m delighted at an excuse to knock off that chore.”

“You will be less delighted when you hear the reason. It means hard work.”

“Better yet. I was wondering how to keep my team from coming apart. This isn’t the sort of occupation that generates spontaneous esprit de corps. The boys will grumble, but they will be happier with something besides routine.”

They passed through a section of green plants. Leaves lined every passageway, filling the air with odor, rustling when brushed. Fruits hung among them like lanterns. You could understand why a degree of serenity remained in those who labored here.

“I’ve been alerted by Foxe-Jameson,” Fedoroff explained. “We’re near enough to the central galactic nebulae that he can use the new instruments that have been developed to get accurate values for the mass densities there.”

“He? I thought Nilsson was the observations man.”

“He was supposed to be.” Fedoroff’s mouth set in hard lines. “He’s going to pot. Hasn’t contributed a thing lately except quibbles and quarrels. The rest of his group, even a couple of men from the shop making their stuff, like Lenkei … they have to do what he should, as best they can.”

“That is bad,” Pereira said, lighthearted no more. “We were relying on Nilsson to design instruments for intergalactic navigation at ultra-low tau, were we not?”

Fedoroff nodded. “He’d better pull out of his funk. But that isn’t the problem today. We’re going to encounter the thickest stretch so far when we hit those clouds, because of relativity and because they are in fact thick. I feel reasonably confident we can pass through safely. Nevertheless, I want to reinforce parts of the hull to make sure.” He laughed like a wolf. “‘Make sure’ — on such a flight! At any rate, I’ll have a construction gang in here. You’ll have to move installations out of their way. I want to discuss the general requirements with you and start you thinking, so you can plan how to minimize the disturbance to your operations.”

“Indeed. Indeed. Here we are.” Pereira waned Fedoroff into a cubbyhole with a desk and a filing cabinet. “I will show you a schematic of our layout.”

They talked business for half an hour. (Centuries passed beyond the hull.) The trace of geniality he had shown at first, which was once the usual face he turned to the world, had vanished from Fedoroff. He was short-spoken to the point of rudeness.

When he had stowed the drawings and notes, Pereira said quietly: “You do not sleep well these nights, do you?”

“Busy,” the engineer grunted.

“Old friend, you thrive on work. That is not what drew those smudges beneath your eyes. It is Margarita, no?”

Fedoroff jerked in his chair. “What about her?” He and Jimenes had lived steadily together for several months.

“In our village, no one can help noticing she has a grief.”

Fedoroff stared out the entrance, into the greenness. “I wish I could leave her without feeling like a deserter,” he said.

“M-m-m … you recall I was often with her before she settled down. Perhaps I have an insight you don’t. You are not insensitive, Boris, but you seldom resonate with the feminine mind. I wish you two well. Can I help?”

“The thing is, she refuses to take antisenescence. Neither Urho Latvala nor I can budge her. No doubt I tried too hard and made her think I was browbeating. She’ll scarcely speak to me.”

Fedoroff’s tone harshened. He continued to watch the leaves outside. “I was never in love … with her. Nor she with me. But we became fond. I want to do anything I can for her. What, though?”

“She is a young woman,” Pereira said. “If our circumstances have made her, how shall I put it, overwrought, she might react irrationally to any reminder of age and death.”

Fedoroff swung about. “She’s not ignorant! She’s perfectly aware the treatment has to be periodic through a whole adulthood — or menopause will hit her fifty years before it needs to. She says that’s what she wants!”

“Why?”

“She wants to be dead before the chemical and ecological systems break down. You predicted five decades for that, didn’t you?”

“Yes. A slow, nasty way to go out. If we haven’t found a planet by then—”

“She remains Christian. Prejudices about suicide.” Fedoroff winced. “I don’t like the prospect either. Who does? She won’t believe it isn’t inevitable.”

“I suspect,” Pereira said, “the idea of dying childless is to her the true horror. She used to make a game of deciding on names for the large family she wants.”

“Do you mean — Wait. Let me think. Damn him, Nilsson was right the other day, about the unlikelihood of our ever finding a home. I have to agree, life in that case seems pretty futile.”

“To her especially. Facing that emptiness, she retreats — unconsciously, no doubt — toward a permissible form of suicide.”

“What can we do, Luis?” Fedoroff asked in anguish.

“If the captain was persuaded to make the treatments mandatory — He could justify that. Supposing we do reach a planet in spite of everything, the community will need each woman’s childbearing span at a maximum.”

The engineer flared up. “Another regulation? Reymont dragging her off the doctor? No!”

“You should not hate Reymont,” Pereira reproached. “You two are alike. Neither is a quitter.”

“Someday I’ll kill him.”

“Now you display your romantic streak,” Pereira said, attempting to ease the atmosphere. “He is pragmatism personified.”

“What would he do about Margarita, then?” Fedoroff gibed.

“Oh … I don’t know. Something unsentimental. For instance, he might co-opt a research and development team to improve the biosystems and organocycles — make the ship indefinitely habitable — so she could be allowed two children, at least—”

His words trailed off. The men stared gape-mouthed at each other. It blazed between them:

Why not?

Maria Toomajian ran into the gym and found Johann Freiwald working out on the trapezes. “Deputy!” she cried. Dismay shivered in her. “At the game room, a fight!”

He bounced to the deck and pelted down the corridor. The noise reached him first, an excited babble. A dozen off-duty persons crowded in a circle. Freiwald shoved through. At the middle, second pilot Pedro Barrios and bull cook Michael O’donnell panted and threw bare-knuckled blows. Slight harm had been done, but the sight was ugly.

“Stop that!” Freiwald bellowed.

They did, glaring. Folk had seen ere now the tricks that Reymont had drilled into his recruits. “What is this farce?” Freiwald demanded. He turned his contempt on the watchers. “Why didn’t any of you take action? Are you too stupid to understand what this kind of behavior can lead to?”

“Nobody accuses me of cheating at cards,” O’donnell said.

“You did,” Barrios retorted.

They lunged afresh. Freiwald’s hands shot out. He got a grip on the collar of either tunic and twisted, pressing into the Adam’s apples behind. The men flailed and kicked. He delivered a couple of fumikomi. They wheezed their pain and yielded.

“You could have used boxing gloves or kendo sticks in the ring,” Freiwald said. “Now you’re going before the first officer.”

“Er, pardon me.” A slim, dapper newcomer eased past the embarrassed witnesses and tapped Freiwald’s shoulder: cartographer Phra Takh. “I don’t believe that’s necessary.”

“Mind your own business,” Freiwald growled.

“It is my business,” Takh said. “Our unity is essential to our very lives. It won’t be helped by official penalties. I am a friend of both these men. I believe I can mediate their disagreement.”

“We must have respect for the law, or we’re done,” Freiwald replied. “I’m taking them in.”

Takh reached a decision. “May I talk privately with you first? For a minute?” His tone held urgency.

“Well … all right,” Freiwald agreed. “You two stay here.”

He entered the game room with Takh and shut the door. “I can’t let them get away with resisting me,” he said. “Ever since Captain Telander gave us deputies official status, we’ve acted for the ship.” Being clad in shorts, he lowered a sock to show the contusions on an ankle.

“You could ignore that,” Takh suggested. “Pretend you didn’t notice. They aren’t bad fellows. They’re simply driven wild by monotony, purposelessness, the tension of wondering if we will get through what’s ahead of us or crash into a star.”

“If we let anybody escape the consequences of starting violence—”

“Suppose I took them aside. Suppose I got them to compose their differences and apologize to you. Wouldn’t that serve the cause better than an arrest and a summary punishment?”

“It might,” Freiwald said skeptically. “But why should I believe you can do it?”

“I am a deputy too,” Takh told him.

“What?” Freiwald goggled.

“Ask Reymont, when you can get him alone. I am not supposed to reveal that he recruited me, except to a regular deputy in an emergency situation. Which I judge this is.”

“Aber … why — ?”

“He meets a good deal of resentment, resistance, and evasion himself,” Takh said. “His overt part-time agents, like you, have less trouble of that sort. You seldom have to do any dirty work. Still, a degree of opposition to you exists, and certainly no one will confide anything if he thinks Reymont might object. I am not a … a fink. We face no real crime problem. I am supposed to be a leaven, to the best of what abilities I have. As in this case today.”

“I thought you didn’t like Reymont,” Freiwald said weakly.

“I cannot say I do,” Takh answered. “Even so, he took me aside and convinced me I could perform a service for the ship. I assume you won’t let out the secret.”

“Oh no. Certainly not. Not even to Jane. What a surprise!”

“Will you let me handle Pedro and Michael?”

“Yes, do.” Freiwald spoke absently. “How many more of your kind are there?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Takh said, “but I suspect that he hopes eventually to include everybody.” He went out.