“You’re saying that’s okay, but what I’ve just done—”
“That’s different.”
“I knew you wouldn’t—”
“How could you expect me to—”
“Wait. Just wait, Nigel. Look, on a long expedition like this, what’s the point of being a woman? Having kids takes too much time, and anyway shipboard population shouldn’t be increased beyond—”
“Theoretical reasons.”
“Okay. I want to be in charge of, of a relationship. Not just helpful and supportive. And I wanted to try it. See what being a man—”
“Ummmm.”
“That damned ‘ummmm’ of yours! Sitting back, judging—a very male noise, Nigel. Well, I want to make that noise, too.” He made a sound halfway between a murmur and a grunt.
Nigel smiled slightly. “Carlotta, there’s more to—”
“Carlos.”
Something in the tone of the word made Nigel stiffen. “If you’re going to come between Nikka and me, I—”
“I wasn’t between you before?”
“Not this way, not—”
“Not as a ‘rival,’ as you so charmingly put it?”
“You’re twisting what I say.”
“Not as much as you think, what you really think.”
Nigel said coldly, “That remains—”
“Notice how much of a confrontation this has turned into? Two men, not giving an inch.”
“Why should I give—”
“You don’t have to. I’m not changing everything. We’ll still have a loose triangle. My relationship with Nikka will be different, but there’s no reason—”
“No. I don’t like it.”
“I want to, to face the world with a new persona. Try out this heavy, bulky body. You have no idea how it is.” Carlos rolled his thick shoulder muscles experimentally.
Despite himself, Nigel asked, “How different … is it?”
Carlos smiled in a friendly way. “Very.”
Carlos began to see Nikka, but never in Nigel’s company. Nikka found Carlos attractive, and Nigel could find no reason why he should object to her using the privileges they had always accorded each other. Their relationship had never been completely binding, after all. But the theoretical perspective did nothing to alter his deeply smoldering feelings of anger and, yes, envy. Carlos was younger and more vibrant, that was part of his appeal. He easily slipped into the fast pace of preparations for exploring the Ross system. Nigel spent time on the analysis net, but if anything it made him more withdrawn.
He spoke with Nikka about it. To her the facts were plain and, in the light of medicosurgery, unexceptional. Freedom to alter one’s sex was as basic as any other right. Nigel could accept this theoretically, but he came to an abrupt halt at the specific case of Carlos. There was something to the entire issue that set his teeth on edge, something beyond simple rivalry, and yet he could not get a sure grip on it. When he spoke his throat seemed to get tight, his voice dry and scratchy.
It was confusing to him, particularly since no one else, even Nikka, appeared to take the emergence of Carlos as more than a passing, mildly interesting bit of gossip. It cropped up in conversation among their friends for a week or so, and then vanished in the general hubbub about Ross 128.
Two
It’s a pretty faint little bugger, we can hardly make out any of its planets in the optical
Well down in the infrared I’m picking up plenty from the two terrestrial-sized planets looks like a high albedo on both of ’em
Wish we had a decent-sized star to reconnoiter this damn one’s small as Ra an’ got a lotta flares on it give a look at ’at corona big splotches all over it
Bound to be variable, all the small stars are, so according to theory those terrestrials’ll have big swings in the weather
Doesn’t look good for a stable biosphere on those
Outer planets all ’bout Saturn-sized lotsa moons and two rings, some asteroids between those two, looks like it’s a pretty standard pattern
Why the Isis Watcher would beam a signal to this dead place I dunno maybe a mistake, huh Nigel?
Wait until the returns are in
Got an image here yeah give a look that first terrestrial’s got no atmosphere, high albedo, must be bare rock
You got those IRs on the second yet I know there’s a malf in that sensor but we been waitin’ damn long time
Comin’ in now looks like mebbe 178 degrees kelvin, pretty cold, but we expected that with a pip-squeak sun to warm it, I sure don’t pick up much else
Some carbon dioxide, little ammonia—maybe a lot of ice an’ snow
Bring the right scope down some, that reflectivity it’s jumpin’ all over when I put it on tight beam, must mean there’s plenty of reflectin’ surfaces, ice fields I bet
No sign of bioactivity in that atmosphere dull as dishwater
The grav-lens told us it looked jolly crappy, no surprise there
Goddamn all this way an’ nothin’ but junk
We knew all along with an M star like this it was rather like expecting roses in a jam jar to look for a biosphere
Cold as a hoor’s tit an’ we’re years from any-thin’ interestin’ even if we had the juice to get there
Ted we haven’t lost all our thrust we could boost back up, just swing through the Ross system and head on out
I like ’at we could pick up couple months on gettin’ back up to near-light speed ’stead of wallowin’ round in this icebox
Better hurry up on it if we’re gonna do it got a critical transition comin’ up in the reaction engines Ted
Bloody hell we’re not done with recon yet
Betcher butt there won’t be nothin’ to see
Nothing alive that’s for sure
Scrub it I say
We need a vote ’a the whole ship to do ’at
Na, rule is section leaders can decide in a pinch an’ this sure as hell is one
Janet send in a formal request from ExoBio if it’s your judgment that there’re no life sites here
Alex you’re in the net still—aren’t you?—Alex?—he isn’t repped in
So skip him there’s no time
No I can’t make a decision—with Section leaders’ consent of course—until I’ve heard from Alex
The big radio dishes aren’t fully deployed yet I don’t see
Ted this is Alex—sorry we had a resolution problem on aft antenna but I’ve got the outer part of the Ross system mapped now, the big gas giants and there’s something there with a lot of metal in it
Step up the gain I need more detail
Ted this is Nigel it’s just not on to cancel this early
Christ don’t listen to him this is ExoBio Ted look he’s just tryin’ to stretch out the encounter time to prove out this theory of his that nobody believes anyway an this’s the last hurrah anyway for him I say we boost soon’s Alex
Yeah we can pick up rest of the data on the flyout
We got a good fraction of the minimum already