(Nor had I, and now I probably never would. I longed for a few hours at the unlimited-service terminal I had had at Pajaro Sands. What directors if any had been killed on Red Thursday and its sequelae? What had the stock market done? I suspect that all really important answers never get into the history books. Boss had been requiring me to learn the sort of things that would eventually have led me to the answersÄbut he had died and my education stopped abruptly. For now. But I would still feed the Elephant's Child! Someday.)
"Mac, did Mosby hire you for this job? Guarding me in this ship.
"Eh? No, I've only had that one contact with Mosby and that under a phony. I was hired for this through a recruiter working for a cultural attach‚ of the Ambassador for The Realm in Geneva. This job isn't one to be ashamed of, truly. We are taking care of you. The best care."
"Must be dull with no rape."
"Ouch."
"What are your instructions about me? And how many of you are there? You're in charge, are you not?"
He hesitated. "Miss Friday, you are asking me to tell my employer's secrets. In the profession we don't do that... as I think you know."
"Fiddlesticks. You knew when you walked in that door that your life depended on answering my questions. Think back to that gang that jumped me on Dr. B~ildwin's farmÄthink what happened to them. Then speak up."
"I've thought about it, many times. Yes, I'm in charge... except, possibly, for TillyÄ"
"Which one is Tilly?"
"Sorry. Shizuko. That's a professional name. At UCLA she was Matilda Jackson. We all had been waiting in the Sky High Hotel almost two monthsÄ"
`We,' plural. Name them. Ship's roster names. And don't try to stall me with guff about the mercenary's code; Shizuko will be back in a few minutes."
He named themÄno surprises; I had spotted them all. Clumsy. Boss would never have tolerated it. "Go on."
"We waited and the Dirac warped without us and only twentyfour hours before warping time for the Forward we were suddenly alerted to leave in the Forward. Then I was supplied with color holos of you for us to studyÄand, Miss Friday, when I saw your picture, I almost fainted."
"Pictures were that bad? Oh, come, now."
"Huh? No, they were quite good. But consider where I saw you last. I thought that you had died in that fire. I, uh, well, you might say I had grieved over you. Some at least."
"Thank you. I think. Okay, seven, with you in charge. This trip isn't cheap, Mac; why do I need seven chaperons?"
"I had thought that you might tell me. Not that it is any of my business why you are making this trip. All I can tell you are my instructions. You are to be delivered to The Realm in perfect condition. Not a hangnail, not a bruise, not a sniffle. When we arrive, an officer of the palace guard comes aboard and then you're his prob
1cm. But we don't get paid our delivery bonus until you've had a physical examination. Then we are paid, and we deadhead home."
I thought about it. It was consistent with Mr. Sikmaa's worry over the "most valuable package a courier ever carried"Äbut there was something phony about it. The old belt-and-suspenders redundantbackups principle was understandableÄbut seven people, full-time, just to see that I did not fall downstairs and break my neck? It did not taste right.
"Mac, I can't think of anything else to ask you now, and ShizukoÄI mean `Tilly'Äis due back. We'll talk later."
"Very well. Miss Friday, why do you call me Mac?"
"That's the only name I've ever heard you called. Socially, I mean. At a gang rape we both attended. I'm reasonably sure that you are not `Howard J. Bullfinch.' What do you prefer to be called?"
"Oh. Yes, I was Mac on that mission. But I'm usually called Pete."
"Your name is Peter?"
"Uh, well, not exactly. It'sÄPercival. But I'm not called that."
I refrained from laughing. "I don't see why not, Pete. Brave and honorable men have been named Percival. I think that's Tilly at the door, anxious to bathe me and to dress me. One last word: Do you know why you are still breathing? Not dead?"
"Because you let me pee. Thank you for letting me pee before you handcuffed me to that bed."
He suddenly looked wry. "I got chewed out for that."
"You did? Why?"
"The Major intended to force you to wet the bed. He figured that it would help to make you crack."
"So? The bloody amateur. Pete, that was the point at which I decided that you were not totally beyond hope."
XXX
Outpost isn't much. Its sun is a G8 star, which puts it pretty far down the list of Sol-like stars since Sol is a G2. This is markedly cooler than our solar system star. But the star is not that important as long as it is a sol-type (G-type) star. (It may be possible to colonize around other types of stars someday but it seems reasonable to stick to stars with spectral distributions that match the human eye and don't pass out too much lethal radiationÄI'm quoting Jerry. Anyhow there are over four hundred C-type stars no farther from Earth than is The RealmÄso says Jaime LopezÄwhich could keep us busy for a few years.)
But assume a G-type star. Then you need a planet the right distance from it for it to be warm but not too warm. Then its surface gravity should be strong enough to hold its atmosphere firmly in place. That atmosphere must have had time to cook, in connection with evolving life, long enough to offer air suitable for life-as-weknow-it. (Life-as-we-don't-know-it is a fascinating subject but has nothing to do with colonization by Earth people. Not this week. Nor are we discussing colonies of living artifacts or cyborgs. This is about colonists from Dallas or Tashkent.)
Outpost just barely qualifies. It's a poor relation. Its sea-level oxygen is so scanty that one needs to walk slowly, as on top of a high mountain. It sits back so far from its star that it has just two sorts of weather, cool and freezing. Its axis stands almost straight up; it gets
its seasons from an eccentric orbitÄso you don't go south for the winter because the winter comes to you wherever you are. There is a growing season of sorts about twenty degrees each side of the equator but the winter is much longer than the summerÄof course. That "of course" refers to Kepler's Laws, the one about radius vectors and equal areas. (I cribbed most of this out of the Daily Forward.) When the prizes were handed out, Outpost was ahint the door.
But I was frantically eager to see it.
Why? Because I had never been farther away from home than LunaÄand Luna almost is home. Outpost is over forty light-years from Earth. Do you know how many kilometers that is? (Neither did I.) Here's what it is:
300,000 x 40.7 x 31,557,600 = 385,318,296,000,000 kilometers.
Round it off. Four hundred million million kilometers.
Ship's schedule called for us to achieve stationary orbit (22. 1 hours' orbital period, that being the length of the day at Outpost) at oh-two-four-seven and for the starboard landing boat to drop away very early in the morning (ship's time "morning")Äoh-three hundred sharp. Not many signed up for the rideÄthat's all it would be since no passenger would set foot on the groundÄas the midwatch isn't too popular an hour with most of our passengers.
But I would as lief miss Armageddon. I left a good party and went to bed at twenty-two hundred in order to soak up several hours of sleep before rise and shine. I got up at two o'clock and ducked into my bathroom, latching the door behind meÄif I don't latch it, Shizuko comes straight in behind me; I learned that my first day in the ship. She was up and dressed when I woke up.
Latched the door behind me and promptly threw up.