"Mind if I join you?"
Ian awoke from his reverie to find Ellen standing in the doorway. " Ahh, sure. Thought you'd be asleep."
"Felt like taking a midnight stroll." She chuckled softly. Coming forward, she slipped into the Co seat next to Ian.
"You look rather pensive."
"Oh, just watching the show pass by."
"It's rather frightening at times," Ellen said softly.
"How so?"
"Come on, Ian. In my book, you were the original coward. I thought you would still be quaking at the pros pects of this voyage."
He didn't take offense at her statement. And rather than ducking it, he had a strange compulsion to talk it out. "First of all, I did feel terror, cold stark terror, when I finally started to realize what this voyage was. I can almost understand how medieval man was stunned and terrified by Copernicus. Before him the world was small, safe, the center of God's will. After Copernicus eternity stretched out before us and such a thing was beyond our ability to grasp, thus the blind terror of it all.
"When I realized just how far we would travel, just how far away from Earth we were going, how far we were traveling from that damn little campus, I was struck with fear. The thought of this frail, delicate body hurtling at jump speed for trillions of miles was beyond my ability to deal with on a rational basis. I tried to soothe myself with the thought of the romance of it, but that's a bunch of shit. There isn't any romance, there never is any ro mance when you're out doing it. Maybe years later we'll talk about how romantic it all was. The romance of ad venture exists only in the memory. Any good historian could tell you that."
"Sounding philosophical tonight."
"Comes with soaring in space for too long. It gives you the chance, the time to separate yourself from the mun dane. I think I can understand the attraction the explorers of long ago felt for the sea. Out there the mundane cares of the rest of the world were lost in a never-ending change which was the sea, the wind at your back…"
"But it's so cold," Ellen whispered. "I look out at this immensity and I feel so small, so alone."
"Precisely. And that is where you lose yourself. I've imagined at times that this voyage could soar on forever, across the endless sea."
"And I see it merely as a mission and then a trip home. Don't you want to go home, Ian?"
"What for? To go back to faculty meetings and the monthly confrontations with Dr. Ellen Redding?"
"All right, Ian, you made your point. You know, I've tried at times to analyze why we can't stand each other. For that matter, why I can't stand most people,"
He was tempted to let fly with a sarcasm, but let it pass. Ellen was making an effort. Rare, to be sure, but it was an effort.
He took a deep breath and made the plunge. "When I hear the name Ellen Redding I picture a florid, freckled, five-foot-three, slightly overweight, middle-aging adoles cent, who still behaves at times like she is the ingenue of the high school set."
He quickly held up his hand to ward off the explosion, but it didn't come. She just sat silently, and he wasn't sure if the blush on her face was a signal for a fireball or for tears.
"And I think she resents it all," Ian continued. "She wishes to be something else. The classic beauty, the truly talented artist, the person who lives in the same circle as the Chancellor or with the literati of New Bostem, and instead is stuck in a backwater town. So you lash out, Ellen. You lash out at this overweight, balding, none-too- competent history professor. A male of the species who can represent all the males who never gave you an even break just because of your sex and lack of sexuality. And I guess I'm saying this 'cause I'm a long way from home. I'm still a coward underneath it all, and I want to bury the hatchet."
"Ian, you never did learn tact. You never did learn how to tell the truth without cutting flesh."
She turned away for a moment. "I think I'd almost miss cutting you up."
"There's always Richard."
"That slob?"
"Sure he's a slob-a frustrated slob who never had the right connections in a system that required it. A slob who was a little too sensitive when it came to practicing medicine, and hid it with a couple of drinks too many. And anyhow, Ellen, you make him happy."
"I make him happy! I'm not sure I heard that correctly."
"Sure, Ellen, think of it. Where would you and Richard be if you didn't have each other to insult? I half believe we enjoy our antagonisms as much as we do our loves. It gives us the energy to face what otherwise would be a very boring existence. Think of it this way, Ellen, you make Richard happy in a deep personal way every time you insult him."
She turned and looked at Ian. She wasn't sure if his speech wasn't some sort of elaborate joke planned by Richard and Ian, or if she was experiencing a moment of truth between the two of them.
Then the alarm kicked on and within seconds Stasz wandered sleepy-eyed, into the cabin to check the console printouts for navigation prompts.
As Ellen walked out of the cabin, Ian would have sworn that she smiled at him.
Chapter 9
Colonial Unit 122
First Completion Date: 2063
Primary Function: International Feminist Foundation. Organization founded by radical feminists in 1994 to "create a lifestyle totally removed from a male- dominated infrastructure."
Evacuation Date: According to Copernicus Base Record, July 19, 2083. Believed to be one of the first units to depart near-Earth space.
Overall Design: Single Torus 900 meters in diameter with central shaft 500 meters in length.
Propulsion: Standard Modification Design, strap-on matter/antimatter packs mounted to nonrotational central shaft.
Course: Delta Sag.
Political/Social Orientation: Anglo-American, Radical Feminist. Taught doctrine of removal of the male spe cies. Thousands of sperm samples were taken and all Y chromosome sperm destroyed. The result was bil lions of frozen X sperm, creating a potential "pool" capable of providing enough fertilization capabilities to last for several hundred generations.
"Hard Dock!" Stasz announced, turning to look back at the rest of the crew.
"Any reading yet on which unit this is?" Richard asked.
"There're no external markings," Shelley replied. "The beacon is off, and all I have to go on is the design. There are thirteen single- torus models listed in our records."
"Shall we go?" Ian said softly, as he eased out of his seat and drifted aft to the docking port. "Who's game for this one?"
"What the hell?" Richard responded as he slipped out and followed Ellen.
As they suited up with businesslike calm. Ian could remember the fear and anticipation of his first boarding, but that seemed like ages ago, as if he possessed the memories of someone else.
"We're throwing the hatch," Ian said as the manual airlock to the colonial unit slowly opened. Instinctively he braced himself as the hatchcover parted. A quick flash of memory caused his pulse to jump. But nothing was there except for the usual corridor leading to the second airlock.
They closed the doorway behind them, and in the soft glow of their headlamps Ian pulled the manual release for the inner airlock door.
"Holy shit!" Richard murmured. The words flowed out of him in reverent awe, as if he had suddenly looked into a celestial radiance.
The words were on lan's lips, as well. A single woman stood before them, as if Eve had appeared incarnate from the Garden, her body clothed as was Eve's before the fall from grace.
"Damn me," Richard said, "what the hell do we have these things on for? She looks safe enough without 'em." And before Ian could stop him, Richard unsnapped his helmet and pulled it off. He moved closer to the woman and smiled, hoping the slight odor of gin would not prove too offensive.