“What we need to do,” he echoed.
Then he asked, “Like what?”
Washen had to laugh, quietly and sadly.
“You’re the Master Captain here,” she replied. “My only duty is to serve the Great Ship, and you.”
Thirty-nine
“There is a place,” Miocene reminisced, inviting her son and the other high-ranking Waywards to accompany her on a little journey. “It’s very high, and quite secure, and perfect for watching the burn.”
It would be a moment rich in symbolism, and more important, a moment of pure vindication.
But Till wore a doubting expression. He looked past Miocene, then said, “Madam,” and gave the smallest of bows. “Is this trip absolutely necessary? Considering the risks, I mean. And the thin benefits.”
“Benefits,” she echoed. “Did you count tradition?”
He knew better than to respond.
Miocene said, “No, you didn’t,” and laughed gently, her scorn barely showing. Then she told him, “This is a noble tradition. The Master Captain and her loyal staff stand on the open deck, watching as their ship turns in the wind.”
“Noble,” he replied, “and ancient, too.”
“We’ve done it on board this ship,” she promised. “Many, many times.”
What could he say?
Before any answer was offered, she added, “I appreciate what you’re thinking. That we might be too exposed. Too vulnerable. Open to some celestial disaster—”
“Not on the trailing hemisphere, madam. I know that much.”
“Then you’re worried about a closer, more emotional enemy.” Master or mother, her task was to lend confidence. To inspire, and hopefully, instruct. “No one else knows about this venture. There isn’t time to prepare an ambush. And believe me,” she added, a swollen hand lifting into the air between them, “I’m strong enough to defend us from any part of the ship, and anywhere on its enormous hull, too.”
Frantic days had brought a transformation. The new Master sat on the old Master’s bed. She wasn’t as vast as her predecessor, but the trend was obvious. Interlocking networks of nexuses lay beneath her century-old skin, speaking to one another in dense lightspeed languages, and speaking to the ship’s important systems in a tangle of frequencies and coded wisps of laser light. A newborn instinct told Miocene that the reaction chambers were being fueled and readied. She could practically taste the cold compressed hydrogen being drawn from the deep tanks. This giant burn, scheduled millennia ago, would happen without delay or embarrassment. How could anyone doubt that she was in charge? The symbolism was blatant. Nervous passengers would take comfort in the burn. The disgruntled crew would have to admit that this old woman knew what she was doing. And the Milky Way would notice, trillions of potential passengers having even more good reasons to forget the old Master and her incompetent ways.
Soon and in countless ways, Miocene would improve her ship. Efficiencies would jump. Confidence would blossom. The ship’s prestige would swell as a consequence, and with her guiding hand, the knowledge of a million species would be beamed home, enriching humanity as well as the Master’s personal legacy. For the last century, whenever she wanted a taste of pleasure, Miocene had imagined the glorious day when the ship would complete its circuit of the galaxy, approaching the Earth after a half-million-year absence. By then, and mostly because of her work, humanity would dominate their little portion of the universe. And with her loyal, loving son at her side, she would accept every honor and the radiant blessings from a people that would have no choice but see her as a god and savior.
“The universe,” she whispered, speaking to herself.
Till leaned closer, asking, “What did you say, madam?”
“You need to see it for yourself,” she replied. “The stars. The Milky Way. Everything, and in its full glory.”
A shifting expression became simple doubt.’I have seen it,” Till reminded her. “By holographic light, and perfectly rendered.”
“Nothing rendered is perfect,” she countered.
Then before her son could say anything else, she reminded him, “One of us is the Master. The other is her First Chair.”
“I know that, madam.”
With a wide hand, she touched her son on the forehead, the slender nose, then with a single finger, she fondled the handsome strong chin. “Perhaps it’s too much of a risk,” she allowed. “You can make a good argument, yes. So it will be just you and me watching the burn. Is that a worthy compromise?”
He had no choice but to say, “Yes, madam. Yes, Mother’ But as always, Till said the words with a convincing enthusiasm, wrapped right in a smile that couldn’t have been any brighter.
The ship’s hull was thinnest on the trailing face—a few dozen kilometers of original, nearly virginal hyperfiber laced with access tunnels and cavernous pipes and pumps vast enough to move oceans. Aesthetics as well as security issues played a role; Miocene and Till traveled inside one of the main reaction chambers. Nothing lived here, and next to nothing came here. Against the banks of perfect mirrors, there was no place to hide. And since no one but Miocene could fire these engines, they could pass untroubled, their swift little car rising into the craterlike maw of the rocket nozzle, the sky above them illuminated by a billion fires, each of them dwarfing the powers of their magnificent machine.
“The stars,” said Miocene, and she couldn’t help but grin.
Till looked very young, standing with his hands holding each other behind his back, his back arched and his boot-clad feet slightly apart, his uniform and cap and the wide brown eyes reflecting the brilliance of the universe.
For a moment, he seemed to smile.
Then he closed his eyes and turned to her, and he opened his eyes again, admitting, “They’re lovely. Of course.”
Of course.
Disappointment grabbed Miocene. Had she really believed that a naked-eye look at the Milky Way would cause a revelation? That Till would throw up his arms and drop to his weak knees in a wonderstruck rapture?
She was disappointed, and worse, she was infuriated.
Perhaps sensing her mood, Till asked, “Do you remember when, Mother? When you looked into a nanoscope and saw your first naked proton?”
She blinked, then confessed, “No.”
“One of the essential bones of the universe,” he chided. “As vital as the stars, and in its own way, more spectacular. But it was real to you before you saw it. Intellectually, and emotionally, you were prepared.”
Miocene nodded, saying nothing.
“From the moment that I was reborn and for every day since, people have talked about the stars. Describing their beauty. Explaining their physics. Assuring me that the simple sight of a sun will fill me with awe…”
What would it take to impress Till?
“Frankly, Mother. After such an enormous buildup, I think the sky looks rather thin. Almost insubstantial. Which is doubly disappointing, since we’re close to one of the galaxy’s big arms. Aren’t we?”
If Miocene ignited the engine beneath them, Till would be impressed.
For a fiery instant, yes.
Smiling in a thin, almost mocking fashion, she looked ahead. Their car swerved abruptly, heading for the parabolic nozzle. Ancient hyperfiber had been blackened by corrosive plasmas, leaving a featureless wall that appeared close when it was distant, then remote as they slowed and suddenly passed through a camouflaged hatchway. Engineers had added this feature. The hatchway led into a small tunnel that passed through the nozzle, ending with a blister of diamond suspended a thousand kilometers above the hull.