He had reached one of those points there could be no retreat from; already his blood hammered with a mysterious foreknowledge of what he was bound to do. He dropped the cumbrous weapon Gregg had given him on to the bed. Any rebuff was worth this delirious event of putting his hands behind her back and pulling her — her, the dark, unattainable Vyann! — towards him, and kissing her on the lips. There was no rebuff; when she opened her eyes again they were full of an excitement as wild as his.
‘“Home is the hunter, home from the hull…”,’ Vyann whispered, quoting from a poem she had learnt in childhood. ‘You’ll stay in Forwards, now, won’t you, Roy?’
‘Do you need to ask?’ he exclaimed, putting his hand up to touch the hair that had always so compelled him. They stood together for a long while, just looking at each other, just living, until at last Vyann said, ‘This will not do. Come and see what I’ve got to show you — something thrilling! With any luck it will tell us a great deal we need to know about the ship.’
Vyann was back to business; it took Complain somewhat longer to recover. She sat down on the bed. As Complain sat beside her, she unbuttoned her tunic and pulled out a narrow black object, handing it to him. It was warm from her body heat. Dropping it, he put his hand on her blouse, tracing the arable contours of her breasts.
‘Laur, darling –’ This was the first time he had spoken her first name aloud, ‘– must we look at this wretched thing just now?’
Vyann put the item playfully but firmly back into his hands.
‘Yes, we must,’ she said. ‘It was logged by an ancestor of yours. I stole it from Gregg’s locker when I had sent that dreadful monster Hawl out to get me a drink. It’s the diary of Gregory Complain, sometime Captain of this ship.’
When the file was clicked open, words faded into being.
The instinct which prompted Vyann to steal the diary was a sure one; although the entries were comparatively few, the vistas they opened up came like a revelation. Because Vyann read more quickly than he, Complain soon gave up, lying with his head in her lap as she read aloud. Neither of them could have been more fascinated, even if they had known of the lucky flukes to which, over the years, the little file owed its continued existence.
At first the account was difficult to follow, by virtue of its reference to things of which Vyann and Complain had no knowledge; but they soon grew to understand the alartning predicament in which the comper of the diary and his contemporaries found themselves. That ancient crisis seemed suddenly very near, although it had happened so long ago; for Captain Gregory — as Vyann soon discovered — had been the first captain on the ship’s journey home from Procyon.
An illuminating entry occurred several lines after the diary began:
‘28.xi.2221. More trouble from Agricultural Bay (the long-dead Captain Gregory had put). Glasser, I/C Floriculture was up to see me after morning watch. He reports that the chlorosis afflicting many species of plants is no better, despite constant iron treatments. Advance spectrum output has been increased two degrees. Lt. Stover — I understand the ratings call him “Noah” — was up shortly afterwards. He is I/C Animal Insemination, and is no happier about his lower animals than Glasser is about his higher plants. Apparently the mice are breeding at a significantly faster rate, but bearing undeveloped foetuses; guinea pigs show similar tendencies. This is hardly a major worry. Most of these creatures went offboard at New Earth (Procyon V’s fancy name) as planned; the few we have are concessions to Noah’s sentimentality — though his argument that they may be useful for laboratory experiments has something to commend it.
‘30.xi.2221. Last night was our usual monthly ball. My dear wife, Yvonne, who always organizes these things, had gone to great pains over it; she looked lovely — but of course the years tell on us both — it’s hard to realize Frank is eighteen! Unfortunately the dance was a complete failure. This was our first dance since leaving Orbit X, and the absence of the colonists made itself felt. So few people seem left aboard. We are now ten days out from Procyon V. The monotonous years stretch like dead weight before us.
‘Went amidships this morning to see Floriculture. Glasser and Montgomery, the hydroponics specialist, look more cheerful. Though many of the crops appear in worse fettle than before, those essential plants, the five cultures which provide us with our air, are picking up again; the iron dosages evidently did the trick. Less cheer from “Noah” Stover — they have a lot of sick animals on their hands.
‘2.xii.2221. We are now on full acceleration. The long journey home may be said to have begun in earnest: as if any one felt excited about that. Morale is low… Yvonne and Frank are being splendid, partly, I suppose, to try and forget that Joy — so recently our baby girl! — is now several a.u.’s behind. A nefarious “No More Procreation” club has been formed in crew’s quarters, I am told by Internal Relations; the basic human drives can cope with that one, I think. More difficult to deal with is poor Bassitt… He was an Aviarist Second Class, but now that all birds except a handful of sparrows have been released on the New World, time hangs heavy for him. He has evolved a dismal religion of his own, mugged it up out of old psychology textbooks, which he insists on preaching up and down Main Corridor. Amazing thing is, people seem inclined to listen. Sign of the times, I suppose.
‘These are minor matters. I was about to deal with a more serious one — the animals — when I was called. More later.
‘5.xii.2221. No time for diary logging. A curse has fallen upon us! Hardly an animal aboard ship is now on its feet; many are dead. The rest lie stiffly with eyes glazed, occasional muscular spasms providing their only sign of life. The head of Fauniculture, Distaff — who went to university with me — is sick, but his underlings and Noah are doing good work. Drugs, however, seem ineffective on the suffering creatures. They have all been closed down now. If only they could talk! Agritechnics are co-operating full blast with the Laboratory Deck, trying to find what plague has descended on us. Curse of God, I say!… All this is grist for Bassitt’s mill, of course.
‘10.xii.2221. Among the stack of routine reports on my monitor every morning is the sick report. On the 8th there were nine sick, yesterday nineteen, today forty-one — and a request, which I hardly needed, from Senior M.O. Toynbee, to see me. I went straight down to Sick Bay to see him. He says the trouble is a virus which knocks out genetic material. Toynbee, as usual, was rather pompous and learned, but without definite knowledge; obviously, as he explains, whatever got into the animals has transferred to his patients. They were a pathetic lot, a high percentage of them children. Like the animals, they lie rigidly, occasionally undergoing muscular twitch; high temperatures, vocal cords apparently paralysed. Sick Bay out of bounds to visitors.
‘14.xii.2221. Every child and adolescent aboard now lies locked in pain in Sick Bay. Adults also affected. Total sick: 109. This is nearly a quarter of our company; fortunately — at least as far as manning the ship is concerned — the older people seem more immune. Distaff died yesterday, but he was sick anyway. No deaths from the strange paralysis reported. Anxious faces everywhere. I can hardly bear to look at them.
‘17.xii.2221. Oh Lord, if You did not from its launching turn Your face from this ship, look upon us all now. It is nine days since the first nine sicknesses were reported. Eight of the afflicted died today. We had thought, and Toynbee assured me, they were recovering. The stiffness lasted a week; for the last two days, the patients were relaxed, although still running temperatures. Three spoke up intelligently and said they felt better, the other six seemed delirious. The deaths occurred quietly, without struggle. Laboratory Deck has post-mortems on hand, Sheila Pesoli is the only survivor of this first batch, a girl of thirteen; her temperature is lower, she may live.