“Take our present situation. You’d never guess how I juggled, those first few months after we hit the nebulina. I don’t claim credit for the whole development. A lot of it was natural, almost inevitable. The logic of our problem brought it about, given some nursing by me. The end result is that Captain Telander’s been isolated. His infallibility doesn’t have to cope with essentially unfixable human messes like the one today.”
“Poor man.” Chi-Yuen looked closely at Reymont. “Lindgren is his surrogate for those?”
He nodded. “I’m the traditional top sergeant. Hard, harsh, demanding, overbearing, inconsiderate, brutal. Not so bad as to start a petition for my removal. But enough to irritate, to be disliked, although respected. That’s good for the troops. It’s healthier to be mad at me than to dwell on personal woes … as you, my love, have been doing.
“Lindgren smooths things out. As first officer, she sustains my power. But she overrules me from time to time. She exercises her rank to bend regulations in favor of mercy. Therefore she adds benignity to the attributes of Ultimate Authority.”
Reymont frowned. “The system’s carried us this far,” he finished. “It’s beginning to fail. We’ll have to add a new factor.”
Chi-Yuen went on gazing at him until he shifted uncomfortably on the mattress. At last she asked, “Did you plan this with Ingrid?”
“Eh? Oh no. Her role demands she not be a Machiavelli type who’d play a part deliberately.”
“You understand her so well … from past acquaintance?”
“Yes.” He reddened. “What of it? These days we keep it purely formal. For obvious reasons.”
“I think you find ways to continue rebuffing her, Charles.”
“M-m-m … blast it, leave me alone. What I’m trying to do is help you get back some real wish to live.”
“So that I, in turn, can help you keep going?”
“Well, uh, yes. I’m no superman. It’s been too long since anybody lent me a shoulder to cry on.”
“Are you saying that because you mean it, or because it serves your purpose?” Chi-Yuen tossed back her locks. “Never mind. Don’t answer. We will do what we can for each other. Afterward, if we survive — We will settle that when we have survived.”
His dark, scarred features softened. “You are for a fact regaining your balance,” he said. “Excellent.”
She laughed. Her arms went about his neck. “Come here, you.”
Chapter 13
The speed of light can be approached, but no body possessing rest mass can quite attain it. Smaller and smaller grew the increments of velocity by which Leonora Christine neared that impossible ultimate. Thus it might have seemed that the universe which her crew observed could not be distorted further. Aberration could, at most, displace a star 45°; Doppler effect might infinitely redden the photons from astern but only double the frequencies from ahead.
However, there was no limit on inverse tau, and that was the measure of changes in perceived space and experienced time. Accordingly, there was no limit to optical changes either; and the cosmos fore and aft could shrink toward a zero thickness wherein all the galaxies were crowded.
Thus, as she made her great swing half around the Milky Way and turned for a plunge through its heart, the ship’s periscope revealed a weird demesne. The nearer stars streamed past ever faster, until at last the eye saw them marching across the field of view: because by that time, years went by outside while minutes ticked away within. The sky was no longer black; it was a shimmering purple, which deepened and brightened as interior months went by: because the interaction of force fields and interstellar medium — eventually, interstellar magnetism — was releasing quanta. The farther stars were coalescing into two globes, fiery blue ahead, deep crimson aft. But gradually those globes contracted toward points and dimmed: because well-nigh the whole of their radiation had been shifted out of the visible spectrum, toward gamma rays and radio waves.
The viewscope had been repaired but was increasingly less able to compensate. The circuits simply could not distinguish individual suns any longer at more than a few parsecs’ remove. The technicians took the instrument apart and rebuilt it for heightened capacity, lest men fly altogether sightless.
That project, and various other remodelings, were probably of more use to those able to do the work than they were in themselves. Such persons did not withdraw into their own shells as did too many of their shipmates.
Boris Fedoroff found Luis Pereira on the hydroponics deck. An alga tank was being harvested. The biosystems chief worked with his men, stripped like them, dripping the same water and green slime, filling the crocks that stood on a cart. “Phew!” said the engineer.
Teeth gleamed under Pereira’s mustache. “Do not deprecate my crop that loudly,” he replied. “You will be eating it in due course.”
“I wondered how the imitation Limburger cheese got so realistic,” Fedoroff said. “Can you come for a discussion with me?”
“Could it not be later? We can’t stop until we are through. If spoilage set in, you would be tightening your belt for a while.”
“I don’t have time to waste either,” Fedoroff said, turning astringent. “I believe we’d rather be hungry than wrecked.”
“Carry on, then,” Pereira told his gang. He hopped from the tank and went to a shower stall where he washed quickly. Not bothering to dry or dress himself, on this warmest level in the ship, he led Fedoroff toward his office. “Confidentially,” he admitted, “I’m delighted at an excuse to knock off that chore.”
“You will be less delighted when you hear the reason. It means hard work.”
“Better yet. I was wondering how to keep my team from coming apart. This isn’t the sort of occupation that generates spontaneous esprit de corps. The boys will grumble, but they will be happier with something besides routine.”
They passed through a section of green plants. Leaves lined every passageway, filling the air with odor, rustling when brushed. Fruits hung among them like lanterns. You could understand why a degree of serenity remained in those who labored here.
“I’ve been alerted by Foxe-Jameson,” Fedoroff explained. “We’re near enough to the central galactic nebulae that he can use the new instruments that have been developed to get accurate values for the mass densities there.”
“He? I thought Nilsson was the observations man.”
“He was supposed to be.” Fedoroff’s mouth set in hard lines. “He’s going to pot. Hasn’t contributed a thing lately except quibbles and quarrels. The rest of his group, even a couple of men from the shop making their stuff, like Lenkei … they have to do what he should, as best they can.”
“That is bad,” Pereira said, lighthearted no more. “We were relying on Nilsson to design instruments for intergalactic navigation at ultra-low tau, were we not?”
Fedoroff nodded. “He’d better pull out of his funk. But that isn’t the problem today. We’re going to encounter the thickest stretch so far when we hit those clouds, because of relativity and because they are in fact thick. I feel reasonably confident we can pass through safely. Nevertheless, I want to reinforce parts of the hull to make sure.” He laughed like a wolf. “‘Make sure’ — on such a flight! At any rate, I’ll have a construction gang in here. You’ll have to move installations out of their way. I want to discuss the general requirements with you and start you thinking, so you can plan how to minimize the disturbance to your operations.”
“Indeed. Indeed. Here we are.” Pereira waned Fedoroff into a cubbyhole with a desk and a filing cabinet. “I will show you a schematic of our layout.”