Assuming they got that far. The ship wasn’t in the best of condition. Lenina didn’t like the look of the computers any more than she felt confident in the performance of the oxygen generators, and the waste disposal facilities had started to act up. Moreover the air-purification system left a great deal to be desired — already the crew cabin and cockpit were damp with condensation. And just about every creature comfort and interior fitting had been removed from the Mariner in order to maximize its crew space and payload. The flight ahead of them would be like taking a camping trip in an old motor home. Nonetheless, Gates, who had real experience of space flight, didn’t seem too concerned about the Mariner’s space-worthiness. A bit rusty, he said, but more than equal to the task ahead of them. Lenina hoped he was right. It was a three-day flight to the Moon, and any delay in their plans might turn out to be fatal to her.
Another thirty minutes passed before she saw the Sun coming up over the violet disc of Earth. The Sun was red, like the color of the giant star it would become some five billion years in the future before it flamed into a nova, cooled, and then collapsed into itself. Lenina wondered if the inhabitants of Earth would be able to avoid this distant catastrophe? Perhaps if they found another solar system. Of course, to travel such vast distances through space in search of a suitable alternative to our own solar system would surely require man to fly at speeds faster than the speed of light, which Einstein had said was impossible. But given enough time, intelligence, tractable computer power, and energy, anything in the universe might be possible. Five billion years hence, human beings might hardly be recognizable as such; and surely so much accumulated intelligence would have to reside in something rather more durable than mere flesh and blood. Such beings, such collected intelligence, might come as near to being gods as any rationally minded person could ever believe in. The only God in the universe was the man that men might one day become.
A dark-sun filter automatically screened the flight-deck window against the life-giving glare of the sunrise. At least something appeared to be working properly, she reflected sourly, having just checked the altitude indicators and noted with disgust that the computers were correcting a ten-degree roll to the right. The autopilot was working, but erratically, as if it hadn’t been calibrated properly, and Lenina wondered if, before leaving Earth’s orbit, she ought to go and fetch Gates. But she rejected the idea, counseling herself to let him sleep. He was dog tired after the launch. She was just looking for an excuse to have him spend some time alone with her. Any sight of Gates was pleasing to her and she supposed herself to be in love with him, although she would never have dreamed of telling him as much. ‘Love’ was not a word she was used to.
Hearing someone bang his head and then curse quietly as he floated into the cockpit, Lenina’s heart leaped in her chest; and expecting to see the big man, she turned and was disappointed to find that it was only Cavor, the man with the false arm.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked, making his weightless way into the cockpit.
‘Be my guest.’ Lenina helped steer him into the pilot’s seat and then buckled him in.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked politely, quite unaware of Lenina’s current preoccupation with the livid red mark on her stomach. ‘You’re looking kind of pale.’
Lenina shrugged dismissively and looked out of the window as the large altitude control thruster pulsed audibly into action. ‘Just a little space adaptation syndrome,’ she said. ‘Conflict between eyes and inner ear.’
Cavor glanced over the controls and nodded.
‘Have you done much flying in space?’ he asked.
‘Sure. When I was first convicted, learning to fly was part of the rehabilitation program.’
‘I didn’t know they bothered.’
‘They don’t. Not anymore. It was simulations, mostly. But, there’s not much difference from the real thing. Gates is the proper pilot around here. I’m just an instrument flier.’
‘Me, I still can’t take a space flight without a real sense of wonder. Socrates once said that we would understand the world if we could first rise above it. I don’t think he would have been quite so sure if he could have seen this. Looking at Earth from up here begs as many questions as it answers.’
‘I’ve got a question.’
‘Just one?’
‘Why are you here, Cavor?’
‘Are you asking me that in a phenomenological sense?’ Cavor shrugged. ‘Why are any of us here? Because certain atoms interact according to the laws of physics. What other explanation is required?’
‘I meant, why are you part of this team?’
‘I know what you meant,’ said Cavor. ‘I just don’t know the answer. I’m well aware of my shortcomings, Lenina. I’m not even a career criminal — I was sent to Artemis Seven for killing my wife. Which was a mistake. Killing her, that is. Heat-of-the-moment thing. Regretted it ever since. And not because I went to a penal colony. Anyway, before it happened I was a musician. A composer, sometimes.’
‘That should come in useful,’ said Lenina dryly.
‘I’ve asked Dallas why he wanted someone like me along on this odyssey of ours, but so far, he hasn’t seen fit to explain my function.’
‘Maybe he wants you to write a symphony for him. When this is all over.’
‘Perhaps he does. Or a suite. Like Holst. The music of the spheres. Something to express distant galaxies moving away from us. I could call it the Expanding Universe, a piece with only one movement.’
‘With or without a singularity?’ asked Lenina. ‘A Big Bang.’
‘Oh, I think with,’ said Cavor. ‘I’ve never much cared for the steady-state theory of the universe. A Big Bang’s a much better way of starting a piece of music than just picking up somewhere in the middle. A Big Crunch too, for symmetry’s sake. Music needs a beginning and an ending.’
‘So why did you come?’
‘Because Gates asked me. Because the opportunities for one-armed pianists are rather limited. And because this enterprise holds out the possibility of a change of blood and a cure for the virus we’re both carrying — what other reason does anyone need?’
Lenina shook her head. ‘You’re right. I can’t think of a better one.’
Both were silent for a moment as the West Coast of America appeared in the window underneath them.
‘There seems to be a lot of dirt on the outside of these windows.’ Cavor frowned, wiping the inside with the sleeve of his thermal suit.
‘Pollution,’ said Lenina. ‘From when we came up through the stratosphere. It’s full of it. To be more exact, it’s dust from the Great Middle Eastern War. Even after all these years.’
‘It’s comforting to think that the only world we can destroy is our own,’ remarked Cavor.
‘That may not always be the case. It’s taken just ten thousand years for us to come out of the Stone Age to be where we are now. Who knows what forces we’ll have learned to control in another ten thousand.’
‘Then let’s hope we can learn to control ourselves as well.’
‘Amen,’ said Lenina, glancing once again out of the window. The Central Valley of California lay between the Coast Range to the west and the Sierra Nevada to the east; Lake Tahoe was a footprint-shaped patch of blue to their lower left, and a short way above it was the skull-shaped Mono Lake, close to the invisible town of Lee Vining, where Lenina had spent part of her all-too-short childhood. That was before she and her family had, like most of the water in the lake and most of the people in the town, gone to Los Angeles. There were no hyperbaric hotels in Lee Vining, just disused campsites and broken-down motels. It wasn’t much of a happy memory, but until Rameses Gates had come along, those were the only good times she had ever known. After the move to L.A., her parents had died and she found herself involved in prostitution, dealing drugs, and, eventually, armed robbery. From there it was a few short steps to a series of prisons and then to the penal colony on the Moon.