“You could just take it back,” I said. “You could fly it into an Earth orbit and tell the Terrans what you’ve done and why. You could advocate a real starship. The Committee wouldn’t dare attack you in Earth space.”
He was shaking his head. “They wouldn’t have to. The American and Soviet military would do it for them. Board us and take us down and ask the Committee what they’d like done with us.”
“Not if the Committee’s been overthrown by this revolt you’ve told me about.”
“I doubt that will happen. The Committee controls too much, and they have the Earth powers behind them.”
“Well, you’ve got eighty years — you could play hide-and-seek in the system, radio Earth and Mars and tell them about yourselves, avoid capture until you become a cause celebre and no one will dare harm you—”
Again he was shaking his head. “They’d just hunt us down. That isn’t what we did all this for.”
“But eighty years isn’t long enough for interstellar flight!”
“Yes, yes it is—”
“Oleg,” I said. “You can’t say it’s enough just because it might be enough to get you to one of the nearest stars. You’re going to have to search for a habitable planet, and eighty years isn’t enough time for that.”
He stared out the window, took several sips from his bulb. “But during that time,” he said, “we’ll improve the life-support system. And that will give us more time.”
“I don’t know how you can say that.”
“We’ve got a lot of equipment and parts with us, and one of the finest system-design teams ever assembled. If they’re good enough, then we’ll have all the time we’ll need.”
I stared at him. “That’s a big if.”
He nodded, the worried expression still on his face. “I know it is. I just have to hope that the systems team is the best one it could possibly be.”
We sat in silence for a while longer, and then llene’s voice called Davydov back to some business or other, and I was left to brood over the meaning of that last statement of his. It wasn’t all that obscure, and I gritted my teeth as I felt the pressure mount.
Later that day, still feeling the slow progress of compression and transformation, I ate dinner with Swann. He was in an excellent mood, and talked at length about improvements made in the R and G of the starship. They were going to have to switch from acceleration to deceleration quite a few times, and now they would be able to do it using less fuel.
“What’s with you?” he asked, when he noticed how much of the conversation he was supplying.
“How are you going to get out of the solar system?” I replied. “Without the Committee police seeing your exhaust?”
“We’re going to keep something between us and them the whole time our rockets are firing. At first we’ll have the sun between us and Mars, then we’ll shut down until we meet with Saturn. Orbit it for a while, then coast out to Pluto.” He looked at me oddly. “That’s only a few open bursts. But you’ll keep this all a secret?”
“Unless they drag it out of me,” I said morosely. “Or drug it out of me. You’d probably better not tell me any more.”
“What’s this?”
“Duggins and Valenski plan to tell the Committee that I collaborated with you. I may end up on Amor, for all I know.”
“Oh my. Oh, Emma — you’ll have to deny their accusations. Most of the people returning will support you.”
“Maybe. It’s going to be a mess.”
“Here. I’m going to get a liter of wine.” They made a good white wine on Rust Eagle, with only a few vines. While he got it I tried to remember whether the starship would have any grapevines. No. Too much waste.
I proceeded to drink most of the wine, without responding much to Swann’s conversation. After dinner we went down to our rooms. In front of my door Eric kissed me, and almost angrily I kissed back, hard. Drunk… “Let’s go to my room,” he said, and I agreed, surprising myself. We went, and it never occurred to me, then, to wonder if this was exactly the man I had in mind to go to bed with… In his room we turned off the lights and undressed as we floated about kissing. Making love was the usual clumsy, pleasant affair in the weightlessness — holding onto the bed, moving slowly at unfortunate moments, using the velcro straps. I lost myself in the sensations, marveling once again at how open lovers become to one another. I felt a surge of affection for this friend of mine, this cheerful and gentle man, this crazy exile fleeing from humanity. How to think of him? What was he fleeing, after all, but the turmoil and repression on Mars, the absolute madness of Earth, our home world, our home — fleeing all the hatred and war. If only they all understood, that everyone is as human as your lover is… Maybe on the starship they would remember it, I thought disconsolately.
“Emma,” he said, as we floated quietly in our embrace. “Emma?”
“Yes?”
“Please come with us.”
“…Oh, Eric.”
“Please, Emma. We need you. It’ll be a good life, one of the great human lives. And I want you along. It will make all the difference for me—”
“Eric,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I want to live on Mars. That’s my home.”
“But—” He stopped, sighed.
We floated, and for once the weightlessness felt like gravity, gravity pressing from every direction. Tears leaked out of my eyes.
This was my chance to join humanity’s greatest voyage. I wished I hadn’t drunk so much. “I want to go back to my room,” I whispered. I switched on the desk lamp, retrieved my clothes from the air, avoided Eric’s sad gaze. I kissed him before I left.
“Think about it?” he said.
“Oh I will,” I said. “I will…”
In the last few days they gutted the Rust Eagle, leaving it just able to get home. Nadezhda and Marie-Anne looked haggard. One day I helped them get their belongings together, as they were moving to the starship. Marie-Anne dabbed at her eyes and embraced me and the three of us stood there, a triad of sane femininity in a crazy world… but they left.
The bare empty room was very oppressive. I left it and floated through the ship, disdaining the velcro-and-balance routine, making lazy fingertip-turns to negotiate the frequent bends. I flew as if in a dream, touring the ship, refusing to acknowledge the few people I passed. It was night-time, the halls were dimmed to nothing but guidance lights. Occasional clumps of people sat in the lounges, talking softly, drink bulbs hovering over them like djinn-jars. They didn’t look up as I passed.
Through the quiet living quarters (in open doors people packed their goods to cross to the starship), up to the huge, dark bays at the top, amongst the mining equipment that was left, the waldoes like monsters or sad mangled robots, half seen in the shadows they cast. Down the long jump tube back to the power station, where it was bright, humming, empty. And then back up the tube to the bridge, where I stood before the broad window and looked across at the thing.
Well, I thought, there it is. I could go on the first flight to the stars. I felt that it somehow should have been more momentous, an invitation filled with ceremony; interviews by large committees, batteries of tests, acceptance by videogram, the attention of two worlds. Instead, two old miners fused by insubordinate friends — and me invited by these friends, including two men I had cared about for years. It didn’t seem right. I recalled all the stories in literature about interstellar flight, all the deranged, degenerate, incestuous little societies. Yet this expedition, its members living through and beyond the voyage, would not turn out like that. Or would it? Maybe the dream of the savannah would drive them mad. Suddenly I was acutely conscious of the fact that I was in a little bulb of air like an extended spacesuit — I was in a submarine, millions of fathoms deep in a vacuum ocean.
No, I could not go with them. They might be able to do it — if I went, Nadezhda and I could keep that life-support system working, surely — but I could not go. I needed to be able to walk on ground, bare Mars ground.