Nevertheless, the day was loosely structured by a series of events, at which a good attendance was guaranteed by sheer boredom. There would be a thirty minute newscast from Earth at 0800, with a repeat at 1000, and updates in the evening at 1900 and 2100. At the beginning of the

voyage, the Earth news would be at least an hour and a half late, but it would become more and more timely as Sirius approached her destination.

When she reached her final parking orbit, a thousand kilometers above the

Equator, the delay would be effectively zero, and watches could at last be set by the radio time signals. Those passengers who did not realize this were liable to get into a hopeless state of confusion and, even worse, to miss meal sittings.

All types of visual display, including the contents of several million volumes of fiction and nonfiction, as well as most of the musical treasures of mankind, were available in the tiny library; at a squeeze, it could hold ten people. However, there were two movie screenings every evening in the main lounge, selection being made-if the Purser could be believed -in the approved democratic manner by public ballot. Almost all the great film classics were available, right back to the beginning of the twentieth century. For the first time in his life, Duncan saw Charlie Chaplin’s

Modern Times, much of the Disney canon, Olivier’s Hamlet, Ray’s Pather

Panchali, Kubrick’s Napoleon Bonaparte, Zymanowski’s Moby Dick, and many other old masterpieces that had not even been names to him. But by far the greatest popular success was If This Is Tuesday, This Must Be Mars-a selection from the countless space-travel movies made in the days before space Right was actually achieved. This invariably reduced the audience to helpless hysterics, and it was hard to believe that it had once been banned for in-flight screening because some unimaginative bureaucrat feared that its disasters such as accidentally arriving at the wrong planet might alarm nervous passengers. In fact, it had just the opposite effect; they laughed too much to worry.

The big event of the day, however, was the lottery on the ship’s run, a simple but ingenious device for redistributing wealth among the passengers.

All that one had to do was to guess how far Sirius had traveled along her heliocentric trajectory during the previous twenty-four hours; any number of guesses was permitted, at the cost of one solar each.

At noon, the Captain announced the correct result. The suspense was terrific, as he read out the figures very slowly: “Today’s run has been two-two-seven five-nine -zero -six four-point-three kilometers.” (Cheers and moans.) Since everyone knew the ship’s position and acceleration, it required very little mathematics to calculate the first four or five figures, but beyond that the digits were completely arbitrary, so winning was a matter of luck. Although it was rumored that navigating officers had been bribed to trim the last few decimal places by minute adjustments to the thrust, no one had ever been able to prove it.

Another wealth-distributor was a noisy entertainment called “Bingo,” apparently the main surviving relic of a once flourishing religious order.

Duncan attended one session, then decided that there were better ways of wasting time. Yet a surprising percentage of his very talented and intellectually superior companions seemed to enjoy this rather mindless ritual, jumping up and down and shrieking like small children when their numbers were called…. They could not be criticized for this; they needed some such relaxation.

For they were the loneliest people in the Solar System; hundreds of millions of kilometers separated them from the rest of mankind. Everybody knew this, but no one ever mentioned it. Yet it would not have taken an astute psychologist to detect countless slightly unusual reactions-even minor symptoms of stress-in the behavior of Sirius’ passengers and crew.

There was, for example, a tendency to laugh at the feeblest of jokes, and to go into positive convulsions over catch phrases such as “This is the

Captain speaking” or “Dining room closes in fifteen minutes.” Most popular of all-at least among the men-was “Any more for Cabin 44.” Why the two middle-aged and rather quiet lady geologists who occupied this cabin had acquired a reputation for ravening insatiability was a mystery that Duncan never solved.

Nor was he particularly interested; his heart still ached for Marissa and he would not seek any other consolation until he reached Earth.

Moreover, with 76 the somewhat excessive conscientiousness that was typical of the Makenzies, he was already hard at work by the second day of the voyage.

He had three major projects-one physical and two intellectual. The first, carried out under the hard, cold eye of the ship’s doctor, was to get himself fit for life at one gravity. The second was to learn all that he could about his new home, so that he would not appear too much of a country cousin when he arrived. And the third was to prepare his speech of thanks, or at least to write a fairly detailed outline, which could be revised as necessary during the course of his stay.

The toughening-up process involved a fifteen-minute session, twice a day, in the ship’s centrifuge or on the “race track.” Nobody enjoyed the centrifuge; not even the best background music could alleviate the boredom of being whirled around in a tiny cabin until legs and arms appeared to be made of lead. But the race track was so much fun that it operated right around the clock, and some enthusiasts even tried to get extra time on it.

Part of its appeal was undoubtedly due to sheer novelty; who would have expected to find bicycles in space? The track was a narrow tunnel, with steeply banked floor, completely encircling the ship, and rather like an old-time particle accelerator-except that in this case the particles themselves provided the acceleration.

Every evening, just before going to bed, Duncan would enter the tunnel, climb onto one of the four bicycles, and start pedaling slowly around the sixty meters of track. His first revolution would take a leisurely half minute; then he would gradually work up to full speed. As he did so, he would rise higher and higher up the baAed wall, until at maximum speed he was almost at right angles to the floor. At the same time, he would feel his weight steadily increase; the bicycle’s speedometer had been calibrated to read in fractions of a gee, so he could tell exactly how well he was doing. Forty kilometers an hour ten times around

Sirius every minute-was the equivalent of one Earth gravity. After several days of practice Duncan was able to maintain this for ten minutes without too much effort. By the end of the voyage, he could tolerate it indefinitely-as he would have to, when he reached Earth.

The race track was at its most exciting when it contained two or more riders-especially when they were moving at different speeds. Though overtaking was strictly forbidden, it was an irresistible challenge, and on this voyage there were no serious casualties. One of Duncan’s most vivid and incongruous memories of Sirius would be the tinkle of bicycle bells, echoing round and round a brightly lit circular tunnel whose blurred walls flashed by only a few centimeters away…. And the race track also provided him with a more material souvenir, a pseudo medieval scroll which announced to all who were interested that

1, DUNCAN MAKENZIE, OF OASIS

CITY, TITAN, AM HEREBY CERTIFIED TO HAVE BICYCLED FROM SATURN TO EARTH,

AT

AN AVERAGE VELOCITY OF 2,176,420 KILOMETERS AN HOUR.

Duncan’s mental preparation for life on Earth occupied considerably more time, but was not quite so exhausting. He already had a good knowledge of

Terran history, geography, and current affairs, but until now it had been mostly theoretical, because it had little direct application to him. Both astronomically and psychologically, Earth had been a long way off. Now it was coming closer by millions of kilometers a day.