Median age of those declaring they would prefer to stay was 54.3 years. Median age of those clamoring to go down to Hvalsey was 32.1 years. Now, after Maria’s declaration went around the rings, there were 469 who declared a preference to stay in the ship. For purposes of maintenance of the ship, also to avoid crowding the new settlement on Aurora, this shift was felt to be a good thing. A sense of anxiety created by the various social pressures of aggregated individual desires lessened. Average blood pressure dropped.

Despite the variety of opinions and feelings, the sense grew in those still on the ship that it was time for all those who wanted to, to descend. Now the ones most urging patience, and a measured pace of immigration, were people already on the ground, who were worried about a sudden influx of newcomers. In saying this they had to be careful not to offend those still in the ship—careful not to sound as if they had any rights in the matter, or were trying to protect what many felt was simply luck of the draw, an unearned privilege. It had to be presented as simply a matter of logistics, of not overwhelming the systems established. There was a protocol to be followed, and they had set it up with good reasons; there was not yet enough shelter in Hvalsey to accommodate everyone who wanted to descend. It was going to take some time for all that infrastructure to get built and established. Food also was a factor; if too many people came down, they could neither grow enough food on Aurora, nor keep growing it on the ship to send down to Aurora, having to an extent abandoned the farms on the ship. Without a careful transition they could inadvertently create food shortages in both places. And they didn’t have the means to get people back up to the ship very quickly. Return was not easy; Aurora’s gravity well and atmosphere meant their spiral launch tube assembly, now built and working well, could only launch so many ferries, as they had to split water and distill the fuels, and also smelt and print the ablation plates for them to deal with the rapid launch up through the atmosphere. Return to the ship was a choke point in the process of settlement, there was no doubt of that. It had not been planned for.

The only solution was to hurry every project in Hvalsey, and be patient on the ship. Those in both places most aware of the logistical problems talked to the rest, reassured them, encouraged them; and hurried more.

Badim and Freya were among those counseling patience on the ship, although Freya also said she was on fire with the desire to descend. She watched Euan’s adventures on Aurora during most of her spare time, clutching Badim’s arm in the evenings before the screen and swaying a little, as if dizzy. She was in fact a little feverish compared to her normal temperature. She wanted down. But she spent her days doing what needed doing to keep Nova Scotia going, focusing on problems the way Devi would have, trying to deal with each problem in order of a priority of needs that ship helped her establish. She worked on the Gantt programs that Devi had left for her, stacking priorities like houses of cards. Risks averted, problems dodged, enough food grown to keep them all fed. It was never a simple calculation. But the Gantt programs were displayed on the screens in blocks of color, and she found she could manipulate the problems well enough to keep things going.

By working with this system, she saw that although they were losing volatiles in every launch of the ferries down to Aurora, now this problem could be solved by shipping compressed gases back from the moon up to the ship, and even water. What a relief to have relief at hand, after so many years of interstellar isolation! The resources of the Tau Ceti system were lovely to contemplate. Every meter of bamboo grown in Hvalsey was another plank in the floor they were now building under themselves.

This was the comfort Devi had never had.

One night as they watched the photos from Hvalsey on Badim’s screen, they discussed this aspect of their new situation, and Aram stood to recite one of their kitchen couplets:

“Our sidewalk over the abyss

We build ahead of us as we go,

Give us the planks and we’ll make it work

Until a time we don’t want to know.”

On the morning of 170.144, A0.104, Euan came on Freya’s screen and asked her to get Badim to join their conversation. Freya called to Badim to come into the kitchen, and after seven minutes he blundered in, looking asleep on his feet, and sat next to her and slumped against her, looking curiously at the screen. “What?”

After a few seconds, it was clear he had appeared on Euan’s screen, and Euan nodded and said, “That woman we got out of the quicksand, Clarisse? She’s sick. She’s running a fever.”

Badim sat up straight. “Get her under the hood,” he said.

“We did.”

“She’s in the isolation clinic?”

“Yes.”

“How fast did you get her in there?”

“As soon as she mentioned that she felt bad.”

Badim’s mouth was pursed tight. How often Freya had seen this look. It was not Devi’s look, exactly; somewhat like it, but calmer, more sympathetic. It was as if he were imagining what he would do if he were in Euan’s place.

“Is she cooperating? Is she being monitored?”

“Yes.”

“Can you show me her readouts?”

“Yes, I’ve got them up here on my monitor. Have a look.”

Euan shoved his room camera sideways, and then Freya and Badim were looking at the isolation clinic’s medical screen, with Clarisse’s vital signs bumping and trembling as they trolled left to right, with flickering red numbers arrayed below. Badim leaned closer to their screen and pushed his lips this way and that as he read.

He took a deep breath.

“How do you feel?” he asked Euan.

“Me? I feel fine.”

“You and the others who were out there with her should also isolate yourselves, I feel. Also anyone who tended to this woman when she got back into your shelter.”

“Because she cut her shin?”

“Because she cut her suit. Yes.” Badim’s lips were a tight knot. “I’m sorry. But it makes sense to take every precaution. Just in case.”

No reply from Euan. His camera stayed trained on the monitor.

“She’s got quite a fever,” Badim said quietly, as if to Freya. “Pulse fast and shallow, a little a-fib, T cell counts high in the bloodstream. Cerebellum working hard. Looks like she’s fighting something off.”

“But what?” Freya said, as if for Euan.

“I don’t know. Maybe something a little toxic, there in the mud. Some accumulation of some metal or chemical. We’ll have to analyze for that.”

“Or maybe there’s some bug going around in Hvalsey that she caught,” Freya said. There were, of course, many viruses and bacteria in the ship, and therefore in Hvalsey too.

“Yes, maybe so.”

“Or maybe she’s gone into shock,” Euan said from off his screen.

“It’s slow for a shock reaction to that cut,” Badim said. “But you’re right, we should look at that. You should look at all that, but keeping her in iso. Do it by extensions. And really, the rest of you who came in contact with her should get into iso as well. Just to be safe.”

Again no reply from Euan.

Well, it was rubbish news, no doubt of that. Anyone would be disturbed. But for Euan, taking such obvious delight in his excursions on the surface, arguing vehemently for the opening of their helmets and the breathing of the open air of Aurora, it hit particularly hard. One could feel it in his silence.