The schoolroom had been directly hit, and from that vantage point he could see the gaping hole left by the projectiles. It had entered near the front of the passenger tubes, cutting a swath between the life–support system of C tube and the coffin racks of A tube, destroying every coffin and every life–support complex on its way down the length of the tubes. Then it had bored through the end, struck the schoolroom, passed right through a corner of the tape rack, and passed on into the shielding in front of the stardrive. Looking down into the hole, Jazz could see the back of the projectile, stopped where it had gone cold, unable to penetrate further. He quickly guessed that two more meters and it would have exploded the ship.

I should feel grateful, he told himself. But when he looked at the tape rack, he couldn't. The left section of the rack, where the projectile had passed, was utterly destroyed — where it wasn't cut away by the projectile's passage, the tapes were melted by the heat. The B section of the rack, in the middle, was also mostly melted. Only a few of the C rack tapes were still usable.

And everybody in C tube was dead.

Jazz knelt down and pulled out every tape in the bottom part of B rack, where the heat was least intense. But tape after tape showed damage — and even the slightest melting made the entire tape unusable. Out of all the tapes, only one was undamaged, the one in the bottom right–hand corner. It belonged to Garol Stipock.

Only one tape.

Which meant that only one single passenger could be revived with his full memory. With any memory at all. Only one that could be revived as an adult human being. If anyone else was revived at all, it would be as empty–minded as an infant, a creature of reflex, unable to walk, speak, even control bodily functions.

Jazz left the schoolroom, clutching the one usable tape, and walked back through B tube. This time as he passed the coffins he didn't see adults whom he knew — he saw huge infants, impossible to care for, utterly cut off from their own life history in the Empire.

Except Garol Stipock. And as Jason looked down at the reposed face of the man who had invented the Stipock geologer and a dozen other devices, he said, "Gadgetry. Gimmicks and games. What a wonderful colony we'll make together. And what wonderful children we'll raise."

He left B tube, sealing the door behind him, and wandered listlessly back into the control cabin. He passed the roster compartment and remembered, bitterly, the two tapes that had been in there, tapes which he had destroyed for a purpose — some purpose — what purpose could possibly compare with the terrible need he had now? He longed for a way to reverse the garbage process, bring back the lost fragments of Hop's and Arran's memory tapes, restore them and waken those two people whom he at least knew. Garol Stipock. Who the hell was Garol Stipock?

A colony of infants.

Here it is, Doon. The perfect society. One you could teach to be anything you wanted. As long as you enjoy changing the diapers of adults who kick like infants with grown–up strength.

He sat down in the control room, and the computer, sensing that he had returned, began readouts on the information that had been kept from him back on Capitol — where the colony ship was supposed to go.

Jazz was past caring, but by reflex he looked, and by reflex he fed back into the computer his confirming orders, his explicit instructions.

Mechanically he carried out his part of the mission, as if there were a mission to perform.

Something was gnawing at his stomach, and it churned within him. But he finished the calculations in only seven hours, and then, exhausted, threw himself on the cot provided for the starpilot.

He dreamed of the Estorian twick, staring at him from a meter away. It just sat and stared, and Jason knew that if he moved, if he made any move at all, the twick would leap, would carve him with its razor teeth, would devour him if it could. How long can I stand without moving, he kept wondering, and the twick only watched, and waited. And then suddenly he heard Doon's voice saying, "You're a survivor. You're a survivor." And then he felt himself swimming in the lake, the twick's body floating beside him, feeling exultant. Survival. That is enough grounds for joy.

He woke needing badly to go to the toilet. He got up, unaccustomedly groggy with sleep. It had not been a restful nap. He closed the toilet stall and showered. Then he stepped out of the toilet and looked at the computer.

The readout board said, "Ready for execute."

Why bother? Jason wondered.

"Why bother?" Jason asked aloud.

But he knew he would bother. He would push the buttons on the computer, and then would climb into his coffin and sleep the years until his new destination. He would waken after 900 years, farther by a dozen times than any starship had ever gone from the human pale. And he would revive, one by one, the huge infants that slept in the back of the ship.

And as he resigned himself to survival, because he really had no other choice, it occurred to him how ignorant his colonists would be. Except for Garol Stipock, they would know only what he told them.

They would have no memory of Capitol, and therefore no memory of any particular system of law or government.

They would not know the technology that would never be possible to them.

They would not remember that they had been arrested as traitors; they would not remember that Jason Worthing had been an enemy to them.

The word Swipe would be meaningless to them.

Except Garol Stipock.

I can make the world the way it ought to be, he thought. A clean slate, Doon. If I can survive the first years, I can make a decent world.

And how ought the world to be? Jason laughed at himself. A chance to make a utopia, and he had no idea where to begin. Well, plenty of time for that later. Plenty of time to work out the details. I have a vision now, at least, Doon. Pat me on the back for that.

Jason Worthing locked the solitary memory tape in the cupboard, punched out the execute code, and climbed into the coffin. He was excited, exultant, and a little mad when the sleep helmet recorded his mind. He would waken with that excitement and madness when the ship woke him a millennium from now.

A needle in his scalp. The hot rush of somec in his veins. The agony, the panic. And then the oblivion.

And the gutted starship turned, fired, and accelerated madly, racing with the light of the star Siis toward another star an unfathomable depth into the broad white lake of the galaxy.

8

J HAS TOLD me I must write, though my writing is slow and not always good, and so I write. I am Kapock, and I am called the Eldest of the Ice People, though there is no time when I do not remember the other five who are also the Other Eldest. J is gone now for the first time in memory, and I am Warden, and I am afraid.

J has told me I must write what is most important. Most important to me? I asked J. He said, Most important to Heaven City , which is what we call our place where we all live. J has gone up into the Star Tower and I cannot ask him what is important, but I will obey him the best I can which is not always good.

J has told me I am writing to my children. I do not understand this, for my children are both very small, and even though one of them can now walk, which he could not do at first, he cannot even speak. Does this mean that J promises that someday my children will not only speak, but also will read? This is a great promise, if it is true, but I am not sure and so I tell it to no one yet. I tell no one that I write.