‘Not my daughter's mind.’

‘It won't come to that. For one thing, even though I have faith in Marlene and believe there's no risk, I will do what I can to minimize it for your sake. In the first place, we'll not let her out on to the surface itself for a while. I may take her out on a flight over Erythro, for instance. She'll see lakes and plains, hills, canyons. We might even go as far as the edge of the sea. It all has a stark beauty - I saw it once - but it is barren. There is no life anywhere that she can see - only the prokaryotes in the water, which are invisible, of course. It's possible that the uniform barrenness may repel her and she may lose interest in the outside altogether.

‘If, however, she is still keen on going out, on feeling the soil of Erythro under her feet, we will see to it that she wears an E-suit.’

‘What is an E-suit?’

‘An Erythro-suit. It's a straightforward affair - like a spacesuit, except that it doesn't have to hold in air pressure against a vacuum. It's an impermeable combination of plastic and textile that's very light and doesn't impede motion. The helmet with its infrared shielding is somewhat more substantial and there is an artificial air supply and ventilation. What it amounts to is that the person in an E-suit is not subjected to the Erythro environment. And on top of that, there'll be someone with her.’

‘Who? I would trust no-one with her but myself.’

Genarr smiled. ‘I couldn't imagine a less suitable companion. You know nothing about Erythro, really, and you're frightened of it. I wouldn't dare let you out there. Look, the only person we can trust is not you, but me.’

‘You?’ Insigna stared at him, open-mouthed.

‘Why not? No-one here knows Erythro better than I do, and if Marlene is immune to the Plague, so am I. In ten years on Erythro, I haven't been affected in the slightest. What's more, I can fly an aircraft, which means we won't need a pilot. And then, too, if I go out with Marlene, I can watch her closely. If she does anything abnormal, no matter how slightly, I'll have her back in the Dome and under the brain scan faster than light.’

‘By which time, of course, it will be too late.’

‘No. Not necessarily. You mustn't look upon the Plague as an all-or-nothing matter. There have been light cases, even very light cases, and people who are lightly affected can live reasonably normal lives. Nothing will happen to her. I'm sure of it.’

Insigna sat in her chair, silent, seeming somehow small and defenseless.

Genarr impulsively placed his arm around her. ‘Come, Eugenia, forget this for a week. I promise she'll not go out for at least a week - longer than that if I can weaken her resolve by showing her Erythro from the air. And during the flight she will be enclosed in the aircraft and will be as safe there as she is here. As for right now, I'll tell you what - you're an astronomer, aren't you?’

She looked at him and said, wanly, ‘You know I am.’

‘Then that means that you never look at the stars. Astronomers never do. They only look at their instruments. It's night over the Dome now, so let's go up to the observation deck and observe. The night is absolutely clear, and there is nothing like just looking at the stars to make one feel quiet and at peace. Trust me.’

47

It was true. Astronomers did not look at the stars. There was no need. One gave instructions to the telescopes, the cameras, and the spectroscope by way of the computer, which received instructions in the way of programming.

The instruments did the work, the analyses, the graphic simulations. The astronomer merely asked the questions, then studied the answers. For that, one didn't have to look at the stars.

But then, she thought, how does one look at stars idly? Can one when one is an astronomer? The mere sight should make one uneasy. There was work to be done, questions to be asked, mysteries to be solved, and, after a while, surely one would return to one's workshop and set some instruments in motion while one distracted one's mind by reading a novel or watching a holovision spectacle.

She muttered this to Siever Genarr, as he went about his office, checking loose ends before leaving. (He was a confirmed loose-end checker, Insigna remembered from the ancient days when they were all young. It had irritated her then, but perhaps she ought to have admired it. Siever had so many virtues, she thought, and Crile, on the other hand-)

She dragged at her thoughts mercilessly and pointed them another way.

Genarr was saying, ‘Actually, I don't use the observation deck myself very often. There always seems to be something else to do. And when I do go, I almost always find myself alone up there. It will be pleasant to have company. Come!’

He led the way to a small elevator. It was the first time Insigna had been in an elevator in the Dome, and, for a fleeting moment, it was as though she were back on Rotor - except that she felt no change in pseudo-gravitation pull and did not feel herself pressed gently against one of the walls through a Coriolis effect, as she would have been on Rotor.

‘Here we are,’ said Genarr, and motioned to Insigna to step out. She did so, curiously, into the empty chamber, and, almost at once, shrank back. She said, ‘Are we exposed?’

‘Exposed?’ Genarr asked, bewildered. ‘Oh, you mean, are we open to Erythro's atmosphere? No, no. Have no fears about that. We are enclosed in a hemisphere of diamond-coated glass which nothing scratches. A meteorite would smash it, of course, but the skies of Erythro are virtually meteor-free. We have such glass on Rotor, you know, but’ - and his voice took on a tone of pride - ‘not quite this quality, and not quite this size.’

‘They treat you well down here,’ said Insigna, reaching out gently to touch the glass again and assure herself of its existence.

‘They must, to get people to come here.’ Then, reverting to the bubble, ‘It rains, of course, on occasion, but it's cloudy then anyway. And once the skies clear, it dries up quickly. A residue is left behind, and during the day, a special detergent mixture cleans the bubble. Sit down, Eugenia.’

Insigna sat in a chair that was soft and comfortable and that reclined almost of its own accord, so that she found herself looking upward. She could hear another chair sigh softly as Genarr's weight pushed it backward. And then, the small night-lights, which had cast a glow sufficient to point out the presence and location of chairs and small tables in the room, went out. In the darkness of an uninhabited world, the sky, cloudless, and as dark as black velvet, burned with sparks.

Insigna gasped. She knew what the sky was like in theory. She had seen it on charts and maps, in simulations and photographs - in every shape and way except reality. She found herself not picking out the interesting objects, the puzzling items, the mysteries that demanded she get to work. She didn't look at any one object, but at the patterns they made.

In dim prehistory, she thought, it was the study of the patterns, and not of the stars themselves, that gave the ancients the constellations and the beginning of astronomy.

Genarr was right. Peace, like a fine, unfelt cobweb, settled down over her.

After a while, she said, almost sleepily, ‘Thank you, Genarr.’

‘For what?’

‘For offering to go out with Marlene. For risking your mind for my daughter.’

‘I'm not risking my mind. Nothing will happen to either of us. Besides, I have a - a fatherly feeling toward her. After all, Eugenia, we go a long way back together, you and I, and I think - have always thought - highly of you.’

‘I know,’ said Insigna, feeling the stirrings of guilt. She had always known how Genarr had felt - he could never obscure it. It had inspired her with resignation before she met Crile, and with annoyance afterward.

She said, ‘If I've ever hurt your feelings, Siever, I am truly sorry.’

‘No need,’ said Genarr softly, and there was a long silence while peace deepened, and Insigna found herself earnestly hoping that no-one would enter and break the strange spell of serenity that held her fast.

And then Genarr said, ‘I have a theory as to why people don't come up to the observation deck here. Or on Rotor. Did you ever notice that the observation deck isn't used much on Rotor either?’

‘Marlene liked to go there on occasion,’ said Insigna. ‘She told me she was usually alone up there. In the last year or so, she would tell me that she liked to watch Erythro. I should have listened more closely - paid attention-’

‘Marlene is unusual. I think what gets most people and keeps them from coming up here is that.’

‘What?’ asked Insigna.

‘That,’ said Genarr. He was pointing to some spot in the sky, but in the darkness she could not see his arm. ‘That very bright star; the brightest in the sky.’

‘You mean the Sun - our Sun - the Sun of the Solar System.’

‘Yes, I do. It's an interloper. Except for that bright star, the sky would be just about the same as the one we see from Earth. Alpha Centauri is rather out of place and Sirius is shifted slightly, but we wouldn't notice that. Barring such things, the sky you see is what the Sumerians saw five thousand years ago. All except for the Sun.’

‘And you think the Sun keeps people away from the observation deck?’

‘Yes, perhaps not consciously, but I think the sight of it makes them uneasy. The tendency is to think of the Sun as far, far away, unreachable, part of an altogether different Universe. Yet there it is in the sky, bright, demanding our attention, stirring up our guilt for having run away from it.’

‘But then why don't the teenagers and children go to the observation deck? They know little or nothing of the Sun and the Solar System.’

‘The rest of us set a negative example. When we're all gone, when there's no-one on Rotor to whom the Solar System is anything but a phrase, I think the sky will seem to belong to Rotor again, and this place will be crowded - if it still exists.’

‘Do you think it won't still exist?’

‘We can't foresee the future, Eugenia.’

‘We seem to be flourishing and growing so far.’

‘Yes, we are, but it's that bright star - the interloper - that I'm worried about.’

‘Our old Sun. What can it do? It can't reach us.’

‘Sure it can.’ Genarr was staring at the bright star in the western sky. ‘The people we've left behind on Earth and on the Settlements are bound to discover Nemesis eventually. Maybe they already have. And maybe they've worked out hyper-assistance. I'm of the opinion they must have developed hyper-assistance soon after we left. Our disappearance must have stimulated them greatly.’