58

Crile Fisher had seen Igor Koropatsky only twice in the three years since he had assumed the post formerly held by Tanayama, and had become the actual - if not the titular - head of the project.

He had no trouble recognizing him, however, when the photo-entry had signaled his image. Koropatsky was still his portly, outwardly genial self. He was dressed well, with a large and flufly cravat in the latest style.

As for Fisher, he had been relaxing through the morning and was scarcely presentable, but one did not refuse to receive Koropatsky, even when he came without warning.

Fisher signaled the tactful ‘Hold’ image, the cartoon figure of a welcoming host (or hostess, for the sex was made conventionally ambiguous) with a hand upraised delicately in a gesture that was universally understood to mean ‘Just a minute’ without the crassness of actually saying so.

Fisher had a few moments to comb his hair and adjust his clothes. He might have shaved, but he felt that Koropatsky would consider any further delay insulting.

The door slid aside and Koropatsky walked in. He smiled pleasantly and said, ‘Good morning, Fisher. I intrude upon you, I know.’

‘No intrusion, Director,’ said Fisher, making an effort to sound sincere, ‘but if you wish to see Dr Wendel, she is, I'm afraid, at the ship.’

Koropatsky grunted. ‘You know, I rather thought she might be. I have no choice, then, but to talk to you. May I sit down?’

‘Yes, of course, Director,’ said Fisher, chagrined at not having offered Koropatsky a seat before the request was made. ‘Would you care for refreshment?’

‘No.’ Koropatsky patted his abdomen. ‘I weigh myself every morning and that alone is sufficient to cost me my appetite - almost. Fisher, I have never had a chance to talk to you, man to man. I have wanted to.’

‘It is my pleasure, Director,’ mumbled Fisher, beginning to grow uneasy. What was this all about?

‘Our planet is in debt to you.’

‘If you say so, Director,’ said Fisher.

‘You were on Rotor before it left.’

‘That was fourteen years ago, Director.’

‘I know it was. You were married on Rotor and had a child.’

‘Yes, Director,’ said Fisher in a low voice.

‘But you returned to Earth just before Rotor left the Solar System.’

‘Yes, Director.’

‘It was from something that was said to you - and that you repeated here - plus another suggestion you made that led to Earth's discovery of the Neighbor Star.’

‘Yes, Director.’

‘And it was you who brought Dr Tessa Wendel from Adelia to Earth.’

‘Yes, Director.’

‘And you have made it possible for her to work here for over eight years, and kept her happy, eh?’

He chuckled deeply and Fisher felt that had Koropatsky been closer he would have dug his elbow into Fisher's side in a man-to-man fashion.

Fisher said cautiously, ‘We get along well, Director.’

‘But you have never married.’

‘I am already married, Director.’

‘And separated fourteen years. A divorce could be quickly arranged.’

‘I also have a daughter.’

‘Who would remain your daughter, even if you married again.’

‘It would be a meaningless formality, surely.’

‘Well, perhaps.’ Koropatsky nodded. ‘And perhaps it even works better this way. You know the superluminal ship is ready to move. We hope to launch it at the beginning of 2237.’

‘So I have been told by Dr Wendel, Director.’

‘The neuronic detectors are installed and work well.’

‘I have been told that, too, Director.’

Koropatsky held one hand in the other in his lap and nodded his large head ponderously. Then he looked up quickly at Fisher and said, ‘Do you know how it works?’

Fisher shook his head. ‘No, sir. I know nothing about the actual workings of the ship.’

Koropatsky nodded his head again. ‘Nor I. We have to accept the word of Dr Wendel and our engineers. One thing is still lacking, though.’

‘Oh?’ (Cold anxiety swept over Fisher. More delay?) ‘What is lacking, Director?’

‘Communications. I would think that if there is a device that can make a ship move much faster than light, there should also be a device that would send waves, or some other form of message-carrying device, faster than light, too. It seems to me it would be easier to send a superluminal message than drive a superluminal ship.’

‘I can't say, Director.’

‘Yet Dr Wendel assures me that the reverse is true; that, as yet, there is no method of efficient superluminal communication. Eventually, there will be, she says, but not now, and she doesn't want to wait for such communication, which, she says, may take a long time.’

‘I don't want to wait either, Director.’

‘Yes, I'm anxious for progress and success. We've been waiting years already, and I am eager to see the ship leave and return. But it does mean that once the ship leaves, we will be out of contact.’

He nodded thoughtfully, and Fisher maintained a discreet silence. (What was all this about? What was the old bear getting at?)

Koropatsky looked up at Fisher. ‘You know that the Neighbor Star is heading in our direction?’

‘Yes, Director, I've heard of that, but it seems to be the common feeling that it will pass us at a great enough distance to leave us unaffected.’

‘That's the feeling we want people to have. Now the truth is, Fisher, that the Neighbor Star will pass closely enough to disturb Earth's orbital motion substantially.’

Fisher paused for a moment in shock. ‘And destroy the planet?’

‘Not physically. The climate will be sufficiently changed, however, so that Earth will no longer be habitable.’

‘Is that certain?’ said Fisher, reluctant to believe it.

‘I don't know that scientists are ever really certain . But they seem sufficiently close to certain to make it necessary for us to begin to take measures. We have five thousand years, and we are developing superluminal flight - assuming the ship works.’

‘If Dr Wendel says it will work, Director, I'm convinced it will.’

‘Let's hope your confidence is not misplaced. Nevertheless, even five thousand years with superluminal flight leaves us in a bad spot. We would have to build a hundred and thirty thousand Settlements like Rotor to carry off Earth's eight billion people plus enough plants and animals to set up viable worlds. That's twenty-six Noah's Arks a year, starting right now. That's assuming there's no increase in population over the next five thousand years.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Fisher cautiously, ‘we can handle an average of twenty-six a year. Our experience and expertise should increase with the centuries, and our population control has worked for decades.’

‘Very well. Now tell me this: If we do lift Earth's population into space in one hundred and thirty thousand Settlements, making use of Earth's full resources, plus those of the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids, and abandon the Solar System to the gravitational mercies of the Neighbor Star, where do all these Settlements go?’

‘I don't know, Director,’ said Fisher.

‘We will have to find planets sufficiently Earth-like to accept our vast population without prohibitive requirements for terraforming. We must think of that, too, and we must think of it now , not five thousand years from now.’

‘Even if we don't find suitable planets, we can put the Settlements into orbit about suitable stars.’ Inevitably, Fisher made circular movements with his finger.

‘My dear man, that wouldn't work.’

‘With all respect, Director, it does work right here in the Solar System.’

‘Not at all. There's a planet here in the Solar System that even today, despite all the Settlements, contains 99 per cent of the human species. We are still humanity, and the Settlements are just a kind of fluff that surrounds us. Could the fluff exist by itself? We have no proof that they can, and I think not.’

‘You may be right, Director,’ said Fisher.

‘May be? There's no doubt about it,’ said Koropatsky heatedly. ‘The Settlers affect to despise us, but we fill their thoughts. We're their history. We're their model. We're the teeming source to which they return again and again for re-invigoration. Left to themselves, they would wither.’

‘You may be right, Director, but the experiment has never been tried. We have never had a situation in which Settlements tried to exist without a planet-’

‘But we have had such a situation, at least in analogy, In Earth's early history, human beings settled islands and were isolated from the mainstream. The Irish settled Iceland; the Norse settled Greenland; the mutineers settled Pitcairn Island; the Polynesians settled Easter Island. Result? The colonists withered, sometimes disappeared entirely. Always stagnation. No civilization ever developed except in a continental area, or in islands in close proximity to a continental area. Humanity needs space, size, variety, a horizon, a frontier. You see?’

Fisher said, ‘Yes, Director.’ (Past a certain point, why argue?)

‘So that’ - and Koropatsky put his right forefinger on his left palm, didactically - ‘we must find a planet, at least one planet to begin with. Which brings us to Rotor.’

Fisher raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘To Rotor, Director?’

‘Yes. In the fourteen years since they've left, what's happened to them?’

‘Dr Wendel is of the opinion that they may not have survived.’ (He felt a pang saying it. He always felt a pang when he thought about it.)

‘I know she does. I've talked to her, and I've accepted what she has said without discussion. But I'd like your opinion.’

‘I don't have one, Director. I have only the earnest hope that they have survived. I have a daughter on Rotor.’

‘Perhaps you still have. Think! What was there to have destroyed them? A malfunctioning part. Rotor is not a ship, but a Settlement that for fifty years had had no serious malfunction. It traveled through empty space between here and the Neighbor Star and what can be more harmless than empty space?’

‘A mini-black hole, an undetected asteroidal body-’

‘What evidence? Those are just guesses and of almost zero probability, the astronomers tell me. Is it something about the inherent properties of hyperspace that may have destroyed Rotor? We've been experimenting with hyperspace for years now and there is nothing inherently dangerous in it that we can find. So we can suppose that Rotor reached the Neighbor Star safely - if that's where they went, and all seem to agree that it makes no sense to suppose they went anywhere else.’