Wu's lips seemed to tighten, but his tone of voice did not alter in any way. ‘Yes, I prepared the report, but it was just speculation, and I don't suppose anyone else will pay any attention to it - any more than you did, Captain.’

‘Why not? Not everyone is as stupid as I am, Wu.’

‘Even if they paid attention, it would still be nothing more than speculation. When we go back, we will be able to present proof.’

‘Once the speculation exists, someone will get the proof. You know how science works.’

Wu said in a slow and significant tone, ‘Someone .’

‘Now we have the nature of your concern, Wu. You're not worried that Earth won't obtain a practical method of superluminal flight. You are worried that they will, but that the credit will not be yours. Isn't that right?’

‘Captain, there's nothing wrong with that. A scientist has every right to be concerned over matters of priority.’

Wendel positively smoldered. ‘Have you forgotten that I am the Captain of this ship and make the decisions?’

‘I haven't forgotten that,’ said Wu, ‘but this is not a sailing vessel of the eighteenth century. We are all scientists, primarily, and we must make decisions in some sort of democratic fashion. If the majority wishes to return-’

‘Wait,’ said Fisher sharply, ‘before this continues, do you mind if I say something? I'm the only one who hasn't spoken and if we're going to be democratic, I would like to take my turn on the floor. May I, Captain?’

‘Go ahead,’ said Wendel, her right hand clenching and unclenching as though it just longed to grab someone by the throat.

Fisher said, ‘Just about seven and a half centuries ago, Christopher Columbus sailed westward from Spain and, eventually, discovered America, though he himself never knew that that was what he had done. En route, he made the discovery that the deviation of the magnetic compass from the true north, the so-called “magnetic declination”, changed with longitude. This was an important finding and was, in fact, the first purely scientific discovery made in the course of a sea voyage.

‘Now, how many know that Columbus discovered the variation of magnetic declination? Virtually no-one. How many know that Columbus discovered America? Virtually everyone. So suppose that Columbus, on discovering the variation, decided, midway, to go home and make the glad announcement to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, preserving his priority as the discoverer of the phenomenon? That discovery might conceivably have been greeted with interest and the monarchs might eventually have sent out another expedition headed, let us say, by Amerigo Vespucci, who would then have reached America. In that case, who would remember that Columbus had made some sort of discovery about the compass? Virtually no-one. Who would remember that Vespucci had discovered America? Virtually everyone.

‘So do you really want to go back? The discovery of the gravitational correction will, I assure you, be remembered by a few as a small side effect of superluminal travel. But the crew of the next expedition that will actually reach the Neighbor Star, will be hailed as the first to reach a star by superluminal flight. You three, even you, Wu, will scarcely be worth a footnote.

‘You might think that, as a reward for this great discovery that Wu has made, it will be you that will be sent out on a second expedition, but I'm afraid not. You see, Igor Koropatsky, who is the Director of the Terrestrial Board of Inquiry and who is waiting for us back on Earth, is particularly interested in information on the Neighbor Star and its planetary system. He will explode like Krakatoa when he finds out that we were within reach of it and turned back. And of course, Captain Wendel will be forced to explain that you three had mutinied, which is an extremely serious offense, even if we are not an eighteenth-century sailing vessel. Far from going out on the next expedition, you will never see the inside of a laboratory again. Count on it. What you may see, despite your scientific eminence, is the inside of a jail. Don't underestimate Koropatsky's fury.

‘So think about it, you three. On to the Neighbor Star? Or back home?’

There was a silence. For a while, no-one said anything.

‘Well,’ said Wendel harshly, ‘I think that Fisher has explained the situation very clearly. Doesn't any one have anything to say?’

Blankowitz said in a low voice, ‘Actually, I never thought it through. I think we ought to go on.’

Jarlow grunted. ‘I think so, too.’

Wendel said, ‘What about you, Chao-Li Wu?’

Wu shrugged. ‘I wouldn't stand against the rest.’

‘I'm glad to hear that. This incident is forgotten as far as the Earth authorities will be concerned, but there had better be no repetition, no further action of any kind that could be considered mutinous.’

78

Back in their own quarters, Fisher said, ‘You don't mind, I hope, that I interfered. I was afraid you would explode to no effect.’

‘No, it was good. I wouldn't have thought of the Columbus analogy, which was perfect. Thank you, Crile.’ She took his hand and squeezed it.

He smiled briefly. ‘I had to justify my presence on board ship somehow.’

‘You more than justified it. And you have no idea how disgusted I was, to have Wu act as he did when I had just finished telling you how happy I was over his findings, and over the credit he would get. I was feeling noble over my willingness to share credit, over the ethics of scientific research that gives to each his fair due, and then he puts his private pride ahead of the project.’

‘We're all human, Tessa.’

‘I know. And seeing that the man's interior has its ethical dark spots doesn't alter the fact that he has a scientific mind that is fearfully sharp.’

‘I'm afraid I'd have to admit that my own arguments were based on private desires rather than the public good, so to speak. I want to go to the Neighbor Star for reasons that have nothing to do with the project.’

‘I understand that. I am still grateful.’ It embarrassed Fisher that there were tears in her eyes and that she had to blink them away.

He kissed her.

79

It was just a star, too faint yet to stand out in any way. In fact, Crile Fisher would have lost it were it not for the fact that he had punched in the network that zeroed in on it in concentric circles and radii.

‘It looks disappointingly like a star, doesn't it?’ said Fisher, his face taking on the moroseness it seemed to have when he let it fall into its natural lines.

Merry Blankowitz, who was the only one with him at the observation panel, said, ‘That's all it is, Crile. A star.’

‘I mean it looks like a faint star - and we're so close.’

‘Close in a manner of speaking. We're still a tenth of a light-year away, which is not really close. It's just that the Captain's cautious. I'd have dragged the Superluminal in a lot closer. I wish we were a lot closer right now. I can hardly wait.’

‘Before this last transition, you were set to go home, Merry.’

‘Not really. They just talked me into it. Once you made your little speech, I felt like a complete jackass. I took it for granted that if we returned, we'd all go back a second time, but, of course, you really clarified the situation. Oh, but I want to use the ND so badly.’

Fisher knew what the ND was. It was the neuronic detector. He felt the stirring himself. To detect intelligence would be to know they had come upon something that was infinitely more important than all metals, rocks, ices and vapors they could otherwise discover.

He said hesitantly, ‘Can you tell at this distance?’

She shook her head. ‘No. We'd have to be a lot closer. And we can't just coast in from this distance. It would take us about a year. Once the Captain is satisfied with what we can find out about the Neighbor Star from here, we'll make another transition. What I expect is that in two days at the most, we'll be within a couple of astronomic units of the Neighbor Star, and then I can start making observations and be useful. It's a drag feeling like a deadweight.’

‘Yes,’ said Fisher dryly, ‘I know.’

A look of concern crossed Blankowitz's face. ‘I'm sorry, Crile. I wasn't referring to you.’

‘You might as well have been. I might not be of any use no matter how close we come to the Neighbor Star.’

‘You will be useful if we detect intelligence. You'll be able to talk to them. You're a Rotorian, and we'll need that.’

Fisher smiled grimly. ‘A Rotorian for just a few years.’

‘That's enough, isn't it?’

‘We'll see.’ He changed the subject deliberately. ‘Are you sure the neuronic detector will work?’

‘Absolutely sure. We could follow any Settlement in orbit just by its radiation of plexons.’

‘What are plexons, Merry?’

‘Just a name I made up, for the photon-complex characteristic of mammalian brains. We could detect horses, you know, if we're not too far away, but we can detect human brains in masses at astronomic distances.’

‘Why plexons?’

‘From “complexity”. Someday - you'll see - someday they're going to be working on plexons not just to detect life but to study the intimate functioning of the brain. I've made up a name for that, too - “plexophysiology”. Or maybe “plexoneuronics”.’

Fisher said, ‘Do you consider names important?’

‘Yes, indeed. It gives you a way of speaking concisely. You don't have to say, “that field of science that involves the relationship of this and that.” You just say “plexoneuronics” - yes, that sounds better. It's a shortcut. It saves your thinking time for more important subjects. Besides-’ She hesitated.

‘Besides? Yes?’

The words came in a rush. ‘If I make up a name and it sticks, that alone would get me a footnote in the history of science. You know, “The word ‘plexon’ was first introduced by Merrilee Augina Blankowitz in 2237 on the occasion of the pioneer faster-than-light flight of the Superluminal .” I'm not likely to be mentioned anywhere else, or for any other reason, and I'll settle for that.’

Fisher said, ‘What if you detect your plexons, Merry, and there are no human beings present?’

‘You mean alien life? That would be even more exciting than detecting people. But there's not much chance, really. We've been disappointed over and over again. We thought there might be at least primitive forms of life on the Moon, on Mars, on Callisto, on Titan. It never came to anything. People have speculated on all kinds of weird life - living galaxies, living dust clouds, life on the surface of a neutron star, all sorts of things. There's no evidence for any of it. No, if I detect anything, it will be human life. I'm convinced of that.’