But it seemed to, then. Now we know that there are very, very few habitable worlds; and we also know that anywhere we can live is likely to be inhabited already. Neither of those things was obvious in the early days. We had no standards for comparison. There was a popular myth, bred by a couple of hundred years of speculation, that somewhere out in space we might find a paradise planet—green and lovely and hospitable, just waiting for people to move in. In fact, we thought there might be dozens of them. The idea of colonizing twenty or thirty planets via hyperspace seemed out of the question. Too difficult to sustain a warp field around anything much bigger than a touring caravan—too many trips to transport the essentials. Now, of course, if we really did find ourselves knocking at the Gates of Eden, we wouldn’t care if it took a thousand trips—because we’d know it was once in a dozen lifetimes. They were hoping it would be a regular thing; far easier to do the trick in one fell swoop. The colony ships seemed to make sense.”
“It wasn’t just that,” I pointed out. “This was the last part of the twenty-first century. The time of the Crash. We were making big strides in space, and stumbling over our feet at home. Earth itself was in a bad way. The colony ships made another kind of sense: they were a kind of insurance policy. Seeds...in case the parent plant shriveled up and died. Eggs in more than one basket, see?”
“I think so,” answered Zeno.
I turned my attention back to Schumann.
“How far did the Ariadne get?”
He shook his head. “No details—but the records show that she never planted a beacon. She never passed through a single system. That means she was rerouted from every one she got close enough to survey, probably with minimum slowdown. Taking into account the relativistic effects, I’d say she may have covered a hundred and fifty or a hundred and eighty light-years.”
Known space, as we are pleased to call it, is a bumpy spheroid about sixty light-years in radius. Only the G-type stars within it are “known,” of course. and not all of them. We could have done better, if we’d only worked harder. More ships, more strategy, more sense. A station a hundred and eighty light-years away—even if it were just a station, and not a living world at all, would be a very useful stepping stone.
“Toward galactic center?” I asked.
He nodded. After a moment’s pause, he said: “That’s all there is. I hate to push when you’ve just had such wonderful news, but you do have things to do here. I asked you once—can you hand over everything that needs to be carried on within the next day and a half?”
“Who to?” I asked, ungrammatically.
“That’s your problem,” he retorted. That’s how you get to be director—you have to know how to delegate. I forgave him for sounding tough. After all, he was stuck on Sule while we were about to set forth on the Great Adventure.
“Come on, friend,” I said to Zeno as I stood up, “the cause of civilization needs us. We are the conquistadores of the new Earth.” I glanced back at Schumann, and said: “They really must think we’re good, if they picked us out of all the men available.”
“I don’t know about that,” said the director, smoothing back the few grey hairs he had left. “Maybe they just think you’re expendable.”
I laughed. I really thought it was a joke!
CHAPTER TWO
We got back to the lab, and sat down facing one another beside the main bench.
“What we have to do,” said Zeno, “is to decide which projects we can simply terminate, and which we should reallocate. It would be easier, of course, if our writing-up were up to date. There are half a dozen things we should have put into the bulletin before now. Anything which has to be taken over by someone else has to be brought up to date, and really needs supplementary annotation.”
“Zee,” I said, “you have a distorted sense of priorities. Do you really think any of this can possibly matter now?”
“Of course it matters,” he said.
“It’s junk,” I told him. “Slime from some ugly ball of rock. It’s an aborted life-system. Evolutionary ABC. Little bags of chemicals. Sure they have nucleic acids swilling around in their microscopic cells. They have their mutations and their viruses and all the other nasty little shocks that flesh is heir to, but it’s just marking time. Nobody cares about it. If the entire life-system were to be wiped out by a nova, no one would shed a tear. It’s a finger-exercise, Zee—it’s allowed us to practice for the real thing, to sharpen our techniques and sharpen our wits. But it has nothing to offer—it doesn’t even pose a threat to us, even if some of the lousy viruses have found a hook to hang themselves on in Scarlatti’s lousy mice. Forget it!”
He heard me out, politely, then he picked up the phone. “I’m calling Tom Thorpe,” he said. “He can take my stuff on until they replace us. I suppose they will replace us?”
I shook my head, but not in answer to his question. I listened while he apologized to Tom for troubling him on a holiday, and asking him politely if he could please spare the time to drop in at the lab. Tom would spare the time, all right. Like everyone else—including me—he was hung up on his work. Single-mindedness was an essential characteristic in those so close to the top of their profession that they could swing an assignment like Sule. It costs a lot to hoist a man out of a gravity well like Earth’s and ship him all the way to Mars-orbit; they always make sure they’re getting value for money.
Zeno was right, of course, but I still wanted to take time out to think about it all. This was the kind of thing that we all dreamed about...except, of course, when we were busy having nightmares.
“Lee,” said Zeno softly (my name’s Leander—Lee and Zee for the purposes of the double act), “you don’t know that they’ve found a habitable world—or even a world at all. For all you know, the Ariadne may have lit the Hyper-Space Beacon just to call for help. It might be some kind of shipboard problem—nothing to do with a new planet.”
“And for that they need a physiologist and two geneticists who specialize in alien life-systems?”
“Who knows?” he said.
“Sure,” I said. “The ship’s been invaded by froglike monsters—monsters even more froglike than you. Or long exposure to cosmic rays has engendered some frightful new life-form in the egg factory which has started to feed on the frozen flesh of the off-duty crewmen. Then again....”
“Then again,” conceded Zeno, “they may have found a new world, with a life-system that’s a little weird. Something their own biologists can’t cope with, because they’re three hundred and fifty years behind the times. I concede—Occam’s razor cuts your way.”
This is how great partnerships work.
Tom Thorpe came into the lab, and eyed us suspiciously. “Hello Zeno,” he said. “You too, Lee—where did you disappear to last night?”
That was just about number one on my top ten list of embarrassing questions.
“Oh...you know,” I said, hoping that he didn’t. Thirty-six hours, I’d be away, and it wouldn’t matter anymore.
“Sometimes,” said Tom, “I get the feeling that you’re anti-social. What’s up?”
I told him what was up,
