At the front a man stood up. Docchi remembered him from months ago, a
Jack or Jed Webber. Jed it was, a quiet fellow with pale blue eyes and
almost colorless blond hair. Docchi had never heard him say anything
but he was speaking now, emerging from his self-imposed shell. "Yes,"
said Webber. "I want to know where we're going."
Jordan rapped again. "Out of order. Not on the subject. Anyway the
question's not important."
"I think it is," said the man, shuffling his body awkwardly. He was
not exact in his movements because he'd been sliced very nearly down
the middle. Except for his head he was half man and half machine.
Unlike others who'd been injured past regeneration, he could use his
composite body with some degree of skill because there was one arm
and one leg to which the motion of his mechanical limbs could be
coordinated. His skill wasn't as great as it could have been because he
hadn't practiced. The spectre of the ideal human body had hindered him
greatly--in the past. "You don't know where we're going," insisted the
man in a high voice. "We're just moving but you don't know where."
Docchi got up. "I can answer that question. It should be answered.
We're going to Centauri, either Alpha or Proxima, whichever is most
suitable. Is there some place else you wanted to go?"
The reply was drowned for a few seconds by an appreciative rumble but
Webber was stubborn and waited until the noise died down. He swayed on
his feet and pointed at Nona. "I suppose you asked her," he said. Nona
smiled dreamily as attention turned to her.
"No. It would be a joke if we did and we're not interested in playing
tricks on ourselves. You've forgotten one thing, that we do have a
telescope."
"A small one, built as a hobby," Webber said. His voice was uncertain,
as wobbly as his body was.
"True, but it's better than Gallileo had." He hoped Webber wouldn't
point out that Gallileo hadn't tried to plot a voyage across space with
his instrument.
Actually there was something strange about the few observations he'd
made. He had reconstructed their path to the best of his ability--not a
bad guess since no records had been kept. At the time they had left Sol
they hadn't been heading directly toward the Centauris. Nona must have
used their tangential motion to take them out of the system as fast as
she could and later had looped back toward their present destination.
The sketchy charts Docchi had, indicated the Centauris by plus or minus
a few degrees, all the accuracy he could expect from the telescope. It
was in the stars themselves that he had detected changes he couldn't
account for.
At the far side a woman stood. Jordan nodded to her. "I wasn't asked
for my opinion about all this," she said defiantly. "I don't like it. I
want to go back."
Jordan cocked his head humorously. "You should have told the guards
this while they were here. They'd have been glad to take you with them."
"I certainly wouldn't leave with them," she said in surprise. "Look how
they acted while they were here."
"I'm afraid you're out of luck. We can't turn back because of you."
"Don't tell me we're marooned here," said the woman vehemently. "The
guards left a couple of scout ships, didn't they? Why can't we take
those back to Earth?"
"For the same reason _they_ didn't," said Jordan patiently. "The range
of the scouts is limited, it wouldn't reach then and it won't do it
now."
"Pshaw," said the woman. "You're just arguing. Docchi said the gravity
generator in each ship could be changed to a drive without much
work--something about adding a little star encyclopedia unit. I think
that's what he said."
Docchi started. Had he said that? He must have for the woman to have
remembered it. He shouldn't have made such a statement, first because
it wasn't so. He had made the possibility of return to Earth seem too
easy.
There was another reason he regretted his rash explanation and it was
the opposite of the first: inadvertently he might have blurted out the
secret of the drive. It was possible to talk too much.
"I'm not the only one," the woman was insisting. She'd found a point
and wouldn't let go. "There are plenty of others who feel as I do and
they'll say so if they're not afraid. Who wants to go on for years and
years, never reaching any place?"
"Look at the stars." A voice ahead of Docchi answered her. It was
Webber again, the meek little man who never spoke.
"I don't _want_ to look at the stars," she said violently. "I never
want to see anything but the sun. _Our_ sun. It was good enough for
mankind and I certainly don't care to change it."
"That's because you don't know," said Webber confidently. "You're
afraid and you don't need to be. When I said look at the stars I meant
that those ahead of us are brighter than the ones behind. Do you know
what that means?"
Docchi nodded exultantly to himself; they'd found their astronomer.
He himself had noticed the first part of what Webber remarked on; he
hadn't thought to turn the telescope in the opposite direction because
he wasn't interested in where they'd been. The apparent brightness of
the Centauri system was much greater than it should have been--that's
what he hadn't been able to account for. He could now. It was
surprising how much power the gravity drive could deliver.
"We're approaching the speed of light," went on Webber. "It won't take
decades to reach a star. We'll be there in a few years."
The woman turned and glared at him but could find nothing to say.
She wasn't convinced but she sat down to cover her confusion. Around
her people began to whisper to each other, their voices rising with
excitement. They'd lived long enough at the rim of the system to know
what stellar distances meant and how much speed could affect their
voyage.
Jordan rapped them into silence. "I've tried to get you to talk on the
subject but you've resolutely refrained. Therefore you'll have to vote
on it without discussion."
The vote took place, whatever it was. Docchi was unable to discover
what and so he didn't participate. When the count was over Jordan
gavelled sharply. "Motion carried. That's all. Meeting adjourned."
Before Docchi could protest, people were leaving, carrying him part of
the way with them. He reached the wall and stood there until traffic
subsided, afterwards making his way to Jordan who was talking happily
to Jeriann.
"We did it," said Jordan, grinning as he came up.
"Did what? All I heard were people complaining. We had to depend on
someone from the floor to smack them down. Seems to me there were a lot
of important things to discuss."
"Seem to me we covered everything, which you would have known if you
had got here on time," said Jordan, still grinning. "This is Jeriann's
idea. It was what we were voting on."
Twisting his head Docchi read the sheet Jordan laid in front of him.
It was a resolution of some sort, that he gathered from the usual
whereases. He scanned it once and was halfway through again before he
caught the import.
"The wages aren't high," remarked Jordan. "Survival _if_ we do our job
well, grousing if we don't. Otherwise we can keep on doing just what
we have been." He picked up the sheet and read from it. "Whereas we
are bound together by a common condition and destination--ain't that
nice?--and have a common plan----" Jordan looked up. "Since you're the
one they're talking about when they refer to the head of the planning
committee, just what the hell _is_ our plan?"
There were innumerable small goals that had to be reached before they
could consider themselves self-sufficient, and to some extent Docchi
was capable of summarizing them. But when it came to a final statement
of aims he could only feel his way. Docchi didn't know either.
9
Jeriann came into the office. "I've got it down to twenty," she said
briskly.
"What?" said Docchi absently. Management details were unfamiliar to
him and he was trying to pick them up as he went along. The scattered
records were in order but some were still unaccounted for. "Oh. The
deficiency biologicals. Good. How did you do it?"
"I asked them."
"And they knew? It's surprising. I'd expect them to be familiar with
their standard treatment. But not something that's entirely new."
Jeriann smiled faintly. "I'm not that good. I did find out what
they used to get and then scrounged around in storage until I found
supplies. If the old stuff kept them healthy once it should do so now."
He hadn't thought of that, but then he wasn't accustomed to considering
the same things a doctor would. Any trained person would know that
sulfa hadn't been discarded with the discovery of penicillin, nor
penicillin with the advent of the neo-biotics. Docchi studied her
covertly; Jeriann was a competent woman, and an attractive one.
"Of the remaining twenty we don't have biologicals for, I've determined
we can make what eleven need."
Only nine who were left out. It was a remarkable advance over a few
days ago when there were forty-two. Nine for whom so far they could
do nothing. It was queer how he worried about them more as the number
diminished. Somehow it had greater significance now that he could
remember each face distinctly. "And Maureen?" he inquired.
Instinctively Jeriann touched the decorative belt that was so much more
than what it seemed. "I'm afraid I misjudged her. I couldn't locate a
thing for her."
"You're sure she didn't destroy her prescription?"
"I don't see what difference it makes as long as we don't have it,"
said Jeriann. "But yes, I'm sure. Once something is brought in it's
simply not possible for a person as ignorant of the system as she is to
track down and destroy every entry relating to it."
"All right. I believe you." He glanced down at the list she'd given
him. The actual figures weren't as optimistic as her report had been.
"Wait. I notice you say here that out of twenty that we don't have
supplies for that we can synthesize biologicals for eleven."
She sat down. "That's what I said. How else can we get them? We've got
the equipment. The asteroid never did depend on Earth for very many of
our biologicals."
He knew vaguely how the medical equipment functioned, rather like the
commonplace food synthesizers. "We don't have anyone with experience."
Jeriann shrugged. "I'm not a technician but I used to help out when
there was nothing else to do. I expected to run it."
The light flashed on his desk but Docchi ignored it. "Have you thought
what an infinitesimal error means?" he asked.
"Of course." He was struck by her calmness. "One atom hooked in the
wrong place and instead of a substance the body must have it becomes a
deadly poison. I've talked it over with the deficients. They agreed to
it. This way they know they have a chance."
"We'll do something," he acknowledged. "Pick out the worst and work for
their deficiency. Check with me before you give them anything."
"I've selected them," she said. "There are four extreme cases. They
won't collapse today or tomorrow. Perhaps not in a week. But we can't
let them get close."
"Agreed." The light kept flashing annoyingly in his eyes. Another
complaint. Nodding at Jeriann Docchi nudged the switch and glanced at
the screen. "Anything wrong?" he asked.
It was Webber. "Nothing much. Jordan and I just bumped into an old
acquaintance. I suppose we'd better bring him in."
"Cameron," exclaimed Docchi as Webber moved aside, revealing the man
behind him.
The doctor's clothing was rumpled and he hadn't shaved but he was calm
and assured. "You seem to be running things now," he said. "I'd like a
chance to talk with you."