“I think,” Ada Beaumont said more quietly still, when the crew was furthest from them and only Bob could possibly hear. “I think Jim shouldn’t have taken this one. I wish he’d take the out he still has and go back to Cyteen. Claim health reasons.”
And then, in further silence, Bob venturing no comment: “What he actually said was–‘You handle things. You’ll be doing that, mostly. The old man just wants to ride it out easy.’”
“He wasn’t that way,” Bob said finally.
“It’s leaving Cyteen. It’s Jean, I think. He never showed how bad that hurt.”
Bob Davies ducked his head. There was noise in the corridor to the left. Some of the azi were coming up. The clock ran closer and closer to their inevitable departure. He reached and took his wife’s hand–himself in the khaki that was the uniform of the day for everyone headed planetward, civ or military. “So maybe that’s why he can sit up here; because he can lean on you. Because he knows you’ll do it. You can handle it. And there’s Pete Gallin. He’s all right.”
“It’s no way to start out.”
“Hang, he can’t make every launch down here.”
“ I’dbe here,” Beaumont said. She shook her head. The azi line entered the bay, brighteyed, in soiled white coveralls; weeks with no bathing, some of them with gall sores from the bunks. There were already difficulties. Some of the details regarding the azi were not at all pretty, not the comfortable view of things the science people or even the troops had had of the voyage. At least Conn had been down seeing to the azi, she gave him that. He had been down in the holds during the voyage, maybe too often.
Now Conn handed it to her. She knew the silent language. Had served with Conn before. Knew his limits.
He had been drinking–a lot. That was the truth she did not tell even Bob.
xiii
T43 days MAT
Venture communications log
“ Ventureshuttle one: unloading now complete; will lift at ready and return to dock. Weather onworld good and general conditions excellent. Landing area is now marked with the locator signal…”
“ Ventureshuttle two now leaving orbit and heading for landing site…”
xiv
T45 days MAT
Venture hold, azi section
“Passage 14,” the silk‑smooth voice intoned, “will be J 429‑687 through J 891‑5567; passage 15…”
Jin smiled inwardly, not with the face, which was unaccustomed to emotion. Emotion was between himself and the tape, between himself and the voice which caressed, promised, praised, since his childhood. He had no need to show others what he felt, or that he felt, unless someone spoke directly to him and entered the bubble which was his private world.
When the time came, he listened to the voice and gathered himself up along with the rest of them in his aisle, stood patiently as everyone lined up, coming down the ladder to join them. And then the word was given and the file moved, out the door they had not passed since they had entered the ship, and through the corridors of the ship to the cold room which admitted them to the lift chamber. The lift jolted and slid one way and the other, and opened again where there was no gravity at all, so that they drifted–“Hold the lines,” a born‑man told them, and Jin seized the cord along with the rest, beside a silver clip on the line. “Hold to the clips with one hand and pull yourselves along gently,” the born‑man said, and he did so, flew easily upward along the line in the company of others, until they had come to the hatch of the ship which would take them to the World.
It was more lines, inside; and they were jammed very tightly into the back of the hold while more and more azi were loaded on after them. “Secure your handgrips,” a born‑man told them, and they did so, locking in place the padded bars which protected them. “Feet to the deck.” They did the best they could.
It took a short time to load. They were patient, and the others moved with dispatch: the hatch closed and a born‑man voice said: “Hold tight.”
So they went, a hard kick which sent them on their way and gave them the feeling that they were lying on the floor on top of each other and not standing upright. No one spoke. There was no need. The tape had already told them where they were going and how long it would take to get there, and if they talked, they might miss instruction.
They believed in the new world and in themselves with all their hearts, and Jin was pleased even in the discomfort of the acceleration, because it meant they were going there faster.
They made entry, and the air heated, so that from time to time they wiped sweat from their faces, crowded as they were. But weight was on their feet now, and it was a long, slow flight as the engines changed over to ordinary flight.
“Landing in fifteen minutes,” the born‑man voice said, and soon, very soon, the motion changed again, and the noise increased, which was the settling of the shuttle downward, gentle as the settling of a leaf to the ground.
They waited, still silent, until the big cargo hatch opened where they had not realized a hatch existed. Daylight flooded in, and the coolth of outside breezes flooded through the double lock.
“File out,” the voice told them. “Go down the ramp and straight ahead. A supervisor will give you your packets and your assignments. Goodbye.”
They unlocked the restraints line by line in reverse order to that in which they had loaded, and in that order they went down the ramp.
Light hit Jin’s eyes, the sight of a broad gray river–blue sky, and green forest of saplings beyond a hazy shore–the scars of a camp on this one, where earthmovers were already at work tearing up the black earth. Clean air filled his lungs, and the sun touched the stubble on his head and his face. His heart was beating hard.
He knew what he had to do now. The tapes had told him before and during the voyage. He had reached the real beginning of his life and nothing but this had ever had meaning.
III
LANDING
Military Personneclass="underline"
Col. James A. Conn, governor general
Capt. Ada P. Beaumont, It. governor
Maj. Peter T. Gallin, personnel
M/Sgt. Ilya V. Burdette, Corps of Engineers
Cpl. Antonia M. Cole
Spec. Martin H. Andresson
Spec. Emilie Kontrin
Spec. Danton X. Norris
M/Sgt. Danielle L. Emberton, tactical op.
Spec. Lewiston W. Rogers
Spec. Hamil N. Masu
Spec. Grigori R. Tamilin
M/Sgt. Pavlos D. M. Bilas, maintenance
Spec. Dorothy T. Kyle
Spec. Egan I. Innis
Spec. Lucas M. White
Spec. Eron 678‑4578 Miles
Spec. Upton R. Patrick
Spec. Gene T. Troyes
Spec. Tyler W. Hammett
Spec. Kelley N. Matsuo
Spec. Belle M. Rider
Spec. Vela K. James
Spec. Matthew R. Mayes
Spec. Adrian C. Potts
Spec. Vasily C. Orlov
Spec. Rinata W. Quarry
Spec. Kito A. M. Kabir
Spec. Sita Chandrus
M/Sgt. Dinah L. Sigury, communications
Spec. Yung Kim
Spec. Lee P. de Witt
M/Sgt. Thomas W. Oliver, quartermaster