“Six. Five. Four.”
In a few seconds, I would turn off the engine. Our magnetic shield, carefully angled, using the same technology Aaron had employed to haul Diana and the Orpheus back aboard, would continue to protect the people within this ship— not to mention my delicate electronics—from the sleet of radioactive particles we were moving through, the barrage of stripped nuclei that fueled our Bussard ramjet.
“Three! Two! One!”
It would take my little robots the better part of a day to clean the ramscoop assembly, the fusion chamber, and the fluted exit cone. Once the engine was shut down, the sunlike glow of our exhaust would disappear and Argo’s three-kilometer-long hull would be illuminated solely by the encircling starbow. Each metal of our hull—the bronze hydrogen funnel, the silver central shaft, and the copper fusion assembly—would glint differently in the rainbow light.
“ZERO!”
I throttled back the fusion engine, gently, easily, slowly. Although our speed remained constant at a fraction below that of light, our acceleration dropped to zero with the same rapidity that a human can turn his or her feelings from love to hate. As it dropped, the simulated gravity, produced by our acceleration, ebbed, drained.
Some impatient souls began kicking off the sod as soon as the count reached zero. Their first leaps were a disappointment—that was plain in their expressions and their telemetry. But each successive leap took them higher and higher, and the fingers of gravity drew them back to the ground more slowly, more gently, and then, finally, they leapt and kept rising and rising and rising until they bounced against the vaulted ceiling eight meters up.
More sedate types waited until they could feel the weightlessness and then, with a simple flexing of toes, began to rise into the air. Some ended up stranded, floating between floor and ceiling with nothing off which to push. They didn’t seem to mind, though, laughing like children as they flailed their limbs in the air, anti-SAS drugs removing any of the discomfort that sometimes went with the introduction of zero g.
Others were using small aerosol cans to propel themselves through the massive chamber. They tumbled through the air, looking down upon the roofs of the blocks of apartment units below, many appreciating for the first time the careful geometry of the grassed areas, the complex curves of the lockstone paths.
Still others had joined together in a conga line and were sailing across the sky, singing.
The celebration lasted for hours, people becoming progressively more adventurous in the absence of gravity, performing acrobatics and complex three-dimensional ballets. Even those who were experienced in zero gravity seemed to enjoy the wide-open spaces afforded by Argo, something quite unusual in most human space vessels. Many seemed to have fun kicking off one wall with all their might and bursting through space for a hundred meters or so until air drag brought them to a halt. Quickly, of course, and especially among the males, competitions developed to see who could sail the farthest on a single kick.
It didn’t take long for couples to start drifting away— literally—to explore the possibilities of weightless lovemaking. Most were disappointed—traditional thrusting gestures tended to push partners apart—but some found ways around this and, judging by their telemetry, had very good times indeed.
Aaron and Kirsten did join in the festivities, although Kirsten had to nip out for a time to fix the dislocated shoulder of someone who had rammed too hard into the ceiling. Such injuries had been anticipated, though, and she was only gone for thirty-seven minutes. When she did return, she floated in midair facing Aaron, her fingers intertwined with his. She stared into those multicolored eyes, searching and wondering. He seemed happier than he had been of late, but she perhaps detected something I could not perceive, for she made no sexual overture. They hovered there, together, in silence for a long time.
EIGHTEEN
MASTER CALENDAR DISPLAY • CENTRAL CONTROL ROOM
STARCOLOGY DATE: FRIDAY 10 OCTOBER 2177
EARTH DATE: TUESDAY 4 MAY 2179
DAYS SINCE LAUNCH: 743 ▲
DAYS TO PLANETFALL: 2,225 ▼
Given that my hull has no windows, one would normally think that it becomes pitch-black when I turn off the lights. Well, I can make it that way, of course, if I want to, but most of the crew seem to prefer some illumination as they sleep. I guess it’s so that they can quell their primal fears, taking stock of their surroundings whenever they wake, being sure that no Smilodon is salivating a few meters away, that no angry or vengeful or hungry human is about to do them in. Glowing strips in the walls provided the same lux rating as a half moon did.
Of course, Aaron and Kirsten weren’t sleeping—not yet. They had readied themselves for bed without saying much to each other. They were both particularly tired—a day of zero g, which should, perhaps, have been restful, had tuckered them both out. When at last they lay together on the mattress, I expected nothing more than their usual quick kiss, Aaron’s stock, “See you in the morning,” and Kirsten’s even briefer, “ ’Night.”
But this evening the ritual was broken. Once the overhead fluorescent panels were turned off, both were temporarily blinded because of the slow speed at which their eyes adjusted to changes in light levels. But I could see clearly as Kirsten reached an arm out, thought twice, pulled it back, and then a moment later reached out again, this time connecting, touching the small knot of curls in the center of Aaron’s chest. She stroked him lightly, her fingers—surgery could have been her specialty, they were so long and dexterous—weaving back and forth. “Aaron?” she said quietly.
“Hmmm?”
“Aaron, do you—? How do you feel about us?” A pause. “About me?”
He went stiff for a moment, and his EEG showed much activity. I saw him open his mouth twice to respond, but both times he thought better of what he was about to say and stopped himself. Finally he did speak. “I love you,” he said softly. It had been over a year since he had said that to his ex-wife Diana: he’d given up saying it even before he’d given up feeling it, as far as I could tell. But his relationship with Kirsten was young enough that the words came without much difficulty. “I love you dearly.”
“And about us?”
“I’m glad we’re together.”
Kirsten smiled, a smile, in this darkness, that only I could see. A moment later, she said, “I love you, too.” She paused, as if thinking, and her hand stopped moving on Aaron’s chest. When she spoke, it was with a note of trepidation, as if she was afraid she might be saying the wrong thing. “I’m sorry about what happened with Diana.”
It was eight seconds before Aaron replied, and as each of those seconds ticked by, Kirsten’s medical telemetry became more agitated as she awaited whatever response Aaron might make. At last he spoke: “I’m sorry, too.”
Kirsten let her breath slip from her lungs as she relaxed, and she waited, now without apprehension, for Aaron to continue.
“You know,” he said, “when my parents divorced, they told us—my brother Joel, my sister, Hannah, and me—that they were going to remain friends. Hannah, she was always a cynic, she never believed it, but Joel and I thought they would, that we’d get together as a family still, at least on special occasions. Well, that never happened. Mom and Dad grew further and further apart. It used to be that they would talk when Dad would drop us off at Mom’s. She’d kept the old house; he’d moved out into an apartment. Originally, he’d come up to the door and Mom would invite him in for a coffee. But that didn’t last long. Soon Dad was just dropping us off on the landing pad.” He brought his right hand up to his chest, placing it over Kirsten’s. “Despite that, I thought—I really and truly thought—that Diana and I would remain friends after we split up. I mean, hell, we couldn’t very well avoid each other in this tin can.” He shook his head, and I suspect Kirsten’s eyes had adjusted enough now that she could see the gesture. If not, she certainly could hear his hair rubbing against his pillow.