Five seconds later the nearby girl says, "Da, Margo, we were into that too. Dinko. Ah, Sunbird? Major Davis of Sunbird, are you there? This is Judy Paris in the ship Gloria, we're only About a million kay from you, we see you on our screen." She sounds young and excited. "Luna Central has been trying to reach you, we think you're in trouble and we want to help. Please don't be frightened, we're people just j like you. We think you're way off course if you want to reach Earth. Are you in trouble? Can we help? If x your radio is out can you make any sort of signal? Do you know Old Morse? You'll be off our screen R soon, we're truly worried about you. Please reply somehow if you possibly can, Sunbird, come in!"
Dave sits impassive. Bud glances at him, at the port window, gazes stolidly at the speaker, his face blank. Lorimer has exhausted surprise, he wants only to reply to to the voices. He can manage a rough signal by heterodyning the probe beam. But what then, with them both against him?
The girl's voice tries again determinedly. Finally she says, "Margo, they won't peep. Maybe they're dead? I think they're aliens."
Are we not? Lorimer thinks. The Luna station: comes back with a different, older voice.
"Judy, Myda here, I've-had another thought. These people had a very rigid authority code. You remember your history, they peck ordered everything. You notice._ Major Davis repeated about being commanding. That's called dominance-submission structure, one of them gave orders and the others did whatever they were told, we don't know quite why. Perhaps they were 1 frightened. The point is that if the dominant one is in shock or panicked maybe the others can't reply unless this Davis lets them."
Jesus Christ, Lorimer thinks. Jesus H. Christ in colors. It is his father's expression for the inexpressible. Dave and Bud sit unstirring.
"How 'weird," the Judy voice says. "But don't they know they're on a bad course? I mean, could the dominant one make the others fly right out of the system? Truly?"
It's happened, Lorimer thinks; it has happened. I have to stop this. I have to act now, before they lose us. Desperate visions of himself defying Dave and Bud loom before him. Try persuasion first.
Just as he opens his mouth he sees Bud stir slightly, and with immeasurable gratitude hears him say, "Dave-o, what say we take an eyeball look? One little old burp won't hurt us."
Dave's head turns a degree or two.
"Or should I go out and see, like the chick said?" Bud's voice is mild.
After a long minute Dave says neutrally, "All right.
… Attitude change." His arm moves up as though heavy; he stars methodically setting in the values for the vector that will bring Spica in line with their functional window.
Now why couldn't I have done that, Lorimer asks himself for the thousandth time, following the familiar check sequence. Don't answer… And for the thousandth time he is obscurely moved by the rightness of them. The authentic ones, the alphas. Their bond. The awe he had felt first for the absurd jocks of his school ball team. `
"That's go, Dave, assuming nothing got creamed."
Dave throws the ignition safety, puts the computer on real time. The hull shudders. Everything in the cabin drifts sidewise while the bright point of Spica swims the other way, appears on the front window as the retros cut in. When the star creeps out onto clear glass Lorimer can clearly see its companion. The double light steadies there; a beautiful job. He hands Bud the telescope.
"The one on the left."
Bud looks. "There she is, all right. Hey, Dave, look at that!"
He puts the scope in Dave's hand. Slowly, Dave raises it and looks. Lorimer can hear him breathe. Suddenly Dave pulls up the mike.
"Houston!" he shouts harshly. "Sunbird to Houston, Sunbird calling Houston! Houston, come in!"
Into the silence the speaker squeals, "They fired their engines-wait, she's calling!" And shuts up.
In Sunbird's cabin nobody speaks. Lorimer stares at the twin stars ahead, impossible realities shifting around him as the minutes congeal. Bud's reflected face looks downwards, grin gone. Dave's beard moves silently; praying, Lorimer realizes. Alone of the crew Dave is deeply religious. At Sunday meals he gives a short, dignified grace. A shocking pity for Dave rises in Lorimer; Dave is so deeply involved with his family, his four sons,. always thinking about their training, taking them hunting, fishing, camping. And Doris his wife so incredibly active and sweet, going on their trips, cooking and doing things for the community. Driving Penny and Jenny to classes while Ginny was sick that time. Good people, the backbone… This can't be, he thinks; Packard's voice is going to come through in a minute, the antenna's beamed right now. Six minutes now. This will all go away… Before the year two thousand-stop it, the language would have changed. Think of Doris… She has that glow, feeding her five men; women with sons are different. But Ginny, but his dear woman, his wife, his daughters – grandmothers now? All dead and dust? Quit that. -Dave is still praying… Who knows what goes on inside those heads? Dave's cry… Twelve minutes, it has to be all right. The second sweep is stuck, no, it's moving. Thirteen. It's all insane, a dream. Thirteen plus… fourteen. The speaker hissing and clicking vacantly. Fifteen now. A dream… Or are those women staying off, letting us see? Sixteen…
At twenty Dave's hand moves, stops again. The seconds jitter by, space crackles. Thirty minutes coming up.
"Calling Major Davis in Sunbird?" It is the older woman, a gentle voice. "This is Luna Central. We are the service and communication facility for space flight now. We're sorry to have to tell you that there is no space center at Houston any more. Houston itself was abandoned when the shuttle base moved to White Sands, over two centuries ago."
A cool dust-colored light enfolds Lorimer's brain, isolating it. It will remain so a long time.
The woman is explaining it all again, offering help, asking if they were hurt. A nice dignified speech. Dave still sits immobile, gazing at Earth. Bud puts the mike in his hand.
"Tell them, Dave-o."
Dave looks at it, takes a deep breath, presses the send button.
"Sunbird to Luna Control," he says quite normally. (It's "Central," Lorimer thinks.) "We copy. Ah, negative on life support, we have no problems. We copy the course change suggestion and are proceeding to recompute. Your offer of computer assistance is appreciated. We suggest you transmit position data so we can get squared away. Ah, we are economizing on transmission until we see how our accumulators have held up. Sunbird out."
And so it had begun.
Lorimer's mind floats back to himself now floating in Gloria, nearly a year, or three hundred years, later; watching and being watched by them. He still feels light, contented; the dread underneath has come no nearer. But it is so silent. He seems to have heard no voices for a long time. Or was it a long time? Maybe the drug is working on his time sense, maybe it was only a minute or two.
"I've been remembering," he says to the woman Connie, wanting her to speak.
She nods. "You have so much to remember. Oh, I'm sorry-that wasn't good to say." Her eyes speak sympathy.
"Never mind." It is all dreamlike now, his lost world and this other which he is just now seeing plain. "We must seem like very strange beasts to you."
"We're trying to understand," she says. "It's history, you learn the events but you don't really feel what people were like, how it was for them. We hope you'll tell us."
The drug, Lorimer thinks, that's what they're trying. Tell them… how can he? Could a dinosaur tell how it was? A montage flows through his mind, dominated by random shots of Operations' north parking lot and Ginny's yellow kitchen telephone with the sickly ivy vines… Women and vines…