Richard wasn't sure if Ian was joking or not, and he thought it best at this point not to find out.
"Do you mean a fear of alien life forms?"
"Perhaps. Remember, Doctor, we've only had faster- than-light travel for the last ten years. In fact, in this obsolete first-generation hulk, we will be venturing out farther than anyone from our century has dared, so far. Maybe we'll meet aliens, but I must confess that I doubt it. No, Richard, I'm sorry to say that I think we here at the far end of his neglected corner of the cosmos are truly alone."
"So what else is there?"
"Ourselves."
"You mean Ellen or Stasz or, heaven forbid, that as sistant of yours. You think that kid is going to get seized by a transport of sexual frenzy and murder everyone else so that she can have you to herself." Richard chuckled slightly at the image of lan's acned assistant suddenly unchained of her prim and proper nature, and as the image flowed, he realized that in fact it could be quite interest ing.
"Come now, Richard. Shelley sees nothing in me. Our relationship is purely professional. I needed an assistant to manage my data during this trip, and since she wrote the damned grant, I figured she'd be the one to do it. But let's get serious now. When I said ' ourselves,' I meant it collectively."
"You mean those already out there."
"Precisely, Richard. We've set off on this voyage to find the Lost Colonies. 'Lost Colonies.' Lost by who's definition? They left us, didn't they? Have any of them come back?"
"No. At least, not that we know of."
"Then are they really lost? Damn it, man, it's not like some sixteenth-century sailor getting lost in the Pacific. The colonies left us of their own free will-they left us of their own free will, and maybe they don't want anything to do with us."
"I think that thought's a little foolish," Richard re sponded. "After nearly eleven centuries they most likely would be damn glad to get at least one letter from home."
"Maybe they would, but I'm fearful that some might not want us to drop in for a visit."
"Then if that's the case, we'll just thumb our noses, hook on the translight drive, and tell them to eat our cosmic dust."
"Don't be so superior about it. That's the biggest trap of all in this game."
"Come on, Ian, aren't you overreacting a bit? If they don't want to see us, that's fine with me. In fact, I really don't give a damn if I see them or not. No, let me rephrase that. I might want to find a colony if they have the right women. Didn't you say that one of the colonies was a women's consciousness group, and no men were al lowed?"
"Yeah, Colony 122. It set off in this general direction. Reports indicate they had stored enough fertilized em bryos and frozen sperm to keep them going for a hundred generations."
"What a paradise."
"I should drop you off on the all-male Colony 123."
"Maroon Ellen there. They wouldn't know what to do with her anyhow."
"Now, Richard!"
"It is a charming thought, though, isn't it?" Richard tried to stand up but merely succeeded in banging his head against a locker.
"Speaking of Ellen, that reminds me. She sent me off to look for you. She's planned one of her alleged gourmet meals and wanted your opinion on an arcane formula for something called brie."
"Popular late twentienth — century cheese. Quite big among the alleged intelligentsia. I think I could help her out."
"Well, you better join her in the galley. She wants to serve up a genuine twentieth-century meal."
"God help us."
Richard turned and started to crawl out of lan's hiding spot.
Suddenly lan's hand was on his shoulder, restraining him. He looked back and saw the strain on lan's face.
"What is it?"
"I haven't said it all," Ian whispered.
Richard settled back down.
"Go on then."
"Ellen's dinner points it out."
"How's that?"
"You, Shelley, the Chancellor, in fact, everyone en visions this voyage as a trip to find the Lost Colonies from eleven centuries ago. Look at Ellen: She's cooking up a dinner from the twentieth century as if she half ex pects that we'll dock with a colony and they'll come pour ing aboard in polyester leisure suits, listening to Glenn Miller music, and ask us how our 'personal space' is."
Ian stopped for a moment and looked at Richard in exasperation. "Well, you're all wrong, all of you. It is the ancestors of the people that left eleven centuries ago that we are now looking for. They've had eleven hundred years to progress without the interruption of the Holocaust War. Good lord, Richard, that war took eight hundred years to recover from. Eight hundred years that we lived on the edge of extinction, and only in the last hundred years or so have we again equaled the accomplishments of the late twenty-first century. But those units that left us left intact-their memory banks laden with the sum total of man's knowledge to work on. It's estimated by some- Beaulieu, for example-that we've lost in excess of ninety- five percent of all records before 2087."
"So think of the opportunity," Richard said soothingly.
"Just think of it, man, you're the historian. You should be ready to kill for this chance-just to get aboard one of those ships and to be able to tap into its library. Damn it, Ian, just one ship's library would fill our computer memories to capacity, and still there wouldn't be enough. Return with that, my friend, and then see your books get published. Why, I didn't even think of that-all of us could get published and get on all the telepix interviews. We'd make a bundle, we would."
"Richard, just listen. You've heard of the Vikings, haven't you?"
"Barbarians from around the eighteenth century, right?"
"Close enough. Now just picture a Viking wandering into our society. How would we receive him?"
"Lock him up, most likely."
"My point is made."
"Come on, Ian, we're no Barbarians."
"To them we might be. After all, they've got an eleven- hundred year jump on us if they progressed after their departure."
"If they've progressed. Remember, you yourself said they were closed ecosystems-chances are they're all dead. Anyway, I remember that there were quite a few on Earth that tried to adopt a steady-state system when the fear of shortages hit in the late-twentieth century. You yourself advanced the theory in your manuscript that in a small, closed ecosystem innovation and progress would probably be banned. So with that logic, chances are they've not gone much beyond our own capabilities."
Richard took another tug off the bottle and offered it to Ian. To be polite, he took another swig and then handed it back.
"So there, argument settled then."
"Yeah, I guess so," Ian replied reluctantly.
"You better get back to the galley. I bet Ellen is already at a rolling boil."
"Tell her I'll be along in a moment or two."
"All right."
Richard crawled out. And, standing up with a groan, he started for the door. Stopping, he turned and gave Ian a mischievous smile.
"Think we might find Colony 122? You know, the wom en's group."
"I don't think so, but if we do, what makes you think they'll take you?"
"Hell, Ian, remember I used to be M.D. at the Auraria Normal College for Women, in the Dakota Territories."
"And you barely made it across the border before you were arrested for malpractice and morals charges."
"Ah, now, Ian, you know my uncle the regent of med icine was able to prove the lie those humorless people had perpetrated against me." With a laugh he closed the door behind him.
Colony 122, Ian thought. That would be one of the easy ones. It was the 500 series that he had not discussed with Richard. The last ones up, built in the 70s and 80s. The exiles. A fair percentage of them had headed in toward the galactic center along with the more innocuous 1-400 series. What really scared him was the exile units and the 500 series. They might be ticking bombs. They were the disenfranchised, the dispossessed of a world tottering toward war-the refugee colonies and the colonies made up of entire ethnic and political groups exiled away from Earth. The 500 series with its liberation groups: the Kurd nationalists, the Botswanian Liberation Group, Dr. Franklin-Smith's political penal unit, or L-3 519, and the Pan-Zionist Russian Nationalists. It was groups like that which gave Ian the real fear that he could not express to his comrades.