‘Suppose it must be.’
‘Then it will be. I can bow to the inevitable, but I don't have to like it.’
‘Are you sentimental about Earth? You studied there, didn't you?’
‘I did my graduate work in astronomy there. I didn't like Earth, but that doesn't matter. It's the place where human beings originated. Do you know what I mean, Marlene? Even if I didn't think much of it when I was there, it's still the world where life developed over the eons. To me it's not only a world but an idea, an abstraction. I want it to exist for the sake of the past. I don't know if I can make that clear.’
Marlene said, ‘Father was an Earthman.’
Insigna's lips tightened a bit. ‘Yes, he was.’
‘And he went back to Earth.’
‘The records say he did. I suppose he did.’
‘I'm half an Earthperson, then. Isn't that so?’
Insigna frowned. ‘We're all Earthpeople, Marlene. My great-great grandparents lived on Earth all their lives. My great-grandmother was born on Earth. Everyone, without exception, is descended from Earthpeople. And not just human beings. Every speck of life on every Settlement, from a virus to a tree, is descended from Earth life.’
Marlene said, ‘But only human beings know it. And some are closer than others. Do you think about Father, sometimes, even now?’ Marlene looked up briefly at her mother's face and winced. ‘It's none of my business. That's what you're going to tell me.’
That's the feeling I just had, but I don't have to be guided by my feelings. After all, you're his daughter. Yes, I think about him now and then.' She shrugged her shoulders slightly.
Insigna said, ‘Do you think about him, Marlene?’
‘I have nothing to think of. I don't remember him. I've never seen any holograms, or anything.’
‘No, there was no point in-’ Her voice trailed off.
‘But when I was littler, I used to wonder why some fathers stayed with their children when the Leaving happened, and some fathers didn't. I thought that maybe the ones who left didn't like their children, and that Father didn't like me.’
Insigna stared at her daughter. ‘You never told me that.’
‘It was a private thought when I was little. When I got older, I knew that it was more complicated than that.’
‘You should never have had to think so. It's not true. I would have assured you of that, if I had had the slightest idea-’
‘You don't like to talk about those times, Mother. I understand.’
‘I would have anyway, if I had known about that thought of yours; if I could read your face as you read mine. He did love you. He would have taken you with him if I had allowed it. It's my fault, really, that you two are separated.’
‘His, too. He might have stayed with us.’
‘Well, he might have, but now that the years have passed, I can see and understand his problems a little better than I could then. After all, I wasn't leaving home; my world was coming with me. I may be over two light-years from Earth, but I'm still at home on Rotor where I was born. Your father was different. He was born on Earth and not on Rotor, and I suppose he couldn't bear the thought of leaving Earth altogether, and for ever. I think about that now and then, also. I hate the thought of Earth being deserted. There must be several billion people there whose hearts would break to leave it.’
There was silence between them for a moment, then Marlene said, ‘I wonder what Father is doing back on Earth right now.’
‘How can we possibly tell, Marlene? Twenty trillion kilometers is a long, long way, and fourteen years is a long, long time.’
‘Do you suppose he's still alive?’
‘We can't even know that,’ said Insigna. ‘Life can be very short on Earth.’ Then, as though suddenly aware she wasn't talking to herself, she said, ‘I'm sure he's alive, Marlene. He was in excellent health when he left, and he's only just approaching fifty now.’ Then softly, ‘Do you miss him, Marlene?’
Marlene shook her head. ‘You can't miss what you've never had.’
(But you had him, Mother, she thought. And you miss him.)
8. Agent
Oddly enough, Crile Fisher found it necessary to become accustomed to Earth - or reaccustomed to it. He had not thought that Rotor had become so much a part of him in a matter of not quite four years. It had been the longest period during which he had been away from Earth, but surely it had not been long enough to make Earth seem strange to him.
There was now the sheer size of Earth, the distant horizon ending sharp against the sky instead of turning up mistily. There were the crowds, the unchanging gravity, the sense of wild and willful atmosphere, of temperature soaring and diving, of nature out of all control.
It was not that he had to experience any of this to feel it. Even when he was in his own quarters, he knew it was all out there and the ferality of it all pervaded his spirit, somehow invaded it. Or it might be that the room was too small, too full, that the drift of sound was too unmistakable, as though he were being pressed in on by a crowded and decaying world.
Strange that he had missed Earth so intensely in those years on Rotor; and that, now that he was back on Earth, he missed Rotor so intensely. Was he to spend his life wanting to be where he was not?
The signal light flashed and he heard the buzz. It flickered - things on Earth tended to flicker, while on Rotor everything was constant with an almost aggressive efficiency. ‘Enter,’ he said in a low voice, but it was loud enough to activate the de-locking mechanism.
Garand Wyler entered (Fisher knew it would be he) and looked at the other with an amused expression. ‘Have you budged since I left, Crile?’
‘Here and there. I've eaten. Spent some time in the bathroom.’
‘Good. You're alive, then, even if you don't look it.’ He was grinning broadly, his skin smooth and brown, his eyes dark, his teeth white, his hair thick and crisp. ‘Brooding about Rotor?’
‘I think of it now and then.’
‘I kept meaning to ask, but never got around to it. It was Snow White without the Seven Dwarfs, wasn't it?’
‘Snow White,’ said Fisher. ‘I never saw one black person there.’
‘In that case, good riddance to them. Did you know that they're gone?’
Fisher's muscles tightened and he nearly got to his feet, but he resisted the impulse. He said, nodding, ‘They said they would be.’
‘They meant it. They drifted away. We watched as far as we could; eavesdropped their radiation. They pumped up speed with this hyper-assistance of theirs and, in a split second, while we could still make them out loud and clear, they were gone. Everything cut off.’
‘Did you pick them up when they got back into space?’
‘Several times. Each time weaker. They were traveling at the speed of light after they had really flexed their muscles, and after three blips, into hyperspace and back into space, they were too far to be picked up.’
Fisher said bitterly, ‘Their choice. They kicked out the nays - like me.’
‘I'm sorry you weren't there. You should have been. It was interesting to watch. You know there were some hard-liners who insisted to the very end that hyper-assistance was a fraud, that it was all faked up, for some reason.’
‘Rotor had the Far Probe. They couldn't have it sent as far away as they did without hyper-assistance.’
‘Faked! That's what the hard-liners said.’
‘It was genuine.’
‘Yes, now they know it was. All of them. When Rotor just vanished off the instruments, there was no other explanation. Every Settlement was watching. No mistake. It vanished on every set of instruments at the same second. The irritating thing is, we can't tell where it's going.’
‘Alpha Centauri, I suppose. Where else?’
‘The Office keeps thinking that it might not be Alpha Centauri and that you might know that.’
Fisher looked annoyed. ‘I've been debriefed all the way to the Moon and back. I haven't held back anything.’