He was interested in Rotorian politics and showed an Earthman's impatience with the smallness of its concerns. She fought with herself not to show displeasure at that.
Eventually, there fell a silence between them, broken only by indifferent discussions concerning the films they had viewed, the social engagements they undertook, the small change of life.
It didn't lead to active unhappiness. Cake had quickly changed to white bread, but there were worse things than white bread.
It even had a small advantage. Working under tight security meant talking to no-one about one's work, but how many managed to whisper partial confidences to wife or husband? Insigna had not done so, for she had little in the way of temptation, since her own work required little in the way of security.
But when her discovery of the Neighbor Star was suddenly placed under tight wraps, without warning, could she have managed? Surely it would have been the natural thing to do - to tell her husband of the great discovery that was bound to put her name into the astronomy texts for as long as humanity existed. She might have told him even before she told Pitt. She might have come bouncing in: ‘Guess what! Guess what! You'll never guess-’
But she hadn't. It didn't occur to her that Fisher would be interested. He might talk to others about their work, even to farmers or sheet-metal workers, but not to her.
So it was no effort to mention nothing to him of Nemesis. The matter was dead between them, was not missed, did not exist, until that dreadful day when their marriage came to an end.
When did she move over wholeheartedly to Pitt's side?
At the start, Insigna had been horrified at the thought of keeping the Neighbor Star a secret, profoundly uneasy at the prospect of moving away out of the Solar System to a destination concerning which they knew nothing but the location. She found it ethically wrong and indecently dishonorable to set about building a new civilization by stealth, one which excluded all the rest of humanity.
She had given in on the grounds of Settlement security, but she had intended to fight Pitt privately, to bring up points of argument. She had rehearsed them in her own mind till they were foolproof and irrefutable and then, somehow, she never presented them.
Always - always - he took the initiative.
Pitt said to her, early on, ‘Now remember, Eugenia, you discovered the companion star more or less by accident, and one of your colleagues may do so as well.’
‘It's not likely-’ she began.
‘No, Eugenia, we're not going to depend on unlikelihood. We're going to make certain. You're going to see to it that no-one looks in that direction, that no-one wants to study the particular computer sheets that would give away the location of Nemesis.’
‘How can I possibly do that?’
‘Very easily. I have spoken to the Commissioner and, as of now, you are in complete charge of the Far Probe research.’
‘But that would mean I've been moved over the head-’
‘Yes. It means an advance in responsibility, in pay, in social stature. To which of these do you object?’
‘I don't object to any of this,’ said Insigna, her heart beginning to pound.
‘I'm sure you can fulfill the job of Chief Astronomer more than adequately, but your chief aim will be to see to it that the work done can be of the highest quality and significance, provided that what is done has nothing to do with Nemesis.’
‘But, Janus, you can't keep it completely secret for ever.’
‘I don't intend to. Once we move out of the Solar System, we will all know where we're going. Till then, as few as possible will know, and those few will learn as late as possible.’
Her promotion, Insigna noted with a little shame, cooled her objections.
On another occasion, Pitt said to her, ‘What about your husband?’
‘What about my husband?’ Insigna was immediately on the defensive.
‘He is an Earthman, I understand.’
Insigna's lips pressed together. ‘He is of Earth origin, but he is a Rotorian citizen.’
‘I understand. I assume you have told him nothing of Nemesis.’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘Has this husband of yours ever told you why he left Earth and worked so hard to become a Rotorian citizen?’
‘No, he hasn't. And I haven't asked him.’
‘But don't you ever wonder?’
Insigna hesitated and then told the truth. ‘Yes, I have, sometimes.’
Pitt smiled. ‘I should tell you, perhaps.’
And he did, little by little. Never in any overly obtrusive manner. It was never a bludgeon, it was rather the dripping of water at every conversation. It brought her out of her intellectual shell. To live on Rotor, after all, made it entirely too easy to consider only things Rotorian.
But thanks to Pitt, to what he told her, to the films he suggested she view, she became aware of Earth and its billions, of its endemic starvation and violence, its drugs and alienation. She began to understand it as an abysmal pit of misery, something to flee from. She did not wonder any longer why Crile Fisher had left. She wondered why so few Earthmen followed his example.
Nor were the Settlements so much better off. She became aware of how they closed in on themselves, how people were prevented from moving freely from one to another. No Settlement wanted the microscopic flora and fauna of any other. Trade dwindled slowly, and was increasingly carried on by automated vessels with carefully sterilized loads.
The Settlements quarreled and found each other hateful. The circum-Martian Settlements were almost as bad. Only in the asteroid zone were the Settlements multiplying freely, and even those were growing suspicious of all the inner Settlements.
Insigna could feel herself begin to agree with Pitt, even to grow enthusiastic over a flight from intolerable misery and the beginning of a system of worlds where the seeds of suffering had been eradicated. A new start, a new chance.
And then she found that a baby was on the way and her enthusiasm began to wither. To risk herself and Crile on the long journey seemed worthwhile. To risk an infant, a child-
Pitt was unperturbed. He congratulated her. ‘It will be born here and you will have a little time to accustom yourself to the situation. It will be at least a year and a half before we're ready to go. And by then you will realize how fortunate you will be not to have to wait any longer. The child will have no memory of the misery of a ruined planet and a desperately divided humanity. It will know only a new world with a cultural understanding among its members. Lucky child. Fortunate child. My son and daughter are already grown, already marked.’
And again Insigna began to think in that fashion, and by the time Marlene was born, she had indeed begun to dread delay, to fear that before they left, the child would be imprinted with the crowded failure that was the Solar System.
She was entirely on Pitt's side by this time.
Fisher seemed fascinated by Marlene, to Insigna's great relief. She had not thought that he would make much of a father. Yet he hovered over Marlene and took on his share of the duties involved in bringing her up. He seemed actually to grow cheerful as a result.
During the time Marlene was approaching her first birthday, rumors grew throughout the Solar System that Rotor intended to leave. It produced what was almost a system-wide crisis, and Pitt, who was now clearly in line for Commissionerhood, was grimly amused.
‘Well, what can they do?’ he said. ‘There's no way they can stop us, and all the outcries of disloyalty, together with their own display of Solar System chauvinism, will only serve to inhibit their investigations into hyper-assistance, which will serve us well.’
Insigna said, ‘But how did it get out, I wonder, Janus?’
‘I saw to it that it did.’ He smiled. ‘At this point, I don't any longer object to their learning the fact of our leaving, as long as they don't know our destination. It would, after all, be impossible to hide our leaving for much longer. We must take a vote on the matter, you know, and once all Rotorians know of our leaving, all the rest of the system will know, in any case.’