“Sure,” he smiled. “A guess. Fifty, a hundred years from now, when this whole thing is computerized to the nth degree you’ll be able to condense and speed the whole process up. But for now it’s an approximation. Cut and fit. With each cutting and fitting we gain knowledge and expertise.”
“That’s why pioneers got full of arrows,” I sighed.
“But if it works,” he said happily, “we can go anywhere. The first explorations will be cut and fit. Then we’ll get transmitter stations on Centauri, for instance. We can beam in on it, simplifying the whole process. Then on a planet in another direction—with triangularization we can go somewhere else, faster and more accurately.”
I thought a moment. “What if we had a beam signal here on Earth, and the other from Mars?”
“We thought of that. It would broaden the base and give us a more accurate aiming method. The time lag between here and there can be worked out easily enough.”
“How did Cilento do it?”
“Dumb luck, probably. It held together long enough for him to go through, as long as the recording cycle went, and then the hole closed. He could never come back that way.”
“I’ve been having the Young Observatory on Luna analyze the spectrum of the recorded sun and run a comparison test. So far they’ve come up with nine suns within ten light years that are close approximations.”
Coleman rubbed his lip with his thumbnail. “Ah, yes, the target. Wouldn’t you rather just go to Centauri? It would be easier.”
“Easier, but not what I want.”
He shrugged. “I’d be satisfied to get to any other sun.”
“I understand that,” I said. “But I want that certain planet.”
“They may be dead . . . or . . . something.”
“Yes, I know.” A sudden thought came to me. The mural in the Star Palace. During that hallucination that I had it seemed to . . . open . .
. to become a kind of guide. Could that mural help me?
I thought about that in the weeks to come, as my team patiently built a background of experience with the transporter. We could aim the beam with some degree of accuracy, or at least we could hit the same spot more than once. The trouble was we didn’t know whether that spot was down the block, two star systems over—or across the galaxy or across the universe. In theory it could be any of those. We could shoot blind, but with accuracy. What we needed were eyes. I was beginning to think I knew how it could be done. There was only one way to find out.
Bowie stood with me at Station Two’s cargo hatch, watching as they transferred the big stasis cylinder to the shuttle. We didn’t have much to say to each other that hadn’t been said. The shuttle crew disappeared into the hold, except for one who motioned to me. I turned to Bowie and we looked at each other for a moment, the lights and the stars glistening on the curving faceplates. “Well, so long, boss,” he said. “Good luck.”
“Thank you, Bowie,” I said. Thank you.”
“Look,” he said, “about what you did for me, I—”
“Forget it. I won’t be needing it and you might enjoy it.”
“Uh . . . okay, boss.”
“Let’s get a move on, huh?” The crewman gestured again from the hatch. I shoved off and went down a safety line and into the shuttle. I felt the clang of the hatch through my feet, and then we were moving silently away from the station.
“Clear seventeen for Libertad.”
“Plane four, spoke ninety. Watch it out by the Chekov, Jake, they had some kind of spillage.”
“Right. Seventeen out.”
We passed close to a cluster of ship’s cores and I could see the welders installing framing around the Steinmetz and the Anthony Coogan, fastening them to the main cluster. Another group going out for asteroid ships. The Solar System was being tamed; the big adventures were now routine assignments.
The shuttle detoured around the old Einstein, still in service, and gnarled with modifications. Beyond it was the gambling ship Eros, and the Lao-tzu, now just a supply ship, but once a history-making vessel. The Libertad was out near the edge. I gave only part of my attention to the transfer of the stasis cylinder. What I was really gazing at was old Earth, over my head, looking blue and ruffled with white.
“Goodbye,” I said, and went into the ship.
Nova ran across the churned sand and threw herself into my arms. I fell laughing back against the sandcat as I kissed her. “It’s very hard to laugh and kiss at the same time,” she said, “so shut up.”
We went into the lock and along to the Sunstrum dome, where I told them everything. Or as least as much as I could explain, which left out a lot.
“I want to go,” Nova said. I saw her parents exchange looks and sad little sighs.
“I don’t know if I can go, yet,” I said.
“Of course you can,” she said with certainty. “I have confidence in you.”
Li Wing smiled at me. “I suppose you must try,” Sven said.
“Of course he must,” said Nova. “It will be terrific!”
“If it works . . .“ said Sven Sunstrum, “if it really works, it will change everything. We can go anywhere!”
I nodded. But I didn’t want to go just anywhere.
“I’ll go with you tomorrow,” Nova said.
We came toward the Star Palace with the setting sun behind it, and the big crownlike structure glowed like the enormous jewel that it was. I parked the sandcat at the base, near the steps, and we climbed down.
Nova stood next to me as we stared up at the beautiful alien building glowing in the distant light of Sol. “I never tire of coming here,”
she said. “It’s always the same, yet . . . never the same.”
I debated whether to unlash the big stasis cylinder holding my equipment now or later, and decided later. The weather satellite had told of a sandstorm to the west, so we put on our spacesuits, just in case. I helped Nova into the straps of her big backpack full of an assortment of equipment and food. Then I pulled on mine, bending with the weight even in this lighter gravity.
I had a difficult time finding the spiraling steps, for in this light everything looked different. That cascade of liquid frozen crystal I remembered as being elsewhere, and that wall of starbursts was entirely new. I supposed I had passed it in the dark and not noticed. We searched through an emerald cavern that looked somewhat familiar, then found ourselves going upward instead of down, through a colonnade of amber trees, and into a bower of bluegreen flowers.
Here we rested and made love and slept. I awoke in the night and felt her next to me, loving and trusting. I looked straight up, through a transparent ceiling that transformed the stars into blossoms of pinpoint suns. I felt calm and, perhaps for the first time in my life, serene. In the morning we found the opening into the base rock without trouble. Nova and I went out to carry in the transporter equipment. In our suits and backpacks we went into the shaped stone and along the passage to the room with the mural on the ceiling. I set the equipment with the focusing device on the sandpile beneath the mural. I knew of no other place to find my answers. Perhaps the answers were within me, simply undiscovered, as all magic is unexplained science.