“We’ll think of something,” Bram said. “Human beings will always celebrate some sort of a year-festival.”
“It’s going to be a long, featureless ride between the galaxies,” Jao said. “Nothing to mark the years.”
“Sounds dull,” Orris said. “But like Bram says, we’ll think of something. We ought to appoint a revels committee to look into it.” He looked fondly at Marg. “We’re putting you in charge of it.”
“Almost time,” Bram said, feeling his waistwatch with his fingertips. Some of the younger generation had taken to wearing timepieces on their wrists—clever little holo displays that showed the ten hours of the day visually, in human numerals—but for Bram, old habits died hard.
At this moment, in the heart of the tree, Jao’s granddaughter would be checking and rechecking her meters, adjusting the voltages and gas pressures that would tickle Yggdrasil into one-twelfth of a revolution—or, rather, the portion of those thirty degrees it had not already anticipated. Once, early in the voyage, the humans had tried to accomplish the maneuver by brute force, using the plentiful hydrogen trapped by the drive section. But Yggdrasil had fought back and returned to starting position four times before the humans finally gave up. It was better to trick Yggdrasil into following its own imperatives.
“Too bad your granddaughter can’t be with us tonight,” he said to Jao. “She missed the festivities last year, too; seems to me she ought to be able to alternate with other staffers in tree systems.”
“Oh, Enyd? Don’t waste your time feeling sorry for her. She could be here if she wanted to. No sense of fun, that girl, She’s happier pushing her buttons. Sometimes I wonder if she’s really our granddaughter.” He clapped a hairy hand on Ang’s haunch. “What do you think, pet? Is she a case of mislabeled genes?”
“Oh, Jao!” Ang exclaimed. “She’s just a little serious, that’s all.”
“Here comes Smeth,” Trist said. “Rounding up votes, no doubt.”
Bram looked across the torch-lit perimeter. Smeth’s gangling form could be discerned threading a route through the tables, lurching awkwardly across the tilted floor. A party of young constituents tried to detain him, but Smeth seemed distracted; he exchanged a few words, made a gesture declining an invitation to sit down, and kept coming.
“Something on his mind,” Nen said. “And it isn’t votes.”
“Now, Jao,” Ang said. “Remember you’re not on duty tonight. You said yourself that your deputy can handle anything that comes up.”
Jao patted her hand. “Wild forces couldn’t drag me away.”
Smeth stumbled the last few yards and loomed over the table.
“Sit down, Smeth,” Orris said. “Have a drink.”
“Uh, thanks, but I just wanted to have a word with Jao,” Smeth said.
“I knew it!” Ang said.
“Nothing wrong with the drive?” Jao said. “Everything working all right?”
“The drive’s fine … uh … at least it’s coping with everything the core’s throwing at us.”
“Oh?” Jao’s tufted eyebrows went up. He rose from his seat and steered Smeth by the elbow to a little distance away. Bram could see them talking earnestly, heads close together.
Jao came back to the table while Smeth waited. “Look, I’m just going down to the remote bridge for a few minutes—we’ve got the one in this bough hooked up now. Never fear—I’ll be back in plenty of time for the turning. Marg, mix me up a libation.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Bram offered.
“No … I’m just going to take some readings. Sit tight and enjoy the festivities. You too, Trist—no, don’t get up.”
He rejoined the fidgeting Smeth, and the two of them left.
Ang had begun a litany of complaint about Smeth. “…always dragging Jao off for some nonsense. Just because he lives for his work, he thinks everyone else does. I hope that when he gets young again, he’ll find some woman who’ll take him in hand.” Marg listened sympathetically.
Mim asked Bram unobtrusively, “Why does Smeth look so worried? I know he’s a fusspot, tending his engines and guarding the sacred fusion flame like some kind of keeper of the mysteries, but he’s got Jao worried, too.”
Bram told her about Jun Davd’s concern over the gas infall that had made the center of the galaxy a denser place than it ought to be. “Galactic cores are active places, but this one may be more active than most. More collisions between stars. More stars exploding or being ripped apart by tides and feeding the black hole. Smashed stars forming a soup that circles the hole at tremendous speeds, creating more turbulence, more friction, stronger magnetic fields.”
Mim gave a shudder. “And we’re heading toward that?”
“We’re bending ourselves around it at a safe distance. Smeth may want Jao to alter our trajectory somewhat, based on what he can deduce from the junk falling into our scoop.”
“Is that what he meant by coping with what the core’s throwing at us?”
“Probably. We’ve run into the fringes of gas jets so far, and a couple of minor storms of relativistic electrons.”
“Storms?”
“Caused by shock waves in the plasma. They accelerate the stripped electrons. Gives the ramscoop quite a diet.”
“Oh, dear, I don’t like the sound of that!”
“Don’t worry. The more energy that’s thrown at us, the stronger our fields are. The chief effect is the spurts of extra acceleration it’s caused, before feedback can compensate. You’ve probably noticed times during these past weeks when you’ve felt heavier.”
“I thought it was old age delaying its farewells.”
He smiled. “No. There’ve been some episodes of minor accidents and breakage that no one paid attention to. Fortunately, outside travel isn’t allowed without a tether, for vehicles or people. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise; what?”
“Somebody could’ve gotten left behind. Traveling at almost the speed of light in some heavy weather. Not that they’d know anything. The instant they left the shadow of our intake area—”
“Please, I don’t want to know about it!”
“Sorry. But as I was saying, the chief effect is extra acceleration. And that may have put us a few days ahead of schedule on our black hole flyby.” He hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about sending everybody to the trunk when the time comes, to wait it out.”
Mim looked alarmed. “Will that be necessary?”
“Oh, I doubt there’s any real danger. If we ever ran into something we couldn’t handle, the trunk wouldn’t be any safer than an outer bough. But while I’m still year-captain, everybody’s safety is my responsibility, and moving to the trunk would put us in toward the center of our umbrella, where the field is strongest, just while we’re swinging around.”
He caught Trist looking at him from across the table. Trist compressed his mouth as a signal for Bram to shut up.
“That wouldn’t make you very popular,” Mim said. “Everybody’s getting settled into their new quarters, unpacking and sweeping out rooms they haven’t seen for twelve years, and tomorrow morning the floors will finally be level.”
Bram left it there. Across the table, Trist said loudly, “Who wants another drink? I think we’ve got time for one more before Leveltide.”
“Look,” Orris said. “Here come the clowns!”
Jao still hadn’t returned when the Bob began to swing.
“Twenty … nineteen and a half … nineteen…” the crowd chanted in unison, counting the degrees as the bulbous painted shape followed the chalk line toward the bull’s-eye in the center of the Forum. Globular membrances lit from within by a coating of biolights drifted down, released from somewhere high above. Hitherto invisible sparklers were touched off, making a star pattern on the floor. To one side, the clowns were still gamely performing their skit, though nobody was watching: Two of them wearing twelve-foot body puppets were vying for possession of a papier-mâché imitation of the Bob, while three more, making a Nar with too many legs, danced around them, trying to make peace.