“You don’t know that.”
“Look, I wish you could just give it some time. If you leave—”
“Good-bye, Joe. I hope you’re right. But I doubt it.” She looked around, spotted Priscilla, and approached the table. “Hutchins?” she asked.
“Yes. You’re Dr. Wolf?”
“I am. I’m ready to leave whenever it’s convenient.” She turned on her heel and walked out the door in the direction of the launch platform. Chappell watched with mounting frustration as she left.
Then he turned to Priscilla, who had just said good-bye to her companions and was getting up. “Have a good flight,” he said in an accusing tone as though she were somehow responsible for Wolf’s decision.
Priscilla was thinking that being alone on the Venture suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
* * *
TWO BAGS HAD been left by the access tube. Wolf picked up one of them and left the second for Priscilla. She collected it and followed her passenger into the ship. When they cleared the air lock, Wolf stopped and gazed down the passageway at the closed doors. “Which one is mine?”
“Pick one,” said Priscilla. “Any but the first one on the left.”
Wolf took the middle cabin on the right. “Thank you,” she said.
“Anything else you need before we get started?”
“No. We can leave whenever you’re ready.” She went into the room and closed the door.
Priscilla took her seat on the bridge, said hello to Lily, and started going through her preflight. She was about two minutes into the process when she became aware of movement behind her. Wolf was standing back there watching her. She was several inches taller than the captain and probably twenty years older. “You seem awfully young,” she said, “to be a pilot.”
“You know,” Priscilla said quietly, “this is beginning to feel as if it will be a long flight.”
“There’s no need to get obnoxious, Captain. I’ve—” Her voice shook. “I’ve had enough of that for one day.” She turned away, started to retreat, but returned within seconds. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. I didn’t intend to. None of this is your fault. I just—” There were tears.
“Can I get you anything, Dr. Wolf?”
“No, I’m okay.” She was still having trouble with her voice. “Sorry. I’m behaving like an idiot.”
“It’s all right.”
She nodded. Nodded again. And, finally: “By the way, my name is Monika.”
“We’ll be leaving in a few minutes, Monika. You can sit here if you like.” She indicated the right-hand seat.
“No. That’s okay. I’d better just get out of your way.” She smiled weakly and left.
Priscilla connected with Wilma, who gave her clearance for departure. “Enjoy the flight home,” she added, with an unmistakable note of sympathy in her voice.
Priscilla was tempted to ask for details about what had gone wrong, but she wasn’t sure whether Monika was close enough to overhear. Anyway, it was probably better not to have someone else’s interpretation. She’d undoubtedly hear about it on her own.
They released the Venture from the dock. She told Monika to belt down, eased away from the station, turned onto her course, and began to accelerate.
* * *
MONIKA REMAINED SUBDUED. She was polite enough, but she simply didn’t want to do much other than read and juggle mathematical displays. Still, Priscilla was pleased to see that she spent most of her time in the passenger cabin rather than in her own unit. That suggested she didn’t really want to be alone.
They ate together, and gradually the tension subsided. They talked about how they’d both chosen careers that took them to remote places. “When I was a kid,” Monika said, “I got intrigued by aliens. Read too much science fiction.”
“So you were a natural choice for the Selika project,” said Priscilla.
“I suppose. Though I’m not a biologist.”
“What is your specialty, Monika?”
“Artificial intelligence. I got hung up on information software pretty early, too.” She smiled and, for the first time since she’d come aboard, looked relaxed. “When I discovered we hadn’t found anyone we could talk to, nor were likely to, I took the next best bet: create our own aliens.”
“But apparently you never lost your interest in exploration.”
“No. I guess not. My parents didn’t care very much for what I was doing. My father wanted me to become a doctor.”
“Your experience sounded a lot like mine. My mom wants me to be a lawyer.”
“It was probably the Gene Black novels as much as anything,” Monika said. Gene Black had been probably the preeminent writer of deep-space adventure thirty years earlier.
On their fourth morning together, while the ship swam through the transdimensional fog, Priscilla came into the passenger cabin on her way to the bridge and found Monika in tears.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m just a little upset, I guess.”
“It’s all right. We have some medications. I can get something for you. Help to calm your nerves.”
“My nerves are fine. I’m just tired.”
“Okay. Whatever you say.”
“You know, Priscilla, you give up too easily.”
Priscilla tried laughing, and it worked. Monika calmed down. But she got the medications for her. When she’d finished taking them, Monika sat with her eyes closed.
“Feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’re going to be out here for several more days. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? You need someone to talk to.”
“I didn’t realize you also had a psychiatric license.”
“It’s required for bartenders and pilots.”
“I’ve heard that. Well, the truth is that I probably need a lot more than talking, love.”
“So I assume all this is connected with the terraforming?”
“Ah, yes. Right to the heart of the matter.” She was quiet for a long minute. Then: “You know, the way we’re going, we’ll probably kill off everything on the planet.”
“I’ve heard about that. How, exactly, is it happening?”
“The superalgae. They’re increasing the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere.”
“I know. That’s the point of the project, isn’t it?”
“The extra oxygen is devastating some of the more basic life-forms.”
“You mean like, what? Ants?”
“Yes, like ants. Nothing more complicated than that as far as we can determine. And maybe not even at that level.”
“That’s not the way I understood it. I thought the higher life-forms were being decimated.”
“That’s all projection. There’ve been some reductions among some of the higher species, but we’re not certain of the connections yet. The problem is that if it’s happening, and I’d bet my life it is, we can’t wait until the final numbers are in before we back off. And I don’t think we’ll back off even then. There’s too much money involved.” She took a deep breath. “So some of us are getting desperate.”
“Leon,” Priscilla said.
“Yeah. He had it right. Poor bastard. Did you know him?”
“Yes. I never thought he’d have been capable of something like that.”
“I guess we never really know anybody.”
“You’re saying nothing on Selika can adjust to the change in the atmosphere?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. Many of the life-forms, maybe most of them, can adjust. But some don’t. We think only a few actually. But they’re part of the food chain. Knock off some species, and everything that feeds on that species goes, too. And everything that feeds off that level. All the way up the chain. We don’t know what we’re starting here. We don’t know where it’s going to end.”