Jacob had spent time at the telescope on the Flip-side of the Sunship, watching the flickering spikes of superheated plasma jetting up out of the photosphere like quick waving fountains, flinging free of the Sun’s gravity great rolling waves of sound and matter that became the corona and the solar wind.
Within the spicule fences, the huge granulation cells pulsed in complicated rhythm as heat from below finished its million-year journey of convection to escape suddenly as light.
These, in turn, bunched together in gigantic cells, whose oscillations were the basic modes of the almost perfectly spherical Sun — the ringing of a stellar bell.
Above all this, like a broad deep sea rolling over the ocean floor, flowed the chromosphere.
The analogy could be overstated, but one could think of the turbulent areas above the spicules as coral reefs, and of the rows of stately, feathery filaments,, tracing everywhere the paths of magnetic fields, as beds of kelp, gently swaying with the tide. No matter that each pink arch was many times the size of Earth!
Once more Jacob tore his eyes away from the boiling sphere. I’m going to be useless for anything if I keep staring like this, he thought. I wonder how the others resist it?
The entire observation floor was visible from his position, except for a small section on the other side of the forty-foot dome at the Center.
An opening grew in the side of the central dome and light spilled out into the deck. Silhouetted, a man emerged, followed by a tall woman. Jacob didn’t have to wait for his eyes to adapt to know the outline of Commandant deSilva.
Helene smiled as she walked over and sat cross-legged next to his couch.
“Good morning, Mr. Demwa. I hope you had a good night’s sleep. It’ll be a busy day.”
Jacob laughed. “That’s three times in one breath you’ve talked as if there was anything called night here. You don’t have to keep up the fiction, like providing this sunrise here.” He nodded to where the Sun covered half of the sky.
“Rotation of the ship to make eight hours of night allows groundlubbers a chance to sleep,” she said.
“You needn’t have worried,” Jacob said. “I can catch Zee’s anytime. It’s my most valuable talent?’
Helena’s smile widened. “It was no Inconvenience. But, now that you mention it, it’s always been a tradition of Helionauts to rotate the ship once before final descent and call it night.”
“You have traditions already? After only two years?”
“Oh this tradition is much older than that! It dates back to when nobody could imagine any other way to visit the Sun but…” She paused.
Jacob groaned out loud.
“But to go at night, when it isn’t so hot!”
“You figured it out!”
“Filimentary, my dear Watson.”
It was her turn to groan. “Actually, we are building up some feeling of tradition among those who have gone down to Helios. We make up the Fire-Eaters Club. You’ll be initiated back on Mercury. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what the initiation consists of… but I hope you can swim!”
“I don’t see any place to hide, Commandant. I’ll be proud to be a Fire-Eater.”
“Good! And don’t forget, you still owe me that story about how you saved the Finnila Needle. I never did tell you how glad I was to see that old monstrosity when the Calypso returned, and I want to hear about it from the man who preserved it.”
Jacob stared past the Sunship Commandant. For a moment he thought he could hear a wind whistling, and someone calling… a voice crying out indecipherable words as somebody fell… He shook himself.
“Oh, I’ll save it for you. It’s much too personal to talk about in one of those story-swaps. There was someone else involved in saving the needles, someone you might like to hear about.”
There was something in Helene deSilva’s expression, something compassionate, that implied she already knew about what had happened to him at Ecuador, and would let him tell about it in his own good time.
“I’m looking forward to it. And I’ve finally thought of one for you. It’s about the ‘song-birds’ of Omnivarium. It seems the planet is so silent that the human settlers have to be very careful lest the birds start mimicking any noise they make. This has an interesting effect on the settler’s lovemaking behavior, particularly among the women, depending on whether they want to advertise their partner’s ‘abilities’ in the age-old fashion or remain, discreet!
“But I must go back to my duties now. And I certainly don’t want to give away the whole story. I’ll let you know when we reach the first turbulence.”
Jacob rose to his feet with her and watched as she walked toward the command station. Partway into the solar chromosphere was probably an odd place to be enthralled by the way a fem walked, but until she went out of sight he felt no inclination to turn his eyes away. He admired the limberness that members of the interstellar corps inculcated into their extremities. Hell, she was probably doing it on purpose. Where It didn’t interfere with her job, Helene deSilva obviously pursued libido as a hobby.
There was something strange, though, In her behavior towards him. She appeared to trust him more than would normally be warranted by the small contributions he’d made on Mercury and their few friendly conversations. Perhaps she was after something. If so he couldn’t figure out what.
On the other hand, maybe people were more naturally ultimate when they left Earth for the long Jump on Calypso. Someone brought up on an O’Niel Colony, in a period of introspection caused by political stultification, might be more willing to trust her instincts than a child of the highly individualistic Confederacy.
He wondered what Fagin had told her about him.
Jacob went to the central dome, the outside wall of which contained a little boxlike head.
When he came out, Jacob felt much more awake. On the other side of the dome, by the food and beverage machines, he found Dr. Martine standing with the two bipedal aliens. She smiled at him, and Culla’s eyes brightened with friendliness. Even Bubbacub grunted a greeting through his Vodor.
He pressed buttons for orange juice and an omelette.
“You know, Jacob, you turned in too early last night. Pil Bubbacub was telling us some more incredible stories after you went to bed. They were astounding, really!”
Jacob bowed slightly at Bubbacub.
“I apologize, Pil Bubbacub. I was very tired, otherwise I would have been thrilled to hear more about the great Galactics, particularly of the glorious Pila. I’m sure the stories are inexhaustible.”
Martine stiffened next to him, but Bubbacub showed his pleasure by preening. Jacob knew it would be dangerous to insult the little alien. But by now he’d guessed the Ambassador wouldn’t know any accusation of hubris as an insult. Jacob couldn’t resist the harmless dig.
Martine insisted that he come over to eat with them, where the couches had already been raised for dining. Two of deSilva’s four crewmen ate nearby.
“Has anyone seen Fagin?” Jacob asked.
Dr. Martine shook her head. “No, I’m afraid he’s been on Flip-side for over twelve hours. I don’t know why he doesn’t join us here.”
It wasn’t like Fagin to be reticent When Jacob had gone to the instrument hemisphere to use the telescope, and found the Kanten there, Fagin had hardly said a word. Now the Commandant had put the other side of the ship off limits to everyone except the E.T., who occupied it alone.
If I don’t hear from Fagin by lunchtime, I’m going to demand an explanation, Jacob thought.
Nearby, Martine and Bubbacub talked. Occasionally Culla said a word or two, always with the most unctuous respect. The Pring seemed always to have a liquitube between his giant lips. He sipped slowly, steadily consuming the contents of several tubes while Jacob ate his meal.