“But they never would,” I said. “They’re stay-at-homes.
He shrugged. “How many people on Middle Finger think you’re crazy?”
“More than half, I guess.” We only had 1,600 volunteers out of 30,000 people. The younger half of my family does.”
He nodded slowly. “But weren’t they going along?”
“Bill, especially, in spite of thinking we’re crazy.”
“I understand that,” he said. “So am I.”
“What?”
“We asked that you take a Man and a Tauran.”
The Tauran spoke up for the first time. “We are they,” it growled.
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book three
THE BOOK OF EXODUS
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Chapter thirteen
The timetable had called for fifteen days’ loading before launch, but that presupposed everybody being packed and waiting. Instead, they’d had two weeks to rearrange their lives, knowing that the expedition had been scotched.
We lost 12 out of the original 150. Replacing them was not as simple as asking for volunteers, since they’d been chosen with an eye toward a certain demographic mix and assortment of skills.
Forty thousand years from now, we might come back to an unpopulated planet. We wanted our descendants to have a chance at civilization.
We didn’t have unlimited leisure for revision, juggling the shuttle schedule while we found replacements. Word had of course gone to Earth about our insurrection, so ten months from now there might be some response. If they had thousands of ships at their disposal, a few of them might be faster than the Time Warp; a lot faster.
A hundred fifty people were sufficient for a town-hall kind of democracy. We’d worked out the structure a couple of months before. There was an elected Council of five, each one of whom would serve a year as mayor, and then retire, a new councilor being elected each year.
So we worked as fast as we could, without cutting corners. Fortunately, none of the elected officials were among the ones who decided to stay home, so our little bureaucracy was intact. We probably had to make more decisions in a couple of weeks than we would in two years aboard the ship.
But it was a ship as well as a town, and the ship’s captain had authority over the mayor and council. Both Marygay and I were nominated for captain, along with Anita Szydhowska, who had been with me in the Sade-138 campaign. Anita stepped down in favor of us, and I stepped down in favor of Marygay, and no one objected. Both Anita and I were elected councilors. The other three were Chance Delany, Stephen Funk, and Sage Ten. Diana Alsever-Moore was nominated but declined, arguing that as the ship’s only doctor, she wouldn’t have time for a hobby.
It only took twenty days to get everyone aboard the ship. I wondered whether anyone else, watching the shuttles leave for the last time, had the image-old-fashioned even in my youth–of the last ropes being thrown back onto the dock, as a great ship left its safe harbor.
The last shuttle was supposed to have our children aboard. It was one short. Sara floated over to us and wordlessly handed me a sheet of paper.
I love you but I never did intend to come with you. Sara talked me into pretending that I would, so that we would stop wasting time fighting. It was dishonest but I think I agree it was the best thing.
I’m somewhere in Centrus. Don’t try to find me. If I was not loyal to you I could have stopped the whole thing the day we left you at the sheriff’s. But I guess we all have to be crazy in our own way. Have a good 40,000 years.
Love, Bill
The blood had drained from Marygay’s face. I handed her the note, but of course she knew what was in it.
I felt loss, but also a strange relief. And I wasn’t completely surprised; at some level I guess I’d known something was going on.
Maybe Marygay had, too. She stared at the note and then slipped it under the other sheets on her clipboard, cleared her throat, and spoke to the new arrivals with only a slight quaver in her voice. “These are your initial housing assignments. We’ll be trading around. But put your stuff in there now, and come back to the assembly area. Is anybody feeling space-sick?”