“We aren’t accelerating anymore,” Ami Larson said. “We can afford to wait and think things over.”
“Okay–you hang around and think,” Diana said heatedly. “I want out of here before something else happens. Like the air disappearing, next–you want to think that one over, Ami? You want to tell me it couldn’t happen?”
“If people do want to stay till the last minute,” I said, “you can’t expect Diana to wait along with you.”
“They can prep themselves, without a doctor or nurse,” she said. “But if anything goes wrong, they just die.”
“In their sleep,” Teresa said.
“I don’t know. Maybe you wake up long enough to strangle. Nobody’s ever come back to report.”
Marygay stepped into the moment of hostile silence. She had a clipboard. “I want names of people willing to leave on the first and second ships. That’s sixty people. You can take at most three kilograms of personal items. First group, show up at ten o’clock.”
To Diana: “How long does it take to prepare?”
“The purging part is like lightning. You want to be sitting on a toilet when you take the medicine.” Some people laughed nervously. “Seriously. Then it takes maybe five minutes to hook up the orthotics. Those of us who did high-gee combat used to do it in under a minute. But we’re out of practice.”
“And a little older now. So figure the second group at noon?”
“That’s reasonable. Nobody eat anything between now and then, and don’t drink anything but water. Don’t take any medicine unless you clear it with me.”
The clipboard started around. “Once I get these sixty names,” Marygay said, “the ones who’ve signed up can go. Then we’ll start filling ships Three and Four. How many people are dead-set against going?” Twenty people raised hands, some tentatively. I think Paul Greyton and Elena Monet did it out of fear of going against their spouses. Or maybe reluctance to leave them. “Come over here with me and William, to the coffee station.”
No more coffee from this gravity-fed machine, ever again. That was a plus.
Marygay kissed for the ship. “What chance do these people have for survival?”
“I can’t calculate that, Captain. I don’t know where the antimatter went, so I don’t know what the probability is that it might reappear.”
“How long will they live if it stays missing?”
“If the twenty people stayed in this one room, and kept it insulated, they could live for many years. My water will begin to freeze in a few weeks, though, and one person will have to go out to the pool and mine it.
“But the pool has enough water for ten years, if you only drink it, and don’t wash.
“Food is the complicating factor. Before the first year is over, you’ll have to resort to cannibalism. Of course, with each person harvested, there is one less person to feed, and the average body should yield about three hundred meals. So the final survivor will have lived one thousand sixty-four days after the first one is killed, assuming he or she stays warm.”
Marygay was silent for a moment, smiling. “Think it over.” She kicked off from the table and floated toward the door. I followed, less gracefully.
There was a private command line outside the cafeteria door. I picked up the handset, and said, “Ship, do you have a sense of humor?”
“Only in that I can distinguish between incongruous situations and sensible ones. That was incongruous.”
“What are you going to do when everyone is gone?”
“I have no choice but to wait.”
“For what?”
“For the return of the antimatter.”
“You actually think it will come back?”
“I didn’t `actually’ think it would disappear. I have no idea where it is. Whatever agency caused it to relocate may be constrained by some physical conservation law.”
“So you wouldn’t be surprised if it reappeared.”
“I’m never surprised.”
“And if it does come back?”
“I’ll return to Middle Finger, to my parking orbit. With some new data for you physicists.”
Nobody had called me a physicist in a long time. I’m a science teacher and fish harvester and vacuum welder. “I’ll miss you, Ship.”