I worked as hard on the reclamation project as I ever had on anything, outside of combat, and so did Marygay. There was a lot of desperation in the air. We didn’t talk about the Earth expedition, not until the day of the drawing.
Everybody gathered at the dorm cafeteria at noon, where there was a glass bowl with thirty-two slips of paper in it. The youngest child who was not too young to be able, Mori Dartmouth, sat up on the table and picked out twelve names for me to announce. Sara was second, and she rewarded me with a squeal of delight. Cat was third, and hugged Sara. Marygay was eighth and she just nodded.
After twelve, my name was still in the bowl. I didn’t want to look at Marygay. A lot of other people did. She cleared her throat, but it was Peek Maran who spoke: “Marygay,” he said, “you’re not going without William, and I’m not going without Norm. It looks like we have a game situation.”
“What do you propose?” she said. “We don’t have coins.”
“No,” he said, momentarily puzzled at the word–he was third-generation and had never seen money in any nonelectronic form. “Let’s empty out the bowl and put our names–no, William’s and Norm’s–into it. Then have Mori draw.” Mori smiled and clapped.
So I won, or we did, and there was a quiet pressure of jealousy in the room. A lot of people who hadn’t volunteered their names for the bowl back in the spring would be only too glad to take their chances, and a little trip, now that deep winter loomed.
The physical preparations had been finished months before. We were taking ship Number Two, christened Mercury. All of the terraforming and recolonization tools and materials had been taken out; if Earth was deserted, we would just come back with that news, and let later generations decide about repopulating it.
We were prepared for other contingencies, though. Each ship had a fighting suit, and we took all four. We also carried a stasis dome, but elected not to bother with a nova bomb, or any such dramatic weapon. If anything that serious happened, we’d be meat anyhow.
They weren’t great fighting suits, since they had to accommodate a range of sizes and skills, and we discussed leaving them behind, as a matter of principle. I argued that we could decide not to use them, when the time came, as a matter of principle. But meanwhile, as the poet said, do not go gentle into that bad night. Or something.
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book five
THE BOOK OF APOCRYPHA
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Chapter twenty-eight
Some Indian tribe or tribes had no ritual for goodbyes; the person leaving just turned his back and left. Sensible people. We spent a day making the rounds, saying good-bye to everyone because you didn’t dare leave anyone out.
I saw half the people in the colony, anyhow, as mayor, since everybody seemed to be in charge of this or that, and had to come by and give me a report and sketch out what they’d be doing while I was gone. Sage, who would be interim mayor, sat beside me for all of the discussions.
It was also her job, the next day, to make sure everyone was safely underground, away from the launch’s radiation, when Marygay pressed the button. Precisely at noon she radioed that everyone but her was downstairs. The button gave her a minute; the ship counted down the last twenty seconds of it.
It was a crushing four gees at first; then two. Then we floated in free fall for half an orbit, and the ship drove toward Mizar’s collapsar at a steady one gee.
A day and a half of constant acceleration. We made simple meals and small talk while Mizar drew closer–finally, closer than you’d like to be, to a young blue star.
The collapsar was a black pinprick against the filtered image of the huge star, and then a dot, and then a rapidly swelling ball, and then there was the odd twisting feeling and we were suddenly in dark deep space.
Now five months to Earth. We got into our coffins–Sara clumsily quick in her modesty about nakedness–and hooked up the orthotics and waited for sleep. I could hear the ship whispering, telling a couple of people to redo this or that attachment, and then the universe squeezed to a pinpoint and disappeared, and I was back in the cool dream of suspended animation.