“It takes two to arrange that,” Eleanor pointed out.
“That’s no hazard. Here’s Lazarus, for example. He’d make a A plus father.”
Eleanor dimpled. Lazarus blushed under his permanent tan. “As a matter of fact,” Eleanor stated evenly, “I proposed to him and was turned down.”
Nancy sputtered into her coffee and looked quickly from Lazarus to Eleanor. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No harm,” answered Eleanor. “It’s simply because I am one of his granddaughters, four times removed.”
“But . . .” Nancy fought a losing fight with the custom of privacy. “Well, goodness me, that’s well within the limits of permissible consanguinity. What’s the hitch? Or should I shut up?”
“You should,” Eleanor agreed.
Lazarus shifted uncomfortably. “I know I’m oldfashioned,” he admitted, “but I soaked up some of my ideas a long time ago. Genetics or no genetics, I just wouldn’t feel right marrying one of my own grandchildren.”
Nancy looked amazed. “I’ll say you’re old-fashioned!” She added, “Or maybe you’re just shy. I’m tempted to propose to you myself and find out.”
Lazarus glared at her. “Go ahead and see what a surprise you get!”
Nancy looked him over coolly. “Mmn . . .” she meditated.
Lazarus tried to outstare her, finally dropped his eyes: “I’ll have to ask you ladies to excuse me,” he said nervously. “Work to do.”
Eleanor laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Don’t go, Lazarus. Nancy is a cat and can’t help it. Tell her about the plans for landing.”
“What’s that? Are we going to land? When? Where?”
Lazarus, willing to be mollified, told her. The type G2, or Sol-type star, toward which they had bent their course years earlier was now less than a light-year away-a little over seven light-months-and it was now possible to infer by parainterferometric methods that the star (ZD9817, or simply “our” star) had planets of some sort.
In another month, when the star would be a half light-year away, deceleration would commence. Spin would be taken off the ship and for one year she would boost backwards at one gravity, ending near the star at interplanetary rather than interstellar speed, and a search would be made for a planet fit to support human life. The search would be quick and easy as the only planets they were interested in would shine out brilliantly then, like Venus from Earth; they were not interested in elusive cold planets, like Neptune or Pluto, lurking in distant shadows, nor in scorched cinders ilke Mercury, hiding in the flaming skirts of the mother star.
If no Earthlike planet was to be had, then they must continue on down really close to the strange sun and again be kicked away by light pressure, to resume hunting for a home elsewhere-with the difference that this time, not harassed by police, they could select a new course with care.
Lazarus explained that the New Frontiers would not actually land in either case; she was too big to land, her weight would wreck her. Instead, if they found a planet, she would be thrown into a parking orbit around her and exploring parties would be sent down in ship’s boats. – –
As soon as face permitted Lazarus left the two young women and went to the laboratory where the Families continued their researches in metabolism and gerontology. He expected to find Mary Sperling there; the brush with Nancy Weatheral had made him feel a need for her company. If he ever did marry again, he thought to himself, Mary was more his style. Not that he seriously considered it; he felt that a iiaison between Mary and himself would have a ridiculous flavor of lavender and old lace.
Mary Sperling, finding herself cooped up in the ship and not wishing to accept the symbolic death of cold-sleep, had turned her fear of death into constructive channels by volunteering to be a laboratory assistant in the continuing research into longevity. She was not a trained biologist but she had deft fingers and an agile mind; the patient years of the trip had shaped her into a valuable assistant to Dr. Gordon Hardy, chief of the research.
Lazarus found her servicing the deathless tissue of chicken heart known to the laboratory crew as “Mrs. ‘Avidus.” Mrs. ‘Avidus was older than any member of the Families save possibly Lazarus himself; she was a growing piece of the original tissue obtained by the Families from the Rockefeller Institute in the twentieth century, and the tissues had been alive since early in the twentieth century even then. Dr. Hardy and his predecessors had kept their bit of it alive for more than two centuries now, using the Carrel-Lindbergh-O’Shaug techniques and still Mrs. ‘Avidus flourished.