Nobody slept much that night, but conversation was at an unusually low level. There was a great deal of introspection, and the atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife.
“Attention all personnel,” blared the speaker. “Stand by for a shipwide address by the projector director.”
All conversation suddenly stopped throughout the ship’s passenger areas. After a few moments, and some inadvertent comments instructing the director on how to broadcast, they heard the voice of Rembrandt van Haas.
“This is your project director,” he said needlessly. “Throughout the next several hours we will be loading the transport ships. At this moment large modules are being fed into the cargo areas below the passenger section of the ships, modules containing a billion tons of everything from cows to trees to corn and maize seed. Every ship, every trip, takes more of this with us. These supplies, destined for Gates Four and Six, will be the seed in more ways than one, since they will be the prototypes for all that we will have there. If your favorite food or flower or animal is not there, blame the landscape engineers who designed the ecosystems. They spelled it all out, and determined the kind of place in which you’ll eventually live and work.”
Thanks a lot, Haller thought sourly.
“What you will find there now is quite primitive, and everything is in its lease-common-denominator form. Things will be slow at first to develop, and you must have patience. We want the engineers to be right the first time, for they might not get a second chance. In a very real sense you will be pioneers, building a new life in the wilderness, a wilderness so primitive that you must create all that you need and all that you want. Even more than the pioneers of the past, you will have the opportunity to do just that. Most of you, however, will be unprepared for just how primitive things will be at first.”
They can’t be worse than this bloody ship, Haller thought, but he knew better, at least intellectually.
“It has been a tightly held secret until now that there have been people on New Eden not just for the past year but for the last four years.”
That caused a real stir.
“People were sent in as soon as the computers said it was possible, even before it was possible to breathe and exist there unaided. Every step of the way has been monitored and measured and checked by an incredibly brave team of Pathfinders, men and women who have sacrificed far more than you for this opportunity. These men and women of the Signals and Logistics commands and of Transportation and Energy are right now the political bosses. They will be there to greet you, to help you, to teach you what you have to know. Listen to them. Until things are established, even a brigadier or a director ignores them at the peril of their lives, not merely their comfort.”
Toby tried to imagine it and could not. Four years, three of which would be spent on the surface of a lifeless world, their only company themselves and the machines around them, penned up in little life stations probably far more cramped and crowded than any space station, able to go out only in space suits . . . Van Haas and Cockburn had gambled heavily in sending them out so early, and he could understand why it was kept such a big secret. If they had been lost, or had died, it might have killed the whole project—if anyone other than the select few had known they were there in the first place.
“Because of the nature of our switching system on New Eden, Gate Four traffic will embark first, then Gate Six. The loading process for passengers might take as much as two hours for this number of people, and this means standing around and being very bored for the period if you are unlucky enough to be loaded in first. Please be patient. The end is in sight, so to speak. It may seem slow, uncomfortable, an affront to your dignity, an assault on your modesty, and a direct attack on your authority and your intellect. Consider, though, what we are about to do. We are about to go into a void outside our own universe and enter again at a predetermined point—but a point whose location in relation to here we do not even have a clue to. The journey, which would take centuries the old way, will take weeks as it is, but to you it will be the blink of an eye. We follow in the footsteps of our ancestors who also braved new lands and even new worlds, but two hours of indignity and boredom are a far smaller price to pay than they did.
“I shall not be going with you this trip,” he concluded, “but I will be out there soon. I can hardly wait, and I envy those of you going now. It is one hell of a way to run a railroad, but this railroad runs very well Thank you, and God bless you all.”
Another voice—the officious female version of the generic ship’s voice—now took over.
“D-deck passengers will gather their personal modules now and prepare to load,” she said. “Remove and leave your shoes and other footwear, and as your billet numbers are called, proceed with only your personal modules to the nearest F-deck stairway and down. Personnel will be at all points to direct you. You will undergo a sterilization procedure before being allowed through the lock to the transit ship. Everything except your personal modules will be taken at that time.”
Haller looked over at his two traveling companions. “Well, it looks like we’ll all know the bare facts on this run.”
“I wish they’d started with C deck,” Millie grumbled. “It could be another hour or two!”
“Feel lucky,” Candy told her. “You heard the director. Those early ones get to stand around for two or more hours twiddling their thumbs in the buff while we sit comfortably. Our turn will come.”
And, over an hour and a quarter later, it did.
“Billets one twenty through one thirty, remove your footwear and proceed to F deck using the stairways only,” instructed the voice.
They all sighed and got up, having long ago gotten rid of their shoes. “Hi-ho and away we go!” said Haller, but his tone wasn’t very convincing.
They passed near the now deserted cafeteria, and Haller had a twinge of hunger as he smelled something cooking. They hadn’t been fed, on orders, for eight hours prior to embarking, and it was beginning to really tell on him. The first thing he wanted when he got to New Eden was a thick, juicy steak or a leg of lamb. Forget the leg, he told himself. I’ll take the whole lamb.
Virtually no one balked at stripping when they reached the sterilization chamber—it was standard in a lot of places, although not usually unisex—but after stepping in and being bathed in those ticklish rays and half-blinded by the lights, and then exiting the other side, many protested the discovery that they had no new clothing on the other side.
White-clad transport personnel wearing breathing masks took them in tow and led them, one by one, down an antiseptic tube that bridged the airlock between the freighter and the transit ship.
Toby Haller was shocked to see the size of it. The brightly lit single chamber into which they were taken seemed to go on forever, and was filled with long, transparent tubes going from a black base that rose perhaps thirty centimeters off the deck all the way to a similar black solid holder on the ceiling four meters overhead. He could see about two thirds of the tubes were filled with human bodies—all standing. He immediately sympathized with D deck. Then he was at his own, and they took the two modules from him and inserted them into two drawers inside the base, then he was told to get into the tube. The ship was hot and stuffy, and smelled like three tons of old sweat.
He suddenly realized that almost all the white-clad transport workers were women, and became more than a little uncomfortable and embarrassed by his nudity. Although they were busy and wore masks, he couldn’t get it out of his head that they were all staring at him and either laughing or giggling. He could see a couple of other people in similar cirucmstances from his tubular vantage point, but noting their discomfort did nothing to relieve his own.
After a while his legs started to hurt, and he leaned against the tube for some support. It was not wide enough for him to sit down or even do a decent crouch.
He felt an unpleasant sensation, and realized that he’d never asked what one did if one were standing there and suddenly had to pee. He tried to get the attention of a transport worker, but didn’t succeed.
He was just beginning to feel that he couldn’t possibly hold it anymore when a tinny voice came to him from above.
“Attention Gate Four passengers. We are clearing the ship of all base personnel. In a few moments a mild sedative will be administered to each of you to make you relax. Departure will be shortly after. Upon arrival you will be met and taken off by Gate Personnel. Follow their instructions. Thank you.”
Bloody bitch, he thought. Bet she had three squares and a shit today. Damn Einstein! Bet he was never far from a toilet when he needed one!
He suddenly felt at once very dizzy and yet very stiff, unable to move a muscle. His eyelids closed like heavy weights, and he found even breathing labored. The whole world seemed to give a tremendous shudder, as if an earthquake had hit, and there was an itching, almost burning sensation throughout his body.
He was conscious of the passage of some time, but whether it was a few seconds or a few hours he wasn’t sure. He only knew he felt a bit dizzy, then opened his eyes and looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed, and he wondered if it had worked or if his anesthetic hadn’t taken. Well, at least he didn’t feel like he had to piss anymore.
Then he noticed that the transport workers were back, and he was sure that something had gone wrong. All this way and all that deprivation and the damned thing misfired! he thought with disgust. It would happen on my trip!
He waited his turn, feeling very depressed, knowing that he might have a pretty good wait. It turned out, though, that the anesthetic had been very well thought out; it was barely five minutes or so before a white-clad and masked transport worker undid the seals and opened the door. It hissed slightly. She knelt down, removed the two modules, and handed them to him.
“What went wrong?” he asked her.
“Everyone asks that,” came the reply, a bit tinny and electronic behind the mask. “Nothing. Welcome to New Eden. Follow the personnel officer in yellow down there and we’ll route you through to your destination.”
He felt like he’d been hit by an electric shock. New Eden! It didn’t seem real.
They were led in small, relatively silent groups down to the lowest deck, then down a long corridor to the center. The place was filled with modules, large and small, all marked with destinations and code numbers. The cargo, in this case, would be unloaded last.