“I mean, well, you could have negotiated more Harborside time for yourself. I wish you had. We could have . . .” His words trailed to a halt.
She gave him no chance to continue them. “You were aspace too on occasion.”
“Very little.” He was one of the three planetologists who studied this globe rather than its sisters. His excursions off it had been for the purpose of observing it from outside. “I could wish I’d gone where you did. It was fascinating.”
She laughed. “Sometimes too fascinating.”
A ring of rocks whirling around the mighty fourth planet; a sudden, chaotic storm of fragments headed for the moon where Lundquist and his robots were at work; she, skillfully, heedlessly, defiant of doctrine, blasting from orbit elsewhere, down to the surface to snatch him off, even as the first gravel sleet and stone hail smote. Cleland reached toward Kilbirnie. “Oh, God —”
She didn’t respond to the gesture, merely shrugged. He flushed and said defensively, “Harbor hasn’t been a hundred percent safe, either, you know.” He’d had a close call or two.
She nodded. “Untamed. Part of its charm. I envy the future colonists.”
“You’ve talked about. . . becoming one of them. I’ve thought about it.”
Kilbirnie sighed. “No, not for me.” She glanced at him, caught his stricken look, and explained: “I’ve been thinking further. It’ll be a long while before the first emigrant ships leave Sol for anywhere. They’ll need better information than a preliminary expedition like ours could collect; and each voyage to here means a twenty-two-year round trip, plus time spent on site. And then the transports must be built, except first they must ho financed, and — No, we’d grow old on Earth, waiting. Likeliest we’d die. Better to starfare.”
“Do you really want that? For the rest of your life? Returning each time to … to an Earth grown still more foreign?”
The somberness that had touched her deepened. Her voice lowered and shivered. The blue eyes sought his. “It was foreign already when we left, Tim. What will we find when we come back? After a generation. . . . At best, I’m afraid, worse crowding, more ugliness, less freedom. I doubt I’ll care to stay. And the rest of the Solar System — well, we know too much about it. Nothing really new there.”
“You’d rather explore like this?” He groped for understanding. “Back here?”
She smiled afresh. “That’d be grand.” The smile faded. “But probably no such berth will be available in any reasonable time. Too few starships, too many stars.” Resolutely: “I’ll take whatever I can get, as soon as I can get it.”
The wind whispered through the leaves.
“You — you’ve been brooding,” he faltered. “That’s not like you. I hate seeing you … bitter.”
She had been hugging her knees, staring outward. Now she straightened, flung her head back, and cried, “Why, I’m not!” Quieter: “I’m sorry for other folk, but myself, no.” Her voice clanged: “A whole universe to adventure in!”
“Maybe never another world like this,” he argued desperately. “Nothing but d-d-desolation, poison air, like those other places we’ve heard of — nothing but a ship for your home, till you die somewhere terrible —” He spread his hands in their helplessness. “Jean, no, please.”
She patted his shoulder. “Och, I’ll be fine. And so will you, Tim. You’re bound to get a high position at some research institute or university or whatever they’ll have when we come back. The data we’ll bring, and all from the other expeditions, they can keep a scientist like you happily busy forever.”
He slumped. “Busy, yes. Happy, no.”
She withdrew her hand and sat wary.
He clenched his fists. “Jean, I love you,” rushed from him. “I don’t want to lose you. I can’t.”
She bit her lip. A flight of small creatures buzzed past, their wings glinting.
“I’m sorry, Tim,” she said at last, low. “You’re a sweet man. But — Well, but.”
“Somebody else?” he mumbled.
“No.” Her utterance sharpened. “Hasn’t that been plain to see? I just want to wander.”
Shaken, he let loose what had been locked in his mind. “Was your life so miserable before?” Immediately: “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I’m sorry.”