Between the Strokes of Night

Elissa shook her head. She did not speak, and after a couple of minutes moved out of Peron’s embrace and quietly left the control cabin.

Peron was left alone, gloomily staring out into the pearly blankness of the S-space sky. It felt like only weeks since he was walking through the sticky marshes of Glug, or contemplating the dangers of a landing on Whirlygig. To him, and to Sy and Elissa, it was weeks.

But back on Pentecost, new generations of contestants had won and lost at Planetfest. By now, Peron’s name, along with Kallen, Lum, and the others, was no more than a footnote in an ancient record book. And Wilmer, or some newly trained Immortal, would be down on the planet’s surface, observing the new contestants and reporting back on their behavior.

And everyone they had known on Pentecost, except for Wilmer, was now long dead. Peron wondered about the great centuries-long project to reclaim the southern marshes of Turcanta Province. Was that finished now, with real-life agricultural developments replacing the futuristic artists’ drawings that had illustrated a geography lesson when he was back in school? And what other planet-shaping projects had been developed since then?

He and Elissa had talked of their decision, and there were no regrets. With what they had learned, there could have been no turning back to a planet-bound “normal” life on Pentecost. The idea of visiting Earth had filled them all with energy and enthusiasm; and he and Elissa were ridiculously happy together. And yet…

Peron had a premonition of other travels and troubles ahead, before the true secret of the Immortals was revealed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Deceleration: procedures, Part I.

The deceleration phase of an interstellar journey is normally passed in cold sleep. While the human passengers are unconscious, on-board computers perform the task of matching velocity and position with the target. They awaken the sleepers only upon final arrival.

The alternatives to cold sleep are limited: a move to normal space, followed by full consciousness during lengthy deceleration and final maneuvers; or an immobilized and dizzying ride in S-space. Neither is recommended.… Without discussion, Sy had chosen cold sleep during their approach to Sol. He was planning on using suspended animation techniques extensively in his future travels, and he was keen to gain more experience with them as soon as possible. Peron and Elissa had far more difficulty making a decision. After dreaming for so long of a return to Sol and to Earth, the idea that they would close their eyes, then suddenly find themselves there, was not at all attractive. It missed the whole point of the trip. Earth was a legend, and every experience connected with it should be savored. They had studied the Solar System during the journey from Sector Headquarters, and now they wanted to witness the whole approach. But that meant over a month of subjective travel time during deceleration, or a nauseating hour of slowing and orbit adjustment, tightly strapped in and unable to move a muscle…

They had discussed it over and over, and at last made their decision. Now they lay side by side, tightly cocooned in restraining nets. As a special favor, Olivia Ferranti had placed screen displays so that Peron and Elissa would have frequency-adjusted views both ahead of and behind the ship as it neared Sol. They had entered the nets before deceleration began, when they were still nearly fifty billion kilometers from Sol and the Sun was nothing more than an exceptionally bright star on the displays.

At first, they both felt that all their studies would be wasted. The Sun had grown steadily bigger and more brilliant, gyrating across the sky as their trajectory responded to the System-wide navigation control system. But it looked disappointingly like any other star. In the last five minutes of travel they caught a glimpse of Saturn, and had one snapshot look at the ring structure; but it was a long way off, and there was little detail to be seen of surface or satellites. All the other planets remained invisible.

They could not talk to each other, but they independently decided that the nausea and discomfort were definitely not worth it. Until, quite suddenly, Earth showed in the screen off to one side. The planet rapidly swung to loom directly ahead for the last stages of their approach.

And their sufferings were suddenly of no consequence.

They had been conditioned by the ship’s stored viewing tapes to expect a blue-green clouded marble and attendant moon, hanging isolated in space. Instead, the whole sphere of Earth shone girdled by a necklace of bright points of light, whirling around the central orb like an electron cloud about the central nucleus. There were so many of them that they created the illusion of a bright, continuous cloud, a glittering halo about the planet’s equator. As they watched, smaller units darted like fireflies between Earth and the orbiting structures.