Starborne

“Tell them,” he instructs Noelle, “that it’s too soon to start setting off fireworks — that this is probably only the first of many worlds that we’re going to have to explore before we find one that we can settle.”

It takes her more than an hour to send that one brief message. The communications difficulties seem to be growing worse all the time.

Huw holds his smooth blackGo stone lightly in the center of one broad fleshy fingertip, waggles the finger two or three times with great seriousness, as though trying to estimate the weight of the tiny polished disk, and says, apropos of nothing that anybody has been discussing this morning in the lounge, “Has he decided, I wonder, which of us are actually going to make the landing on Planet A?”

“Well, he’ll be one of them, for sure,” Leon replies. He is Huw’s opponent, doing poorly, and waiting with ill-concealed impatience for Huw to make his move. “That’s his big specialty, isn’t it, planetary exploration?”

Huw grunts and puts his stone down with a great flourish, clapping it against the board in a way that makes an emphatic, almost belligerent click. He has only recently surrendered to theGo -playing addiction, which by now is almost universal on board. Practically everyone except Hesper, Sieglinde, and a couple of the others has taken to spending three or four hours a day in the gaming lounge.

It is only a couple of ship-weeks now until the Wotan is due to reach the nospace vicinity of the solar system in which Planet A is the feature of greatest interest, and then must shunt back into realspace for the direct-vision survey work. A great many unanswered questions wall begin to receive their answers at that point, not the least of which is whether the starship has traveled in the right direction through nospace and whether it will be able successfully to return to realspace at all; and shipboard tensions have begun to run a little higher than usual as the moment of truth approaches.

“During his term of office the year-captain isn’t allowed to leave the ship for any reason whatsoever, unless we’ve come to our final destination,” Chang says from across the room. “It’s in the Articles of the Voyage.”

“His year is almost up,” Leon says. “Once he’s out of office he’ll be free to take part in the exploration mission. My bet is that he’ll name himself to the landing party as one of his last official acts.”

“Why do you think he’ll leave office when his year is up?” Paco asks. “What if he puts himself forward for reelection? I think he’d win. Who else would want that bloody job, anyway? And there’s nothing in the rules preventing a year-captain from succeeding himself when his year is up.”

“Is he so power-hungry that he would want a second term, do you think?” Julia says.

“Nobody in his right mind would want a second term,” Paco tells her. “Or even a first one. But is he necessarily in his right mind? Are any of us? Would anyone in his right mind have agreed to go on this voyage in the first place?”

Calmly, Heinz, who is playing a game with Sylvia at the far side of the lounge, says, “My opinion is that a second term is the last thing he wants. I think he would very much prefer to be part of the landing party, and, as Chang says, having a second term would disqualify him from joining that. So he intends to step down. But if he does, who are we going to elect in his place?”

The question lands with sudden force among them, like a fist slamming down on everyone’s gaming board. There is a long moment of surprised silence in the lounge. Has this abruptly become an impromptu nominating convention? In that case, why is no one speaking out?

“What about you, Heinz?” Chang says at last.

“Don’t speak foolishness. I’m not a reliable person. Not in the way a captain needs to be.”

“Well, then, who would you suggest?”

“I’m not suggesting anyone. I simply raised the question.” Heinz looks around at each of the others. “What about you, Sylvia? A year as captain — why not? You don’t have any other urgent responsibilities at this stage in the voyage. Or you, Paco? You say you wouldn’t want the job, but you’d be a nice contrast with him, all sound and fury in place of chilly Nordic restraint. And what about Sieglinde, maybe? She’d nominate herself, I suspect, if we gave her half a chance.” They all laugh at that. Sieglinde is not a popular member of the expedition. “Or you, Huw,” Heinz says, grinning and pointing at the heavyset red-faced Welshman. “You’d make a damned good captain.”

“No. Not on your life. If I took the job, I would then face the same problem that he does, of the year-captain’s not being permitted to take part in a planetary exploration mission,” Huw reminds him. “And this entire conversation began with my question about the possible makeup of the planetary landing mission, if there is indeed to be one. Of course, I’m intending to be part of it. So obviously there’s no chance I’d let myself be put forth for captain.”

“Who would we pick, then?” someone asks.