Starborne

“Has anybody called for volunteers? I would go if I were asked. Of course I would. But you who worry so much about our precious genetic heritage and our irreplaceable instruments of embryo nurture might stop and think a little about the logic of risking one of the two people on board who have a thorough understanding of how to operate our gene bank.”

“I take it that what you’re saying is that you aren’t willing to go,” Paco says cheerfully. It is apparent to everyone now, by the light in his eyes and the lopsided smile on his face, that he is simply goading her for the sake of a little fun.

Sylvia is a small and fairly timid woman, and this is an unusual situation for her. The stress of it is already beginning to show. “Isaid I would go if I were asked! But it would be idiotic to ask me. You go, Paco. All you’re good for is navigating and producing sperm. You said yourself that we have plenty of sperm available, so we can get along without yours in case you get killed down there. And if it’s a planet good enough to settle on, we won’t need a navigator any more anyway.”

Julia and Giovanna applaud. So do Heinz and David, after a moment. Even Paco grins.

Huw, who can be an extremely patient man, has been waiting with extreme patience while all this takes place. Now he says doggedly, as though the entire Paco-Sylvia interchange had never taken place, “If I may continue, then: three of us make up the landing party. The year-captain is the biologist. Marcus or Innelda will do the planetographic analysis, I suppose. And, naturally, I will drive the surface vehicle in which we will travel, and look after it in case of a breakdown. What do you think?”

“What the year-captain thinks is a better question,” Heinz says. “But your list sounds good to me. Why don’t you go down the hall right now and let him know that you’ve picked his landing crew for him?”

“I mean to,” Huw replies. “Just as soon as I finish this game.”

He puts down his next stone. Leon stares sadly at the board and offers a countermove into Huw’s territory, but Huw heads it off with three quick moves that leave Leon’s stones encircled in a sea of black. Heinz and Paco come over to watch. Leon is one of the most experienced players on board, and Huw is still regarded as a novice; but Huw is murdering him with the aplomb and panache of an expert. He is playing now with the unsparing swiftness of the formidable Roy; he is playing almost on the extraordinary level that Noelle herself, the ship’s unquestioned champion these days, has attained. Leon seems rattled. He makes his moves too hastily, and Huw replies to each one with some crushing new onslaught. Two new enclosures sprout on the board, black stones throttling white. Leon peers at them for a time and shakes his head.

“I resign,” he says. “This is hopeless.”

“Indeed,” Huw agrees. He offers Leon his hand. “A good game, doctor. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Leon says, not very cordially.

“You will all excuse me, please,” says Huw. “I will speak with the year-captain now.”

Huw rises to go out of the lounge. He is a big, thickly built man, rumpled and inelegant-looking, who walks with the ponderous but confident rolling stride of someone accustomed to walking the deck of a seagoing vessel. As he crosses the room, he pauses to pat Paco appreciatively on the back, as though expressing admiration for his clowning. But also he blows a kiss in Sylvia’s direction. Then he proceeds down the corridor to the control cabin, where the year-captain is usually to be found.

Huw and the year-captain are old friends, if anyone can be said to be a friend of the year-captain’s. They are the only two members of the expedition who actually have worked together in any sort of way before they were chosen for the voyage.