Read Online Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson - Free Book Online Page B

space on the screen. It was getting crowded. Most of them were dull: First, One, The Starship. Others were better. There were classical allusions, of course: The Ark, Santa Maria, Kon-Tiki III, Because It’s There. The names of the two halves of the ship had been joined— Lerdalgo, Himontov —I doubted they would be chosen. In the center of the screen was the suggestion rumored to be Davydov’s: Anicarus. I liked that one. Also Transplutonia, which sounded like the Vampires of Outer Space. About a third of the names were in the Cyrillic alphabet, which I can barely transliterate. And the names would have been Russian, anyway. They all looked good, though.
    Looking at the names I thought about all that had happened, about Davydov, Swann and Breton, Duggins and Valenski. I would be in trouble if I returned to Mars … if I returned? When I returned! Seized by undirected danger, I was suddenly inspired to add a name to the screen. In the biggest letters available, in orange, just below Davydov’s suggestion, I typed out THE SHIP OF FOOLS. The ship of fools. How perfect. We would make an illustration for the allegory, with me large among the foreground characters. It made me laugh, and feeling better, though I knew that was illogical, I went to eat.
    But the next day the feeling of pressure returned. I felt like a chunk of chondrite being transformed to Chantonnay. My life’s course had been bent by this event, and there was no way to straighten it out; all my choices lay in a new direction, where eventual disaster seemed more and more likely. This sense of pressure became unbearable, and I went to the centrifuge to run. It felt good to get in the gravity and run like a hamster in a wheel, like a creature without choices.
    So I was running. The floor of the centrifuge was made of curved wooden planking, the walls and ceiling were white, dotted by numbered red circles to tell runners where they were. There were unmarked, informal lanes—slow to the right, fast to the left. Usually I just went to the left wall and started running, looking at the planks as they passed under me.
    This time I heard the thump of feet directly behind me, and I moved over, thinking, stupid sprinters. It was Davydov. He drew even with me.
    â€œMind if I run with you?”
    I shook my head, although I don’t like running with others. We ran side by side for a few revolutions.
    â€œDo you always run this fast?” he said.
    Now when I run, I am doing a middle-distance workout, and the point is to get up to about ninety percent maximum pulse rate and keep it there for up to twenty or thirty minutes. It is working to the limit. When Davydov asked me this question I had been going for almost half an hour, and I was about to collapse. Nevertheless, I said, “Or faster.”
    He grunted. We ran on. His breathing quickened.
    â€œYou about ready to take off?” I asked.
    â€œYeah. A few days. I think.”
    â€œGoing to make closure?”
    He glanced at me briefly; he knew that I knew that they weren’t. Then he looked back at the floor, thinking about it.
    â€œNo,” he said. A few strides. “Water loss. Waste build-up. Not enough fuel.”
    â€œHow long can you go?”
    â€œEighty. Eighty years.”
    I smiled for a moment, pleased with the accuracy of my own calculations. They should have had me from the start, I thought. I said, “Doesn’t that worry you?”
    Again he watched the floor. We took quite a few strides, nearly circled the run.
    â€œYes,” he expelled suddenly. A slight stumble to mark the admission. “Yes, I’m worried.” Several strides. “I’ve got to. Stop now. Join me? In game room?”
    â€œIn a few minutes.” He slowed abruptly and dropped back to the right. I waved a hand without turning and started to run freely again, thinking about the look on his face and the sense of release when he said yes, I’m