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reference to Earth dates, too. Earth dates still matter to us, afte r a fashion. All of us keep a kind of double calendar in our heads, I su s pect. And I think we ’ ll go on doing that until —”
    “ Happy six-month!” Paco cries, just then. His broad face is flushed, his dark deep-set eyes are aglow. “ Six months cooped up together in this goddamned tin can and we ’ re still all on speaking terms with each other! It ’ s a miracle! A bloody miracle!” He holds a tumbler of red wine in each hand. For tonight ’ s party the year-captain has authorized breaking out the last of the wine that they brought with them from Earth. They will be synthesizing their own from now on. It won ’ t be the same thing, though: everyone knows that.
    Paco may not be as drunk as he seems, but he puts on a good show. He caroms through the c rowd, bellowing, “ Drink! Drink!” and bumps into tall, slender Marcus, the planetographer, nearly knocking him down, and Marcus is the one who apologizes: that is the way Marcus is. A moment later Sieglinde drifts past him and Paco hands his extra wine-gla s s to her. Then he loops his free arm through hers. “ Tanz mit mir, liebchen !” he cries. The old languages are still spoken, more or less. “ Show me how to waltz, Sieglinde!” She gives him a sour look, but yields. It ’ s a party, after all. They make a foolish- looking couple — she is a head taller than he is, and utterly ungraceful — but looking foolish is probably what Paco has in mind. He whirls her around through the crowd in a clumsy galumphing not-quite-waltz, holding her tightly at arm ’ s length with a one-arm e d grip and joyously waving his wine-glass in the other.
    The year-captain, who has come late to the party and now stands qu i etly by himself at the rear of the lounge near the tables where the Go boards are kept, sees Noelle on the opposite side, also alone. He fears for her, slim and frail as she is, and sightless, in this room of increasin g ly drunken revelers. But she seems to be smiling. Michael and Julia are at her side; Julia is saying something to her, and Noelle nods. Apparen t ly she is asking if Noelle wants something to drink, for a moment later Mike plunges into the melee and fetches a glass of something for her.
    There had been a party much like this six months before, on Earth, the eve of their departure. The same people acting foolish, the same ones being shy and withdrawn. They all knew each other so superficially, then, even after the year-long training sessions — names, professional skills, that was about it. No depth, no intimacy. But that was all right. There would be time, plenty of time. Alread y couples had begun to form as launch time drew near, Paco and Julia, Huw and Giovanna, Michael and Innelda. None of those relationships was destined to last past the first month of the voyage, but that was all right too. The ship ’ s crew consisted of twent y -five men, twenty-five women, and the supposition was that they would all pair neatly off and mate and be fruitful and mu l tiply on the new Earth to come, but in all likelihood only about half the group would do that at most, and the others would remain sin gle to the end of their days, or pass through a series of intricate and shifting rel a tionships without reproducing, as most people did on Earth. It would make little difference, in the long run. There was a sufficiency of frozen gametes on board with which to people the new world. And one could readily enough contribute one ’ s own to the pool without actually pairing and mating.
    Partying was not a natural state for the year-captain. Aloof and e s sentially solitary by nature, marked also by his wintry years at the mo n astery in Lofoten, he made his way through these social events the way he had managed his notable and improbable career as an actor, stepping for the time being into the character of someone who was not at all like himself. He could pretend a certa in