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Authors: Robert Silverberg
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joviality. And so he drank with the others at the launch party; and so he would drink here tonight.
***
The launch party, yes. That had called for all his thespian skills. The newly elected year-captain going about the room, grinning, slapping backs, tr ading quips. Getting through the evening, somehow.
And then the day of the launch. That had needed some getting through, too. The grand theatrical event of the century, it was, staged for maximum psychological impact on those who were staying behind. The w hole world watching as the chosen fifty, dressed for the occasion in shimmering, absurdly splendiferous ceremonial robes, emerged from their dormitory and solemnly marched toward the shuttle ship like a procession of Homeric heroes boarding the vessel tha t will take them to Troy.
How he had hated all that pomp, all that pretension! But of course the departure of the first interstellar expedition in the history of the human race was no small event. It needed proper staging. So there they came, ostentatiously strutting toward the waiting hatch, the year-captain lea d ing the way, and Noelle walking unerringly alongside him, and then Huw, Heinz, Giovanna, Julia, Sieglinde, Innelda, Elliot, Chang, Roy, and on and on down to Michael and Marcus and David and Zena to the rear, the fifty voyagers, the whole oddly assorted bunch of them, the short ones and the tall, the burly ones and the slender, the emissaries of the people of Earth to the universe in general.
Aboard the shuttle. Up to the Wotan , waiting for them at i ts constru c tion site in low orbit. More festivities there. All manner of celebrities, government officials, and such on hand to bid them farewell. Then a change of mood, a new solemnity: the celebrities took their leave. The fifty were alone with their shi p. Each to his or her cabin for a private moment of — what? Prayer? Meditation? Contemplation of the unlikel i ness of it all? — before the actual moment of departure.
And then all hands to the lounge. The year-captain must make his first formal address:
“ I than k you all for the dubious honor you ’ ve given me. I hope you have no reason to regret your choice. But if you do, keep in mind that a year lasts only twelve months.”
Thin laughter came from the assembled voyagers. He had never been much of a comedian.
A few more words, and then it was time for them to go back to their cabins again. By twos and threes drifting out, pausing by the viewplate in the great corridor to have one last look at the Earth, blue and huge and throbbing with life in the center of the scr e en. Off to the sides som e where, the Moon, the Sun. Everything that you take for granted as fixed and permanent.
The sudden awareness coming over them all that the Wotan is their world now, that they are stuck with each other and no one else for all eternit y.
Music over the ship ’ s speakers. Beethoven, was it? Something tita n ic-sounding, at any rate. Something chosen for its sublime transcende n tal force, too. That added up to Beethoven. “ Prepare for launch,” the year-captain announced, over the music. “ Shunt minus ten. Nine. Eight.” All the old hokum, the ancient stagy stuff, the stirring drama of takeoff. The whole world was watching, yes. The comfortable happy people of Earth were sending forth the last of their adventurers, a grand exploit indeed, ridding t hemselves of fifty lively and troubled people in the fond hope that they would somehow replicate the vigor and drive of the h u man species on some brave new world safely far away. “ Six. Five. Four.”
His counting was meaningless, of course. The actual work o f the launch was being done by hidden mechanisms in some other part of the ship. But he knew the role he was supposed to play.
“ Shunt,” he said.
Drama in his voice, perhaps, but none in the actuality of the event. There was no special sensation at the mome nt the stardrive came on, no thrusting, no twisting, nothing that could be felt.
***
The launch party, yes. That had called for all his thespian skills. The newly elected year-captain going about the room, grinning, slapping backs, tr ading quips. Getting through the evening, somehow.
And then the day of the launch. That had needed some getting through, too. The grand theatrical event of the century, it was, staged for maximum psychological impact on those who were staying behind. The w hole world watching as the chosen fifty, dressed for the occasion in shimmering, absurdly splendiferous ceremonial robes, emerged from their dormitory and solemnly marched toward the shuttle ship like a procession of Homeric heroes boarding the vessel tha t will take them to Troy.
How he had hated all that pomp, all that pretension! But of course the departure of the first interstellar expedition in the history of the human race was no small event. It needed proper staging. So there they came, ostentatiously strutting toward the waiting hatch, the year-captain lea d ing the way, and Noelle walking unerringly alongside him, and then Huw, Heinz, Giovanna, Julia, Sieglinde, Innelda, Elliot, Chang, Roy, and on and on down to Michael and Marcus and David and Zena to the rear, the fifty voyagers, the whole oddly assorted bunch of them, the short ones and the tall, the burly ones and the slender, the emissaries of the people of Earth to the universe in general.
Aboard the shuttle. Up to the Wotan , waiting for them at i ts constru c tion site in low orbit. More festivities there. All manner of celebrities, government officials, and such on hand to bid them farewell. Then a change of mood, a new solemnity: the celebrities took their leave. The fifty were alone with their shi p. Each to his or her cabin for a private moment of — what? Prayer? Meditation? Contemplation of the unlikel i ness of it all? — before the actual moment of departure.
And then all hands to the lounge. The year-captain must make his first formal address:
“ I than k you all for the dubious honor you ’ ve given me. I hope you have no reason to regret your choice. But if you do, keep in mind that a year lasts only twelve months.”
Thin laughter came from the assembled voyagers. He had never been much of a comedian.
A few more words, and then it was time for them to go back to their cabins again. By twos and threes drifting out, pausing by the viewplate in the great corridor to have one last look at the Earth, blue and huge and throbbing with life in the center of the scr e en. Off to the sides som e where, the Moon, the Sun. Everything that you take for granted as fixed and permanent.
The sudden awareness coming over them all that the Wotan is their world now, that they are stuck with each other and no one else for all eternit y.
Music over the ship ’ s speakers. Beethoven, was it? Something tita n ic-sounding, at any rate. Something chosen for its sublime transcende n tal force, too. That added up to Beethoven. “ Prepare for launch,” the year-captain announced, over the music. “ Shunt minus ten. Nine. Eight.” All the old hokum, the ancient stagy stuff, the stirring drama of takeoff. The whole world was watching, yes. The comfortable happy people of Earth were sending forth the last of their adventurers, a grand exploit indeed, ridding t hemselves of fifty lively and troubled people in the fond hope that they would somehow replicate the vigor and drive of the h u man species on some brave new world safely far away. “ Six. Five. Four.”
His counting was meaningless, of course. The actual work o f the launch was being done by hidden mechanisms in some other part of the ship. But he knew the role he was supposed to play.
“ Shunt,” he said.
Drama in his voice, perhaps, but none in the actuality of the event. There was no special sensation at the mome nt the stardrive came on, no thrusting, no twisting, nothing that could be felt.
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