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TWENTY-THREE

"Do you remember what it was like, sleeping through the warp?" Anna asked.

Kawashita shook his head. "I'll be ready for this one," he said. "As long as it isn't too strong."

"One of the hazards of the trade, like getting seasick on a boat."

"I was seasick for two weeks on my first deployment," Kawashita said.

"The effects are minor on a well-tuned ship. Without warp it would take us a thousand years to get where we're going, and ten times the fuel." Kawashita nodded but didn't seem to listen closely. He watched Anna's body in the light of the cabin modifier, like a ghost, her shadows brownish-warm from the floor's afterglow. As she turned, the air fluoresced around her, leaving a series of heat-images.

"You like?" she asked.

"Beautiful."

"Me or the modifiers?"

"Women haven't changed much in four centuries. Still full of vanities."

"Ha! I saw you trying on new hairstyles in the mirror. Vanity, thy name is Methuselah."

"When I read through the libraries under the dome, there were so many books fearful of technology," he said. "Afraid computers would take over mankind—"

"They did," Anna said. "On Myriadne, three hundred years ago. And maybe one or two times since—mechanical shutdowns, balky systems; that sort of thing. We design around them now."

"Or that technology would leave us neck deep in poisonous muck. They hardly ever mentioned a time when something like a modifier could turn every motion into art. Or when ships could bring the treasures of other civilizations to all corners of the human Galaxy, without wars—"

"The wars exist," Anna said. "But they're chiefly economic, or psychological."

"So now I'm filled with optimism," he said. "I've lived long enough to see."

"You didn't like Earth, though," Anna said, bringing her face down to him and pointing a finger at his chest.

"In my time there was only three percent of the population Earth has now, but more than half lived miserable lives. Who am I to complain? I'll go somewhere else to live."

"Don't think it's all rosy, Yoshio," Anna cautioned, lying beside him. "You've only sampled the surface. And you've had all the facilities of the rich to fall back on. Lots of people are still unhappy. Most."

"Then they're fools. They're well-fed, educated, have the resources of a galaxy's information within a few minutes' reach—"

"On Earth perhaps. But when you get to the fringes, the new colonies, life is much harder—harder than it needs to be. There are still tyrannies and wars and torture. I've seen some of it. Earth is old and stable now, but very few of its citizens can experience new things directly. They're locked into their lives by the security they've built up. On some colony worlds people can experience a thousand different lives—and face the consequences. Adventure and novelty are hellish things most of the time. For every asset, there's an equal or greater number of debits."

"What are your debits?" Kawashita asked.

"Estrangement from my family. Loneliness—even now, though you fill a big gap. But one future husband isn't enough. How many friends do I really have? A few, subject to the vicissitudes of employment. A few in the entourage, people who accept me as I am, without trying to get more from me. But none I can call close, not like a friend I had when I was a girl—"

DiNova's voice broke in. "Anna, my regrets. This is an emergency. We have twenty minutes until warp sequencing. The Aighors have officially denied all knowledge of activity in the Ring Stars."

Anna sat up on the bed. "How many ships are headed there now?"

"Who can count them all? Five hundred, a thousand."

"Can we beat them?"

"If we use our geodesic buildup and blow half our fuel."

"We won't find any more around the Ring Stars. Tell Kiril to get us there, and use three eighths if he absolutely has to. We can't afford to gamble with the rest. Our allowance is inflexible." She looked at Kawashita, her face wreathed in a smile.

"What's happening?"

"If the Aighors deny any responsibility for the Ring Stars, we aren't limited by treaties. We can mine as much information as we want."

"What will we do when we get there?"

"If we get there ahead of everybody else, we'll put some special equipment to work. If you're going to be my husband, you'll have to learn some family secrets. Think you're ready for them?"

"If you don't expect full understanding."

"Hell, I don't ask that of myself."

"The Waunters will be there?"

"Not before us. Their ship will run a long, long time, but it won't push through higher spaces nearly as fast as Peloros. Hell, Yoshio—we're riding a hard, gemlike flame!"

Kawashita had never seen Anna like this. She paced back and forth across the cabin, talking of things he knew little or nothing about—pinching the ship's hole to increase spatial evaporation, analyzing the Ring Stars for charm and cohesion effects after years in a probability-altered space—and so on, for the quarter hour until warp sequencing. A bell chimed on the ship's intercoms.

"Be at peace, mates," Kondrashef advised in somber tones. "We're riding into hell again. God save your bloody souls."

Kawashita shivered involuntarily. The modifiers were automatically cut, and room lights became bright. Anna lay next to him with her head on his shoulder. "You're trembling," she said.

"It was the same before I received inoculations as a child. Waiting and not knowing what it would feel like."

The lights dimmed to orange. His nerves tingled.

"Warp status," the intercom said.

Kawashita shut his eyes, then found he preferred them open. The dark was too pregnant. "We'll force the Peloros pretty near her limits," Nestor said. "Squeeze the hole until it gives up three eighths of its mass. That will deepen our plunge. The farther we go from status geometry, the more energy we have to expend to keep ourselves together. It's a vicious circle. So we play our cards and stay within the limits of the hand already dealt—we have no idea what we'll pick off the table when we get there. It's not pleasant being stranded. The cost of a Combine or USC expedition to rescue us could break my fortune into little tiny pieces. Are you ready for a few family secrets?"

"I don't know. I can't seem to think straight."

"The simple ones, then. What we found on Grandfather's trip to the Great Magellan."

 

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