Part 9 (1/2)

On Viktor's next voyage his family came along.

It was an experiment. Reesa was a qualified navigator herself, though somewhat rusty. Though the s.h.i.+p didn't need two navigators-it hardly needed one-there was always work for extra hands to do in supervising the rotor speed and double-checking the orbital position fixes against star-sighting . . . though, actually, when Reesa or Viktor took a s.e.xtant reading on a star they weren't as much thinking about whether their s.h.i.+p was in its proper place as whether the star was. Some of the parallax s.h.i.+fts were now detectable even with the s.e.xtant.

Alice Begstine had proved unexpectedly unwilling to turn Shan over to the newly married couple, so they left without him. They couldn't s.h.i.+p out together more than once or twice, they knew, because when the new baby came Reesa would want to stay on land for a season or so, at least. But it was worth trying, and as a matter of fact they all enjoyed it. Tanya was a touch seasick at first, but it was more psychological than real-Great Ocean behaved itself, as it usually did. The children roamed the s.h.i.+p. One of the crew was always glad to keep an eye on them and make sure Tanny spent her allotted hours at the s.h.i.+p's teaching machines. The baby was as happy on s.h.i.+pboard as anywhere else, and Reesa enjoyed the new experience. They basked in the sun; at South Continent they explored the hills and swam in the gentle surf. On the way back Viktor almost wished they could do it forever.

There was, of course, always in the back of their minds the worry about what the h.e.l.l had happened to the universe.

It bothered even little Tanya, though mostly, of course, because she could see that the grown-ups were bothered by it. And when Viktor took his turn in tucking them in at night he was eager to do for Tanya what Pal had, so often, done for him. The stories he told her were about Earth, and the long voyage to Newmanhome, and the stars. On the last night before they landed he was standing with her on the deck outside the cook house where their dinner was simmering to completion, the rotors grumbling as they turned. Tanya squinted at the sunset they were watching and asked, ”What makes the sun burn?”

”Don't look at it too long, Tanny,” Viktor cautioned. ”It's not good for your eyes. A lot of people had their sight damaged a few years ago, when everybody was-” He hesitated. He didn't want to finish the sentence: When everybody was looking at the sun every few minutes, wondering if it was going to flare like so many of the other stars nearby, and burn them all up. When everybody was looking at the sun every few minutes, wondering if it was going to flare like so many of the other stars nearby, and burn them all up. ”When we were first on Newmanhome,” he finished. ”Now it's your bedtime.” ”When we were first on Newmanhome,” he finished. ”Now it's your bedtime.”

”But what makes it burn anyway?” she persisted.

”It doesn't really burn, burn, you know,” he said. ”Not like a fire burns. That's a chemical reaction. What the sun does is combine hydrogen atoms to make helium atoms.” you know,” he said. ”Not like a fire burns. That's a chemical reaction. What the sun does is combine hydrogen atoms to make helium atoms.”

Tanny said proudly, to show she understood. ”You mean if I take some hydrogen out of the stove fuel tank, and-and what would I have to do then? To make that helium, I mean?”

”Well, you couldn't really. Not just like that. It takes a lot of energy to make protons-the proton is the heavy part of the hydrogen atom, the nucleus-to make protons stick together. They're positively charged, remember? And positive charges?”

”They push each other away,” Tanny said with satisfaction.

”Exactly right, honey! So you need to force force them into each other. That's hard to do. But inside a star like Earthsun, or our own sun-like any star, really-the star is so big that it squeezes and squeezes.” them into each other. That's hard to do. But inside a star like Earthsun, or our own sun-like any star, really-the star is so big that it squeezes and squeezes.”

He hesitated, wondering how far it made sense to go in describing the CNO cycle to Tanya. But, gratifyingly, she seemed to be following every word. ”So tell me, Daddy,” she persisted.

He couldn't resist Jake Lundy's daughter when she called him that! ”Well,” he began, but looked up to see Reesa coming toward them, the baby in her arms, the unborn one making her belly stick out farther every day.

”It's almost dinnertime,” she warned.

Viktor looked at his watch. ”We've got a few minutes,” he said. ”I just put the vegetables on, but you can call the crew if you want to.”

”Tell me first, Daddy,” Tanya begged.

”Well,” Viktor said, ”there are some complications. I don't think we have time to explain them right now. But if you can make four protons stick together, and turn two of them into neutrons-you remember what a neutron is?”

Tanya said, careful of how she p.r.o.nounced the hard words, ”A neutron is a proton with an electron added.”

”That's it. Then you have the nucleus of a helium atom. Two protons, two neutrons. Only, as it happens, the ma.s.s of the helium nucleus is a little less than the combined ma.s.s of four hydrogen nuclei. There's some ma.s.s left over-”

”I know!” Tanny cried. ”E ”E equals equals m c m c squared! The extra ma.s.s turns into energy!” squared! The extra ma.s.s turns into energy!”

”Exactly,” Viktor said with pleasure. ”And that's what makes the sun burn. Now help me get dinner on the table.”

As they reached the door she lifted her head. ”Daddy? Will it ever stop?”

”You mean will the sun cool down? Not in our lifetimes,” Viktor told her confidently, not knowing that he lied.

So the voyage was absolutely perfect, right up until the end of it . . . but the end wasn't perfect.

It was horrible.

Probably Reesa should not have been trying to guide the grain nozzles into the holds while she had the baby in her arms. The dock operator was a new man; he couldn't get the nozzle into position; Reesa put the baby down to shove the recalcitrant nozzle.

She shoved too hard.

She lost her footing and tumbled. She only fell two or three meters, and it was onto the yielding grain-but that was enough. When Viktor frantically scrambled down after her she, was moaning, and there was blood soaking into the top layers of grain.

They got her to the hospital in time to save the baby. It was premature, of course, but a healthy young girl for all that; there was every chance the newborn would survive. And so would Reesa, but she would be a long time recovering.

Definitely, she would not be making the next voyage with her husband and the kids. When Reesa's mother came over, aching and complaining, she seemed to consider it all Viktor's fault, too. It was the first time he had thought of Roz McGann as a mother-in-law. He accepted all blame. ”I shouldn't have let her do that,” he admitted sadly. ”Thank G.o.d she's going to be all right, anyway.”

”G.o.d,” Roz McGann sniffed. ”What do you know about G.o.d?”

Viktor stared at the woman, feeling he had somehow missed the thread of the conversation. ”What are you talking about?”

”I'm talking about G.o.d,” she said firmly. ”Why didn't you marry Reesa properly? In church? With a priest?”

Viktor blinked, astonished. ”You mean with Freddy Stockbridge?

”I mean properly. properly. Why do you think we're having all these troubles, Viktor? We've turned away from religion. Now we're paying for it!” Why do you think we're having all these troubles, Viktor? We've turned away from religion. Now we're paying for it!”

Later on, walking away from the hospital in the moonless Newmanhome night, Viktor found himself perplexed. He knew, of course, that there had been a religious revival on Newmanhome-half a dozen of them, in fact. The Sunni Moslems and the s.h.i.+'ites hadn't stopped splintering when they broke into two groups; they schismed again over which way was East, and almost did it again over the calendar. (How could you set the time of that first sighting of the new moon that began Ramadan when there was no moon to sight?) The Baptists had refused to be ec.u.menical with the Unitarians; the Church of Rome had separated itself from Greek Orthodox and Episcopalian. Even Captain Bu had declared himself a born-again Christian, and every other soul on Newmanhome tragically doomed to eternal h.e.l.lfire.

By the third year after the spectral s.h.i.+ft there were twenty-eight separate religious establishments on Newmanhome, claiming fourteen hundred members-divided in everything, except in their unanimous distaste for the three thousand other colonists who belonged to no church at all.

When Viktor looked in on his father he found the old man sitting by himself in the doorway of his home, gazing at the sky-and drinking.

”Oh, s.h.i.+t,” s.h.i.+t,” Viktor said, stopping short and scowling at his father. Viktor said, stopping short and scowling at his father.

His father looked up at him, unconcerned. ”Have a drink,” he said. ”It isn't ropy vine, it's made out of potatoes. It won't kill you.”

Viktor curtly refused the drink, but he sat down, watching his father with some puzzlement mixed in with the anger. The old man didn't really seem drunk. He seemed somber. Weary. Most of all he seemed abstracted, as though there were something on his mind that wouldn't go away. ”Reesa's going to be all right, I think,” Viktor volunteered-angrily, since Pal Sorricaine hadn't had the decency to ask.

His father nodded. ”I know. I was at the hospital until they said she was out of danger. She's a good strong woman, Vik. You did a good thing when you married her.”

Baffled, slightly mollified, too, Viktor said, ”So you decided to come back here and get drunk to celebrate.”

”Trying, anyway,” Pal said cheerfully. ”It isn't seeming to work.”

”What is is the matter with everybody?” Viktor exploded. ”The whole town's going queer! I heard people fighting with each other over, for G.o.d's sake, whether there was one G.o.d or three! And n.o.body's got a smile on his face-” the matter with everybody?” Viktor exploded. ”The whole town's going queer! I heard people fighting with each other over, for G.o.d's sake, whether there was one G.o.d or three! And n.o.body's got a smile on his face-”

”Do you know what day it is?”

”h.e.l.l, of course I do. It's the fifteenth of Winter, isn't it?”