Poul Anderson - Starfarers

POUL ANDERSON STARFARERS

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

STARFARERS Copyright 1998 by The Trigonier Trust All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anderson, Poul, date Starfarers I Poul Anderson. 1st ed.

p. cm. "A Tor book." ISBN 0-312-86037-4 (alk. paper)

I. Title.

PS3551.N378S727 1998 813'.54 dc21 98-21766

First Edition: November 1998

Printed in the United States of America 0987654321

WHO HAS LED MANY

A CONTRCT MISSION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For information, advice, and much else, I owe thanks to Karen Anderson (as always), Victor Fernandez-Davila, editor Robert Gleason, the late Kenneth Gray, G. David Nordley, and Aharon Sheer. Special thanks are due Robert L. Forward and Sidney Coleman. The idea of a nuclear "time machine" is the former's. An idea of the latter's suggested the concept behind the zero-zero drive to me; he kindly sent me a copy of his paper, but it turns out that my speculation is quite unlike his real-science thought and may even contradict it.

The lines of verse quoted in Chapter III are from The Book of Songs, translated by Arthur Waley copyright 1937, renewed 1965 by Arthur Waley, by permission of the publisher, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

The lines of verse by Jorge Luis Borges and their English translation by Richard Howett and Cesar Rennart quoted in Chapter IX are from Selected Poems 1923-1967 by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Norman Thomas di Giovanni, copyright 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 by Emece Editores, S.A., and Norman Thomas di Giovanni, by permission of the publisher, Bantam Doubleday Dell.

The lines of verse by Rudyard Kipling quoted in Chapter XVII are in the public domain. CHAPTER XXI first appeared in a different form as "Ghetto" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1954, copyright by Fantasy House, Inc., renewed 1982 by Poul Anderson. The lines from the ballad "Jerry Clawson" quoted in it are copyright by the author, Gordon R. Dickson, and used by his permission. CHAPTER XVII first appeared in a slightly different form as "The Tale of the Cat" in Analog ScienceFiction and Fact, February 1998, copyright 1998 by Poul Anderson No person here named is in any way responsible for any mistakes or other flaws in this book.

ABOARD THE STARSHIP ENVOY

Captain: Ricardo Iriarte Nansen

Aguilar Mate and first pilot: Lajos Ruszek

Second pilot: Jean Kilbirnie

Engineer: Yu W enji

Second engineer: Alvin Brent

Physicist: Hanny Dayan

Planetologist: Timothy Cleland

Biologist and physician: Mamphela Mokoena

Biochemist: Selim ibn Ali Zeyd

Linguist and semantician: Ajit Nathu Sundaram

STARFARERS

"Look yonder." The man pointed northeast and aloft. "That very bright star in the Milky Way. Do you know it?"

"Yes," answered his son. "Alpha Centauri. The nearest to us. It's two, really, and a third that is dim."

Don Lucas Nansen Ochoa nodded, pleased. Juan was barely past his seventh birthday. "Now look up from it, a little to your right. That other brilliant one is Beta Centauri."

"Is it close, too?"

"No, it's far off. Almost seventy times as far, I have read. But it shines thousands of times as bright as our sun. Most of those we see are giants. Else our eyes could not find them across their distances."

Man and boy sat their horses for a while in silence. They had drawn rein after leaving well behind them the house and its outbuildings, walled off by a cedar grove. The autumn air rested cool, still, and altogether clear. They had light enough without a moon, stars crowding heaven, galactic belt gleaming frosty. The Paraguayan plain rolled away through this dusk toward darkness, grassland broken by stands of trees and big, stump-shaped anthills. No cattle were in view, but now and then a lowing went mournfully through the early night.

"Where are they?" whispered the boy at last. Awe shivered in his words.

Don Lucas's hand traced an are along the constellation. "Look on upward from Beta, to your left. Epsilon do you see it? and, past it, Zeta. The name Zeta means it's the sixth brightest in the Centaur. That's where the signs are."

PROLOGUE

"At Zeta?"

"No, as nearly as I can find out from the news, that star just happens to be in our line of sight to the things. They are actually far beyond it."

"Are they... are they coming here?"

"Nobody knows. But none of them are headed straight toward us. And we don't know what they are, natural or artificial or what. All the astronomers can say is that there are those fiery points of Xrays moving very fast, very far away. The news programs yammer about an alien civilization, but really, it's too soon for anybody to tell." Don Lucas laughed a bit. "Least of all an old estanciero like me. I'm sorry, you asked me to explain what's been on the television, and I cannot say much more than that you must be patient."

Juan pounced. "Are you?"

"Um-m, I hope they'll corral the truth while I'm still above ground. But you should surely live to hear it."

"What do you think?"

Don Lucas straightened in the saddle. Juan saw his face shadowed by the wide-brimmed hat like a pair of wings against the sky. "I may be wrong, of course," he said. "Yet I dare hope someone is faring from star to star, and someday men will."

Suddenly overwhelmed, cold lightnings aflicker in him, the boy stared past his father, outward and outward. It was as if he felt the planet whirling beneath him, about to cast him off into endlessness; and his spirit rejoiced.

He became the grandfather of Ricardo Nansen Aguilar.

With never a sight of beautiful, changeable Earth, Farside gained a night which stars made into no more than a setting for their brilliance. And the Lunar bulk shielded it from the radio noise of the mother world; and the stable mass underfoot and the near-vacuum overhead were likewise ideal for many kinds of science. It was no wonder that some of the most gifted people alive were gathered here, in spite of monastic quarters and minimal amenities. Besides, Muramoto thought, those should improve. Already the desolation of stone and dust was redeemed by an austere elegance of domes, detectors, dishes, taut and silvery power lines.

As his car neared observatory headquarters, he glanced through its bubbletop and found the red beacon light that was Mars. People there too, nowadays. An old thrill tingled. Yes, man does not live by bread alone, nor by economics and politics. It was the vision of ships flying through heaven that got us back into space in earnest. Damn it, this time we'll stay, and keep going!

He reached the topside turret, linked airlocks, crossed over, and descended. The corridor below felt doubly drab by contrast. However, he could move fast along it, enjoying the long, low-gravity lope. Ordinarily an officer of the United States Aerospace Force was expected to be more formal.

He had called ahead. The director awaited him in her office. She greeted him a little warily, offered him a chair, told the outer door to close, and sat down again behind her desk. For a few minutes they exchanged ritual courtesies how were things going here, how were things back home, how had his flight from Earth been and his drive from Port Apollo?

Then Helen Lewis leaned forward and said, "Well, I'm sure your time is as valuable as mine, Colonel. Shall we get directly to business? Why have you requested this meeting, and why did you want it to be confidential?"