Address: Centauri by F. L. Wallace (most read book in the world .TXT) 📖

me," said Jeriann, going to a drawer and taking things out. She slipped a watch on her arm; there was another in the rather wide belt she wore. She selected a series of absorption capsules and dropped them into pouches on the belt that appeared to be merely ornamental until he saw what went into it. "Lunch, a drink, and an extra one for emergency," she explained laconically.

"I should think you'd require more fluid."

She looked at him disturbingly. "I would, if I had normal metabolism. But remember I don't need fluid for the digestive process. And then to further reduce the intake they've included an antiperspirant in what I do get."

He followed her to the door, where she turned around and looked back at the place she lived in. It was a small, curious house, completely arranged for the kind of person she was.

"Are you going to the hospital with me?" she asked.

"No, there's some work I've got to do near here."

"Well, then, thanks for saving my life." She slipped her arms around him and kissed him, quickly but satisfactorily. Her lips were cool and dry. Very smooth but dry; her touch was like silk. That was because of her skin.

She smiled and opened the door. "See you," she said as they parted. She never once looked back though he did. He was glad, because she might have waved and it would have been impossible to return it.

Twice, now, within an hour, he thought as he went along. Maureen of course he could dismiss since she would respond to anything that was remotely male. It was not at all the same reaction from Jeriann, and it pleased him that it wasn't.

Their environment had changed. Life on the asteroid had undergone a not so subtle transformation now that there were no longer any normals around to be compared with, to make the disastrous self-comparison to. They could begin to behave healthily and sensibly. It was nice that Jeriann had kissed him and liked it. It was the first installment of freedom.

The second installment was going to be harder—to keep that freedom at a level that meant something. He frowned heavily as he thought of what had to be done.

He was late. Except for Anti, who was absent and always would be, everyone he knew was there. In addition there were many others who hardly ever attended. It was a good sign that they were coming out and mingling; before they had seldom left their houses. Docchi spotted Jeriann but there wasn't a vacant seat near her. He sat down toward the rear.

Jordan rapped for silence. "Are there any questions?"

At the front a man stood up. Docchi remembered him from months ago, a Jack or Jed Webber. Jed it was, a quiet fellow with pale blue eyes and almost colorless blond hair. Docchi had never heard him say anything but he was speaking now, emerging from his self-imposed shell. "Yes," said Webber. "I want to know where we're going."

Jordan rapped again. "Out of order. Not on the subject. Anyway the question's not important."

"I think it is," said the man, shuffling his body awkwardly. He was not exact in his movements because he'd been sliced very nearly down the middle. Except for his head he was half man and half machine. Unlike others who'd been injured past regeneration, he could use his composite body with some degree of skill because there was one arm and one leg to which the motion of his mechanical limbs could be coordinated. His skill wasn't as great as it could have been because he hadn't practiced. The spectre of the ideal human body had hindered him greatly—in the past. "You don't know where we're going," insisted the man in a high voice. "We're just moving but you don't know where."

Docchi got up. "I can answer that question. It should be answered. We're going to Centauri, either Alpha or Proxima, whichever is most suitable. Is there some place else you wanted to go?"

The reply was drowned for a few seconds by an appreciative rumble but Webber was stubborn and waited until the noise died down. He swayed on his feet and pointed at Nona. "I suppose you asked her," he said. Nona smiled dreamily as attention turned to her.

"No. It would be a joke if we did and we're not interested in playing tricks on ourselves. You've forgotten one thing, that we do have a telescope."

"A small one, built as a hobby," Webber said. His voice was uncertain, as wobbly as his body was.

"True, but it's better than Gallileo had." He hoped Webber wouldn't point out that Gallileo hadn't tried to plot a voyage across space with his instrument.

Actually there was something strange about the few observations he'd made. He had reconstructed their path to the best of his ability—not a bad guess since no records had been kept. At the time they had left Sol they hadn't been heading directly toward the Centauris. Nona must have used their tangential motion to take them out of the system as fast as she could and later had looped back toward their present destination. The sketchy charts Docchi had, indicated the Centauris by plus or minus a few degrees, all the accuracy he could expect from the telescope. It was in the stars themselves that he had detected changes he couldn't account for.

At the far side a woman stood. Jordan nodded to her. "I wasn't asked for my opinion about all this," she said defiantly. "I don't like it. I want to go back."

Jordan cocked his head humorously. "You should have told the guards this while they were here. They'd have been glad to take you with them."

"I certainly wouldn't leave with them," she said in surprise. "Look how they acted while they were here."

"I'm afraid you're out of luck. We can't turn back because of you."

"Don't tell me we're marooned here," said the woman vehemently. "The guards left a couple of scout ships, didn't they? Why can't we take those back to Earth?"

"For the same reason they didn't," said Jordan patiently. "The range of the scouts is limited, it wouldn't reach then and it won't do it now."

"Pshaw," said the woman. "You're just arguing. Docchi said the gravity generator in each ship could be changed to a drive without much work—something about adding a little star encyclopedia unit. I think that's what he said."

Docchi started. Had he said that? He must have for the woman to have remembered it. He shouldn't have made such a statement, first because it wasn't so. He had made the possibility of return to Earth seem too easy.

There was another reason he regretted his rash explanation and it was the opposite of the first: inadvertently he might have blurted out the secret of the drive. It was possible to talk too much.

"I'm not the only one," the woman was insisting. She'd found a point and wouldn't let go. "There are plenty of others who feel as I do and they'll say so if they're not afraid. Who wants to go on for years and years, never reaching any place?"

"Look at the stars." A voice ahead of Docchi answered her. It was Webber again, the meek little man who never spoke.

"I don't want to look at the stars," she said violently. "I never want to see anything but the sun. Our sun. It was good enough for mankind and I certainly don't care to change it."

"That's because you don't know," said Webber confidently. "You're afraid and you don't need to be. When I said look at the stars I meant that those ahead of us are brighter than the ones behind. Do you know what that means?"

Docchi nodded exultantly to himself; they'd found their astronomer. He himself had noticed the first part of what Webber remarked on; he hadn't thought to turn the telescope in the opposite direction because he wasn't interested in where they'd been. The apparent brightness of the Centauri system was much greater than it should have been—that's what he hadn't been able to account for. He could now. It was surprising how much power the gravity drive could deliver.

"We're approaching the speed of light," went on Webber. "It won't take decades to reach a star. We'll be there in a few years."

The woman turned and glared at him but could find nothing to say. She wasn't convinced but she sat down to cover her confusion. Around her people began to whisper to each other, their voices rising with excitement. They'd lived long enough at the rim of the system to know what stellar distances meant and how much speed could affect their voyage.

Jordan rapped them into silence. "I've tried to get you to talk on the subject but you've resolutely refrained. Therefore you'll have to vote on it without discussion."

The vote took place, whatever it was. Docchi was unable to discover what and so he didn't participate. When the count was over Jordan gavelled sharply. "Motion carried. That's all. Meeting adjourned."

Before Docchi could protest, people were leaving, carrying him part of the way with them. He reached the wall and stood there until traffic subsided, afterwards making his way to Jordan who was talking happily to Jeriann.

"We did it," said Jordan, grinning as he came up.

"Did what? All I heard were people complaining. We had to depend on someone from the floor to smack them down. Seems to me there were a lot of important things to discuss."

"Seem to me we covered everything, which you would have known if you had got here on time," said Jordan, still grinning. "This is Jeriann's idea. It was what we were voting on."

Twisting his head Docchi read the sheet Jordan laid in front of him. It was a resolution of some sort, that he gathered from the usual whereases. He scanned it once and was halfway through again before he caught the import.

"The wages aren't high," remarked Jordan. "Survival if we do our job well, grousing if we don't. Otherwise we can keep on doing just what we have been." He picked up the sheet and read from it. "Whereas we are bound together by a common condition and destination—ain't that nice?—and have a common plan——" Jordan looked up. "Since you're the one they're talking about when they refer to the head of the planning committee, just what the hell is our plan?"

There were innumerable small goals that had to be reached before they could consider themselves self-sufficient, and to some extent Docchi was capable of summarizing them. But when it came to a final statement of aims he could only feel his way. Docchi didn't know either.

9

Jeriann came into the office. "I've got it down to twenty," she said briskly.

"What?" said Docchi absently. Management details were unfamiliar to him and he was trying to pick them up as he went along. The scattered records were in order but some were still unaccounted for. "Oh. The deficiency biologicals. Good. How did you do it?"

"I asked them."

"And they knew? It's surprising. I'd expect them to be familiar with their standard treatment. But not something that's entirely new."

Jeriann smiled faintly. "I'm not that good. I did find out what they used to get and then scrounged around in storage until I found supplies. If the old stuff kept them healthy once it should do so now."

He hadn't thought of that, but then he wasn't accustomed to considering the same things a doctor would. Any trained person would know that sulfa hadn't been discarded with the discovery of penicillin, nor penicillin with the advent of the neo-biotics. Docchi studied her covertly; Jeriann was a competent woman, and an attractive one.

"Of the remaining twenty we don't have biologicals for, I've determined we can make what eleven need."

Only nine who were left out. It was a remarkable advance over a few days ago when there were forty-two. Nine for whom so far they could do nothing. It was queer how he worried about them more as the number diminished. Somehow it had greater significance now that he could remember each face distinctly. "And Maureen?" he inquired.

Instinctively Jeriann touched the decorative belt that was so much more than what it seemed. "I'm afraid I misjudged her. I couldn't locate a thing for her."

"You're sure she didn't destroy her prescription?"

"I don't see what difference it makes as long as we don't have it," said Jeriann. "But yes, I'm sure. Once something is brought in it's simply not possible for a person as ignorant of the system as she is to track down and destroy every entry relating to it."

"All right. I believe you." He glanced down at the list she'd given him. The actual figures weren't as optimistic as her report had been. "Wait. I notice you say here that out of twenty that we don't have supplies for that we can synthesize biologicals