Between the Strokes of Night

“Fortunately we didn’t fight over our differences of opinion on the move to S-space. Maybe the destruction of Earth had taught us all something about the need for peaceful resolution of conflicts. We agreed we would pursue both actions. Most people elected to stay as they were, creating a decent society in the spaceborne environment. After a few generations it was clear that a life in space was as satisfying as most of us had ever hoped. By then a few hundred of us had long since moved to S-space, using ourselves as the subjects for experiments that might reduce the risk for those who followed. While we were doing that we discovered a new mode of metabolic change, this one a true suspended animation. Five of you have personal experience of that cold sleep, here on the ship. We still don’t know how long someone can remain safely unconscious in that mode, but it’s certainly a long time — thousands of years at least.

“The move to S-space had two other important consequences. First, we realized that we couldn’t go back down and live on Earth, or anywhere with a substantial gravity field, even if we wanted to. That had been deduced when the experiments were still all on animals, and it was one major reason for moving the work out to orbit and away from the surface of Earth. You see, perceived accelerations — “ “We understand,” said Peron. “Kallen and Sy” — he pointed to them — “figured it out.”

“Smart.” Olivia Ferranti looked at the group appraisingly. “When I’m through, perhaps you’ll tell me a little more about yourselves. All I know so far is what I was told by Peron and by Captain Rinker.”

“Won’t he be wondering what’s happening?” said Rosanne. Then she stopped and put her hand to her mouth.

“He might — in a few more days.” Ferranti smiled and Rosanne grinned back at her. The initial tension of confrontation was fading. They were all increasingly absorbed in the first-person tale of remote history.

Olivia Ferranti leaned against the wall and pushed back the blue cowl from her forehead, to reveal a mop of jet-black tight curls. “We have lots of time. At the moment, Captain Rinker and the others hardly know I’ve left.” “But you’ve got hair!” blurted out Lum.

Olivia Ferranti raised her dark eyebrows at him. “I’m glad to hear that you think so.”

“It’s what I told them,” said Peron. “I thought S-space made you bald.” “It does. Didn’t you ever hear of wigs, down on Pentecost? Most of the men in S-space don’t worry about it, but I don’t care to face the world with a naked scalp. My ideas on the right way for me to look were fixed long before I ever dreamed of S-space. Anyway, I have a lumpy skull that I have no great desire to show off to others.” She patted her dark ringlets. “I much prefer this. The nice thing about it is that it will never go gray.”

“What else does S-space do to people?” asked Sy. More than the rest of them, except possibly for Kallen who had typically not spoken at all, Sy seemed reserved and unwarmed by Olivia Ferranti’s open manner.

“I’m getting there,” she said. “Let me tell you that in a few minutes. I want to do this in a logical order, and explain what happened after Earth had been destroyed. It’s important that you know, so you’ll understand why we behave the way we do in the Cass system.

“While we were still busy working out the stable society for life away from Earth, and some of us were also learning how to live in S-space, we didn’t have time to worry about what was happening to Eleanora and the other arcologies. And to tell the truth, we didn’t really give a damn. They’d selfishly deserted us, said our logic, so to hell with them. As far as we were concerned they could fly away and rot.

“But after a while those of us who were living in S-space — I was one of the first twenty people to take Mode Two hibernation — became pretty curious. You see, we knew we had the stars within reach. We had the drive we needed, and the time we needed. And Helena, Melissa, and Eleanora had all headed off outside the Solar System, in different directions. We didn’t know how much of the reason for their departure was an interest in exploration, and how much of it was fear of reprisals from us. We weren’t planning revenge of any kind, but how were they to know that? All three of them had shown signs of paranoia, back when they were first colonized. We got more and more curious to know what had happened to those three arcologies.