48

August 22, 2235! It meant something to Crile Fisher, for it was Tessa Wendel's birthday. To be precise, it was her fifty-third birthday. She made no reference to the day, or to its significance - perhaps because she had been so proud of her youthful appearance on Adelia, or perhaps because she was overconscious of Fisher's five years' advantage.

But their relative age difference didn't matter to Crile.

Even if Fisher had not been attracted to her intelligence and to her sexual vigor, Tessa held the key to Rotor and he knew it.

There were fine wrinkles around her eyes now, and a distinct flabbiness to her upper arms, but her unmentioned birthday was one of triumph for her, and she came swinging into the apartment, which had grown steadily more lavish with the years, and threw herself into her sturdy field-bottomed armchair with a smile of satisfaction on her face.

'It went as smoothly as interstellar space. Absolute perfection.'

'I wish I had been there,' said Crile.

'I wish you had, too, Crile, but we're on a strictly need-to-know basis, and I get you involved in more things than I should, as it is.'

The goal had been Hypermnestra, an otherwise undistinguished asteroid that was in a convenient position, not too close to other asteroids at the moment, and, what was more important, not too close to Jupiter. It was also unclaimed by any Settlement, and unvisited by any. And, to top it off, there were the first two syllables of the name, which, however trivial, seemed to represent a proper target for a superluminal flight through hyperspace.

'I take it you got the ship there safely.'

'Within ten thousand kilometers. We could easily have placed it closer, but we didn't want to risk an intensification of its gravitational field, feeble though it was. And back, of course, to the prearranged spot. It's being shepherded in by two ordinary vessels.'

'I suppose the Settlements were on the lookout.'

'Of course, but it's one thing to see that the ship vanishes instantaneously, and quite another to tell where it went; whether it went at or near light speed, or many multiples of it; and, most of all, how it was done. So what they do see means nothing.'

'They had nothing in the neighborhood of Hypermnestra, did they?'

'They had no way of knowing what the destination was, barring a breakdown of security, and that apparently didn't happen. If they had known, or guessed, that alone still would not have helped them. All in all, Crile, very satisfactory.'

'Obviously a giant step.'

'With additional giant steps still facing us. It was the first ship, capable of carrying a human being, to attain superluminal velocity, but, as you know, it was staffed - if that's the word - by one robot.'

'Did the robot operate successfully?'

'Completely, but that's not very significant, except that it shows we can transfer a fairly large mass there and back in one piece - at least in one piece on the macro-scale. It will take several weeks of inspection to make sure that no dangerous damage was done on the micro-scale. And, of course, that still leaves us the task of building larger ships, of making sure that life-support systems are incorporated and functioning well, and of multiplying safety provisions. A robot can take stresses that human beings cannot.'

'And is the schedule holding up?'

'So far. So far. Another year or year and a half-if there are no disasters or unexpected accidents - and we ought to be able to surprise the Rotorians, assuming them to exist.'

Fisher winced, and Wendel said, looking hangdog, 'I'm sorry. I keep promising myself not to say things like that, but it does slip out once in a while.'

'Never mind,' said Fisher. 'Is it definitely settled that I'll be going on the first trip to Rotor?'

'If anything can be definitely settled for something that won't take place for a year or more. There's no way of guarding against sudden shifts of needs.'

'But so far?'

'Apparently, Tanayama had left behind a note to the effect that you were promised a berth - more decent of him than I would have expected. Koropatsky was kind enough to tell me about the note today, after the successful flight, when it seemed to me that it might be a good time to advance the possibility.'

'Good! Tanayama promised it to me by word of mouth once. I am glad he put it on the record.'

'Do you mind telling me why he made that promise? Tanayama always struck me as someone who gave nothing for nothing.'

'You're right. I got the trip on condition that I brought you back to Earth to work on superluminal velocities. I think you'll recall I carried out that task triumphantly.'

Wendel snorted. 'I doubt that it was that alone that shook and moved your government. Koropatsky said that he would not consider himself bound by Tanayama's promises, ordinarily, but that you had lived on Rotor for some years and that your special knowledge might come in handy. My own feeling is that your special knowledge, after thirteen years, might have dimmed, but I didn't say that, because I was feeling good after the trial, and decided that, for the moment, I loved you.'

Fisher smiled. 'I feel relieved, Tessa. I hope you'll be on the first flight, too. Did you get that straightened out?'

Wendel pulled her head back an inch or two as though to get Fisher into better focus. 'That was a lot harder, my boy. They were perfectly willing to send you into danger, but as for me, they said that I couldn't be spared. "Who could carry on the project if anything happens to you?" they said. So I said: "Only any one of about twenty of my subordinates who are as well up on superluminal flight as I am, and whose minds are younger and nimbler." A lie, of course, since there's no one quite like me, but it impressed them.'

'There's something to what they say, you know. Should you take the risk?'

'Yes,' said Wendel. 'For one thing I want the credit of being captain of the first superluminal flight. For another I am curious to see another star, and resent that these Rotorians got there first, if-' She caught herself and said, 'And finally, and most important, I believe, I want to get off Earth.' She said that with a virtual snarl.

Afterward, as they lay in bed together, she said, 'And when the time comes, and we finally get there, what a marvelous feeling it will be!'

Fisher did not answer. He was thinking of a child with strange large eyes, and of his sister, and the two seemed to fuse as drowsiness closed down over him.