7

Odd - or perhaps stupid - that she was still capable of hurting herself unbearably with thoughts of that kind after fourteen years.

Crile was 1.8 meters tall where, on Rotor, the average height for men was a bit under 1.7 meters. That alone (as in the case of Janus Pitt) gave him a commanding aura of strength that persisted well after the time when she came to recognize, without ever quite admitting it to herself, that she could not rely on his strength.

He had a craggy face, too; a prominent nose and cheekbones, a strong chin - a look, somehow, of hunger and wildness. Everything about him spoke of strong masculinity. She could almost smell it when she met him, and was struck with fascination at once.

Insigna was still a graduate student in astronomy at the time, completing her stint on Earth, looking forward to returning to Rotor so that she could qualify for work on the Far Probe. She dreamed of the wide advances the Far Probe would make possible (and never dreamed that she herself would make the most astonishing one).

And then she met Crile and found herself, to her own confusion, madly in love with an Earthman - an Earthman. Overnight she felt herself abandoning the Far Probe in her mind, becoming ready to remain on Earth just to be with him.

She could still remember the way he had looked at her in astonishment and said, 'Remain here with me? I'd rather come to Rotor with you.' She could not have imagined that he would want to abandon his world for her. How Crile managed to obtain permission to come to Rotor, Insigna did not know and had never found out.

The immigration rules were strict, after all. Once any Settlement had a sizable population, it clamped down on immigration - first, because it could not exceed a certain definite limit on the number of people it could support comfortably, and, second, because it made a desperate effort to keep its ecological balance stable. People who came on important business from Earth - or even from other Settlements - had to undergo tedious decontamination procedures, a certain degree of isolation, and an enforced departure as soon as possible.

Yet here was Crile from Earth. He complained to her once of the weeks of waiting that had been part of the decontamination, and she was secretly pleased at the way he had persisted. Clearly, he must have wanted her very badly to submit to it.

Yet there were times when he seemed withdrawn and inattentive and she would wonder then what had really driven him to Rotor over such obstacles. Perhaps it was not she, but the need to escape Earth that had been the motivating force. Had he committed a crime? Made a murderous enemy? Fled a woman he had grown tired of? She had never dared ask.

And he had never offered information. Even after he had been allowed to enter Rotor, there was a question as to how long he might be able to remain. The Bureau of Immigration would have to grant a special permit to make him a full citizen of Rotor and that was not ordinarily likely.

Insigna had found all the things that made Crile Fisher unacceptable to Rotorians additional inducements for fascination. She found that his being Earth-born lent him a difference and a glamour. True Rotorians would be bound to despise him as an alien - citizen or not - but she found even that a source of erotic excitement. She would fight for him, and triumph, against a hostile world.

When he tried to find some sort of work that would enable him to earn money and occupy a niche in the new society, it was she who pointed out to him that if he married a Rotorian woman - Rotorian for three generations - that would be a powerful inducement for the Bureau of Immigration to grant him full citizenship.

Crile seemed surprised at that, as though it hadn't occurred to him, and then pleased. Insigna had found it a little disappointing. It would be much more flattering to be married for the sake of love than for the sake of citizenship, but then she thought to herself: Well, if that's what it takes-

So, after a typical long Rotorian engagement, they were married.

Life went on without much change. He was not a passionate lover, but he had not been that before the marriage either. He had offered her an absent affection, an occasional warmth that kept her constantly near happiness if not altogether immersed in it. He was never actively cruel and unkind, and he had given up his world for her and gone through considerable inconvenience to be with her. Surely that might be counted in his favor, and Insigna counted it so.

Even as a full citizen, which he had been granted after their marriage, there remained a kernel of dissatisfaction within him. Insigna was aware of this and could not entirely blame him. He might be a full citizen, yet he was still not a native-born Rotorian and many of the most interesting activities on Rotor were closed to him. She did not know what his training had been, for he never mentioned how much of an education he had had. He didn't sound uneducated, and there was no disgrace in being self-educated, but Insigna knew that on Earth the population did not take higher education as a given, the way that Settlement populations did.

The thought bothered her. She didn't mind Crile Fisher being an Earthman and facing down her friends and colleagues where that was concerned. She didn't know, though, if she could quite handle his being an uneducated Earthman.

But no-one ever suggested he was, and he listened to the tales of her work on the Far Probe with patience. She never tested his education by discussing the technical details, of course. Yet sometimes he asked questions or made comments that reflected on such things and she valued them, when they came, for she always managed to convince herself that they were intelligent questions and comments.

Fisher had a job on one of the farms, a perfectly respectable job, even an essential one, but a job that was not high on the social scale. He did not complain or make a fuss about that - she'd give him that - but he never talked about it, or showed any pleasure in it. And there was always that air of discontent about him.

Insigna learned, therefore, to attempt no cheery 'And what happened to you at work today, Crile?'

The few times she had asked, just at first, the answer had been a flat 'Nothing much.' And that would be all, except for a short annoyed look.

Eventually, she grew nervous about talking to him even of petty office politics and annoying errors. That, too, might serve as an unwelcome comparison of her work with his.

Insigna had to admit that her fears went against the evidence there, an example of her own insecurity rather than his. Fisher didn't show signs of impatience when she did find herself forced to discuss the day's work. Sometimes he even asked, with a pallid interest, about hyper-assistance, but Insigna knew little or nothing about that.

He was interested in Rotorian politics and showed an Earthman's impatience with the smallness of its concerns. She fought with herself not to show displeasure at that.

Eventually, there fell a silence between them, broken only by indifferent discussions concerning the films they had viewed, the social engagements they undertook, the small change of life.

It didn't lead to active unhappiness. Cake had quickly changed to white bread, but there were worse things than white bread.

It even had a small advantage. Working under tight security meant talking to no-one about one's work, but how many managed to whisper partial confidences to wife or husband? Insigna had not done so, for she had little in the way of temptation, since her own work required little in the way of security.

But when her discovery of the Neighbor Star was suddenly placed under tight wraps, without warning, could she have managed? Surely it would have been the natural thing to do - to tell her husband of the great discovery that was bound to put her name into the astronomy texts for as long as humanity existed. She might have told him even before she told Pitt. She might have come bouncing in: 'Guess what! Guess what! You'll never guess-'

But she hadn't. It didn't occur to her that Fisher would be interested. He might talk to others about their work, even to farmers or sheet-metal workers, but not to her.

So it was no effort to mention nothing to him of Nemesis. The matter was dead between them, was not missed, did not exist, until that dreadful day when their marriage came to an end.

8

When did she move over wholeheartedly to Pitt's side?

At the start, Insigna had been horrified at the thought of keeping the Neighbor Star a secret, profoundly uneasy at the prospect of moving away out of the Solar System to a destination concerning which they knew nothing but the location. She found it ethically wrong and indecently dishonorable to set about building a new civilization by stealth, one which excluded all the rest of humanity.

She had given in on the grounds of Settlement security, but she had intended to fight Pitt privately, to bring up points of argument. She had rehearsed them in her own mind till they were foolproof and irrefutable and then, somehow, she never presented them.

Always - always - he took the initiative.

Pitt said to her, early on, 'Now remember, Eugenia, you discovered the companion star more or less by accident, and one of your colleagues may do so as well.'

'It's not likely-' she began.

'No, Eugenia, we're not going to depend on unlikelihood. We're going to make certain. You're going to see to it that no-one looks in that direction, that no-one wants to study the particular computer sheets that would give away the location of Nemesis.'

'How can I possibly do that?'

'Very easily. I have spoken to the Commissioner and, as of now, you are in complete charge of the Far Probe research.'

'But that would mean I've been moved over the head-'

'Yes. It means an advance in responsibility, in pay, in social stature. To which of these do you object?'

'I don't object to any of this,' said Insigna, her heart beginning to pound.

'I'm sure you can fulfill the job of Chief Astronomer more than adequately, but your chief aim will be to see to it that the work done can be of the highest quality and significance, provided that what is done has nothing to do with Nemesis.'

'But, Janus, you can't keep it completely secret for ever.'

'I don't intend to. Once we move out of the Solar System, we will all know where we're going. Till then, as few as possible will know, and those few will learn as late as possible.'

Her promotion, Insigna noted with a little shame, cooled her objections.

On another occasion, Pitt said to her, 'What about your husband?'

'What about my husband?' Insigna was immediately on the defensive.

'He is an Earthman, I understand.'

Insigna's lips pressed together. 'He is of Earth origin, but he is a Rotorian citizen.'

'I understand. I assume you have told him nothing of Nemesis.'

'Absolutely nothing.'

'Has this husband of yours ever told you why he left Earth and worked so hard to become a Rotorian citizen?'

'No, he hasn't. And I haven't asked him.'

'But don't you ever wonder?'

Insigna hesitated and then told the truth. 'Yes, I have, sometimes.'

Pitt smiled. 'I should tell you, perhaps.'

And he did, little by little. Never in any overly obtrusive manner. It was never a bludgeon, it was rather the dripping of water at every conversation. It brought her out of her intellectual shell. To live on Rotor, after all, made it entirely too easy to consider only things Rotorian.

But thanks to Pitt, to what he told her, to the films he suggested she view, she became aware of Earth and its billions, of its endemic starvation and violence, its drugs and alienation. She began to understand it as an abysmal pit of misery, something to flee from. She did not wonder any longer why Crile Fisher had left. She wondered why so few Earthmen followed his example.

Nor were the Settlements so much better off. She became aware of how they closed in on themselves, how people were prevented from moving freely from one to another. No Settlement wanted the microscopic flora and fauna of any other. Trade dwindled slowly, and was increasingly carried on by automated vessels with carefully sterilized loads.

The Settlements quarreled and found each other hateful. The circum-Martian Settlements were almost as bad. Only in the asteroid zone were the Settlements multiplying freely, and even those were growing suspicious of all the inner Settlements.

Insigna could feel herself begin to agree with Pitt, even to grow enthusiastic over a flight from intolerable misery and the beginning of a system of worlds where the seeds of suffering had been eradicated. A new start, a new chance.

And then she found that a baby was on the way and her enthusiasm began to wither. To risk herself and Crile on the long journey seemed worthwhile. To risk an infant, a child-

Pitt was unperturbed. He congratulated her. 'It will be born here and you will have a little time to accustom yourself to the situation. It will be at least a year and a half before we're ready to go. And by then you will realize how fortunate you will be not to have to wait any longer. The child will have no memory of the misery of a ruined planet and a desperately divided humanity. It will know only a new world with a cultural understanding among its members. Lucky child. Fortunate child. My son and daughter are already grown, already marked.'

And again Insigna began to think in that fashion, and by the time Marlene was born, she had indeed begun to dread delay, to fear that before they left, the child would be imprinted with the crowded failure that was the Solar System.

She was entirely on Pitt's side by this time.

Fisher seemed fascinated by Marlene, to Insigna's great relief. She had not thought that he would make much of a father. Yet he hovered over Marlene and took on his share of the duties involved in bringing her up. He seemed actually to grow cheerful as a result.

During the time Marlene was approaching her first birthday, rumors grew throughout the Solar System that Rotor intended to leave. It produced what was almost a system-wide crisis, and Pitt, who was now clearly in line for Commissionerhood, was grimly amused.

'Well, what can they do?' he said. 'There's no way they can stop us, and all the outcries of disloyalty, together with their own display of Solar System chauvinism, will only serve to inhibit their investigations into hyper-assistance, which will serve us well.'

Insigna said, 'But how did it get out, I wonder, Janus?'

'I saw to it that it did.' He smiled. 'At this point, I don't any longer object to their learning the fact of our leaving, as long as they don't know our destination. It would, after all, be impossible to hide our leaving for much longer. We must take a vote on the matter, you know, and once all Rotorians know of our leaving, all the rest of the system will know, in any case.'

'A vote?'

'Why, of course. Think it through. We can't take off with a Settlement-load of people who are too fearful or too homesick for their own Sun. We'd never make it. We want only those with us who are willing, even eager.'

He was completely right. The campaign to win approval for leaving the Solar System began almost at once and the fact that the news had already leaked out served as a cushion to ease the reaction outside Rotor - and within it as well.

Some Rotorians were excited at the prospect; some were afraid.

Fisher reacted with thunderous brow, and one day he said, 'This is crazy.'

'It's inevitable,' said Insigna with careful neutrality.

'Why? There's no reason to start wandering among the stars. Where would we go? There's nothing out there.'

'There are billions of stars out there.'

'How many planets? We don't know of any habitable planets anywhere, and very few of any other kind. Our Solar System is the only home we know.'

'Exploration is in the blood of humanity.' It was one of Pitt's phrases.

'That's romantic nonsense. Does anyone think that people are actually going to vote to separate themselves from humanity and vanish into space?'

Insigna said, 'My understanding, Crile, is that sentiment on Rotor is rather in favor of it.'

'That's just Council propaganda. You think people will vote to leave the Earth? Leave the Sun? Never. If it comes to that, we'll be going to Earth.'

She felt something clutch at her heart. She said, 'Oh no. Do you want one of those simoons, or blizzards, or mistrals, or whatever you call them? Do you want lumps of ice and falling water and blowing, whistling air?'

He lifted his eyebrows at her. 'It's not that bad. There are storms occasionally, but they can be predicted. Actually, they're interesting - when they're not too bad. It's fascinating - a little cold, a little heat, a little precipitation. It makes for variation. It keeps you alive. And then, think of the variety of cuisines.'

'Cuisines? How can you say that? Most people on Earth are starving. We're always collecting food shipments to send to Earth.'

'Some people go hungry. It's not universal.'

'Well, you certainly can't expect Marlene to live under such conditions.'

'Billions of children do.'

'And mine won't be one of them,' said Insigna fiercely.

All her hopes lay in Marlene now. She was going on ten months of age, had two small teeth in the upper gum, two in the lower, could shamble about holding on to the rods of her playpen, and looked at the world with those wondering intelligent eyes.

Fisher was still clearly fond of his unpretty daughter; more fond than ever, in fact. When he wasn't dandling her, he was staring at her and remarking fondly on her beautiful eyes. He stressed her one lovely feature and it seemed to make up to him for everything else that was lacking.

Surely Fisher would not go back to Earth if it meant leaving Marlene for ever. Insigna, somehow, lacked any confidence that he would choose her, the woman he had loved and married, over Earth, but surely Marlene would be the sticking point.

Surely?

9

The day after the vote, Eugenia Insigna found Fisher white with rage. He said, or choked out, 'It was a fixed vote.'

She said, 'Sh! You'll wake the baby.'

And for a moment, he grimaced and visibly held his breath.

Insigna relaxed just a bit and said in a small voice, 'There's no question that the people want to go.'

'Did you vote to go?'

She considered. There was no use trying to placate him by lying. She had made her feelings obvious enough. She said, 'I did.'

He said, 'Pitt ordered you to, I suppose.'

That caught her by surprise. 'No! I'm capable of making my own decisions.'

'But you and he-' He let it trail off.

She felt her blood pressure rise suddenly. 'What do you mean?' she said, angry now in her turn. Was he going to accuse her of infidelity?

'That - that politician. He's heading for Commissioner at any price. Everyone knows that. And you're planning to rise with him. Political loyalty will get you someplace, too, won't it?'

'Where will it get me? There's no place I want to get. I'm an astronomer, not a politician.'

'You've been promoted, haven't you? You've been pushed over the head of older, more experienced people.'

'Through hard work, I like to think.' (How was she going to defend herself now, without being able to tell him the truth?)

'I'm sure you do like to think that. But it was through Pitt.'

Insigna drew a deep breath. 'Where is this leading us?'

'Listen!' His voice was low, as it had been since she had reminded him that Marlene was sleeping. 'I cannot believe that a whole Settlement of people are going to risk traveling with hyper-assistance. How do you know what will happen? How do you know it will work? It could kill us all.'

'The Far Probe worked well.'

'Were there living things on this Far Probe? If not, how do you know how living things will react to hyper-assistance? What do you know about hyper-assistance?'

'Not a thing.'

'Why not? You're working right there in the laboratory. You're not working on the farms, as I am.'

(He is jealous, thought Insigna.) Aloud, she said, 'When you say the laboratory, you seem to imply we're all piled together in one room. I told you. I'm an astronomer and I know nothing about hyper-assistance.'

'You mean that Pitt never tells you anything about it?'

'About hyper-assistance? He doesn't know himself.'

'Are you telling me no-one knows?'

'Of course I'm not telling you that. The hyperspatialists know. Come on, Crile. Those who are supposed to know, know. Others don't.'

'To all except the specialist few, it's a secret, then.'

'Exactly.'

'Then you don't really know that hyper-assistance is safe. Only the hyperspatialists know. How do you suppose they know?'

'I assume they've experimented.'

'You assume.'

'It's a reasonable assumption. They assure us it's safe.'

'And they never lie, I suppose.'

'They'll be going, too. Besides, I'm sure they experimented.'

He looked at her out of narrowed eyes. 'Now you're sure. The Far Probe was your baby. Did they have life-forms aboard?'

'I was not involved with the actual procedures. I only dealt with the astronomical data that was gained.'

'You're not answering my question about the life-forms.'

Insigna lost her patience. 'Look, I don't feel like being grilled endlessly, and the baby is beginning to be restless. I have a question or two myself. What do you plan to do? Are you coming along?'

'I don't have to. The terms of the vote are that anyone who doesn't want to come along doesn't have to.'

'I know you don't have to, but will you? Surely you don't want to break up the family.'

She tried to smile as she said this, but it didn't feel convincing.

Fisher said, slowly and a little grimly, 'I also don't want to leave the Solar System.'

'You would rather leave me? And Marlene?'

'Why would I have to leave Marlene? Even if you want to risk yourself on this wild scheme, must you risk the child?'

She said tightly, 'If I go, Marlene goes. Get that through your head, Crile. Where would you take her? To some half-finished asteroidal Settlement?'

'Of course not. I'm from Earth and I can return there if I wish.'

'Return to a dying planet? Great.'

'It's got some years of life left to it, I assure you.'

'Then why did you leave it?'

'I thought I'd be improving myself. I didn't know that coming to Rotor would mean a one-way ticket to nowhere.'

'Not to nowhere,' Insigna burst out, tormented past endurance. 'If you knew where we were going, you wouldn't be so ready to turn back.'

'Why? Where is Rotor going?'

'To the stars.'

'To oblivion.'

They stared at each other, and Marlene, opening her eyes, emitted a soft mew of wakefulness. Fisher looked down at the baby and, with a softening of his tone, said, 'Eugenia, we don't have to split up. I certainly don't want to leave Marlene. Or you either. Come with me.'

'To Earth?'

'Yes. Why not? I have friends there. Even now. As my wife and child, you'll have no trouble getting in. Earth doesn't worry much about ecological balance. We'll be on a whole giant planet out there; not on a little stinking bubble in space.'

'Just on a whole giant bubble, enormously stinking. No, no, never.'

'Let me take Marlene, then. If you find the voyage worth the risk because you are an astronomer and want to study the Universe, that's your business, but the baby should stay here in the Solar System, and be safe.'

'Safe on Earth? Don't be ridiculous. Is that what this whole thing has been for? A device to take my baby?'

'Our baby.'

'My baby. You leave. I want you to leave, but you can't touch my baby. You tell me I know Pitt, and, yes, I do. That means I can arrange to have you sent to the asteroids whether you want to go or not, and then you can find your own way back to your decomposing Earth. Now get out of my quarters and find your own place to sleep till you are sent away. When you let me know where you'll be, I'll send along your personal possessions. And don't think you can come back. This place will be under guard.'

At the moment that Insigna said this, with the bitterness in her heart overflowing, she meant it. She might have pled with him, cajoled him, begged, argued. But she hadn't. She had turned a harsh, unforgiving eye upon him and had sent him away.

And Fisher did leave. And she did send along his things. And he did refuse to come with Rotor. And he was sent away. And she supposed he had gone to Earth.

He was gone for ever from her and from Marlene.

She had sent him away and he was gone for ever.