[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

important is that they deeply wanted to come home. People who chose Middle Finger turned their
backs on home.
"So when a Man on Earth thinks about humans, there's a profoundly different composite picture.
If you took one hundred fifty Earth humans and shot them forty thousand years into the future...it
would be cruel. Like snatching a child from its parents, and abandoning it in a foreign land."
"That's nice," Charlie said. "The Whole Tree's decision was based on concern for our
happiness."
"Concern for your sanity," the sheriff said.
"The huge expense of the enterprise wasn't a factor."
"Not a large one." He made a circular gesture, indicating everything around us. "This ship
represents a lot of wealth in terms of our economy. But it's not worth much in Earth terms. There
are thousands of them sitting empty, parked in orbit around the Sun. This wouldn't be a big
project if people on Earth had proposed it."
"But they never would," I said. "They're stay-at-homes.
He shrugged. "How many people on Middle Finger think you're crazy?"
"More than half, I guess." We only had 1,600 volunteers out of 30,000 people. The younger half
of my family does."
He nodded slowly. "But weren't they going along?"
"Bill, especially, in spite of thinking we're crazy."
"I understand that," he said. "So am I."
"What?"
"We asked that you take a Man and a Tauran."
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The Tauran spoke up for the first time. "We are they," it growled.
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book three
THE BOOK OF EXODUS
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Chapter thirteen
The timetable had called for fifteen days' loading before launch, but that presupposed
everybody being packed and waiting. Instead, they'd had two weeks to rearrange their lives,
knowing that the expedition had been scotched.
We lost 12 out of the original 150. Replacing them was not as simple as asking for volunteers,
since they'd been chosen with an eye toward a certain demographic mix and assortment of skills.
Forty thousand years from now, we might come back to an unpopulated planet. We wanted our
descendants to have a chance at civilization.
We didn't have unlimited leisure for revision, juggling the shuttle schedule while we found
replacements. Word had of course gone to Earth about our insurrection, so ten months from now
there might be some response. If they had thousands of ships at their disposal, a few of them
might be faster than the Time Warp; a lot faster.
A hundred fifty people were sufficient for a town-hall kind of democracy. We'd worked out the
structure a couple of months before. There was an elected Council of five, each one of whom would
serve a year as mayor, and then retire, a new councilor being elected each year.
So we worked as fast as we could, without cutting corners. Fortunately, none of the elected
officials were among the ones who decided to stay home, so our little bureaucracy was intact. We
probably had to make more decisions in a couple of weeks than we would in two years aboard the
ship.
But it was a ship as well as a town, and the ship's captain had authority over the mayor and
council. Both Marygay and I were nominated for captain, along with Anita Szydhowska, who had been
with me in the Sade-138 campaign. Anita stepped down in favor of us, and I stepped down in favor
of Marygay, and no one objected. Both Anita and I were elected councilors. The other three were
Chance Delany, Stephen Funk, and Sage Ten. Diana Alsever-Moore was nominated but declined, arguing
that as the ship's only doctor, she wouldn't have time for a hobby.
It only took twenty days to get everyone aboard the ship. I wondered whether anyone else,
watching the shuttles leave for the last time, had the image-old-fashioned even in my youth--of
the last ropes being thrown back onto the dock, as a great ship left its safe harbor.
The last shuttle was supposed to have our children aboard. It was one short. Sara floated over
to us and wordlessly handed me a sheet of paper.
I love you but I never did intend to come with you. Sara talked me into pretending that I
would, so that we would stop wasting time fighting. It was dishonest but I think I agree it was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]