From the Ocean from teh Stars (59 page)

still in suspended animation; they don't know that anything's happened."

"And presently you'll join them again, and sleep your way on to the
stars."

Leon nodded, avoiding her eye. "That's right. Planet-fall will be a
few months late, but what does that matter on a trip that takes three
hundred years?"

Lora pointed to the island behind them, and then to the shoreless sea at whose edge they stood.

"It's strange to think that your sleeping friends up there will never
know anything of all this. I feel sorry for them."

"Yes, only we fifty or so engineers will have any memories of
Thalassa. To everyone else in the ship, our stop here will be nothing
more than a hundred-year-old entry in the logbook."

He glanced at Lora's face, and saw again that sadness in her eyes.

"Why does that make you unhappy?"

She shook her head, unable to answer. How could one express the sense of loneliness that Leon's words had brought to her? The lives of
men, and all their hopes and fears, were so little against the inconceivable
immensities that they had dared to challenge. The thought of that three-
hundred-year journey, not yet half completed, was something from
which her mind recoiled in horror. And yet—in her own veins was the
blood of those earlier pioneers who had followed the same path to
Thalassa, centuries ago.

The night was no longer friendly; she felt a sudden longing for her
home and family, for the little room that held everything she owned and that was all the world she knew or wanted. The cold of space was freez
ing her heart; she wished now that she had never come on this mad
adventure. It was time—more than time—to leave.

As she rose to her feet, she noticed that they had been sitting on
Clyde's boat, and wondered what unconscious prompting of her mind
had brought her here to this one vessel out of all the little fleet lined up
along the beach. At the thought of Clyde, a spasm of uncertainty, even of
guilt, swept over her. Never in her life, except for the most fleeting mo
ments, had she thought of any other man but him. Now she could no
longer pretend that this was true.

"What's the matter?" asked Leon. "Are you cold?" He held out his
hand to her, and for the first time their fingers touched as she automatically responded. But at the instant of contact, she shied like a startled
animal and jerked away.

"I'm all right," she answered, almost angrily. "It's late—I must go
home. Good-by."

Her reaction was so abrupt that it took Leon by surprise. Had he
said anything to offend her? he wondered. She was already walking
quickly away when he called after her: "Will I see you again?"

If she answered, the sound of the waves carried away her voice. He
watched her go, puzzled and a little hurt, while not for the first time in
his life he reflected how hard it was to understand the mind of a woman.

For a moment he thought of following her and repeating the question,
but in his heart he knew there was no need. As surely as the sun would
rise tomorrow, they would meet again.

And now the life of the island was dominated by the crippled giant
a thousand miles out in space. Before dawn and after sunset, when the
world was in darkness but the light of the sun still streamed overhead,
the
Magellan
was visible as a brilliant star, the brightest object in all the
sky except the two moons themselves. But even when it could not be
seen—when it was lost in the glare of day or eclipsed by the shadow of
Thalassa—it was never far from men's thoughts.

It was hard to believe that only fifty of the starship's crew had been awakened, and that not even half of those were on Thalassa at any one time. They seemed to be everywhere, usually in little groups of two or
three, walking swiftly on mysterious errands or riding small anti-gravity scooters which floated a few feet from the ground and moved so silently
that they made life in the village rather hazardous. Despite the most
pressing invitations, the visitors had still taken no part in the cultural and
social activities of the island. They had explained, politely but firmly,
that until the safety of their ship was secured, they would have no time for any other interests. Later, certainly, but not now . . .

So Thalassa had to wait with what patience it could muster while
the Earthmen set up their instruments, made their surveys, drilled deep
into the rocks of the island, and carried out scores of experiments which
seemed to have no possible connection with their problem. Sometimes
they consulted briefly with Thalassa's own scientists, but on the whole
they kept to themselves. It was not that they were unfriendly or aloof;
they were working with such a fierce and dedicated intensity that they
were scarcely aware of anyone around them.

After their first meeting, it was two days before Lora spoke to Leon
again. She saw him from time to time as he hurried about the village,
usually with a bulging brief case and an abstracted expression, but they
were able to exchange only the briefest of smiles. Yet even this was

enough to keep her emotions in turmoil, to banish her peace of mind, and
to poison her relationship with Clyde.

As long as she could remember, he had been part of her life; they
had had their quarrels and disagreements, but no one else had ever
challenged his place in her heart. In a few months they would be married
—yet now she was not even sure of that, or indeed of anything.

"Infatuation" was an ugly word, which one applied only to other peo
ple. But how else could she explain this yearning to be with a man who
had come suddenly into her life from nowhere, and who must leave again in a few days or weeks? No doubt the glamour and romance of his origin
was partly responsible, but that alone was not enough to account for it.
There were other Earthmen better looking than Leon, yet she had eyes
for him alone, and her life now was empty unless she was in his presence.

By the end of the first day, only her family knew about her feelings;
by the end of the second, everyone she passed gave her a knowing smile.
It was impossible to keep a secret in such a tight and talkative com
munity as Palm Bay, and she knew better than to attempt it.

Her second meeting with Leon was accidental—as far as such things can ever be accidents. She was helping her father deal with some of the correspondence and inquiries that had flooded upon the village since the
Earthmen's arrival, and was trying to make some sense out of her notes
when the door of the office opened. It had opened so often in the last
few days that she had ceased to look up; her younger sister was acting as
receptionist and dealt with all the visitors. Then she heard Leon's voice; and the paper blurred before her eyes, the notes might have been in an
unknown language.

"Can I see the mayor, please?"

"Of course, Mr.—?"

"Assistant Engineer Carrell."

"I'll go and fetch him. Won't you sit down?"

Leon slumped wearily on the ancient armchair that was the best
the reception room could offer its infrequent visitors, and not until then did he notice that Lora was watching him silently from the other side of
the room. At once he sloughed off his tiredness and shot to his feet.

"Hello—I didn't know you worked here."

"I live here; my father's the mayor."

This portentous news did not seem to impress Leon unduly. He
walked over to the desk and picked up the fat volume through which
Lora had been browsing between her secretarial duties.

"A Concise History of Earth"
he read,
"from the Dawn of Civiliza-

tion to the Beginning of Interstellar Flight.
And all in a thousand pages! It's a pity it ends three hundred years ago."

"We hope that you'll soon bring us up to date. Has much happened since that was written?"

"Enough to fill about fifty libraries, I suppose. But before we go we'll leave you copies of all our records, so that your history books will only be a hundred years out of date."

They were circling around each other, avoiding the only thing that was important. When can we meet again? Lora's thoughts kept hammering silently, unable to break through the barrier of speech. And does he really like me or is he merely making polite conversation?

The inner door opened, and the mayor emerged apologetically from his office.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Carrell, but the president was on the line—he's coming over this afternoon. And what can I do for you?"

Lora pretended to work, but she typed the same sentence eight times while Leon delivered his message from the captain of the
Magellan.
She was not a great deal wiser when he had finished; it seemed that the star-ship's engineers wished to build some equipment on a headland a mile from the village, and wanted to make sure there would be no objection.

"Of course!" said Mayor Fordyce expansively, in his nothing's-too-good-for-our-guests tone of voice. "Go right ahead—the land doesn't belong to anybody, and no one lives there. What do you want to do with it?"

"We're building a gravity inverter, and the generator has to be anchored in solid bedrock. It may be a little noisy when it starts to run, but I don't think it will disturb you here in the village. And of course we'll dismantle the equipment when we've finished."

Lora had to admire her father. She knew perfectly well that Leon's request was as meaningless to him as it was to her, but one would never have guessed it.

"That's perfectly all right—glad to be of any help we can. And will you tell Captain Gold that the president's coming at five this afternoon? I'll send my car to collect him; the reception's at five-thirty in the village hall."

When Leon had given his thanks and departed, Mayor Fordyce walked over to his daughter and picked up the slim pile of correspondence she had none-too-accurately typed.

"He seems a pleasant young man," he said, "but is it a good idea to get too fond of him?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Now, Lora! After all, I
am
your father, and I'm not
completely
unobservant."

"He's not"—sniff—"a bit interested in me."

"Are you interested in him?"

"I don't know. Oh, Daddy, I'm so unhappy!"

Mayor Fordyce was not a brave man, so there was only one thing he
could do. He donated his handkerchief, and fled back into his office.

It was the most difficult problem that Clyde had ever faced in his
life, and there were no precedents that gave any help at all. Lora be
longed to him—everyone knew that. If his rival had been another vil
lager, or someone from any other part of Thalassa, he knew exactly
what he would have done. But the laws of hospitality, and, above all, his
natural awe for anything of Earth, prevented him from politely asking
Leon to take his attentions elsewhere. It would not be the first time
that
had happened, and there had never been the slightest trouble on those
earlier occasions. That could have been because Clyde was over six feet
tall, proportionally broad, and had no excess fat on his one-hundred-and-
ninety-pound frame.

During the long hours at sea, when he had nothing else to do but to
brood, Clyde toyed with the idea of a short, sharp bout with Leon. It
would be very short; though Leon was not as skinny as most of the
Earthmen, he shared their pale, washed-out look and was obviously no
match for anyone who led a life of physical activity. That was the trouble
—it wouldn't be fair. Clyde knew that public opinion would be outraged
if he had a fight with Leon, however justified he might be.

And how justified was he? That was the big problem that worried
Clyde, as it had worried a good many billion men before him. It seemed
that Leon was now practically one of the family; every time he called
at the mayor's house, the Earthman seemed to be there on some pretext
or other. Jealousy was an emotion that had never afflicted Clyde before,
and he did not enjoy the symptoms.

He was still furious about the dance. It had been the biggest social
event for years; indeed, it was not likely that Palm Bay would ever
match it again in the whole of its history. To have the president of
Thalassa, half the council, and fifty visitors from Earth in the village at
the same moment was not something that could happen again this side
of eternity.

For all his size and strength, Clyde was a good dancer—especially
with Lora. But that night he had had little chance of proving it; Leon
had been too busy demonstrating the latest steps from Earth (latest, that