The Burning Bridge | Page 9

really wanted to come in the first
place. They did so only because their men insisted. Women are much
too practical to care about a philosophy, or a frontier, or anything
except their families."
"Do you?" he challenged her.
She shrugged ruefully. "I've no family, captain. At the same time, I
suppose ... a sense of humor? ... kept me from sublimating it into a
Cause of any kind." Counterattacking: "Why do you care what we do,
captain?"

"Why?" He was taken aback, and found himself stammering. "Why ...
because ... I'm in charge--"
"Oh, yes. But isn't it more than that? You spent years on Earth lecturing
about Rustum and its colonization. I think it must be a deep symbol to
you. Don't worry, I won't go analytic. I happen to think, myself, that
this colony is enormously important, objectively speaking, I mean. If
our race muffs this chance, we may never get another. But you and I
wouldn't care about that, not really, unless it was personally important
too. Would we? Why did you accept this thankless job, commanding a
colonial fleet? It can't be an itch to explore. Rustum's already been
visited once, and you'll have precious little time to carry on any further
studies. You could have been off to some star where men have never
traveled at all. Do you see, captain? You're not a bit more cold-blooded
about this than I. You want that colony planted."
She stopped, laughed, and color went across her face. "Oh, dear, I do
chatter, don't I? Pardon me. Let's get back to business."
"I think," said Coffin, slowly and jaggedly, "I'm beginning to realize
what's involved."
She settled back and listened.
He bent a leg around a stanchion to hold his lean black frame in place
and beat one fist softly into the palm of another. "Yes, it is an
emotional issue," he said, the words carving the thoughts to shape.
"Logic has nothing to do with it. There are some who want so badly to
go to Rustum and be free, or whatever they hope to be there, that they'll
dice with their lives for the privilege--and their wives' and children's
lives. Others went reluctantly, against their own survival instincts, and
now that they think they see a way of retreat, something they can
justify to themselves, they'll fight any man who tries to bar it. Yes. It's a
ghastly situation.
"One way or another, the decision has got to be made soon. And the
facts can't be hidden. Every deepsleeper must be wakened and nursed
to health by someone now conscious. The word will pass, year after

year, always to a different combination of spacemen and colonists, with
always a proportion who're furious about what was decided while they
slept. No, furious is too weak a word. Onward or backward, whichever
way we go, we've struck at the emotional roots of people. And
interstellar space can break the calmest men. How long before just the
wrong percentage of malcontents, weaklings, and shaky sanities goes
on duty? What's going to happen then?"
He sucked in an uneven breath. "I'm sorry," he faltered. "I should not--"
"Blow off steam? Why not?" she asked calmly. "Would it be better to
keep on being the iron man, till one day you put a pistol to your head?"
[Illustration]
"You see," he said in his misery, "I'm responsible. Men and women ...
all the little children--But I'll be in deepsleep. I'd go crazy if I tried to
stay awake the whole voyage; the organism can't take it. I'll be asleep,
and there'll be nothing I can do, but these ships were given into my
care!"
He began to shiver. She took both his hands. Neither of them spoke for
a long while.
* * * * *
When he left the Pioneer, Coffin felt oddly hollow, as if he had opened
his chest and pulled out heart and lungs. But his mind functioned with
machine precision. For that he was grateful to Teresa: she had helped
him discover what the facts were. It was a brutal knowledge, but
without such understanding the expedition might well be doomed.
Or might it? Dispassionately, now, Coffin estimated chances. Either
they went on to Rustum or they turned back; in either case, the present
likelihood of survival was--fifty-fifty? Well, you couldn't gauge it in
percentages. Doubtless more safety lay in turning back. But even there
the odds were such that no sane man would willingly gamble. Certainly
the skipper had no right to take the hazard, if he could avoid it by any

means.
But what means were there?
As he hauled himself toward the Ranger, Coffin watched the receiver
web grow in his eyes, till it snared a distorted Milky Way. It seemed
very frail to have