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PROLOGUE

Report of The Götterdämmerung

To: Earth Command Backup Field HQ, Pluto Darkside.

From: Carvalho, Commanding.

Subject: Survival of the human species.

Date: 05.03.2039.

Report:

Ship personnel are sixteen:

Orhan Carvalho. Captain. Owner, The Götterdämmerung, Brazil.

Chen Sung. First Medical Officer, ship’s Psychologist, China.

Sara Bat-Adon. Second Medical Officer, ship’s Pediatrician, Israel.

Fiona O’Hara. Remotes Specialist, Ireland.

Bruce McAllister. Fusion Systems Officer, Scotland.

Anatoly Semyev. Chief Agronomist, Kazakhstan.

Chitran Tripathi. Chief Astronomer, India.

Ariel Borodulin. First Officer, Astrophysicist, Belarus.

Hoshi Yamamoto. Microbiologist/Botanist, Japan.

Janjyu Xianghua. Life Support, China.

Tiare Tahatai. Chief Librarian, Samoa.

Makoto Ashikaga. AI Officer, Japan.

Bogdan Samanhudi. Recreation Officer, Indonesia.

Carolyn Bailey. Weapons Chief, Canada.

Shati Mtsweni. Chief Geologist, Matabeleland.

Ephraim Halliday. Social Systems Officer, America.

Ship Status: Nominal.

Ship Destination: Andromeda Galaxy/M31/NGC 224.

Trip Distance: 2.538 million light-years.

Trip Duration: 20 years, within ship.

Maximum ship speed: 99.9998% of lightspeed.

Ship fuel: interstellar hydrogen, quantities unlimited.

Ship drive: two-stage; deut-li fusion pulse first stage, modified Bussard

ramjet second stage.

Food stores: limited.

Life support: limited.

Probability of mission success: Minimal.

Final message: You’re all dead, you lucky bastards! Avi mortua.

CHAPTER ONE

Earth lay dead. The Skrill pursued us. Eight billion murdered, sixteen left alive and we each wondered . . . how long could we live with the guilt of our survival?

It was a marvel we hadn’t all suicided. Yet.

Our starship fled the solar system, its progress a slow red streak across the Control Deck wallscreen. We sought escape in the black depths of cold space, heading galactic south. Why that direction, only Orhan knew. He would tell us when we needed to know the reason. For now, we needed other things . . . a hole to pull in after us, a release from a duty no one wanted, and an end to the memories.

In silence, each of us struggled with those memories. Some recalled the last hours in Moon orbit as we hid like frightened children from the devastation unleashed by Skrill advance probes. Others remembered the MoonTug captain who brought up the sperm and egg cryotanks from Nearside Tycho—he’d looked hungrily at us, wished unspoken hopes and then turned away, consoled only by the knowledge his gene-children would escape with us. He died there on the Moon—just as my beloved Michelle had died, along with our three children, abandoned by their husband and father. Their betrayer.

Ephraim Halliday . . . a name cursed, a body too filled with memory.

At least they were safely dead.

But the worst memory possessed us all: those static-filled transmissions that tersely listed the madness, the suicides, the murders among the few thousand still left alive on the Moon. For they watched, as we now did, the death of Earth. We watched orange-red magma bubble over Earth’s continents as the Skrill assault asteroids struck deep, imagined her winds screaming, and heard terrified shapes cry out across the abyss as they pleaded for rescue. The cry of one shape burned in my mind: a hoarse plea to save a three year-old girl thrust hurriedly on-screen.

Such deadly, deadly memories.

I closed my eyes, sank lower in my recliner seat and shut out Control Deck, denying the wallscreen images. Denial failed. Earth's only starship rumbled like an earthquake aftershock, a steady trembling easily confused with our own. The rank odor of sweaty fear floated on cold air currents. The soft sigh of ghostly breathing moved among us, broken by a few sobs and the dull snores of the three put into sedation. It was macabre. We sixteen lived. Billions didn’t. Explanations did not exist: only reality reigned. Madness gibbered in the shadows, competing with the memories, the guilt and the endless recycling of the last few days.

We’d heard it all: stupid debates about racial balances, the demands for political influence, the nationalist arguments. Then came the predictable objections from culled-out geniuses when Captain Orhan Carvalho picked stable, moderately smart techs and specialists for the crew, arguing that the gifts of an Einstein meant nothing if the crew killed each other. And no, there was no room for children or spouses if Orhan’s starship was to make the twenty-year trip to another star that was his stated objective. Only enough supplies for sixteen adults in their 20s and 30s. Toward the end, bullets and lasers replaced shouted words. We broke Moon orbit as the domes went mad.

My eyes opened. There was no escaping the burned-in images. Nor the look of pain in Michelle’s face as I chose duty over wife and children. Like most of my fellows. Now we grappled with guilt, madness and anger, unable to forget, unable to return, with no one left to . . . forgive us. So we watched Earth’s last hours. Watched quietly, with no words spoken. After all, what do the Damned say to each other?

Shuddering, I looked away from the wallscreen.

Sara Bat-Adon watched me from across the center aisle, her soft brown eyes immensely sad. I nodded false reassurance, then glanced beyond her at Control Deck. A place of purgatory, our Greek stage seemed crowded by its half-circle of equipment banks up front, the cyclopean wallscreen that loomed in front of us, and the shapes of fourteen other damned souls crammed together in the middle.

Nine women. Seven men. We each half-sat, half-lay in seats that resembled metal coffins. Orhan had arranged the recliner-seats like a Spartan phalanx, with his Command seat up front. Red light glimmered on our shiny metal coffin rows. Overhead, the low ceiling seemed to compress us even more. I closed my eyes again, exhausted, unable to face the silent agony of my shipmates.

Ephraim? Sara whispered.

I took a deep breath, opened my eyes and looked at her. Yes?

I want to go below.

Whatever for? I said, startled. Those nearest us—Fiona, Bruce, Tiare and Hoshi—they looked our way, four more sets of tortured eyes.

Sara shook her head with impatience—or was it fear? Once, when she was my lover before I married Michelle, I knew all her moods, playful, afraid, angry, needful. I need to check the supplies, she said tersely. And our rooms. She paused, her raven black hair a frame for her narrow face. Things might have broken loose during the launch. We should check.

Why bother? Fatalism now replaced my usual good humor. Either we have enough food or we don’t. Either the machines work or they don’t. I let my head fall back and closed my eyes once more.

Ephraim, come with me, Sara insisted. Please! I heard the snap as she released the strap-locks that held her in the recliner-seat, the raw whisper of her Med Section coverall as she stood, the light tread of her boots on the metal deck.

Come? 

I struggled to respond, feeling like a drowned swimmer whose cold flesh, burning lungs and flailing limbs all scream out live! A voice in a remote part of my mind decided that the recirculated air of the Control Deck had chilled me, so exercise would help. And banish the memories, replied another voice, also mine. Okay.

Hurry up, she said briskly.

As I unbuckled my own strap-locks, Sara walked down the middle aisle toward the central floor hatch, beyond which lay an armorglass wall that divided the Human half of Control Deck from its Mechmind half. Mechmind sparkled behind the wall, locked away like a naughty child. For a dust-free environment, Makoto had said. From his seat up front, Captain Carvalho glanced backward at us but said nothing, returning his dark gaze to the wallscreen that mesmerized the others. The screen now showed images uplinked from a Uranus probe and a dead machine reported to soon-to-be-dead organics. Somehow it seemed fitting entertainment for our red-lit theater of the absurd.

Turning, I followed Sara along the aisle, stopped beside the open floor hatch, and stared down into the deep silo of the ladderwell. It ran from top to bottom decks and gleamed silvery red as emergency lights illumined a drop that could kill. Blinking, I thought of Alice’s rabbit hole, and considered diving into it. But Sarah’s upward glance commanded me to follow her. So I did. Stepping down onto a ladder-rung, I reached over my head and pulled shut the hatch. A harsh clang echoed down the two hundred-foot drop, joining with the clank of Sara’s boots on the rungs as she continued her descent.

I pulled a safety lanyard from my belt reel, hooked it to a ladder stanchion and slowly put one foot below the other, too exhausted to worry much about falling. Likely the safety lanyard was excessive—and ironic under the circumstances—but broken bones from a slip in one gee thrust-gravity can be deadly. And Sara and Chen were our only doctors.

Coming? she prompted again, her gaze downcast even as her voice rose upward.

Yeah.

I, Ephraim Halliday the Betrayer, followed the woman who’d once been my lover as we descended into the murky depths. We passed the open access doors of Lab Deck, then Commons, and neared the Stateroom Deck. Further below us lay the decks of Recycling, EVA/Shuttles, and Supplies where I thought we were headed. They lay above the Hydroponics, Farm and Life Decks at the very bottom. So why was Sara slowing down? I hesitated and looked down at Sara’s coveralled form, but she ignored me, stepping off the ladder onto the private quarters of Stateroom Deck. Sara looked up at me, her sharp-planed face expectant.

I stepped backward onto the Stateroom landing, twitched the lanyard to release the hook, and waited while my belt-reel whirred with its return. Its snip completion brought forth a dreg of dry humor. I turned and faced her. I think I’ll get tired of that climb.

Sara eyed me intently, the planes of her face a coffee-brown landscape over which new emotions tumbled, each appearing faster than the last. Her breath smelled of cloves. Ephraim, come with me. Please? She reached out and grasped my wrist, pulling insistently.

Her hand felt warm. Alive. Okay, okay. She turned and led me toward her nearby stateroom. But hey, we didn’t check the supplies—

She kissed me hard and fierce, just inside her door.

Shock.

Sara moaned into my mouth. I moaned back. Trembling, shaking, I grabbed at her, lost for a moment in the taste, the old memories of shared passion during our joint exile on Farside. But I felt only half there. She pulled back slightly, inspecting me with sad soft eyes.

Ephraim, what’s the matter? she asked, reading my face.

Her shoulder blades felt like smooth slabs beneath her thin coverall, filling my palms as we held each other close. They rose and fell with her quick breathing. I thought Orhan was your Committed?

Sara stepped out of my embrace, her movements slow and sensuous, reminding me she was also a nudist who yearned for sun, heat and passion. She glared, her look one of barely restrained impatience. "He still is. But all he sees now is that up there! Sara looked up with a burning hatred toward the distant Control Deck, hating the Skrill, hating the memories, perhaps even hating Orhan at this moment. He watches that and feels only death and defiance. She looked down at me. I deny it! I won’t watch anymore!"

Always a woman of quick mood changes. That was Sara Bat-Adon. And now the last Jew. Sara, I—

She lunged forward, her sharp teeth biting my uplifted hand. She nibbled at my palm as she unzipped her coverall, pulling it down past tan breasts and dark nipples, below flaring hips, to fall at her feet. Underwear followed.

Ohhh! My control broke. I leaned into her, breathing in the magnolia scent of her neck, then gripped her head and nibbled at her slim neckline, biting here, breathing there. Her hands tugged at my own clothes. Quickly, hurriedly, they fell away.

Then she pressed up against me. Her skin felt sun-hot. Mine added flame. Every cell of my body came alive as I forgot—for a brief time—the horrors.

Make love to me, she hissed. Now!

Love? I cried out even as she pulled me onto her bunk.

She became need incarnate. I became . . . lost. Together we made love, thrusting into each other, squeezing, gripping, panting, two joined as one. Always she led. I followed, too dazed to think.

Afterward we lay in each other’s arms, legs tangled together, our sweaty flesh cooling. With Sara, sex had always brought a sensual ease afterward, a closeness I valued. A bonding I had needed. But this time, there was no afterglow. All I felt was exhaustion. And guilt. A Betrayer once more . . . .

Ephraim. Don’t cry. Her slender fingers touched my chin, pulling me toward her.

I wrenched out of her grip, not speaking.

Why are you crying? she asked, a touch of panic in her husky voice. As if wounding someone meant nothing now—except to the dead.

Michelle, I choked out, turning to her. This was . . . a betrayal.

No! She pressed closer to me, her eyes pleading. "It was a kindness. I needed you. Had to have you. To deny that upstairs, to be able to believe in life again. To feel less alone. To not be alone. Don’t you understand?"

Too soon. I blinked, sending new tears down my face. Too soon.

I’m sorry. But . . . not really. Sara pulled back, then reached up and wiped clean my face, her fingers trembling. Ephraim, leave guilt behind. Make love to me again. Please?

I stayed motionless on her bunk, unmoving as a lie. I come from the hills of east Tennessee, a place where the brooding common among families with a link to the Black Irish of northern Eire is accepted and understood. Such men can be good at brooding. And denial.

Sara gasped. Many moods fled across her tanned Levantine face. Ephraim? Why not?

Truth? She wanted truth? Since Earth-death, I’ve grown too direct for a good So-Sys Officer. A good fuck doesn’t erase the guilt.

Pain pinched her face. You’re only saying that to hurt me back.

Damn right. I surged off the bed onto my feet, then bent for my coveralls. And you talk about ‘life’ only because you believe in Orhan. In his Plan. In this ship. In a future for the sixteen of us. You are deluded.

She stared at me a long moment. People have to believe in something, she said, lifting her chin.

Yeah? Well, I believe in something too, Sara. I waved beyond her, taking in the ship, the people, the Farm stock, the Life Deck with its canisters of frozen sperm and ova of people and animals and plants, all that remained after four billion years. "We’re in Purgatory. Everyone else is dead and gone to Heaven or Hell, judged, slotted, end of question. Of all the people on Earth, only we get Purgatory. Only we need to be cleansed by this slow torture. Only us. Sourness filled me. Lucky us."

Sara drew in a quick, tight breath and sat very still, arms hugging her bony ribs. Why do you think that? 

Dreams. I turned away from her, fiddling with my coveralls.

What kind of dreams? she husked. Tell me.

No. They’re too strange.

She stood up with a smooth whispering of naked flesh against the sheets. Her hand felt warm on my bare shoulder. Ephraim, hold me. Just holding. Please?

Her voice was husky-needful, just as I remembered. She was still the Sara of my memory. The last Jew, a woman who would be a Mother, yet needed a new life to believe in the future. A new hope to replace our destroyed Earth. A tragic figure, my Sara. I breathed deep, turned back around and tumbled with her back onto her bed.

We held each other then, rocking in our embrace, as she crooned childhood lullabies to me and to herself, both of us adrift in time and hope. Eventually, still holding each other close, we fell into a troubled sleep.

––––––––

The dream came again.

The one of Namarkon the Lightning Man. A Gagudju deity, a spirit from out of the Australian Dreamtime, he stomp-danced through the dream nightscape, naked skin painted with white streaks, clenched hands raised high, yellow lightning bolts spurting from his hands every time the distant drumbeat hit counterpoint. Beat. Flash. Beat. Flash. Endless beats and flashes of light. Like an old-style celluloid film moving at slow speed, before they found out how the human eye will make single frames appear to be in uniform motion—once past thirty frames per second.

Crazy dreams.

High tech memories mixed with silly old anthropology texts that spoke of a people who believed Dreaming would continuously recreate the Land, the World, all Life. So long as the Gagudju and the other aborigines of old Australia dreamed the Dreamtime, so long would the universe exist.

A silly belief.

Why then did it haunt my sleep and my dreams? Ever since the Skrill attack, ever since Orhan the crazy Brazilian roared out his insane scheme to save a few humans, Namarkon had walked my dreams.

But what felt most strange is that in the dream, I knew I dreamed. He knew I knew him. And now and then, he would turn to my dreamself and wink. Like a nova flaring.

Sunlight bright. The light of creation.

CHAPTER TWO

Sara leaned over me, the ceiling lights a halo about her head. Ephraim? You cried out. Still lying naked beside me on the bed, she touched my shoulder, her concern true and honest.

The memories flooded back, pressing me to the bed like a leaden weight. Memories of those I had betrayed. Of those I had forgotten so easily. It’s tough right now, I said, blanking the pain. And I didn’t expect you to seduce me.

Sara blinked at my bluntness. Ephraim, whatever happened to your impulse to help others? That was what I loved most about you.

That hurt. Properly so. A Betrayer must always suffer the lash of guilt. The Skrill took it. Along with Michelle and the kids. And your sister.

Oh! Tears showed, along with new pain from the memory I’d rekindled.

Sorry. Sorry, sorry. I am stupid too often.

She sighed, then turned away from me. Don’t worry. I chose to be selfish this one time. You’re safe . . . from me.

She was hiding something. What’s happened?

Sara moved jerkily as she swung over the edge of the bunk. While you slept an All-Ship alert sounded. Orhan has called a Command briefing. We’re to gather in Commons. All of us. She bent down to the floor, gathered up her clothes and dressed quickly.

Briefing? I closed up my sleep-wrinkled coverall. About what?

She shrugged, turning to look in a wall mirror as she rough-combed her hair. Don’t know. Just heard the order over the All-Ship.

A summons from her Committed, Captain Orhan Carvalho, is indeed an order. This was his ship, his Plan. We were all aboard at his sufferance, even Sara. And we all knew it. Carefully avoiding the touch of each other, we left her stateroom and headed for the ladderwell.

One level above we stepped into the Commons, a very large deck that held our combination dining room, rec room and entertainment arcade. The walls glowed with warm earth tones, a deep green carpet covered the floor and a dozen tables dotted the round room, their bright colors suggestive of flowers sprouting from a green garden. It felt like a homey and welcoming place. It’d been engineered for exactly that purpose—which, of course, everyone knew.

Sara chose for us a table near the ladderwell entrance. I sat down beside Fiona O’Hara, our Remotes Specialist, a woman who’d come late to romantic love and lost it all when her Brendán died on the Moon. She tossed red braids over her shoulder. I nodded to her. Good to see you awake and smiling.

Thank you, Ephraim. Her shy smile brightened the air about the table and raised a good humored look in Sara. Fiona touched my wrist tentatively, then folded her arms in front of her as she waited along with the rest of us.

Captain Orhan Carvalho sat at a table beside the far wall, facing the ladderwell entry, a black-maned bear-man used to having his way, used to being rich and used to always putting others on the defensive. He was flanked on one side by the ship’s First Officer, blond-haired Ariel Borodulin, and on the other by Chen Sung, our ascetic ship Psychologist. Orhan scrutinized me for a long moment, then flicked his gaze to Sara. The look seemed almost possessive, and strange in a man who did not trust love. He looked away when Tiare Tahatai, our amiable Chief Librarian and matriarch of a Samoan aiga family, came over to sit beside Sara. She was followed by Hoshi Yamamoto, a petite woman of short black hair and ivory-white skin, who sat near Fiona.

The rest of the crew drifted in and sat at the tables clump by clump, their expressions reflecting little and much. Conversation whispered about the room, a small hubbub of Mandarin, English, Russian and Japanese, spoken in muted voices. Freed from the black bubble of silence on the Control Deck, my shipmates discussed idiocies.

I rubbed sore, burning eyes, still feeling sour. I’d had little sleep during the last three days as MoonTugs brought up crew, equipment, supplies, the craziness of the antimatter pod and our fuel of frozen deuterium/lithium-6 pellets. The sex with Sara had not refreshed me, only stolen away precious energy. I’m a drowning swimmer, I thought again, and then swallowed hard as hot acid bubbled up from my stomach. The pain seeped through my chest, numbing me.

Well, everyone’s finally here, said Ariel Borodulin from her chair at the back table, giving us her nose-up superior look. The bitch.

Orhan left off fiddling with his Sony molecular memory panel and looked around. Everyone shut up, he said. The deep vibrato of his voice reminded me of a jaguar I’d once met in the jungles of the upper Amazon.

Everyone did shut up—except, of course, for young Janjyu Xianghua, our Life Support genius. She was too naive to know better. Janjyu flipped back her cascade of straight black hair, glanced around the room, then showed innocent surprise.

But, Captain, she blurted in her high child-like voice. Three people aren’t here. Where’s Shati, Makoto and— She checked our faces again.

And Bogdan, Orhan finished impatiently. They’re still sedated. Now shut up.

Janjyu flushed with hurt innocence. Orhan looked around the room, unmindful of her embarrassment. With a thick mane of shoulder-length black hair, lidded eyes and a massive body, he brought to mind a bear reborn as a man. Orhan shifted slightly in his chair, then interlaced powerful fingers in front of him, his knuckles whitening as he clenched them.

This is a Command briefing, he intoned. Normally it would be limited to Command personnel, but we’re all in this together. I invite questions and comments.

There was a short silence as everyone hesitated. Then Hoshi sighed loudly enough to garner everyone’s attention. Captain, we should have taken children aboard. This ensemble . . . is unnatural. And difficult to accept.

Orhan frowned, his posture tensing. "Have you forgotten? We got the supplies we needed only because we promised to leave behind our own children. We got the fuel we needed because we promised to raise the gene-children of the Moon habitats as our children. Orhan looked around the tables occupied by the last humans. Anyway, on a 20 year voyage, I figured children were a future we could look forward to. Once we arrive."

Carolyn Bailey, our lesfem Weapons Chief, spoke up. Arrive? Just where are we headed?

Andromeda Galaxy, Orhan said.

What? blurted Anatoly Semyev, our gruff Agronomist. Impossible! We’ll run out of food. We’ll die. We’ll—

Shut up, Orhan said coldly. Our Captain glanced at Ariel. First Officer, explain reality to this crew.

Our man-hater from Minsk looked us over with a cold, blue-eyed stare. We will get there, Anatoly. In twenty years at ninety-nine percent of lightspeed under a constant one-gee thrust. Around me, my crewmates seemed both confused and frightened. Probably so did I. Time dilation at that speed means we can cross our galaxy in twelve years ship time. We can reach ninety million kilometers an hour in one month, near lightspeed in one year.

Fiona held up her hand. Do we have enough fuel for twenty years of thrust?

Ariel nodded, acknowledging the point. No, only three years. But we do have the ramscoop magfields that precede us, funneling ionized hydrogen into the fusion drive. Once we’re at twenty percent of lightspeed, we’ll switch over entirely to the ramscoop and save our remaining fuel. Our avenging Valkyrie looked around the room, as if daring any male to challenge her expertise. The only way we can sustain a constant one-gee thrust is to pick up interstellar hydrogen fuel along the way. There are hydrogen gas bridges out to the Magellanic Clouds and likely similar concentrations out to Andromeda.

This had gone far enough. What’s the point? I drawled, my voice echoing hollowly even in my own ears.

Orhan scowled thunderously. To survive! To find a new world for humanity. To birth a viable colony. He blinked once, slowly. Ephraim, maybe I misjudged in picking you.

Maybe you did, I agreed, returning him stare for stare. I heard indrawn breaths as half the crew seemed about to speak, then shut their mouths. After all, what could anybody say? There was no way sixteen people from such a crazy-quilt of cultures, torn from their families and loved ones, could ever survive twenty years together. The others just hadn’t realized it yet. So I ignored Sara’s worried look at me, Tiare’s disappointed expression and Fiona’s sudden distress.

Bruce McAllister, our burly Fusion Systems Officer and inventor of the ramscoop magfields, finally thought of something to say. Dressed in rumpled coveralls that stretched tight over his heavily-muscled frame, he looked aside at Carolyn and gave her one of his practiced leers. Who gets the women?

You pig! Carolyn glared at him. You won’t fuck me. Nor Shati!

Yes I will! Bruce howled at Carolyn. He smirked meaningfully. Or maybe there’ll be trouble with the magfields, a loss of power, or—

Anatoly reached across the table and grabbed Bruce by the throat, choking him. Idiot! he shouted. You’ll die too! Bruce struggled, his arms flapping wildly.

Orhan stood up. Latin in coloration, but predatory like all bears, his night-black eyes fixed on our Agronomist. Anatoly, you will release Dr. McAllister.

Bruce choked now, his eyes bulging as he pried futilely at Anatoly’s thick fingers. Anatoly stared at Orhan a long moment, then with a reluctant sigh he released his victim. He’s yours . . . for now.

Good, Orhan said, moving to stand beside Bruce as the Scotsman rubbed his neck. Orhan rested a massive hand on Bruce’s shoulder and scanned the people in the Commons. Crew, no one will harm Dr. McAllister. But as to whether he receives the pleasures he desires, that depends on many factors.

Carolyn half-rose. Captain, no way will I—

You will! Orhan interrupted her harshly. As will any woman who is genetically suitable. He looked our way and focused on the quiet, pale-faced woman who’d been last to sit at our table and first to mention children. Hoshi, will you explain?

I glanced at her. Former Olympic gymnast Hoshi Yamamoto was our Microbiologist/Botanist, a specialist in recombinant DNA splicing and someone well-trained in gene mapping. She’d left behind an Arab husband at Tycho dome. The pain of her loss still showed in the shadows under her troubled eyes. She trembled nervously under the sudden attention.

Carolyn, Hoshi began uncertainly. This isn’t the time for radfem declarations.

Our combat specialist frowned. But I—

Enough! Hoshi slammed the table with her fist. Woman, we’re all that’s left! Carolyn winced. You want the kids to birth in techwombs? Hoshi shuddered, then the anger drained out of her like air from a balloon. If we did that, we’d be no different from that thing up there, she said, glancing at the ceiling and the AI mechmind two levels above, on Control Deck. It’s simple. We’re all healthy people in our twenties and thirties. We can defer menopause indefinitely. We have sperm and ova from 976 men and 1,211 women—all we could get over the last four days from the various Moon bases. Hoshi looked around the room, her angular face inspecting each of us before she turned back to stocky Carolyn. Like I said, we’re all that’s left. So resign yourself, my friend, to life as a brood mare.

Ariel the ice queen did not look pleased. She leaned forward tensely, looking us over as if we were bugs on a rock. I will accept the circumstances, she said, but our social structure should be by majority choice.

Orhan walked back to his table and sat down beside his Belarusian First Officer, watching her from under lidded eyes. As if he’d just discovered a worm in his apple. At my side, Sara turned from watching Orhan to claim our gymnast’s attention.

Hoshi, what about those of us who are Committed to fellow crew? Sara did not look aside at me, still fragilely aloof like she’d been ever since we sat down.

Hoshi blinked somberly. I think anyone Committed should remain so, she said to Sara. Like you and Orhan. Carolyn and Shati. And other pairings can develop. But the common duty remains. Hoshi rubbed her forehead wearily, then slumped in her chair, her mood now inward-focused. People, either we stick together . . . or we will surely die apart.

At Orhan’s table, golden-skinned Chitran Tripathi looked my way. A woman of earthy sensuousness whose beauty brought her the easy devotion of men, our Hindu traditionalist resembled a goddess sprung to life from the stone carvings of Khajuraho Temple. And yet, she was also the daring pilot who’d held us in Moon orbit until the last moment. Chitran smiled at me. Maybe our Social Systems Officer can add some words of wisdom. She smiled, her eroticism flaming like tinder sparking to golden flame. You are wise, aren’t you Ephraim? The smile changed to a sly look. That look reminded me of her other talents, chief among them a love of scheming. I smiled back at her, my teeth showing. Chen the Psychologist watched it all.

Hoshi speaks the truth, I said bluntly. We have no other options. Women must do what they are able to do. Men must respect the choices made by our women. I looked away from Chitran to a different kind of woman. And Ariel, just what the hell did you mean by the majority setting our social structure?

Ariel brushed at long blond hair that curled down to frame Slavic cheekbones and pale, tight lips. She stared at me, a look cold as the liquid gases once used to cool superconductors. Her manner was that of someone who had little patience with men and other defective equipment.

I mean that women are in the majority here. Ariel glanced around. You men aren’t very good at controlling yourselves, as Bruce and Anatoly have shown. Shati and Carolyn are Committed lesfems and quite stable. Sara is also Committed. Hoshi, Tiare and Fiona are . . . well, that’s their business. She looked away from our senior fems. While Janjyu will have to accept her obligations— Ariel nodded sympathetically at the ship’s only virgin —she may prefer the company of Chitran, Fiona or myself. All in all, I think a benevolent matriarchy will be most survival-adaptive in Andromeda Galaxy. I so propose it. Ariel bared her teeth, looking straight at me.

Orhan rapped massive knuckles on the table top. First Officer, this isn’t a democracy, he said dryly. It’s my ship. It’s my Plan. And how we organize any colony is years in the future. Ariel listened resentfully, muscles clenching in her jaw. I don’t care who beds whom, Orhan said coldly, looking my way. I do care about whether we all survive. Short of slavery and mind-dep, I’m open on social systems. The mention of mind-dep made me shudder as I recalled a letter from a friend in Zaire who’d described the wonders of high-tech zombies.

Chen broke his dour, ascetic silence. Captain, we do not have the facilities for mind-dep. Our Confucian traditionalist tightened his jaw. And I would not administer such treatment. Paranoia cannot be used to counter depression.

Fiona stirred beside me. Captain, love, sex and social systems will develop as time passes. My milky-skinned Irish seatmate gave me a speculative glance, then raised her voice. I do wonder why we’re going so far—the Magellanic Clouds are a lot closer than Andromeda, with an H1 hydrogen bridge between them and the Milky Way. As Ariel noted. Her words were level, measured and sane. We could rely on it for a constant fuel supply.

Orhan frowned. We can’t stop there, he said, his deep voice troubled. The Skrill came at us from that direction. And if we can contemplate a trip to the Magellanic Clouds, so can the Skrill.

Carolyn looked up sharply, as if she’d just seen salvation. Orhan, why not make an out-of-ecliptic trip to Scutum-Centaurus Arm, on the other side of the Core?

Fatigue flashed across Orhan’s face, then he pulled strength from somewhere deep inside. I think our ship’s Librarian can answer that. Tiare?

Our matronly Samoan looked up, her broad, friendly face uncharacteristically somber. As if her Moon Judge duties still weighed on her. Folks, we have to be certain we’re beyond the reach of the Skrill. The few probe-to-probe machine communications we intercepted suggest they’ve come a long ways. Maybe from Perseus Arm.

But how can we know anything? Bruce yelled again, his voice rising shrilly. They . . . they just hit us. No talk. No communications. No warning. No negotiations—nothing!

Tiare? Orhan looked disgusted with Bruce’s hysteria. You explain.

Tiare folded her reddish-brown arms, struggling to maintain the calm persona she’d honed on the Moon as the only Judge accepted by all the domes in the year 2039. Bruce, it’s been just three weeks since we knew Alien lifeforms even existed. The first sign was their precursor probe that went flyby at near lightspeed—and that caused gravity wave oscillations in our oceans from half a system away. She blinked back sudden tears. "It’s the sheerest luck The Götterdämmerung had returned from the test run to Pluto—or we’d all be dead. They certainly tried hard enough with the follower probes. Now we’re—"

I closed my eyes, recycling old horror pictures. My mind filled with images of the ship-sized asteroids that appeared two weeks after the first one, angling to impact Earth and the fledgling Mars dome. Smash. Smash. Smash. Einstein’s equations, the ones that let us age just twenty years as we traveled more than two million light-years across the abyss, and made the interstellar gas seem to bunch up the faster the ramscoop fed our fusion drive, those equations also said matter gained mass as it approached the speed of light. And ship-sized asteroids moving at near the speed of light carried the mass of a small moon. It was our first experience with relativistic weapons. The early impacts broke open Earth’s crust, letting orange lava spew forth. The later impacts churned up white bones, molten factories, blackened forests and steam-heated air. Two days ago the first one had hit the Moon, ringing its cold interior like a bell. Half the domes had cracked and lost atmosphere, adding to the chaos. Before they collapsed under the impacts, the Farside UV and IR telescopes showed us a small cluster of alien ships decelerating madly, shedding momentum and inertia as they slowed down, aiming to claim the newly cleansed planet that had once held eight billion people. The maser comlinks from the asteroid probes to their masters emitted a heterodyned sound that said Skrill repetitively, over and over. It was as good a name as any for genocidal murderers.

—but our backward-looking optical scopes now show pursuit, Tiare said worriedly as I tuned back in. Two ships have swung about and angled to match our trajectory.

They’re going faster than we are, Chen said, sounding academically unconcerned over the imminent destruction of the last surviving humans. Our know-it-all shrink tilted his sparrow head. Why haven’t they caught us?

Our Librarian grimaced. Luck, dear Chen Sung. Our outgoing track lies nearly seventy degrees off-angle from their incoming track. They’re also moving at one-third lightspeed and it’s pretty damned hard to jerk sideways far enough to intersect us. Ask Chitran. She waved tiredly at our watchful Hindu. They’ll eventually match our course once we’re both up to lightspeed . . . but then they’ll be several light-weeks behind us.

Any way we can kill ‘em? Carolyn said as she hunched over her table, clenching and unclenching long, thin fingers. Wishing, perhaps, for her old Amazon Company command in the 101st Airborne.

Orhan gave her a ghostly smile. Maybe you could shoot rocks at them with your railgun. Carolyn looked intrigued. But if they use a Dustbag precursor cloud to soak up particles and dust, like we do, I doubt it would reach them.

Thoughts of using our directed energy weapons—hastily installed at the last hour—crossed my mind, to be dismissed almost instantly. Tracking targets at large fractions of lightspeed overtaxed even the AI mechmind of Götterdämmerung. Other options did exist.

I caught Orhan’s eye. Captain, any chance our gravity waves will disable them as we approach lightspeed? Vengeance will be mine, sayeth the Lord. Michelle and my kids needed vengeance. I needed it.

Orhan looked questioningly at Ariel. The ship’s Astrophysicist peered at me with distaste. Nice try, anthro-boy. Her open hostility signaled she was still angry with me for my earlier warning that she avoid S&M sex games with any of the crew. But it’s unlikely—if they stay to the side and far enough away from us. Our accelerated mass disturbs matter out to only six or seven AU, not parsecs.

"Could their weapons reach us?" Bruce mumbled, sweat trickling down from his skull-cap of tightly curled brown hair. It seemed our Fusion Systems Officer, sole inventor of the ramscoop magfields and all around son-of-a-bitch, was not handling the end of the world very well.

Carolyn looked worried. Could they, Captain? She focused on Orhan, as did Fiona, Sara and the rest of the crew. Orhan waved one palm toward Ariel, a mocking invitation.

The big-boned woman frowned thoughtfully. Assuming they share the territorial aggressiveness of males and might attack—

Shit! I yelled, slapping the table top. Bitch, what the hell do you think they just did? We’re all dead!

Orhan scowled at me. That’s enough, SoSys! I’ll not tolerate defeatism in my crew. Understand?

I could only nod, not trusting my voice.

Ariel fixed her cold blue eyes on me and continued. Assuming male aggressiveness, they could reach us with directed energy weapons like proton beams or wiggler lasers, but our drive flare would disrupt their beams. She smiled smugly at me. And, anthro-boy, the Skrill may not have meant aggression. Perhaps they were just cleaning up the local real estate before occupying it? Academician Tikhonov speculated to me that the follower probes weren’t weapons at all, but merely manipulative devices that—

Enough! Orhan growled, taking control as angry muttering filled the Commons. What matters, First Officer, are facts. Ariel glowered but kept silent as Orhan took command. The Skrill nearly destroyed humanity. To me, that’s hostile. They pursue us. That’s hostile. Until I have reason to believe otherwise, I am taking this ship as far out as she can go!

The muttering ceased. Reminded of recent events, everyone slumped in their chairs, looking like shit. Michelle’s ghostly face filled me with new regret. Anatoly turned sickly pale. Fiona and Hoshi leaned into each other’s shoulders and comforted one another. Chitran chanted a Shaivite mantra, caring only for her gods and her personal communion with destiny. Janjyu looked little-girl lost, her willowy frame hunched thinly within her coverall. Bruce stuttered to himself. And Chen stared off into space, a Psychologist in love with his own mind and no one else. Sara showed sadness despite her effort with me to find new hope. I wondered if she would ever get a chance to practice her specialty. After all, pediatrics requires children . . .

Orhan stood up once more.

Everyone quieted. Even Bruce and Chitran. We all focused on the man who’d had a vision.

That’s all we know, folks, Orhan said, his manner business-like. Shift duty schedules are posted by the kitchen alcove over there. He pointed behind me at the recreation and food preparation side of the Commons. There’s also a program of mandatory cross-training posted. You people will cooperate in learning each other’s specialties—try to like it. The man who’d made his first billion shortly after getting double degrees in History and Sociology focused on our table, and me. Leave the pharmacist alone—stims are restricted to medical need. Behind the Captain dour Chen looked up and blinked owlishly, returning to reality at the mention of his subspecialty. Orhan flicked his gaze away from me to scan the room. Take your turns at labor on the Farm. Don’t waste anything. All personal weapons are locked up and under the control of the Weapons Chief. Carolyn smiled knowingly at me. And check with the Recreation Officer for entertainment options—once he comes out of sedation.

Acid burned anew in my gut. Bogdan Samanhudi might be a fun-loving Muslim from the Menangkabau tribe of West Sumatra, and the closest thing to a brother I’d ever known, but he’d flipped out just like the domers. It was anybody’s bet whether he, Makoto and Shati Mtsweni would recover. Shati would be a regrettable loss, but Makoto was the absolutely essential AI Officer, the only one who could write new software for the Cray-Toshiba supercomputer that really ran The Götterdämmerung. If he didn’t recover, suicide would become the smart personal choice.

The fools checked the duty rosters and cross-training schedules, then filed out quietly. Like lambs to the slaughter. Sara went to speak with Orhan, taking his hand in hers as if to reassure herself of something. Fiona came back from the kitchen alcove and stood beside our table, looking down at me with a tremulous smile.

Ephraim? The sked says you’re ‘sposed to teach me something called cross-cultural anthropology. She reached up and pulled at one of her thick red braids. While I’m supposed to teach you how to accept neurolink with my Remotes.

Oh? I said neutrally.

Won’t this be fun? She smiled uncertainly.

The Irish lilt in her voice intrigued me. As did her emerald eyes, large breasts and strawberry-red hair. Rumor among the Farside MoonTug pilots said this lady of Eire also possessed a ribald sense of humor. I smiled back.

Sure and begor’n, milady. Fiona’s smile faded. Sorry. Just remembering things. She nodded, glowing again as she smiled anew. My field data disks are in my room. Come along.

Yes, Ephraim. Fiona followed docilely as I stepped into the ladderwell, making me feel like a louse. Women usually say I’m sensitive, kind and considerate. Then again, she hadn’t just lost her wife and three kids—only her betrothed. There must be a difference somewhere in that. On some insane cosmic scale, could four dead people outweigh one? In a black mood I climbed down the ladderwell rungs.

What a group. A man-hater, two lesfems, a virgin, an ascetic, a mother type, several ethnic nativists, an Ahab-boss, a sybarite, a sexist, and a broke-down SoSys cultural anthropologist who’d betrayed his wife and children.

Betrayed them when I’d had a chance to stay, could have stayed, didn’t stay, didn’t stay, didn’t stay . . . I hauled myself back from the edge, careening too close again.

The question wasn’t how we’d survive the trip. The only honest question was . . . how long before we had our first suicides?

CHAPTER THREE

Darkness released me into a pale morning, and sudden awareness. I had passed the night in my stateroom, in my bunkbed. Beside me lay another person . . . Fiona.

Damn! What the hell was it with me? Why was I going around fucking like a rabbit?

Usually a Social Systems Officer doesn’t treat his crewmates like sex objects. Usually, a SoSys is so adept that his or her manipulation of social tensions, social patterns and social needs is never noticed. Such subtlety is essential. You don’t screw around with basic human emotions like love, hope, freedom and honor without using great care. And anyway, the duty of a SoSys is to make a good system run better, not be the great puppet-master.

Fiona’s slow breathing and rose-scented perfume drove away such rational considerations. Instead, I remembered last night. Remembered it lazily, the way you enjoy a fine wine. Yes, Fiona was a good lover. A caring lover. But more than that, she reminded me of Michelle. She had Michelle’s wise eyes, her tender devotion, and her love of music. A classical pianist and ballad singer, Fiona lived and breathed music. And Fiona had whispered to me that making love had given her new hope. Was the act of two becoming one the way we could all forge a new bond, a way to do our duty with less survivor guilt?

Guilt. Inside me, my heart twisted. Pain flooded it. And guilt returned. This was a second betrayal of Michelle, this time with someone who could have been her sister. Someone as sweet as Michelle. Whom I’d left behind . . .

I clung to my guilt. It was more reliable than the vulnerability brought by love. Yet, I’d allowed myself to make love with Fiona. Why? Did something inside me know that this was what the crew needed? A binding together of shell-shocked people through rampant love-making? Crazy. But that had been exactly what Sara had needed, had taken from me in her selfish choice. It was also what I had chosen in loving Fiona. We two had done more than use sex to forget tragedy and guilt. There was more to what had happened between us. Perhaps Fiona, and everyone else, needed this kind of connection in order to hope. To deny the death of Earth. The sacrament of love-making carried with it the promise of future children. And we all had to work together to get to the new world where we could birth new children. But how could we overcome—

Halliday! My slidedoor thudded to a massive impact. You in there? I’m coming in.

Fiona jerked awake. Who? Wha—

Orhan, I muttered, slapping the wall control for the room lights.

Orhan strode in angrily, dressed in black coveralls and looking grizzly fierce. He glanced at Fiona lying nude beside me, then fixed on me. Your wife’s corpse isn’t even cold.

I surged out of the bed, swinging. I’ll kill you for—

Good. His bear-hand enfolded my striking fist. You’re not emotionally dead. Orhan squeezed a little. I yelped.

Orhan! Fiona sat up in the bunk and glared. Captain, stop. It was me who started this!

Orhan let go. I just stood there, inches from his olive dark face, uncaring that this billionaire Brazilian had owned and discarded hundreds of men like me. All I cared about was .