The Star Lord
took the professor's arm and sauntered to the door, the heavytaffeta skirts of her pearl-gray gown swishing and rustling as shewalked.
* * * * *
Within the sealed hulk of the _Star Lord_ the twenty-four Piles silentlydid their work, out of sight, out of the thoughts of the passengers.Driving the ship through the unknowable infinities of hyperspace, theyheld her quiet, steady, seemingly without motion. They behaved as theywere intended to, their temperatures remained docilely within the normallimits of safety, and the ship sped on.
The technicians and maintenance men, the navigators, the nucleonics men,all kept aloof from the social eddies frothing at the center of theship. They lived in another world, a world of leashed power, in whichthe trivial pursuits of the passengers were as irrelevant as thetwitterings of birds.
In the central tiers occupied by the passengers, each morning the wallsof the lounges and dining rooms resumed their daily routine ofsimulating the panorama of earth's day. Lights glowed into a clearsunrise, brightened into a sunny sky across which light clouds scudded.
Children played in the nurseries, grownups idled through the hours,eating the delicious food, taking a dip in the priceless pool, attendingthe stereodrams, and playing games. At the cocktail hour, the orchestraplayed jaunty tunes, old-fashioned polkas, waltzes, mazurkas; at dinner,it shifted to slower, muted melodies, suitable background for highfeminine voices, deep male laughter, and the heavy drone of talk.
In the walls, the sun set, twilight crept in, and the stars came out.After the stars had been advancing for several hours, people finishedtheir dancing and card games, walked out of the theaters, had a finaldrink at the Bar, paused at the bulletin board which detailed the ship'sdaily progress, and went to bed.
Dr. Alan Chase followed his own routine. Each morning and each eveninghe geigered his cabin and found the radiation still below the earthnormal. He was surprised to find that he was holding his own,physically, instead of becoming progressively weaker, as he hadexpected, and he began to feel hopeful that he might quickly regain hishealth on the inert atmosphere of Almazin III. He was not strong enough,however, to take part in the active games of the passengers, and had notenough energy to try to make friends, except for the people at hisdining table--particularly Tanya.
Of all the lovely women on board, he thought Tanya Taganova theloveliest. He knew he was not alone in this, for the arresting planes ofher face, the dramatic color of her rustling taffeta gowns, attractedmany followers. He would sit in the lounge at night and watch herdancing, and then realize, suddenly, that she had disappeared, longbefore the evening was over. She was an elusive creature, asunpredictable as a butterfly.
Wandering listlessly about the ship, one afternoon he stepped throughthe open door of the Library. In the almost empty room he saw the auburnhead of Tanya, bent over so as to hide her face and show him only herglowing hair. She raised her head as he approached.
"Are you looking for a book, Dr. Chase?"
"No, I just wondered what was interesting you so much."
* * * * *
She shifted her seat, to let him see a large sheet of rough drawingpaper covered with a chalk sketch of a desolate gray marsh over whichgreen waves swirled from the sea, behind them loomed rose-coloredgranite hills.
"I'm a scene designer, you know. But at home, somehow, I never have timeto myself. People will never believe I'm serious, and when I want to getsome real work done, I run away on a trip, by myself. Right now I'msketching out a set for a new stereodrama we're staging next autumn.This particular one is for a melancholy suicide on Venus. I've severalmore here." She pointed to a scattered heap of drawings.
The soft chime of the library telephone interrupted them. Tanya rose andmoved to the desk.
"Yes? Not now, youngster. I'm working. Yes, maybe tomorrow."
Alan had been examining her drawings. "Is this what you do during thehours when you disappear?".
"Usually. Sometimes I drop into the playroom to chat with the children.They're more interesting than their parents, for the most part, andnobody ever seems to pay much attention to them."
"But do you have to work at night, too? When you disappear in the middleof the evening, everybody misses you. The men all watch for you to comeback, their wives sigh with relief, and old man Jasperson toddles aroundand searches the dance floor and bleats, 'Where's Miss Tanya? She washere just a little while ago, and now I can't find her anywhere!'"
"I know. But one dance an evening with him is about all I can stand. Idon't really like the man."
"But why? He's a little stupid, but he seems a harmless sort of duck. Ina financial deal, of course, I can see that he'd be sharp andruthless--that's how men like him become millionaires--but he can'tknife anybody on shipboard."
Tanya slashed a heavy black line across her drawing, bearing down sohard that she broke the chalk, and threw the pieces to the floor.
"He's a coward! Haven't you ever noticed the way he bullies the waiters?How he patronizes Professor Larrabee, and ignores the young Halls? Andto hear him tell it, you'd think only his advice makes it possible forCaptain Evans to run the ship! I'm afraid of men like that. They'recowardly and boastful, and in a crisis they are dangerous!"
"What an outburst over a fat little bald-headed man! Aren't you lettingyour dramatic sense run away with you?"
Laughing, Tanya picked up her chalk and resumed sketching. "Probably,but after all, I earn my living with my imagination."
"Then you aren't just a rich young woman dabbling in the theater?"
"No indeed. If you could see my bank account! No, I'm going to AlmazinIII to make authentic sketches of the landscape. We may do a show set inthat locale, next year."
"I wish I could see some of the shows you stage."
"When we get home, I'll send you a pass."
He did not answer. Suddenly the melancholy Venusian scene she wascreating depressed him, as if it had been a reflection of his own barrenlife.
"Or don't you like the theater, Dr. Chase?"
"It's not that," he said hastily. "Only--" He shrugged his shoulders."Something about this ship, I suppose. Home seems so very far away."
"Have you felt that too? I've had the feeling, sometimes, that earthisn't there any more, and that this ship is the only reality."
* * * * *
By the end of the third week out, Burl Jasperson was afflicted by analmost intolerable tension. He prowled the ship like a tiger, for hecould think of nothing more to do. For the moment there were no moreimprovements to suggest to the Star Line, no more brilliant financialdeals to execute, and each empty minute seemed to swell into an endlesshour. He tried to relax by viewing the dramas on the stereoscreen, buthe was always too uneasy to sit through an entire performance, and wouldleave in the middle to resume his pacing of the corridors.
At his private table in the dining room he stared at the empty chairacross from him, munching his food mechanically, seething with unrest.He could see Tanya's gleaming head across the room, with Alan Chase'sbeside her, and he tortured himself with imagining the light laughter,the friendly talk which must be taking place there. Never, before thistrip, had he been made to feel so unnecessary, so much an outsider.Wasn't he a lord of finance, a master of industry, the kind of a man tobe respected and admired? Of course, less successful men called himruthless, he realized, but he was not ruthless--only realistic. He wasan able man, and if he expected people in general to take orders fromhim, it was only because he was more intelligent and more capable thanthe people to whom he gave his orders. Nothing wrong with that.
But these miserable empty days were beginning to frighten him. He feltlost. The ship ran by herself, without needing his help, and there wasno doubt at all that she would win the Blue Ribbon. Although hequestioned Captain Evans sharply, and checked every day on the minutestdata of the voyage, so far he had found nothing to criticize--except thecoldness of Josiah Evans' manner.
He ground his teeth through a stalk of celery in a vicious bite. Afterall, wasn't he Chairman of the board of directors of the Star Line?Wasn't it his right, even his duty, to make sure that everything wasgoing well?
The crowd of diners had grown thin, now, and he could see clearly thelittle group at Tanya's table. They were laughing, and he could see thedelightful animation which always disappeared whenever he tried to talkto her.
Steward Davis sidled up, a deferential smile on his long face.
"Is everything all right, Mr. Jasperson?"
"Um."
"Looks like we'll get the Blue Ribbon this trip, doesn't it, sir?"
"Um."
"If you should ever want any special dishes, sir, any