there is a finite chance that it will not.”
“ And therefore — ?”
“ And therefore, as I have just said, the more jumps we make, the greater the likelihood that one of them will be a bad one. And so I argue that we ought not to make any shunt that is not absolutely necessary. By which I mean that we should not attempt a realspace re-entry without complete assurance that the world we have picked is likely to be a place where we ’ ll wan t to settle, because the risk of moving from one reality state to another is so great that we will want to attempt it only when there is a high order of probability that the risk is worth taking.”
Paco says, in what is for him an uncharacteristically subdue d and thoughtful tone, “ You know, there ’ s something to that. The odds that any given Earth-sized planet has anything like Earth-like living cond i tions are — what? A hundred to one against? So we may find ourselves having to make a hundred jumps, five hundred , a thousand, if we don ’ t get lucky right away. Which multiplies the shunt risks enormously, if I follow Sieglinde correctly. If there ’ s any real likelihood that the drive might fail, we ought to be damned sure ahead of time that whatever place we ’ re jump i ng to is —”
Julia, who has the actual responsibility for operating the nospace drive, says irritably, “ This is a stupid conversation, and we ’ re not su p posed to be stupid people. Why are we even discussing this? There ’ s been a vote and we ’ re going to take a look at Planet A, because we have good reason to believe that it ’ s the sort of place that we came out here to find, as far as we can tell without actually getting up close to it and ta k ing a good look, and that ’ s all there is to it. Heinz is right. Sieglin de is pulling demons out of nowhere. When we make our next shunt, the stardrive will behave exactly as we want it to behave, and you all know it. And even if there ’ s some slight mathematical risk hanging on each jump, we ’ ve already reached agreement that P lanet A is a place worth taking risks to find. Our job is to find the way to Planet A, not to debate hypothetical nightmare scenarios.”
“ Yes, we are not stupid,” says Heinz. “ But we are rest less. We live in a confined place and we think too much. And if we think long enough, eventually we begin to think stupidly. Enough of this, Sieglinde. We will never find any place to live at all, if we are too terrified of these probability problems to u n dertake even a single survey mission. You knew all this when we set out. Why did you wait until now to say an y thing? If somebody else had raised this string of last-minute objections while you were trying to get on with the work at hand, you ’ d be trying to cut off his head by now.” He turns to the year-captain. “ Rule her out of order, will you? And then let ’ s adjourn.”
“ What do you say, Sieglinde?” the year-captain asks. “ Can we drop this, please?”
The big woman shrugs. The manic force has gone out of her a s su d denly as it came. She has made her little bit of trouble and is ready to relent. She looks tired and defeated and to the year-captain ’ s relief she seems as ready to be done with this as the rest of them. The point she has raised is a troublesome one, but, as Heinz has observed, this is not the moment to be discussing it. And in an almost toneless voice Sie g linde says, “ Whatever you want, captain. Whatever you want.”
***
Until now the starship, in the absence of any specific destination, has been follow ing an essentially undirected path through the nospace tube, simply traveling away from Earth rather than toward some particular star. Its course, such as it is, has been chosen to carry it into one of the more densely populated areas of the immediate sec t or of the celestial sphere in which Earth ’ s sun is located; but the intent of the planners of the voyage was that the voyagers would at some
“ And therefore — ?”
“ And therefore, as I have just said, the more jumps we make, the greater the likelihood that one of them will be a bad one. And so I argue that we ought not to make any shunt that is not absolutely necessary. By which I mean that we should not attempt a realspace re-entry without complete assurance that the world we have picked is likely to be a place where we ’ ll wan t to settle, because the risk of moving from one reality state to another is so great that we will want to attempt it only when there is a high order of probability that the risk is worth taking.”
Paco says, in what is for him an uncharacteristically subdue d and thoughtful tone, “ You know, there ’ s something to that. The odds that any given Earth-sized planet has anything like Earth-like living cond i tions are — what? A hundred to one against? So we may find ourselves having to make a hundred jumps, five hundred , a thousand, if we don ’ t get lucky right away. Which multiplies the shunt risks enormously, if I follow Sieglinde correctly. If there ’ s any real likelihood that the drive might fail, we ought to be damned sure ahead of time that whatever place we ’ re jump i ng to is —”
Julia, who has the actual responsibility for operating the nospace drive, says irritably, “ This is a stupid conversation, and we ’ re not su p posed to be stupid people. Why are we even discussing this? There ’ s been a vote and we ’ re going to take a look at Planet A, because we have good reason to believe that it ’ s the sort of place that we came out here to find, as far as we can tell without actually getting up close to it and ta k ing a good look, and that ’ s all there is to it. Heinz is right. Sieglin de is pulling demons out of nowhere. When we make our next shunt, the stardrive will behave exactly as we want it to behave, and you all know it. And even if there ’ s some slight mathematical risk hanging on each jump, we ’ ve already reached agreement that P lanet A is a place worth taking risks to find. Our job is to find the way to Planet A, not to debate hypothetical nightmare scenarios.”
“ Yes, we are not stupid,” says Heinz. “ But we are rest less. We live in a confined place and we think too much. And if we think long enough, eventually we begin to think stupidly. Enough of this, Sieglinde. We will never find any place to live at all, if we are too terrified of these probability problems to u n dertake even a single survey mission. You knew all this when we set out. Why did you wait until now to say an y thing? If somebody else had raised this string of last-minute objections while you were trying to get on with the work at hand, you ’ d be trying to cut off his head by now.” He turns to the year-captain. “ Rule her out of order, will you? And then let ’ s adjourn.”
“ What do you say, Sieglinde?” the year-captain asks. “ Can we drop this, please?”
The big woman shrugs. The manic force has gone out of her a s su d denly as it came. She has made her little bit of trouble and is ready to relent. She looks tired and defeated and to the year-captain ’ s relief she seems as ready to be done with this as the rest of them. The point she has raised is a troublesome one, but, as Heinz has observed, this is not the moment to be discussing it. And in an almost toneless voice Sie g linde says, “ Whatever you want, captain. Whatever you want.”
***
Until now the starship, in the absence of any specific destination, has been follow ing an essentially undirected path through the nospace tube, simply traveling away from Earth rather than toward some particular star. Its course, such as it is, has been chosen to carry it into one of the more densely populated areas of the immediate sec t or of the celestial sphere in which Earth ’ s sun is located; but the intent of the planners of the voyage was that the voyagers would at some
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