Starborne Read Online Free PDF

them, but for Noelle, the process of qualifying was the same: simple, cruel, humiliating, insincere. Generally speaking, the crew members had been picked even before it had occurred to some of them that they might be interested in going. The world had become very small. Everyone ’ s capacities were know n . No one was particularly f a mous, any more, but no one was obscure, either.
    Certain formalities were observed, though. It was always possible that the covert a priori selection process had been mistaken in one or two instances, and no one wanted mistakes. Eleven hundred candidates were summoned to fill the fifty slots aboard the starship. They came from every part of the world, a carefully impartial and studiedly repr e sentative geographic sampling. Many of the old nations that had once been so distinct and noisily self-important still had some sort of tenuous existences, more as sentimental concepts than as sovereign entities now, but they had not completely evolved out of existence yet and it was a good idea to pay lip service, at least, to the continued q u asi-fact of their quasi-status. Each of the formerly sovereign nations or historically si g nificant fragment thereof contributed a few of its former citizens to the long list. And then, too, the candidates represented most or perhaps all — who could say, real ly? The old distinctions had often been so m i nute and dubious — of the planet ’ s racial and ethnic and religious groups, insofar as such groups still existed and looked upon themselves as ma t tering in the small and cozy society that had evolved out of the tur b u lent, messy societies of the Industrial and immediately Post-Industrial epochs. In the cosmic scheme of things it no longer counted for very much that one person might like to think of himself as a Finn and anot h er as a Turk, or a German or a Brit or a T hai or a Swede, nor was it r e ally easy any more to fit most people into the old racial classifications that had once had such troublesome significance, nor had the world ’ s innumerable theological distinctions survived very coherently into mo d ern times. But there were those for whom — perhaps for philosophical reasons, or sentimental ones, or reasons of esthetics, or out of a lingering sense of historical connection, or a fondness for anachronisms, or just out of simple cantankerousness — there was still some v a lue in valiantly claiming, “ I am a Welshman” or “ I am a communicant of the Roman Catholic Church” or “ I carry the blood of the Norman aristocracy.” Such people were considered quaint and eccentric; but there were plenty of them, even now. The world had co m e a long way, yes, yet ancient ve s tiges of the grand institutions and solemn distinctions of former civiliz a tions still cropped out everywhere like fossil bones whitening and weathering in the sun. They had ceased to be problems , yes, but they had not full y ceased to be. Possibly they never would. And so the long list of candidates for the Wotan expedition was an elaborately repr e sentative one. The final group would be, too, insofar as that was feas i ble. Formalities were observed, indeed.
    There were five Ex aminers, distinguished and formidable citizens all, and they sat around a table on the top floor of a tall building in Zurich whose enormous wraparound windows offered a clear crisp view that stretched halfway to Portugal. You stood before them and they a s ked you things that they already knew about you, things about your technical skills and your physical health and your mental stability and your wil l ingness to say goodbye to the world forever, and to spend anywhere from one to five years, or perhaps even m ore, in intimate confinement with forty-nine other people, and you could tell from the way they were listening that they weren ’ t really listening at all. After that they wanted you to speak only about your flaws. If you were in any way hesitant, they woul d list some for