Tau zero Read Online Free PDF Page B

acceleration. The thrust of muscles, the cool silken flowing of water, would be the same at the galaxy's rim, and beyond. Ingrid Lindgren had said once that such truths made her doubt she would ever become really homesick. Man's house was the whole cosmos.
    Tonight she frolicked, ducking, dodging, slipping from his grasp again and again. Their laughter echoed between the walls. When at last he cornered her, she embraced his neck in turn, laid her lips to his ear and whispered: "Well, you did catch me."
    "M-m-m-hm." Reymont kissed the hollow between shoulder and throat. Through the wetness he smelled live girlflesh. "Grab our clothes and we'll go."
    He carried her six kilos easily on one arm. When they were alone in the stairwell, he caressed her with his free hand. She kicked her heels and giggled. "Sensualist!"
    "We'll soon be back under a whole gee," he reminded her, and started bounding down to officer level at a speed that would have broken necks on Earth.
    —Later she raised herself on an elbow and met his eyes with hers. She had set the lights dim. Shadows moved behind her, around her, making her doubly gold- and amber-hued. With a finger she traced his profile.

    "You're a wonderful lover, Carl," she murmured. "I've never had a better."
    "I'm fond of you too," he said.
    A hint of pain touched brow and voice. "But that's the only time you really give of yourself. And do you, altogether, even then?"
    "What is there to give?" His tone roughened. "I've told you about things that happened to me in the past."
    "Anecdotes. Episodes. No connection, no— There at the pool, for the first time, you offered me a glimpse of what you are. The tiniest possible glimpse, and you hid it away at once. Why? I wouldn't use the insight to hurt you, Carl."
    He sat up, scowling. "I don't know what you mean. People learn about each other, living together. You know I admire classical artists like Rembrandt and Bonestell, and don't care for abstractions or chromodynamics. I'm not very musical. I have a barrack-room sense of humor. My politics are conservative. I prefer tournedos to filet mignon but wish the culture tanks could supply us with either more often. I play a wicked game of poker, or would if there were any point in it aboard this ship. I enjoy working with my hands and am good at it, so I'll be helping build the laboratory facilities once that project gets organized. I'm currently trying to read War and Peace but keep falling asleep." He smote the mattress. "What more do you need?"
    "Everything," she answered sadly. She gestured around the room. Her closet happened to stand open, revealing the innocent vanity of her best gowns. The shelves were filled with her private treasures, to the limit of her mass allowance—a battered old copy of Bellman, a lute, a dozen pictures waiting their turn to be hung, smaller portraits of her kinfolk, a Hopi kachina doll . . . "You brought nothing personal."
    "I've traveled light through life."
    "On a hard road, I think. Maybe someday you'll dare trust me." She drew close to him. "Never mind now, Carl. I don't want to harass you. I want you in me again. You see, this has stopped being a matter of friendship and convenience. I've fallen in love with you."
    When the appropriate speed was reached, lining out of Earth's domain toward that sign of the zodiac where the Virgin ruled, Leonora Christine went free. Thrusters cold, she became another comet. Gravitation alone worked upon her, bending her path, diminishing her haste.
    It had been allowed for. But the effect must be kept minimal. The uncertainties of interstellar navigation were too large as was, without

    adding an extra factor. So the crew—the professional spacemen, as distinguished from the scientific and technical personnel—worked under a time limit.
    Boris Fedoroff led a gang outside. Their job was tricky. You needed skill to labor in weightlessness and not exhaust yourself trying to control tools and body. The best of men could still let