* * *

The ferry made rendezvous and docked. Bond anchors extended to hold its stubby hull against the larger curve of Leonora Christine. Her robots— sensor-computer-effector units— directing the terminal maneuvers caused airlocks to join in an exact kiss. More than that would be demanded of them later. Both chambers being exhausted, their outer valves swung back, enabling a plastic tube to make an airtight seal. The locks were repressurized and checked for a possible leak. When none was found, the inner valves opened.

Reymont unharnessed himself. Floating free of his seat, he glanced down the length of the passenger section. The American chemist, Norbert Williams, was unbuckling too. “Hold it,” Reymont commanded in English. While everyone knew Swedish, some did not know it well. For scientists, English and Russian remained the chief international tongues. “Keep your places. I told you at the port, I’ll escort you singly to your cabins.”

“You needn’t bother with me,” Williams answered. “I can get around weightless okay.” He was short, round-faced, sandy-haired, given to colorful garments and to speaking rather loudly.

“You all had some drill in it,” Reymont said. “But that’s not the same thing as getting the right reflexes built in through experience.”

“So we flounder a bit. So what?”

“So an accident is possible. Not probable, I agree, but possible. My duty is to help forestall such possibilities. My judgment is that I should conduct you to your berths, where you will remain until further notice.”

Williams reddened, “See here, Reymont—”

The constable’s eyes, which were gray, turned full upon him. “That’s a direct order,” Reymont said, word by word. “I have the authority. Let us not begin this voyage with a breach.”

Williams resecured himself. His motions were needlessly energetic, his lips clamped tight together. A few drops of sweat broke off his forehead and bobbed in the aisles; the overhead fluoro made them sparkle.

Reymont spoke by intercom to the pilot. That man would not board the ship, but would boost off as soon as his human cargo was discharged. “Do you mind if we unshutter? Give our friends something to look at while they wait?”

“Go ahead,” said the voice. “No hazard indicated. And… they won’t see Earth again for a spell, will they?”

Reymont announced the permission. Hands eagerly turned cranks on the spaceward side of the boat, sliding back the plates that covered the glasyl viewpoints. Reymont got busy with his shepherding.

Fourth in line was Chi-Yuen Ai-Ling. She had twisted about in her safety webbing to face the port entirely. Her fingers were pressed against its surface. “Now you, please,” Reymont said. She didn’t respond. “Miss Chi-Yuen.” He tapped her shoulder. “You’re next.”

“Oh!” She might have been shaken out of a dream. Tears stood in her eyes. “I, I beg your pardon. I was lost—”

The linked spacecraft were coming into another dawn. Light soared over Earth’s immense horizon, breaking in a thousand colors from maple-leaf scarlet to peacock blue. Momentarily a wing of zodiacal radiance could be seen, like a halo over the rising fire-disk. Beyond were the stars and a crescent moon. Below was the planet, agleam with her oceans, her clouds where rain and thunder walked, her green-brown-snowy continents and jewel-box dries. You saw, you felt, that this world lived.