Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [61]
Maureen turned over on belly and elbows to look at him. "Which? The freezing water, or the acrophobia, or the climbing your legs off?"
"All of the above. And not interviewing anyone today, I needed that, too. I'm glad your father didn't make it. Tomorrow—shazam! I'm Harvey Randall again."
She had changed back into the tan slacks. Harvey came out to find she'd also made drinks.
"Stay for dinner?" she asked.
"Well … Sure, but can I take you out somewhere?"
She grinned. "You haven't sampled the wild night life of Springfield and Porterville. You'll do better here. Besides, I like to cook. If you want, you can help clean up."
"Sure—"
"Not that there's much cooking involved," Maureen said. She took steaks out of the freezer. "Microwave ovens and frozen food. The civilized way to gourmet meals."
"That thing's got more controls than an Apollo."
"Not really. I've been in an Apollo. Hey, you have too, haven't you?"
"I saw the mock-up," Harvey said, "not the real thing. Lord, I'd like to do that. Watch the comet from orbit. No atmosphere to block it out."
Maureen didn't answer. Randall sipped at his scotch. There was an edge on his hunger. He searched the freezer and found frozen Chinese vegetables to add to the meal.
After dinner they sipped coffee on the porch, in wide chairs with wide, flat arms to hold the mugs. It was chilly; they needed jackets. They talked slowly, dreamily: of the astronauts Maureen knew; of the mathematics in Lewis Carroll; of social politics in Washington. Presently Maureen went into the house, turned off all the lights and came back out feeling her way.
It was incredibly dark. Randall asked, "Why did you do that?"
A disembodied voice answered, "You'll see in a few minutes." He heard her take her chair.
There was no moon, and the stars lit only themselves. But gradually he saw what she meant. When the Pleiades came over the mountains he didn't recognize them; the cluster was fiercely bright. The Milky Way blazed, yet he couldn't see his own coffee cup,
"There are city people who never see this," Maureen said.
"Yeah. Thanks."
She laughed. "It could have been clouded over. My powers are limited."
"If we could … No, I'm wrong. I was thinking, if we could show them all what it looks like—all the voters. But you see star scenes on the newsstands all the time, paintings of star clusters and black holes and multiple systems and anything you could find out there. You'd have to take the voters up here, a dozen at a time, and show them. Then they'd know. It's all out there. Real. All we have to do is reach out."
She reached out (her night vision had improved that much) and took his hand. He was a bit startled. She said "Won't work. Otherwise the main support for NASA would come from the farming community."
"But if you'd never seen it like this … Ahh, you're probably right." He was very aware that they were still holding hands. But it would stop there. "Hey, do you like interstellar empires?" Harmless subject.
"I don't know. Tell me about interstellar empires."
Harv pointed, and leaned close so she could sight down his arm. Where the Milky Way thickened and brightened, in Sagittarius, that was the galactic axis. "That's where the action is, in most of the older empires. The stars are a lot closer together. You find Trantor in there, and the Hub worlds. It's risky building in there, though. Sometimes you find that the core suns have all exploded. The radiation wave hasn't reached us yet."
"Isn't Earth ever in control?"
"Sure, but mostly you find Earth had one big atomic war."
"Oh. Maybe I shouldn't ask, but just where are you getting your information?"
"I used to read the science fiction magazines. Then around age twenty I got too busy. Let's see, the Earth-centered empires tend to be small, but … a small fraction of a hundred billion suns. You get enormous empires without even covering one galactic arm." He stopped. The sky was so incredibly vivid! He could