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relief, then quickly forgotten by those uninvolved in the project. As it was now, Al thought, the project
was sustained by the tradespeople's desire for jobs and the fact that so much had already been spent that
no one wanted to disband the project. It had at last acquired its own momentum, held up at times only by
engineering problems and disputes among the workers about how many nationals of each country would
be hired to build the ships. That debate had centered around whether or not the tiny but growing number
of people claiming allegiance to no state should be counted as citizens of their birthplaces; it had been
decided to consider them as a separate group. The most serious incident, which had resulted in a strike
by technicians from India and the Soviet Union who wanted fewer Chinese on the project, had been
overcome within a month.
Al forced his attention back to the conversation around him. Ahmed was expounding on a minor flaw,
recently ironed out, in the engine of the starship design. The engines were nuclear-pulse models, fueled by
frozen deuterium. The fuel itself would make up most of the body of the ship, being contained in a huge
"snowball" about one thousand feet in diameter. The living quarters, attached to this large globe, would
be inside a cylinder three hundred feet in diameter and one thousand feet long. At the end of this cylinder
three smaller globes, each two hundred and fifty feet in diameter, would house engineering compartments;
thrust units would be attached to these compartments.
The ships, Al thought, would resemble halves of barbells from a distance, with the large globular snowball
reflecting images of stars from its metal surface. Each of the three ships would house at most three
hundred passengers and it was expected that this population would increase to about two thousand
during the journey.
For it would be a very long journey, perhaps a lifetime for many of those on board. The secret of
faster-than-light travel still eluded them. Even though the ships could travel at thirty per cent of light
speed, years might be spent in exploring Epsilon Eridani. After replacing the supply of deuterium, using
the gas giant known to be there, the travelers might decide to go on rather than return. And those born on
the ship might have no desire to come back to Earth, which would be for them only a name.
There would be so many possibilities on such a voyage, Al thought. While traveling at thirty per cent of
light speed subjective time aboard ship would pass more slowly than time on Earth. Even if they returned,
it would not be to the earth they had known. Although anti-aging shots were now being given to those in
their fifties and there was talk of lifting restrictions altogether, those alive now might not live to see the
ships return. If one went on the trip, he would have to assume, barring any exceptional circumstance, that
he was cutting all personal ties with those on Earth.
"One of your brothers is working on the engine, is he not?" Ahmed said in English to Al. Al felt slightly
irritated; even after all this time some of the personnel, especially newer ones, took care to address most
of their social remarks to Americans in English. Some justified this on the ground that it was difficult to
discuss certain concepts in their own languages, and that fluency in English was almost a necessity here,
but others no doubt thought of the Americans as backward children. Not surprisingly, this kept the
Americans less fluent in other tongues, thus feeding the prejudice. The Japanese suffered from a similar
prejudice; it was widely believed that the Japanese learned other languages only reluctantly. Some of Al's
compatriots, annoyed with this state of affairs, had taken to speaking different languages among
themselves.
"Mike did some work on it," Al replied. Not much, as I recall, just a small design suggestion."
"I have been thinking," the engineer continued. "The engines on these ships might be capable of going
much faster than anyone has yet anticipated. We shall not realize, possibly, how powerful they actually [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]