Anticopernicus Read Free Page B

said Ange, coolly.
    —But they won’t say where they
are
from! Why do you think they’re so evasive?
    —I’ve really no idea.
    —They’re up to something. They must be! I heard that in addition to the Leibniz, UE Strike sent a stealth ship, heavily armed. Shadowing them the whole way. Do
you
think we can trust them? The aliens?
    —I don’t know,’ said Ange, giving her words as unambiguous an inflected as she could manage so as to communicate
I don’t care
.
    —We’re not special, was Ostriker’s opinion. The fact that these aliens are here proves that the cosmos is
teeming
with life. Teeming! They would hardly have stumbled across us, otherwise—tucked away in this inconsequential branch of a spiral arm. Alien life must be
swarming
all over the galaxy. The fact that we haven’t come across them until now, all that Fermi-so-called-paradox, was just bad luck. Or good luck!
    —Mm, said Ange.
    Ostriker laughed.
    —But as to why they’re being so coy: waiting out in the Oort cloud! I
mean
! Who knows? If they travel all the way here, from Cygnus, or from some star hundreds of light years
more
distant
behind
Cygnus, or from wherever they came from ... why stop out there? It’ll take the
Leibniz
a year to get there! That’s just rude. Or stupid. Ostriker opened her eyes wide. Do you think
that’s
it? Maybe they’re stupid! Maybe we think they’re super-intelligent, but they’re actually sub-normal for their species!
    —The Leibniz is halfway there, now, Ange pointed out. Only six months to go.
    —I know. Exciting, though? Yes, yes, yes. I guess we’ll get some answers when the
Leibniz
gets there. Hey, Ange! I was in-plugged earlier, checking the newswebs, and I happened across a manifold of possible for the
Leibniz
crew—including
your
name! Wow. Wow!
    —Yes, Ange conceded, wearily. But the longlist was hundreds of possibles long.
    —Still! I didn’t realise I was flying with such a
celebrity
.
    Ostriker’s laugh was a horrible sound, a tortuous friction in the air. Ange hated her laugh more than anything else about her.
    Oh, how depressing it was: the prospect of two months in close quarters with this woman. Ange withdrew herself into herself as far as she could. She began to wish she had pretended to have religiously meditative duties, like Maurice; but it was too late for that now. Nor could she bring herself to grasp the nettle and actually pick a fight with Ostriker. One blazing row, to be followed by blissful weeks of resentful silence. Ange thought about it, and even tried out possible lines in her mind, but she could never summon the courage actually to pick the fight. And this was despite many moments of provocation from her crewmate.
    —Those people agitating for massive population reduction, Ostriker said, as the three of them drank coffee together (Maurice at the end of his shift, Ostriker at the beginning of hers). They’re so stupid!
    —How so? said Ange.
    —Of
course
they’re idiots! We need
more
people, not less!
    Maurice looked dolefully at Ange, but said nothing.
    —Some might argue, Ange said, with schoolmam severity, that there are already so many people on the planet that the environment is collapsing under the weight.
    —That’s
such
nonsense. Such nonsense! I look at it this way: population is pressure. The greater the population, the greater the pressure.
    Ange responded cautiously: Yes.
    —So we need
more
pressure, that’s what I think. The Earth is like a great champagne bottle; we need
more
pressure, and more, and then we’ll burst the cork and fizz out into the galaxy! I bet that’s how the Cygnics, or whatever they’re called, began their space age. I bet their homeworld, wherever it is, became intolerably crowded, so they just
had
to flee into the cosmos!
    This was the most infuriating thing Ange had heard in a long time, and she reacted to her fury characteristically, by withdrawing even further inside herself. Maurice performed his duties, and then