Free The Voices of Heaven by Frederik Pohl Page A

their whole plan up somewhere between the time they heard that there was talk about terminating the colony—that would have been as soon as they got within two-way radio range of Earth—and when they appeared before the Budget Congress. Maybe not, though. It could have been after that. There's no way of knowing exactly.
    I didn't see Tscharka again until the actual loading, at least not in person. He did show up on the vidscreen once. Alma and I switched on the screen just before going to sleep. No particular reason; just to see what was on. What was on was Tscharka and his whole group of new colonists being interviewed about their imminent departure. Some of them were looking dedicated, some happy; and there at the end of one row was old Rannulf. Looking, I thought, mostly disgruntled. I didn't say anything. Alma didn't say anything either, though I thought I heard her sigh. And when a different news story came on we turned it off and went to sleep.
    We were both busy then, dealing with Tscharka's hundred pods of stored antimatter, and the sixteen additional pods he needed to run his ship as they were filled and launched. It was about as big an order as any in my experience. Handling that kind of operation takes a lot of work. As soon as each pod was filled it was shot right up into parking orbit, where one of the permanently orbiting catchers collected it.
    That's the most dangerous part of the whole procedure, but this time we had no problems. The fuelmasters on the catchers were first-class, and I was supervising the surface-to-orbit launches myself. It went without incident. Then, once all the requisitioned pods were on the catcher, it was time for me to get down to my real job, and so I took a shuttle up to Corsair .
     
    "You," said the young woman who greeted me at the ship's lock, "are Barry di Hoa, and you're welcome here."
    I said, "Thanks, and you're—?"
    "Jillen Iglesias," she reminded me. "Copilot."
    "Nice to see you again," I said, remembering as she shook my hand warmly that I'd met her before. I was a little startled. I hadn't expected such a warm welcome on Captain Tscharka's Corsair , but then Tscharka himself wasn't there. He was asleep in his quarters, Jillen said, catching up on his rest so he'd be fresh and alert for the fueling itself, and so she would be the one to accompany me on my final inspection.
    She stuck as close to me as Tscharka ever had as I made my rounds, too. The difference was that with her I didn't mind it. She was helpful rather than interfering. As we poked through the fuel and cargo compartments one more time she answered all my questions, and when I didn't have any questions to ask she kept her mouth shut.
    Everything was spic-and-span. The fuel-storage sections were ready for their pods and the cargo was loaded. The most important cargo was information—recordings of all the latest songs and plays and comedians; manufacturing programs for new machines and instruments and electronic devices; a ten-year supply of journals in all the arts and sciences. None of that took up much space, but there were also bulkier items, starting with the food and supplies to get Corsair 's crew through their time-dilated, but still long, voyage to Delta Pavonis. For the colony itself there were ingots of scarce metals, seeds, frozen ova and sperm and, I guess, hundreds of other personal items that were none of my concern. And there were the freezer-sleep capsules, open and waiting for the colonists who would soon be filling them—including, I thought with pleasure, Rannulf Enderman.
    When I had signed off I paused to look at Jillen Iglesias. "You're going back to Pava, then," I said.
    "Yes, of course," she said, surprised, as though that were the most normal thing in the world. It wasn't. Most interstellar crews won't do more than a single voyage, because they get too disoriented.
    "Won't you miss your friends?" I asked.
    "But my friends are right here," she told me. "On this ship, and, yes, a few