Starborne

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Sixteen light-years from Earth today, in the fifth month of the voyage, and the silken force of nospace acceleration continues to drive the starship’s velocity ever higher. Three games of Go are in progress in the Wotan’s lounge. The year-captain stands at the entrance to the brightly lit room, casually watching the players: Roy and Sylvia, Leon and Chang, Heinz and Elliot.

Go has been a craze aboard ship for weeks. The players — some eighteen or twenty members of the expedition have caught the addiction by this time, more than a third of the entire complement — sit hour after hour, contemplating strategies, devising variations, grasping the smooth black or white stones between forefinger and second finger, putting the stones down against the wooden board with the proper smart sharp clacking sound. The year-captain himself does not play, though the game once interested him to the point of obsession, long ago, in what was almost another life; his shipboard responsibilities require so intense an exercise of his energies that he can find little amusement in simulated territorial conquest. But he comes here sometimes to watch, remaining five or ten minutes, then going on about his duties.

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