World without Stars Read Online Free Page A

Here the boy encountered a big, gusty, tough but good-natured
     man who’d been everywhere and done everything—and was close to three thousand years old, could speak of nations on Manhome
     that are like myth to the restof us, had shipped with none less than Janosek—and to top the deal off, was the kind of balladeer that Smeth only dreamed
     of being. Valland took the situation well, refrained from exploiting or patronizing, and managed to slip him bits of sound
     advice.
    Then came the Captain’s Brawl. In twenty-four hours we would be making the jump. You can’t help feeling a certain tension.
     The custom is good, that the crew have a final blast where almost anything goes.
    We ate a gourmet dinner, and made the traditional toasts, and settled down to serious drinking. After a while the saloon roared.
     Alen Galmer, Chu Bren, Gait Urduga, and, yes, Yo Rorn crouched over a flying pair of dice in one corner. The rest of us stamped
     out a hooraw dance on the deck, Valland giving us the measure with ringing omnisonor and bawdy words, until the sweat rivered
     across our skins and even that mummy-ancient line, “Why the deuce aren’t you a beautiful woman?” became funny once more.
“—
So let’s hope other ladies
    Are just as kind as Alixy
,
    For, spaceman, it’s your duty
    To populate the galaxy!
”
    “Yow-ee!” we shouted, grabbed for our glasses, drank deep and breathed hard.
    Smeth flung himself onto the same bench as Valland. “Never heard that song before,” he panted.
    “You will,” Valland drawled. “An oldtimer.” He paused. “To tell the truth, I made it up myself, ’bout five hundred years back.”
    “I never knew that,” I said. “I believe you, though.”
    “Sure.” Smeth attempted a worldly grin. “With the experience you must’ve had in those lines by now. Eh, Hugh?”
    “Uh … well—” The humor departed from Valland. He emptied his goblet with a sudden, almost violent gesture.
    Smeth was in a lickerish mood. “Womanizing memories, that’s the kind you never edit out,” he said.
    Valland got up and poured himself a refill.
    I recalled that episode at Lute’s, and decided I’d better divert the lad from my gunner. “As a matter of fact,” I said, “those
     are among the most dispensable ones you’ll have.”
    “You’re joking!” Smeth protested.
    “I am not,” I said. “The really fine times, the girls you’ve really cared for, yes, of course you’ll keep those. But after
     a thousand casual romps, the thousand and first is nothing special.”
    “How about that, Hugh?” Smeth called. “You’re the oldest man aboard. Maybe the oldest man alive. What do you say?”
    Valland shrugged and returned to us. “The skipper’s right,” he answered shortly. He sat down and stared at what we couldn’t
     see.
    I had to talk lest there be trouble, and wasn’t able to think of anything but banalities. “Look, Enver,” I told Smeth, “it
     isn’t possible to carry around every experience you’ll accumulate in, oh, just a century or two. You’d swamp in the mass of
     data. It’d be the kind of insanity that there’s no cure for. So, every once in a while, you go under the machine, and concentrate
     on the blocs of memory you’ve decided you can do without, and those particular RNA molecules are neutralized. But if you aren’t
     careful, you’ll make big, personality-destroying gaps. You have to preserve the overall pattern of your past, and the important
     details. At the same time, you have to be ruthless with some things, or you can saddle yourself with the damnedest complexes.
     So you do
not
keep trivia. And you do not overemphasize any one type of experience, idea, or what have you. Understand?”
    “Maybe,” Smeth grumbled. “I think I’ll go join the dice game.”
    Valland continued to sit by himself, drinking hard. I wondered about him. Being a little tired and muzzy, I stayed on the
     same bench. Abruptly he shook his big frame, leaned over