James Tiptree Jr. - The Only Neat Thing to Do

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THE ONLY

NEAT THING

TO DO

James Tiptree, Jr.

We journey now to the far future and the far

reaches of space, past the boundaries of

exploration to the Great North Rift that lies

between arms of the galaxy. The protagonist is

sixteen-year-old Coati Cass, who wants to become

an explorer and who ventures into that unknown

space. She finds more than her share of adventure.

James Tiptree, Jr.'s most recent novel is

Brightness Falls From the Air.

Heroes of space! Explorers of the starfields!

Reader, here is your problem:

Given one kid, yellow-head, snub-nose-freckles,

green-eyes-that-stare-at-you-level, rich-brat,

girl-type, fifteen-year-old. And all she's dreamed of,

since she was old enough to push a hologram

button, are heroes of the First Contacts, explorers of

far stars, the great names of Humanity's budding

Star Age. She can name you the crew of every

Discovery Mission; she can sketch you a pretty

accurate map of Federation Space and number the

Frontier Bases; she can tell you who first contacted

every one of the fifty-odd races known; and she

knows by heart the last words of Han Lu Han when,

himself no more than sixteen, he ran through alien

flame-weapons to drag his captain and pilot to

safety on Lyrae 91-Beta. She does a little math, too;

it's easy for her. And she haunts the spaceport and

makes friends with everybody who'll talk to her, and

begs rides, and knows the controls of fourteen

models of craft. She's a late bloomer, which means

the nubbins on her little chest could almost pass for

a boy's; and love, great Love, to her is just

something pointless that adults do, despite her

physical instruction. But she can get into her junior

space suit in seventy seconds flat, including safety

hooks.

So you take this girl, this Coati Cass—her full

name is Coatillia Canada Cass, but everyone calls

her Coati—

And you give her a sturdy little space-coupe for

her sixteenth birthday.

Now, here is your problem:

Does she use it to jaunt around the star-crowded

home sector, visiting her classmates and her

family's friends, as her mother expects, and

sometimes showing off by running a vortex beacon

or two, as her father fears?

Does she? Really?

Or—does she head straight for the nearest

ship-fitters and blow most of her credit balance

loading extra fuel tanks and long-range sensors

onto the coupe, fuel it to the nozzles, and

then—before the family's accountant can raise

questions—hightail for the nearest Federation

frontier, which is the Great North Rift beyond

FedBase 900, where you can look right out at

unknown space and stars?

That wasn't much of a problem, was it?

The exec of FedBase 900 watches the yellow head

bobbing down his main view corridor.

"We ought to signal her folks c-skip collect," he

mutters. "I gather they're rich enough to stand it."

"On what basis?" his deputy inquires.

They both watch the little straight-backed figure

marching away. A tall patrol captain passes in the

throng; they see the girl spin to stare at him, not

with womanly appreciation but with the open-eyed

unselfconscious adoration of a kid. Then she turns

back to the dazzling splendor of the view beyond the

port. The end of the Rift is just visible from this side

of the asteroid Base 900 is dug into.

"On the basis that I have a hunch that that infant

is trouble looking for a place to happen," Exec says

mournfully. "On the basis that I don't believe her

story, I guess. Oh, her ident's all in order—I've no

doubt she owns that ship and knows how to run it,

and knows the regs; and it's her right to get cleared

for where she wants to go—by a couple of days. But

I cannot believe her parents consented to her

tooting out here just to take a look at unknown

stars. ... On the basis that if they did, they're

certifiable imbeciles. If she were my daughter—"

His voice trails off. He knows he's overreacting

emotionally; he has no adequate excuse for

signaling her folks. "They must have agreed," his

deputy says soothingly. "Look at those extra fuel

tanks and long-range mechs they gave her."

(Coati hadn't actually lied. She'd told him that

her parents raised no objection to her coming out

here—true, since they'd never dreamed of it—and

added artlessly, "See the extra fuel tanks they put

on my ship so I'll be sure to get home for long trips?

Oh, sir, I'm calling her the CC-One; will that sound

too much like something official?'') Exec closes the

subject with a pessimistic grunt, and they turn back

into his office, where the patrol captain is waiting.

FedBase 900's best depot supply team is long

overdue, and it is time to declare them officially

missing, and initiate and organize a search.

Coati Cass continues on through the surface

sections of the base to the fueling port. She had to

stop here to get clearance and the holocharts of the

frontier area, and she can top off her tanks. If it

weren't for those charts, she might have risked

going straight on out, for fear they'd stop her. But

now that she's cleared, she's enjoying her first

glimpse of a glamorous Far FedBase-—so long as it

doesn't delay her start for her goal, her true goal, so

long dreamed of: free, unexplored space and

unknown, unnamed stars.

Far Bases are glamorous; the Federation had

learned the hard way that they must be pleasant,

sanity-promoting duty. So, the farther out a base is,

and the longer the tours, the more lavishly it is set

up and maintained. Base 900 is built mostly inside

a big, long-orbit, airless rock, yet it has gardens and

pools that would be the envy of a world's richest

citizen. Coati sees displays for the tiny theater

advertising first-run shows and music, all free to

station personnel; and she passes half a dozen

different exotic little places to eat. Inside the rock

the maps show sports and dance shells, spacious

private quarters, and winding corridors, all nicely

planted and decorated, because it has been found

that stress is greatly reduced if there are plenty of

alternate, private routes for people to travel to their

daily duties.

Building a Far Base is a full-scale Federation job.

But it conserves the Federation's one irreplaceable

resource—her people. Here at FedBase 900 the

people are largely Human, since the other four

spacefaring races are concentrated to the

Federation's south and east. This far north, Coati

has glimpsed only one alien couple, both Swain;

their greenish armor is familiar to her from the

spaceport back home. She won't find really exotic

aliens here.

But what, and who, lives out there on the fringes

of the Rift?—not to speak of its unknown farther

shores? Coati pauses to take a last look before she

turns in to Fuels and Supply. From this port she can

really see the Rift, like a strange irregular black

cloud lying along the northern zenith.

The Rift isn't completely lightless, of course. It is

merely an area that holds comparatively few stars.

The scientists regard it as no great mystery; a

standing wave or turbulence in the density-texture,

a stray chunk of the same gradients that create the

galactic arms with their intervening gaps. Many

other such rifts are seen in uninhabited reaches of

the starfield. This one just happens to form a useful

northern border for the irregular globe of

Federation Space.

Explorers have penetrated it here and there,

enough to know that the usual distribution of star

systems appears to begin again on the farther side.

A few probable planetary systems have been spotted

out there; and once or twice what might be alien

transmissions have been picked up at extreme

range. But nothing and no one has come at them

from the far side, and meanwhile the Federation of

Fifty Races, expanding slowly to the south and east,

has enough on its platter without hunting out new

contacts. Thus, the Rift has been left almost

undisturbed. It is the near presence of the Rift that

made it possible for Coati to get to a real frontier so

fast, from her centrally located home star and her

planet of Cayman's Port.

Coati gives it all one last ardent look, and ducks

into the suiting-up corridor, where her small suit

hangs among the real spacers'. From here she issues

onto a deck over the asteroid surface, and finds

CC-One dwarfed by a new neighbor; a big Patrol

cruiser has come in. She makes her routine shell

inspection with disciplined care despite her

excitement, and presently signals for the tug to slide

her over to the fueling stations. Here she will also

get oxy, water, and food—standard rations only.

She's saved enough credit for a good supply if she

avoids all luxuries.

At Fuels she's outside again, personally checking

every tank. The Fuels chief, a big rosy woman whose

high color glows through her faceplate, grins at the

kid's eagerness. A junior fuelsman is doing the

actual work, kidding Coati about her array of

spares.

"You going to cross the Rift?"

"Maybe next trip. . . . Someday for sure," she

grins back.

A news announcement breaks in. It's a pleasant

voice telling them that DRS Number 914 B-K is

officially declared missing, and a Phase One search

will start. All space personnel are to keep watch for

a standard supply tug, easily identifiable by its train

of tanks, last seen in the vicinity of Ace's Landing.

" No, correction, negative on Ace's Landing. Last

depot established was on a planet at seventeen-fifty

north, fifteen-thirty west, RD Eighteen." The voice

repeats. "That's far out in Quadrant Nine B-Z, out

of commo range. They were proceeding to a new

system at thirty-twenty north,

forty-two-twenty-eight west, RD Thirty.

"All ships within possible range of this course will

maintain a listening watch for one minim on the

hour. Anything heard warrants return to Base

range. Meanwhile a recon ship will be dispatched to

follow their route from Ace's Landing."

The announcer repeats all coordinates; Coati,

finding no tablet handy, inscribes the system they're

headed to on the inside of her bare arm with her

stylus.

"If they were beyond commo range, how did they

report?" she asks the Fuels chief.

"By message pipe. Like a teeny-weeny spaceship.

They can make up to three c-skip jumps. When you

work beyond range, you send back a pipe after every

stop. There'll soon be a commo relay set up for that

quadrant, is my guess."

"Depot Resupply 914 B-K," says the fuelsman.

"That's Boney and Ko. The two boys

who—who're—who aren't—I mean, they don't have

all their rivets, right?"

"There's nothing wrong with Boney and Ko!" The

Fuels chiefs flush heightens. "They may not have the

smarts of some people, but the things they do, they

do 100 percent perfect. And one of them—or both,

maybe—has uncanny ability with holocharting. If

you go through the charts of quadrants they've

worked, you'll see how many B-K corrections there

are. That work will save lives! And they haven't a

gram of meanness or pride between them; they do

it all on supply pay, for loyalty to the Fed." She's

running down, glancing at Coati to see if her

message carried. "That's why Exec took them off the

purely routine runs and let them go set up new

depots up north. . . . The Rand twins have the

nearby refill runs now; they can take the boredom

because of their music."

"Sorry," the fuelsman says. "I didn't know. They

never say a word."

"Yeah, they don't talk," the chief grins. "There,

kid, I guess you're about topped up, unless you want

to carry some in your ditty bag. Now, how about the

food?"

When Coati gets back inside Base and goes to

Charts for her final briefing, she sees what the Fuels

chief meant. On all the holocharts that cover the

fringes of 900's sector, feature after feature shows

corrections marked with a tiny glowing "B-K." She

can almost follow the long, looping journeys of the

pair—what was it? Boney and Ko—by the areas of

richer detail in the charts. Dust clouds,

g-anomalies, asteroid swarms, extra primaries in

multiple systems—all modestly B-K's. The basic

charts are composites of the work of early

explorers—somebody called Ponz has scrawled in

twenty or thirty star systems with his big signature

(B-K have corrected six of them), and there's an "L,"

and a lot of "YBCs," and more that Coati can't

decipher. She'd love to know their names and

adventures.

"Who's 'SS'?" she asks Charts.

"Oh, he was a rich old boy, a Last War vet, who

tried to take a shortcut he remembered and jumped

himself out of fuel way out there. He was stuck

about forty-five standard days before anybody could

get to him, and after he calmed down, he and his

pals kept themselves busy with a little charting. Not

bad, too, for a static VP. See how the SS's all center

around this point? That's where he sat. If you go

near there, remember the error is probably on the

radius. But you aren't thinking of heading out that

far, are you, kid?"

"Oh, well," Coati temporizes. She's wondering if

Charts would report her to Exec. "Someday, maybe.

I just like to have the charts to, you know, dream

over."

Chans chuckles sympathetically, and starts

adding up her charges. "Lots of daydreaming you

got here, girl."

"Yeah." To distract him she asks, "Who's 'Ponz'?"

"Before my time. He disappeared somewhere

after messaging that he'd found a real terraform

planet way out that way." Charts points to the

northwest edge, where there's a string of GO-type

stars. "Could be a number of good planets there.

The farthest one out is where the Lost Colony was.

And that you stay strictly away from, by the way, if

you ever get that far. Thirty-five-twelve N—that's

thirty-five minutes twelve seconds

north—thirty-forty west, radial distance—we omit

the degrees; out here they're constants—eighty-nine

degrees north by seventy west— that's from Base

900, they all are—thirty-two Bkm. Some sort of

contagion wiped them out just after I came. We've

posted warning satellites. . . . All right, now you

have to declare your destination. You're entitled to

free charts there; the rest you pay for."

"Where do you recommend? For my first trip?"

"For your first trip ... I recommend you take the

one beacon route we have, up to Ace's Landing.

That's two beacons, three jumps. It's a neat place:

hut, freshwater lake, the works. Nobody lives there,

but we have a rock hound who takes all his long

leaves there, with a couple of pals. You can take out

your scopes and have a spree; everything you're

looking at is unexplored. And it's just about in

commo range if you hit it lucky."

"How can places be out of commo range? I keep

hearing that."

"It's the Rift. Relativistic effects out here where

the density changes. Oh, you can pick up the

frequency, but the noise, the garble factor is

hopeless. Some people claim even electronic gear

acts up as you really get into the Rift itself."

"How much do they charge to stay at the hut?"

"Nothing, if you bring your own chow and bag.

Air and water're perfect."

"I might want to make an excursion farther on to

look at something I've spotted in the scope."

"Green. We'll adjust the chart fee when you get

back. But if you run around, watch out for this

vortex situation here." Charts pokes his stylus into

the holo, north of Ace's Landing. "Nobody's sure yet

whether it's a bunch of little ones or a great big

whopper of a g-pit. And remember, the holos don't

fit together too well—" He edges a second chart into

the first display; several stars are badly doubled.

"Right. And I'll keep my eyes open and run a

listening watch for that lost ship, B-K's."

"You do that. . . ." He tallies up an amount that

has her credit balance scraping bottom. "I sure

hope they turn up soon. It's not like them to go

jazzing off somewhere. . . . Green, here you are."

She tenders her voucher-chip. "It's go," she grins.

"Barely."

Still suited, lugging her pouch of chart cassettes,

Coati takes a last look through the great view-wall

of the main corridor. She has a decision to make.

Two decisions, really, but this one isn't fun—she has

to do something about her parents, and without

giving herself away to anybody who checks commo.

Her parents must be signaling all over home sector

by now. She winces mentally, then has an idea: Her

sister on a planet near Cayman's has married

enough credits to accept any number of collect

'skips, and it would be logical— Yes.

Commo is two doors down.

"You don't need to worry," she tells a lady named

Paula. "My brother-in-law is the planet banker. You

can check him in that great big ephemeris there.

Javelo, Hunter Javelo."

Cautiously, Paula does so. What she finds on

Port-of-Princes reassures her enough to accept this

odd girl's message. Intermittently sucking her

stylus, Coati writes:

"Dearest Sis, Surprise! I'm out at FedBase 900.

It's wonderful. Will look around a bit and head

home stopping by you. Tell folks all O.K., ship goes

like dream and million thanks. Love, Coati."

There! That ought to do it without alerting

anybody. By the time her father messages FedBase

900, if he does, she'll be long gone.

And now, she tells herself, heading out to the

port, now for the big one. Where exactly should she

go?

Well, she can always take Charts' advice and have

a good time on Ace's Landing, scanning the skies

and planning her next trip. She's become just a

little impressed by the hugeness of space and the

chill of the unknown. Suppose she gets caught in an

uncharted gravity vortex? She's been in only one,

and it was small, and a good pilot was flying. (That

was one of the flights she didn't tell her folks about.)

And there's always next time.

On the other hand, she's here now, and all set.

And her folks could raise trouble next time she sets

out. Isn't it better to do all she can while she can do

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THEONLYNEATTHINGTODOJamesTiptree,Jr.Wejourneynowtothefarfutureandthefarreachesofspace,pasttheboundariesofexplorationtotheGreatNorthRiftthatliesbetweenarmsofthegalaxy.Theprotagonistissixteen-year-oldCoatiCass,whowantstobecomeanexplorerandwhoventuresintothatunknownspace.Shefindsmorethanhershareofadven...

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