Last night

While leaving the Bon Voyage Bar in the Unity recreation section, Snow Hart asserted that perfect freedom required unrestrained expression in what made one unique. This was in defiance to all limits made upon the individual- from society, to ideals, to reality itself. In fact, to insist that an individual had to embrace some sort of objective state- another imagined spook, if there ever was one- was to simply chain oneself, dreadfully, to so-called reality.

It was not the first time the sore subject had been broached between the two. Hart, of course, was inebriated, and not only from cocktails. Weismuller, of course, was not, though not from her lack of trying. And he was gladdened not to be, for the jazz piano in the lounge tinkled so merrily, trippingly- a ten-time Grammy winner was at its keys. No substance in the world must detract from that pure sensation, he resolved; his mind and soul must keep afresh.

Noticing his distraction, and as if from reading his thoughts, Hart had seized the opportunity to tease him of his abstinence, asking if his philosophy truly required soda water and bitters on a night out. Perfect objectivity at all moments, with not a laugh to spare? No time to act the fool and cut loose? No way to blow off some steam?

Weismuller smiled back, gritting slightly at the edges as he kept her from stumbling over herself, another needless night of indignity for the both of them.

Was it so bad, he rejoined, to have a proper code of values?

Hart belched without any pretense of modesty, learning against the corridor. Her back slid down the wall and she drew to a crouch, finally sitting on the ground. Outside, some dwarf planet floated by, an oversized moon, really- its face covered in craters, its hue grey and sickly. Weismuller sighed inwardly, thinking of Uranus. His brief reverie into short-term nostalgia was snapped out by her slurring from the floor.

If all a personal code did was to keep one from pursuing self-interest to the max, then why bother? Why the ascetic values?

This time his grin came easily, no grimace. Because then one could be dreadfully distinct.

Now

It had been in the midst of one of his flights away from Snow and the gaggle of sycophants she called a Society. The high noon mess hall was in another one of its little holy wars as the Stirnerite anarchists got into a debating fest with rival socialists of some tendency or another. Supposedly members of the security team had gotten involved, barrelling in while screeching about the need for all to come together under a pragmatically enlightened, organic state, or maybe it was for a might-makes-right setup where all had to be ready to fight. Maybe someone had shouted something about international realism.

Weismuller hadn't bothered to stick around to hear the full story, heading as far as he could away from the ideological fracas. This wasn't simply for the sake of peace and quiet. Though he had endeavored to assist Hart the night before, the half-drunk discussion had turned into a more serious debate of the passions that went unresolved. No doubt the goons for Free Thought were looking to drag Weismuller back to their liege- no self-awareness, this lot- so she could have him as an encore after vanquishing the authoritarians. He had had enough talk of moral philosophy!

So when several off-white uniformed colonists in tattered sleeves and hygienic masks had entered the corridor opposite, Weismuller decided against the risk, ducking through a nearby door. It turned out to be one of the somber reading rooms that the U.N. had dotted across the ship- shelves of paper books and rows of records in microfiche, several beige terminals and even a projection sheet pulled down. Only one inhabitant sat at the uncomfortable tables some middle school library back on Earth must have been sorely missing.

This was no colonist, which gave Weismuller a moment of relief before he remembered the talk of security officers getting involved. But this man wore a uniform lined with the sea-green trim of a ship's scientist.

Now driven more by puzzled, piqued curiosity than a desire to blend in to hide from the anarchists, the investor sat down across from the scientist. A stocky academic, his dirty blonde hair slightly overgrown over resolution, the Unity uniform collar opened at the front, revealing a candy-striped picotee blue bowtie over a gridded dress shirt underneath. Though appearing scarcely older than the investor, he looked like the type to dress in tweed.

Weismuller cleared his throat and asked what he was reading.

The sea-green had been muttering under his breath while scribbling doctor's notes when the question snapped him out of the revelry. He stared up at the investor, as if amazed by his sudden appearance. In the non-rhotic tones of the Old South, perhaps Tidewater, he drawled: "A book on Earth."

Weismuller frowned, nearly shaking his head at the unhelpfulness, and asked for more specificity.

The absent-minded professor had already gone back to his perusing and scrawling illegible text. Sighing at the second interruption, but possessing just enough foresight to preempt further interruption, he flipped the book up with an irritated expression, cover facing Weismuller. The People's Guide to Educating Common Wisdom. Instead of a single author, it listed a paragraph's worth of academics.

Here, Weismuller cocked his head, and asked what he was getting out of it.

"Oh…" gone now was the annoyance, replaced by a returned bewilderment. "Has it ever occurred to you," he hazarded, "that the whole history of American education had been determined by the lack of centralization?"

No, that particular thought had never occurred to Weismuller. Nor, in the circumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting.

Changing the subject, he introduced himself, extending his hand. Looking at it quizzically for a beat, the scientist returned the gesture. "I'm Adam Gieseler."

Later

The conversation had picked up, over time. Turned out the Virginian was not strictly a member of the ship's scientific corps, but was rather a technical librarian working under the self-proclaimed visionary Chief Librarian Élodie. Despite being a scholar of some note back in the eastern United States, having written several histories on the developing sociocultural crises of the late stage Earth, he had found himself sidelined like so many others working for the Unity curator. Gieseler wanted to plumb history to reexamine it to build a better world, not celebrate it under censored, slanted, conditions.

At least, that's what Weismuller had gathered. The wooly-eggheaded sociologist had a tendency to drift up into strange tangents that only he possessed a map of, and often not. Yet, as the candles burned into the night, and he rode out the brewing arguments and rhetorical debates that spilled forth in the corridors outside- he had discovered a growing respect for the academic who seeked to share the treasures of the ivory tower with the world. Gieseler, unlike so many other thought leaders of the mission, did not believe he alone had the keys to the future. Instead, the academic believed that a lack of education and wisdom was precisely what had doomed the Earth.

While the Unity investor's own interest in science and technology had always been concerned about the potential for prosperity, he began to see where their general attitude overlapped. Gieseler believed that preserving the knowledge of the past for all was how you built a better society. Weismuller believed that ensuring the freedom for all under the basic rule of law would unleash the productive forces of society- and with proper investment in useful science, a high degree of common wealth could be unlocked.

Despite the differences in their philosophies, the two struck up a friendship during the waning weeks of the Starship Titanic period. Weismuller found the academic a welcome break from all of the proselytizers who had soured the mood of the mission. He was tired of ideologues advancing utopias before they had even left the Solar System.

And Gieseler was gladdened to find someone who was receptive to his social theories. So many on the ship was so enamored with the idea of starting anew, that they were willing to throw away all of the experiences of humanity's history before. He saw himself as the lone teacher against that tide, and Weismuller as his first pupil. Indeed, the investor who had been so fervently in favor of a minimalist minarchy began to see the wisdom of having the state take upon some responsibility in educating its youth, even if he believed that private entities should ultimately take the biggest roles.

These public discussions between the two did not escape the attention of others. Snow Hart had teased Weismuller about the pair's shared walks about the promenade. She had even approached Gieseler at times, asking the nutty professor where was the wisdom the ancients had so hoarded, if humanity still ended up fleeing the planet. She told them that his nostalgia was endearing, and asked if she could borrow his rose-colored spectacles.

And to Weismuller she feigned jealousy, though that seemed half-hearted. Her growing Society loomed ever-more present, as she led impromptu salons in observation rooms and even once took over the ship's cinema during a screening of Born in Flames. Thus Hart had even less time to pester Weismuller, much to his relief- but also a twinge of disappointment.

Eventually, the intellectual debates among the privileged passengers who remained awake, died down. The UNS Unity was heading for the range of the dwarf planet Eris, and it was time for all to go back asleep. Weismuller went to his cryocell satisfied, if slightly perturbed, by the excitement that had raged aboard. But he chalked up to cabin fever, a mild case of space madness, of the thousands getting to roam while the ship sailed through nothing. He looked to recoup well on his investment once they arrived in Alpha Centauri. Weismuller awaited the wealth to come.

Notes

My description of the Unity crew uniform is inspired by the "Journey to Centauri" portraits by Feivelyn of DeviantArt.