With the bulk of the lander left on Roche, it was an easy job for Thomas and Red to slide the ascent module in between the shrouds on Prometheus and attach it again to the docking port above the hydroponics deck. George opened the port and peered down. There was a stern, round black face peering back up at him.
"That's the last time I give you an airplane to play with," said Jinjur. "You're too rough on your toys. Just for that you'll have to stay home next time."
George grinned and jumped down to the hydroponics deck, where he was immediately grabbed around the waist in a bear hug. Jinjur didn't say anything else, but as George returned her hug, he could fell the front of his shirt getting wet. Soon the corridor was crowded with other bodies, as the crews combined into one large happy family again.
After a joyous dinner featuring some of the more special treats from Nels Larson's gardens and tissue cultures, George and Jinjur sat together on the control deck to make plans for the next phase of the mission.
"I know we have only three landers left, and more than three moons around Gargantua to study," said George. "But it's vitally important that we go back to Rocheworld. Those aliens are so far ahead of us in mathematics that we need to set up permanent communication with them."
"But what good is pure mathematics?" said Jinjur.
"It is the key to physics and technology," said George. "At first glance, it would seem that advanced mathematics is just a barren exercise in pure logic and should have no relationship at all to the real world. In fact, our mathematicians go out of their way to design the logic of mathematics so that it isn't contaminated by any rules based on human 'common sense.' But, for some reason, the behavior of the real world follows the logic of mathematics and no other logic. If we have a mathematical tool and can calculate something using it, we are sure nature will behave the way the mathematics predicts. But we don't have enough of those mathematical tools, and we know it.
"Astronomers can't calculate the exact motions of more than two gravitating bodies except under special conditions. Aerodynamicists can't calculate the exact flow of air over anything but very simple wing shapes. Weather forecasters can't predict more than a few days ahead. Atomic scientists can't exactly calculate anything more complicated than a hydrogen atom.
"The human race needs that math, and the beauty about math is that unlike being given the secrets to advanced technology, being given advanced mathematics will not stifle the technological creativity of the human race, since we will have to figure out how to apply the mathematics."
"OK," said Jinjur. "But how are we going to get the information out of them? This crew may be pretty smart, but none of us are theoretical mathematicians. We may be able to understand some of the simpler stuff, but after the second or third infinity I know I would be lost."
"What we should do is set up an interstellar laser communicator in the Hawaiian Islands on the Eau lobe where their older thinkers stay," said George. "That way the long-lived flouwen could communicate their advanced mathematical knowledge directly back to Earth—even long after you and I and the rest of the crew have fluttered out the last of our Mayflylike lives."
"You're getting poetic, George," said Jinjur. "I never knew you had it in you."
George looked pensive for a long moment, eyes staring past her out the control room window. "Reaching terminal velocity at ten kilometers up with no parachute makes a person think a little more about the fundamentals—like living and dying," he said soberly. Jinjur leaned over from her seat and squeezed both of this hands.
"I don't know what I would have done if I had lost you," she said softly, tears rising once again in her eyes.
George grinned, squeezed her hands back, and rose from his seat.
"I'd better go talk to Carmen and Shirley to see what we can put together that the flouwen can use. The laser should be in a well-sheltered place on land with a reactor that will keep it going for a few decades until the follow-on expedition gets here. But the operating console will have to be underwater."
"Now, just a minute there, George," said Jinjur sternly, getting up from the seat in front of the commander's console and reassuming her command voice and command posture. She motioned for him to take her seat. George stopped, puzzled.
"Remember what they told you in officer's training? 'The program isn't complete until the documentation is done.' You just finished an important and exciting mission, and there are a few billion people back on Earth that are waiting to hear what happened. You've got a report to write."
"Aw, Jinjur, that'll wait," George said. "I've got to get the work started on the communicator."
"Nope," said Jinjur, pulling him over and pushing him down until the sticky patch on his coveralls stuck onto the seat. "You stay here and cram words into the console. I'll go find Carmen and Shirley and start planning the next landing."
She continued to talk as she bounced away in the low gravity. "This next mission will need more biologists and fewer geologists, so I'll definitely want to take William along..."
George rotated around in the still-warm seat and stared glumly at the waiting blank screen on the console. As Jinjur reached the lift shaft she turned for a last word.
"If you hurry, they will get your report just after New Year's Day in 2076. That should get the Tricentennial Celebration off to a good start."