Wilding nodded. "If she wants to go along, I'll take her. I can't promise any more than that. Can I trust you, Tiny?"
The Amazon smiled grimly. "You can—now. Some of us can't go, I know that. Even if your plans work out, there won't be room for all. For me it doesn't matter too much. Sure, I'd like to get drunk once more on good stuff. I'd like to walk crowded streets and push people off the sidewalks. But that doesn't count, really."
Wilding smiled, then sobered. "None of us are going back to that kind of life, Tiny. Sure, we could mix for a while and get away with it. Some might disappear for good. But we haven't changed. We're the same people, and under the same conditions, we'd just go wrong again and end in the same pot. I want something else. I want conditions so different that we can't go on being the same warped and misfit people. We're heading out, away from the solar system. I want a brand new, uninhabited planet to colonize. A world so new and different that we'll all have to change to survive. My plan is to give all of us a fresh start."
"You have more faith in people than I do. They won't change."
"They'll have to ... or die."
Tiny whistled and swallowed hard. "It sounds wonderful and a little crazy, too. Where do you expect to find such a planet?"
Wilding answered slowly. "I don't know. It's a calculated risk. I was a successful criminal, Tiny. I made a lot of money in plunder, and most of it I used to buy and equip a spaceship. It's the biggest and best ever made, and it has a new kind of drive not released yet. That ship can reach the nearer stars in weeks, rather than years. The ship is hidden among the asteroids. That's the reason I'm in such a nightmare hurry. Right now, the asteroids are within cruising range; later on, the supply ship would never reach that orbit."
"Do you know that the nearer stars have such planets? Even if they have planets at all?"
"Nobody knows. But I'm gambling on it. I needed a tough crew, and women used to hardships for colonists. There's a big gamble to start, then the rest is savage battle for survival—even if we're lucky. I knew I'd be caught and sent here eventually, so I gambled on that, too. Now I'll have my crew, and—"
"Counting me, there are twenty-nine women. All but Amyth and five others like her who were born here are pretty hard cases. I'm too old for childbearing, Wilding, so you can say twenty-eight. If you're restricting your colonists to useful citizens...."