Variable Star

For the astronomical object, see Variable star.

Variable Star is a 2006 novel written by Spider Robinson based on the surviving seven pages of an eight-page 1955 novel outline by the late Robert A. Heinlein. The book is set in a divergent offshoot of Heinlein's Future History and contains many references to works by Heinlein and other authors. It describes the coming of age of a young musician who signs on to the crew of a starship as a way of escaping from a failed romance.

From Heinlein to Robinson

Robinson states in an appendix to the book that he was working from an outline that lacked an ending. He was told by his publisher that they wanted him to write in his own style, not Heinlein's, and the abundance of profanity and puns makes it clear that this is not a Heinlein novel. The outline is almost exactly contemporaneous with Heinlein's juvenile novel Time for the Stars, and shares many of its details, such as the use of faster-than-light telepathic communication between twins. Although Heinlein apparently wrote the outline for Variable Star to be used, like Time for the Stars, as part of his Scribner's juvenile series, Robinson's realization deals with a variety of topics, including drugs and sexuality, that would have been completely unacceptable for a juvenile novel in 1955.

Plot

Eighteen-year-old aspiring musician and composer Joel Johnston, a colonial from Ganymede on Earth for his education, falls in love with Jinny Hamilton, another student about his age. Both are orphans, and virtually penniless — though his father was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and his mother a renowned composer.

When Jinny decides their relationship is ready for marriage, she reveals that she is actually a granddaughter of humanity's richest man, Richard Conrad. Joel learns that Conrad has already mapped out his future; he is to be groomed for a role in the family business and to produce children to continue the dynasty. Preferring to pursue his own destiny, he leaves the secluded Conrad estate with the help of a chance acquaintance, Jinny's cousin, seven-year old Evelyn Conrad.

He promptly goes on a massive binge, during which he tries to join the crew of the RSS Charles Sheffield, a starship headed to a distant star on a twenty-year (subjective time) voyage to establish a colony. He is rejected for being too drunk to know what he is doing. When he sobers up and learns that the scholarship he had been counting on has suspiciously fallen through, he applies again. This time, he is accepted, in part because he has actual dirt-farm experience, something exceedingly rare on Earth. Jinny makes a desperate last-ditch effort to change his mind, but fails.

Like many other crew members, Joel has to make major emotional adjustments. He ends up seeing a psychiatrist, who helps him gain some insight into his problems. Joel works on two agricultural decks with Zog, a Marsman, and Kathy. Joel is still getting over Jinny, but eventually goes on a date with Kathy, whom everyone seems to regard as the ideal match for him. She, however, has recently gotten engaged to be in a plural marriage. He proceeds to date a number of women, but with the exception of a brief, non-mutual infatuation with the woman to whom he loses his virginity, none of them are serious.

He plays his music, mainly on the saxophone, and proves good enough to be well paid. He eventually records an album, which becomes a best-seller on Earth. Later, he is advised that a seemingly worthless inheritance, shares in a starship presumed lost, has made him quite wealthy.

Six "relativists" are essential to the voyage, controlling the ship's quantum ramjet drive with their minds. The drive has to run continuously; at relativistic speeds, it is nearly impossible to restart it, and then only for a short period after it has stopped. Each relativist can only stand the strain reliably for six hours a day. Five years into the voyage, one is killed and another mentally incapacitated, leaving only four and no margin for error.

The next year, the ship learns through its telepaths that the Sun has gone nova, killing everyone in the solar system. A wavefront of deadly gamma radiation is expanding at lightspeed, threatening the colonies that are all that is left of humanity. The crew is only able to warn one in time; the rest are doomed. The Sun going nova is contrary to all astrophysical theories, and because over 90% of the sun's mass was converted into energy, it is hypothesized that it was an attack by an alien species.

Unable to bear the catastrophe, one of the relativists commits suicide. The three remaining try valiantly, but the drive shuts down in less than two weeks. The ship will not be able to stop; it will coast on by its destination at 97.6% of the speed of light.

However, the ship is overtaken by a faster-than-light vessel. It seems that Jinny married a genius scientist who has developed a revolutionary drive. Unfortunately, there was only the one experimental ship, capable of carrying ten people; aboard are several Conrads, including the domineering Richard, Jinny, her husband, and Evelyn, who has aged faster than Joel because of time dilation. She is now nineteen, and explains that she bullied her grandfather into coming to get him.

Conrad proposes an evacuation plan, shuttling people to their destination planet nine people at a time. However, Joel realizes that Conrad is lying; he only contacted them in order to get badly needed supplies and has no intention of returning. He needs to establish control of the colonies and cannot spare the time. In the confrontation with those loyal to Conrad, several people are killed, but the plutocrat is overthrown and imprisoned. The faster-than-light engine is transferred to the Sheffield, allowing the ship to complete its journey.

Joel and Evelyn marry, then join the mission to warn the other colonies of the coming radiation wave. Joel decides to stay in space with his wife and child, rather than becoming planet-bound.