And doing it the other way | wouldn't work, there isn't enough mass in a lander | to get you free. I see old Bob isn't enjoying this | discussion, so let's move on to planetary types | and dust clouds. Gateway was like a gentlemen's club in which you never knew what members were in town. Louise Forehand was gone; her husband, Sess, was patiently holding the fort, waiting for her or their remaining daughter to return before shipping out again himself. He helped me move back into my room, which had been temporarily occupied by three Hungarian women until they had shipped out together in a Three. Moving took no great effort; I didn't own anything anymore, except what I had just bought in the commissary. The only permanent feature was Shicky Bakin, unfailingly friendly and always there. I asked him if he had heard from Klara. He had not. "Go out again, Rob," he urged. "it is the only thing to do." "Yeah." I did not want to argue it; he was incontestably right. Maybe I would.... I said, "I wish I weren't a coward, Shicky, but I am. I just don't know how I can make myself get into a ship again. I don't have the courage to face a hundred days of fearing death every minute." He chuckled, and hopped off the chest of drawers to pat my shoulder. "You don't need so much courage," he said, flapping back to the chest. "You only need courage for one day: just to get in the ship and go. Then you don't have to have courage anymore, because you don't anymore have a choice." "I think I could have done it," I said, "if Metchnikov's theories about the color codes had been right. But some of the 'safe' ones are dead." "It was only a statistical matter, Rob. It is true that there is a better safety record now, and a better success record, too. Only marginal, yes. But better." "The ones that died are just as dead," I said. "Still-perhaps I'll talk to Dane again." Shicky looked surprised. "He's out." "When?" "Around when you left. I thought you knew." I had forgotten. "Wonder if he found the soft touch he was looking for." Shicky scratched his chin with his shoulder, keeping himself balanced with lazy wing strokes. Then he hopped off the chest and fluttered over to the piezophone. "Let's see," he said, punched buttons. The locator board jumped into view on the screen. "Launch 88-173," he read. "Bonus, $150,000. That's not much, is it?" "I thought he was going for something bigger." "Well," said Shicky, reading, "he didn't get it. Says he came back last night." Since Metchnikov had halfway promised to share his apt with me, it made sense for me to talk to him; but I wasn't so sensible. I got as far as checking out that he had returned with a find and with nothing to show for his efforts but the bonus; didn't go to see him. I didn't do much of anything, in fact. I hung around. Gateway is not the most amenity-filled place to live in the universe, but I found things to do. It beat the food mines. Each passing hour brought me an hour closer to the time when the tech's report would arrive, but I managed not to think about that most of the time. I nursed drinks in the Blue Hell, making friends with the tourists, the visiting cruiser crews, the returnees, the fish that kept coming up from the sweltering planets, looking I guess, for another Klara. None showed up. I read over the letters I had written her on the trip back from Gateway Two, and then I tore them up. Instead I wrote a silly short note to apologize and tell her that I loved her and took it down to radio it off to her on Venus. But she wasn't there. I'd forgotten how long the slow Hohmann orbits took. The flight office identified the ship she had left on easily enough; it was a right-angle orbiter, which spent its whole life changing delta to rendezvous with plane-of-the-ecliptic flights between the planets. According to the records, her ship had made a rendezvous with a Mars-bound freighter, and then a Venus-bound high-G liner; she had presumably transferred to one of them, but didn't know which, and neither one of them would reach its destination for a month or more yet. I sent duplicate copies to each ship, but there wasn't any answer. The closest I came to a new girlfriend was a Gunner Third from the Brazilian cruiser. Francy Hereira brought her around. "This is Susie, my cousin," he said, introducing us; and then, privately, later,"You should know, Rob, that I do not have family feelings about cousins." All the crews got shore leave on Gateway from time to time, and while, as I have said, Gateway wasn't Waikiki or Cannes, it beat the bare bones of a combat vessel. Susie Hereira was very young. She said she was nineteen and was supposed to be at least seventeen to be in the Brazilian Navy at all, but she didn't look it. She did not speak much English, but we did not need much language in common to drink at the Blue Hell; and whe went to bed we discovered that although we had very little conversation in a verbal sense we communicated beautifully with bodies. | Classifieds. | | AREN'T THERE any English-speaking nonsmokers | on Gateway to fill out our crew? Maybe you want to | shorten your life (and our life-support reserves!) | but we two don't. 88-775. | | WE DEMAND prospector representation on Gateway | Corporation Board! Mass meeting tomorrow 1300 | Level Babe. Everyone welcome! | | SELECT FLIGHTS tested, whole-person way from | your dreams. 32-page sealed book tells how, ~10. | Consultations, $25. 88-139. But Susie was only there one day a week, and that left a deal of time which needed destroying. I tried everything: a reinforcement group, group-hugging, working out loves and hostilities on each other. Old Hegrai lecture series on the Heechee. A program of talks on astrophysics with a slant toward earning science bonuses from the Corporation. By careful budgeting of my time I managed to use it all up, decision was postponed day by day. I do not want to give the impression that destroying time was a conscious plan in my mind; I was living from day to day, and day was full. On a Thursday Susie and Francy Hereira would check in, and the three of us might have lunch at the Blue Hell. Then Francy would go off to roam by himself, or pick up a girl to take a swim in Lake Superior, while Susie and I would retire to my room and my dope sticks to swim on those warmer waters of a bed. After dinner, some sort of entertainment. Thursday was the night the astrophysics lectures took place, and we would hear all about the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, or red giants and blue dwarfs or neutron stars, or black holes. The professor was a fat old grabber from some jerkwater college near Smolensk, but through the dirty jokes there was poetry and beauty in what he talked about. He dwelt on the old stars that gave birth to us, spitting silicates and magnesium carbonate into space to form planets, hydrocarbons to form ourselves. He talked about the neutron stars that bent the gravity well around them; we knew them, because two launches had killed themselves, sheared rubble, by entering normal space too close to one of those highly dense dwarfs. He told us about the black holes that were places where a dense star had been, now detectable only by the observable fact that they swallowed everything nearby, even light; they had not merely bent the gravity well, they had wrapped it around themselves like a blanket. He described stars as thin as air, immense clouds of glowing gas; told us about the prestars of the Orion Nebula, just now blossoming into loose knots of warm gas that might in a million years be suns. His lectures were very popular; even old hands like Shicky and Dane Metchnikov showed up. While I listened to the professor I could feel the wonder and beauty of space. It was too immense and glorious to be frightening, and it was not until later that I would relate those sinks of radiation and swamps of thin gas to me, to the frail, frightened, pain-sensitive creation that was the body I inhabited. And then I would think about going out among those remote titans and my soul curled up inside me. After one of those meetings I said good-bye to Susie and Francy and sat in an alcove near the lecture room, half hidden by the ivy, and despondently smoked a joint. Shicky found me there, and halted just in front of me, supporting himself on his wings. "I was looking for you, Rob," he said, and stopped. The grass was just beginning to hit me. "Interesting lecture," I said absently, reaching for the good feeling that I wanted from the joint and not really very interested in whether Shicky was there or not. "You missed the most interesting part," said Shicky. It occurred to me that he was looking both fearful and hopeful; there was something on his mind. I took another hit, and offered him the joint; he shook his head. "Rob," he said, "I think there is something worth having coming up." "Really?" "Yes, really, Rob! Something quite good. And soon." I was not ready for this. I wanted to go on smoking my joint until the temporary thrill of the lecture had worn off, so that I could go back to destroying the days. The last thing I wanted was to hear about some new mission that my guilt would make me want to sign on for, and my fear would abort. Shicky caught the shelf of ivy and held himself up by it, looking at me curiously. "Rob-friend," he said, "if I can find something out for you will you help me?" "Help you how?" | Dearest Father, Mother, Marisa and Pico | | Hello, | Please tell Susie's father that she is very | well and is regarded with favor by her officers. | You can decide for yourselves whether to tell him | that she has been seeing much of my friend Rob | Broadhead. He is a good man and a serious one, but | he is not a fortunate one. Susie has applied for | leave to go on a mission, and if the captain | grants it she speaks of going with Broadhead. We | all speak of going but, as you know, we do not all | do it, so perhaps it is not to be worried about. | This must be very short; it is almost docking | time, and I have a 48 for Gateway. | | With all love, | Francescito "Take me with you!" he cried. "I can do everything but go in the lander. And this mission, I think, is one where it does not so much matter. There is a bonus for everyone, even for someone who must remain in orbit." "What are you talking about?" The grass was hitting me now; I could feel the warmth behind my knees and the gentle blur all around me. "Metchnikov was talking to the lecturer," Shicky said. "I think from what he said that he knows of a new mission. Only-they spoke in Russian, and I did not understand very well. But it is the one he has been waiting for." I said reasonably, "The last one he went out on wasn't much, was it?" "This is different!" "I don't think he would really cut me in on anything good-" "Certainly not, if you don't ask." "Oh, hell," I grumbled. "All right. I'll talk to him." Shicky beamed. "And then, Rob, please-take me with you?" I stubbed out the joint, less than half smoked; I felt as though I wanted what was left of my wits about me. "I'll do what I can," I said, and headed back for the lecture room just as Metchnikov was coming out. We had not spoken since he had returned. He looked as solid and broad as ever, and his fringe of chin whiskers was neatly trimmed. "Hello, Broadhead," he said suspiciously. I didn't waste words. "I hear you've got something good coming up. Can I go along?" He didn't waste words, either. "No." He looked at me with frank dislike. Partly that was what I had expected from him all along, but I was pretty sure part of it was because he had heard about me and Klara. "You are going out," I persisted. "What is it, a One?" He stroked his whiskers. "No," he said reluctantly, "it isn't a One. It's two Fives." "Two Fives?" He stared at me suspiciously for a moment, and then almost grinned; I did not like him when he smiled, it was always a question in my mind what he was smiling about. "All right," he said. "You want in, you can have it, for all of me. It's not up to me, of course. You'll have to ask Emma; she's doing a briefing tomorrow morning. But she might let you go a science mission, with a minimum million-dollar bonus. You're involved." "I'm involved?" That was something out of an unexpected rection! "Involved how?" "Ask Emma," he said, and brushed past me. There were about a dozen prospectors in the briefing room, most of whom I knew: Sess Forehand, Shicky, Metchnikov, a few others I'd drunk with or gone to bed with, one time or another. Emma wasn't there yet, and I managed to intercept her as she was coming in. "I want to go out on this mission," I said. She looked startled. "You do? I thought-" But she stopped there, without saying what it was she thought. I followed up: "I have as much right to go as Metchnikov does!" "You sure as hell don't have as good a record as he does, Broadhead." She looked me over carefully, and then she said, "Well, I'll tell you, if you want to know how it is, Broadhead. It's a special mission, and partly you're responsible for it. That boner of yours turns out to be interesting. I don't mean wrecking the ship; that was stupid, and if there any justice in the universe you'd pay for it. But dumb luck is almost as good as brains." "You got the report from Gateway Two," I guessed. She shook her head. "Not yet. But it doesn't matter. We finely programmed your mission into the computer, and it gave some interesting correlations. The course pattern that took you to Gateway Two-Oh, hell," she said, "come on inside. You can sit through the briefing, at least. It'll explain everything, and then we'll see." She took my elbow and pushed me ahead of her into the room which was the same one we had used for a classroom-how long before? It seemed like a million years. I sat down between Sess and Shicky, and waited to hear what it was she had to say. "Most of you," she started off, "are here by invitation-with one or two exceptions. One of the exceptions is our distinguished friend Mr. Broadhead. He managed to wreck a ship near Gateway Two, as most of you know. By rights we ought to throw the book at him, but before he did that he accidentally turned up some interesting facts. His course colors were not the regular ones for Gateway Two, and when the computer compared them it came up with a whole new concept of course setting. Apparently only about five settings are critical for destination-the five that were the same for the usual Gateway Two setting, and for Broadhead's new one. What the other settings mean we don't know. But we're going to find out." She leaned back and folded her hands. "This is a multiple-purpose mission," she said. "We're going to do something new. For openers, we're going to send two ships to the same destination." Sess Forehand raised his hand. "What's the point of that?" "Well, partly to make sure it is the same destination. We're going to vary the noncritical settings slightly... the ones we think are noncritical. And we're going to start the two ships thirty seconds apart. Now, if we know what we're doing, that means you'll come out about as far apart as Gateway travels in thirty seconds." Forehand wrinkled his brow. "Relative to what?" "Good question," she nodded. "Relative, we think, to the Sun. The stellar motion relative to the Galaxy-we think-can be neglected. At least, assuming that your destination turns out to be inside the Galaxy, and not so far away that the galactic motion has a markedly different vector. I mean, if you came out on the opposite side, it would be seventy kilometers a second, relative to the galactic center. We don't think that's involved. We only expect a relatively minor difference in velocity and direction, and-well, anyway, you should come out within somewhere between two and two hundred kilometers of each other. "Of course," she said, smiling cheerfully, "that's only theoretical. Maybe the relative motions won't mean anything at all. In that case, the problem is to keep you from colliding with each other. But we're sure-pretty sure-that there will be at least some displacement. All you really need is about fifteen meters-the long diameter of a Five." "How sure is pretty sure?" one of the girls asked. "Well," Emma admitted, "reasonably sure. How do we know until we try?" "It sounds dangerous," Sess commented. He did not seem deterred by it. He was only stating an opinion. In this he was unlike me; I was very busy ignoring my inner sensations, trying to concentrate on the technicalities of the briefing. | A NOTE ON SIGNATURES | | Dr. Asmenion. So when you're looking for signs | of life on a planet, you don't expect a big neon | sign that says "Aliens Live Here." You look for | signatures. A "signature" is something that shows | something else is there. Like your signature on a | check. If I see that, I know it shows that you | want it paid, so I cash it. Not yours, of course, | Bob. | Question. God hates a smart-assed teacher. Dr. | Asmenion. no offense, Bob. Methane is a typical | signature. It shows the presence of warm-blooded | mammals, or something like them. | Question. I thought methane could come from | rotting vegetation and all that? | Dr. Asmenion. Oh, sure. But mostly it comes | from the guts of large ruminants. Most of the | methane in the Earth's air is cow farts. Emma looked surprised. "That part? Look, I haven't come to the dangerous part yet. This is a nonaccepted destination for all Ones, most Threes, and some Fives." "Why?" someone asked. "That's what you're going there to find out," she said patiently. "It happens to be the setting the computer picked out as best for testing the correlations between course settings. You've got armored Fives, and both accept this particular destination. That means you have what the Heechee designers figured was a good chance to handle it, right?" "That was a long time ago," I objected. "Oh, sure. I never said otherwise. It is dangerous-at least to some extent. That's what the million is for." She stopped there, gravely considering us, until someone obliged by asking, "What million?" "The million-dollar bonus each one of you gets when you come back," she said. "They've appropriated ten million dollars out of Corporation funds for this. Equal shares. Of course, there's a good chance that it will be more than a million each. If you find anything worthwhile, the regular pay scales apply. And the computer thinks this is a good prospect." "Why is it worth ten million?" I asked. "I don't make these decisions," she said patiently. And then she looked at me as a person, not part of the group, and added, "And by the way, Broadhead. We're writing off your damage to the ship. So whatever you get is yours to keep. A million dollars? That's a nice little nest egg. You can go back home, buy yourself a little business, live the rest of your life on that." We looked at each other, and Emma just sat there, smiling gently and waiting. I don't know what the others were thinking about. What I was remembering was Gateway Two and the first trip, wearing our eyes out at the instruments, looking for something that wasn't there. I suppose each of the others had washouts of their own to remember. "Launch," she said at last, "is day after tomorrow. The ones who want to sign, come see me in my office." They accepted me. They turned Shicky down. But it wasn't as easy as that, nothing ever is; the one who made sure Shicky was not going to go along was me. They filled up the first ship quickly: Sess Forehand, two girls from Sierra Leone, a French couple-all English-speaking, all briefed, all with previous missions. For the second ship Metchnikov signed as crew right away; a gay couple, Danny A. and Danny R., were his picks. Then, grudgingly, he agreed to me. And that left one opening. "We can take your friend Bakin," Emma said. "Or would you prefer your other friend?" "What other friend?" I demanded. "We have an application," she said, "from Gunner Third Susanna Hereira, off the Brazilian cruiser. She has their permission to take leave for this purpose." "Susie! I didn't know she'd volunteered!" Emma studied her punch card reflectively. "She's very qualified," she commented. "Also, she has all her parts. I am referring," she said sweetly, "to her legs, of course, although as I understand it you have some interest in her other parts as well. Or would you care to go gay for this mission?" I felt an unreasoning rush of anger. I am not one of your sexually uptight people; the thought of physical contact with a male was not frightening in itself. But-with Dane Metchnikov? Or one of his lovers? "Gunner Hereira can be here tomorrow," Emma comme "The Brazilian cruiser is going to dock right after the orbiter." "Why the hell are you asking me?" I snarled. "Metchnikov is crew chief." "He prefers to leave it to you, Broadhead. Which one?" "I don't give a damn!" I yelled, and left. But there is no such thing as avoiding a decision. Not making a decision was in effect decision enough to keep Shicky off the crew. If I had fought for him, they would have taken him; without that, Susie was the obvious choice. I spent the next day staying out of Shicky's way. I picked new a fish at the Blue Hell, fresh out of the classroom, and spent the night in her room. I didn't even go back to my own room for clothes; I dumped everything and bought a new outfit. I pretty well knew the places where Shicky might look for me-the Hell, Central Park, the museum-and so I stayed away from those places; I went for a long, rambling wander through the deserted tunnels, seeing no one at all, until late that night. | Dear Voice of Gateway: | | Last month I spent 58. 50 of my hard-earned | money to take my wife and son to a "lecture" by | one of your returned ~heroes," who gave Liverpool | the dubious honour of a visit (for which he was | well paid, naturally, by people like me). I didn't | mind that he was not a very interesting speaker. | It was what he flaming well said that drove me | right up the flaming wall. He said we poor sods of | earthlings had just no idea of how dicey things | were for you noble adventurers. | Well, mate, this morning I drew out the last | pound in the savings account so the wife could get | a lung patch (good old melanomic asbestosis CV/E, | you know). The kid's tuition comes due in a week, | and I haven't a clew where it's coming from. And | after spending eight-to-twelve this morning | waiting by the docks for a chance to shift some | cargo (there wasn't any) the foreman let me know I | was redundant, which means tomorrow I don't even | have to bother to show up to wait. Any of you | heroes care to pick up a bargain in surplus parts? | Mine are for sale-kidneys, liver, the lot. All in | good condition, too, or as good as nineteen years | on the docks can be expected to leave them, except | for the tear glands of the eyes, which are fair | wore out with weeping over the troubles of your | lot. | H. Delacross "Wavetops" Plat B bis 17, 41st | Floor Merseyside L77PR 14JE6 Then I took a chance and went to our farewell party. Shicky would probably be there, but there would be other people around. He was. And so was Louise Forehand. In fact, she seemed to be the center of attention; I hadn't even known she was back. She saw me and waved to me. "I struck it rich, Rob! Drink up, I'm buying!" I let someone put a glass in one hand and a joint in the other and before I took my hit I managed to ask her what she'd found. "Weapons, Rob! Marvelous Heechee weapons, hundred them. Sess says it's going to be at least a five-million-dollar assessment. Plus royalties... if anyone finds a way to duplicate the weapons anyway." I let the smoke blow out and washed out the taste with a swallow of white lightning. "What kind of weapons?" "They're like the tunnel diggers, only portable. They'll cut a hole through anything. We lost Sara BellaFanta in the landing; one of them put a hole in her suit. But Tim and I are whacking up her share, so it's two and a half mil apiece." "Congratulations," I said. "I would have thought the last thing the human race needed was some new ways to kill each other-congratulations." I was reaching for an air of moral superiority and I needed it; because as I turned away, there was Shicky, hanging in air, watching me. "Want a hit?" I asked, offering him the joint. He shook his head. I said, "Shicky, it wasn't up to me. I told them-I didn't tell them not to take you." "Did you tell them they should?" "It wasn't up to me," I said. "Hey, listen!" I went on, suddenly seeing an out. "Now that Louise has hit, Sess probably won't want to go. Why don't you take his place?" He backed away, watching me; only his expression changed. "You don't know?" he asked. "It is true that Sess canceled out, but he has already been replaced." "By whom?" "By the person right behind you," said Shicky, and I turned around, and there she was, looking at me, a glass in her hand and an expression I could not read on her face. "Hello. Rob." said Klara. I had prepared myself for the party by a number of quick ones in the commissary; I was ninety-percent drunk and ten-percent stoned, but it all whooshed out of me as I looked at her. I put down the drink, handed the joint to someone at random, took her arm, and pulled her out into the tunnel. "Klara," I said. "Did you get my letters?" She looked puzzled. "Letters?" She shook her head. "I guess you sent them to Venus? I never got there. I got as far as the rendezvous with the plane-of-the-ecliptic flight, and then I changed my mind. I came right back on the orbiter." "Oh, Klara." "Oh, Rob," she mimicked, grinning; that wasn't much fun, because when she smiled I could see where the tooth was missing that I had knocked out. "So what else have we got to say to each other?" I put my arms around her. "I can say that I love you, and I'm sorry, and I want to make it up to you, and I want to get married and live together and have kids and-" "Jesus, Rob," she said, pushing me away, gently enough, "when you say something you say a lot, don't you? So hold it for a while. It'll keep." "But it's been months!" She laughed. "No fooling, Rob. This is a bad day for Sagittarians to make decisions, especially about love. We'll talk about it another time." "That crap! Listen, I don't believe in any of that!" "I do, Rob." I had an inspiration. "Hey! I bet I can trade with somebody in the first ship! Or, wait a minute, maybe Susie would trade with you-" She shook her head, still smiling. "I really don't think Susie would like that," she said. "Anyway, they bitched enough about letting me switch with Sess. They'll never stand still for another last minute change." "I don't care, Klara!" "Rob," she said, "don't rush me. I did a lot of thinking about you and me. I think we've got something that's worth working for. But I can't say it's all straight in my head yet, and I don't want to push it." "But, Klara-" "Leave it at that Rob. I'll be in the first Five, you'll be in the second. When we get where we're going we'll be able to talk. Maybe even switch around to come back together. But meanwhile we'll both have a chance to think about what we really want." | MISSION REPORT | | Vessel 3-184, Voyage O19D14O. Crew S. Kotsis, | A. McCarthy, K. Metsuoko. | Transit time out 615 days 9 hours. no crew | reports from destination. Spherical scan data | inconclusive as to destination. no identifiable | features. | No summary. | Extract from log: "This is the 281st day out. | Metsuoko lost the draw and suicided. Alicia | voluntarily suicided 40 days later. We haven't yet | reached turnaround, so it's all for nothing. The | remaining rations are not going to be enough to | support me, even if you include Alicia and Kenny, | who are intact in the freezer. So I am putting | everything on full automatic and taking the pills. | We have all left letters. Please forward them as | addressed, if this goddamned ship ever gets back." | Mission Plan filed proposal that a Five with | double life-support rations and a one-person crew | might be able to complete this mission and return | successfully. Proposal tabled on grounds of low | priority: no evident benefit from repeating this | mission. The only words I seemed to know I seemed to be saying over and over again: "But, Klara-" She kissed me, and pushed me away. "Rob," she said, "don't be in such a hurry. We've got all the time there is." Chapter 27 "Tell me something, Sigfrid," I say, "how nervous am I?" He is wearing his Sigmund Freud hologram this time, true Viennese stare, not a bit gemillich. But his voice is the gently sad baritone: "if you are asking what my sensors say, Rob, you are quite agitated, yes." "I thought so," I say, bouncing around the mat. "Can you tell me why?" "No!" The whole week has been like that, marvelous sex with Doreen and S. Ya., and floods of tears in the shower; fantastic gambling and play at the bridge tournament, and total despair on the way home. I feel like a yo-yo. "I feel like a yo-yo," I yell. "You opened up something I can't handle." "I think you underestimate your capacity for handling pain," he says reassuringly. "Fuck you, Sigfrid! What do you know about human capacities?" He almost sighs. "Are we back to that again, Rob?" "We bloody well are!" And funnily, I feel less nervous; I goad him into an argument again, and the peril is reduced. "It is true, Rob, that I am a machine. But I am a machine designed to understand what humans are like and, believe me, well designed for my function." "Designed! Sigfrid," I say reasonably, "you aren't human. You may know, but you don't feel. You have no idea what it feels like to have to make human decisions and carry the load of human emotion. You don't know what it feels like to have to tie a friend up to keep him from committing murder. To have someone you love die. To know it's your fault. To be scared out of your mind." "I do know those things, Rob," he says gently. "I really do. I want to explore why you are feeling so turbulent, so won't you please help me?" "No!" "But your agitation, Rob, means that we are approaching the central pain-" "Get your bloody drill out of my nerve!" But the analogy doesn't throw him for a second; his circuits are finely tuned today. "I'm not your dentist, Rob, I'm your analyst, and I tell you-" "Stop!" I know what I have to do to get him away from where it hurts. I haven't used S. Ya. 's secret little formula since that first day, but now I want to use it again. I say the words, and convert him from a tiger to a pussycat; he rolls over and lets me stroke his tummy, as I command him to display the gaudier bits from some of his interviews with attractive and highly quirky female patients; and the rest of the hour is spent as a peepshow; and I have got out of his room one more time intact. Or nearly. Chapter 28 Out in the holes where the Heechee hid, out in the caves of the stars, sliding the tunnels they slashed and slid, healing the Heechee-hacked scars.... Jesus, it was like a Boy Scout camp; we sang and frolicked all the nineteen days after turnaround. I don't think I ever felt that good in my life. Partly it was release from fear; when we hit turnaround we all breathed easier, as always do. Partly it was that the first half of the trip had been pretty gritty, with Metchnikov and his two boyfriends in a complicated triple spat most of the time and Susie Hereira a lot less interested in me on shipboard than she had been as a once-a-night out on Gateway. But mostly, I think, for me anyway, it knowing that I was getting closer and closer to Klara. Danny A. helped me work out the figures; he'd taught some of the courses on Gateway, and he may have been wrong but there wasn't any around righter so I took his word for it: he calculated from time of turnaround that we were going something like three hundred light-years in all-a guess, sure, but close enough. The ship, the one Klara was in, was getting farther and farther ahead of us all the way to turnaround, at which point we were doing something over ten light-years a day (or so Danny said). | Classifieds. | | INTERESTS HARPSICHORD, Go, group sex. Seek | four likeminded prospectors view toward teaming. | Gerriman, 78-109. | | TUNNEL SALE. Must sell holodisks, clothes, sex | aids, books, everything. Level Babe, Tunnel | Twelve, ask for DeVittorio, 1100 hours until it's | all gone. | | TENTH MAN needed for minyan for Abram R. | Sorchuk, presumed dead, also ninth, eighth, and | seventh men. Please. 87-103. The first Five had been launched thirty seconds ahead of us, so then it was just arithmetic: about one light-day. 3 x lO^8 centimeters per second times 60 seconds times 60 minutes times 24 hours. At turnaround Klara was a good seventeen and a half billion kilometers ahead of us. It seemed very far, and was. But after turnaround we were getting closer every day, following her in the same weird hole through space that the Heechee had drilled for us. Where our ship was going, hers had gone. I could feel that we were catching up; sometimes I fantasized that I could smell her perfume. When I said something like that to Danny A. he looked at me queerly. "Do you know how far seventeen and a half billion kilometers is? You could fit the whole solar system in between them and us. Just about exactly; the semimajor axis of Pluto's orbit is thirty-nine A. U. and change." I laughed, a little embarrassed. "It was just a notion." "So go to sleep," he said, "and have a nice dream about it." He knew how I felt about Klara; the whole ship did, even Metchnikov, even Susie, and maybe that was a fantasy, too, but I thought they all wished us well. We were all wishing all of us well, constructing elaborate plans about what we were going to do with our bonuses. For Klara and me, at a million dollars apiece, it came to a right nice piece of change. Maybe not enough for Full Medical-no, not if we wanted anything left over to have fun on. But Major Medical, at least, which meant really good health, barring something terribly damaging, for another thirty or forty years. We could live happily ever after on what was left over: travel; children and nice home in a decent part of-wait a minute, I cautioned myself. Home where? Not back anywhere near the food mines. Maybe not on Earth at all. Would Klara want to go back to Venus? I couldn't see myself taking to the life of a tunnel rat. But I couldn't see Klara in Dallas or New York, either. Of course, I thought, my wish racing far ahead of reality, if we really found anything a lousy million apiece might be only the beginning. Then we could have all the homes we wanted, anywhere we liked; and Full Medical, too, with transplants to keep us young and healthy and beautiful and sexually strong and-"You really ought to go to sleep," said Danny A. from the seat next to mine; "the way you thrash around is a caution." But I didn't feel like going to sleep. I was hungry, and there wasn't any reason not to eat. For nineteen days we had been practicing food discipline, which is what you do on the way out for the first half of the trip. Once you've reached turnaround you know how much you can consume for the rest of the trip, which is why some prospectors come back fat. I climbed down out of the lander, where Susie and both the Dannys were sacked in, and then I found out what it was that was making me hungry. Dane Metchnikov was cooking himself a stew. "Is there enough for two?" He looked at me thoughtfully. "I guess so." He opened the squeeze-fit lid, peered inside, milked another hundred cc of water into it out of the vapor trap, and said, "Give it another ten minutes. I was going to have a drink first." I accepted the invitation, and we passed a wine flask back and forth. While he shook the stew and added a dollop of salt, I took the star readings for him. We were still close to maximum velocity and there was nothing on the viewscreen that looked like a familiar constellation, or even much like a star; but it was all beginning to look friendly and good to me. To all of us. I'd never seen Dane so cheerful and relaxed. "I've been thinking," he said. "A million's enough. After this one I'm going back to Syracuse, get my doctorate, get a job. There's going to be some school somewhere that'll want a poet in residence or an English teacher who's been on seven missions. They'll pay me something, and the money from this will keep me in extras all the rest of my life." All I had really heard was the one word, and that I had heard loud and surprising: "Poet?" He grinned. "Didn't you know? That's how I got to Gateway; the Guggenheim Foundation paid my way." He took the pot out of the cooker, divided the stew into two dishes, and we ate. This was the fellow who had been shrieking viciously at the two Dannys for a solid hour, two days before, while Susie and I lay angry and isolated in the lander, listening. It was all turnaround. We were home free; the mission wasn't going to strand us out of fuel, and we didn't have to worry about finding anything, because our reward was guaranteed. I asked him about his poetry. He wouldn't recite any, but promised to show me copies of what he'd sent back to the Guggenheims when we reached Gateway again. And when we'd finished eating, and wiped out the pot and dishes and put them away, Dane looked at his watch. "Too early to wake the others up," he said, "and not a damn thing to do." | A NOTE ON PIEZOELECTRICITY | | Professor Hegramet. The one thing we found out | about blood diamonds is that they're fantastically | piezoelectric. Does anybody know what that means? | Question. They expand and contract when an | electric current is imposed? | Professor Hegramet. Yes. And the other way | around. Squeeze them and they generate a current. | Very rapidly if you like. That's the basis for the | piezophone and piezovision. About a | fifty-billion-dollar industry. | Question. Who gets the royalties on all that loot? | Professor Hegramet. You know, I thought one of | you would ask that. Nobody does. Blood diamonds | were found years and years ago, in the Heechee | warrens back on Venus. Long before Gateway. It was | Bell Labs that figured out how to use them. | Actually they use something a little different, a | synthetic they developed. They make great | communications systems, and Bell doesn't have to | pay anybody but themselves. | Question. Did the Heechee use them for that? | Professor Hegrctinet. My personal opinion is | that they probably did, but I don't know how. | You'd think if they left them around they'd leave | the rest of the communications receivers and | transmitters, too, but if they did I don't know | where. He looked at me, smiling. It was a real smile, not a grin; and I pushed myself over to him, and sat in the warm and welcome circle of his arm. And nineteen days went like an hour, and then the clock told us it was almost time to arrive. We were all awake, crowded into the capsule, eager as kids at Christmas, waiting to open our toys. It had been the happiest trip I had ever made, and probably one of the happiest ever. "You know," said Danny R. thoughtfully, "I'm almost sorry to arrive." And Susie, just beginning to understand our English, said: "Sim, ja sei," and then, "I too!" She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back; but what I was really thinking about was Klara. We had tried the radio a couple of times, but it didn't work in the Heechee wormholes through space. But when we came out I would be able to talk to her! I didn't mind that others would be listening, I knew what it was that I wanted to say. I even knew what she would answer. There was no question about it; there was surely as much euphoria in her ship as in ours, for the same reasons, and with all that love and joy the answer was not in doubt. "We're stopping!" Danny R. yelled. "Can you feel it?" "Yes!" crowed Metchnikov, bouncing with the tiny surges of the pseudo-gravity that marked our return to normal space. And there was another sign, too: the golden helix in the center of the cabin was beginning to glow, brighter every second. "I think we've made it," said Danny R., bursting with pleasure, and I was as pleased as he. "I'll start the spherical scan," I said, confident that I knew what to do. Susie took her cue from me and opened the door up to the lander; she and Danny A. were going to go out for the star sights. But Danny A. didn't join her. He was staring at the viewscreen. As I started the ship turning, I could see stars, which was normal enough; they did not seem special in any way, although they were rather blurry for some reason. I staggered and almost fell. The ship's rotation did not seem as smooth as it should be. "The radio," Danny said, and Metchnikov, frowning, looked up and saw the light. "Turn it on," I cried. The voice I heard might be Klara's. | NavlnstGdSup 104 | | Please supplement your Navigation Instruction | Guide as follows: | Course settings containing the lines and | colors as shown in the attached chart appear to | have a definite relation to the amount of fuel or | other propulsion necessity remaining for use by | the vessel. | All prospectors are cautioned that the three | bright lines in the orange (Chart 2) appear to | indicate extreme shortage. no vessel displaying | them in its course has ever returned, even from | check flights. Metchnikov, still frowning, reached for the switch, and then I noticed that the helix was a brighter gold than I had ever seen it: straw-colored, as though it were incandescently hot. no heat from it, but the golden color was shot through with streaks of white. "That's funny," I said, pointing. I don't know if anyone heard me; the radio was pouring static, and inside the capsule the sound was very loud. Metchnikov grabbed for the tuning and the gain. Over the static I heard a voice I didn't recognize at first. It was Danny A. 's. "Do you feel that?" he yelled. "It's gravity! We're in trouble. Stop the scan!" I stopped it reflexively. But by then the ship's screen had turned and something came into view that was not a star and not a galaxy. It was a dim mass of pale-blue light, mottled, immense, and terrifying at the first glimpse. I knew it was not a sun. no sun can be so big and so dim. It hurt the eyes to look at it, not because of brightness. It hurt inside the eyes, up far into the optic nerve. The pain was in the brain itself. Metchnikov switched off the radio, and in the silence that followed I heard Danny A. say prayerfully, "Dearest God, we've had it. That thing is a black hole." Chapter 29 "With your permission, Rob," says Sigfrid, "I'd like to explore something with you before you command me into my passive play mode." I tighten up; the son of a bitch has read my mind. "I observe," he says instantly, "that you are feeling some apprehension. That is what I would like to explore." Incredible, I feel myself trying to save his feelings. Sometimes I forget he's a machine. "I didn't know you were aware that I'd been doing that," I apologize. "Of course I'm aware, Rob. When you have given me the proper command I obey it, but you have not ever given me the command to refrain from recording and integrating data. I assume you do not possess that command." "You assume good, Sigfrid." "There is no reason that you should not have access to whatever information I possess. I have not attempted to interfere before now-" "Could you?" "I do have the capacity to signal the use of the command construction to higher authority, yes. I have not done that." "Why not?" The old bag of bolts keeps on surprising me; all this is new to me. "As I have said, there is no reason to. But clearly you are attempting to postpone some sort of confrontation, and I would like to tell you what I think that confrontation involves. Then you can make your own decision." "Oh, cripes." I throw off the straps and sit up. "Do you mind if I smoke?" I know what the answer is going to be, but he surprises me again. "Under the circumstances, no. If you feel the need of a tension reducer I agree. I had even considered offering you a mild tranquilizer if you wish it." "Jesus," I say admiringly, lighting up-and I actually have to stop myself from offering him one! "All right, let's have it." Sigfrid gets up, stretches his legs, and crosses to a more comfortable chair! I hadn't known he could do that, either. "I am trying to put you at your ease, Rob," he says, "as I am sure you observe. First let me tell you something about my capacities-and yours-which I do not think you know. I can provide information about any of my clients. That is, you are not limited to those who have had access to this particular terminal." "I don't think I understand that," I say, after he has paused for a moment. "I think you do. Or will. When you want to. However, the more important question is what memory you are attempting to keep suppressed. I feel it is necessary for you to unblock it. I had considered offering you light hypnosis, or a tranquilizer, or even a fully human analyst to come in for one session, and any or all of those are at your disposal if you wish them. But I have observed that you are relatively comfortable in discussions about what you perceive as objective reality, as distinguished from your internalization of reality. So I would like to explore a particular incident with you in those terms." I carefully tap some ash off the end of my cigarette. He's right about that; as long as we keep the conversation abstract and impersonal, I can talk about anybloodything. "What incident is that, Sigfrid?" "Your final prospecting voyage from Gateway, Rob. Let me refresh your memory-" "Jesus, Sigfrid!" "I know you think you recall it perfectly," he says, interpreting me exactly, "and in that sense I don't suppose your memory needs refreshing. But what is interesting about that particular episode is that all the main areas of your internal concern seem to concentrate there. Your terror. Your homosexual tendencies-" "Hey!" "-which are not, to be sure, a major part of your sexuality, Rob, but which give you more concern than is warranted. Your feelings about your mother. The immense burden of guilt you put on yourself. And, above all, the woman Gelle-Klara Moynlin. All these things recur over and over in your dreams, Rob, and you often do not make the identification. And they are all present in this one episode." I stub out a cigarette, and realize that I have had two going at once. "I don't see the part about my mother," I say at last. "You don't?" The hologram that I call Sigirid von Shrink moves toward a corner of the room. "Let me show you a picture." He raises his hand-that's pure theater, I know it is-and in the corner there appears a woman's figure. It is not very clear, but it is quite slim, and is in the act of covering a cough. "It's not a very good resemblance to my mother," I object. "Isn't it?" "Well," I say generously, "I suppose it's the best you can do. I mean, not having anything to go on except, I guess, my description of her." "The picture," says Sigfrid gently enough, "was assembled from your description of the girl Susie Hereira." I light another cigarette, with some difficulty, because my hand is shaking. "Wow," I say, with real admiration. "I take my hat off to you, Sigfrid. That's very interesting. Of course," I go on, suddenly feeling irritable, "Susie was, my God, only a child! And from that I realize-I realize now, I mean-that there are some resemblances. But the age is all wrong." "Rob," says Sigfrid, "how old was your mother when you were little?" "She was very young." I add after a moment, "As a matter of fact, she looked a lot younger than she was even." Sigfrid lets me hang there for a moment, and then he waves his hand again and the figure disappears, and instead we are suddenly looking at a picture of two Fives butted lander-to-lander in midspace, and beyond them is-is-"Oh, my God, Sigfrid," I say. He waits me out for a while. As far as I am concerned, he can wait forever; I simply do not know what to say. I am not hurting, but I am paralyzed. I cannot say anything, and I cannot move. "This," he begins, speaking very softly and gently, "is a reconstruction of the two ships in your expedition in the vicinity of the object SAG YY. It is a black hole or, more accurately, a singularity in a state of extremely rapid rotation." "I know what it is, Sigfrid." "Yes. You do. Because of its rotation, the translation velocity of what is called its event threshold or Schwarzschlld discontinuity exceeds the speed of light, and so it is not properly black; in fact it can be seen by virtue of what is called Cerenkov radiation. It was because of the instrument readings on this and other aspects of the singularity that your expedition was awarded a ten-million-dollar bonus, in addition to the agreed-upon sum which, along with certain other lesser amounts, is the foundation of your present fortune." "I know that, too, Sigfrid." Pause. "Would you care to tell me what else you know about it, Rob?" Pause. "I'm not sure I can, Sigfrid." Pause again. He isn't even urging me to try. He knows that he doesn't have to. I want to try, and I take my cue from his own manner. There is something in there that I can't talk about, that scares me even to think about; but wrapped around that central terror there is something I can talk about, and that is the objective reality. "I don't know how much you know about singularities, Sigfrid." "Perhaps you can just say what you think it is that I ought to know, Rob." I put out the current cigarette and light another one. "Well," I say, "you know and I know that if you really wanted to know about singularities it's all in the data-banks somewhere, and a lot more exactly and informatively than I can say it, but anyway.. The thing about black holes is they're traps. They bend light. They bend time. Once you're in you can't get out. Only... Only..." | A NOTE ON NUTRITION | | Question. What did the Heechee eat? | Professor Hegramet. About what we do, I would | say. Everything. I think they were omnivores, ate | anything they could catch. We really don't know a | thing about their diet, except that you can make | some deductions from the shell missions. | Question. Shell missions? | Professor Hegramet. There are at least four | recorded missions that didn't go as far as another | star, but went clear out of the solar system. Out | where the shell of comets hangs out, you know, | half a light-year or so away. The missions are | marked as failures, but I don't think they are. | I've been pushing the Board to give science | bonuses for them. Three seemed to wind up in | meteorite swarms. The other came out at a comet, | all hundreds of A. U. out. Meteorite swarms, of | course, are usually the debris of old, dead | comets. | Question. Are you saying the Heechee ate comets? | Professor Hegramet. Ate the things comets are | made out of. Do you know what they are? Carbon, | oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen-the same elements you | ate for breakfast. I think they used comets for | feedstocks to manufacture what they ate. I think | one of those missions to the cometary shell is | sooner or later going to turn up a Heechee food | factory, and then maybe we won't have anybody ever | starving anywhere anymore. After a moment Sigfrid says, "It's all right for you to cry if you want to, Rob," which is the way that I suddenly realize that that's what I'm doing. "Jesus," I say, and blow my nose into one of the tissues that he always keeps handy right next to the mat. He waits. "Only I did get out," I say. And Sigfrid does something else I had never expected from him; he permits himself a joke. "That," he says, "is pretty obvious, from the fact that you're here." "This is bloody exhausting, Sigfrid," I say. "I am sure it is for you, Rob." "I wish I had a drink." Click. "The cabinet behind you," says Sigfrid, "that has just opened contains some rather good sherry. It isn't made from grapes, I'm sorry to say; the health service doesn't go in for luxuries. But I don't think you'll be aware of its natural-gas origins. Oh, and it is laced with just a dollop of THC to soothe the nerves." "Holy Christ," I say, having run out of ways of expressing surprise. The sherry is all he says it is, and I can feel the warmth of it expanding inside me. "Okay," I say, setting the glass down. "Well. When I got back to Gateway they'd written the expedition off. We were almost a year overdue. Because we'd been almost inside the event horizon. Do you understand about time dilation?... Oh, never mind," I say, before he can answer, "that was a rhetorical question. What I mean is, what happened was the phenomenon they call time dilation. You get that close to a singularity and you come up against the twin paradox. What was maybe a quarter of an hour for us was almost a year by clock time-clock time on Gateway, or here, or anywhere else in the nonrelativistic universe, I mean. And-" I take another drink, then I go on bravely enough: "And if we'd gone any farther down we would have been going slower and slower. Slower, and slower, and slower. A little closer, and that fifteen minutes would have turned out to be a decade. A little closer still, and it would have been a century. It was that close, Sigfrid. We were almost trapped, all of us. "But I got out." And I think of something and look at my watch. "Speaking of time, my hour's been up for the last five minutes!" "I have no other appointments this afternoon, Rob." I stare. "What?" Gently: "I cleared my calendar before your appointment, Rob." I don't say "Holy Christ" again, but I surely think it. "This makes me feel right up against the wall, Sigfrid!" I say angrily. "I am not forcing you to stay past your hour, Rob. I am pointing out that you have that option if you choose." I mull that for a while. "You are one brassbound ringding of a computer, Sigfrid," I say. "All right. Well, you see, there was no way we could get out considered as a unit. Our ships were caught, well inside the of point of no return, and there just ain't no way home from there. But Danny A., he was a sharp article. And he knew all about the holes in the laws. Considered as a unit, we were stuck. "But we weren't a unit! We were two ships! And each of those came apart into two other ships! And if we could somehow transfer acceleration from one part of our system to the other and you know, kick part of us deeper into the well and at the same kick the other part up and out-then part of the unit could get free!" Long pause. "Why don't you have another drink, Rob?" says Sigfrid courteously. "After you finish crying, I mean." Chapter 30 Fear! There was so much terror jumping around inside my skin that I couldn't feel it anymore; my senses were saturated with it; I don't know if I screamed or babbled, I only did what Danny A. told me to do. We'd backed the two ships together and linked up, lander-to-lander, and we were trying to manhandle gear, instruments, clothes, everything that moved out of the first ship into whatever corners we could find of the second, to make room for ten people where five were a tight fit. Hand to hand, back and forth, we bucket-brigaded the stuff. Dane Metchnikov's kidneys must have been kicked black-and-blue; he was the one who was in the landers, changing the fuel-metering switches to blow every drop of hydrox at once. Would we survive that? We had no way of knowing. Both our Fives were armored, and we didn't expect to damage the Heechee-metal shells. But the contents of the shells would be us, all of us in the one of them that went free-or we hoped would go free-and there wasn't really any way to tell whether we could come free in the first place, or whether what would come free would be nothing but jelly, anyway. And all we had was minutes, and not very many of them. I guess I passed Klara twenty times in ten minutes, and I remember that once, the first time, we kissed. Or aimed at each other's lips, and came close enough. I remember the smell of her, and once lifting my head because the musk oil was so strong and not seeing her, and then forgetting it again. And all the time, out of one viewscreen or another, that immense broad, baleful blue ball hung flickering outside; the racing shadows across its surface that were phase effects made fearful pictures; the gripping grab of its gravity waves tugged at our guts. Danny A. was in the capsule of the first ship, watching the time and kicking bags and bundles down to the lander hatch to pass on, through the hatch, through the landers, up to the capsule of the second ship where I was pushing them out of the way, any which way, just to make room for more. "Five minutes," he'd yell, and "Four minutes!" and "Three minutes, get the goddamn lead out!" and then, "That's it! All of you! Drop what you're doing and come on up here." And we did. All of us. All but me. I could hear the others yelling, and then calling to me; but I'd fallen behind, our own lander was blocked, I couldn't get through the hatch! And I tugged somebody's duffelbag out of the way, just as Klara was screaming over the TBS radio, "Rob! Rob, for God's sake, get up here!" And I knew it was too late; and I slammed the hatch and dogged it down, just as I heard Danny A.'s voice shouting, "No! No! Wait...." | Dear Voice of Gateway: | | On Wednesday of last week I was crossing the | parking lot at the Safeway Supermarket (where I | had gone to deposit my food stamps) on the way to | the shuttle bus to my apartment, when I saw an | unearthly green light. A strange spacecraft landed | nearby. Four beautiful, but very tiny, young women | in filmy white robes emerged and subjected me | helpless by means of a paralyzing ray. They kept | me prisoner on their craft for nineteen hours. | During that time they subjected me to certain | indignities of a sexual nature which I am | honor-bound not to reveal. The leader of the four, | whose name was Moira Glow-Fawn, stated that, like | us, they have not succeeded in fully overcoming | their animal heritage. I accepted their apology | and agreed to deliver four messages to Earth. | Messages One and Four I may not announce until the | proper time. Message Two is a private one for the | manager of my apartment project. Message Three is | for you at Gateway, and it has three parts: 1, | there must be no more cigarette smoking; 2, there | must be no more mixed schooling of boys and girls | at least until the second year of college; 3, you | must stop all exploration of space at once. We are | being watched. | Harry Hellison Pittsburgh Wait... Wait for a very, very long time. | We sometimes get squashed, and we sometimes get burned, | And we sometimes get shredded to bits, | And we sometimes get fat on the Royalties Earned, | And we're always scared out of our wits. | We don't care which-Little lost Heechee, start making us rich! Chapter 31 After a while, I don't know how long, I raise my head and say, "Sorry, Sigfrid." "For what, Rob?" "For crying like this." I am physically exhausted. It is as if I had run ten miles through a gauntlet of mad Choctaws pounding me with clubs. "Are you feeling better now, Rob?" "Better?" I puzzle over that stupid question for a moment, and then I take inventory, and, curiously enough, I am. "Why, yeah. I guess so. Not what you'd call good. But better." "Take it easy for a minute, Rob." That strikes me as a dumb remark, and I tell him so. I have about the energy level of a small, arthritic jellyfish that's been dead for a week. I have no choice but to take it easy. But I do feel better. "I feel," I say, "as if I let myself feel my guilt at last." "And you survived it." I think that over. "I guess I did," I say. "Let's explore that question of guilt, Rob. Guilt why?" "Because I jettisoned nine people to save myself, asshole!" | NOTICE OF CREDIT To ROBINETTE BROADHEAD: | | 1. Acknowledgment is made that your course | setting for Gateway II permits round-trip flights | with a travel-time saving of approximately 100 | days over the previous standard course for this | object. | 2. By decision of the Board, you are granted a | discovery royalty of 1 percent on all earnings on | future flights using said course setting, and an | advance of $10,000 against said royalty. | 3. By decision of the Board, you are assessed | one-half of said royalty and advance as a penalty | for damage to the vessel employed. | Your account is therefore CREDITED with the | following amount: Royalty advance (Board Order | A-135-7), less deduction (Board Order A-135-8): | $5,000 Your present BALANCE is: | $6,192 "Has anyone ever accused you of that? Anyone but yourself, I mean?" "Accused?" I blow my nose again, thinking. "Well, no. Why should they? When I got back I was kind of a hero." I think about Shicky, so kind, so mothering; and Francy Hereira holding me in his arms, letting me bawl, even though I'd killed his cousin. "But they weren't there. They didn't see me blow the tanks to get free." "Did you blow the tanks?" "Oh, hell, Sigfrid," I say, "I don't know. I was going to. I was reaching for the button." "Does it make sense that the button in the ship you were planning to abandon would actually fire the combined tanks in the landers?" "Why not? I don't know. Anyway," I say, "you can't give me any alibis I haven't already thought of for myself. I know maybe Danny or Klara pushed the button before I did. But I was reaching for mine!" "And which ship did you think would go free?" "Theirs! Mine," I correct myself. "No, I don't know." Sigfrid says gravely, "Actually, that was a very resourceful thing you did. You knew you couldn't all have survived. There wasn't time. The only choice was whether some of you would die, or all of you would. You elected to see that somebody lived." "Crap! I'm a murderer!" Pause, while Sigfrid's circuits think that over. "Rob," he says carefully, "I think you're contradicting yourself. Didn't you say she's still alive in that discontinuity?" "They all are! Time has stopped for them!" "Then how could you have murdered anybody?" "What?" He says again, "How could you have murdered anybody?" "... I don't know," I say, "but, honestly, Sigfrid, I really don't want to think about it anymore today." "There's no reason you should, Rob. I wonder if you have any idea how much you've accomplished in the past two and a half hours. I'm proud of you!" And queerly, incongruously, I believe he is, chips, Heechee circuits, holograms and all, and it makes me feel good to believe it. "You can go any time you want to," he says, getting up and going back to his easy chair in the most lifelike way possible, even grinning at me! "But I think I would like to show you something first." My defenses are eroded down to nothing. I only say, "What's that, Sigfrid?" "That other capability of ours that I mentioned, Rob," he "the one that we've never used. I would like to display another patient, from some time back." "Another patient?" He says gently, "Look over in the corner, Rob." I look- -and there she is. "Klara!" And as soon as I see her I know where Sigfrid gets her from-the machine Klara was consulting back on Gateway. She is hanging there, one arm across a file rack, her feet lazily floating in the air, talking earnestly; her broad black eyebrows frown and sigh and her face grins, and grimaces, and then looks sweetly, invitingly relaxed. "You can hear what she's saying if you want to, Rob." "Do I want to?" "Not necessarily. But there's nothing in it to be afraid of. She loved you, Rob, the best way she knew how. The same as you loved her." I look for a long time, and then I say, "Turn her off, Sigfrid. Please." In the recovery room I almost fall asleep for a moment. I have never been so relaxed. I wash my face, and smoke another cigarette, and then I go out into the bright diffuse daylight under the Bubble, and it all is so good and so friendly. I think of Klara with love and tenderness and in my heart I say good-bye to her. And then I think of S. Ya. with whom I have a date for that evening-if I'm not already late for it! But she'll wait; she's a good scout, almost as good as Klara. Klara. I stop in the middle of the mall, and people bump up against me. A little old lady in short-shorts toddles over to me and asks, "Is something wrong?" I stare at her, and don't answer; and then I turn around and head back for Sigfrid's office. There is no one there, not even a hologram. I yell, "Sigfrid! Where the hell are you?" | NOTICE OF CREDIT To ROBINETTE BROADHEAD: | | Your account is CREDITED with the following | amounts: Guaranteed bonus for Mission 88-90A and | 88-90B (survivorship total): | $10,000,000 Science bonus awarded by Board: | 8,500,000 Total: | $18,500,000 Your present BALANCE is: | $18,506,036 No one. no answer. This is the first time I've ever been in this room when it wasn't set up. I can see what is real and what hologram now; and not much of it is real. Powder-metal studs for projectors. The mat (real); the cabinet with the light (real); a few other pieces of furniture that I might want to see or use. But no Sigirid. Not even the chair he usually sits in. "Sigfrid!" I keep on yelling, with my heart bubbling up in my throat, my brain spinning. "Sigfrid!" I scream, and at last there is a of a haze and a flash and there he is in his Sigmund Freud guise looking at me politely. "Yes, Rob?" "Sigfrid, I did murder her! She's gone!" "I see that you're upset, Rob," he says. "Can you tell me what it is that's bothering you?" "Upset! I'm worse than upset, Sigfrid, I'm a person who killed nine other people to save his life! Maybe not 'really'! Maybe not 'on purpose'! But in their eyes I killed them, as much as in mine." "But Rob," he says reasonably, "we've been all over this. They're still alive; they all are. Time has stopped for them-" "I know," I howl. "Don't you understand, Sigfrid? That's the point. I not only killed her, I'm still killing her!" Patiently: "Do you think what you just said is true, Rob?" "She thinks it is! Now, and forever, as long as I live. It's not years ago that it happened for her. It's only a few minutes, and it goes on for all of my life. I'm down here, getting older, trying to forget, and there's Klara up there in Sagittarius YY, floating around like a fly in amber!" I drop to the bare plastic mat, sobbing. Little by little, Sigfrid has been restoring the whole office, patching in this decoration and that. There are pinatas hanging over my head, and a holopic Lake Garda at Sirmione on the wall, hoverfloats, sailboats, bathers having fun. "Let the pain out, Rob," Sigfrid says gently. "Let it all out." "What do you think I'm doing?" I roll over on the foam staring at the ceiling. "I could get over the pain and the guilt, Sigfrid, if she could. But for her it isn't over. She's out there, stuck in time." "Go ahead, Rob," he encourages. "I am going ahead. Every second is still the newest second in her mind-the second when I threw her life away to save my own. I'll live and get old and die before she lives past that second, Sigfrid." "Keep going, Rob. Say it all." "She's thinking I betrayed her, and she's thinking it now! I can't live with that." There is a very, very long silence, and at last Sigfrid says: "You are, you know." "What?" My mind has gone a thousand light-years away. "You are living with it, Rob." "Do you call this living?" I sneer, sitting up and wiping my nose with another of his million tissues. "You respond very quickly to anything I say, Rob," says Sigfrid, "and therefore sometimes I think your response is a counterpunch. You parry what I say with words. Let me strike home for once, Rob. Let this sink in: you are living." Well, I suppose I am." It is true enough; it is just not very rewarding. Another long pause, and then Sigfrid says: "Rob. You know that I am a machine. You also know that my function is to deal with human feelings. I cannot feel feelings. But I can represent them with models, I can analyze them, I can evaluate them. I can do this for you. I can even do it for myself. I can construct a paradigm within which I can assess the value of emotions. Guilt? It is a painful thing; but because it is painful it is a behavior modifier. It can influence you to avoid guilt-inducing actions, and this is a valuable thing for you and for society. But you cannot use it if you do not feel it." "I do feel it! Jesus Christ, Sigfrid, you know I'm feeling it!" "I know," he says, "that now you are letting yourself feel it. It is out in the open, where you can let it work for you, not buried where it can only harm you. That is what I am for, Rob. To bring your feelings out where you can use them." "Even the bad feelings? Guilt, fear, pain, envy?" "Guilt. Fear. Pain. Envy. The motivators. The modifiers. The qualities that I, Rob, do not have, except in a hypothetical sense, when I make a paradigm and assign them to myself for study." There is another pause. I have a funny feeling about it. Sigfrid's pauses are usually either to give me time to let something sink in, or to permit him to compute some complex chain of argument about me. This time I think it is me but not about me. And at last he says, "You asked me, Rob." "Asked you? What was that?" "You asked me, 'Do you call this living?' And I answer: Yes. It is exactly what I call living. And in my best hypothetical sense, I envy it very much."