her willingness to keep engaging in life, perhaps hoping for a better time to come.
"I saw you from my window," Aylis said softly. "What are you doing that requires kissing and hugging and swinging? May I participate?"
It was a valiant attempt to sound happy but failed to convince Horss, and certainly everyone else. She glanced at her son in a way that made Horss hurt inside. He realized Direk was very important to her, especially in this troubled time of her life.
"Jon got lucky," Zakiya said. "Mai said she would marry him."
"That is so wonderful!" Aylis exclaimed. "I had a little talk with her. Maybe that helped."
Aylis moved forward to Horss. She didn't seem comfortable for a moment, but didn't stop until she wrapped her arms around Horss's shoulders. Then she, too, kissed him. Despite everything, this made Horss even happier, yet still a little sad.
"I'm sorry," Horss said to Aylis.
"Why? Because you're taking my roommate away?"
"Because I didn't stop you from accepting Etrhnk's invitation. I didn't imagine what would happen, but I did see danger in the situation."
Aylis was silent for a moment. "There's nothing to forgive, Jon. Be good to Mai. She's had a rough few decades on Earth. When is the wedding?"
"Soon. Zakiya said she'll marry us."
"It's probably not the time or place to ask, but would you see if Mai will allow me to interrupt her pregnancy?"
"Is anything wrong with the fetus? Mai tells me it's perfect."
"It is. I just thought you would want to be cautious, not knowing what lies ahead in the mission."
"I was briefed on this topic by Mai. She said she will follow your example, not your advice."
"Aylis," Zakiya began, and Horss knew she wanted to urge Aylis to interrupt her own pregnancy.
"No," Aylis said, cutting Zakiya off. "If I understood myself, I would explain myself to you. All I can feel right now is a great love for the innocent child inside me, and a desire to keep her in me as long as I can."
"A daughter?" Zakiya queried. "Is she a healthy baby?"
"I don't know. I haven't had the time or the will to even register her genetic code. I'm telling you things I haven't told myself. I don't know if it's female. I don't know if it's healthy. I had ugly thoughts and twisted emotions that kept me on the verge of aborting it, smashing it, incinerating it! But it is innocent of everything. And I can already feel it inside me. And I'm never lonely now."
Aylis began taking deep breaths and stifling the sounds that tried to rise out of her chest. Zakiya pulled her into her arms.
"God, I need a hug every minute or two these days!" Aylis admitted miserably.
"I can hug you that often," Direk stated.
Zakiya released the startled Aylis. Aylis stared at her son in concerned wonder. "What? How? You?"
"If you would allow me," Direk said, making Horss wonder why Direk thought she could reject his offer. "I'll have too much free time after the jump," Direk said, speaking as though what he said was not as remarkable as it was. "Let me help you at the hospital. I'll take Mai's place while she moves in with Captain Horss."
"You would do that?" She stopped. "What about Jamie?"
"About Jamie," Horss said reluctantly, hating that he made that promise to her.
"I suppose your order still stands?" Zakiya asked.
"Yes, it does. Don't bother her. I don't know if I should say anything more. I'm far out of my small area of social expertise. Direk, I don't know if they told you. Jamie was also raped many years ago. The two most important women in your life. That's rough."
"I didn't know!" Direk spoke quietly and intensely. "When?" he asked. "How? Did they prosecute her attacker?"
"You're not at all like your copy," Horss remarked. "You sound Earthian!"
"Tell me!" Direk demanded.
"I don't know! We all heard her say those words to Aylis, that she knew what rape felt like. I've had enough Navy training courses, so I'm supposed to know how much this crime hurts someone, especially a woman. But we can't really know until we are the victim. So, this is one big thing Jamie must be thinking about. I know she has powerful feelings for you but... I'm saying more than I have the right or the knowledge to say. I'm sorry, but it's poisoning me to keep it inside. I care a lot about Jamie."
/
And I am but a copy of Direk, Direk thought, looking to his mother and wondering if she cared that he was only a copy.
= = =
It seemed fatalistic that she and Freddy should be in sole control of the ship at this moment. Freddy was by definition a genius but very inexperienced. For her own part, Jamie couldn't do much more than model a Navy captain's uniform. At this moment fate commanded the ship; she didn't. All that she and Freddy could do was watch until she could metaphorically push a button.
On one screen she watched the final field emitter lock down and merge its hexagonal umbrella with the others, to form a new perfect hull around the Freedom. The circuit verification test started. There were millions of electronic and electrical circuits, millions of mechanical and signal and power connections, all of which had to be perfect. Freddy monitored the procedure on a more technical level.
On a second screen Jamie watched the Navy pursuit squadron spread out in the system to probe the many large bodies of mass. They would soon find what they sought. Freddy also monitored the Navy signals that were intercepted by instruments that relayed them from the surface of the asteroid in which they hid. The first screen needed to run to completion before the second screen showed the Navy ready to attack. Then she could push the "button." Freddy would tell her when.
On a third screen there was a wedding. Jamie didn't know what was more absurd: she being in command of the ship, or everyone else on the ship celebrating life in the shadow of death. Did they all really believe in Direk's miracle of teleportation? Did any of them realize how close they were to the Navy's guns?
Direk. Stop thinking about him! What did he once call himself? Dick Jones. Dick and Jamie Jones. That was where she took her fictitious family name. Wasn't it?
The Five Worlds, all dressed in winter white. The cottage by the spring. The big bed with the goose-down mattress and four wool blankets. The intense quiet of a snowy world made all the more intense by the deep peal of a distant bell.
His slow breathing under the heavy blankets. The memory of children laughing at him and she not knowing why.
"Because I am a giant Essiin man," he had said.
One of his many lies to her. He made them laugh. She knew he did! She couldn't believe it, so she forgot that she knew he made them laugh.
"Because you are a giant Essiin man," she said to the rising and falling blankets.
His whispery breathing continued unchanged. The ringing bell faded into yesterday. She had never understood Direk.
How many times did she relive this moment in her life? Why was she doing it right now, when such interference with her mental faculties could be extremely dangerous?
"Freddy!"
"Yes, Captain?"
"If I hesitate to act, when you know I should, you act for me. I'm giving you my authority."
"Why? Are you ill?"
"Yes! It's these damned memories! I don't know how our mother holds herself together."
"Why would memories make you ill?"
"Because they are too perfectly recorded! They override my senses. They're addictive. I can go back to them and see detail I could never see in natural memories. Your memories must be perfect, Freddy. You probably can't imagine why the vividness of my memories so disturbs me."
"I would think vividness would be preferable. I do understand organic brains may degrade a memory with time, or otherwise restrict its retrieval. But I think you appeared fascinated by whatever you just experienced."
"Are you sure you're monitoring everything you need to be monitoring? And you still have time to watch my face?"
"I'm sure. I assume you understand how rapidly I can process multiple streams of dat
a. My analysis of your facial expressions does take more time than most other things I think about. I like to watch you. I'd like to know what you're remembering."
The idea of confiding in Freddy appealed to Jamie. She decided to tell him about this particular memory. How much more absurd and derelict could she make her duty in the captain's chair of the Freedom?
"He had his back turned to you?" Freddy asked, after she described the memory and the memory within that memory of children laughing at Direk.
"Yes. He couldn't have made a funny facial expression. He never expressed emotion. But he was talking to them in their native language. This was before the Five Worlds adopted Standard. I didn't understand what he said to them. I only know he made them laugh somehow. Probably it was unintentional. Do you have any secret information about Direk that you're not supposed to tell me?"
"If I possessed such information, would the fact I possessed it also need to be secret?"
"Then you do have such information?"
"I must deny that I do. I know you won't believe me."
"Freddy, I know you study people much more than they deserve studying. Can't you tell me just one little thing?"
"No one has sworn me to secrecy. What information I have about Direk is still scarce and my interpretation of it could be in error. However, I would suggest that you observe the wedding scene carefully. Particularly the musicians."
Jamie watched the third screen show Admiral Khalanov delivering the nervous groom - Captain Horss - to the presence of Admiral Demba. On the park grounds by the lake many thousands gathered to witness the wedding and to be together when the fate of the