“I wonder,” said Klara, smiling to show that it was only an abstract point she was putting to us, “if that might not be what happened to some of the nonreturn missions.”
“It is an absolute statistical certainty,” said Francy, smiling back to show that he agreed to the rules of the game. He had been practicing his English, which was pretty good to start with, and now he was almost accent-free. He also possessed German, Russian, and fair amounts of the other romance languages to go with his Portuguese, as we had discovered when we tried some of our language-tape conversation on each other and found he understood us better than we understood ourselves. “Nevertheless, people go.”
Klara and I were silent for a moment, and then she laughed. “Some do,” she said.
I cut in quickly, “It sounds as if you want to go yourself, Francy.”
“Have you ever doubted it?”
“Well, yes, actually I have. I mean, you’re in the Brazilian Navy. You can’t just take off, can you?”
He corrected me: “I can take off at any time. I simply cannot go back to Brazil after that.”
“And it’s worth that to you?”
“It’s worth anything,” he told me.
“Even—” I pressed, “if there’s the risk of not coming back, or of getting messed up like the return today?” That had been a Five that had landed on a planet with some sort of plant life like poison ivy. It had been a bad one, we had heard.
“Yes, of course,” he said.
Klara was getting restless. “I think,” she said, “I want to go to sleep now.”
There was some extra message in the tone of her voice. I looked at her and said, “I’ll walk you back to your room.”
“That’s not necessary, Rob.”
“I’ll do it anyhow,” I said, ignoring the message. “Good night, Francy. See you next week.”
Klara was already halfway to the downshaft, and I had to hurry to catch up to her. I caught the cable and called down to her, “If you really want me to, I’ll go back to my own place.”
She didn’t look up, but she didn’t say that was what she wanted, either, so I got off at her level and followed her to her rooms. Kathy was sound asleep in the outer room, Hywa drowsing over a holodisk in our bedroom. Klara sent the maid home and went in to make sure the child was comfortable. I sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for her.
“Maybe I’m premenstrual,” Klara said when she came back. “I’m sorry. I just feel edgy.”
“I’ll go if you want me to.”
“Jesus, Rob, quit saying that!” Then she sat down next to me and leaned against me so that I would put my arm around her. “Kathy’s so sweet,” she said after a moment, almost wistfully.
“You’d like to have one of your own, wouldn’t you?”
“I will have one of my own.” She leaned back, pulling me with her. “I wish I knew when, that’s all. I need a lot more money than I have to give a kid a decent life. And younger.”
A NOTE ON THE HEECHEE RUMP
Professor Hegramet. We have no idea what the Heechee looked like except for inferences. Probably they were bipeds. Their tools fit human hands tolerably well, so probably they had hands. Or something like them. They seem to have seen pretty much the same spectrum as we do. They must have been smaller than us — say, a hundred and fifty centimeters, or less. And they had funny-looking rumps.
Question. What do you mean, funny-looking rumps?
Professor Hegramet. Well, did you ever look at the pilot’s seat in a Heechee ship? It’s two flat pieces of metal joined in a V shape. You couldn’t sit in it for ten minutes without pinching your bottom off. So what we have to do, we stretch a webbing seat across them. But that’s a human addition. The Heechee didn’t have anything like that.
So their bodies must have looked more or less like a wasp’s, with this big abdomen hanging down, actually extending below the hips, between the legs.
Question. Do you mean they might have had stingers like wasps?
Professor Hegramet. Stingers. No. I don’t think so. But maybe. Or maybe they had hell’s own set of sex organs.
We lay there for a moment, and then I said into her hair, “That’s what I want, too, Klara.”
She sighed. “Do you think I don’t know that?” Then she tensed and sat up. “Who’s that?”
Somebody was scrabbling at the door. It wasn’t locked; we never did that. But nobody ever came in without being invited, either, and this time someone did.
“Sterling!” Klara said, surprised. She remembered her manners: “Rob, this is Sterling Francis, Kathy’s father. Rob Broadhead.”
“Hello,” he said. He was much older than I’d thought that little girl’s father would be, at least fifty, and looking very much older and more weary than seemed natural. “Klara,” he said, “I’m taking Kathy back home on the next ship. I think I’ll take her tonight, if you don’t mind. I don’t want her to hear from somebody else.”
Klara reached out for my hand without looking at me. “Hear what?”
“About her mother.” Francis rubbed his eyes, then said, “Oh, didn’t you know? Jan’s dead. Her ship came back a few hours ago. All four of them in the lander got into some kind of fungus; they swelled up and died. I saw her body. She looks—” He stopped. “The one I’m really sorry for,” he said, “is Annalee. She stayed in orbit while the others went down, and she brought Jan’s body back. I guess she was kind of crazy. Why bother? It was too late to matter to Jan… Well, anyway. She could only bring two of them, that was all the room in the freezer, and of course her rations—” He stopped again, and this time he didn’t seem able to talk anymore.
So I sat on the edge of the bed while Klara helped him wake the child and bundle her up to take her back to his own rooms. While they were out, I dialed a couple of displays on the PV, and studied them very carefully. By the time Klara came back I had turned off the PV and was sitting cross-legged on the bed, thinking hard.
“Christ,” she said glumly. “If this night isn’t a bummer.” She sat down at the far corner of the bed. “I’m not sleepy after all,” she said. “Maybe I’ll go up and win a few bucks at the roulette table.”
“Let’s not,” I said. I’d sat next to her for three hours the night before, while she first won ten thousand dollars and then lost twenty. “I have a better idea. Let’s ship out.”
She turned full around to look at me, so quickly that she floated up off the bed for a moment. “What?”
“Let’s ship out.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and, without opening them, said, “When?”
“Launch 29-40. It’s a Five, and there’s a good crew: Sam Kahane and his buddies. They’re all recovered now, and they need two more to fill the ship.”
She stroked her eyelids with her fingertips, then opened them and looked at me. “Well, Rob,” she said, “you do have interesting suggestions.” There were shades over the Heechee-metal walls to cut down the light for sleeping, and I had drawn them; but even in the filtered dimness I could see how she looked. Frightened. Still, what she said was: “They’re not bad guys. How do you get along with gays?”
“I leave them alone, they leave me alone. Especially if I’ve got you.”
“Um,” she said, and then she crawled over to me, wrapped her arms around me, pulled me down and buried her head in my neck. “Why not?” she said, so softly that I was not at first sure I had heard her.
When I was sure, the fear hit me. There had always been the chance she would say no. I would have been off the hook. I could feel myself shaking, but I managed to say, “Then we’ll file for it in the morning?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice muffled. I could feel her trembling as much as I was. “Get on the phone, Rob. We’ll file for it now. Before we change our minds.”
The next day I quit my job, packed my belongings into the suitcases I had brought them in, and turned them over for safekeeping to Shicky, who looked wistful. Klara quit the school and fi
red her maid — who looked seriously worried — but didn’t bother about packing. She had quite a lot of money left, Klara did. She prepaid the rent on both her rooms and left everything just the way it was.
We had a farewell party, of course. We went through it without my remembering a single person who was there.
And then, all of a sudden, we were squeezing into the lander, climbing down into the capsule while Sam Kahane methodically checked the settings. We locked ourselves into our cocoons. We started the automatic sequencers.
And then there was a lurch, and a falling, floating sensation before the thrusters cut in, and we were on our way.
Chapter 13
“Good morning, Rob,” says Sigfrid, and I stop in the door of the room, suddenly and subliminally worried.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s nothing the matter, Rob. Come in.”
“You’ve changed things around,” I say accusingly.
“That’s right, Robbie. Do you like the way the room looks?”
I study it. The throw pillows are gone from the floor. The nonobjective paintings are off the wall. Now he’s got a series of holopictures of space scenes, and mountains and seas. The funniest thing of all is Sigfrid himself: he is speaking to me out of a dummy that’s sitting back in a corner of the room, holding a pencil in its hands, looking up at me from behind dark glasses.
“You’ve turned out very camp,” I say. “What’s the reason for all this?”
His voice sounds as though he were smiling benevolently, although there is no change in the expression on the face of the dummy. “I just thought you’d enjoy a change, Rob.”
I take a few steps into the room and stop again. “You took the mat away!”
“Don’t need it, Rob. As you see, there’s a new couch. That’s very traditional, isn’t it?”
He coaxes, “Why don’t you just lie down on it? See how it feels.”
“Um.” But I stretch out on it cautiously. How it feels is strange; and I don’t like it, probably because this particular room represents something serious to me and changing it around makes me nervous. “The mat had straps,” I complain.
“So does the couch, Rob. You can pull them out of the sides. Just feel around… there. Isn’t that better?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I think,” he says softly, “that you should let me decide whether for therapeutic reasons some sort of change is in order, Bob.”
I sit up. “And that’s another thing, Sigfrid! Make up your flicking mind what you’re going to call me. My name isn’t Rob, or Robbie, or Bob. It’s Robinette.”
“I know that, Robbie—”
“You’re doing it again!”
A pause, then, silkily, “I think you should allow me the choice of the form of address I prefer, Robbie.”
“Um.” I have an endless supply of tbose noncommittal nonwords. In would like to conduct the whole session without revealing any more than that. What I want is for Sigfrid to reveal. I want to know why he calls me by different names at different times. I want to know what he finds significant in what I say. I want to know what he really thinks of me… if a clanking piece of tin and plastic can think, I me
Of course, what I know and Sigfrid doesn’t is that my good friend S. Ya. has piece of tin and plastic can think, I mean. practically promised to let me play a little joke on him. I am looking to that a lot.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Rob?” piece of tin and plastic can thinko, I mean.
“No.” piee of tin and plastic can think,
He waits. I am feeling somewhat hostile and noncommunicative. I think part of it is because I am so much looking forward to the time when I can play a litk on Sigfrid, but the other part is because he has changed around piece of tin and plastic can think, I mean. the auditing room. That’s the kind of thing they used to do to me when I had my psychotic episode in Wyoming. Sometimes i’d come in for a session and piece of tin and plastic can think, I mean. they’d have a hologram of my mother, for Christ’s sake. It looked exactly like her, but it didn’t smell like her or feel like her; in fact, you couldn’t feel it at all, it was only light. Sometimes they’d have me come in there in the dark and something warm and cuddly would take me in its arms and whisper to me. I didn’t like that. I was crazy, but I wasn’t that crazy.
MISSION
Vessel 1-8, Voyage 013D6. Crew F. Ito. piece of tin and plastic can think, I mean.
Transit time 41 days 2 hours. Position not identified. Instrument recordings damaged. piece of tin and plastic can think, I mean. ass=“InsertBlock”> Transcript of crewman’s tape follows: “The planet seems to have a surface gravity in excess of 2.5, but I am going to attempt a landing. Neither visual nor radar scanning penetrates the clouds of dust and vapor. It really is not looking very good, but this is my eleventh launch. I am setting the automatic return for 10 days. If I am not back by then with the lander I think the capsule will return by itself. I wish I knew what the spots and flares on the sun meant.”
Crewman was not aboard when ship returned. No artifacts or samples. Landing vehicle not secured. Vessel damaged.
Sigfrid is still waiting, but I know that he won’t wait forever. Pretty soon he’s going to start asking me questions, probably about my dreams.
“Have you had any dreams since I last saw you, Rob?”
I yawn. The whole subject is very boring. “I don’t think so. Nothing important, I’m sure.”
“I’d like to hear what they were. Even a fragment.”
“You’re a pest, Sigfrid, do you know that?”
“I’m sorry you feel I’m a pest, Rob.”
“Well… I don’t think I can remember even a fragment.”
“Try, please.”
“Oh, cripes. Well.” I get comfortable on the couch. The only dream I can think of is absolutely trivial, and I know there’s nothing in it that relates to anything traumatic or pivotal, but if I told him that he would get angry. So I say obediently, “I was in a car of a long railroad train. There were a number of cars hooked up together, and you could go from one to the other. They were full of people I knew. There was a woman, a sort of motherly type who coughed a lot, and another woman who — well, she looked rather strange. At first I thought she was a man. She was dressed in a sort of utility coverall, so you couldn’t tell from that whether she was male or female, and she had very masculine, bushy eyebrows. But I was sure she was a woman.”
“Did you talk to either of these women, Rob?”
“Please don’t interrupt, Sigfrid, you make me lose my train of thought.”
“I’m sorry, Rob.”
I go on with the dream: “I left them — no, I didn’t talk to them. I went back into the next car. That was the last one on the train. It was coupled to the rest of the train with a sort of — let’s see, I don’t know how to describe it. It was like one of those expanding gatefold things, made out of metal, you know? And it stretched.”
I stop for a moment, mostly out of boredom. I feel like apologizing for having such a dumb, irrelevant dream. “You say the metal connector stretched, Rob?” Sigfrid prompts me.
“That’s right, it stretched. So of course the car I was in kept dropping back, farther and farther behind the others. All I could see was the taillight, which was sort of in the shape of her face, looking at me. She—” I lose the thread of what I am saying. I try to get back on the track: “I guess I felt as though it was going to be difficult to get back to her, as if she- I’m sorry, Sigfrid, I don’t remember clearly what happened around there. Then I woke up. And,” I finish virtuously, “I wrote it all down as soon as I could, just the way you tell me to.”
“I appreciate that, Rob,” Sigfrid says gravely. He waits for me to go on.
I shift restlessly. “This couch isn’t nearly as comfortable as the mat,” I complain.
“I’m sorry about that, Rob. You said you recognized them?”
“Who?”
“The two women on
the train, that you were getting farther and farther away from.”
“Oh. No, I see what you mean. I recognized them in the dream. Really I have no idea who they were.”
“Did they look like anyone you knew?”
“Not a bit. I wondered about that myself.”
Sigfrid says, after a moment, which I happen to know is his way of giving me a chance to change my mind about an answer he doesn’t like, “You mentioned one of the women was a motherly type who coughed—”
“Yes. But I didn’t recognize her. I think in a way she did look familiar, but, you know, the way people in a dream do.”
He says patiently, “Can you think of any woman you’ve ever known who was motherly and coughed a lot?”
I laugh out loud at that. “Dear friend Sigfrid! I assure you the women I know are not at all the motherly type! And they are all on at least Major Medical. They’re not likely to cough.”
“I see. Are you sure, Robbie?”
“Don’t be a pain in the ass, Sigfrid,” I say, angry because the crappy couch is hard to get comfortable on, and also because I need to go to the bathroom, and this situation looks to be prolonging itself indefinitely.
“I see.” And after a moment he picks up on something else, as I know he is going to: he’s a pigeon, Sigfrid is, pecking at everything I throw out before him, one piece at a time. “How about the other woman, the one with the bushy eyebrows?”
“What about her?”
“Did you ever know any girl who had bushy eyesbrows?”
“Oh, Christ, Sigfrid, I’ve gone to bed with five hundred girls! Some of them had every kind of eyebrows you ever heard of.”
“No particular one?”
“Not that I can think of offhand.”
“Not offhand, Rob. Please make an effort to remember.”