Abdhiamal twisted, a split-second’s exasperation on his face. He smoothed his work shirt absently, smoothed his expression. “Yeah…somethin’ like that.”
“What happened up there? Did we get the hydrogen?”
“Probably…Why weren’t you in the control room?”
He grimaced. “I couldn’t do it. I—I called the captain a pervert.”
“You what?” Abdhiamal frowned in disbelief.
Shadow Jack caught the doorway to move on; desperation turned him back. “Can…I talk to you…man to man?”
Abdhiamal gestured him into the room, no trace of amusement on his face. “Probably. What about?”
Shadow Jack cleared his throat; Rusty pushed off from his shoulder, rose like a lifting ship, and swam toward Abdhiamal. “How come you never married?”
Abdhiamal laughed, startled. “I don’t know.” He watched the cat, reached out to pull her down to his chest. “Maybe because I never met a woman who’d spit in the eye of God.”
Shadow Jack’s eyes widened; and looking at Abdhiamal, he wondered who was more surprised.
Abdhiamal laughed again, shrugged. “But somehow I doubt it.”
“I mean…you said before, that now you never would get married. I thought there was—some other reason.” He reached for the doorframe.
“There was.”
He stopped, holding on.
“I’ve traveled a lot. That means I’ve been exposed to high radiation levels and potential genetic damage. We have ways of preservin’ sperm so men at least can travel and still raise healthy children. But with the bill of attainder, I’m legally dead now. They’ll destroy my account.” Abdhiamal took a deep breath. “And I’ve been sterilized.”
Shadow Jack looked back, letting the words come. “I’d be happy if I was sterile!” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean it like that. But we can’t ever get married, Bird Alyn and me, because I’m not sterile and she’s not. We are defective. We shouldn’t ever have children, but we would…”
Abdhiamal scratched Rusty under the chin. “It’s a simple operation. Can’t they perform it on Lansing?”
“They could…but they won’t.” Misery hung on him like a weight. “If you’re a Materialist, you’re supposed to take responsibility for your own actions. You’re supposed to take the consequences, not expect anybody else to do it for you. Like my mother, when my sister was born an’ they said she was too defective…my mother had to put her Out…She wouldn’t let my father touch her anymore.” He looked down at his hands. “But the medical technology’s bad anyhow. Sometimes I think they just don’t want to waste what’s left.”
Abdhiamal’s voice was gently professional. “How were you judged defective? You look sound to me.”
Shadow Jack’s hands tightened on metal. “Maybe I wasn’t defective, then. But my sister was. And they needed more outside workers, so they told me I had to work on the surface. That’s what you do if you’re marginally damaged, like Bird Alyn. That’s where I met her…” Where he had discovered what life must have been like once, lived in the beauty of gardens and not the bleakness of stone. And where he had discovered that his own life did not end because he had left the shielding walls of rock; that feeling did not, or belief, or hope. But he had spent too many megaseconds mending a tattered world-shroud, too many megaseconds in a contaminated ship…And there were no miracles to heal a crippled hand or mend a broken heart.
He struck the doorframe. “Everything goes wrong! I didn’t mean to call Betha…what I called her. But she had so many husbands; she even has children! When Bird Alyn and I can’t even have each other…it just made me crazy. Betha lost so much, and I said—I said that to her. She helped us after we tried to take her ship just like everybody else—”
“You did? And she let you get away with it?”
He nodded, feeling ridiculous. “All we had was a can opener—I guess she thought we were fools.”
“And—you said she has children?” Abdhiamal looked down at the wide leather band circling his wrist.
“Yeah. Goin’ into space is like…like doing anything else to them. It’s not the end of anything.” He bit his tongue, remembering that it had been for the crew of the Ranger.
“If she forgave you for trying to steal her ship, I expect she’ll forgive you for callin’ her a pervert. Sooner than she’ll forgive me for makin’ remarks about engineers.”
Shadow Jack frowned, not understanding.
Abdhiamal’s smile faded. “It seems you and I have more than one problem in common. Like every group in Heaven Belt shares the problems of every other one. And I’m not so sure any more that there’s an easy answer for any of us.”
Shadow Jack turned away, saw Bird Alyn watching him from the end of the hall. He met her eyes, hopelessness dragging him down like the chains of gravity. “There aren’t any answers at all. I should have known that. Sorry to take up your time, Abdhiamal.”
Wadie closed the door, still cradling the cat absently against his side. In his mind he saw the future on Lansing, grief and death among the gardens—and saw in Lansing the future of all Heaven…The future? Silence pressed his ears, deafening him. The end. The Demarchy was only one more fading patch of snow. There was no answer. Nothing he could ever do—nothing he had ever done—would hold back Death. He had made himself believe that his work had some relevance and worth, that a kind of creation existed in his negotiations, a binding force to keep equilibrium with disintegration and decay. But he had been wrong. It had always been too late. He was a damned fop, living at the expense of everyone else…and wasting his life on the self-delusion that he was somehow saving them all. Wasting his life: he had thrown away his last chance of ever having a life of his own, a home, a family, any real relationship. And all that he had ever done, been, or believed was meaningless. It had all been for nothing—and it would all be nothing in the end. Nothing.
Rusty squirmed in his grasp like an impatient child. As he released her his arm scraped the ventilator screen, his hand closed over a flat, palm-sized square trapped by the soft exit of air. He pulled it down, stared at it. A picture—a hologram—of a man and a woman, each holding a child, flooded in blazing light where they stood before an ugly, half-sunken dwelling. The woman was Betha Torgussen, her hair long, coiled on her head in braids. And the man, tall, with dark hair and a lean, sunburned face…Eric? Her voice came to him suddenly, from behind a shielding faceplate, in a train car on Mecca. I—I thought you were someone I knew. Wadie brushed the images with a finger, moving through them. Ghosts…
Betha Torgussen’s voice came to him out of a speaker on the wall, telling the crew that Nakamore had acquiesced.
RANGER (DISCAN SPACE)
+ 2.74 MEGASECONDS
“Okay, Pappy, the cables are secured. We really outdid ourselves when we closed with this load! Start us in.” Betha raised her chin from the speaker button, hooking her arm under the twisted strength of the steel cable, secure in the crevice between cylinders of hydrogen. She felt the abrupt lurch as the winches started the final shipment of fuel moving in toward the looming brilliance of the Ranger.
“This is the lot, Betha.” Clewell’s voice filled her helmet, smiling. She imagined his smile, felt it through the ship’s mirrored hull.
“This is it. We’ve done it, Pappy! We’re really going to make it.” Through the shielded faceplate of her helmet she saw the molten silver, the ruby scarab of Discus reflecting on the Ranger’s hull, rising above a dull-green horizon of clustered tanks, marred by a tiny spot of blackness. The shadow of Snows-of-Salvation…or a ragged hole torn in the metal. She looked away, dizzy, past the small bright-suited figure of Shadow Jack at one end of the fifty-meter-long bundled cylinders. And out into the void; imagined the merciless drag of the Discan gravity well pulling her loose into the endless night…like five others before her. She shut her eyes, clung to the cable; opened them again to look down at the solid surface of the tanks, along the dull greenness at Abdhiam
al, inept and uncommunicative at the shipment’s other limit. They were almost flush now with the Ranger’s massive protection; it would be over soon. One more, just one more time…Sweat tickled her face; she shook her head angrily inside her helmet. Damn it! You won’t fall—
“Betha!” It was Bird Alyn’s voice, rising clearly for once above the crackle of her feeble helmet speaker. Betha saw her, gnatlike beside the immense holding rack clamped to the ship’s skin. “The load’s not closing even!…Abdhiamal, your end—the end cable’s caught between tanks—”
“I’ll clear it.”
“Abdhiamal, wait!” Betha saw him go over the end, saw the flash of his guidance rocket as he disappeared. “Pappy! Loosen the aft cable, right now!” She pulled her own guidance unit loose from the catch at her waist, pressed the trigger, sent herself after him to the end of the world. Looking over, she saw him hovering near the hub of the wheel of tanks, the cable trapped between two cylinders. She saw him catch hold of the cable, brace his feet, and pull—“Abdhiamal, stop, stop!”—saw the cable slip free…watched as the bound tanks recoiled below her and the cable wrenched loose from the hull, arcing soundlessly toward her like a striking snake. She backed desperately, knowing, knowing—
“Clewell!” Her face cracked against the helmet glass in starbursts of light as the cable struck her across the chest, throwing her out and away from the ship. She fought for breath, blood in her mouth, her lungs crippled with pain, saw the ship like a fiery pinwheel slip out of her view, blackness, blood and molten silver, blackness…She fumbled for the trigger of her guidance rocket, but her hands were empty. And she was falling.
No—Betha began to scream.
Wadie felt the cable slip loose as the captain’s voice reached him, telling him to stop. He fell back, suddenly unsupported, looking up in surprise—to see what he had done, see the tanks rebound, the cable lash out like a whip and knock her away…saw her guidance rocket fly free, tumbling, a spark of light. “Oh, my God—” He heard the cries of Bird Alyn and Shadow Jack, echoing his own, no sound from Betha Torgussen. He waved the others back as he went after her into the night.
The immensity of isolation stifled him, filling the black-and-brilliant desolation like sand, dragging at him, holding him back…as the isolation of his own making had cut him off from truth all his life. He closed with her spiraling form slowly, agonizingly, centimeters every second…seeing in his mind a ruptured suit, a frozen corpse, her pale, staring face cursing him even in death for the hypocrisy of his wasted years. Yet wanting, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, to close that gap between them, and see instead that it was not too late…
And after a space as long as his life his gloved hand clamped over an ankle. He drew her toward him and used his guidance unit to stop their outward fall. He caught her helmet in his hands, felt her clutch him feebly as he searched behind the silent, red-fogged glass for a glimpse of her face. Repeating, wild with relief, “Betha…Betha…Betha, are you all right?”
Her shadowed face fell forward, peering out; her chin pressed the speaker button. “Eric…oh, Eric.” He heard her sob. “Don’t let me go…I’ll fall…don’t let go, don’t let go…” Her arms tightened convulsively, silence formed between them again. He stroked the tempered glass, “I won’t…it’s all right…I won’t let you go.” The plane of the Discan rings blinded him with frigid glory, as immutable as death; he turned away from it, started them back toward the diminished ship, across the black sand desert of the night. She kept radio silence; he did not search for her face again behind the blood-reddened glass, granting her the privacy of her grief, feeling the ghosts of five human beings move with them. And at last he heard her voice say his own name, thanking him, and say it again…
“What happened?”
“Is she all right?”
“Betha, are you all right?”
The voices of Shadow Jack and Bird Alyn clamored in his helmet as they met him, their hidden faces turned toward Betha, gloved hands reaching out.
“She’s hurt. Help me get her inside.” She scarcely moved against his hold, silent as they made their way through the airlock.
They entered the control room, her hands still locked rigidly on his suit. He looked across the room at the panel, looking for Welkin; cleared his faceplate, suddenly aware that nothing moved. “Welkin?” He saw a hand, motionless above the chair arm, and his throat closed.
Betha raised her head as if she were listening, but he could not answer. She released her grip, pushing away from him. “Pappy?” Her voice quavered, she folded into a tight crescent in the air, her arms wrapped against her stomach. “Pappy…are you there?” He heard a small gasp as she tried to lift her hands. “Somebody…get this helmet off. I can’t see. Pappy?”
“Betha—” Shadow Jack began, broke off.
Bird Alyn moved to release Betha’s helmet, lifted it slowly, jerked back at the sight of her face filmed with blood.
But Betha had already turned away, shaking her head to clear her confusion, pulling distractedly at her gloves. She froze as she saw the old man’s drifting hand. “Oh, Jesus.” Her own hand flew out, caught at Bird Alyn’s suit, groping for purchase. Bird Alyn put an arm around her, helped her cross the room. Wadie followed.
“Pappy…” Her voice broke apart as she reached him.
Welkin opened his eyes as she touched his face, stared her into focus uncomprehendingly, his right hand pressing his chest. She laughed, or sobbed, squeezing his shoulder. “Thank God! Thank God…I thought…you’re so cold…”
“Betha. Are you—?”
“I’m all right. I’m fine.” She put a trembling hand up to her face, glanced at her bloody fingertips. “Just a…nosebleed. What—what happened?”
“Pain…in my chest, like being crushed; down my arm…must be my heart. Was afraid to move. When I saw…what happened to you on the screen—”
“Don’t. Don’t think about it…it’s over. We’ll make it, Pappy. We’ll make it yet. Close your eyes, don’t move, don’t worry, just rest. We’ll take care of you.” She managed a smile, new blood blurring on her chin, her hand gently cupping his face.
“Should we get him to the infirmary?” Wadie hesitated near her shoulder, forcing himself to speak.
“No.” Welkin shook his head, eyes shut. “Not yet. Finish the job!”
“He’s right. We shouldn’t move him yet, anyway. Thank God we’re in zero gee…” Betha pulled a scarf out of a cubby under the panel, starting a small blizzard of papers drifting. She wiped her face and spat gingerly, wincing. Wadie saw her control slip again, saw pain show, and her body bend as she pushed out of Welkin’s sight. Bird Alyn moved back to her side, month open; she frowned, straightening, shook her head. “All right. Pappy said it. We’re going to finish the job. Nothing will stop us now! I’ll start the winch. Bird Alyn, get back outside…and make sure the load is secured. Shadow Jack, you’ll chart us a course for Lansing. Tell me what you need to know, I’ll double-check you…Abdhiamal—”
He met her eyes, bracing against what he expected to see. “Keep the hell out of your way?”
Expressionless, she said, “Go to the infirmary and get me a hypo of painkiller for Clewell. They’re prefilled, with the first-aid supplies.” She caught hold of a chair back, shook her head. “Make it two hypos. And then”—her eyes changed, clung to him—“keep the hell out of my way, Abdhiamal!”
GRUSINKA-MARU
(IN TRANSIT, DEMARCHY TO DISCUS)
+ 2.75 MEGASECONDS
“…how you intend to explain what your man’s done now, MacWong? He must’ve shown the Outsiders how to get that hydrogen. Now he’s made certain we can’t catch the starship before it leaves the system.” Esrom Tiriki moved incautiously in the overcrowded space of the ship’s control room.
“He isn’t ‘my man’ any more, Demarch Tiriki. He was declared a traitor,” Lije MacWong repeated wearily. He is a traitor, much to my surprise. Why? Revenge? A reasonable assumption…“In any cas
e, he didn’t deliver the starship to the Ringers, either.”
“But you said he would.”
“It was a reasonable assumption.” MacWong felt unaccustomed tension tightening the muscles in his neck—brought on by the discomfort of the ship’s acceleration, and by the effect discomfort was having on everyone else, as well. He silently regretted the ill fortune that had made Tiriki Distillates a part owner of this fusion ship, and permitted Esrom Tiriki to be here as its representative. Tiriki—and his company—had suffered considerable embarrassment when their personal plans for the starship had been exposed; even Tiriki’s two fellow representatives had begun to let their disapproval show as their tempers shortened. MacWong further regretted that Tiriki did not have the self-control to suffer in silence.
The Nchibe representative drew Tiriki’s unwelcome attention again and MacWong drifted away past a yawning, fawning mediaman in Nchibe livery. They had picked up the Ringers’ reply to the starship’s threats, and it had been sent on to the Demarchy—as all crucial information was, and would be, during their pursuit. The people, the changeable god to whom he had offered up Wadie Abdhiamal and other sacrificial scapegoats, kept watch over him even here. But now for once the people kept their silence, because any response would have reached the starship too, and revealed their pursuit. For possibly the only time in his career he had a measure of freedom in his decision-making; he was not sure yet how much he could afford to enjoy it.
Because the next decision he would make now—and answer for later—was whether to continue pursuing the starship or to return to the Demarchy. And the decision was not as obvious as it seemed…The starship had taken a thousand tons of hydrogen—far more than it needed to escape from the system, from what Osuna had told him. Enough fuel to critically cripple its speed and maneuverability. Had they done that for revenge, too? Somehow he doubted it. They had destroyed a ship before; this time they could have destroyed so much more…they could have destroyed the major distillery. But they hadn’t. He experienced a curious mingling of fascination and relief.