“Wait?” His lip curled. “I’ve been ready to go for weeks. I used to think of… of Flower and me working together, helping, each other. I used to make plans for a celebration the day we got certified. I used to look at the stars and think about the net we’d help throw around them, pull ’em down, pack ’em in a basket. Flower and me, back on Earth after six thousand years, watching humanity come into its own, knowing we’d done something to help. I’ve been waiting, and you say wait some more.”
“This,” I said, “is what you call an unstable situation. It can’t stay the way it is and it won’t. Wait, I tell you: wait. There’s got to be a blow-off.”
There was.
4
In my office the chime sounded. Moira and Bill. Certificates denied to Hester, Elizabeth, Jenks, Mella. Hester back to earth. Hallowell and Letitia, marriage recorded. Certificates granted to Aaron, Musette, n’Guchi, Mancinelli, Judson.
Judson took the news quietly, glowing. I hadn’t seen much of him recently. Flower took up a lot of his time, and training the rest. After he was certified and I’d gone with him to test the hand-scanner by the gate and give him his final briefing, he cut out on the double, I guess to give Flower the great news. I remember wondering how he’d like her reaction.
When I got back to my office Tween was there. She rose from the foyer couch as I wheezed in off the ramp. I took one look at her and said, “Come inside.” She followed me through the inner door. I waved my hand over the infra-red plate and it closed. Then I out out my arms.
She bleated like a new-born lamb and flew to me. Her tears were scalding, and I don’t think human muscles are built for the wrenching those agonized sobs gave her. People should cry more. They ought to learn how to do it easily, like laughing or sweating. Crying piles up. In people like Tween, who do nothing if they can’t smile and make a habit-pattern of it, it really piles up. With a reservoir like that, and no developed outlet, things get torn when the pressure builds too high.
I just held her tight so she wouldn’t explode. The only thing I said to her was “sh-h-h” once when she tried to talk while she wept. One thing at a time.
It took a while, but when she was finished she was finished. She didn’t taper off. She was weak from all that punishment, but calm. She talked.
“He isn’t a real thing at all,” she said bleakly. “He’s something I made up out of starshine, out of wanting so much to be a part of something as big as this project. I never felt I had anything big about me except that. I wanted to join it with something bigger than I was, and, together, we’d build something so big that it would be worthy of Curbstone.
“I thought it was Wold. I made it be Wold. Oh, none of this is his fault. I could have seen what he was, and I just wouldn’t. What I did with him, what I felt for him, was just as crazy as if I’d convinced myself he had wings and then hated him because he wouldn’t fly. He isn’t anything but a h-hero. He struts to the newcomers and the rejected ones pretending he’s a man who will one day give himself to humanity and the stars. He… probably believes that about himself. But he won’t complete his training, and he…now I know, now I can see it—he tried everything he could think of to stop me from being certified. I was no use to him with a certificate. He couldn’t treat me as his pretty, slightly stupid little girl, once I was certified. And he couldn’t get his own certificate because if he did he’d have to go Out, one of these days, and that’s something he can’t face.
“He— wants me to leave him. If I will, if it’s my decision, he can wear my memory like a black band on his arm, and delude himself for the rest of his life that his succession of women is just a search for something to replace me. Then he’ll always have an excuse; he’ll never, never have to risk his neck. He’ll be the shattered hero, and women as stupid as I was will try to heal the wounds he’s arranged for me to give him.”
“You don’t hate him?” I asked her quietly.
“No. Oh, no, no! I told you, it wasn’t his fault. I—loved something. A man lived in my heart, lived there for years. He had no name and no face. I gave him Wold’s name and Wold’s face and just wouldn’t believe it wasn’t Wold. I did it. Wold didn’t. I don’t hate him. I don’t like him. I just don’t…anything.”
I patted her shoulder. “Good. You’re cured. If you hated him, he’d still be important. What are you going to do?”
“What shall I do?”
“I’d never tell you what to do about a thing like this, Tween. You know that. You’ve got to figure out your own answers. I can advise you to use those new-opened eyes of yours carefully, though. And don’t think that that man who lives in your heart doesn’t exist anywhere else. He does. Right here on this station, maybe. You just haven’t been able to see him before.”
“Who?”
“God, girl, don’t ask me that! Ask Tween next time you see her; no one will ever know for sure but Tween.”
“You’re so wise…”
“Nah. I’m old enough to have made more mistakes than most people, that’s all, and I have a good memory.”
She rose shakily. I put out a hand and helped her. “You’re played out, Tween. Look—don’t go back yet. Hide out for a few days and get some rest and do some thinking. There’s a suite on this level. No one will bother you, and you’ll find everything there you need, including silence and privacy.”
“That would be good,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
“All right… listen. Mind if I send someone in to talk to you?”
“Talk? Who?”
“Let me play it as it comes.”
The ruby eyes sent a warm wave to me, and she smiled. I thought, I wish I was as confident of myself as she is of me. “It’s 412,” I said, “the third door to your left. Stay there as long as you want to. Come back when you feel like it.”
She came close to me and tried to say something. I thought for a second she was going to kiss me on the mouth. She didn’t; she kissed my hand. “I’ll swat your bottom!” I roared, flustered. “Git, now, dammit!” She laughed… she always had a bit of laughter tucked away in her, no matter what, bless her cotton head…
As soon as she was gone, I turned to the annunciator and sent out a call for Judson. Hell, I thought, you can try, can’t you? Waiting, I thought about Judson’s hungry, upward look, and that hole in his head… that quality of reachableness, and what happened when he was reached by the wrong thing.
Lord, responsive people certainly make the worst damn fools of all!
He was there in minutes, looking flushed, excited, happy, and worried all at once. “Was on my way here when your call went out,” he said.
“SIT down, Jud. I have a small project in mind. Maybe you could help.”
He sat. I looked for just the right words to use. I couldn’t say anything about Flower. She had her hooks into him; if I said anything about her, he’d defend her. And one of the oldest phenomena in human relations is that we come to be very fond of the thing we find ourselves defending, even if we didn’t like it before. I thought again of the hunger that lived in Jud, and what Tween might see of it with her newly opened eyes.
“Jud—”
“I’m married,” he blurted.
I sat very still. I don’t think my face did anything at all.
“It was the right thing for me to do,” he said, almost angrily. “Don’t you see? You know what my problem is—it was you who found it for me. I was looking for something that should belong to me… or something to belong to.”
“Flower,” I said.
“Of course. Who else? Listen, that girl’s got trouble, too. What do you suppose blocks her from taking her certificate? She doesn’t think she’s worthy of it.”
My, I said. Fortunately, I said it to myself.
Jud said, “No matter what happens, I’ve done the right thing. If I can help her get her certificate, we’ll go Out together, and that’s what we’re here for. If I can’t help her do that, but find that she fills that place in me that’s been so emp
ty for so long, well and good—that’s what I’m here for. We can go back to Earth and be happy.”
“You’re quite sure of all this.”
“Sure I’m sure! Do you think I’d have gone ahead with the marriage if I weren’t sure?”
Sure you would, I thought. I said, “Congratulations, then. You know I wish you the best.”
He stood up uncertainly, started to say something, and apparently couldn’t find it. He went to the door, turned back. “Will you come for dinner tonight?” I hesitated. He said, “Please. I’d appreciate it.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Answer me straight, Jud. Is dinner your idea or Flower’s?”
He laughed embarrassedly. “Damn it, you always see too much. Mine… sort of… I mean, it isn’t that she dislikes you, but… well, hell, I want the two of you to be friends, and I think you’d understand her and me, too, a lot better if you made the effort.”
I could think of things I’d much rather do than have dinner with Flower. A short swim in boiling oil, for example. I looked up at his anxious face. Oh, hell. “I’d love to,” I said. “Around eight?”
“Fine! Gee,” he said, like a school kid. “Gee, thanks.” He shuffled, not knowing whether to go right away or not. “Hey,” he said suddenly. “You sent out a call for me. What’s this project you wanted me for?”
“Nothing, Jud,” I said tiredly. “I’ve… changed my mind. See you later, son.”
The dinner was something special. Steaks. Jud had broiled them himself. I got the idea that he’d selected them, too, and set the table. It was Flower, though, who got me something to sit on. She looked me over, slowly and without concealing it, went to the table, pulled the light formed-aluminum chair away, and dragged over a massive relaxer. She then smiled straight at me. A little unnecessary, I thought; I’m bulky, but those aluminum chairs have always held up under me so far.
I won’t give it to you round by round. The meal passed with Flower either in a sullen silence or manufacturing small brittle whips of conversation. When she was quiet, Jud tried to goad her into talking.
When she talked, he tried to turn the conversation away from me. The occasion, I think, was a complete success—for Flower. For Jud it must have been hell. For me—well, it was interesting.
Item: Flower poked and prodded at her steak, and when she got a lull in the labored talk Jud and I were squeezing out, she began to cut meticulously around the edges of the steak. “If there is anything I can’t stand the sight or the smell of,” she said clearly, “it’s fat.”
Item: She said, “Oh, Lord” this and “Lord sakes” that in a drawl that made it come out “Lard” every time.
Item: I sneezed once. She whipped a tissue over to me swiftly and politely enough, and then said
“Render unto sneezers…” which stood as a cute quip until she nudged her husband and said, “Render!” at which point things got real hushed.
Item: When she had finished, she leaned back and sighed. “If I ate like that all the time, I’d be as big as—” She looked straight at me and stopped. Jud, flushing miserably, tried to kick her under the table; I know, because it was me he kicked. Flower finished, “—as big as a lifeboat.” But she kept looking at me, easily and insultingly.
Item—You get the idea. All I can say for myself is that I got through it all. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of driving me out until I’d had all she could give me. I wouldn’t be overtly angry, because if I did, she’d present me to Jud ever after as the man who hated her. If Jud ever had wit enough, this evening could be remembered as the time she was insufferably insulting, and that was all I wanted.
It was over at last, and I made my excuses as late as I possibly could withdut staying overnight. As I left, she took Jud’s arm and held it tight until I was out of sight, thereby removing the one chance he had to come along a little way and apologize to me.
He didn’t get close enough to speak to me for four days, and when he did, I had the impression that he had lied to be there, that Flower thought he was somewhere else. He said rapidly, “About the other night, you mustn’t think that—”
And I cut him off as gently and firmly as I could: “I understand it perfectly, Jud. Think a minute and you’ll know that.”
“Look, Flower was just out of sorts. I’ll work on her. Next time you come there’ll be a real difference. You’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will, Jud. But drop it, will you? There’s no harm done.” And I thought, next time I come will be six months after the Outbounders get back. That gives me sixty centuries or so to get case-hardened.
5
About a week after Jud’s wedding, I was in the Upper Central corridor where it ramps into the Gate passageway. Now whether it was some sixth sense, or whether I actually did smell something, I don’t know. I got a powerful, sourceless impression of methyl-caffeine in the air, and at the same time I looked down the passage and saw the Gate just closing.
I got down there altogether too fast to do my leaky valves any good. I palmed the doors open and sprinted across the court. When anything my size and shape gets to sprinting, it’s harder to stop it than let it keep going. One of the ship ports was open and I was heading for it. It started to swing closed. I lost all thought of trying to slow down and put what little energy I could find into pumping my old legs faster.
With a horrible slow-motion feeling of disaster, I felt one toe tip my other heel, and my center of gravity began to move forward faster than I was traveling. I was in mid-air for an age—long enough to chew and swallow a tongue—and then I hit on my stomach, rocked forward on my receding chest and two of my chins, and slid. I had my hands out in front of me. My left hit the bulkhead and buckled. My right shot through what was left of the opening of the door, which crunched shut on my forearm. Then my forehead hit the sill and I blacked out.
When the lights dimmed on again, I was spread out on a ship’s bunk, apparently alone. My left arm hurt more than I could bear, and my right arm hurt worse, and both of them together couldn’t match what was going on in my head.
A man appeared from the service cubicle when I let out a groan. He had a bowl of warm water and the ship’s B first-aid kit in his hands. He crossed quickly to me, and began to stanch the blood from between some of my chins. It wasn’t until then that my blurring sight made out who he was.
“Clinton, you hub-forted son of a bastich!” I roared at him. “Leave the chin alone and get some plexicaine into those arms!”
He had the gall to laugh at me. “One thing at a time, old man. You are bleeding. Let’s try to be a patient, not an impatient.”
“Impatient, out-patient,” I yelped, “get that plex into me! I am just not the strong, silent type!”
“Okay, okay.” He got the needle out of the kit, squirted it upward, and plunged it deftly into my arms.
A good boy. He hit the bicep on one, the forearm on the other, and got just the right ganglia. The pain vanished. That left my head, but he fed me an analgesic and that cataclysmic ache began to recede.
“I’m afraid the left is broken,” he said. “As for the right—well, if I hadn’t seen that hand come crawling in over the sill like a pet puppy, and reversed the door control, I’d have cut your fingernails off clear up to the elbow. What in time did you think you were doing?”
“I can’t remember; maybe I’ve got a concussion. For some reason or other it seemed I had to look inside the ship. Can you splint this arm?”
“Let’s call the medic.”
“You can do just as well.” He went for the C kit and got a traction splint out. He whipped the prepared cushioning around the swelling arm, clamped the ends of the splint at wrist and elbow, and played an infra-red lamp on it. In a few seconds the splint began to lengthen. When the broken forearm was a few millimeters longer than the other, he shut off the heat and the thermoplastic splint automatically set and snugged into the cushioning. Clinton threw off the clamps. “That’s good enough for now. All right, are you ready to tell me wh
at made you get in my way?”
“No.”
“Stop trying to look like an innocent babe! Your stubble gives you away. You knew I was going to solo, didn’t you?”
“No one said anything to me.”
“No one ever has to,” he said in irritation, and then chuckled. “Man, I wish I could stay mad at you.
All right—what next?”
“You’re not going to take off?”
“With you in here? Don’t be foolish. The station’d lose too much and I wouldn’t be gaining a thing.
Damn you! I’d worked up the most glamorous drunk on methyl-caffeine, and you had to get me all anxious and drive away the fumes… Well, go ahead. I’ll play it your way. What do we do?”
“Stop trying to make a Machiavelli out of me,” I growled. “Give me a hand back to my quarters and I’ll let you go do whatever you want.”
“It’s never that simple with you,” he half-grinned. “Okay. Let’s go.”
When I got to my feet—with more of his help than I like to admit—my heart began to pound. He must have felt it, because he said nothing while we stood there and waited for it to behave itself. Clinton was a good lad.
We negotiated the court and the Gate all right, but slowly. When we got to the foot of my ramp, I shook my head. “Not that,” I wheezed.
“Couldn’t make it. Down this way.”
We went down the lateral corridor to 412. The door slid back for me.
“Hi!” I called. “Company.”
“What? Who is it?” came the crystal voice. Tween appeared. “Oh—oh! I didn’t want to see anyone just—why, what’s happened?”
My eyelids flickered. I moaned. Clinton said, “I think we better get him spread out. He’s not doing so well.”
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