by Ben Bova
“It’s something more than that, Raoul.” Stoner hesitated a heartbeat, then added, “Something less, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
His face grave, Stoner replied, “I’ve been testing you, Raoul. And you’ve passed with flying colors. So far.”
Tavalera felt his brows furrow.
“You haven’t been on the Goddard habitat,” Stoner confessed. “You’ve been right here in my ship all the time.”
“But I was there!” Tavalera insisted. “With Holly.”
Shaking his head, Stoner explained, “That was all an illusion, Raoul. A test. I had to—”
“You tricked me?” Tavalera shouted.
“Yes.”
“You mean I never really talked to Holly? Never went to the habitat?”
“I can’t get around the facts of time and distance,” Stoner said. “No one can. I set up an illusion for you. Your real-time conversations with Holly, your visit to the habitat—they were all illusions.”
Tavalera balled his fists and took a step toward Stoner. “You lied to me? You made me think . . .” He wanted to punch Stoner’s face. Hit him and hurt him.
Stoner stood before him, his arms at his sides. “I don’t blame you for being angry. But I had to know.”
“Know what?”
“That you’d place the welfare of the human race above your own desires. That even if you could stay with her aboard the habitat you’d choose to return to Earth.”
“You lying sonofabitch! You mean Holly’s out there still wondering why I haven’t contacted her?”
“I contacted her. I explained to her what was going on here. That’s how I got the inputs to simulate her reactions to you.”
“And you’ve had me here in some kind of a trance all this time?”
“Here, and before that in your apartment in Atlanta. I’m sorry I had to deceive you, Raoul. I had to know what your choice would be.”
“You tricked me! You made me think—”
“I made you think you were on the Goddard habitat. Yet you still chose to return to Earth and work to avert the nuclear war.”
“And Holly’s still out there, wondering why the fuck I haven’t come back to her.”
“She knows. I told her. She doesn’t like it, but at least she knows what the story is here.”
Tavalera sank down onto one of the couches in the starship’s bridge. He realized it was a fake, an illusion. All this time he’s been playing tricks with my mind, he told himself. He’s been toying with me, like I’m some sort of puppy to be trained.
Stoner sat on the edge of the couch beside him. “Raoul, I could have controlled your mind and made you do what I wanted. But I wanted to have your free cooperation.”
“Fuck you.”
Stoner’s dark brows rose a millimeter. “I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“Double fuck you.”
“I need your help, Raoul. This task is too big for me to accomplish by myself.”
“You can go to hell.”
“And take the all the people on Earth with me?”
“I don’t care about them!” Tavalera snapped. “All I want is to be back with Holly.”
Stoner shook his head slightly. “That’s not true, Raoul. When you had the chance to do that, you told her you had to come back to Earth.”
“That was all make-believe.”
“It was a test, and you made the decision. You didn’t know it was an illusion. You thought it was the real thing.”
“Yeah. Thanks a lot.”
“Are you willing to help me?”
“No.”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Stoner replied. “So what do you want to do?”
“I want to go to the habitat and be with Holly.”
Shaking his head again, Stoner admitted, “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Not unless I commandeer a spacecraft to take you there.”
“No instantaneous travel, huh?”
“I can move this starship close to the speed of light, but I can’t produce instantaneous travel. Nor instantaneous communications, either. That was all an illusion, I’m afraid.”
Tavalera could feel his insides shaking. “So what do I do now?” he wondered aloud. “Where do I go?”
“Wherever you want to go,” Stoner said. Then he added, “Within reason. Anywhere on Earth.”
“There’s nothing there for me. Nobody.”
Stoner said nothing. His face was a blank mask, watching Tavalera, waiting for him to think, to decide, to speak.
Anger overwhelmed him. Tavalera shot to his feet and leveled an accusing finger at Stoner.
“I’ve got nothing!” he roared. “Nothing! No friends, nobody on Earth who cares a rat’s ass about me, except my mother, and they’ve got her so wrapped up she doesn’t know up from down anymore.”
“I could help her,” Stoner said softly.
“Leave her alone! And leave me alone! Stay the fuck out of my head! Got that? I don’t want you in my mind! Never again!”
Stoner nodded solemnly. “But where do you go from here, Raoul? Where do you want to go?”
“Angelique,” he blurted, surprising himself. “She’s the only person on Earth that I know. Maybe she can help me.”
“Help you to do what?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care!”
“The New Morality didn’t treat you—”
“I don’t know anybody else!” Tavalera cried. “Send me back to Angelique. At least she cares about me—a little.”
“That’s what you want?”
“That’s what I want.”
Stoner said, “All right. That’s what I’ll do.”
“Good.”
“I’m sorry I did this to you, Raoul. For what it’s worth, my wife warned me that it wouldn’t work.”
“Big fucking deal.”
“I’m really sorry,” Stoner said.
“Yeah, sure. Just stay out of my head. Understand? I don’t want you inside my mind. Stay out! Leave me alone!”
Stoner nodded in helpless agreement.
CHAPTER 6
Angelique was in the office that Archbishop Overmire had given her, next to his own in the vicarage in Atlanta. It was a small, spare windowless room. But it was next to the seat of power.
She had spent the morning on the phone, speaking with bureaucrats in Greater Iran, China, Russia, and the capital of the European Community in Brussels.
The idea of a global conference to discuss their differences appealed to the bureaucrats. Each of them saw the advantage to their leaders of posing in a highly publicized meeting to espouse their pious hopes for peace and brotherhood. Even the most radical of the Muslims, who couldn’t help frowning at dealing with a woman, and a black woman at that, seemed quite willing to take the idea to their mullahs and emirs.
I’ll have to get the Archbishop to talk to the actual leaders, Angelique thought. Ling Po and the others will speak only to their opposite numbers, not a woman they believe to be beneath them. She almost giggled, thinking, They won’t even be satisfied with speaking to the President of the United States. They know he’s nothing but a figurehead. Archbishop Overmire is where the power is.
Then she did smile to herself. And I’ve got the Archbishop’s power in my hands.
It was a surprise when the chief of security phoned to tell her that Raoul Tavalera was back in his apartment in the New Morality complex.
“Tavalera?” Angelique gasped. “When did he return? How did he get into the building?”
The chief looked more exasperated than puzzled. He had gone through this kind of thing before and he obviously didn’t like it.
“He was in his bed this morning,” he said, glancing slightly off-camera to read the data off a different screen. “He must have come in during the night, but neither the guards nor the security sensors saw him.”
“He’s come back,” Angelique mused.
“He says he wants to see you,” the security chief report
ed. “Says he has to see you, actually.”
She nodded. “Send him to my office, please.”
In less than fifteen minutes Tavalera was ushered into her cubbyhole of an office. He looked upset, terribly unhappy.
“Raoul,” she said.
“Hello, Angelique.”
“Where . . . how . . .” She had a hundred questions, but she knew there was only one answer to them all. “Stoner,” she said.
Tavalera nodded tightly. “Stoner.”
“He wants to know what the Archbishop is doing about the nuclear weapons,” Angelique surmised.
“I guess he does.”
“You guess?”
With a shake of his head, Tavalera admitted, “He can’t be trusted. He’s just as bad as all the others, just as manipulating, just as . . .”
His voice broke. Angelique thought he was close to tears. She gestured him to one of the stiff-backed chairs in front of her desk.
“What’s wrong, Raoul? What’s happened to you?”
“Stoner tricked me. He . . .” Again Tavalera stopped.
“What do you mean?”
“He tricked me. He was using me.” His dark eyes full of confusion and hopelessness, he blurted, “I’ve got nowhere to go! I’ve got nothing! Nobody!”
And Angelique thought she understood. She knew what he was going through. She’d been there herself, more than once in her life.
“Matthew 11:28,” she murmured.
“What?”
“ ‘Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,’ ” Angelique quoted.
“Bible stuff,” Tavalera grumbled.
“But it’s true, Raoul. It works. Give yourself to the Lord and He will take care of you.”
“You mean give myself to the New Morality and they’ll take care of me.”
“I’ll take care of you, Raoul. I’ll help you. I care about you.”
His eyes focused on her. “You will.” His voice was heavy with suspicion.
“Help me, Raoul,” Angelique coaxed. “Help me and I’ll help you. Tell Stoner—”
“I’m not telling him anything!” Tavalera snapped. “I’m finished with him. He’s done enough to me.”
She drew back a little. He’s angry with Stoner, she thought. Still, he’s the only real link with Stoner that we have.
“Raoul,” she said, trying to make her voice sound soothing, promising, “I’m working on an enormous project. An international meeting.”
Tavalera nodded, his face still dark with distrust.
“Help me to make the arrangements. I could use your help, Raoul. I need someone I can trust.”
He almost sneered at the word.
“And if you help me,” Angelique went on, “I’ll help you. Once the conference is finished, I’ll see that you return to that habitat out by Saturn.”
For a long moment Tavalera said nothing. Then, “And my mother, too.”
Angelique nodded. “And your mother, too.”
He thought about it for several silent moments. At last Tavalera said, “Okay. What’ve I got to lose?”
Angelique gave him her warmest smile, thinking, He’s still a link to Stoner, whether he wants to be or not. I’ll be able to reach Stoner through him. And by the time this conference is over, Stoner will be dead and we’ll be rid of him.
Two mornings later, Tavalera was sitting before Angelique’s desk while she summarized, “I’ve gotten the Archbishop to make a public announcement of the global conference to discuss the issues causing tensions in the world: population growth, food shortages, the growing lack of scientists and engineers.”
He saw that she was edgy, her eyes darting from his face to other spots in the room. Cameras, maybe, he thought. She wants to get this down on video. Then he thought, Or maybe she’s just rattled ’cause I’ve come back.
He knew there was more going on in Angelique’s crafty little mind than she was telling him, but he didn’t care. Once this is finished she’ll send me back to Goddard. And Mom, too. She won’t need me anymore and I won’t need her, not once I’m heading back to Holly.
He heard himself ask, “What about the nukes? That’s what Stoner was all worked up about.”
Angelique’s eyes focused on him. She hesitated, then replied, “No one will mention nuclear weapons in the public sessions.”
“But in private?”
“That will be the major topic of discussion, of course.” Again she paused a heartbeat, then added, “We’re hoping that Stoner will appear before them. It would help enormously if he met with them, spoke to them.”
Tavalera’s expression hardened. “Stoner’ll do whatever he feels like doing. But he said he’s got something he wants to tell them, so I guess he’ll show up.”
“Good,” said Angelique, a cautious smile curving the corners of her lips. “You’ll let him know about it?”
“If he tries to contact me again.”
“If . . .?”
“I’m not his errand boy anymore,” Tavalera said.
Looking alarmed, Angelique said, “But he’s got to know! He’s got to be there.”
Tavalera shrugged. “He’ll be there; don’t worry.”
“It’s important,” she insisted. “Vital. This whole conference is really for him. He’s got to be there!”
Tavalera saw something in her face that he couldn’t quite fathom. She’s hiding something, he thought.
Aloud, he replied to her, “I don’t know where he is and I don’t care.”
CHAPTER 7
Still feeling that he’d made a mistake with Tavalera, Stoner projected himself to the asteroid where Bertram Feingold had sunk into a happy slumber in the chamber that housed the artifact.
Feingold awoke to see a man standing over him. He was still in the artifact’s warm rock womb of a chamber, but the dazzling light was gone. Feingold remembered the grandeur and harmony he had seen, the rhapsody of the stars that had sung more beautifully in his mind than any siren’s lure. But it was fading now, slipping from his grasp like a dream even as he reached out mentally to hold on to it.
Disappointment washed over him. He stirred, rubbed his eyes. The man was still standing over him. Not one of the technicians he had seen earlier, this man was wearing a comfortable pullover shirt and creaseless slacks. He had a dark beard, an imperial nose, high cheekbones, skin tanned almost coffee brown. His gray eyes seemed restless, stormy. Feingold thought he had seen that face somewhere before, but he couldn’t place where or when.
“Who the hell are you?” Feingold heard himself grumble. Fine way to greet a stranger, he thought.
The man extended a hand and helped Feingold to his feet. He was big, the scientist realized, tall and wide shouldered.
“My name is Keith Stoner.”
Feingold peered at him, still a little bleary. “Stoner.” It all snapped into focus. “The star voyager.”
“You’ve heard of me.”
“I saw that message you sent. You’ve got everybody scared.”
Stoner smiled tightly. “Not everybody, I’m afraid.”
His legs feeling a little more solid, Feingold asked, “You’re really from the stars?”
Stoner nodded and replied with a question of his own: “Why did you come here?”
Feingold grinned at him. “A chance to see the alien artifact? I should pass up such a chance?”
Smiling back, Stoner asked, “Was it worth the trip?”
“And then some!”
“You found what you came for?”
Feingold didn’t answer, couldn’t. His thoughts were too jumbled; too much had happened, and all so quickly.
At last he said, “I found . . . something. I can’t get it all straight in my head.”
Stoner didn’t reply.
“It was beautiful, though. More beautiful than anything I’ve ever experienced.”
“Good.” Stoner gestured toward the open portal to the chamber. “We’d better start back up. The door will be cl
osing again pretty soon.”
Feingold turned and stepped through the portal. “I saw the beginning of the universe,” he remembered. “I saw how it all started!”
“Did you?”
“Yes! It was . . .” He groped for words. “I wish I could remember it all.”
“I’m sorry that you can’t,” said Stoner as he started up the sloping tunnel.
Feingold said, “Me, too.” But then he added, “You know, it doesn’t matter! Not really. I mean, I saw it and I could understand it. I could understand it! That’s what’s important. I could understand it.”
“Einstein once said the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it’s comprehensible.”
“Yes!” Feingold agreed, enthusiasm bubbling within him. “It doesn’t matter if I can remember it all or not. It can be understood! If not by me, then somebody else. We’ll figure it all out, sooner or later.”
Stoner glanced at him. “If what you saw was real. Not an illusion. Not a trick.”
“It was real,” Feingold said with absolute certainty. “That much I know.”
A little uneasily Stoner said, “You know, what you saw came out of your own mind. The artifact didn’t put any new knowledge into you; it’s a mirror, nothing more.”
Feingold looked sharply at him. “In my own mind? What I saw came from inside my head?”
Stoner nodded solemnly.
For several paces Feingold said nothing, mulling this new idea. At last he murmured, “That means I can understand it all. It’s not beyond my comprehension.”
“Apparently not.”
“And if I can understand it, others can figure it out, too. Down to the twelfth decimal place.”
“That might be . . . difficult,” Stoner said.
Feingold smiled like a boy anticipating his birthday gifts. Shaking his head, he replied, “So it’s difficult. So it takes generations to figure it all out. So we’ll have to be patient, as well as smart.”
“Generations,” Stoner murmured.
“I took a course in the philosophy of science when I was an undergrad,” Feingold said. “Mostly bullshit, but I remember reading somebody who said that science is like a cathedral, with each new discovery like a stone that’s added to the structure.”
“But it’s never finished,” said Stoner as they walked up the tunnel.
