Very Hard Choices

by Spider Robinson

  The pain became more powerful than the fear and the dismay put together.

  I tried to scream, but lacked the air, and so produced instead a sound remarkably like the one the cartoon animal makes when it realizes it has overrun the edge of the cliff. But I didn't need air to scream with my mind. Just as I had on the way in to Coveney Island, I found myself mentally shrieking, "HELP ME, ZUDIE!," on my way out.

  And with even less optimism. In the first place, this time I knew for a fact I was outside his range. And in the second place, what the hell could he possibly do if he did hear me? I was in his only boat. And what the hell difference did it make? If he could reach me, on a Jet Ski he'd forgotten to mention, say, the best he could do was bring me back to his Batcave and give me a comfy place to lie down while everything I cared about went to shit outside.

  It took me that long to realize what a comparatively happy outcome that would have been. At best, I was liable to get that place to lie down a minimum of twelve hours from now, aboard some Coast Guard rescue vessel, and I doubted it would be comfy.

  But it seemed at least as likely that I would be getting my rest much sooner than that, at a B&B run by Davey Jones.

  I resumed screaming telepathically. Maybe Zudie just hadn't felt like waving back. Maybe he had a windsurfing board stashed somewhere. In my head I bellowed, roared, hollered, whooped, hooted, and produced a better thumb-and-two-finger busdriver's whistle than I actually could aloud.

  Meanwhile my body was busy, mindlessly seeking relief, indifferent to any but the most immediate consequences.

  When you feel the buildup of pressure in half your chest that means air and blood and other body fluids are moving to a place they're not supposed to be, it becomes essential to be lying down flat on your back on something as soft and supportive as possible, with your head slightly elevated. Only then can you begin to accurately evaluate both the extent and the rate of that pressure buildup, which will tell you how much trouble you're in.

  The best I could manage in that damn kayak was to bring my arms inside and put them down at my sides and try to breathe as shallowly as possible. The paddle was, sensibly enough, attached to the hull with a leash, so I decided to just let it drift. But its random collisions with the kayak became unbearably irritating. I retrieved it with my left hand and tried to stuff it into the forward passenger compartment, but there was a cover I'd have needed both hands to unzip. I had to stow it in my own cocoon, where there was just barely room for it.

  Then my mind and my body had both done everything they could, everything there was for them to do, and sorrow smashed me flat. The only thing you can do to try to ease grief that profound is to burst into tears—and even that small consolation was denied me. I had not cried for longer than ten seconds at a time in over thirty years: it just hurt too much. I cut it off in the first second or two now, from long habit.

  I concentrated on slowing my breathing, then, and listening very hard to my lung. After an eternity or two, I began to feel reassured that it was not getting worse. The pressure did not appear to grow, or migrate. I could take in well over half a breath before the pain clamped down. Nothing about pneumothorax is certain, but this seemed to be one of the minor ones.

  Just bad enough to make paddling unthinkable.

  What I did next embarrasses me a little. It used to drive Susan crazy when she was alive. But if you can't even ease your unbearable grief by sobbing, the only thing left to do is convert it into anger . . . and anger has to have a target . . . and a random and indifferent universe is just not a very satisfying enemy . . . and so I found myself, not for the first time, viciously and bitterly cursing a God I have not believed in since childhood. It always feels wrong even at the time, exactly as hypocritical as suddenly finding faith in a foxhole. But hey, it's the only consolation God has left me—so give me a break, okay? Since I didn't do it out loud, I wasn't even wasting my breath. There could be a God, and if so, somebody ought to be cursing Her. An Intelligent Designer of this mess would have to be a sadist with an infantile sense of humor. I won't attempt to reproduce any of my rhapsody of rage, but I put my heart into it and outdid myself. I mean, I cut the Almighty a new one.

  You tell me: what more perfectly, hilariously ironic response could I have hoped to receive to my cursing than a straight-up miracle?

  "Cut it out!"

  Those had been the very first words Zudie had spoken to me after the thirty-year hiatus in our friendship, exactly. But they weren't coming from my memory. They were coming from about a hundred meters to my left.

  Just don't let it happen again, I said to my imaginary God, and stopped believing in Him again. And then I started trying to make myself tranquil, out of politeness to my telepathic friend who had risked death to save my life, and not for the first time.

  By the time he reached the kayak I was as calm as I could manage, and he knew how grateful I was. "Let me worry about getting us ashore," was the first thing he said when he could spare breath for talking.

  "Fine," I said with relief, for the problem appeared insoluble to me. So did another, more pressing one. "How are you going to—"

  He unzipped the cover on the forward seat. "Brace yourself," he said, and I did, and if I told you what I think I saw you wouldn't believe me, and I wouldn't blame you because I don't believe it myself, so all I'm going to say is that one minute he was in the water, and the next minute he was in the kayak. Without, as I'd been expecting, having to roll it over and dunk me. We didn't even rock hard or for long. "Here," he said, and handed me back the wet flotation cushion he'd just sat on. I tucked it between me and my seat back, and it helped.

  We sat there together like that without speaking for a while until he got his wind back, him breathing big and fast, me breathing small and slow, rocking on the waves together. Once again I was impressed by his physical conditioning. His upper arms were incredible. He must have swum like a dolphin to catch me. You couldn't get arms like that just rowing back and forth from Coveney to the mainland, not unless you did nothing else with your time—which would draw too much attention, get you photographed or videoed by too many tourists on passing ferries or sailboats. So he must have—

  "That's right," he said over his shoulder. "I've never gone as far as George Dyson has . . . but at least once I paddled so far north I was the only living thing bigger than a bacterium."

  Sure, it made sense. I could see him doing it. For the exercise. For the trip itself. For the solitude so precious to him.

  "And for penance, yes," he said. "It nearly killed me."

  —glad to hear it—

  "What do you mean, you're glad to hear it?"

  —in the four years since we saw each other last, Zudie, I must have rented a boat and come out here half a dozen times . . . okay, God damn it, four times . . . and each time, I pooted round and round your stupid island shouting at the top of my mind for hours, and it wasn't so much that no answer ever came back as that I never once got a sense that anybody was even home, listening to me, choosing to ignore me. It was like yelling down a well. I was really afraid you were dead, you big dumb son of—

  "I'm sorry. I should have left word that I—"

  —you should have left some fucking word, Arctic Circle excursion or not. I've been figuring maybe I sent you off to your cave to snuff yourself because I bungled the job you gave me so badly that you had to—

  "Chill." The incongruity of the word coming from him helped me do so. "We can swap guilts later, okay? Right now there's paddling to do."

  —roger that. Speaking of chilling, you're starting to shiver, you know—

  "I know." He reached down into his own body-cast, fumbled around, came up with a hoodie sweatshirt and put it on. "If you raise that seat cushion a little higher, it'll still provide as much support, and you'll be able to lean your head back against it."

  —by God, you're right. Thanks, Zudie. You know, this is the first time I've ever had a collapsed lung and been able to have a conversation with so
meone without sounding like the kid in the wheelchair in Malcolm in the Middle—

  "Stevie Kenarban. Let me know if the pain starts to get any worse." He began to paddle, and then he paddled, and then he paddled, and we were gone gone gone like a cool breeze.

  * * *

  At first I divided my attention between monitoring my right thorax, and trying to think my way out of the hole I'd put us all into. But even with a partial lung collapse and a crisis ahead, skating on black glass through a warm star-spattered night on a kayak being paddled by a man with arms like The Mighty Thor is a magical experience. Distracting. Calming. Soon hypnotic. I knew I had some hard thinking to do. But not just yet. These might be the best moments left in my life. The sun was all the way down, now, and the moon wouldn't be up for hours yet. But the skies had cleared for the moment, and there sure were a lot of stars up there.

  Zudie found his rhythm and settled into it, cutting a gigantic silver V through the black water, riding the waves with the effortless ease of a veteran subway straphanger, or, I suppose, a surfer. I entered a mental state deeper than meditation generally took me, but short of a trance. I remained alert and aware of my surroundings and my situation and my predicament. I just stopped having any opinions at all about them for a while.

  12.

  Saturday, June 23, 2007

  Heron Island, British Columbia, Canada

  I came out of my fugue without any sense of transition at the point where Heron Island grew close enough for decisions to need to be made. I breathed just a bit deeper than I had been, evaluated the pain, and was reassured. It didn't seem any worse.

  I needed a spot where Zudie could bring us to shore, but encounter the absolute minimum possible number of people in the process. The prospects were as shitty as could be. It was a warm Saturday night in Paradise. Every good place to land a boat was also a great place to make out. I felt Zudie's paddling rhythm falter momentarily at the thought.

  It might almost have made sense to have him head right into Bug Cove. The last ferry of the day had long since left by now: "downtown," such as it was, would be dead. The only place still open would be the Pub, situated at least five hundred meters uphill from the ferry ramp. But immediately to the south of the ferry terminus was the Bug Cove Marina, where about a hundred boat people and their guests were sure to be awake . . .

  The best choice of a bad lot was the Yacht Club beach—nearly all the way round the island from where I wanted to end up. Heron Island teenagers all knew it was the only beach on the Rock that the RCMP patrolled effectively, and would roust them from. But there would probably be at least a few tourists or mainlanders. And to reach the shore we'd have to scull past a couple of dozen moored yachts, at least some of which would probably be occupied.

  "By some of the richest sons of bitches on the island," Zudie said.

  —what can I tell you?—

  Short pause. "All right. Which way?"

  I visualized it, and he altered course appropriately.

  Long before I would have said it aloud he heard me wondering, what's it like, getting too close to another mind?

  "Ever know someone who got migraines?"

  —a couple of people, one of them real well. That bad?—

  "Worse. A migraine plus a couple of abscessed teeth is close."

  —Jesus—

  "That's for one mind. It gets worse exponentially with each additional one."

  —dear God. How is it being this close to me?—

  He took a breather from paddling. When his breath regularized, he said, "You're different. You always were. Even for a hippie, you were unusually tolerant. Nonjudgmental. I don't know why. I mean, you put up with me as a roommate. I've always found that amazing. So did everyone on campus. Excuse me."

  He fumbled around in his cockpit, came up with a bottle of water, drank deep. I remembered where he had shown me my own was stowed . . . but it was on my right, too far to reach across myself and get it with my left hand. A whole half liter was way too much weight to risk lifting with my right.

  He handed his own water back over his shoulder, angling it so I could reach it easily with my left hand. "Never thirst," he said, sounding as if he were quoting someone. I intended to take a small sip but found myself drinking deep. It was delicious.

  "But what amazes me far more," he said, "is that you're still the same, forty years later. You haven't hardened with age, the way most people do. If anything, you're more tolerant than you were in college. You have fewer fixed opinions now than you did then. Even after a lifetime of acquiring the kind of embarrassments and regrets teenage boys can't begin to imagine, you're still okay with the idea of me walking around inside your head."

  —You, I trust in there—

  "I have—" he began. He was silent then for at least a minute, maybe two. Finally he finished the sentence as if it had never been interrupted. "—only been as flattered once: when Oxy chose to love me. I don't think I've ever been more deeply moved."

  —so answer the question you ducked—

  "Being this close to you is like having a bad headache."

  Even as the sentence was leaving his mouth, we were both regretting it, because it made me laugh as he had meant it to, and you don't want to do that with a partial pneumothorax. But we also both knew the pain was minor, even reassuring in its minorness, and I mentally told him there was no need to apologize. He did anyway.

  A great blue heron went by on our right. Okay, to starboard. It was an impressive sight even in the dark. God knows what he was doing out that late. Heron Island gets its name from the fact that it happens to contain one of exactly three great blue heron hatcheries in the lower mainland of British Columbia. There's another in Stanley Park in Vancouver, and I forget where the other one is.

  "I really like herons," Zudie said.

  "Me, too."

  "I mean their minds. They're a lot easier to take than people."

  —you can read animals, too?—

  "Not all. Some. And not as well, obviously. But I do get something more than just feelings and sensations from some. Several of the smarter bird species. Dolphins. Cats of course, but anybody but a dog can read a cat's mind. Some dogs. Pigs. Pigs are smarter than most people imagine."

  —how about whales?—

  "Whales are as smart as people. At least."

  —Jesus. Can you—

  "No. They're are as smart as we are—but they aren't remotely like us. We just don't have enough in common to learn each other's thought-language. If I get close enough I can 'hear' them thinking, and be aware that their thoughts are at least as sophisticated and structured and subtle and colored as my own. I just have no idea what any of it means. One of the things I've been doing with my time, since I came to this part of the world, is trying to identify the places where my world-view comes closest to agreeing with theirs, in hopes of one day establishing the basis for a kind of mental pidgin."

  —how's it going?—

  He shrugged and resumed his paddling.

  So I resumed my plotting.

  I didn't have much to work with. Way too many unknowns. Almost nothing but. And I was juggling the most precious egg in my world.

  Okay, that was a start. Priority number one: keep Jesse alive and out of Guantanamo . . . or worse. Priority two: keep Agent Pitt from getting his hands on Zudie, by whatever means necessary. Priority three: keep Nika and me out of jail for murder . . . or worse. Only priority three was optional.

  Zudie was following my tortured thoughts, of course, but kept his mouth shut and let me work the problem at my own speed.

  —after you drop me off, Zudie, I want you to paddle back out as far as you need to, and wait there. If you see a flashlight on the beach blink one, two . . . pause . . . three, come in as fast as you can and pick up Jesse. Then get him to the airport as fast as you can. If you don't see any flashlight by first light, take off and get your ass back home and tyle the lodge. Do you still have that cellphone I gave you back then?—

>   "No. And you can't call my internet phone because it has no number: it's outgoing only. But you can e-mail or instant-message me when I'm home." He gave me the necessary data. And shut up.

  I kept thinking. A couple of useful ideas came to me . . . but I had no idea if or how I could put them into effect. Again, just too many unknowns. I was simply going to have to improvise. Against a trained CIA agent. It began to sink all the way in that I might in fact die tonight.

  And found myself thinking that everyone dies, and that the "natural" end I could foresee for myself was one of the very bad deaths. Agent Pitt would almost certainly be both quicker and more merciful.

  Did that mean I was feeling suicidal?

  No. I was just assessing and accepting the stakes before placing my bet. If you want the truth, part of me was looking forward to the challenge of matching wits with a spook. How cool would it be if I actually managed to take him, using nothing but brains? Most of my life, I'd felt like I was the smartest guy in the room. Maybe it was time to find out how smart. If it killed me . . . well, there were worse ways to go, that's all.

  A little after 11:30, we finally came in sight of the dozen or two boats moored at the Yacht Club Beach. Zudie paused in his paddling only momentarily. Perhaps he was just sounding the telepathic airwaves to try to pick out the least painful route for him.

  I mentally assured him most of those people were probably going to be asleep, but he didn't bother to reply. We both knew it wasn't likely, not before midnight on a warm Saturday night in Paradise.

  I could see it first begin to affect him when we were still over five hundred meters from the nearest yacht. His breathing began to speed up. His paddling became less steady. I could see him hunch his shoulders and tense his neck like a man steeling himself against pain. He murmured something, then repeated it louder when I didn't catch it. "Alcohol makes it louder. Some drugs too."