The Sunspacers Trilogy

by George Zebrowski

  “I’ll have to think about it,” she said, as if picking up my uncertainty. Maybe she was thinking the same thing—here was her chance to be rid of me. We hadn’t had all that much time together. Did you ever try thinking in two opposite directions at once, and believing that you could do it? I was trying to live in two directions at once, studying physics but wanting something else; the thing with Linda probably looked like more of the same to Rosalie.

  “I’ll talk to you another time, Joe.” The skeptical tone of her voice dismayed me. Maybe she was right to doubt me. She’d found me out, even though the scene with Linda meant nothing by itself.

  I felt naked and alone.

  I tried to catch her in Astronomies, but she always managed to leave by another exit. I tapped notes into her terminal, with no reply. It made me sick to think that I would never be able to set things right. How could this be happening?

  I couldn’t sleep, and began to miss more classes. It seemed that a stranger was doing the work when I studied. When I could sleep, it was an escape. Rosalie’s sudden rejection of me had struck deeply. I had balanced my doubts against each other and avoided taking a good look at myself, at what I was or could be. Rosalie, I felt, was punishing me for being dishonest with myself.

  “You’ve got to snap out of it,” Morey said one Monday afternoon. He had come back from classes and found me sleeping. “You’ll fail some finals and they’ll kick your ass out.”

  “I can make up a few weeks easily.”

  “What’s happening to you?”

  I sat up on the edge of the bed. “I need time to think. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.”

  He tried to be encouraging. “But you can do the work. They wouldn’t have let you in.”

  “Mistakes happen. You were right, I just don’t care. It’s not just Rosalie. She was right too, I’m not going anywhere. The diploma won’t mean a thing, even if I get honors.”

  “Come on! You’re not just any dodo.” But he couldn’t hide the contempt in his voice.

  “Go away, Morey,” I said, standing up and adjusting my underwear. “I don’t have to listen to this crap.”

  He laughed at me. “You should see yourself. So tough.”

  I pushed him away. He staggered back.

  “You think there are no other kinds of people in the world besides you,” I said.

  “Of course there are. Muscleheads like you.”

  “You—” I started to say, trying to keep up my steam against the sense of shame flooding into me. “You think there are heads and hands, and you’re a head. The rest of us are just unfortunates.”

  He looked a bit embarrassed. “Well, you could be a head, but you won’t be.”

  “Other things take heads too.”

  He grimaced and left the room. I felt that he had given up on me completely, and that woke me up more than anything. I didn’t have to be like him; I could try to be myself.

  I went over to Goddard Hall after dinner and threw a pebble at Ro’s third-floor window. She turned away when she saw me, making me feel abandoned and useless.

  I tossed another pebble. Kea Tanaka opened the window. Her long black hair swung forward as she leaned out. “Go away, Joe, she won’t talk to you.”

  “I’ve got to,” I shouted, hoping Ro would hear me. “Help me,” I half whispered.

  She shook her head, and I hated her unreasonably.

  “Try!” I urged.

  “She doesn’t want to see you.” She waved a plump arm at me. “Go away.”

  Rosalie appeared next to her and closed the window without looking at me. I turned and walked away. What had it been like for Mom and Dad, who had spent so many years together?

  “Joe!”

  I turned around. She was standing in front of the main entrance. I hurried over. She took my arm and led me to a nearby bench.

  She looked at me carefully as we sat down.

  “You still don’t believe me, do you?” I asked.

  “I do, now, but you gave me a scare. I know Linda, even if we’re not close friends. I think she doesn’t break off with Jake because losing him scares her more than loving him. Don’t forget, she lost her parents. She’s the same way with Kik sometimes. They’d do anything for each other, but you’d never guess it from the way they act in public—very quiet or taking jabs at each other. Jake’s older, so he wants Linda to make her own decisions, to stay with him because she wants to. Unfortunately, this lack of pressure on his part sometimes gives her too much space to flap around in, and she thinks he doesn’t want her. Jake’s been Kik’s friend for a while, so he understands her and can see things coming. Linda’s afraid of losing anybody she loves too much. She goes out with others to test Jake, and to see if she loves him.”

  “Well, I think she liked me a little.…”

  She smiled. “But not enough.”

  “I guess. Who knows? …”

  “Look, Joe, there are more important things. What’s bothering you? Don’t you like school?”

  “It’s hard when you have the feeling that it’s all not for you.”

  “Are you homesick?”

  “Not really. I do feel out of place sometimes. The reasons I’m here don’t seem to go through me—they don’t reach down deep, as they do with Morey. He’s having fun, even when the work is hard. I feel jealous. The work is interesting, but I take no pleasure in it.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Why don’t you do what I do, Joe? Get the grades and don’t worry so much what you’ll amount to. Don’t freeze it all up in advance. Give yourself a chance to grow.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing,” I insisted. “But Morey says that won’t make me a star physicist. He makes me feel like a phony.”

  “You don’t have to be Morey, Joe.”

  Marisa had told me the same thing once. “You’re right, but what am I going to be? Is this all there is?”

  “Stop being anxious about it first.”

  Rosalie still seemed to think that I wasn’t a complete waste of time, but I had shaken her confidence in me for a while. I had been too wrapped up in my own fears to notice that she had made no sweeping judgments about me.

  “Was there a girl back home?” Rosalie asked.

  I nodded. “She broke it off.”

  “Why?”

  I hesitated. “Said I was too wrapped up in myself, as if I were something special. I guess my going away to Bernal only convinced her more.”

  She was smiling faintly. “What do you think about yourself now?”

  “Same thing I did then,” I mumbled. “That I could do something special. I know it sounds stupid.”

  She kissed me. “You’re special to me. The rest you’ll have to see about.”

  We kissed again. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” I whispered, holding her close. “I love you very much.”

  “Same here,” she whispered back.

  We sat in silence for a while, and I decided to tell her. “I almost punched Morey today—I never hit anyone even in fun before, at least not since I was a little kid. Can’t believe I shoved him like that.” I looked at my hands as if they had betrayed me.

  “But why?” she asked, not sounding too surprised.

  “He was talking to me like a parent. I don’t know—maybe he’s right about everything, but I’m afraid to admit it. Guess I’m pretty screwed up.…”

  White clouds drifted in the bright, starless evening of the hollow. I wasn’t going to solve anything right away, but with Ro next to me my fears didn’t seem quite so important.

  “Come spend Christmas with me,” Ro said. “You won’t have to go home or stay at the dorm. We’ll put you up at the house.”

  “Okay.”

  “Dad’s a great cook,” she said.

  I felt bad about Morey. We’d never even wrestled in fun. He’d probably never talk to me again, I realized. But I also felt a bit relieved; it was all out in the open now—I didn’t have to follow in his footsteps. I could try to make my own, even if I di
dn’t know where they would lead.

  Morey was packing his stuff when I got back to our room the next morning.

  “There’s a place for me on another floor,” he said. “Kid’s roommate dropped out.” He looked at me for a moment, clearly suggesting that I would flunk out also, then went on with his packing.

  I felt anger and hurt at the same time. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t, and it was too late to do any good.

  “It’s just as well,” I said, trying to sound unconcerned, “I was planning to move out next term anyway.”

  Morey didn’t reply, and I felt miserable.

  |Go to Table of Contents |

  11

  Holidays

  I wasn’t able to reach Dad, so I left him a message. He called back a week later. “Joe, what is this? Why can’t you come home for Christmas?”

  “I told you. Rosalie asked me to her house.”

  I waited.

  “You didn’t mention it when I talked to you.”

  “I forgot. Maybe I didn’t know then.”

  He stared at me. I watched his expression catch up with my words. “That’s not like you, Joe. What’s going on?”

  “You probably weren’t planning much anyway.”

  He was silent for much longer than the delay.

  “Sorry,” I added, knowing that I was punishing him for not letting me come home for intersession.

  “If you won’t come, I can’t force you,” he said finally.

  His face faded away. I felt relieved and saddened.

  I went to Bernie’s office on the second floor of the student center, hoping to talk about taking a job with him during the next term. The message plate on the door read that he was in Riverbend Hospital for an indefinite stay.

  It was a Saturday morning, so I called Ro, and we arrived at the admissions desk an hour later.

  “He’s in cold suspension life support,” the male nurse told us.

  “What happened?” I asked nervously.

  “Heart—he’ll have to stay until his new one is grown, and for a complete cell scrub renewal. He should be out before Christmas. Do you want to see him?”

  “How can we?” I asked, puzzled and afraid.

  “Are you friends or relatives?”

  “Friends,” Ro said. “Joe knows him better than I do, but everyone has heard of Bernie at the university. He’s a legend.”

  “Yes, I know,” the tall nurse said. “Come this way. He’ll need to hear from someone. We haven’t been able to contact any of his family.”

  We followed him down a long corridor, through a few heavy doors, and into a large monitoring room.

  “Number six,” the nurse said, pointing to a screen.

  I took a deep breath as I saw Bernie’s face. It was composed, as if he were dead.

  “Say something reassuring.”

  “Can he hear me?” I asked.

  The nurse nodded. “He’ll pick it up at a deep mental level. It helps calm the body, we’ve learned.”

  I leaned close to the pickup. “Bernie,” I said, choking up, “this is Joe Sorby. I want you to get well soon, so I can work for you …”

  “His signs are calmer,” the nurse said after what seemed a long silence. “He must like you.”

  “I’ve met him only a few times,” I said, “but we talked a lot.”

  “Come back when he’s through the replacement. It’ll be routine. We’re a bit puzzled why he didn’t come in sooner. You’ll help his recovery.”

  “Haven’t you heard from his kids on Earth?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  I looked closely at Bernie’s face, wondering what he might be dreaming. Had he grown tired of life and decided to die when his body failed? I couldn’t believe it. He was obviously needed. Or was there something I didn’t know? “Get well,” I repeated, swallowing hard, afraid of my feelings. We had talked about more than I realized.

  “You’re drawn to him,” Ro said as we walked back across the bridge from Riverbend.

  I looked around. “I guess I admire what he’s helped do here. He can see what his life has been for. It’s all around him, and he still helps keep it going.”

  “You’ll probably enjoy working for him. I can tell in the way you say it.” She smiled at me.

  “Is it a good hospital?” I asked.

  “Sure. His kind of recovery is routine, although he shouldn’t have let it go so long. You won’t miss school?”

  “It can wait.”

  “It’s not the best I’ve seen,” Fred Allport said as he adjusted the 3-D holo of the Christmas Tree from New York City’s Rockefeller Center. He had the whole scene reduced to fit in the corner of the living room. The people ice-skating under the branches seemed like toys.

  I had given Rosalie a bracelet, and had received a shirt. Fred gave us a miniature set of the Oxford Classics. Ro had stopped me from buying him anything; he had insisted that our spending time with him would be enough.

  Fred was a great cook and a nonstop talker, and he never tired of showing me his books. The visit took my mind off everything for a week. I felt that he wanted me to like him, and that he was very pleased with me, for more than Rosalie’s sake.

  On Christmas Day there was a fireworks display in the square of each town. We sat watching from the terrace of the house as the towns tried to outdo each other. Little universes of light blossomed in the great space, throwing shadows across the countryside, illuminating the patterns of roads, houses, and backyards overhead.

  “How was the term?” Fred asked as the display came to an end with a sparkle of yellow.

  “Joe got all A’s,” Ro said.

  “Very good!”

  I shrugged. “So did she.” I had never been praised much for success. Fred’s genuine delight upset me. I felt a bit guilty about not going back next term.

  The conversation drifted around to the Mercury crisis.

  “They know they have to give them what they need, eventually,” Fred said, massaging his forehead. “Dragging out the final agreement like this will only give the bad feelings a longer life.”

  Rosalie looked at me. “You are coming to the rally with me on New Year’s Day, aren’t you?”

  “If they haven’t signed the agreement by then,” I said.

  Fred chuckled. “Show more interest, son. My daughter is a toughie on stuff like this.” His voice vibrated with his pride in her.

  “Doesn’t feel like they’ll settle it,” Ro said.

  I stood up. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to make the boat ride.”

  “Have a nice time,” Fred said with a note of loneliness in his voice.

  The craft crossed the lake, gliding toward the outflowing stream. Rings of moonlight trembled on the dark water. We sat on deck and watched quietly for a long time.

  The boat entered the flow of the river. It would take all evening to circle the equator and return us to the lake by the inflow stream.

  A couple passed by us.

  “Have you told your parents?” Rosalie asked, holding my hand.

  “Not yet.”

  “Has Bernie found a job for you yet?”

  “He will. I hope to get work with him, at least for next term.”

  “It’ll do you good, whatever you decide later.”

  A slight breeze blew across the water. I watched the lights on the shore and imagined the massive circulating pumps that helped take the water in and out of the lake. Bernie had told me about it on my regular visits to him during his recovery. The water had been manufactured out of hydrogen and oxygen; it would have been very difficult to lug that much water out here when the place was built.

  Rosalie slipped over to my recliner, and we kissed for a while. It seemed that she was trying to tell me much more than that she loved me. She also needed me, and I felt my caring for and loyalty to her grow into a force of tenderness that could never be defeated. Kisses are sometimes whispers that you can’t quite hear.

  “Merk! Merk! Merk!�
� the crowd chanted insistently.

  Riverbend’s main square was jammed with people on the afternoon of New Year’s Day.

  Even though the rest of the solar system had sided with Mercury, and despite the fact that no one would gain by a breakdown of metal delivery into Earthspace, there was still no agreement.

  I was pretty angry when I learned that the ores weren’t even half the story. No one would gain—in the long run; but an embargo on space imports to Earth—a cut-off of medical products, alloys, electronics, optical surfaces, not to mention reductions in simple power transmission—would help rearrange, if not topple, many political careers, and ruin a number of business interests on the planet. So it was to the benefit of various rival groups on Earth to drag out the agreement with Mercury and ruin their enemies. Resignations had been in the news all week.

  Ro and I were at the edge of the crowd. We’d gotten up late, but it was just as well; we’d have been trapped in the crowdlock, unable to move until it broke.

  Making sense of the forces playing around the Mercury problem was a job in itself—a lot of it seemed as if it couldn’t possibly make sense—but I tried. Short term interests were delaying worthy long-term developments everywhere. The Asteroids were keeping more of what they produced and building habitats for a growing population; self-sufficiency was an old story for much of Sunspace. The trouble with Mercury was that its population specialized in mining the planet, not settling it; too little time and energy was left over for improving the quality of life. If conditions did not improve, the miners might demand to leave and find work on Mars and in the Asteroids; those growing communities would be happy to have them. So the only way to keep the Mercury families put was to give them a habitat.

  Mercury’s resources would last for centuries, Bernie had pointed out when we had visited him during his recovery; so it made sense to develop the place. A habitat would stimulate free trade. Mercury’s space would become a more humane place to live and work.

  Earthside politicos had always hated the planet’s increasing dependence on the civilization beyond the sky. But it wasn’t Earth’s fault that it lacked the conditions for a humane industrialism. Its renunciation of destructive industries had saved the planet’s environment, and was a natural development for humankind—a move from a finite industrial base to a practically unlimited one.