Gateway (21 page)

Time was slipping by, or I was destroying it, and the way I began destroying one day was to go to the museum. They had already installed a complete holo set of Shed's find. I played them over two or three times, just to see what seventeen million five hundred and fifty thousand dollars looked like. It mostly looked like irrelevant junk. That was when each piece was displayed on its own. There were about ten little prayer fans, proving, I guess, that the Heechee liked to include a few art objects even in a tire-repair kit. Or whatever the rest of it was: things like tri-bladed screwdrivers with flexible shafts, things like socket wrenches, but made of some soft material; things like electric test probes, and things like nothing you ever saw before. Spread out item by item they seemed pretty random, but the way they fit into each other, and into the flat nested boxes that made up the set, was a marvel of packing economy. Seventeen million five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and if I had stayed with Shed I could have been one of the shareholders. Or one of the corpses. I stopped off at Klara's place and hung around for a while, but she wasn't home. It wasn't her usual time for being shrunk. On the other hand, I had lost track of Klara's usual times. She had found another kid to mother when its parents were busy: a little black girl, maybe four years old, who had come up with a mother who was an astrophysicist and a father who was an exobiologist. And what else Klara had found to keep herself busy I was not sure. I drifted back to my own room, and Louise Forehand peered out of her door and followed me in. "Rob," she said urgently, "do you know anything about a big danger bonus coming up?" I made room for her on the pad. "Me? No. Why would I?" Her pale, muscular face was tauter than ever, I could not tell why. "I thought maybe you'd heard something. From Dane Metchnikov, maybe. I know you're close to him, and I've seen him talking to Klara in the schoolroom." I didn't respond to that, I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. "There's a rumor that there's a science trip coming up that's pretty hairy. And I'd like to sign on for it." I put my arm around her. "What's the matter, Louise?" "They posted Willa dead." She began to cry. I held her for a while and let her cry it out. I would have comforted her if I had known how, but what comfort was there to give? After a while I got up and rummaged around in my cupboard, looking for a joint Klara had left there a couple days before. I found it, lighted it, passed it to her. Louise took a long, hard pull, and held it for quite a while. Then she puffed out. "She's dead, Rob," she said. She was over crying now, somber but relaxed; even the muscles around her neck and up and down her spine were tension-free. "She might come back yet, Louise." She shook her head. "Not really. The Corporation posted her ship lost. It might come back, maybe. Willa won't be alive in it. Their last stretch of rations would have run out two weeks ago." She stared into space for a moment, then sighed and roused herself

---------------------------------------- Classifieds. I NEED your courage to go for any halfmil plus bonus. Don't ask me. Order me. 87-299. PUBLIC AUCTION unclaimed personal effects nonreturnees. Corporation Area Charlie Nine, 1300--1700 tomorrow. YOUR DEBTS are paid when you achieve Oneness. He/She is Heechee and He/She Forgives. Church of the Marvelously Maintained Motorcycle. 88-344. MONOSEXUALS ONLY for mutual sympathy only. No touching. 87-913. ----------------------------------------

to take another pull on the joint. "I wish Sess were here," she said, leaning back and stretching; I could feel the play of muscles against the palm of my hand. The dope was hitting her, I could see. I knew it was hitting me. It wasn't any of your usual Gateway windowbox stuff, sneaked in among the ivy. Klara had got hold of pure Naples Red from one of the cruiser boys, shade-grown on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius between the rows of vines that made Lacrimae Cristi wine. She turned toward me and snuggled her chin into my neck. "I really love my family," she said, calmly enough. "I wish we had hit lucky here. We're about due for some luck." "Hush, honey," I said, nuzzling into her hair. Her hair led to her ear, and her ear led to her lips, and step by step we were making love in a timeless, gentle, stoned way. It was very relaxed. Louise was competent, unanxious, and accepting. After a couple of months of Klara's nervous paroxysms it was like coming home to Mom's chicken soup. At the end she smiled, kissed me, and turned away. She was very still, and her breathing was even. She lay silent for a long time, and it wasn't until I realized that my wrist was getting damp that I knew she was crying again. "I'm sorry, Rob," she said when I began to pat her. "It's just that we've never had any luck. Some days I can live with that fact, and some days not. This is one of the bad ones." "You will." "I don't think so. I don't believe it anymore." "You got here, didn't you? That's pretty lucky." She twisted herself around to face me, her eyes scanning mine. I said, "I mean, think of how many billion people would give their left testicles to be here." Louise said slowly, "Rob--" She stopped. I started to speak but she put her hand over my lips. "Rob," she said, "do you know how we managed to get here?" "Sure. Sess sold his airbody." "We sold more than that. The airbody brought a little over a hundred thousand. That wasn't enough for even one of us. We got the money from Hat." "Your son? The one that died?" She said, "Hat had a brain tumor. They caught it in time, or anyway, almost in time. It was operable. He could have lived, oh, I don't know, ten years at least. He would have been messed up some. His speech centers were affected, and so was his motor control. But he could have been alive right now. Only--" She her hand off my chest to rub it across her face, but she wasn't crying. "He didn't want us to spend the airbody money on Medical for him. It would have just about paid for the surgery and then we would have been broke again. So what he did, he sold himself, Rob. He sold off all his parts. More than just a left testicle. All of him. They were fine, first-quality Nordic male twentytwo-year-old parts, and they were worth a bundle. He signed himself over to the medics and they -- how do you say it? -- put him to sleep. There must be pieces of Hat in a dozen different people now. They sold off everything for transplants, and they gave us the money. Close to a million dollars. Got us here, with some to spare. So that's where our luck came from, Rob." I said, "I'm sorry." "For what? We just don't have the luck, Rob. Hat's dead. Willa's dead. God knows where my husband is, or our only surviving kid. And I'm here, and, Rob, half the time I wish with all my heart that I were dead too."

I left her sleeping in my bed and wandered down to Central Park. I called Klara, found her out, left a message to say where I was, and spent the next hour or so on my back, looking up mulberries ripening on the tree. There was no one there except a couple of tourists taking a fast look through before their ship left. I didn't pay attention to them, didn't even hear them leave. I was feeling sorry for Louise and for all the Forehands, and sorrier for myself. They didn't have the luck, but what I have hurt a lot more; I didn't have the courage to see where luck would take me. Sick societies squeeze adventurers out like grape pips. The grape pips don't have much to say about it. I suppose it was the same with Columbus's seamen or the pioneers manhandling their covered wagons through Comanche territory -- they must have been scared witless, like me, but they didn't have much choice. Like me. But, God, how frightened I was. . I heard voices, a child's and a light, slower laugh that was Klara's. I sat up. "Hello, Rob," she said, standing before me with her hand on the head of a tiny black girl in corn-row hair. "This is Watty." "Hello, Watty." My voice didn't sound right, even to me. Klara took a closer look and demanded, "What's the matter?" I couldn't answer that question in one sentence, so I chose one facet. "Willa Forehand's been posted dead." Klara nodded without saying anything. Watty piped, "Please, Klara. Throw the ball." Klara tossed it to her, caught it, tossed it again, all in the Gateway adagio. I said, "Louise wants to go on a danger-bonus launch. I think what she wants is for me, for us, to go and take her with us." "Oh?" "Well, what about it? Has Dane said anything to you about one of his specials?" "No! I haven't seen Dane for-- I don't know. Anyway, he shipped out this morning on a One." "He didn't have a farewell party!" I protested, surprised. She pursed her lips. The little girl called, "Hey, mister! Catch!" When she threw the ball it came floating up like a hot-air balloon to a mooring mast, but even so I almost missed it. My mind was on something else. I tossed it back with concentration. After a minute Kiara said, "Rob? I'm sorry. I guess I was in a bad mood." "Yeah." My mind was very busy. She said placatingly, "We've been having some hard times, Rob. I don't want to be raspy with you. I-- I brought you something." I looked around, and she took my hand and slid something up over it, onto my arm. It was a launch bracelet, Heechee metal, worth five hundred dollars anywhere. I hadn't been able to afford to buy one. I stared at it, trying to think of what I wanted to say. "Rob?" "What?" There was an edge to her voice. "It's customary to say thank you." "It's customary," I said, "to give a truthful answer to a question. Like not saying you hadn't seen Dane Metchnikov when you were with him just last night." She flared, "You've been spying on me!" "You've been lying to me." "Rob! You don't own me. Dane's a human being, and a friend."

---------------------------------------- A NOTE ON METALLURGY

Question. I saw a report that Heechee metal had been analyzed by the National Bureau of Standards-- Professor Hegramet. No, you didn't, Tetsu. Question. But it was on the PV-- Professor Hegramet. No. You saw a report that the Bureau of Standards had issued a quantitative assessment of Heechee metal. Not an analysis. Just a description: tensile strength, fracture strength, melting point, all that stuff. Question. I'm not sure I understand the difference. Professor Hegramet. No, You didn't, Tetsu. actly what it does. We don't yet know what it is. What's the most interesting thing about Heechee metal? You, Ten? Question. It glows? Professor Hegramet. It glows, yes. It emits light. Bright enough so that we don't need anything else to light our rooms, we have to cover it over when we want dark. And it's been glowing for half a million years at least like that. Where does the energy come from? The Bureau says there are some posturanic elements in it, and probably they drive the radiation; but we don't know what they are. There's also something in it that looks like an isotope of copper. Well, copper doesn't have any stable isotopes. Up to now. So what the. Bureau says is what the exact frequency of the blue light is, and all the physical measurements to eight or nine decimals; but the report doesn't tell you how to make any. ----------------------------------------

"Friend!" I barked. The last thing Metchnikov was to anyone was a friend. Just thinking about Klara with him made my groin crawl. I didn't like the sensation, because I couldn't identify it. It wasn't just anger, wasn't even just jealousy. There was a component that remained obstinately opaque. I said, knowing it was illogical, hearing myself seem almost to whine, "I introduced you to him!" "That doesn't give you ownership! All right," Kiara snarled, "maybe I went to bed with him a few times. It doesn't change how I feel about you." "It changes how I feel about you, Klara." She stared incredulously. "You have the nerve to say that? Coming here, smelling of sex with some cheap floozy?" That one caught me off guard. "There was nothing cheap about it! I was comforting someone in pain." She laughed. The sound was unpleasant; anger is unbecoming. "Louise Forehand? She hustled her way up here, did you know that?" The little girl was holding the ball and staring at us now. I could see we were frightening her. I said, trying to tighten my voice to keep the anger from spilling out, "Klara, I'm not going to let you make a fool out of me." "Ah," she said in inarticulate disgust, and turned around to go. I reached out to touch her, and she sobbed and hit me, as hard as she could. The blow caught me on the shoulder. That was a mistake. That's always a mistake. It isn't a matter of what's rational or justified, it is a matter of signals. It was the wrong signal to give me. The reason wolves don't kill each other off is that the smaller and weaker wolf always surrenders. It rolls over, bares its throat and puts its paws in the air to signal that it is beaten. When that happens the winner is physically unable to attack anymore. If it were not that way, there wouldn't be any wolves left. For the same reason men don't usually kill women, or not by beating them to death. They can't. However much he wants to hit her, his internal machinery vetoes it. But if the woman makes the mistake of giving him a different signal by hitting him first-- I punched her four or five times, as hard as I could, on the breast, in the face, in the belly. She fell to the ground, sobbing. I knelt beside her, lifted her up with one hand and, in absolutely cold blood, slapped her twice more. It was all happening as if choreographed by God, absolutely inevitably; and at the same I could feel that I was breathing as hard as though I'd climbed a mountain on a dead run. The blood was thundering in my ears. Everything I saw was hazed with red. I finally heard a distant, thin crying. I looked and saw the little girl, Watty, staring at me, her mouth open, tears rolling down her wide, purplish-black cheeks. I started to move toward her to reassure her. She screamed and ran behind a grape trellis. I turned back toward Klara, who was sitting up, not looking at me, her hand cupped over her mouth. She took the hand away and stared at something in it: a tooth. I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say, and didn't force myself to think of anything. I turned and left. I don't remember what I did for the next few hours. I didn't sleep, although I was physically exhausted. I sat on a chest of drawers in my room for a while. Then I left it again. I remember talking to somebody, I think it was a straggler returning to off on the Venus ship, about how adventurous and exciting prospecting was. I remember eating something in the commissary. And all the time I was thinking: I wanted to kill Klara. I had been taming all that stored-up fury, and I hadn't even let myself know it was there until she pulled the trigger. I didn't know if she would ever forgive me. I wasn't sure she ought to, and I wasn't even sure that I wanted her to. I couldn't imagine our ever being lovers again. But what I finally decided I wanted was to apologize. Only she wasn't in her rooms. There was no one there except a plump young black woman, slowly sorting out clothes, with a tragic face. When I asked after Klara she began to cry. "She's gone," the woman sobbed. "Gone?" "Oh, she looked awful. Someone must have beaten her up! She brought Watty back and said she wouldn't be able to take care of her anymore. She gave me all her clothes, but -- what am I going to do with Watty when I'm working?" "Gone where?" The woman lifted her head. "Back to Venus. On the ship. She left an hour ago." I didn't talk to anyone else. Alone in my own bed, somehow I got to sleep. When I got up I gathered together everything I owned: my clothes, my holodisks, my chess set, my wristwatch. The Heechee bracelet that Kiara had given me. I went around and sold them off. I cleaned out my credit account and put all the money together: it came to a total of fourteen hundred dollars and change. I took the money up to the casino and put it all on Number 31 on the roulette wheel. The big slow ball drifted into a socket: Green. Zero. I went down to mission control and signed for the first One that was available, and twenty-four hours later I was in space.