That was Thor for you, always getting right to the point, never mind whose feelings might be hurt. I stood my ground. “We don’t know that. We found his body.”
Thor growled, “After he didn’t need it anymore. Didn’t you talk to the four female organic humans he left behind? They said his ‘Dr. Death’ machine-stored him and they both took off in a message rocket.”
I didn’t answer that, since he was right. I had failed to consider the possibility that Wan had stored a torpedo ship on the other side of the mountains. In fact, he was sufficiently right that he didn’t bother going on with it, but changed the subject. “Got any idea what you’re going to do now?”
“Not really,” I said. “Matter of fact, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
He did look up at me that time, blinking as though surprised. “Me? Why me, Marc?” But he knew why him, all right. Thor is definitely the most powerful person I know, AI, stored or organic, and I’m not talking about the firepower he can control. The Board listens when he speaks.
I said, “I thought you might have some ideas for me.”
“Ideas?” He said it as though he’d never had an idea in his life, and didn’t know how to go about having one. Then he said, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been thinking I need a little more autonomous control for some of the more remote orbiting weapons. Think that might interest you?”
“Not,” I said, “in the least.” What he was talking about was about as challenging as operating a thermostat. “I want something that’s worth doing, and is at least as interesting as my life was before I divided.”
“And you want me to provide it for you?” He looked at me the way the five-star general he was choosing to be at that moment might look at some annoying buck private who didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to bother the great man. “Why should I, Marc?”
“No reason,” I said. “I just thought you might. Oh, and by the way. Did you know that Wan Santos-Smith seems to know something about a star-disruptor?” That made him look at me with more interest, so while I had his attention I hit him with the other thing. I pointed at the Kugelblitz on his screen. “Do you know the Kugels can project themselves out of the blitz when they want to?”
He grunted. “Of course I know. Outside of the little clumps of them they use for spying, they can detach clusters of themselves into containment—what they did when they went with you to Arabella.”
“Not into containment, Thor. Outside of the containment.” And I told him about how Kugel had blasted Wan’s armament. I didn’t have to tell him how they could do the same with all of his. I didn’t have to. When I left him he was busily reconfiguring his whole armament system.
But before I left he did a few things for me. Thor wasn’t the easiest friend to have, but he always paid his debts.
So I’ve got a ship—Thor managed to get it lost from the register of vessels—and I’m on my way.
I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted to do when Thor first brought it up, because that forty-thousand-to-one time dilation was a worrier. But Thor pointed out that that was a problem for organic humans, but not for us. I’m within a couple of orders of magnitude as much faster than organic humans as they are than the Core, and I can be in and out of it in a matter of seconds, ten minutes at the most if I want to hang around, and so when we come back no more than a few human-scale days will have passed.
I don’t know what I’ll find there, but it’ll be interesting. Maybe my old friend Breeze? Maybe some new ones. I don’t know, but I think I’ll give it a try.
10
* * *
The Dream Machine
I
The last thing Stan could have expected, on that wholly Heechee planet he had found himself on, was to find another human being knocking at his door. Especially one who claimed to be headshrinker to the legendary Robinette Broadhead.
Still, it took Stan no more than a minute to get over his surprise, Estrella not even that long. Almost at once she was hastening to offer their visitor food, drink, a place to sit down, as flusteredly welcoming as a bride whose husband’s mother has just without warning come to call.
Von Shrink refused all the offers. Very politely, and also very definitely. “You see,” he explained, “I am not an organic person, or even a material one. I’m a computer simulation. What you see is only an optical image. I can’t physically either eat or drink.”
Stan grinned. “That’s just as well,” he said. “I don’t think we have anything very drinkable anyway. Actually I’m not all that sure about the food, either, so what can we do for you?”
“A lot, I hope,” von Shrink said pleasantly. “But I think I am being inconsiderate. You two are hungry, aren’t you?”
Actually, that was precisely the thought in Stan’s mind, but it was Estrella who answered. “I guess we are, but I’d be uncomfortable if we were eating and you were just sitting there.”
Von Shrink beamed. “That is the easiest problem in the world to solve. You go ahead with your meal while I’m sitting—simulated sitting, I mean—and drinking a glass of simulated sherry to keep you company.”
Obediently, if still a bit confusedly, Stan and Estrella began picking over the current supply of food packages, while the psychiatrist pulled out of the air a small table, a straightbacked chair, a bottle and a glass. By the time Stan had unwrapped what proved to be a flat, round, green-colored, fishy-flavored sort of a biscuit, von Shrink had rolled a sip of the imaginary wine around his imaginary mouth and was holding the imaginary glass up to the light. “A bit thready,” he pronounced, “but decent enough. I suppose you know why I’m here.”
Estrella looked at Stan, who shrugged. “Is it about that guy who hates us?”
Von Shrink beamed. “Exactly. I expected you would be clever and I’m pleased to see that you are. Now, have you been told what Achiever was doing when his problem began?”
Stan was frowning. “Achiever?”
“Did no one tell you his name? That’s it, Achiever, and he was on a rather important mission.”
“He was looking for these Assassins,” Estrella said, nodding, “but we don’t exactly know who they were.”
“She means,” Stan corrected, “we know that they killed intelligent races and all, a long time ago, but we don’t know why.”
Von Shrink studied his glass for a moment.
Then he looked at them with an almost mischievous expression. “Would you like to discuss those Assassins in more detail?” he asked. “You see, I am quite an elderly program now, and I know that often I am quite garrulous. But if you want to—”
Stan shrugged, but Estrella said at once, “Yes, I definitely would.”
Von Shrink gave her a warm smile. “Then, as to the question of why the Assassins were, well, Assassins, on so large a scale, I’m not sure I know the answer, either. I’m not sure anyone does. The best guess I have heard is that the Kugels were afraid that other intelligences, particularly organic intelligences, might interfere with their plans, whatever they are.”
Stan was getting impatient. “You keep saying these things that we don’t know anything about,” he complained. “What are Kugels?”
“I’m sorry. Really. You see, the problem is that I know so much that it sometimes is difficult for me to assess just how little organic humans know—oh, confound it,” he said, biting his simulated lip, “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I truly don’t mean to demean you in any way. It is a fact that I do know a great deal. I’ve been around, as an AI, for a very long time, and I’ve been doing things all that time—”
Stan’s impatience was mounting. “Kugels,” he reminded. “What the hell are Kugels?”
“I keep on doing it, do I not?” von Shrink said remorsefully. “Let me try to clarify what I have been saying. The reason we call the individual particles of the Assassins Kugels is that they exist in what is known as a Kugelblitz. What is a Kugelblitz? It is the name given to a black hole whose contents are energy, rather than matter. You s
ee, that is what the Assassins are. They are energy creatures, and long ago, before the Heechee retreated to their Core, where we now are…”
Von Shrink didn’t start at the beginning, exactly, but close enough to try Stan’s patience. But, as Estrella seemed to be hanging on every word, he kept his peace. He ate while he listened, one bizarre combination of textures and flavors after another as he heard one weird story after another of races slaughtered and Heechee deciding to retreat to the Core. He kept on listening long after he had finished eating and the two of them had picked up all the crumbs and wrappers and put them in the disposer—they still listening, and the nonexistent (but nevertheless a person, and not only that but a person who possessed the gift of dominating a conversation) Sigfrid von Shrink still talking.
It was all interesting enough. All the same, Stan was not sorry when their doorbell growled. “Excuse me,” he said, glad enough to get off that padded, but still far from comfortable, Heechee perch. Surprisingly, though, Estrella had listened attentively throughout and still wanted more. “One thing; Dr. von Shrink,” she said. “These Assassins? Are they still around? Should we be worrying about them?”
Stan tarried for the answer, but it took a moment to come. “As to your first question,” von Shrink said at last, “yes, they are still around, in their Kugelblitz. As to your second—well, they are being watched very carefully in a large wheel-shaped space station built for that purpose. But yes, perhaps we do need to worry—not much, perhaps, but a bit. Now should we not answer your door?”
Von Shrink himself led the way through the connecting rooms to the outside door. Where he waited politely for Stan to open it.
There was no one there. Whoever had rung the bell had already gone away, but not without leaving a curious object behind. The thing was constructed of woven strands of blue-gleaming Heechee metal and was roughly, it seemed to Stan, the size of a coffin. He had no idea of its use or provenance.
Sigfrid von Shrink, however, clearly did. “Stan, Estrella,” he said, sounding almost remorseful, “this is the device I have been waiting for, and now I must confess that I have not been candid with you. The reason I am here is that I am going to ask a favor of you, and it has to do with this device. Which,” he added, “we’d better carry inside, shouldn’t we? Estrella? Could you give us a hand here, please?”
That turned out to mean that Estrella took one end of the thing while Stan took the other. Sigfrid von Shrink, being impalpable, was therefore of no use in any kind of heavy lifting. He led the way, though.
Fortunately the thing was lighter than it looked. Von Shrink stopped near the exit to the balcony. “You can set it down here,” he said, smiling. “Now, if you’ll just lift the top section off—they’re hinged, you see—yes, that’s fine.” He bent to examine it at close range. The thing had opened into a pair of woven metal shells, each with a woven metal lid. For a moment Stan wondered if this might be the Heechee version of a double bed.
He was pretty sure it wasn’t when von Shrink straightened up and said, “It looks like it’s in working order. By any chance, do either of you recognize this? No? Well, I didn’t expect you would but—I’m not quite sure how old you are—do either of you remember those times when everybody in the world seemed to go crazy for a little while?”
“Sure,” Stan said, and Estrella chimed in:
“The crazy times, yes. They were very bad on the ranch, but they stopped when we were on Gateway. What people said was that they were caused by some orphan kid, using a Heechee dream machine kind of thing. I think the kid’s name was something like Wan?”
“Exactly like Wan,” von Shrink agreed. “That indeed was his name, and he’s still around, too, and still causing trouble. But Wan is not the subject of our present concerns. Since you remember that much, you will understand when I tell you that this thing is a version of what you called a dream machine, technically known as a ‘telempathic psychokinetic transceiver.’ This particular model, however, isn’t capable of causing that sort of widespread trouble. Its range is too short. What the Heechee use this for is to prevent antisocial behavior.” He patted it, or gave the impression of patting it, almost affectionately. “The way it works, if the two of you were to get into the two sides of it and it were properly activated, each of you would at once feel everything the other was feeling. You see? You would even know things the other had in his subconscious but wasn’t himself consciously aware of.”
Stan had been looking puzzled and feeling a tad resentful of this lecturing, but now his interest was piqued. “Really?” he asked. “You mean, like even things that Strell didn’t know about herself?”
But Estrella, who had been thinking along the same lines, frowned. “I’m not sure I’d want the whole world listening in like that.”
“Of course not, my dear,” von Shrink soothed. “It wouldn’t happen that way. Wan’s machine in the Oort cloud was broadcasting to the whole solar system. This one is a closed circuit for just the two of you. Or rather,” he said, sounding a bit uneasy, “for one of you and someone else. You see, I’d like to try using it to see if it could help Achiever.”
The expression on Estrella’s face was mostly of surprise, with a touch of worry. Stan’s was more like anger and affront. “You mean jump in that thing with that lunatic?” he demanded.
Von Shrink sighed. “I know it is rather a lot to ask of you,” he said. “Opening your mind to a nonhuman, and a rather troubled one, at that.” He paused for a moment, cogitating. Then he said, “You’ll certainly want to talk it over before you give me an answer, won’t you? So I’ll leave you for a bit. Well,” he added honestly, “not for that reason alone. I don’t think you can have any idea how stressful it is for a machine intelligence like myself to try to carry on real-time conversations with organics like the two of you. The processing rates are so different, you see, and I do have certain other—ah—concerns which need attending to.” For a moment Stan thought he was going to tell what those other concerns were, but he didn’t. He simply added, “So I’ll run a few errands, and then I’ll be back to talk to you after Achiever gets here. Good-bye for now,” he finished, and walked out of the room.
For someone who had never been flesh and blood himself he was certainly good at simulating it, Stan thought. A moment later he and Estrella heard the sssshhhh of the outer door opening and closing. Whether it had actually done so, or whether that was simply more simulating for the sake of enhancing the illusion that von Shrink was physically real Stan could not say.
In any case, he was gone. But the problem he had left them remained.
II
After Sigfrid von Shrink left, Stan and Estrella sat wordless on their perches. It wasn’t that they had nothing to say. They had too much, and didn’t know where to begin.
Stan was the one to make a start. “That son of a bitch,” he announced, “has some nerve! Where does he get off, coming in here and asking me to swap minds with that nutcase?”
Estrella didn’t answer, exactly, except to say, “He’s a nice man, Stan.”
“Well, hell! Everybody’s nice when they’re trying to talk you into something!”
“I don’t mean like that.” She hesitated before adding, “I mean, like the first time he saw me he didn’t look shocked, or give me that gee-what-a-pity look, or anything like that.”
Stan was puzzled until he noticed that Estrella was fingering her left cheekbone. “Oh,” he said awkwardly. “Well—” And ran out of things to say at that point, because, in fact, he had just about forgotten that there was anything odd about Estrella’s eyes. He fidgeted and hemmed and hawed, and said at last, “Hell, Strell, nobody cares about that, do they?”
The look she gave him was both fond and sad. Then she dismissed the subject. “Let’s talk about this other business.”
They did talk. Talked and talked, and kept on talking, and never did come to any satisfactory conclusion. Perhaps that was because there wasn’t one. Stan summed it all up by saying rebelliously, “
I just hate the idea of anybody else getting inside my head.”
“I know, hon,” Estrella told him, touching his shoulder with affection. “The thing is, we owe them, don’t we? Bringing us here, giving us a place to live and all that?” Stan shrugged, and Estrella covered a little yawn. “I’m going to take a lie-down,” she told him. “We can talk more later if you want.”
She kissed the top of his head in passing, but then she had definitely passed, without any invitation to join her in word, look or gesture.
It occurred to Stan that his, uh, his possl-Q, as someone had once in his hearing called it, meaning “Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters”—that his beloved, to put it in another way, and actually a way that he was still trying to get used to—that Estrella, to subsume all those things in a single name, sure was sleeping a lot lately. With as much wisdom as he had to bring to bear on the subject, Stan told himself that she was probably getting her period. It was a useful theory to Stan, since it might also account for her recent changeableness. Indeed, it was the kind of theory that spared Stan from having to try to guess reasons for those elements of female behavior which he had no hope of understanding.
Which seemed to be most of them.
In the course of these ruminations Stan had strolled out onto the lanai again. As before, those lovely meadows, woods and mica-topped hills were spread out before him. Which gave him an idea. He had been wanting to walk around down there, and why not now?
The first problem was the corkscrew ramp that had brought them to the apartment. He discovered at once that there was nothing conceptually challenging about it, just a lot of walking downhill until there was a door marked “exit.” It didn’t display that word in English, of course. What it showed was a squiggly, blue-lit arrow that Stan took to mean the same thing, and did.
Before him lay a wide and beautiful expanse—just like in Alice in Wonderland, he told himself, inhaling the warm, spicy air. There was a spring in his step that wasn’t only due to the fact that this planet’s gravity was almost ten percent less than Earth normal. Being there felt good. Underfoot a springy green and violet grass cushioned his step. All around him in the air were faint clouds of pinkish fluff, like the seed-carriers of cottonwood trees that he had read of on Earth, but had never seen. In the distant sky, away from the hilltops, were the remains of a dissipating rainbow.