“What ceremony?” Stan asked, baffled.
Estrella was quicker on the uptake. “What are you saying? Are you actually—have you been—”
“Have exactly been, yes,” Salt confirmed delightedly. “And also have exactly done, with use of Achiever as fertilizing person. Am therefore quite knocked up, I say in particular to Estrella, just like you!”
15
* * *
Happiness
I
For Stan, one pregnant woman had been interesting, even (since it was his own baby she was pregnant with) absorbing. Two weren’t twice as good. They weren’t even half as good. Suddenly it was Salt, not Stan, that Estrella reported every twinge or queasiness to. Not only that; one day Salt spoke a few sentences in her own languages to Stork, and from then on, on demand, it displayed the contents of either’s womb.
To a degree that was interesting enough to Stan. Heechee biology was not the same as human. Heechee owned a pair of hearts apiece, Stan knew, as well as heaven knew what other bizarre kinds of internal plumbing. All the same, there were basic architectural plans in common. For both species, a single egg, once fertilized, multiplied to become many, and then the baby was born. For Stan, observing how Salt’s early cells divided and took new shapes sort of filled in what his own daughter must have looked like before Stork came along. Salt’s embryo, of course, was tiny—indeed nearly invisible, until Stork was ordered to magnify it for them. And it wasn’t much to look at even then, either, especially when compared with the far more advanced little being in Estrella’s belly.
All the same, Stan had more time to himself these days. So when Yellow Jade showed up, a tottering son on either side, Stan was glad to accept his offer to help them know their neighbors. The son named Warm spoke Mandarin and Vietnamese, the one named Ionic Solvent Korean and Japanese, but neither English. So when they did visit the newcomers conversation was a challenging task.
The new neighbors were housed well. The room they were received in was larger than any in Stan and Estrella’s flat, and it was pretty full—eighteen or twenty of the neighbors, mostly elderly, separated into half a dozen clutches of the various ethnicities. When, say, the plump little woman who spoke for the Koreans wanted to wish Estrella a healthy, happy and an easy birth, the appropriate brother translated it into Heechee. Then the other made it into his own languages, one after another, while Yellow Jade was rendering it into English for Stan and Estrella and, simultaneously, the first brother was translating it into his second language, so there was a constant buzz of multilingual translation going on all the time.
It was not an efficient way of communicating. All the same, Stan enjoyed it tolerably well, and even more enjoyed the food. A two-meter lazy Susan rotated before them, constantly replenished from the dispenser with new dishes, hot and cold, sour and sweet. They were almost as puzzling to Stan and Estrella as their former Heechee CHON-food rations. But human. And, often enough, delicious.
It made the sorry messes the dispenser had been giving them even more repellent. Later on, when Salt dropped in, they were mournfully forcing down another helping of the current muck.
Salt was apologetic about intruding. “Did not perceive you both feeding before entering in your house. Please continue to feed. Will absent self in other regions of this home.” And then, when they had swallowed as much as they could, she returned. “Have observed tooth-cleaning growth in washing place,” she told them. “Is better thing now. Growth no longer in use. Have imported formula for, plus directions for preparation of, new preparation of, how would one call it, soup of edible microorganisms. Very latest thing from Outside. Does cleaning, oiling, desmelling teeth all at one time, very efficient.” Then, as she came close enough to get a good look at the remains of their meal, she stopped short. She hesitated a moment, then said politely, “Have question, not intending make criticism. Question is: is possible these foodstuffs enjoyable to you?”
Stan gave her an unamused grunt. “No. It isn’t possible. It’s just all we have.”
“What, have not possessed even appropriate communicating with chef service? But explain this,” Salt demanded. And when they did explain she sniffed. “I deal with for you,” she said, stood up and addressed the air with a few emphatic Heechee sentences.
Her explanation of what she had done took longer. When they closed their home off to the rest of the world, it had meant that no one could call and, among other things, that the food service couldn’t learn their desires. They had marooned themselves.
But now, she said, they could have their privacy when they wanted it—“Simply to saying when desired ‘Privacy now!’ and, when not, ‘No longer requiring privacy’ and such will be accomplished.” But actually Stan and Estrella hardly heard the explanations, because they had already told the air they wanted lunch, and were listening eagerly for a response.
And the very next day Hypatia of Alexandria popped crossly into their flat. “You two,” she said frostily. “Klara’s been trying to call you, but you’d cut yourself off. Anyway, she would like you to come and visit her. There are some people she’d like you to meet.”
“People?” Stan asked, but Estrella only asked, “When?” It was Estrella she chose to answer. “Now. Whenever you want to get over there.”
When they arrived it was Hypatia again who let them in. Without preamble she ordered, “Stand still for one moment, please, Estrella.” For that moment she seemed to be looking at nothing at all, then nodded toward Klara’s abdomen. “I took the liberty of an internal examination. It is a beautiful fetus. Now please sit down. Klara is dressing for her company.”
Estrella picked up on that. “Will Salt be here?”
“I doubt that a lot,” Hypatia said, her tone even frostier than her look.
Estrella was puzzled. “What’s the matter, Hypatia? Don’t you approve of Salt getting pregnant?”
Hypatia, on the point of leaving the room, turned with a flounce of her colorful robes. “I don’t disapprove of pregnancy. It’s the original, and at one time it was the only, way of bringing more female children into the world. So it’s an acceptable evil. What’s disgusting is the way Salt chose to do it. She had physical sexual intercourse with a male! At this time in the history of scientific progress! In my original time women accepted that because, although very distasteful, it was also unavoidable. But now there are plenty of parthenogenetic ways to get pregnant. She chose that one!” She made the kind of grunt usually written as “ugh,” and then said, “Here’s Klara.”
Whoever the people were that Klara was expecting, they had to be important. Stan had not expected to see her looking so—well—dressed up. Her hair was perfectly coiffed. Her gown was low-cut, gold-colored silk. Even those eyebrows seemed somehow tamed. Her elegance, however, didn’t prevent her from giving Stan a pat on the head in passing and Estrella a full-fledged hug. Then she held Estrella at arm’s length for a critical inspection. “All right,” she said, “you’re looking healthy enough, but what about the baby? Can I see her?”
Of course she could; Stork summoned the image up at once. Of course she got a commentary from the proud parents, too, mostly the prospective father. “If she looks like she needs a shave,” he told her, “that’s what they call lanugo hair. It falls off. And—can you see?—she’s getting nails on her fingers and toes.”
When every viewable organ had been discussed, Klara sighed and sank back into a chair. “You’re very lucky people,” she informed them. “Salt, too. I’ve told her so. Hypatia has some criticisms”—she threw a glance at her shipmind, now dispassionately lounging on a chaise across the room—“but I’m just thrilled. I hope she and Achiever had a good time making it. Poor bastards, it doesn’t happen all that often for them. You noticed Salt turning purple? That’s the signal she’s coming into heat. Either the sight of the color change, or maybe some kind of pheromones, turns every nearby male into a lovesick suitor. Some ways it’s great to be a girl among the Heechee. They always have a bunch of males
hanging around when they make their choice.”
“So then,” Estrella asked, “why in the world did she pick Achiever?”
“Who knows? Sigfrid thinks the Stored Minds might have suggested it, to help Achiever in his cure.” She glanced at the clock. “The others’ll be here in a moment, but they won’t stay long. Dealing with us organics is a real strain for them—oh, didn’t I tell you? They’re all machine-stored. Anyway, have a drink while we wait. Hypatia will get whatever you like.”
And then, while Hypatia’s servers were bringing an iced tea for Estrella and a dark German beer for Stan, the doorbell rang.
A doorbell it really was not—it was a quick carillon peal of chimes, custom-installed for Klara—but it was a long way from the usual Heechee growl. Hypatia was already at the door. She didn’t touch it, of course; but it opened and Sigrid von Shrink came in. “Am I the first?” he asked—unconvincingly, Stan thought, because von Shrink certainly knew that already. “Well, they’ll be here in a moment—ah, here they come now!”
One after another, pop, pop—but the pops were quite soundless—three persons appeared in Klara’s drawing room. Two were elderly Heechee, both curiously seated on chairs rather than Heechee perch because they lacked the usual between-the-legs Heechee pod. The remaining one was a tall, powerful-looking human male in a floppy white hat. “Glad you could make it,” Sigfrid said affably to the new arrivals, and then, to Klara, “These are the people I wanted you to meet. Thermocline, he sort of represents the Stored Minds for us. Burnish; he was the one who aban—who, I mean, was required to leave Achiever on Gateway. Now as a Stored Mind in the Core he has become an expert in stellar dynamics. And this is Marc Antony, who does all the cooking.” Then, gesturing to complete the introductions, “And this is Gelle-Klara Moynlin, and these our young friends Stan Avery and Estrella Pancorbo. Now, if Hypatia will just bring in her servers, Marc has been kind enough to prepare a light collation for us as we talk.”
Stan had never doubted that Klara was an extremely high-ranked person, but until now he hadn’t known just how high-ranked she was. High-ranked enough that stored persons who, presumably, were not impressed by the wealth or fame of organics would take time to come to her home for a chat. But there they were.
Stan was almost equally impressed by the fact that the food was good. The “light collation” was not only tasty but not all that light. There was a pot of delicately tender meatballs, little crackers that held a slice each of duck liver and of a crunchy vegetable that Klara kindly identified as Chinese water chestnuts, nutlike things in a sort of fruity sauce that even Klara couldn’t put a name to, but ate as fast as she could. Which is what pretty much everybody was doing with pretty much everything that they were served. Stan was puzzled to note that the electronic persons were apparently eating the same sorts of foods as themselves until, unthinking, he reached for one of Burnish’s hors d’oeuvres. His fingers passed clear through it, and the man in the floppy white hat turned away from a conversation to give him a small smile. “Simulations eat simulated food, of course,” he said, and then the smile dwindled. “Oh,” he said. “You’re the person who turned off access to his home, I believe.”
Stan could not see why that concerned the man, but he said, “I guess,” his mouth full of barbecued morsels of what might have been chicken. Then he remembered the man’s name. “You’re, uh, Marc Antony, right? So I guess you made all this stuff?” And, when the man nodded, couldn’t help saying with enthusiasm, “It’s the best food I ever had in my life!”
“I see,” said the chef. Then, a moment later, “Try the candied peacock’s tongues. They’re a specialty.”
Stan did try them, though he regretted it pretty fast. Once, in Istanbul long ago, one of Mr. Ozden’s girls had given him a sugar-coated caterpillar as a joke. This was very like it, and had very nearly the same effect. Only two things kept Stan from instantly throwing it up. One was the reflection that the “peacock” whose tongue he had swallowed had never lived, since that dish was constructed out of the same CHON-food as everything else in his diet. The other was the distraction of the animated conversations going on around him.
The main thing that was on the mind of the old Heechee, Thermocline, was the growing immigration problem. Humans were flooding into the Core by the hundreds of thousands, and where were the Heechee supposed to put them all? Marc Antony’s burning question was security—individual human security. “Human beings aren’t like Heechee. Some of them fight. Some of them steal, and kill, and rape. We’re going to need police, and courts, and laws, and some kind of legislatures to pass those laws.” Sigfrid von Shrink’s main concern was how to supply all those immigrants with the kind of human-oriented things that were only obtainable Outside—and how to pay for them.
At which point everyone paused and looked expectantly at Klara.
She grinned, a little ruefully, as though she had been expecting no less. “Well, why not?” she said. “Sigfrid has been hinting around, and he’s right. Hypatia?”
The shipmind made herself visible at once. She seemed to have re-dressed herself for the company. The robes were even more ornate, the finger rings of huge, uncut rubies and sapphires. She looked toward Klara. “Boss, you called me?”
Klara sighed but forbore to mention that there was no doubt in her mind that Hypatia had been present, if not visible, all along. “I’m thinking that we haven’t talked much about my money lately. Do I still have any?”
“Oh, quite a lot, actually. You know most of the things you were invested in while we were still Outside have kind of evaporated—it’s been a long time there. But you got in on a lot of good ones. Like all those Here Afters that are still really pulling in the bucks, and your fleets of spaceships, with all the factories and landing places that go with them; they’re doing well, too.”
“Fine,” Klara said, and dismissed her. “That’s all right, then. I’d like to keep a few million for myself, just in case something comes up, but I don’t really have much use for all that much money. After all, I don’t think I’d be likely to going Outside again.”
“Great,” said Sigfrid, beaming. “We’ll do that. And if Klara’s money isn’t enough to do the job, why, we can start thinking about something like taxes.”
That was nearly the end of the party, as far as decision making was concerned. A moment later Burnish and Thermocline made their excuses and popped out of sight—“to conform these proposals with the will of the Stored Minds,” they said—followed by Marc Antony. Sigfrid, however, made no move to leave. He turned toward Stan and Estrella. “Let’s talk,” he said. “What did you think?”
Stan frowned. “About what just happened? What I think is that we pretty much didn’t belong here. What do I know about economics and legislation and all that?”
Sigfrid took the question at face value. “About, I would say, as much as most organic humans do when they’re seventeen.”
“Almost eighteen,” Stan pointed out immediately, but Estrella overrode him.
“I’m twenty-four, Sigfrid,” she said, “and I don’t know that much, either. Slaughterhouse people didn’t go to college.”
“True,” Sigfrid acknowledged. “You’re not in the slaughterhouse anymore, though, are you?”
“I don’t see any college campuses around here.”
“You don’t need a campus, Estrella. All you need is teaching. That can be arranged.”
“You mean there are teachers in the Core?”
“Quite a few. More important there are teaching programs on basically every subject you can imagine. Are you interested?”
“I guess so,” Stan said, not sounding entirely convinced.
“I’ll see you get information,” Sigfrid promised. He stood up. “Oh,” he added, looking mildly embarrassed. “There’s one other thing. I’d like to ask you for a favor.”
Stan’s guard didn’t go up at once. Then he remembered the strange conversation with Achiever and, suddenly suspicious, asked, “Does it ha
ve anything to do with that crazy Heechee?”
“It does,” von Shrink admitted. “You know, you two have really been a great help with him already. Now I’d like to ask you to do something more.” He raised his hand to ward off refusal. “I know how you feel, especially you, Estrella. But you’re the only human being he really knows, through the dream machine.”
Estrella was already violently shaking her head. “He hates me, Doctor!”
“He did, yes. To a degree he still does. But we want to get him over that, and you can help.”
Stan frowned. “What do you want us to do, exactly?”
“Just spend some time with him. Well, quite a lot of time, actually; it would mean seeing him every day for a few weeks—”
“Weeks!” Estrella’s voice was shaking. “You don’t know what it’s like. Remember, I know what rotten feelings he has. I know what he thinks. And I hate it!”
“Yes,” von Shrink conceded. “Still—well, I won’t press it now. But will you think it over, please?”
They did think it over, quite a lot, and even talked it over, even more. Estrella said the idea just made her whole body quiver.
“Of course,” Stan said thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t hurt for us to do Sigfrid a favor when he asks for it.”
“Please, not that favor. Maybe some other time, but not now, not when I’m just getting used to being happy!”
Which effectively terminated that conversation for Stan. And in bed that night, holding with his hand the hand Estrella had thrown across his chest, Stan was thinking thoughts that seventeen-year-olds seldom think.
They had to do with happiness.
He was thinking about his own situation. Most seventeen-year-olds, he told himself, would not really be very pleased about being lumbered with the care of a child.