“I don’t know. That isn’t what I wanted to tell you about anyway.”
That was when I got really certain it wasn’t going to be something I was going to want to hear. I could feel all the muscles in my body tensing up. “Damn it, what?”
She said, “Hon, they’ve identified the spaceship he hijacked. It was the one Achiever was piloting. It looks like Stan and Estrella—and Salt—are all still aboard.”
II
Even at that moment I thought that was sort of a funny way for her to say it. But I had more urgent things on my mind.
The thing is, I’ve never had many friends. I don’t mean employees or the kids who lived on my island or bedmates. I mean friends. The kind of friends you hang out with because you just like having them around. Right now, here in the Core, I was even friend-poorer than usual. Not counting Hypatia, I just had three. There was Estrella, there was Stan, and there was Salt; and now all three of them were in mortal danger.
I couldn’t help it. I raged at Hypatia. She took it well enough, having had plenty of practice. That wasn’t satisfactory, though, since obviously this catastrophe was not her fault. So I ordered her to fetch me some better scapegoats to yell at.
She tried. Or said she did. Neither of the leading candidates showed up, though, when she called them. I suppose Thermocline and Sigfrid probably were pretty busy trying to get a handle on the situation. They weren’t really that busy, though. They could have found time if they wanted to. No, there was a different explanation. They were avoiding me.
Likely enough that was smart of them. I wasn’t fit to be talked to.
Hypatia kept bringing me bulletins. Nobody had been harmed at One Moon Planet; Wan’s whip-bearing simulations had simply scooped up every one of the Old Ones and every one of their keepers unfortunate enough to be on duty just then. Achiever’s ship had been one of the ultrafast ones from Outside, so there wasn’t any hope of catching it even if anyone tried. The precise location of the gravity-killing weapon that would blow up Planetless Very Large White Very Hot Star had not been pinned down and maybe never would; best guess was that it was in orbit, somewhere near there, but too small to track. And so on. Lots of news, none of it good.
At least it gave me time to cool down. I don’t mean I stopped being angry. I was angrier than ever, but it was all aimed at that little weasel, Wan, rather than the ones I had wanted so badly to scream at. I was sad, too. I mean the kind of sadness where you suddenly find your nose running and tears trickling down your face even when you think you’re thinking about something else. The way I had been, after that Kilauea tsunami erased my beautiful little Raiwea.
I sat brooding for a few minutes while Hypatia fluttered around. She was giving me odd looks out of the corner of her eye—watching, I supposed, to see if I was going to blow up. When she tried to interest me in food again I shook my head. “Not hungry,” I told her. I stewed around for a moment, then I got an idea. Whether it was a good one or not I did not know, but I said, “Get hold of that damn cook, Marc Antony, for me.”
I don’t know what she told him, but he did show up—not in person, though, but just on my lookplate. “What is it?” he demanded. “I am quite busy.”
I wasn’t taking anything from him, or from anybody else, either, just then. “God damn it,” I said, “they can’t do this! You have to do something.”
He looked at me coldly. “What?”
“You have to go after them! Get them back. I don’t care what it takes, do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” he said, and disappeared. There was no good-bye. He just vanished from the plate.
That was what you’d call a mixed reaction. He understood what I wanted him to do, all right. I just didn’t know whether or not he would do it, and when I turned around, Hypatia was giving me another of those fishy looks.
I was not feeling patient. “What?” I demanded.
“Hon,” she said, sounding even more sympathetic than the situation called for, “I know how you feel.”
Usually when Hypatia says things like that she’s heading for a real yelling-at. This time, however, I was too upset to do it. I took a deep breath and tried to collect myself. “Pour me a drink,” I ordered. When it rolled in I picked it off the server and took a good hit—icy cold vodka, the way I liked it—be—fore I said, “I know you think you know how I feel. What about it?”
Hypatia got up from the couch she’d been lounging on and came over to stand beside me, her expression as sympathetic as the tone of her voice. I think she would have patted my head if she could. “They aren’t worth it,” she told me. “Men!”
I set the drink down to glare at her. “What the hell about men?”
She backed away a little, but said doggedly, “It’s always some man or another, isn’t it? Robin, Wan, Bill Tartch, all the others. You just never get over your glands.”
It took me aback that even Hypatia would put Wan in the same sentence with Rob Broadhead, or even with Bill, although I understood that, from her point of view, all males were ravening rapists and bullies…
Then I figured out what she was talking about.
“For Christ’s sake, Hypatia, have you got it in your head that I’m hot for Stan Avery’s body?”
She didn’t say yes or no. She just gave me that long-suffering, understanding look and said, “I know. It’s something you can’t help, as long as you’re a prisoner to those ovaries—”
I guess the look on my face stopped her. “Stan is a child!” I said—well, more like yelled, probably.
She didn’t answer that. She didn’t even mention the fact that, compared to me at my age, most of my lovers had been children, too, although it was true. She didn’t say anything at all. She just looked at me with more of that patient, understanding expression of hers.
So I did something I rarely do. I tried to explain myself to her.
All right, I know she’s just a machine intelligence, but there have been times in the last few forevers when she felt like the only friend I had left. I said, “Hypatia, sweetie, I’ll be all right as soon as they’re safe. I don’t need another man. I don’t need to scrape together some genetic material and whip up a baby of my own. I’ve got a better way to fill out my life now, and all I want is to get it back.”
“Yes, hon,” she said, bobbing her head, “I understand what you’re saying.”
What I wanted to do at that point was to yell at her some more. I didn’t, though. What would have been the point? It was all outside her programming and experience, not just because she was a machine but because she was the particular machine she was.
Hypatia does, in fact, look and act very much like a human being. Sometimes I forget that she isn’t, but then, sooner or later, she does something to remind me.
21
* * *
A Season on Arabella
I
In their first week on Arabella a couple of significant things happened. After two or three shivering nights on the bare ground, one morning a weird-looking machine with five spindly legs came rattling down over the rocks to their valley. If it had the power of speech, it didn’t use it. All it did was deposit a load of sleeping bags in front of Stan, then back away and climb the hill again.
There were five of the bags. Enough for Stan and Estrella and for Grace Nkroma and her two helpers. There was none for Salt or Achiever. However, Stan and Estrella elected to double up in one bag, so that Salt and Achiever, whether they would have chosen it or not, could do the same with the other.
The other event wasn’t as pleasant. Stan was not the only person whose thoughts were on the spacecraft so temptingly perched on the mountaintop, out of reach. After a few days Achiever could resist no longer. He was more than halfway up the mountainside before anyone noticed. He didn’t get much farther than that. As he was gingerly picking his way through a belt of jagged rocks approaching the top he suddenly threw up his hands; his body jerked and twisted in improbable ways, and he fell to the ground.
/> Down below, everybody was shouting at once. It was Nkroma’s assistant, Yussuf Pike, who first started up the hill after him. Stan dropped the hand he had been holding, gave Estrella a wild look, took a deep breath and was close behind.
It turned out that heroics were not needed. Suddenly a pair of the five-legged machines appeared from behind the crest of the hill. One loaded the unconscious Achiever onto the cargo flat atop the other, and they carried him back down.
He was unconscious, though writhing in pain. But not dead. Still, for the next couple of days he lay racked on his bedding, every limb and joint excruciatingly reminding him of his mistake.
All in all, by the end of their first month Stan and Estrella had learned more about their place of captivity, though not all of it was useful. They learned, for instance, that Wan would show up many times a day, moving affectionately among his Old Ones, and completely ignoring the humans. They learned that if they needed a bath, which they all quickly did, the little lake was the only place to get one. They learned that trying to get to the ship by climbing some other slope and coming at it from behind didn’t work, because everywhere they tried, giant, jagged-edged rockslides made the mountain unclimbable. They learned that trying to subvert Wan’s own people was doomed; the humans had nothing to offer that outweighed Wan’s considerable capacity for punishment.
And yet, when Wan was with his Old Ones, he didn’t seem so bad. He crooned to them. Whether the Old Ones enjoyed it very much was unclear. They were certainly aware of his presence, though not apparently much interested. Sometimes they would grunt back in response to his endearments. Mostly, though, they just ignored him.
“I bet he wishes he could scratch their tummies,” Estrella observed, watching Wan’s simulation murmur fondly to a couple of the Old Ones as they idly munched CHON-food in the shade of a giant tree.
Estrella pointed out, “At least this way he doesn’t have to smell them.” And suddenly sat erect, looking worriedly around, as a voice from nowhere asked, “Do they really smell bad? Smell like what?”
“Well,” Stan began, a little startled but game, “it’s kind of like—”
Estrella cut him off. “We don’t like to talk to people we can’t see,” she said loftily. “Why don’t you show yourself?”
A long pause. Then, hesitantly, “I better not. He’s still here.”
“What he?” Estrella demanded. “Are you talking about Wan?”
“Of course I’m talking about Wan. I don’t know if he’d like the idea of me showing myself.”
Stan was about to speak, but Estrella laid a hand on his arm. “All right, if you’re afraid to be seen, at least tell us your name.”
A pause longer still. Then, “Oh, all right. I’m Raafat Gerges. You can just call me Raafat. I’m the one who got you the sleeping bags. I would have thought”—the voice now sounding injured—“that you’d’ve been grateful.”
“Oh, we are,” Estrella assured him. “That was kind of you, even if you didn’t give us enough to go around.”
Another of those pauses. Then, the voice now sounding puzzled, “I saw what you did for those Heechee, but I don’t know why.”
“They’re our friends,” she explained.
That brought about the longest pause of all, as though Raafat Gerges was trying to digest that concept, but Estrella didn’t wait him out. She stood up, looking around all the parts of the compound. “Raafat? See for yourself, Wan isn’t there now. Why don’t you let us see you?”
That took some thinking over, too, but then he said, “Okay,” and appeared before them at the same moment.
Raafat Gerges was a sight worth waiting for. Not physically. He had black hair and a sallow complexion, not a spectacle to turn anyone’s head. What he wore, on the other hand, was undeniably impressive: a snow-white tunic, jeweled bracelets, sandals studded with what looked like more jewels, and a headgear—you couldn’t call it a hat—that looked something like a brimless stovepipe, though made of some sort of colorful fabric and studded with the most jewels yet.
He knew what a spectacle he was, too. He preened himself some more, explaining, “I’m Egyptian, you know. But I didn’t want to look like just any old Egyptian, so Wan let me dress myself up a little.” He struck an attitude. “I think it works well, don’t you?”
Raafat Gerges was the first of their bashful visitors to show himself, but not the last. While they talked, one by one, others appeared—two women and a pair of remarkably muscled men. “When you get a chance to simulate a body for yourself,” said one of them—he was velvety black and very tall—“you might as well do one that looks good. I’m DeVon Washington,” he added, and the others in turn introduced themselves: a man with a shaved head and black, closely cropped beard, Khoa Yukman; a woman with almond skin, delicate little nose and masses of wavy blonde hair, Sindi Gaslakhpard; and another woman, also blonde, though a lot less sexy, with the name of Phrygia Todd.
The simulations gazed at the captives silently, seeming wary, until Estrella remembered her manners. “I’m Estrella Pancorbo,” she said. “This is Stan—”
DeVon raised a hand. “We know your names,” he told her. “You people also,” he added to Grace Nkroma and some of the others as they began to gather around.
“Oh,” Estrella said, and then ventured small talk. “Raafat’s been very kind to us,” she told them. “He got us sleeping bags—”
“We know,” the blonde named Sindi said.
“Ah,” Estrella said. She tried again. “We had some excitement when Achiever tried to get into—”
“—the spaceship,” the blonde named Phrygia finished for her. “We saw it. Can we ask you something? What’s the matter with your face?”
Years of getting used to the question hadn’t made Estrella like it. “Accident,” she said shortly, and changed the subject back. “It seems you guys spend a lot of time watching us. How come?”
DeVon Washington grinned, more rueful than amused. “We’ve got a lot of time.”
He stopped there, looking over Stan’s shoulder. “Oh, hell! So long,” he said, and all four of them disappeared at once.
When Stan turned he saw that Wan was back again, now murmuring to a pair of Old Ones by the shore of the lake. Grace was looking at him, too.
“You know,” she said, “I think they’re more afraid of him than we are.”
Behind her Achiever made the sound that he intended for a chuckle. “Of course this is so. You ask why? I answer this for you: it simply is because of their knowing him better than we.”
II
The second month wasn’t any better than the first, and the third was worse than that. There was the boredom. There was the unacceptable food. There was the boredom. (“If we had Stork at least we could look at the baby.” “Please, Stan. It wasn’t my fault, the way they hustled us out of the ship.” Every morning at sunrise Stan lifted his eyes to the hilltop where the spacecraft was perched. He wasn’t just looking. He was yearning, not just for the hope of escape, not just for the Stork bracelet that was still in it. He knew, of course, that he was yearning for the unattainable, as Achiever had demonstrated. Was still demonstrating sometimes, going to sleep, when his eyes were closed but every muscle in his torso was rippling wildly.
When Estrella and the others challenged him, he insisted he was all right. “Sleep badly for reason of having no good sleeping grasses, merely. In regard to sleeping bag, what I declare is, ptui. Better than nothing? Perhaps. Arguable. However, assuredly less good than nearly any other possible thing.” To show that that subject was finished he turned his narrow head and stared up at the ship. “In any event,” he said, “on next attempt will surely achieve purpose, as person named Achiever would properly achieve.” He gave them a thin-lipped grin to show that he had just made a joke.
Salt was not in a joking mood. “This cannot occur,” she declared. “You don’t remember? Ship was made obedient to machine commands by means of servomodule, not persons. You could not operate same.?
??
He gave her a superior look. “Not correct. Have spoken of this with Raafat Gerges. Wan has since nullified machine override. Reason due no doubt to keep Raafat or other such person from flying it away.”
Stan straightened up. “So if you could get into the ship you could fly it?”
“Mean exactly this, yes.”
But Salt was flapping her bony fingers at him. “Nevertheless,” she said sharply. “Never-the-damn-less. May not survive a second punishment. No. If person is to make additional attempt I am to be that person.”
“Are not!” Achiever roared. “Are carrying child of mine, which cannot be risked! I firmly and irrevocably order this to you!”
“But it can’t be you, either,” Estrella put in. “You tried it once, and the second time could kill you. Right?” She was looking for confirmation at Stan and a couple of the Old Ones’ handlers, who had been drawn to the discussion.
Most of them were nodding, but not Stan. He took a deep breath. “I’ll do it,” he said.
Estrella gave him a horrified look, but again it was Achiever who demurred. “How foolish you are,” he said, flapping his bony fingers at Stan. “What is point of entering ship? To bring same down here so we can enter and depart this planet. Who can do this? Trained pilot can do this. No other person can. Are you trained pilot? You are not, apart from childish task of sitting in spacecraft others have programmed when coming to Core. Especially have you piloted spacecraft of this new and quite fast model? No. Have not. Therefore have no hope of achieving.”
While Achiever was laying down his logical proofs, one of the Old Ones’ handlers, Geoffrey, was listening intently. “I’m a pilot,” he said.
Achiever gave him an unbelieving look. “You? Pilot of spacecraft?”
“Well, no, I never actually piloted any spacecraft,” Geoffrey conceded. “I flew our ultralight back in the Maasai Mara, though.” (“Hah,” Achiever sneered.) “Well, that’s not all. When I was a kid I was going to go to Gateway, only this job came along and I didn’t. But I studied for it.”