But it didn’t.
It ended that day, almost at that very moment, when kissing had turned to caressing but before they began to take each other’s clothes off, and it ended in a startling way.
The great drive coil gave them no warning. It was that other thing, the squat, domed gadget whose purpose had never been explained to them in any terms that made sense. It opened up. It extruded a crystalline corkscrew thing that began to mutter and glow, then growl, then begin to scream on a rising pitch until they could hear it no more, as the glow brightened, Fat, silent sparks showered all over them, making them wince—in surprise, not pain, because the sparks could not be felt. Then at last the drive coil got into the act, beginning to glow and brightening to an eye-hurting incandescent white, with revolving barber-pole stripes of hot red and chrome yellow. It began to shudder. Or the ship did; Stan couldn’t tell which because he was shaking too, in a way that was frighteningly unlike anything he had felt before. He wasn’t sleepy anymore as they clung to each other…
Then, without warning, everything stopped.
Estrella pulled herself free and turned on the outside eyes. Behind them was a scary spread of mottled pale blue. Before them, a sky of unbelievable stars, so many of them, so bright. And, very near, a large metallic dodecahedron, twelve symmetrical sides, each with a little dimple in its center. Their ship plunged at breakneck speed into one of the dimples and nestled there. Before Stan or Estrella could move, the port was opened from outside.
Something that looked like a furry, animated skeleton was glaring in at them. “I think it must be a Heechee,” Estrella whispered numbly.
And, of course, it was. And that was the beginning of the longest, the unbelievably longest, day in Stan’s life.
VII
Nothing in Stan’s previous seventeen years of life had taught him how to greet an alien creature from another planet. He fell back on memories of the comic magazines of his childhood. He raised his hands above his head and declaimed: “We come in peace!”
In the comics that had seemed to work pretty well. In this real world it didn’t. The Heechee fell back in obvious panic. A low, hooting moan came from its queerly shaped mouth as it turned and ran away. “Shit,” Stan said dismally, staring after it.
Estrella clutched his arm. “We frightened it,” she said.
“I certainly hope so. It frightened the hell out of me!”
“Yes, but we have to show it we’re friendly. Maybe we should start playing the Message for them?”
That sounded like a good idea. At least Stan didn’t have a better one, but while they were trying to start the playback the Heechee came running back, and this time he brought all his friends with him. There were half a dozen of the creatures, dressed in smocks with curious pod-shaped objects hanging between their skinny legs—king-sized jockstraps? Heavy-duty condoms? Stan couldn’t guess. The creatures were jabbering agitatedly among themselves as they hurried in. The tallest of them came barely up to Stan’s chin. The short ones hardly reached his navel, and they wasted no time. One of them slapped Estrella’s hand away from the playback machine while a couple of the others grabbed Stan. They were surprisingly strong. They were armed, too. More or less armed, or at least several of them were; they carried an assortment of knives, bright blue metal or gold, some curved like a scalpel, all of them looking dangerous. Especially when one of the Heechee held a knife with its extremely sharp point almost touching Stan’s right eyeball and tugged him toward the exit. “Don’t fight them!” Estrella cried, herself captive in the same way.
He didn’t. He let himself be dragged unresisting into a larger chamber—red—veined blue metal walls, with unidentifiable machines and furnishings scattered around. The ceilings were very close. As they crossed the threshold Stan bumped his head on the doorway and stumbled, taken unaware by the sudden return of weight. They were in gravity again, not as strong as Earth’s, maybe, but enough to make him totter against his captor. He jerked his head back from the blade just in time to avoid losing an eye. The Heechee with the knife screeched a warning, but Stan wasn’t trying to give him any trouble. Not even when he and Estrella were dragged against a wall and chained, spread-eagled, to what might have been coat racks—or statuary—or anything at all, but were solid enough to hold them.
Things were coming to a boil. More Heechee were arriving on the run, all of them chattering agitatedly at the tops of their voices. As one batch of them disappeared into the Five, others began to use their assorted knives to cut away the captives’ clothing. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Stan squawked, but as far as he could tell the Heechee weren’t even trying to understand what he was saying. They didn’t stop doing what they were doing, either. As each scrap of garment was cut away, underwear and all, all the way down to bare skin, it was searched and sniffed and carried away somewhere for further study.
Halfway through the process Estrella yelped in sudden shock as one of those knives nicked her thigh. The Heechee wielding it jumped back, startled. “Be careful with her!” Stan shouted, but they didn’t even look at him. The one with the knife screeched an order, another produced a little metal cup and caught a drop of the blood that was oozing from Estrella’s cut. “Are you all right?” Stan called, suddenly more angry and solicitous than afraid.
“It’s only a scratch,” she said, and then added uncomfortably, “but I have to pee.”
There didn’t seem to be any way to communicate that urgency to their captors—assuming the Heechee would have cared if there had been. They didn’t seem at all interested in any needs or desires of their prisoners. More and more of the Heechee were crowding into the room, yammering to each other without stop. When a Heechee appeared who wore a fancier tunic than the rest, gold-streaked and silky, there was a momentary hush, then they all began talking to him at once. The newcomer had a sort of frazzled look, the way a man might appear if he had just been wakened from sleep with very unwelcome news. He listened for just a moment before waving for silence. He snapped what sounded like a command, then raised one skeletal hand to his narrow lips and began to speak into what looked like a large finger ring.
Heechee were beginning to come out of the Five carrying things—spare clothes, packets of food and, very gingerly, Stan’s trumpet. There was a babble over that as they presented it to the one with the ring microphone. He considered for a moment, then issued more orders. Another Heechee bustled forward with what looked like a stethoscope and touched it to the trumpet, here, there, all over, listening worriedly and reporting to the leader.
A moment later there was a sudden squawking from inside the Five, and Stan heard the familiar blare of the opening bars of Tschaikowsky’s Sixth Symphony. “Listen, Stan, they’ve turned on the Message!” Estrella cried gladly. “Maybe it’ll be all right now!”
It wasn’t. It didn’t get any better at all. If the Heechee made any sense of the Message, which did not seem likely, it did not seem to make them friendlier.
How long the two of them hung there, poked and palped and examined, Stan could not know. It seemed to be a very long time. The good thought, the only good thought, that Stan was able to summon up was that back on Gateway people would be beginning to worry about them. Might even be thinking about sending out a rescue party. If not that, at least they would definitely be having Stan Avery and Estrella Pancorbo in their minds.
For whatever good that might do them.
Stan worried about himself, but worried more about Estrella. Now and then he called empty reassurances to her. She spoke bravely back. “It’ll work out, Stan,” she said, and then, in a different tone, “Oh, damn it.”
Stan saw the problem. Though she had been squeezing her knees together as hard as she could, her bladder would not be denied. Urine was running down her legs. Among the Heechee that produced a new flurry of excitement, as one of them ran for another cup to catch a few drops for study.
What Stan felt was shame—for his lover’s embarrassment—and a sudden hot f
lash of rage at these coarse and uncaring Heechee who had caused it; and that was the end of the first hour of Stan’s long, long day.
Then, for no reason that Stan could see, things did improve. Once begun they improved very rapidly.
The Heechee in the gold-embroidered robe had gone off to do whatever Heechee bosses had to do. Now he returned, puffing importantly as he issued orders in all directions. When he marched up close to Estrella, Stan strained against his chains, expecting some new deviltry. That didn’t happen. The Heechee reached up with one wide, splay-fingered hand, stretching to do it, and patted her cheek.
Was that meant as reassurance? It evidently was, Stan saw, because other Heechee were hurrying toward them to remove their chains, the boss Heechee chattering at them all the while. Stan didn’t listen. Staggering slightly—the chains had cut off circulation, and he weighed less than he had expected here—he reached out for Estrella. Naked as they were, they hugged each other while the Heechee stared at them in benign fascination.
“Now what?” Stan asked the air. He didn’t expect an answer, and got none, unless there was an answer in what happened next. A couple of Heechee hustled toward them, one bearing a few scraps of their ruined clothes, as though to apologize or explain, the other with a couple of Heechee smocks as replacements, gesturing that they might put them on.
The garments didn’t fit them all that well. Human beings were a lot thicker front to back than the squashed frames of the Heechee; what for a Heechee had been a loose smock for Stan was more like a corset. All the same, having their nakedness covered before these weird beings did make Stan feel a little less helpless.
What it didn’t do for Stan was allow him to figure out just what was going on. The Heechee were doing their best to explain. They were chirping, gesturing, trying with all their hearts to make something understood. But in the absence of any language in common they weren’t getting very far.
“At least we’re not trussed up like Christmas pigs anymore,” Estrella offered hopefully, holding tightly to Stan’s hand. They weren’t. They were allowed to roam freely around the chamber, the busy Heechee dodging apologetically around them on their errands.
“I wonder if they’ll let us go back in the ship,” Stan said, peering inside. A couple of Heechee were playing the Message again, holding what might have been a camera to record what it showed. Another patted Stan’s shoulder encouragingly as he stood at the entrance.
He took it for permission. “Let’s try it,” he said, leading the way. No one interfered, but Estrella gasped when she saw what had been done to their Five. Most of the movables had been taken away, and two Heechee were puzzling over the fixtures in the toilet.
Estrella asserted herself. “Get out!” she ordered, flapping her arms to show what she meant. The Heechee jabbered at each other for a moment, then hesitantly complied.
That made a difference. The toilet had been partly disassembled, but it still worked. So did the washstand. A little cleaner, a lot more comfortable, Stan and Estrella took care of their next needs: they were hungry. It was impossible to use the food-preparation equipment, because that was already in fragments, but among the odds and ends that had been hauled out of the Five they found a packet of biscuits that could be eaten as they were, and a couple of bulbs of water. Every move they made was watched by the Heechee with interest and approval.
Then the boss Heechee came back, trailing half a dozen excited assistants who trundled what looked like a portable video screen. One of the Heechee touched something, and a picture appeared in the screen.
They were looking at a Heechee male who was talking to them excitedly—and, of course, incomprehensibly. Behind him was what seemed to be the interior of a Heechee ship, but not any ship Stan had ever seen before. It was much larger than even a Five, and the only recognizable item in it was one of those queer, dome-shaped machineries that had got them into the Core.
Then the Heechee who had been talking from the screen gestured. The scene widened, and then they saw something else that was familiar.
“Mother of God,” Estrella whispered. “Isn’t that Robinette Broadhead?”
Indeed it was Broadhead. He was grinning widely, and he was touching the Heechee in the screen, offering a handshake, which the Heechee clumsily accepted.
Beside Stan, the boss Heechee was patting his shoulder enthusiastically with his splayed hand. It seemed to be a gesture of apology, and hesitantly Stan returned it. The Heechee’s shoulder was warm but bony, and his flat, bony face bore an expression that could have been intended as something like a smile.
“Well,” Estrella said wonderingly. “It looks like we’re all friends together now.” And that was the end of the second hour in this longest of days.
It was good to be friends with these people, better to have had the chance to eat and drink and relieve themselves, best of all to be free. Stan appreciated all those things, though what he really wanted was some sleep. There didn’t seem much chance of that. All of the Heechee, singly and in groups, kept trying to tell them things with their jabbering and their crude sign language. Stan and Estrella kept not comprehending. When the boss Heechee approached, inquiringly carrying Stan’s horn, Stan got that message right away. “It’s a trumpet,” he told them. He repeated the name a couple of times, touching the instrument, then gave up. “Here, let me show you.” And he blew a scale, and then a couple of the opening bars of the Cab Calloway version of the “St. Louis Blues.” All the Heechee jumped back, then made gestures urging him to play more.
That was as far as Stan was prepared to go. He shook his head. “We’re tired,” he said, demonstrating by closing his eyes and resting his check on his folded hands. “Sleep. We need rest.”
Estrella took a hand. Beckoning to the nearest Heechee, she led him to the entrance to the Five, pointing to their sleep shelves, now bare. After more jabbering, the Heechee seemed to get the idea. A couple of them raced away, and the boss Heechee gestured to them to follow. They left behind that single big chamber that, until now, had been their entire experience of the no doubt multitudinous and various worlds of the Heechee, and followed the leader down a short corridor. Its walls, Stan saw, seemed to be Heechee metal still, but, like some of those on the huge vessel Robinette Broadhead had found, with a veined rose-pink instead of the familiar blue. They paused at a chamber. A waiting Heechee showed them the ruins of their own sleep sacks, then pointed hopefully inside. There were two side-by-side heaps of something on the floor. Beds? Anyway the Heechee closed the door on them, and Estrella immediately stretched out on one of the pods. When Stan followed her example, it felt more like burrowing into a pile of dried leaves than any bed he had ever had. But it wasn’t uncomfortable, and best of all it was both flat and horizontal, and no one was yelling at him.
Thankfully he stretched out and closed his eyes… But only for what seemed like no more than a moment.
He was awakened as the door opened again. It was the boss Heechee, jabbering in excitement but beckoning insistently.
“Oh, hell,” Stan muttered. Things happened pretty fast in this place; but the two humans got up and followed. Farther, this time, along the rose-pink corridor and then one where the veining was bright gold. They stopped in a chamber like the one they had first entered, where half a dozen Heechee were chattering and pointing at the airlock.
“I think they’re trying to tell us that another ship’s coming in,” Estrella said.
“Fine,” Stan grumbled. “They could’ve let us sleep a little bit, though.”
They didn’t have long to wait. There was a faint sound of metal against metal from outside the door. One of the Heechee, watching a display of color from something beside the door, waited just a moment, then opened it. A pair of Heechee came in, talking excitedly to the equally excited ones meeting them, and then they were followed by a pair of human beings.
Human beings!
Stan’s mouth dropped open, and beside him he heard Estrella’s gasp. The human beings wer
e talking, too, but the people they were talking to were the Heechee. In their own Heechee language. And then one of the human arrivals caught sight of Stan and Estrella. His eyes went wide. “Jesus,” he said unbelievingly. “Who the hell are you?”
Who the hell the man himself was was somebody named Lon Alvarez, one of Robinette Broadhead’s personal assistants, and as soon as Stan told him their names Alvarez snapped his fingers. “Oh, God, yes! The kids who took off from Gateway right after the discovery! Sure, I remember hearing about you. I guess everybody thought you were dead.”
“Well, we’re not,” Estrella said, “just dead tired.”
But Stan had a sudden sense of guilt. Everybody thought they were dead? And so they’d be telling Tan that that was so, and Naslan. “Is there some way you can communicate with Gateway? Because if there is I’d better get a message off to them right away.”
Puzzlingly, Lon Alvarez gave Stan a doubtful look. “A message to who?”
“To the Gateway authorities, of course,” Stan snapped. “They’ll be waiting to hear from us.”
Alvarez glanced at the Heechee, then back at Stan. “I don’t think they’re exactly waiting, Mr. Avery. You know you’re in a black hole, don’t you?”
“A black hole?” Stan blinked at the man, and heard Estrella make a little moan beside him.
The man nodded. “That’s right. That’s what the Core is, you know. It’s a big black hole, where the Heechee went to hide long ago, and inside a black hole there’s time dilation.” He looked at Stan to see if he was following this, but Stan’s muddled stare wasn’t reassuring. Alvarez sighed. “That means things go slower inside a black hole. In this one, the dilation comes to about forty thousand to one, you see, so a lot of time has passed Outside while you were here. How much? Well, when we left it would have been about, let’s see, about eleven years.”