bubble in water. It has some variable value caused simply by angle of impingement between parts of the loop. Reluctance would also be the only restraint on the speed of information."
Milly sat quietly for a long time, thinking. She could almost see what Sam was trying to explain. She picked up some of the drawings from the kitchen table: pictures of hollow tubes crossing at various angles and vectors, sinusoidal waves in thread-like loops colliding with various interference effects and resulting force vectors. It was obvious how geometry was necessary. It was a rather simple principle that led to almost infinite complexities. She then realized geometry could be a tool in her doctorate pursuit. Wasn't geometry the main reason for doing math? Math was how reality was measured, and reality was perceived as geometry.
"OK, Sam. Once more, from the top. I like blowing things up."
2-23 The Bass Player and the Happy Captain
Direk watched her. He should be paying more attention to the engineering work that was being done. He had steeled himself against such distraction, but he was too tired to keep up the effort. He watched Zakiya. It was not that she was the mother of the woman he had loved - Jamie - but that she was Ruby Reed, singing in the spotlight, as he and Harry played their instruments. He had always been happy when he played bass and listened to Ruby and Harry. He was unreasonably disappointed Zakiya hadn't yet referred to that period of their lives together. Harry - who was Pan - was missing. He knew he should be here, helping with the engineering. The other copy of Direk - the one who died heroically - should also be here, as he was needed in this emergency. Now this musical memory of Zakiya was causing him to wonder if yet another person from the past was missing.
Zakiya noticed him, and noticed his distraction. "What is it?" she asked.
"How long have they worked on this pylon?" he asked. It was a tower of steel that was bent when the Freedom broke through the space door of Navy dry dock.
"About two days," she answered.
"Are they finished? It looks fine to me."
"The integrity of the repair tests good," she answered, "but there is a question about its accuracy."
"Tell them to quit the pylon and move on. The gate connections can probably adapt to that amount of error in geometry. If that's the last ship's fitting to need attention, we can begin the final connection stage."
"The field emitters can adapt?"
"I should have informed you. I'm sorry I had to press you into service, but Uncle Iggy was almost asleep on his feet. My copies and I had the better part of a century to modify the hardware. We tried to allow for some error in ship geometry. There wasn't any error by Uncle Iggy, except for the damaged pylons."
Zakiya hurried over to the repair team and gave them his news. She returned. "I'm going to the hospital to see Sammy. When are you going to get some rest?"
"When Uncle Iggy wakes up. I've got my new shiplink. I'm available to the engineers if they need my help. May I walk with you?"
"Of course. You must have something to say to me. Is it about Jamie?"
"No," he answered, feeling Zakiya's concerned gaze upon him as he avoided looking at her.
They began walking. They followed a pressurized and lighted artificial gravity pathway among the massive pillars of field emitters, more than half of which had been lowered into approximate installation positions, creating a forest of hexagonally-capped giant mushroom stalks. Eventually the hexagonal caps would form the new outer hull of the Freedom.
"Do you know about the small gate on the ship?" Zakiya inquired.
"It's a preview gate," Direk responded. "Iggy told me it was used to rescue you and someone named Sammy."
"A preview gate?"
"It's used to peek at the destination and make sure it's both correct and safe. We won't be able to use it for that purpose until I'm sure of its calibration." He paused to see if Zakiya would tell him about the rescue but she was either reluctant or distracted. "Who is Sammy?" he asked. "I've heard some of the engineers talking about him."
"My adopted son," Zakiya replied. "If you have a few moments, perhaps you should know what happened. I haven't told all of the details to anyone except Captain Horss."
Zakiya told Direk about his copy rescuing her and Sammy from the Navy Commander, and about the golden aliens who were in his presence. He asked questions, trying to satisfy himself that Zakiya had seen true aliens.
As important and as intriguing as the story was, he was still troubled with not knowing what to do about the fact of the real Direk being dead. He could not presume to deserve a relationship with anyone the real Direk had known - especially Jamie. He was in fact identical to the real Direk in every physical aspect that mattered, but an Old One tended this body, and if one believed in the soul or in some other non-physical certification, he had no right to claim any part of the real Direk.
"After learning about golden aliens in the presence of the Navy Commander," Direk said, "and your Direk copy dying heroically, and your discovery of a little boy on Earth, I suppose my little problem is not even worth mentioning."
The demands of the gravity path across the ship's hull required concentration, until they arrived at a temporary transmat node, where they winked to the central biosphere of the Freedom. They materialized on a circular disk of natural granite embedded in the slope above the lake. The granite node was convenient to a wide stairway also made of igneous rock. It was early morning in the biosphere and almost cold enough to fog their breath.
"Tell me what's wrong," Zakiya demanded with concern, before they could begin walking.
He looked away from her, panned his gaze across the lake, then looked at his feet. "I am trying very hard to tell you something. It wasn't this difficult with Uncle Iggy, and perhaps he didn't believe me. Please be patient. I was a black man and I played a stringed bass. Do you remember me, Ruby?"
"Remember you...?" Zakiya's voice trailed off and her eyes closed. Then tears seemed to force her eyes open and she almost choked when she tried to stop an eruption of sound from too deep in her body.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Direk reached out to Zakiya, not quite touching her, until she moved within his arms and hugged him.
"Dick! Dick, Dick, Dick! How I've missed you!"
"No, you haven't," Direk said kindly, holding her gently. "It's just the auxiliary memory exaggerating your feelings. I only wanted you to remember your old bass player. I needed that... continuity to my life, perhaps because it was an Earthian urge. Pan and I, despite our Essiin enculturation, loved you for yourself, without regard to the impossible plan in which we all participated. We were happy with you, with your music, even with your alcoholism and melancholy."
Zakiya calmed herself, rubbed the tears from her eyes, then looked at Direk with loving seriousness. "Are you alright, Direk? I could never have expected such words from you!"
"I don't know, Zakiya. My auxiliary memory doesn't bother me as much with its pungency as with the meaning of it all. I am supposed to know myself better than what I discover in my memory. I'm supposed to know how to treat others kindly, and I fear I've not done that very well. Especially with... her."
"Her? Which her?"
"Yes, both Jamie and Mother. I realize this problem I have is not welcome at such a critical time, but there it is. Wanting you to remember me, when I was who I really wanted to be, that was my perfectly unreasonable Earthian ego. It has as much meaning as my perfectly reasonable Essiin ego. I think Pan knew that instinctively but he could never quite explain it to me. I certainly can't explain it to myself. I just have to persevere, like a good Essiin, and get lucky like a good Earthian."
"Direk, I think I want to laugh at that, but I'm not sure!"
Direk laughed, shocking Zakiya again. She slapped him on the chest. "Your mother will not believe...!"
"But I can't be perfectly Earthian," Direk warned. "I don't want to raise hopes or insinuate promises. All I want to do is to be kinder to those to whom I may be important."
"I can assure you that you are extreme
ly important to my daughter. Can you imagine why that could be?"
"Not entirely. I don't entirely understand why she is so important to me, but she is. Either my Earthian component is blinding me to the logic, or else the Essiin logic is faulty at its base."
"You love her," Zakiya said, as though loving each word she said.
"I want to believe that. I just don't know if my Essiin component will give me any room to be sure, as if some mathematical theorem must be applied to the proof."
"If you don't love her, can you forget her?"
"I can't forget her. Every piece of equipment, every measurement, every test, every centimeter of this asteroid, all of the excruciating precision put into each field emitter, all of that was at least partly for the hope and the chance of seeing Jamie again. Just seeing her. Perhaps that is only what loneliness does to an Earthian, I don't know. But when I stop to just imagine being close to her, I'm overwhelmed. Am I mentally ill?"
"Yes, I'm afraid you are!" Zakiya declared, kissing Direk on the cheek. She had to stand on her toes to reach that high. "It is a dreadful and wonderful Earthian illness. I'm so sorry! No wonder Jamie broke down and wept when she thought you had died rescuing Sammy and me. She didn't know he was a copy. She must have known you had loved her, even though you may never have explicitly told her. She knew she had loved you, despite the way you acted. What are you going to do?"
"Now," Direk