“Did you tell him any gory details?”
“I don’t have any, dear. I’m not that close to Moonboy, and you haven’t shown me the feelie yet. Did he know something I don’t?”
She shrugged. “All men do. Have something no other man has. And I’m saving the feelie for our old age.”
“In case we have one?”
She nodded, silent for a few moments, looking at the floor. Then she knuckled her eyes. “Could you play me that silly love song? The first, the first time . . .”
“Sure.” I picked up the instrument and tuned up the flatted E strings, then plucked out the simple melody. “Shteyt a bocher, shteyt un tracht . . . tracht un tracht a gantze nacht . . .”
It’s a song about a man finding a smart woman to marry.
11
HEROES
Paul had always questioned the necessity for radio silence between Earth and ad Astra. It assumed the Others were so inattentive and stupid that they wouldn’t know we were on our way. Of course, our presence would be obvious after turnaround, with a gazillion- horsepower matter-annihilation engine blasting in their direction. The little probe that preceded us would deal with that by sending a warning and a message of peace well before we turned around and started blasting, decelerating.
What if they destroyed the probe before it delivered the message?
What if it delivered the message, and the Others destroyed us anyway?
What if they weren’t on a Wolf 25 planet after all?
We went along with the order and were resigned to not hearing from anyone on Earth for another 3.4 years. Paul kept the radio on, though, in case things changed.
On July 10, 2088, things did. A fifty-two-second message came from Earth. He called us all together in the lounge, Martians and humans, and played it back for us.
“This is Lazlo Motkin, just elected president of the world. One reason I was elected was that I wanted to change your mission and make it more in line with what the Earth’s people really want.
“You are the finest heroes in Earth’s history, hurtling into the unknown on a mission that will almost surely end with your deaths.
“We ask that you make this grim probability a glorious certainty. Rather than slowing down, we would ask you to continue accelerating. Going at almost the speed of light—and invisible until the last moment—you will strike the enemy planet with ten thousand times the force of the meteorite that brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs.
“Even the ungodly science of the Others cannot protect them from this apocalyptic assault. Please answer that you have heard and are willing to give your life in this noble enterprise.
“God bless you and keep you.”
We all just stared at each other. “Who is that guy?” I said. “Lazlo what?”
“Motkin,” Namir said. “He’s a cubevangelist.”
“Powerful signal,” Paul said. “Pretty tight laser.”
Namir shrugged. “He has lots of money, or did when money meant something, and a powerful broadcast site in the Atlantic, beyond the seven-mile limit. He could do it once.”
“Once?” Paul said.
“They’ll have people like me in the water in thirty minutes. Home-land Security. Unless Reverend Motkin really is president of the world, he’s about to have a serious accident.”
“Or had it about a week ago,” Paul said.
“It’s hard to get used to that. He was arrested or dead before that message was a tenth of the way here.”
“What if he really is king of the world,” Moonboy said, “or president or whatever. Some pretty loony people have made it to the top, even in normal times.”
“I still wouldn’t feel I had to kill myself on his behalf,” Dustin said.
“Besides, the order is stupid,” Paul said. “We don’t know for certain which planet in the Wolf 25 system is their home world.” There was a “cold Earth” planet that seemed likely, but also two gas giants with Triton-sized satellites.
“As we get closer, we might be able to tell which one it is,” Moonboy said.
“It probably would be the one with all the missiles rising up to greet us.”
“Maybe not,” Namir said. “If we stopped accelerating the last month or so, we’d be coming in cold. They might not detect us until it was too late to respond. We’d still be going at 99 percent the speed of light.”
“You’re not arguing in favor of this kamikaze scheme,” Elza said.
“Not this particular one. President of the world. But it’s always been a possible strategy.”
“As I said before,” Snowbird said, “if we’re going to die anyhow, we could still exercise some control over the situation that way.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t sign up for a suicide mission. Besides, even if we knew what planet they were on, we don’t know who else might inhabit it. It might be like destroying Earth just to get Lazlo what’s- his-name.”
“Which might be happening even as we speak,” Namir said. “Or after however long it takes his message to be picked up by the Others.”
“Comforting prospect,” I said.
“And an interesting thought experiment,” Moonboy said. “If they did destroy the Earth, should we try to destroy them in turn? Or should we go someplace safe and try to restart the human race?”
“I’m a fearsome interstellar warrior,” Namir said. “I’m not changing diapers.”
“I don’t think we have any diapers aboard,” I said, “nor ovulating women.”
“I can fix the ovulation,” Elza said. “And we could improvise diapers and such. But really, where could we go, to play Adam and Eve, if we couldn’t go back to Earth?”
“Mars,” Fly-in-Amber said. “It’s a nicer place anyhow.”
We got the ersatz news broadcasts from Earth, but of course they weren’t beamed, and were too weak and distorted by noise to be worth everyday amplifying and cleaning up. Namir had some experience and expertise to apply to it, though, and eventually had decoded about six hours of broadcasts prior to noon of July 3, when Lazlo Motkin had made his imperial request. All we found were two small stories, one a pro forma announcement that Lazlo was going to run for president of the United States on a third-party ticket, and the other a human-interest story about how he and his wife formed the Free America party and, working through several religious denominations, got enough signatures and funding to put himself on the ballot in several Southern states.
So how to interpret the tight-beam message to us? Probably just a crazy rant. But suppose the rest of the news was sanitized, and there really had been a theocratic revolution in the United States?
Paul raised that possibility during dinner, rehydrated mushrooms fried with pretty convincing butter over corn cakes, with actual green onions from the farm, our first crop.
“Doesn’t make sense,” Dustin said, “unless it’s a very levelheaded theocracy. Why would they censor the news of their victory?”
“Maybe they’re not idiots,” Namir said. “Even theocrats might not want to invite the Others to their victory parade.”
“The real question is what our response should be,” Paul said. “I’m inclined to play it straight; tell them thanks, but no thanks. We’re going to stick with the original plan.”
“Which is to make it up as we go along,” I said.
“Or just don’t respond at all,” Namir said. “He sent that a week ago. He knows our answer would take a week or eight days. If he’s still in control of that powerful laser transponder a couple of weeks from now, that tells us something.”
Meryl shook her head. “You’re presupposing that the Earth authorities are aware that he’s done this. I think he’s just a rich fruitcake out in the middle of the ocean with his laser transponder and delusions of grandeur.”
“In which case,” I said, “we ought to send the message back to Earth and ask whether anyone can vouch for Mr. Lazlo.”
“We could do that,” Paul said, “but no matter what we hear back
, we should stick to the original mission. If we’d wanted to just cannonball into the planet, there wouldn’t be any need for a human crew and all this lovely life support.” He held up a forkful of mushroom. “We could’ve just put an autonomous AI pilot on the iceberg and set it loose. But we are on board, and in charge, and we’ll do what we’re supposed to do.”
He looked around the table. “So I second Carmen’s idea—send the message back and see what the reaction is. But continue on regardless. Is everyone in favor of that?”
People nodded and shrugged. Moonboy said, “It’s not as if they could do anything to us, right? I mean, there’s no way they could set up another starship and have it overtake us before we got to Wolf 25.”
“No,” Paul said, “even if they had an identical iceberg in place, and all the people and resources. They couldn’t catch up with us. We’re already going two-tenths the speed of light.”
“They couldn’t catch us with a starship and crew,” Namir said. “But they could catch us with a probe. A bomb.”
“Always Mr. Sunshine,” his wife said.
12
MEDICAL HISTORY
1 September 2088
So Elza thinks Moonboy is a little crazy. Maybe more than a little. He’d been acting more odd than usual for a couple of weeks, I saw in retrospect, but it hadn’t made a big impression. He’d been moody as long as we’d known him; so now he was a little moodier, withdrawn.
I’m somewhat snoopy, but then that is what I’m paid to do. So when Elza said she was going down to the kitchen for a snack and set down her notebook without turning it off, I did what was natural for me and leaned over to take a look.
It was Moonboy’s medical file, open to a confidential psychological evaluation, eighteen years ago. It was in a folder labeled “Aptitude for long-term assignment, Mars Base.”
The box the psychiatrist had checked said “marginally acceptable,” with a scrawled “see attached” alongside. I tapped on it, and the document was fascinating. Disturbing.
Moonboy had had inpatient psychiatric treatment, on Earth, for assault and claustrophobia. When he was eleven, a stepfather had gotten angry with him for crying and taped his mouth shut, then bound his arms and legs in tape, too, and pushed him into a dark closet for punishment. He choked on vomit and died, but was revived on the way to the hospital. He never saw the stepfather again, but the damage was done.
“Pretty interesting?” I hadn’t heard Elza come back.
“I’m sorry. Compromising professional ethics.”
“Well, I’m not a psychiatrist, and Moonboy wouldn’t be my psychiatric patient anyhow. I really shouldn’t have had access to the file. But I saw a thread to it and just asked, and it opened. You could have done the same thing.”
“I’m surprised they accepted him for Mars.”
“Hmm. A married pair of xenologists probably looked like a good package deal, and Mars itself isn’t too bad for a claustrophobe. The base is big, and you can go outside. Unlike here.”
“There are other factors for his moodiness,” I said. “You’re sitting on one of them, I must point out.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I should talk to him.” She picked up the notebook and tapped through a few pages. “Meryl’s okay with it. I talked it over with her. She hasn’t been a saint.”
“That’s not too relevant.”
“I know, I know.”
“Are you still . . .”
“No, not really. We haven’t closed any doors, but . . . yeah, I should talk to him.”
“Would it do any good for me to talk to him? Give my okay?”
“No. He knows you’re not bothered by it. Besides, you’re an authority figure to him.”
That was comforting. “Authority figures might be a problem, if one had tried to murder you at age eleven.”
“Didn’t just try. Though he doesn’t remember dying. He passed out, puking, and was revived. He still doesn’t know he died.” She shuddered. “What a bastard.”
“He does remember the incident up to that point?”
She tapped some more and shook her head. “Guy doesn’t say whether he learned that from Moonboy himself or from hospital records.” She put it down and leaned back, hands behind her head. “I ought to see whether I can get him to talk about his childhood.”
“As his doctor?”
She gave me a look. “I’m always his doctor. Yours, too. But no; I don’t want him to see me as a shrink.”
“What as?”
She looked back at the notebook. “Why don’t you and Dustin play some pool after dinner? A nice long game?”
13
TRAUMA DRAMA
I was headed for bed after watching a bad movie—Paul had given up halfway through—when the door to Elza’s suite burst open and Moonboy ran out, naked, carrying his clothes. That did get my attention. He hurried straight to his room, I think without seeing me.
Then Elza appeared, also naked, hand over her lower face, blood streaming from her nose, spattering her chest, a rivulet running between her breasts. I took her by the elbow and led her to the bathroom. Tried to seat her on the toilet, but she got up and inspected her face in the mirror, a mess, and gingerly touched her nose in a couple of places, wincing. “Broken,” she said, though it sounded like “progen.”
“What can I do? Get Namir?” He and Dustin were playing pool in the lounge.
“Just stay a minute.” She was carefully packing her nostrils with tissue, her head bent over. “Hurts. More than I would think.” She turned and got to one knee and spit blood into the toilet, and convulsed twice, holding back vomit. Then she sat on the floor, holding the scarlet wad of tissue over her nose.
“Moonboy?”
“Yeah. If you see him, would you pitch him out the air lock for me?”
“What happened?”
“We were just talking.” She dropped some tissues into the toilet, and I handed her fresh ones. “Well, we sort of fucked, I guess that’s obvious, and I was talking to him, reassuring him . . . and, I don’t know. I must have blinked. He was starting to sit up, and he whacked me a good one with his elbow. Said it was an accident, but no way. Had all his weight behind it.” She shuddered and rocked a couple of times. Another woman, I would have held, comforted. Elza wouldn’t like that.
“Glad my martial arts instructor isn’t here. She would slap the shit out of me.”
“Was it something you said?”
She looked up at me, ghastly but a little comical. “Yes. But I’m not sure what, exactly. I’ll talk with him after he’s . . . after we’ve both calmed down a little.”
“Maybe you should slap the shit out of him. I mean, just as therapy.”
She nodded. “Therapy for me, anyhow.”
Namir appeared in the doorway, galvanized. As if a silent lightning bolt had struck. “Blood,” he said. “What?”
“An accident,” Elza said, standing carefully. “Stupid accident. Get outa here and let us clean this mess up.”
“It’s broken,” he said. Dustin had come up behind him and was staring.
“No shit, it’s broken. But a doctor has already looked at it.”
“You were with—”
“An accident, Namir. Make yourself useful and get me some ice. And a drink, while you’re at it.” He backed away, and Dustin followed him.
I wet a handcloth with cold water and handed it to her. She dabbed and rubbed at the blood one-handed. The stream had pooled at her navel and gone on to mat her pubic hair. I gave her another cloth and rinsed the first one out.
“What are you going to tell them?”
She scrubbed her pubic hair unself-consciously. “They know I was with him. Namir, at least, knew I was going to raise some . . . delicate matters. For the time being, I’m going to stand behind doctor-patient confidentiality.” She threw the rag into the sink. “Help me get dressed?”
She pulled a brown shift out of a drawer and wriggled into it, switching arms to keep the
wad of tissues in place. She went back into the bathroom and spit out a clot and retched.
“Ugh.” She sat heavily on an ottoman, elbows on her knees.
Meryl tapped on the doorjamb and stepped in. “Moonboy hit you? Elza?”
“Said it was an accident. Pretty well aimed.”
“I don’t understand. I can’t imagine a less violent man.”
“Wonder how often people say that. After ax murders and such.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“In bed.” They were set up with separate bedrooms currently and a small shared anteroom. “I haven’t talked to him. I was reading in the kitchen, and Namir came in.”
Elza peered up at her. “He’s never, um?”
“Never even raises his voice, no.”
“Well, he’s sitting on something. A powder keg.” She looked at the tissues and replaced them. “At least he didn’t break any teeth. ‘Dentist, heal thyself.’ ”
“I . . . I’m sorry,” Meryl said with an odd tone of voice, like “I’m kind of sorry my husband hit you while you were fucking, but not really.”
“Look,” Elza said, “it probably was an accident. Let’s leave it at that. I’ll talk to him after he’s rested.”
“I suppose accidents aren’t always accidents,” Meryl persisted. “Maybe it wasn’t you who was the actual target.”
“Maybe not.” She shook her head. “Probably not. But not you, either. Childhood thing.”
“He had a happy childhood. He adores his mother.”
“And his father died?”
“Left. But it was amicable, no-fault.”
“You might talk to him about that. Or no. Let me talk to him. It’s something we were . . . closing in on.”
Namir came in with a tall drink and a plastic bag of chipped ice. “Thanks. Carmen, do we have a clean washcloth left?”
“Sure.” I handed it to her and she wrapped it around the ice, dropping the bloody wad, and pressed the cold pack to her nose.