Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (22 page)

“Urgent override priority! For Peter Hester and immediate relay to Earth! Lurvy, Janine and Wan have been captured by the Heechee, and I think they are coming after me!”

The advantage of his new situation, and the only one, was that now that there were no more messages coming from Heechee Heaven Vera was better able to cope with her overload. Patiently Peter teased out of her all the pictures that had been transmitted before Paul’s message had been taped, and saw the knot of Heechee at the end of the corridor, the blurred struggle, half a dozen quick glimpses of the ceiling of the corridor, something that might have been the back of Wan’s head-then nothing. Or nothing that meant anything. Peter could not know that the camera had been jammed into the blouse of one of the Old Ones, but he could see that there was nothing to be seen: obscure shadowy shapes, perhaps a hint of texture.

Peter’s mind was clear. But it was also empty. He did not allow himself to feel how empty his life had at once become. He carefully programmed Vera to go back over the voice messages and select the significant ones, and listened to what all of them had said. There was no hope in any of it. Not even when at last a new picture suddenly began to build on the screen, then another, then another. For half a dozen frames there was nothing that made sense, perhaps a fist over the lens, maybe a shot of a bare floor. Then, in one corner of the last frame, something that looked like-what? Like a Sturmkampfwagen from his earliest boyhood? But then it was gone, and the camera had once again been put where it showed nothing at all, and stayed that way through fifty frames.

What it noticeably did not show was any sign of either of his daughters, or of Wan. And as to Paul, the old man did not have a clue; after his last frantic message he was gone.

In some unwanted corner of his mind he found the realization that now he might be, probably was, the sole survivor of the mission, and so whatever bonus might come to all was now his alone.

He held the thought where he could look at it. But it meant nothing. He was now hopelessly alone, more alone than ever, as alone as Trish Bover frozen into her eternal ragged orbit that would go nowhere. Perhaps he could get back to Earth to claim his reward. Perhaps he could keep from dying. But how was he to keep from going insane?

It took Peter a long time to fall asleep. He was not afraid of sleeping. What he dreaded was waking up afterward, and when it came it was as bad as he had feared. In the first moment it was a day like any other day, and it was only after a peaceable moment of stretching and yawning that he remembered what had happened. “Peter Hester,” he said to himself out loud, “you are alone in this very damned place, and you will die here, still alone.” He noted that he was talking to himself. Already.

Through the habits of all those years he washed himself, cleaned his mouth, brushed his hair and then took time to snip off the loose ends around his ears and at the nape of his neck. It did not matter what he did, in any case. Having left his private, he opened two packets of CHON-food and ate them methodically before asking Vera if there were any messages from Heechee Heaven. “No,” she said, “. . . Mr. Hester, but there are a number of downlink action relays.”

“Later,” he said. They did not matter. They would tell him to do things he had already done, perhaps. Or they would tell him to do things he had no intention of doing, perhaps to force himself outside, to rerig the thrusters, to try again. But the Food Factory would of course counter every thrust with an equal and opposite thrust of its own and continue its slow acceleration toward God, He knew what, for God, He knew why. In any event, nothing that came from Earth for the next fifty days would be relevant to the new realities.

And in less than fifty days- In less than fifty days, what? “You talk as though you had a choice of options, Peter Hester!” he scolded himself.

Well, perhaps he had, he thought, if only he could perceive what they were. Meanwhile the best thing for him to do was to do what he had always done. To keep himself fastidiously neat. To do such tasks as were reasonable for him to do. To maintain his well established habits. He had learned through all those decades of life that the best time for him to move his bowels was some forty-five minutes after eating breakfast; it was now about that time; it was appropriate to do that. While he was squatting on the sanitary he felt a tiny, almost imperceptible lurch once more and scowled. It was an annoyance to have things happen when he did not know their cause, and it was an interruption in what he was doing, with his customary efficiency. Of course, one could not claim much personal credit for the functioning of sphincters that had been bought and transplanted from some hapless (or hungry) donor, or for a stomach inserted intact from another. Nevertheless, it pleased Peter that he functioned so well.

You are morbidly interested in your bowel movements, he told himself, but silently.

Also silently-it did not seem so bad to talk to oneself, as long as it was not aloud-he defended himself. It was not unjustified, he thought. It was only because the example of the bio-assay unit in the toilet was always before him. For three and a half years it had been monitoring every waste product of their bodies. Of course, so it must! How else to keep tabs on their health? And if it was proper for a machine to weigh and evaluate one’s excrement, why not for the excrement’s author?

He said aloud, grinning, “Du bist verruckt, Peter Hester!”

He nodded in agreement with himself as he cleaned himself and fastened his coverall, because he had summed it all up. Yes. He was crazy.

By the standards of ordinary men.

But what ordinary man had ever been in the present position of Peter Hester?

So when one had said that he was crazy, after all, one had said nothing that was relevant. What did the standards of ordinary men signify as to Schwarze Peter? It was only against extraordinary men that he could be judged-and what a motley crew they were! Drug addicts and drunkards. Adulterers and traitors. Tycho Brahe had a gutta-percha nose, and no one thought him the less. The Reichsfuhrer ate no meat. Great Frederick himself spent many hours that could have been devoted to the management of an empire in composing music for tinkle-tanide chamber groups. He strolled across to the computer and called, “Vera, what was that little thump a few minutes ago?”

The computer paused to match the description against her telemetry. “I cannot be sure. . . Mr. Hester. But the moment of inertia is consistent with either the launching or docking of one of the cargo ships that have been observed.”

He stood for a moment gripping the edge of the console seat. “Fool!” he shouted. “Why was I not told that that was possible?”

“I’m sorry . . . Mr. Hester,” she apologized. “The analysis suggesting this possibility has been read out for you as hard copy. Perhaps you overlooked it.”

“Fool,” he said again, but this time he was not sure who he was talking to. The ships, of course! It had been implicit all along that the production of the Food Factory had to go somewhere. And it had also been implicit that the ships had to return empty to be reloaded. For what? Where?

That did not matter. What mattered was the perception that perhaps they would not always come empty.

And, following on that, the perception that one ship at least, known to come to the Food Factory, was now in Heechee Heaven. If it should come back, who or what might be in it?

Peter rubbed his arm, which had begun to ache. Pains or none, he could perhaps do something about that! He had some weeks before that ship could possibly return. He could-what? Yes! He could barricade that corridor. He could somehow move machines, stores-anything that had mass-to block it, so that when it did return, if it did, whoever was in it would be stopped, or at least delayed. And the time to begin that was now.

He delayed no further, but set off to find materials for a barricade.

It was not hard to move even quite massive objects, in the low thrust of the Food Factory. But it was tiring. And his arms continued to ache. And in a little while, as he was shoving a blue metal object like a short, fat canoe down toward the dock, he became aware of a strange sensation that seemed to come from the roots of his teeth, almost like the beginning of a toothache; and saliva began to flow from under his tongue.

Peter stopped and breathed deeply, forcing himself to relax. It did no good. He had known it would do no good. In a few moments the pain in the chest began, first tentative, as though someone were pressing against him with a sled runner along his breastbone, then painful, a hard, bruising thrust, as though the runner were on top of him and a hundred-kilo man standing on it.

He was too far from Vera to get medicine. He would have to wait it out. If it was false angina, he would live. If it was cardiac arrest, he would not. He sat patient and still, waiting to see which it would be, while anger built up and built up inside him. How unfair it was!

How unfair it all was! Five thousand astronomical units away, serenely and untroubled, the people of the world went about their business, neither knowing nor caring that the person who could bring them so much-who already had!-might be dying, alone and in pain.

Could they be grateful? Could they show respect, appreciation, even common decency?

Perhaps he would give them a chance. If they responded with these things, yes, he would bring them such gifts as they had never known. But if they were wicked and disobedient- Then Schwarze Peter would bring them such terrible gifts that all the world would shudder and quake with fear! In either case, they would never forget him. . . if only he survived what was happening to him now.

The main thing was Essie. I sat by her bed every time she came out of surgery-fourteen times in six weeks-and every time her voice was a little weaker and she looked a little more gaunt. Everybody was after me all the time, the suit against me in Brasilia was going badly, reports poured in from the Food Factory, the fire in the food mines still would not go out. But Essie was up front. Harriet had her orders. Wherever I was, asleep or awake, if Essie asked for me she was put through at once. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Broadhead, Robin will be with you right away. No, you won’t be disturbing him. He just woke up from a nap.” Or he’s just between appointments, or he’s just coming up the lawn from the Tappan Sea, or anything that would not deter Essie from speaking to me right away. And then I would go into the darkened room, all sun-tanned and grinning and relaxed, and tell her how well she was looking. They had taken my billiard room and moved a whole operating theater into it, and cleared the books out of the library next door to make it a bedroom for her. She was pretty comfortable there. Or said she was.

And actually, she didn’t look bad at all. They had done the splints and the bone grafts, and plugged in two or three kilos of spare parts and tissues. They had even put the skin back, or I guess transplanted new skin from somebody else. Her face looked fine, except for a light bandage on one side, and she brushed her streaky blonde hair down over that. “So, stud,” she would greet me. “How you hanging?”

“Just fine, just fine. A little horny,” I would say, nuzzling her neck with my nose. “And you?”

“Just fine.” So we reassured each other; and we weren’t lying, you know. She was getting better every day, the doctors told me that. And I was getting-I don’t know what I was getting. But I was all atremble with eagerness for every morning. Operating on five hours sleep a night. Never tired. Never felt better in my life.

But still she kept getting skinnier every time. The doctors told me what I must do, and I told Harriet and Harriet reprogrammed the cook So we stopped having salads and bare broiled steaks. No coffee and juice breakfasts, but tvoroznyikyi, cream-cheese pancakes, and mugs of steaming cocoa. Caucasian lamb pilaff for lunch. Roast grouse in sour-cream sauce for dinner. “You’re spoiling me, dear Robin,” she accused, and I said:

“Only fattening you up. I can’t stand skinny women.”

“Yes, very well. But there is such a thing as being too ethnic. Is there nothing fattening that is not Russian?”

“Wait for dessert,” I grinned. “Strawberry shortcake.” And whipped with double Devonshire cream. As a matter of psychology, the nurse had persuaded me to start with small portions on large plates. Essie doggedly ate them all the way through, and as we gradually increased the size of the portions she gradually ate more each day. She didn’t stop losing weight. But she slowed it down a lot, and by the end of six weeks the doctors opined that her condition, cautiously, might be regarded as stable. Nearly.

When I told her the good news she was actually standing up- tethered to the plumbing under her bed, but able to walk about the room. “About time,” she said, reaching out to kiss me. “Now. You have been spending too much time at home.”

“It’s a pleasure,” I said.

“It is a kindness,” she said soberly. “Is very dear to me that you have always been here, Robin. But now that I am almost well you must have affairs to attend to.”

“Not really. I get along fine with the comm facilities in the brain room. Of course, it would be nice for the two of us to go somewhere. I don’t think you’ve ever seen Brasilia. Maybe in a few weeks-“

“No. Not in few weeks. Not with me. If you have need to go, please do it, Robin.”

I hesitated. “Well, Morton thinks it might be useful.”

She nodded briskly and called, “Harriet? Mr. Broadhead will be leaving for Brasilia tomorrow morning. Make reservations et cetera.”