Across a Billion Years (14 page)

“Jan, how could this be happening?”

“It’s a dirty deal, that’s what it is!”

“What is this business about sending the globe back to Galaxy Central? I thought we decided not to do that. And to make me go with it—instead—instead—”

Jan said, “I’ve asked Pilazinool about that. He says it’s Galaxy Central’s pound of flesh.”

“I don’t follow that.”

“Galaxy Central is furious with us for walking off Higby V, after so much effort went into planning this “expedition.”

“I know, but—”

“The bosses had to calm them down somehow. There were all sorts of negotiations, Pilazinool said, and finally they mentioned the globe. Galaxy Central wants that globe. We agreed to ship it to them if they’d let us hunt for the asteroid.”

“All right,” I said, “so it’s politics. I don’t mind that. But why me? I found the globe, didn’t I? I’ve got a right to see that vault! I—I—”

“Calm down,” Jan murmured. “It’s no use shouting at me, chimpo! I’m on your side already. You’ve got to talk to Dr. Schein and show him how unfair this is. Maybe he didn’t even stop to think about it—just picked you to go at random. Go to him now. We’ll all back you up, Tom. We’ll sign a petition or something.” She gave me a little kiss on the cheek, nothing passionate, a we’re-for-you kind of kiss. Then she turned me around and pointed me toward the lab.

I went numbly over there and peered in. Dr. Horkkk and 408b were conferring. Somehow I didn’t feel like asking aliens for mercy, so I said, “Is Dr. Schein around?”

“Went back to town,” Dr. Horkkk said sharply. “What is it?”

“Pilazinool, perhaps—?”

“Went with Dr. Schein.” More sharply, this.

“Well,” I said weakly, “I just wanted to ask a question. About the three people taking the globe back to Galaxy Central. If it’s possible, Dr. Horkkk, I’d like to be excused from that assignment. That is, if I have to go to Galaxy Central it means I’ll miss close to a year of the expedition, and—”

Dr. Horkkk brusquely waved a couple of arms at me. “Take it up with someone else,” he snapped. “These procedural matters are not my concern.”

Dismissed. Zog out, Rice, I’ve got no time for you.

Dr. Schein and Pilazinool didn’t get back to camp until late tonight, about an hour ago as I dictate this. They went straight to the lab and they’re still there. I don’t know what this is all about, Lorie. But I don’t mean to let them sposh me like this without a fight. I’ve
earned
a place on this expedition!

October 16

I waited up half the night for Dr. Schein to come to the dorm, but he didn’t show, and finally I fell asleep. In the morning, as we got breakfast, I went over to him and said tentatively, “Dr. Schein, if I could trouble you about a certain aspect of the notice that was posted yesterday—”

“Later, Tom, later. I can’t discuss little details now.”

Brushed off again. Everybody too busy for poor Tom. Glumly I went out to the site and joined the others who were backfilling. Mirrik tried to console me with Paradoxian proverbs. “He who suffers scorn and rejection,” said Mirrik, “learns to grasp the roots of the sea.” And also, “The higher powers reward us most tenderly by their absence from our lives.” Furthermore, “He alone finds grace from whom grace is withdrawn.”

“Very comforting, Mirrik.”

“Meditation and concentration bring understanding, my friend. Perhaps this grief is beneficial.”

“I’m sure of that,” I said.

Then Jan came up to me, close to the fusion point and emitting a high-frequency zing. “Do you know what I just found out?” she demanded.

“Sure,” I said bitterly. “Inasmuch as I’m a TP, it’s no effort at all for me to read your mind and—”

“Shut up, Tom. I just learned who it was that drew up the list of who goes to 1145591 and who goes to Galaxy Central. It was Leroy Chang.”

“Leroy Chang,” I said. “That’s odd. Why’d
he
do it?”

“Dr. Schein asked him to,” said Jan. “The bosses were too busy. He typed up the memo and ran it off. But don’t you see, Tom? Leroy Chang!
Leroy Chang
!”

“Leroy Chang,” I said again. “Yes, I heard you.”

“But you aren’t thinking! The list says that you go to Galaxy Central, and I go to 1145591 … and that Professor Chang goes to 1145591 also! Leroy deliberately arranged it so—”

“I’m tuned in now, Jan. I read it all!”

“Isn’t it absolutely the
dirtiest
?”

“Where’s Leroy now?”

“Packing inscription nodes in the lab.”

I sprinted toward the lab. Mirrik called after me, “The universe is a reversible phenomenon, Tom! Paradoxian proverb!”

“Thank you,” I called back.

For many weeks now—since Leroy had gone groping for Jan—I’ve been making a point of avoiding the company of Professor Chang. Leroy hasn’t been cultivating me any, either, with good reason. Lately he’s been a kind of shadowy, skulking figure, sniffing around the outskirts of things and occasionally casting a longing look at Jan or Kelly. I’ve regarded him as more pathetic than hateful—nothing but a creepy vidj of the kind you see in the grimier feelie theaters of big cities. Now, though, I was ready to demolish him.

I looked into the lab and saw him in back, indeed packing inscription nodes. Dr. Schein was also in the lab, and Pilazinool, and I didn’t want to make a scene in front of them. So I said quietly, “Professor Chang, can I have a word with you?”

“Will it wait?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“All right, what is it?”

“There’s something out back by the site that I’d like you to examine. We don’t quite know what to make of it, and before we backfill there, we thought we’d have you look at it.”

He fell for it.

We walked in silence toward the site. But we didn’t enter it. I halted in front of a mound of excavation tailings that we hadn’t backfilled yet. A drizzle began. I said, “Let’s stop here, Leroy. Let’s talk a little.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will. They tell me you drew up the list of names of those who’d escort the globe to Galaxy Central.”

“Yes.” Guardedly.

“How come?”

“At Dr. Schein’s request. It was just a routine matter.”

“You routinely separated me from the expedition,” I said, “while managing to send yourself on the asteroid trip. And to send Jan too.”

“The globe,” Leroy said, “was your discovery, Tom. I simply felt that you’d want to accompany it and look after its safety personally.”

That kind of reasoning didn’t impress me. “How’d you like me to throw you into the excavation?” I asked.

Leroy backed away from me. “What kind of talk is that?”

“Archaic belligerent primitivistic talk. You feeby sposher, am I supposed to sit back and smile while you neatly put me on an orbit heading into the sun?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You said that once already. Let me give you an old Paradoxian proverb:
The universe is a reversible phenomenon.
You know what I want you to do?”

“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me, Tom.”

“Zog, man. I want you to put yourself in that gang heading for Galaxy Central. In place of me.”

“But—”

“I’m going to the asteroid. And you’re going head first into the pit if you don’t cooperate.”

I took a step toward him. He made some little blenking noises and looked sick. I hate bullies and bullying, but at the moment I didn’t feel apologetic, thinking of the way he had bothered Jan.

Chang said, “These threats of physical violence—”

“—will be carried out—”

“—are disgusting, Tom.”

“Into the pit!” I yelled, and feinted at him. He squeaked in fear. I grabbed him by the shoulders, but I didn’t throw him in; instead I leaned close to his ear and said, “What would Dr. Schein think of you, Leroy, if Jan complained to him that you tried to rape her?”

Leroy shivered. He sagged.

I doubt very much that a rape-attempt complaint filed weeks after the event, under circumstances like these, would make much steam in court. But guilty consciences blackmail easily. Leroy glared at me, blustered a little, muttered that I was persecuting and maligning him, and then folded completely. “What do you want me to do, exactly?”

I told him.

He did it.

This evening a revised list of assignments was posted. My name now is among those going to look for the asteroid. Professor Leroy Chang has replaced me in the group returning to Galaxy Central. I won’t miss him. Neither will Jan.

October 17

To continue this marathon letter. Today’s news is about how I just outswiftied myself. I couldn’t help it, though.

You know how it is when you get so spun up over a marginal thing that you overlook something really important? Old Paradoxian proverb: He who loses track of main point will oversleep when millennium arrives. I was busy maneuvering myself out of the Galaxy Central deal and failing to see what I should have seen at once. What all of us should have seen.

I hunted up Dr. Schein during my morning break.

“Sir,” I said, adopting my humble-apprentice tone of voice, “I’ve got a hypothetical question. What if we get to the asteroid and find the robot and it’s still in working order, and all? How will we communicate with it? How will we tell it who we are and how much time has passed?”

“It won’t be possible, Tom.”

“But it
could
be possible! We have a credential. A letter of introduction. Only we’ve decided not to take it with us.”

“You’ve lost me, Tom.”

“I mean the globe, sir!”

Dr. Schein frowned. Pursed his lips. Considered. Brightened.

“Of course! Of course, the globe, the globe!”

And rushed off to confer with Dr. Horkkk and Pilazinool.

The conference lasted an hour. Then they summoned us all to the lab for a general meeting in the middle of the day. Dr. Horkkk presided. Dr. Schein, sitting to one side, gave me a warm, fond smile. I was teacher’s pet again.

Dr. Horkkk interlaced his arms, opened and closed his three bulging eyes in rapid sequence, stuck a few long, many-jointed fingers into his eating mouth, and otherwise went through the patterns that are the Thhhian equivalents of preliminary throat-clearing. Then he said, in his fussy, explosive little voice, “I wish to propose a change of plan. It will require unanimous consent, since the consequences may be serious. As you know, we have agreed to Galaxy Central’s request that the globe be shipped there at once for study and preservation. However, a suggestion was made today that we keep the globe with us as a means of communication should we find the High Ones’ robot. It could serve, so to speak, as a letter of introduction, establishing our credentials as archaeologists of an era much later than its own.”

I admired the deft adoption of my own terms.

“That is,” Dr. Horkkk went on, “we could demonstrate to the robot that we had found the globe and followed it to the robot, and that a great length of time had passed since its arrival on the asteroid. I can visualize other ways in which communication will be possible using the globe as intermediary. However, if we take it with us, we will be in direct defiance of our understanding with Galaxy Central. Therefore—”

He called for a vote.

All in favor of telling Galaxy Central to go sposh itself? Eleven hands in the air.

Opposed? Zero.

Carried unanimously. Dr. Schein now said, “Of course, there’s no reason now for any of us to go to Galaxy Central. The recent order is cancelled. We will travel as a unit to the asteroid.”

Damn. I thought for a while that I was rid of Leroy Chang.

November 16? 17? 18? 2375 Somewhere in Ultraspace

A
MONTH HAS PASSED
, I know, since I last fingered a message cube. Something about voyages in ultraspace discourages my impulse to communicate. I’m not even sure what day it is. There’s an Earthstyle calendar somewhere aboard, but I can’t bother to look for it.

We closed up shop on Higby V right on schedule, leaving the site sealed so that the next archaeologists to work it—hopefully, a less flighty bunch than we turned out to be—will find it intact. The cruiser arrived and picked us up on the twenty-first. We did not inform Galaxy Central that we’ve taken the globe with us. That makes us renegades of sort, but it’ll be months before the bureaucrats back home find that out, and by then, maybe, we’ll have some gaudy new find to calm them. As Mirrik learned after his boozy prance through the lab, any sinner can find redemption if the yield of his sin is spectacular enough.

Our ship is a standard interstellar cruiser, making an upper quadrant run between Rigel and Aldebaran. The stop at GGC 1145591 is slightly out of the way, but not too much, and wasn’t hard to arrange. All it took was stash. Old Earthside proverb: Stash buys. We will have a rented planetship at our disposal so that we can search the GGC 1145591 system for our asteroid. It’s already on its way there from Aldebaran to await us. That took stash too. Dr. Schein overdrew our thumb account long ago, but he has a glib way with computers and is running on credit now; we’ll manage so long as Galaxy Central doesn’t find out. May the Almighty Proton protect us if we draw a blank on this expedition—if we have, to use the fine medieval expression, gone off to chase the wild duck.

Our quarters are comfortable, as before. Spacious cabins, good library, recreation facilities, decent food. The crewmen keep to themselves, we to ourselves. Time blurs strangely aboard an ultradrive trip, and I find myself doing without sleep for what may possibly be two or three days in a row, and then sleeping for days. Or so it seems.

Everybody is much keyed up, especially Drs. Schein and Horkkk. They walk around perpetually surprised that they ever found the slice to abandon Higby V for the present quest. Dr. Horkkk, you know, is hardly a charming romantic liberated adventurous type, and as near as I can read his expression, he seems to be saying, “How can this be
me
?” Dr. Schein looks equally baffled. Pilazinool, on the other hand, is quietly confident, rarely unlaces his limbs any more, seems to feel that we have been blessed by destiny. We’ll see.

My chief social accomplishment on the trip so far has been to push Jan back to her obsession with Saul Shahmoon.