The Forever Man (18 page)

“Mary's here,” he told Mollen aloud, suddenly reminded that his verbal exchange with her just now had been strictly on a mental level.

He was abruptly, vastly, relieved of a fear that had concerned him to the point that he had hesitated even to ask about it. It had occurred to him during the hours just past that Mary might be able to read his mind once she was part of him and the ship. Now that fear was laid to rest. For one thing, clearly, he could not read her mind—he had not even known of her presence until she asked that question about her equipment just now. But, secondly, he could now feel her mind, not so much as if it was part of his mental machinery, but as if it was simply another part of the ship which that mental machinery controlled.

Perhaps if he tried, he could control her mind in the same way as he controlled the rest of the ship…. He backed away hastily from that thought. It was ghoulish.

“Good to hear you're there, Mary,” Mollen had answered when he had passed the word along that she was with him. “The high-hats ought to be along at any minute now; and as soon as they do you two can take off.”

“What high-hats?” asked Jim. The term was roughly synonymous with “top brass,” except that it referred more specifically to civilian authorities.

“Governmental people who've got the rank to watch you leave,” said Mollen. “Doesn't include the President. It was explained to her that it would be too hard maintaining the type of secrecy we've held to this long if she was one of the send-off party.”

“Why didn't you tell me people like that were coming?” Jim asked.

“Colonel,” said Mollen. “You're a ship-jockey. The only one of your kind, but still just a ship-jockey. You didn't need to know so you weren't told. Nothing personal. If it'd been up to me, I'd have let you know not only about that, but a lot of other things in past months. But the rules were set up and I had to go with them, like everyone else.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Jim. “I understand.”

“I know you do,” said Mollen, a little more kindly. “You might bear in mind while you're gone, though, that Mary like me—has been a person under rules, and still is. She's been ground between a couple of millstones. You,
La Chasse Gallerie
and Raoul on one hand; and a lot of powerful people on the other. So be decent to her on the mission.”

“He will—damn it!” said Mary. “I keep forgetting nobody but you can hear me. Tell Louis for me I've got no doubt you'll be decent to me.”

Jim did so. Privately, he spoke to Mary.

“Why didn't you rig up some speaking device so you could talk to someone like him directly?” Jim asked. “Some sort of phone line to the hull that would resonate outside—”

“Because I'm in you, not the ship!” said Mary. “Any phone line I could use has to run through your brain cells and vocal chords, first!”

“Oh,” said Jim.

“Yes,” said Mary.

“Sorry,” said Jim. “I didn't think that through.”

He waited for her to tell him it was all right, and that she understood how he could have made such a perfectly natural mistake; but she did not.

“I beg your pardon,” said Jim finally. “But I just admitted my error and apologized. It's usual to acknowledge an apology.”

“Oh, Lord!” said Mary. “And we aren't even off the ground yet. I'm the one who needs to apologize, Jim. I get wrapped up in what I'm doing and I forget to treat people like people. I'm sorry.”

“Honors are even,” said Jim gravely.

To his pleased surprise, he got a silent, but actual, laugh from Mary.

“No,” she said. “Because you can make me laugh. Nobody's done that for years. I used to think it was because you were a featherbrained flyboy—oh, courageous and daring and all the rest of it, but essentially featherbrained, too. Now, after all these months of studying you, I know you better. Forgive me, Jim; and I'll learn to get this ride-roughshod-attitude of mine under control. And, since I've done everything else I ever set out to do, that's a promise.”

“To be truthful,” said Jim, “you've got me on the defensive, now. I'm not sure I've always been that easy to live with myself.”

“Your excuses for that were better than mine. Anyway, we'll do better from now on?”

“We shall indeed,” said Jim solemnly.

“The guests are here.”

They had been talking in the privacy of Jim's mind. Now, Jim looked outside his hull and saw that the high-hats, as Mollen had called them, were just now entering through a flap in the tent wall. There were about a dozen of them, all civilians, roughly half of them men and half, women; and every one at least in his or her forties.

“How come,” said Jim in one last silent aside to Mary, “if you can't talk unless I talk, you can see something before I see it?”

“You saw them come in. You see everything going on in this ship and outside it all the time. And hear it all,” answered Mary. “You know that. You just weren't paying attention to that particular thing. I was.”

“I see,” said Jim.

He spoke out loud from his hull to Mollen and the newcomers.

“Welcome,” he said.

With his back to those entering, Mollen frowned a warning at the hull. Jim fell silent again, and Mollen turned around to personally greet those coming in. When they were all assembled close to the hull and Mollen had spoken and shaken hands with all of them, the general turned to
AndFriend
.

“Colonel,” he said. “On this occasion of your leaving with Dr. Gallegher to explore beyond Laagi space, we're honored to have visitors from the highest offices in the land. Mr. Vice President, this is Colonel Jim Wander and Dr. Mary Gallegher.”

He had half-turned as he spoke, back toward a tall, athletic looking man in his fifties, in a gray business suit and dark blue weather-cape.

“Hello, Jim—Dr. Gallegher,” said the tall man.

“Honored to meet you, sir,” said Jim. “Dr. Gallegher joins me in saying that.”

“Actually, he makes a good show, but I wouldn't—and didn't—vote for him,” commented Mary silently inside Jim. “Actually, of course, it's a thankless sort of job.”

“The best wishes of this nation go with you, Jim and Mary.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Jim. It was a strange ritual, this, Jim thought. Rather ridiculous, in fact.

“Mr. Secretary, this is Jim Wander and Dr. Gallegher,” said Mollen, turning to the next closest figure. “Jim and Mary, this is Secretary of State Jacob Preuss.”

The secretary of state was a short, broad man in his sixties or older, looking as if he had too much energy to stand still.

“Take care of yourselves out there,” said Preuss. “You've no idea what you're worth to us.”

“Twice the man the other one is,” was Mary's silent observation.

“We'll take every possible precaution, sir,” Jim was saying. “But I imagine you want getting the job done to come first.”

“Of course,” said Preuss. “Good luck, both of you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Senator, Jim Wander and Dr. Gallegher. Jim and Mary, this is Senator Anita Wong…”

The introductions continued. So did Mary's unheard, internal comments on each person introduced, and some of these were either so pungent or so opposite that Jim had a hard time keeping the proper solemnity of tone in his own audible replies. Finally the round of introductions came to an end. The vice president made a short speech, praising them for going where no humans had ever gone before. Then the visitors all backed up a little, as if there might be something dangerously explosive about
AndFriend
's departure.

“Good luck,” said Mollen under his breath. “Now get out of here.”

The whisper in which he spoke was too low-pitched for the dignitaries behind him to hear it; but Jim picked it up with no trouble.

He turned his mind to the phase-shift equipment.

A moment later they were surrounded by space and stars.

“Why,” said Mary, “we haven't gone any place at all. We're still just a few hundred thousand kilometers from Earth,”

“Right,” said Jim. “Just as the orders in my command memory specify.”

Five other two-person fighter ships suddenly appeared in box formation around them. There were no Wing and no Sector markings on the fighters. They were completely anonymous.

“Our escort,” said Jim to Mary. “What do you want to bet they've come in from the Frontier, instead of lifting from someplace else on Earth?”

“AndFriend
,” said a voice over the ship-to-ship circuit. “This is Wing Cee,
AndFriend
escort. Are you ready to shift?”

“Hear you, Wing Cee,” said Jim over the same circuit. “All ready to shift, and thanks for the escort.”

“Just following orders. To shift, then. On the count, according to the coordinates in your program, one-two-three—shift!” ‘

They shifted.

A massive command ship swam in space beside them.

“Leaving you,
AndFriend
,” said the voice of the Leader of the escort that had brought them here.

“Thanks again, Wing Cee and escort,” said Jim.

“Our pleasure,
AndFriend
.”

They were gone.

“Now what?” asked Mary.

“Now—I bet you, another escort,” said Jim. “It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Mollen didn't want us to get to the edge of human-held territory without being protected—and observed all the way. But no single ship's company is going to know which direction we go in, or be in a position to make any kind of guess about our mission. Just in case.”

“In case of what?” It was almost a grumble from Mary.

“In case of in case,” said Jim. “Any avoidable ill chance should be avoided. Rule number sixteen million zip—here's the next team.”

Another box of five fighters had appeared around them.

“AndFriend
, this is Wing Cee speaking, Leader of your escort up to the Frontier in Brazil Sector. Are you ready to shift?”

“Hear you, Wing Cee,” said Jim.
“AndFriend
ready to shift; and thanks for the escort.”

“Our job. Shift, then. On the count. And… two… three… shift!”

This time they came out in space with no command ship nearby. But their escort left and a few minutes later a new one was with them.

“AndFriend
,” said a voice, speaking English with a noticeable accent, “this is Wing Cee speaking, of the escort for you to next shift point. Are you ready to shift?…”

And so it continued.

“What if the instruments of some Laagi patrol over the Frontier pick us up hopping along behind the human line?” Mary asked.

“I'll bet you another bet—that there's a screen of our own ships out just across the Frontier, looking for any Laagi activity and making sure any alien ship is too far off to pick us up on instruments. If they see any sign of aliens, we'll probably get word that our next shift destination point has been changed.”

She said nothing, but he suspected her silence of being a doubtful one.

“No, I wasn't told this by the general or anyone else,” he said. “But you've got your area of expertise and I've got mine. What I'm suggesting is as elementary a precaution as holding your breath when you put your head under water.”

“I could have been told,” said Mary.

“What was all that I used to hear so much—about the need to know? As far as being told things—” Jim checked himself before he said too much. People above Mollen and Mary had made the decisions to leave him no options. There was no point in reacting against her.

There was a moment's silence between them.

“Maybe—” began Mary and was interrupted as Jim began to go through the verbal exchange that accompanied another change of escorts.

“Maybe,” she said, “I might have had reasons they didn't know about for needing to know.”

“Take it up with the general and whoever else was involved, then, when you get back,” said Jim.

There was silence from Mary in reply to this. Jim felt a twinge of guilt. He had just told himself he would not take his resentments out on her, and this last remark of his had almost been an invitation to a brannigan. He made a mental note to think before he spoke from now on.

Eventually the last five-ship escort left them with a single ship, the driver of which did not even speak, but flashed a shift signal and countdown on his hull lights. It was like being escorted by a ghost. For some reason Jim was reminded of the Charles Dickens story,
A Christmas Carol
, in which the third ghost—the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come—escorts Scrooge, the main character, into scenes of the future without saying a word, even in answer to Scrooge's questioning.

They were led out beyond the end of the human-defended Frontier by this one ship for four shifts, before their solitary escort finally flashed a “good luck” on its hull lights and disappeared, no doubt on a shift back to the safety of the human side of the Frontier.

“Where are we?” asked Mary, for the vision screens of the ship were showing unfamiliar constellations all around them.

“Where no human has gone before.”

“Would you be serious for once?” Mary said; but there was no angry edge to the tone of that question.

“Sometimes it helps not to be serious,” said Jim.

“Do you mean you don't know where we are?”

“I do—and I don't,” said Jim. “Do you know anything about spatial navigation?”

“No,” she answered. “They didn't give us that at Reserve Gunnery School.”

“Well, I can't very well explain where we are to you then, unless you take my word for a lot of things,” Jim said. “Basically, the earliest navigation in space outside the solar system used our own Sun as a base point for navigation. When we started to get farther out we began to run into errors using that method. So a man named Zee Tai-lin came up with the theoretical centerpoint of our own galaxy, as a base point.”