The Forever Man (8 page)

“Yes sir,” said Jim, not understanding this at all.

“Well, I was right. You're back safely and now you're here, I'm afraid you're going to stay here. If you go off Base from now on, it'll be with a couple of Secret Service types riding shotgun on you.”

Jim stared.

“Can I ask the general why?”

“I told you. Politics. It just happened that the
Chasse Gallerie
came home through the North American Sector of the Frontier. That makes Raoul Penard and all the potentially valuable scientific possibilities of his existence in the metal of his ship a piece of property belonging to this continent. It also makes him, it, Mary Gallegher—and you—items of considerable potential value to our partners who guard the other Sections of the Frontier. That is, if they know about him yet—but the general feeling is that if any of them don't by now, they will shortly. Also, the general feeling among those few who know about this is that there's too much at stake to take any chances at all. There's the possibility of immortality which Mary may have mentioned to you—or at least a lifetime that isn't dependent on a body that can wear out. But beyond that, there's unlimited possibilities of having ships and other things that don't have to take into account the necessity of being designed to protect the life of a breakable human inside them, white they maneuver at high accelerations.”

He took a swallow from his glass. “The war with the Laagi,” he said, “may have brought all the nations of Earth into alliance, but the national rivalries are still there, and the business of looking forward to a day in which they'll find themselves competing, once again. So you're all under special guard from now on.”

“But all I did was listen to Penard when we escorted him back.”

“And saw his ship. And heard him again after he got here. And had Mary Gallegher riding with you, in which case some of her educated understanding of the nature and possibilities of Penard may have rubbed off on you. No, Jim, the people up top, the politicians up where decisions like this are made, have decided you're under wraps from now on; and under wraps you're going to be.”

“But I can go off Base, if I want to, as long as some Secret Service people go with me?”

“I didn't say that,” Mollen answered. “In fact, I'm not so sure you'll be allowed off under any circumstances, unless it's for something like going to Washington and reporting to the higher-ups; or something of that nature.”

“I see, sir,” said Jim glumly.

“Brace yourself,” said Mollen. “So far I've only shown you the tip of the iceberg. Not only are you going to be restricted in the matter of leaving the Base, your movements and contacts are going to be restricted here on the Base, too. From now on you live in special quarters in that lab of Mary's I was talking about, just as she and her staff does; and during your waking hours I'll be keeping you under my eye, since I'm personally responsible for you.

“But you can't ride with me when I take the Wing out to the Frontier, sir,” protested Jim. “It'd be ridiculous, having a general riding as gunner. These people up top you talk about can't expect anything like that.”

“They don't,” grunted Mollen. “I'm not going to join you; you're going to join me.”

It took a long moment for the implications of this remark to sink into Jim's mind. When it did, he stared at the older man.

“Sir? You mean—you can't mean I'm grounded!”

“That's the size of it,” said Mollen. “Beginning tomorrow morning you move into an office at my headquarters and behind a desk as Chief of Section.”

“But sir,” said Jim, “there has to be some other way of working this. I'm a ship man. I don't know anything about a deskjob. Can't I—”

But Mollen was not listening. His gaze was roving the room as if in search of a waiter. There was no waiter to be seen, but in a minute the mess attendant had abandoned his customary post by the entrance to the room and come hurrying over.

“Oh, Sven,” said Mollen. “I'm sorry to bother you with this, but would you just step across to Mary Gallegher—you know who she is? Good. Ask her if she'll join us for a few minutes. We won't keep her long. Tell her that.”

“Yes, General.”

The mess attendant went off. They could see him talking to Mary Gallegher, and a second after, both she and her escort pushed their chairs back and got to their feet.

“Damn it, I don't want her hound dog, too!” said Mollen.

But the major with the aiguillette was simply being polite. As Mary started across the empty dance floor toward them, the major sat down again. Jim and Mollen got to their feet in turn. Mary came up and they all sat down.

“Jim, here, just got back from leave,” said Mollen to Mary. “I've been telling him he's going to be housed with you people from now on and ride a desk as Chief of Section. Of course, Jim, we'll be making you a colonel while we're about it.”

“If you don't mind, sir, I'd rather stay a major,” said Jim.

“Still dreaming of getting back with your Wing?” said Mollen. “Don't worry, if the chance comes, we'll send you back as you are, even if you're the only lieutenant colonel-led, five-ship Wing on the Frontier.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Jim. But his mind was really not on what the general had just said. He was looking at Mary, who was wearing a light blue cocktail frock with irregularly shaped chunks of aquamarine-like earrings under her reddish blond hair.

The combination became her. She had a good body and Jim found himself once again up against the fact that she was simply not his type of woman. It was just that rectangular face of hers, with its straight bones and her blue-green eyes seemed always to be challenging the world, including him—even when there was no apparent reason.

She was looking tired, though.

“I take it you've been busy,” he said to her, for something to say. Mollen had caught a waiter at last and was sending him off for a duplicate of the glass of white wine Mary had been drinking with her major.

“We have,” said Mary. “But we're set up now and things are moving. I won't be bothering you too often, but from time to time there'll be parts of the work we'll want to bring you in on, if that's all right?”

“It'll be all right,” said Mollen. “More than that, he'll be glad to get away from that desk.”

“How's Raoul?” asked Jim.

“Still happy to be back, I think,” said Mary. “He doesn't talk as often, anymore, but that's because I think what's left of him in that ship spends most of its time dreaming. You see, we don't have the whole man—I should say we don't have the mind of the whole man, but just the part that wanted so badly to get home. That's one of the things our work's turned up. It isn't necessarily a matter of the whole mind being transferred to something inanimate—”

She broke off. The waiter had just come up with her glass of white wine.

“Thank you.”

“A pleasure, ma'am.”

“…You see,” she went on, “what we seem to be coming to is the beginning of a theory that could explain a lot that's been part of folklore for centuries, but generally put down to superstition. The poltergeist phenomenon, for example, and haunted houses… that sort of thing.”

“Tell him why,” said Mollen.

She glanced around.

“It's a little public…”

“Don't worry. This corner's clean and it's in a scrambler zone. Anyone even three feet from us would hear our voices, but not be able to make out what we're talking about. Also notice the empty tables around us, and the ones beyond that with just one or two officers at each of them, sitting with drinks instead of food. Believe me, we're covered; and I want him to learn this before he steps into that Aladdin's cave of yours.

“If that's what you want—sir.” The “sir” was a slight afterthought. Clearly, Mary had not yet acquired an automatic use of military manners. “You see, Jim, we established one thing just by Penard's existence in that ship—the fact that the mind can have an existence away from anything material; though its instinct is to find something material as a vehicle if it can.”

Jim nodded.

“But our discovery since then's a blockbuster. It's that the mind, existing separately, doesn't have to be the complete mind. The mind'll go to almost any extremes normally rather than leave the body it first grew in, from the first spark of consciousness in the womb to a full-fledged, unique human or animal individual. In fact, it'll go right up to the point of dying with the body, ordinarily, rather than leaving it. But under certain overwhelming, particular stresses, it or a part of it will leave an intolerable situation. Is what I'm saying making sense to you?”

“You mean do I follow you?” said Jim. “I do.”

She made a little grimace of discomfort.

“Please…?” she said.

“Goddamn right!” said Mollen. “Cut out the prickly business, Jim. We've no time or place for that anymore.”

“Yes sir... I'm sorry,” said Jim to Mary. “I really am. I don't know what gets into me sometimes. Go ahead. I'm interested, as well as ready to listen.”

“It's most important you understand,” Mary said. “I was using the poltergeist phenomenon as an example. Most poltergism has been tied to young females. It's been checked in a number of cases and pretty well taken for granted in the others that the girl causing such phenomena was unhappy. No one I know of ever found a way of measuring how unhappy.”

“I'd heard or read something like that,” said Jim.

“Well,” she said, “Raoul's case gives us a new slant on what might be happening in the case of poltergeist activity if it actually is caused by unhappy, pre-adolescent girls. According to what we've found with Raoul, one possibility is to assume that it's not the whole mind, but just a portion of it, that breaks loose from the rest under the strain of what, to the person involved, is an intolerable situation. This part that breaks loose, not being a full mind, is—effectively—crippled. It reacts like a mindless animal, or like an insane person, simply reacting to whatever triggers it. That's only a guess and it may be completely wrong.

“But it'd make sense,” said Jim.

“The same theory could even be pushed to help explain certain types of insanity in general,” said Mary. “But that's way out on a limb, and not what we're concerned with first and foremost, which is duplicating the Penard phenomenon. The problem with Raoul is that there's absolutely nothing in the way of previous work or speculation to build on. The most we can find to stand on is the fact that, as his case proves, the human mind's not only able to exist apart from the body; but it can bond to and control material objects. Whether it controls them directly or by means of their own machinery, is a pure guess.”

“You mean, whether Raoul's dead mind drove his engines, or he just pushed it through interstellar space by mind-power alone?”

“Maybe he was able to do both,” said Mary. “Actually, in Raoul's case, there seems to be some evidence he used his mind alone to move the ship where he wanted. Particularly on the last stages of the trip home, that ship had no ability left to drive itself mechanically. By the way, I wish you wouldn't talk about Raoul as if he was dead. To me, he certainly isn't; or to anyone working with me.

“All right,” said Jim.

“You mean, it's not all right at all,” said Mary, on what sounded very close to a note of exasperation “When you set your jaw like that and look nobly at the ceiling, I know exactly what you're thinking. I tell you it's important that those of us working with him—and you're going to be one of those from time to time, though we'll try to disturb you as little as possible—don't think of him as dead, at all; any more than we go around thinking of ourselves as particularly alive. We're just in one state. He's in another.”

“He's not a whole mind, I thought, according to what you said,” murmured Jim. Nonetheless he was embarrassed. “Sorry again, though. I'll make a point of thinking of him as a living person, all the time, from now on.”

“Good,” she said. “We'll all appreciate that.”

“What exactly,” asked Jim, “are you likely to want me to do? I was saying to General Mollen that I didn't know what use I could be.”

“We don't know—yet,” she said. “What we're going to be doing is flying blind, trying out first this theory, then that one. On some of the theories we may need your help to test them. For example, one of the things that seems to be deeply involved with what happened is Raoul's literal love for his ship. Would you say you loved your
AndFriend
, Jim?”

The question was asked in a tone that was almost too serious.

“Like a sailor loves his ship. You bet,” said Jim. “Possibly even a little more, since
AndFriend
's practically an extension of my own body when we're out in space together. Maybe it's almost like loving your own dog. Haven't you ever done anything like that, Mary? Loved the first bike you ever owned or some pet you once had.”

“No,” said Mary. “Loving a piece of machinery sounds almost a little abnormal; and I never was much for having a pet, let alone loving one.”

“You said you need me to test these theories?” Jim asked.

“Yes.”

“On Raoul?”

“On Raoul. Possibly on you, too, as a sort of control subject since you seem to respond to your ship very much the way he did to his. We can compare reactions and hopefully discover something.”

“I thought you said he doesn't talk as much nowadays. Will he answer when you speak to him?”

“We think so, sometimes,” Mary said. “It seems to depend on whether what we ask ties in to what he's thinking—or dreaming—about at the time. Sometimes we can recreate a sort of ship-on-the-Frontier situation for him, and that helps us to get through to him and get his cooperation. You may be able to help us in that area.”