Watson, Ian - SSC (28 page)

 
          
No—he
couldn’t have contrived it; couldn't have invented a whole alien presence, a
viewpoint that reversed the universe! It had to be real!

 
          
Boyd
was still talking.

 
          
“The
most important thing of all to know is how Habib did this thing. I don’t just
mean from the security angle. Once we know how the noncausal force operates in
conjunction with the universe of cause and effect, given a stretch of luck we
can discover how to build a noncausal stardrive. I feel it in my bones. Imagine
instantaneous travel, Captain—the power, the expansion, the control! Imagine
the whole galaxy in our back yard—and all the other galaxies!”

 
          
Lodwy
Rinehart could imagine. Still, one thing puzzled him.

 
          
“Why
did the Hole act up, just then? It’s stabilized now. But it expanded by two or
three percent in a matter of minutes. If I remember my physics, that should
require the swallowing of something of the order of a whole sun—”

 
          
“We’ll
know all about it when we analyze the data, but if you want my snap judgment on
that, just remember we were tampering with noncausal forces there, at their
physical interface with the causal universe. You can take it as an indicator of
the kind of power we’ll be able to tap ...”

 
          
They
played more tapes, but the poetry degenerated into a verbal mishmash—a semantic
white noise that sounded like the very entropy of language itself, except
where occasional words and phrases came through, treacherously, twisted out of
context.

 
          
What
Boyd was saying about Habib’s “Plot” had to be the maddest fantasy. Perhaps he
could be right about harnessing the energy of the void. But he didn’t
understand the danger. She had known what the danger was, as the alien mind
dilated to receive her. They might build themselves a machine that would wreck
matter and reality itself, instead of a stardrive. But for all she cared, they
could wreck the whole galaxy of stars. Her sex ached so fiercely, and her soul
. . .

 
          
“Incidentally,
Boyd,” the captain inquired casually, “what would have happened if you’d sent
Habib in there as medium, with his little witch riding him? Do you suppose he’d
have sacrificed her to escape?”

 
          
“It’s
not true, Mara,” cried Habib. “They are mad, not us. They can’t stand the
knowledge that all is based on illusion in the universe!” However, he began to
giggle stupidly, because the effort of subterfuge—or the effort of
explanation—was too much for him (since she knew anyway). It was one of the
two, but which?

 
          
Boyd
glanced at her ironically, as Nielstrom slipped a sedative needle into Habib’s
arm.

 
          
“I
imagine he was pretty desperate, sir.”

 
          
“No!”
moaned Mara. “It isn’t true. You don’t know anything.”

 
          
It
wasn’t you in there, Habib. It was Him.
Though I could share
with you.
He was big enough, my Lover.

 
          
They’re
celebrating in the lounge.
Fat Ohashi.
The Prussian.
The Chicano.
Boyd and Nielstrom.
Rinehart has spliced the mainbrace in
true old Navy style, as we race away from the Black Hole and away from . . .
love.

 
          
The
autopsy on my love will be starting soon; the unpeeling of my mind; the final
rape.

 
          
What
shall I do, Habib? Kill myself?

 
          
For
I’ve known an inch of loveliness. And an inch is all I’ll ever be allowed to
know of loveliness.

 
          
Little
witch.

 
          
Big nightmare.