Across the Sea of Suns

One

Nigel made his slow way along a rocky corridor. He preferred the low-g sections of the ship, where a stumble could be turned into a slight imbalance, rather than a resounding, bone-splintering crash. Crew members passed him easily, since he moved with deliberate caution. He recognized few of them now. He had spent most of the voyage from Isis working by himself, and the faces he saw no longer called up automatic names and associations. But one did catch his attention and he slowed, reached out—

“Nigel,” the man said, “I didn’t want it to come like this. I need a few weeks more of, of getting used to—”

Then it struck him. The similarities were too close, and yet—

“Carlotta!”

“Honestly, I was going to leave a letter for you and Nikka, but at the last minute, somehow I couldn’t get it down right and—”

“You’ve, you’ve …” Carlotta had the same wiry build, but the softening curves were gone, replaced by slabs of muscle. The face was more chunky, but beneath the changes he had instantly seen the same bone structure. The muscles still gave the same slightly askew smile, the backward tilt to the head when she spoke.

“Let’s get away from here. I can see you—Well, we need to talk.” Her voice was a deeper version of the familiar Californian accent.

He followed her, confused and inarticulate. They sat in a bower overlooking Lurkey’s brimming yellow vat. Carlotta spoke simply, slowly, detailing her reasons. He could not follow much of what she meant. When she began to speak of Nikka it became clearer to him.

“There is a thing between men and women,” Carlotta said. “Not deeper, maybe, but certainly different from the relationship of women to each other, no matter how hard you try to make it—” She stopped. “I’m not getting through, am I ?”

“I … You seem to be saying, indirectly, that you’ve done this because of Nikka? That you’re my rival, now?”

“Bad choice of words. But if you want it that way, then, yes. I always was.”

“But you and me, we slept together—”

“So did Nikka and I.”

“You understood … I mean, ’I knew, that was all right.”

“Yes. But—”

“I’ve got nothing against it. Look, Ted Landon’s been sleeping with some guy in BioEngineering for years, and it never undermined his position. Nobody gives a damn anymore.”

“You’re saying that’s okay, but what I’ve just done—”

“That’s different.”

“I knew you wouldn’t—”

“How could you expect me to—”

“Wait. Just wait, Nigel. Look, on a long expedition like this, what’s the point of being a woman? Having kids takes too much time, and anyway shipboard population shouldn’t be increased beyond—”

“Theoretical reasons.”

“Okay. I want to be in charge of, of a relationship. Not just helpful and supportive. And I wanted to try it. See what being a man—”

“Ummmm.”

“That damned ‘ummmm’ of yours! Sitting back, judging—a very male noise, Nigel. Well, I want to make that noise, too.” He made a sound halfway between a murmur and a grunt.

Nigel smiled slightly. “Carlotta, there’s more to—”

“Carlos.”

Something in the tone of the word made Nigel stiffen. “If you’re going to come between Nikka and me, I—”

“I wasn’t between you before?”

“Not this way, not—”

“Not as a ‘rival,’ as you so charmingly put it?”

“You’re twisting what I say.”

“Not as much as you think, what you really think.”

Nigel said coldly, “That remains—”

“Notice how much of a confrontation this has turned into? Two men, not giving an inch.”

“Why should I give—”

“You don’t have to. I’m not changing everything. We’ll still have a loose triangle. My relationship with Nikka will be different, but there’s no reason—”

“No. I don’t like it.”

“I want to, to face the world with a new persona. Try out this heavy, bulky body. You have no idea how it is.” Carlos rolled his thick shoulder muscles experimentally.

Despite himself, Nigel asked, “How different … is it?”

Carlos smiled in a friendly way. “Very.”

Carlos began to see Nikka, but never in Nigel’s company. Nikka found Carlos attractive, and Nigel could find no reason why he should object to her using the privileges they had always accorded each other. Their relationship had never been completely binding, after all. But the theoretical perspective did nothing to alter his deeply smoldering feelings of anger and, yes, envy. Carlos was younger and more vibrant, that was part of his appeal. He easily slipped into the fast pace of preparations for exploring the Ross system. Nigel spent time on the analysis net, but if anything it made him more withdrawn.

He spoke with Nikka about it. To her the facts were plain and, in the light of medicosurgery, unexceptional. Freedom to alter one’s sex was as basic as any other right. Nigel could accept this theoretically, but he came to an abrupt halt at the specific case of Carlos. There was something to the entire issue that set his teeth on edge, something beyond simple rivalry, and yet he could not get a sure grip on it. When he spoke his throat seemed to get tight, his voice dry and scratchy.

It was confusing to him, particularly since no one else, even Nikka, appeared to take the emergence of Carlos as more than a passing, mildly interesting bit of gossip. It cropped up in conversation among their friends for a week or so, and then vanished in the general hubbub about Ross 128.

Two

It’s a pretty faint little bugger, we can hardly make out any of its planets in the optical

Well down in the infrared I’m picking up plenty from the two terrestrial-sized planets looks like a high albedo on both of ’em

Wish we had a decent-sized star to reconnoiter this damn one’s small as Ra an’ got a lotta flares on it give a look at ’at corona big splotches all over it

Bound to be variable, all the small stars are, so according to theory those terrestrials’ll have big swings in the weather

Doesn’t look good for a stable biosphere on those

Outer planets all ’bout Saturn-sized lotsa moons and two rings, some asteroids between those two, looks like it’s a pretty standard pattern

Why the Isis Watcher would beam a signal to this dead place I dunno maybe a mistake, huh Nigel?

Wait until the returns are in

Got an image here yeah give a look that first terrestrial’s got no atmosphere, high albedo, must be bare rock

You got those IRs on the second yet I know there’s a malf in that sensor but we been waitin’ damn long time

Comin’ in now looks like mebbe 178 degrees kelvin, pretty cold, but we expected that with a pip-squeak sun to warm it, I sure don’t pick up much else

Some carbon dioxide, little ammonia—maybe a lot of ice an’ snow

Bring the right scope down some, that reflectivity it’s jumpin’ all over when I put it on tight beam, must mean there’s plenty of reflectin’ surfaces, ice fields I bet

No sign of bioactivity in that atmosphere dull as dishwater

The grav-lens told us it looked jolly crappy, no surprise there

Goddamn all this way an’ nothin’ but junk

We knew all along with an M star like this it was rather like expecting roses in a jam jar to look for a biosphere

Cold as a hoor’s tit an’ we’re years from any-thin’ interestin’ even if we had the juice to get there

Ted we haven’t lost all our thrust we could boost back up, just swing through the Ross system and head on out

I like ’at we could pick up couple months on gettin’ back up to near-light speed ’stead of wallowin’ round in this icebox

Better hurry up on it if we’re gonna do it got a critical transition comin’ up in the reaction engines Ted

Bloody hell we’re not done with recon yet

Betcher butt there won’t be nothin’ to see

Nothing alive that’s for sure

Scrub it I say

We need a vote ’a the whole ship to do ’at

Na, rule is section leaders can decide in a pinch an’ this sure as hell is one

Janet send in a formal request from ExoBio if it’s your judgment that there’re no life sites here

Alex you’re in the net still—aren’t you?—Alex?—he isn’t repped in

So skip him there’s no time

No I can’t make a decision—with Section leaders’ consent of course—until I’ve heard from Alex

The big radio dishes aren’t fully deployed yet I don’t see

Ted this is Alex—sorry we had a resolution problem on aft antenna but I’ve got the outer part of the Ross system mapped now, the big gas giants and there’s something there with a lot of metal in it

Step up the gain I need more detail

Ted this is Nigel it’s just not on to cancel this early

Christ don’t listen to him this is ExoBio Ted look he’s just tryin’ to stretch out the encounter time to prove out this theory of his that nobody believes anyway an this’s the last hurrah anyway for him I say we boost soon’s Alex

Yeah we can pick up rest of the data on the flyout

We got a good fraction of the minimum already

I don’t give a sweet shit about minimum performance we’re facing years of voyage Christ what’s a few more months

Spend the time in Slots Nigel do you good

Give it a rest, eh? Ted, I appeal to you, don’t

Gentlemen we got maybe ten minutes to decide, tops, or I got to shut the drive down

Christ Alex can you see anymore?

I’m getting some kind of metal on one of the gas giant moons that’s all I can say right now looks like very bright in the radio reflectivity but that’s all I can say

Section leaders this is Ted I’m reviewing ExoBio’s request you people got any further input shoot it in now

Y’know it’s a good idea to keep the reaction goin’ just in case I mean the biggest malf probability is in the start-up phase

Yeah keep that in mind Ted we got risk every time we shut down

Look—damn!—we can’t make a balls-up of this because of some sodding engineering constraint

Quiet Nigel—look, any more input before I

Yeah shut up the old crock and get us out of this pisshole

Seems to me it’s pretty clear we seen plenty systems like this already from the probes

The grav-lens told us most of this already, point is to look closer—

Okay this is Ted after reviewing the systems board I can see the logic of picking up some time on our outbound

Alex is there any new

Throw in the towel Nigel for Chrissake

Hey I’ve lost the reflection

What’s ’at?

No radio reflection at all from that moon now, just gone out

Check for detuning of the antenna Alex that’s pro’bly it

No I’m still bringing in good radio images of the gas giant, no degrading of the system—I’d say the thing’s just plain gone

Musta been a ghost image jest forget it

No possibility of that, I had it dead for sure, big as your mouth ‘n’ twice as wide, even got a spectrum ’fore it vanished

How fast is that moon spinning Alex?

Lessee, nothin’ much—no, too slow, it’s tide-locked, that can’t explain it

Then it was something in orbit around the Moon, that’s the only way it could go out that fast. It simply fell below the horizon from our angle of view

Possible I guess but

Possible hell you think of something else

Well ah I

Ted you’ve got to let us have a look at whatever that was

Hell he does! We don’ have to do anything unless a majority

No time for that

Damn—look, this is Ted—I’m asking for a quick vote

Don’t give bugger all for a vote this is a scientific issue man not a

Alex here look I think he’s got you there Ted our mandate is to study not just survey and could be the thing did drop out of sight which makes it a damned funny configuration in its own right, never mind if it’s an artifact or not

Listen, we skip this radio blip, we can pick up months, not have to worry about the drive start-up routine

Yeah, who wants to be the one goes in there an’ scrapes the throat walls while rest you guys are playin’ astronomer

Quiet look this is Ted and I—well, the directives don’t leave me much choice

Damn

We’ve got to take a look at that site

Alex this turns out to be a screw-up I’m gonna

And I want a rendezvous orbit near that gas giant

Bang on that’s it

Yeah.

Three

Rain had brought out the scents of the gardens—loquats, crisp grains, roots, fresh-turned earth, blending and subduing them. Nigel paused in his creaking labors and looked toward the nose of the ship, where the life sphere tapered into a bare point. It was like peering into the underside of a silagree of stone, an inverted spire spun by some huge spider.

He stretched to ease his back muscles. Ah. He could barely manage an hour of this labor now. He told Nikka it was for the appearance of the thing, to defuse comments about his general incompetence at things physical, to derail a close inspection of his medical situation. But in fact he liked this turning of the soil, this 6CO₂ + 6H₂O, in turn giving forth starchy C₆H₁₂O₆ + oxygen to burn anew, onboard as it is in heaven. With the drive off there was no ready ultraviolet for the engineers to step down into the optical region, so they had gone back to using phosphors strung along the zero-g axis. These luminous ropes gave off a harsh glare he found unpleasant, but the plants grew well; a leaf is indifferent to where it gets its photons.

Lancer was taking a long loop through the Ross 128 system, coming around to rendezvous with the gas giant and its interesting moon. He preferred to pass the time away from the clatter of the Operating Net.

He bent back to plucking tomatoes free of their vines. To his mind the prime virtue of artificial biospheres was the lack of weeds, for otherwise it’d be a sore job to—

“I could hear the grunting from a hundred meters away,” Ted Landon said.

Nigel straightened as quickly as he could without wincing, and smiled. “Like to work up a sweat.”

“The fellas missed you on the net this morning.”

“Figured you could do without my mumbling.”

“Latest scans on that moon came in.”

“Really?”

“Standard gas giant satellite. Funny purple coloring, some ice tectonics making ridges. Heavily cratered, too.”

“Like Ganymede.” He did not mention that he’d tapped into the map subroutines and gotten the drift direct, some hours before the net did.

“Yeah, looks that way. You were right about the asteroid orbiting it, though.”

Nigel kept harvesting tomatoes. Ted squatted and pulled a few ripe ones. “Big durosteel hull on one side of it,” he said casually.

“A Watcher, then.”

“Looks like it. Kind of gives the fork to Walmsley’s Rule.”

“Ummm. A Watcher, yet not a prayer that this moon was ever a life site?”

“Going to lower your stock on the net. First clear case we get to check your rule, it fails.”

“Glad I wasn’t on the net, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Rather like being at a posh reception and finding you’ve caught your cock in your zip.”

Ted laughed.

“It’s a case worth studying, though, eh?”

Ted straightened and studied a tomato reflectively. “That’s not what I came about.” He looked soberly at Nigel.

“Oh?” Nigel stood up, too, glad that they had at last gotten through the opening moves.

“Carlos tells me you’re taking this thing of his pretty hard.”

“Perhaps for Americans it’s easier. Priests of high tech, no matter where it leads, and all that.”

“Think you’re overdoing it, maybe?”

“Possibly.” It was always best to leave some area of uncertainty, for later compromise once the man had made his point.

“You’re not the first ever faced this, y’know.”

“True.”

“Think I’d like to see you try some of the therapy environments. We got some fresh ones on tightbeam from Earthside, just last year.”

“Well,” Nigel said brightly, “that seems quite possible.”

“Not just possible,” Ted said quietly, putting weight on each word. “You know I don’t like to do more than make suggestions, but the numerical sociometric people say this kind of thing can get out of hand.”

“I scarcely think—”

“I’ve cleared a spot for you.” Ted smiled broadly. “Can’t have our number one citizen waiting, huh?”

Nigel made himself smile, too. “Quite so.”

Ted clapped him on the back. “C’mon, have a drink.”

“I should finish up—”

“Forget it. You’ve already put in your hour.”

Nigel smiled wryly. So Ted kept track of that, too. “Quite so.”

Nigel allowed himself to be sealed into the sum-sense pod. He had tried to argue them out of the medical sensors and transducers, but the attendants cited his age as cause for taking precautions. Therapy sessions were confidential, he knew, so after thinking it over he decided the medical data would do him no harm. They merely wanted to ensure that he did not suffer over-stimulation.

He felt himself floating, free of sensation. This would take only a few hours, and then he could be back working. He felt the splice-ins activate, tapping directly into the sensory zones of his cerebrum. He fell—faster, faster, into something far below—

—Sitting. Sitting in a wicker chair. A sluggishness filled him. Added weight, a paunch at his middle, clothes tight. An itch on the right thigh. Gradually the room filled in, emerging from a fog.

Glazed glass walls, tiles, a ceramic clatter as waiters removed plates from nearby tables. Pale yellow light. Garlic butter taste in his mouth. A slick, imitation-elegant tablecloth under his left palm. Background murmur of conversation. Humidity adding weight to each breath he took. A woman across the table, attractive, talking (he suddenly realized) to him—

“We’re not doing anything,” Helen said.

“We’ve seen a lot,” her husband murmured defensively.

“The Berkeley ruins, the Monument of Bones, the arroyos,” she said. “Then we have dinner and go to bed. That’s all. And the bed part is no great attraction, is it?”

“Just last night we went to Casa Sigma—”

“If you weren’t with me you’d find some, you know, places.”

Robert had to admit this was true. He pretended to concentrate on draining the last of his drink and studied her expression through slitted eyes. She had made her hair blue and rather longer than usual today and the soft moonlight gave it a lush cast. He did not like it very much. She had tuned her skin to a fashionable pallor for the evening, but here in sun-baked California it was unconvincing because one knew it had to be artificial. On the other hand, perhaps that was largely immaterial these days. The thin lines of irritation around her mouth set the tone of her whole expression. There seemed to be little she could do about that. An hour after a facial tuning they returned, as deep as before.

“Before we came on this trip you said we would take a spice bath.”

“Not here, Helen. It’s illegal. Wait until Japan.”

“There must be, well, places here.”

“Filthy ones, yes. The Americans would stare at us. Especially at you. They don’t take women to them here. The Americans are rigid. It’s comic, I know, but—”

“You’re the rigid one.”

He played his hole card. “Those spots are full of insects. The Americans don’t mind them.”

She blinked. “If I was alone in as exotic a place as this you can be sure I’d go to all sorts of these spots.”

“The motorbike dances …”

She scoffed. “Clumsy. Those are for tourists.”

He began to notice his anger. He had spent a good deal of money to bring her along on this business trip. He had left her behind so often before. Lately his conscience had begun to bother him about it. Decades before, their marriage had been the central fact in his life, a fulfillment. Those feelings had ebbed away. He had gotten caught up in the raw competitive world of men. And he had relished that sense of rasping conflict, of heady victories after strenuous effort.

Still, he felt a duty to her. But traveling with a woman you don’t love was proving worse than living with her.

He finished his drink and slammed the glass down on the marble tabletop. “My,” she said archly.

He stood up. His chair scraped harshly and a waiter, startled, came quickly. Robert waved the man away. “All right,” he said loudly. “I’ll find something. Your kind of place.” He spat out the last word.

Robert left the ornamented hotel and walked down Ashby. He was feeling warm from the meal or from the anger and he moved quickly. He did not noticed the thin man who came up alongside him and said in an oily way, “Something?”

Robert stopped. “I’ve got my own woman,” was all he could immediately think to say.

“An appetizer, then?”

“What?”

“A boy?”

Strong, confusing emotions swept through him. He pushed the man aside and made a rough, incoherent noise.

He walked away swiftly, his steps bringing a harsh slap from the damp paving stones. He went two blocks without seeing the neon jumble around him or noting the sleazy shops.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and saw the same gaunt man, this time standing at a safe distance. There was a look of bland, wise confidence on the man’s face.

“Senso?” he asked.

Robert paused and was surprised to find he had no anger left. The walking had leached it from him.

“How much?”

With the taxi and the thin man as guide it came to over a thousand yen. Robert knew the man had hiked the price over the usual street value, from the look on his face, but that did not matter. This would provide a simple way to stop Helen’s prattle about “places” and it might even be enjoyable. Better than the real thing had been for quite a long while, at least. He turned back to fetch Helen.

The three of them took a route north into Richmond, over a slimy canal crusted with salt from the deadlands to the north. The taxi wheezed through twisting streets and stopped outside a sprawling bungalow with dim orange lights outside. “Perfectly ghastly,” Robert muttered to himself, but Helen did not reply.

They went up creaking wooden stairs and beneath a punctured solar heating panel that had slid halfway off the roof. “Is this a commercial one?” Helen asked and reached for his arm.

“Of course not,” he said stiffly, pulling away from her. “It’s illegal here.”

They clumped across linoleum floors and through two empty rooms. The guide slipped a key into a door-plate and a wall swung free. This let them into a red-lit room with two glossy, molded chairs perched among a tangle of electronics. A bored-looking attendant stood up from a couch where he had been watching a 3-D. He helped the two of them into the chairs. The equipment looked reasonably new. It had the comfortable cerebral lead-ins Robert had seen in the European advertisements. His opinion of the place rose. Helen made a fuss about getting the attachments settled at her neck and wrists and then quieted down for the first run.

The first was a warm-up, an erotic hors d’oeuvre. A middle-aged man met a younger woman in a restaurant. After a few perfunctory bits of social back-and-forth, they went to her apartment. The senso consisted of extensive foreplay and some fantasizing, though the graphic parts were convincing and strong. He felt the languid satin rub of the woman’s skin, the delicious pull of young muscles, the musky smell, a red lust building in the young man. Robert liked the piece overall, though the woman’s hairdo reminded him of someone he knew and that rather spoiled the associations for him. He guessed that their guide had picked this particular one because the man rather resembled himself, and using a younger woman would cater to the self-images of both parties. He smiled at the calculation.

When it was over be found himself panting slightly and said, “Adequate,” as though he were experienced at this.

“And that’s all? Not very—”

“No, no, the entrée comes next.”

It started. The scene was an old-fashioned street at dusk. A man approached a woman waiting for a bus. The woman wore rather pretty clothes and a head ornament, three decades out of date, which shadowed her face. There was little conversation. Much was conveyed by the man’s swagger, the woman’s jutting hip, a sultry exchange of glances. In the wan traces of sunset their faces were shrouded and a streetlamp caught only suggestive nuances of their expressions, setting a tone of gathering erotic energy.

She responded to a tilt of his head and a murmured invitation. Robert enjoyed this sultry, casual courting, liked the feel of a slim, muscled body. The man had a fine-honed tension running through him, that tightness and pressure which ebbs with age.

They walked a short distance to his apartment. It was atmospheric and suited to the swarthy, intimidating manner of the man. He undressed first, revealing a barrel chest and bushy, black body hair. The arrangement of the lighting cast the woman in a mysterious way as she reclined. There was a hovering excitement in her manner.

The man looked in a full-length mirror nearby. This was to establish identification with the character, but seeing the face full on brought a sudden jolt of recognition to Robert. The hooded look of the man, that frayed lounge in the corner, a familiar French watercolor near the mirror—

The man began some foreplay between the woman’s legs and the humid feel of the bed came through to Robert as he struggled with memories.

My. The thought from Susan, overriding the senso input, startled him. The man was having his effect.

Too raw for me, he thought strongly, hoping to get through the rush of sensation that he could feel between them. I’d like to break it off.

The man moved adroitly with practiced skill. Yes, Robert thought to himself, it was skill, technique. Mere technique. At the time he had thought it was a passion as full and new as the woman’s. He had not allowed for the fact that the barrel-chested man was six years older than she, and far more sophisticated.

No. I want to stay. Concentrate. It might help you, she finished dryly.

I really think—

No. If you break off the thing stops, doesn’t it? And I want to go on.

Robert knew he could rip the connections away, end this now. He reached for the leads, seized one, and stopped. Something in him wanted this to happen. Old memories stirred.

The man embraced the languid woman and his hands moved expertly over her. The woman—a girl, really—rolled to the side at his command. Her movements had a fresh quality to them despite the artificial situation. To fix Helen’s role identification, she looked at herself in the mirror.

He felt Helen’s quick flash of surprise.

It’s—she’s—you!

Was me. Over thirty years ago. The girl stroked the dark, muscular body and Robert caught the tremor of excitement that leaped in Manuel, the man.

But I—you never told me—all these—

I met you long after.

The face, your face—even with the age, and the changes, I can see it is you.

I changed as little as possible. Redistributed body weight, altered hormones—

All this time—

Yes.

You could have told me—

No. My, my change had to be complete. No looking back.

Then that’s why you couldn’t have children. And I thought—

Yes.

My God, I don’t think I can—

But the surge of emotion that came into her cut off the words. Robert felt the same tidal rhythm grasp him and did not fight against it. The heat and harsh cries of decades before seized them both. It went on for unendurably long moments bringing him to a fevered, shuttering, simulated climax.

In the silence afterward the images dwindled, the tingling sensations drained away. They were left, two people in the glossy chairs, the cables dangling from them.

They said nothing as Robert paid off the man and got into the taxi for the hotel.

“It’s revolting,” Helen said. “To learn this way …”

“The practice is common now.”

“Not among the people we know, not—” She stopped.

“I had to conceal it. I moved away afterward, to Chile, where no one knew I had the Change.”

“What, what was your name?”

“Susan.”

“I see,” she said stiffly.

What did she expect, he thought bitterly. That I changed Roberta to Robert, like some cheap joke?

“So you were the sort of woman who makes things like that senso.”

“For him, yes, I was.”

“He was repulsive.”

“He was hypnotic. I see that now.”

“He must have been, to make you do degrading things like—”

“Is it more degrading to do them, or to need their help?”

Her face tightened and he regretted saying it. She said bitterly, “I’m not the one who needs help, remember. And no wonder—you’re not really what everyone’s thought, are you?”

He ignored her tone. “I’ve done well enough. You had no complaints at the beginning, as I remember.”

She sat silently. The taxi whistled through dimly lit streets. “You’ve betrayed me.”

“It all happened long before I met you.”

“If I’d known you were so, so unbalanced as—”

“It was a decision I made. I had to.”

“For what? That man must have—”

“He—” Robert stopped himself. “I loved him.”

“What became of him, then?”

“He went away. Left me.”

“I’m not surprised. Any woman who would—” She shuddered, and conflicting emotions flickered across her face.

The taxi drew up to the hotel. Beggars came limping out of the shadows, calling. Robert brushed them away. The two walked to their room without a word. Their footsteps echoed hollowly in the old tile corridors. Inside, he took off his coat and noticed that his heart was pounding.

She turned to him decisively. “I want to, to know what it was like. Why you—”

He cut her off with, “The process was crude then. Manuel had left me. I thought then that he had fallen out of love with me, but looking back, feeling that tonight—”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he had just gotten tired of me.”

“But something made you …”

“Yes. It’s all gotten so distant now, I can’t he sure of what I felt. It’s as though there’s a fog between me and that senso.”

“You didn’t recognize it until …?”

“No, I didn’t. I went through two years of drugs, depression, therapy, tap-ins. I forgot so much. The strains on my body—”

“I still don’t—maybe that man, he was so oily, he must have done things to you, to make you want to change—”

Robert shook his head. He turned abruptly and went into the bathroom. He stayed there a long time, taking a shower and letting the hot water wash away the evening and turn his skin pink. He looked down at himself and thought of what the years had done to the muscles and skin. This body felt heavy, bulky, and oddly like a machine. He wondered what it would have been like if that dimly remembered girl had not …

When he returned to the bedroom the lights were out.

He went to the bed slowly, uncertain, and heard the crisp rustle of sheets.

“Come here,” she said.

She reached for him. “You … you have been a good man to me.” A tentative touch. “I suppose I can’t … blame you for a past you had … erased, even before we …”

He kissed her. She murmured, “You were weaker then, you know. I thought it was just being young, inexperienced. But you got strong, in the years afterward. I was surprised, I remember.”

He saw where she was headed and said, “Because of you.”

And it was true. She was starting to realize that it was she, and the glorious first years of their marriage, that had made him truly into a man. And this realization was pulling her free of her confused swirl of emotions.

She tried the things she had done so many times before. To his surprise there was some response. The deep feelings of the senso had perhaps reached into him and found some reservoir.

A moist heat grew rapidly in her and he went along, making the old moves he knew would do the job. She quickened further. Some part of him kept up a lukewarm interest, enough to make the performance convincing. She gasped, and gasped again. Something in tonight had made her swirl of emotions condense into this act, some titillation had come out of the senso and the shock. Now she responded to him as if he were some exotic thing.

Robert suddenly remembered Manuel. God, I hope he’s dead now. It would be better if the possibility of him was gone from life forever. The therapy had smothered and blotted out Manuel. The therapists had been very sure that was for the best.

Helen moved energetically under him, trying to provoke a passion he could no longer feel. Christ, he thought. He felt a new empathy for her, for what help she would find in this.

Suddenly he sensed himself above the tangled bodies that labored in the bed. He saw the passion from a high but not disparaging perspective, a double vision of himself. It was like the multiple layers of sensation one had in the senso, the sense of being several people at once. But stranger, and deeper.

He saw that the simple event of coupling was surrounded with an aura, a different halo of associations for each sex. An act of essential self-definition. It truly was difficult to express how profound the difference was.

A surge came in him and he thought again of Manuel. That bright, trusting girl back there—she had wanted Manuel so badly. And when he left, the only way to hold on to him was to try, in a strange way, to flee from herself, and become what she wanted to hold.

Helen groaned and clutched at him, as if for shelter in this private storm, and gave an abrupt, piercing cry. He stroked her and wept and for the first time in many years he saw truly again, in Helen and in that girl of long ago, the other side of a wide mute river he could never cross again.

Four

Nigel shivered. The drama had been intense, close, more intimate than anything artificial he had ever experienced. They had obviously selected a drama tuned to his age, his sex—and then pulled the rug from under him, jolted his expectations.

He wasn’t that rather tired, dulled man, and yet, yet—there was something … Even the man’s dialogue was slightly British, like one who had lived abroad for decades, just as Nigel had. Yes, it was a damned finely tuned bit of business. And not at all amusing.

But amusement was not the aim. With a blurring sense of movement everything shifted, melted, reformed—

And he was the gaunt little man, spotting his mark on the dingy Berkeley street. Nigel felt himself swept along as he approached the heavyset, distracted figure and said, “Something?”

From there the drama proceeded as before, giving Nigel a rather distant view of the events, letting emotions seep away—

Another swirling, blurred transition. Nigel became Helen.

“We’re not doing anything,” he said, and felt the rising waspish irritation. He knew what was coming and yet the emotions that came through from the fictional Helen moved him. Events carried him forward. Robert simmered in his tight-faced anger, the senso started, Helen’s shock lanced through him—

And he saw that it was like his own, with Carlos. But worse. It hit deeply. There was betrayal with it, a hollow feeling of the ground opening under Helen. She had struggled to see her own past clearly. Everything she had felt, each day, now meant something different. This taciturn stranger next to her in the slick chair knew everything about her but had been hiding himself—herself—every day of their lives. Helen had stroked him, receive him into herself, accepted and savored his male-ness, all without a thought—

Helen struggled bleakly, trying to find a hold. She would have to begin again, learn to accept Robert as something both more and less than she had ever thought, make herself—

Nigel tore himself away from the churn of emotions. He thumbed ESCAPE and the tangled world dropped away.

They peeled the pod back and crisp light flooded in. He wriggled out. The attendants smiled professionally. He ignored their warm, well-modulated voices, their polite questions. He wrapped himself snugly in a blue terry-cloth robe and started toward the dressing room.

“Wait! Your consultation—”

“Not having any.”

“It’s part of the—”

“Not mandatory, is it?”

“No, but we—”

“Thought so. I don’t have to talk to you sods and I frigging well don’t intend to.”

“It will go on the record,” the woman said as a warning.

“Dear me. Pity.”

“Isn’t it a little obvious to be so hostile to analysis?”

Nigel hesitated, knowing he should be civil to this person, even if he was shaken. He teetered on the brink, feeling the weight of her expectations, how the society of the ship would evaluate this, and in the long gliding moment felt a sureness come into himself that had been there before, but that he had lost years before. “Fuck off,” he said precisely.

“How did it go?” Nikka asked.

He lay back, letting their jury-rigged machine minister to him. It burbled and sucked and the pumps rattled, but it worked. He had actually come to feel a certain affection for the damned thing. “Hated it.”

She sighed. “That will not put you further into the good graces of—”

“I know, I know.”

“You saw the maps of that moon? Craters everywhere. They’re calling it Pocks. No official name yet.”

“Appropriate. Think you can wangle some surface duty?”

“What surface duty?” She sat up. “The net hasn’t even discussed—”

“I found a system interface into the engine section. They’re lower than they thought on plain old deuterium inventory. Before we ignite the drive again, they’ll need to store up some.”

“From the moon, uh, Pocks.”

“Right.”

Five

Look man Pocks is riddled jess same as Europa an’ Callisto an’ the resta the Jovian moons, dozens like this, seen one you seen ’em all

Some interestin’ ice flows see there that escaprment methane ice maybe

Might as well send down some scientific personnel with the mining crew

Could take some deep borings, even find a vent for access to deeper, get a good metal abundance measurement, make the ExoGeo boys Earthside happy

Trouble is the ice is all carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, not much water

We’d do better to send down that submersible gear

What’re you sayin’ use that subsurface stuff

Sure it works on Ganymede we brought it along for just exactly this kind of case

That ice skin is, what, fifteen klicks thick

There’s cracks and vents we already spotted them on recon

Sure, work your way down those, subs will take that pressure easy remember the gravity’s less than a fifth g

Penetrate the ice surface Christ

I dunno strip mining is safer and you can lift off if anything goes wrong

Sure but it takes three times the work crew and you have to hunt around for veins of water

Yeah the submarines are better, they can scoop up lots, and it’s pure water, no impurities from meteorites

Ted I’ll recommend that if you want somethin’ official

I have no problem with that no need to be so formal Bob we’ll be sending a pretty big team I want that deuterium out fast

No reason to wait aroun’ with that Watcher close by

If I might butt in I must say I still don’t like mining Pocks with that Watcher in range, bloody risky

No easy alternative as we decided yesterday, where’ve you been Nigel, there’s no other moon here that has the right topography—rest of ’em are rocks

Whole system’s bone-dry must have all the light elements locked up in the gas giants

Pocks is a typical snowball moon, fraction over two thousand klicks radius, ninety percent slush inside with an ice crust

Lot like Ganymede only more craters lot of crustal movement too

Nigel you been out of the loop too long shoot him the recap on that probe we sent to the Watcher

What! You poked your nose into—

Don’t get all fluffed up now look at it this way we were testing Walmsley’s Rule, giving it a last chance

It failed too you’ll notice

Lookit the robot probe walked all over the Watcher, banged on the hull, took a sample—nothing special, gamma-hardened alloy—tried radio and IR and

Found bunch of old sensors and stuff on the surface dead as can be

Burrowed inside maybe twenty meters all the circuits inactive, no acoustic pattern, no sign of anything working

Funny equipment pretty simpleminded circuits looked to me all crapped out it’s old as hell too

Still that doesn’t mean you sods didn’t awaken something—

Nigel this is Ted, we’ve got work to do here and you can get all this on recap I’d advise you drop off the net and come back when you

Sounds to me like he’s pissed his Rule didn’t work out

No, that’s not it at all, I merely meant

Well hell Walmsley first place we try it your theory isn’t worth a fart that moon’s never had any life on it lookit those surveys no bioproducts on the surface no atmosphere just lots of ice and rock that’s been pounded for billions of years

So that Watcher’s not waiting for life there hell the thing probably ran out of gas explorin’ this system an’ went dead looks like a kinda crude low-velocity ship burning its own rock for reaction mass

Yeah a ham-fisted piece of tech you ask me

Take forever to get to the next star

Well if you’ve got sodding forever—

Face it Walmsley the Watchers aren’t all the same they’re leftover weapons or explorers no reason to think they’re related to each other

Stuff in orbit lasts long time is all

There’s too much evidence to ignore, my damned Rule aside—

No Nigel this is Ted now I’d like you to drop out of the net take a rest maybe look over the recon stuff file a report with us later if you want to say your-piece but we can’t be squabbling over theory when we have to do a big minimax calculation on the mining operation

I’ll say

Very well Ted I’ll do that but

Good now I want a touchdown to begin excavations within forty-eight hours Sheila get those submersibles in the surface landers I want backup crews all down the line too

Good-bye you lot

Six

He had never meant for him and Nikka and Carlotta to choose up and play Nuclear Family, but the old times between them had called up a blood-rush swelling, as each slid over the others’ love-slicked skin, gasping at the dazzling slides of fingers, seeking the sag of aging muscles without judgment, yielding to the jut of bone. He dimly recalled how furious it had been between them. Then came the cooling, time leaching away the weight of each other. Now the past ambitions unspoken surfaced, and Carlotta was smothered in apparatus.

Nigel gingerly unhooked himself from the machine. He sealed the cap on his leg vein input. The memories surfaced often now. He had regained a good deal of his old mental equilibrium, enough to permit the old hurts and joys to resurface. Whatever in him had learned to repress was now itself in retreat.

Nikka moved to help him up but he waved her away. “I’m feeling a lot better. Stronger.”

“I’d still like you to rest more. You’ve been working in the gardens too much.”

“No, just barely enough. I’m beginning to think this whole blood imbalance thing, the buildup of ruddy rogue cells and that rot—quite literally, rot—it’s all been due to something from that injury in the damned fluxlife-cleaning job.” He stretched, enjoying the delicious pop of his joints.

Nikka smiled tolerantly. As she opened her mouth to speak he saw in an instant her fatigue, pushed back beyond notice, silted up inside her by the currents of despair she must have suffered in these years of watching him slowly go dull and listless. The fretwork of lines near her eyes had deepened and turned downward. Her laugh was blunted now, seldom heard, weighted.

“Things are going to be better now,” he said impulsively. “I’m sure I’ve beaten it.”

“Yes,” she said, and put her arms around him. “Yes.”

He saw that she did not believe. She thought his words meant no more than the compulsive optimism of a man who knew deeply that he would die. “No, I want you to see it … see better. I am getting—”

A knock at the door. They went into the living room, closing the bedroom door to hide the medical machines. Nigel opened the door. He kept his face blank when he saw it was Carlos and Ted Landon. Carlos had been coming by regularly, but Nigel had decided it was best for the moment to be neither friendly nor hostile. Simple distance might be the best.

Carlos was nervous, sweating. He said abruptly, “Nigel, I told you it wouldn’t last, that medmon dodge. While I was in the Slots a systems inventory turned up a glitch, where I’d covered for you. They just now unraveled it and—”

“I thought it was a good idea to bring along Carlos, so he could explain,” Ted broke in smoothly. “He didn’t rat on you.”

Nigel shrugged.

“I don’t blame Carlos for this at all,” Ted said with heavy seriousness. “He’s been under pressure, as we all know. I do blame you, though.” He tapped Nigel’s chest. “You’re going in for a full check. Now.”

Nigel shrugged again. “Fair enough.” He glanced at Nikka and saw she was thinking the same: With his blood newly filtered, he might pass.

Carlos said, “I’m sorry, but it had to …”

Nigel felt a surge of sympathy for the man. He patted Carlos tentatively on the shoulder. “Never mind. Forget all this old stuff, from before you went to the Slots.” He wanted to suggest that it would be best to make a whole new life, forgetting himself and Nikka, but he saw that would be the wrong note to sound so soon.

He was naked, so Ted saw nothing unusual about his retiring to pull on some clothes, in the bathroom he drank a solution of antioxidants and other control agents, to mask the clear signature effects of the blood processing. When he returned Carlos was out of his mood and was explaining to Nikka that he had successfully applied for a job on the ground team on Pocks.

“Grunt work, sure, but it’ll get me down on a planet again.” He shifted heavily, still unused to the feel of the bulk of muscle, but eager to use it. Nikka seemed pleased. Nigel marveled at how she covered her anxiety so well. If they treated this all very matter-of-factly, and the tests weren’t too probing, they might just bring it off.

“Come on,” he said mildly, “I’ve got work to do. Bring on your needles.”

Ted walked with him to the medical center. There was going to be a shipwide meeting later that day, over the net. Ted was distracted. He grudgingly gave up the information that the latest transmission from Earth was full of news. The gravitational telescope had surveyed two more planetary systems. Each had a terrestrial-type world, and around each a Watcher orbited. That brought the count to nineteen terrestrial-type worlds discovered, fourteen with Watchers, out of thirty-seven star systems.

“Life turns up everywhere, I guess,” Ted said. “But it commits suicide just as fast.”

“Ummmm.”

“They’ve got their hands full back there, with the ocean thing. Everything happens at once. They’re not processing the planetary data fast, ’cause this Swarmer stuff is—”

“What stuff?”

“I’ll announce it today. They’re coming ashore. Killing people, somehow.”

Nigel nodded, silent.

They put him into a kind of fuzzy sleepstate for the tests. He ignored them and focused on Ted’s news. It was important to understand this event, there was a clue buried somewhere. But the sleep dragged him down.

Seven

When he woke up he was dead.

Utter blackness, total silence. Nothing.

No smells. There should be the clean, efficient scent of a medical center.

No background rustle of steps. No drone of air conditioning, no distant murmur of conversations, no jangle of a telephone.

He could not feel any press of his own weight. No cold table or starched sheets rubbed his skin.

They had disconnected all his external nerves.

He felt a rush of fear. Loss of senses. To do that required finding the major nerves as they wound up through the spine. Then a medical tech had to splice them out of the tangled knot at the back of the neck. Delicate work.

They were preparing him for the Sleepslots. Shutting him down this far meant he was going into semipermanent storage. Which meant he had failed the medmon exam, and badly.

But they never slotted you without telling you. Even critically ill people got to say good-bye, finish up details, prepare themselves if at all possible.

Which meant Ted had lied. The smooth casual manner, bringing Carlos along to deflect Nigel’s attention onto the other man—yes, that was his style. Avoid confrontation, then act decisively. With Walmsley’s Rule disproved, his medical deception uncovered … a good time to swat Nigel’s gadfly, bothersome buzzing.

The medmon had probably turned up some incriminating information, but that was certainly not enough to slot him without warning. No, it had to be a pretext— one he could contest only years later, Earthside.

He fought the rising confusion in his mind. He had to explore this, think.

Was he fully dead? He waited, letting his fear wash away.

Concentrate. Think of quietness, stillness …

Yes. There.

He felt a weak, regular thump that might be his heart.

Behind that, as though far away, came a slow, faint fluttering of lungs.

That was all. The body’s internal nerves were thinly spread, he knew. They gave only vague, blunt senses. But there was enough to tell him that the basic functions were still plodding on.

There was a dim pressure that might be his bladder. He could pick up nothing specific from legs or arms.

He tried to move his head. Nothing. No feedback.

Open an eye? Only blackness.

Legs—he tried both, hoping that only the sensations were gone. He might be able to detect a leg moving by the change in pressure somewhere in his body.

No response. But if he could sense his bladder, he should have gotten something back from the shifting weight of a leg.

That meant his lower motor control was shut off.

Panic rose in him. It was a cold, brittle sensation. Normally this strong an emotion would bring deeper breathing, a heavier heartbeat, flexing muscles, a tingling urgency. He felt none of that. There was only a swirl of conflicting thoughts, a jittery forking in his mind like summer lightning. This was what it was like to be an analytical thing, a machine, a moving matrix of calculation, without chemical or glandular ties.

They weren’t finished, or else he’d never have come awake again. Some technician had screwed up. Shut off a nerve center somewhere, using pinpoint interrupters, perhaps pinching one filament too many.

They worked at the big junction between brain and spinal cord, down at the base of the skull. It was like a big cable back there, and the techs found their way by feedback analysis. It was easy to get the microscopic nerve fibers mixed up. If the tech was working fast, looking forward to coffee break, he could reactivate the conscious cerebral functions and not notice it on the scope until later.

He had to do something.

The strange, cold panic seized him again. Adrenaline, left over from some earlier, deep physiological response? He was afraid now, but there was no answering chemical symphony of the body. His gland subsystems were shut down.

There was no way to tell how rapidly time passed. He counted heartbeats, but his pulse rate depended on so many factors—

Okay, then—how long did he have? He knew it took hours to shut down a nervous system, damp the lymphatic zones, leach the blood of residues. Hours. And the technicians would leave a lot of the job on automatic.

He noticed a faint background sensation of chill. It seemed to spread as he paid attention to it, filling his body, bringing a pleasant, mild quiet … a drifting … a slow slide toward sleep …

Deep within him, something said no.

He willed himself to think in the blackness and the creeping cold. The technicians always left a pathway to the outside, so if something went wrong the patient could signal. It was a precaution to take care of situations like this.

Eyebrows? He tried them, felt nothing.

Mouth? The same.

He made himself think of the steps necessary to form a word. Constrict the throat. Force air out at a faster rate. Move the tongue and lips.

Nothing. No faint hum echoing in his sinus cavities to tell him that muscles worked, that breath strummed his vocal cords.

The easiest slotting method was to simply shut down a whole section of the body. That must be what was happening. Right. His head was out, legs out. Feet gone, too. And genitals, he thought wryly, weren’t under conscious control even at the best of times.

Arms, then. He tried the left. No answering shift of internal pressures. But how big would the effect be? He might be waving his hand straight up in the air, and never know it.

Try the right. Again, no way to tell if …

No; wait. A diffuse sense of something …”

Try to remember which muscles to move. He had gone through life with instant feedback from every fiber, anchoring him in his body, every gesture suggesting the next. Now he had to analyze precisely.

How did he make his arm rise? Muscles contracted to pull on one side of the arm and shoulder. Others relaxed to let the arm swing. He tried it.

Was there an answering weight? Faint, too faint. Maybe his imagination.

The right arm could be jutting up, and he wouldn’t know it. The attendants would see it, though, and patch into him, ask what was going on … unless they weren’t around. Unless they had gone off for coffee, leaving the sagging old body to stage down gradually into longterm stasis, with the medmon checking to be sure nothing failed in the ancient carcass …

Suppose the arm worked. Even if somebody saw it, was that what he wanted? If they turned his head back on, what would he do? Demand his rights? Ted had undoubtedly disposed of that issue by now. The attendants were certainly under orders to slide him into a slot, no matter what he said. For his own good, y’know.

Despairing, he stopped his concentration, willed the muscles to go suddenly slack.

And was rewarded with an answering thump.

It had hit the table. It bloody well worked.

He waited. Nothing came to him in the blackness. No attendant came tapping in to correct the mistake.

He was probably alone. Where?

Not already in a slot, or else he wouldn’t be able to think clearly. On a medmon slab, then.

He tried to remember the arrangement. The access terminals were on both sides, mirroring the body. So maybe, if it stretched, the right hand could reach half the input switchings.

He concentrated and brought the arm up again. The hand probably worked; it would’ve been too much trouble to disconnect it while the arm stayed live. Remembering carefully, he lowered the arm, rotating it—

A thump. Someone approaching? No, too close. The arm had fallen.

Balance was going to be hard. He practiced rotating the arm without raising it. No way to know if he was successful, but some moves seemed correct, familiar, while others did not. He worked without feedback, trying to summon up the exact sensation of turning the arm. Dipping it to the side, over the edge. Working the fingers.

He stopped. If he hit the wrong control he could turn off the arm. Without external nerves, there was no way to tell if he was doing the right thing.

Pure gamble. If he had been able to, Nigel would have shrugged. What the hell.

He stabbed with straightened fingers. Nothing.

He fumbled and somehow knew through dull patterns that his fingers were striking the side of the slab. The knowledge came from below, some kind of holistic sensation from the thin nerve nets deep inside him. The body could not be wholly cut up into pieces; information spread, and the mute kidneys and liver and intestines knew in some dim way what went on outside.

A wan answering pressure told him that his fingers had closed on something, were squeezing it. He made the fingers turn.

Nothing happened. Not a knob, then. A button?

He stabbed down. In his sinus cavities he felt slight jolts. He must be smacking the slab hard, to do that. With no feedback there was no way to judge force. He stabbed; a jolt. Again. Again—

A cold tremor ran up his right calf. Pain flooded in. His leg was in spasm. It jerked on the slab, striking the medmon. The sudden rush of sensations startled him. In the heady surge he could hardly tell pain from pleasure.

The leg banged on the slab like a crazed animal. His autonomic system was trying to maintain body temperature by muscle spasms, sucking the energy out of the sugar left in the tissues. A standard reaction; that was one reason why he was shut down.

But he had activated a neural web, that was the point. He stabbed blindly with his fingers again.

A welling coldness in his midsection. Again.

More cold, now in the right foot. Again.

A prickly sensation on his lips, on his cheeks. But not full senses; he could not feel his chest or arms. He started to press another button and then stopped, thinking.

So far he had been lucky. He was opening the sensory nets. Most of his right side was transmitting external data. His leg was jerking less now as he brought it under control.

But if he hit the shutdown button for his right arm next, he was finished. He would lie there helpless until the technicians came back.

Nigel worked the arm back onto the slab. He made it shift awkwardly across his chest. His motor control must extend into his upper chest and shoulders to let him do this, but without any input from there he did not know how much he could make work.

He willed the muscles to lurch to the left. A strange impression of tilting came into him. A tension somewhere. Muscles straining, locked, clenched and reaching, a stretching—More—

A warm hardness on his cheek. His nose pressed against it but he had no sense of smell. The slab top. He had rolled himself partway over.

He felt a gathering, diffuse weariness. The arm muscles were broadcasting to the surrounding body their agony, fed by the buildup of exhausted sugar-bearing molecules.

No time to rest. The muscles would just have to keep working. He willed the arm to reach over the left side of the slab. He could feel nothing, but now he could make no fatal mistake.

He punched down at random, searching. A spike of pain shot through his left side. Behind it came biting cold. Slabs of muscle began shaking violently, sending rippling pain through his left side.

He stabbed down with fingers again. Light poured in on him. He had hit the optical nerve net. A gaudy, rich redness. He realized his eyes were still closed. He opened them. Yellow flooded in. He closed them against the glare and punched down again.

The crisp, chill hospital smell. Another stab.

Sound washed over him. A mechanical clanking, a distant buzz, the whir of air circulators. No voices.

He squinted. He was lying on a white slab, staring up at fluorescent lights. Now that he could see, he got back the rest of his nets quickly.

He reached up toward his neck—and his hand went the other way. He stopped it, moved the fingers tentatively. His arm was coming from above his head, reaching down … but that was impossible. He moved the other arm. It came into his vision the same way, from above.

Something was wrong with him. He closed his eyes. What could make …?

He rolled over partway and looked around the medmon bay. The sign on the door leaped out at him. It was upside down. He reached out, clutched the edge of the slab. It was upside down, too.

That was it. When the eye took light and cast it on the retina, ordinary optics inverted the image. The retinal nerves filtered that signal and set it upright for the brain.

So the med tech had screwed that up, too. The retinal nerves weren’t working right. That might be easy to fix, just move a fine-point fiber junction a fraction of a millimeter. But Nigel couldn’t, didn’t know how. He would have to manage.

Nigel began to fumble with the thicket of leads that snaked over his body. It was easier if he didn’t look at what he was doing. He had to carefully disconnect the tap-ins at nerve nexus points. The big knot of them at the nape of his neck was hard to detach. It jerked free.

He felt a hot, diffuse pain from the region, spreading up into his skull. The nerves were exposed, sending scattershot impressions through the area, provoking spasms in the muscles.

He rolled over and studied the work table next to the slab. It was a jumble of connectors, microelectronics, and coils of nearly invisible wires. There was a patch that looked the right shape. He reached out for it and missed. His brain saw his arm moving up and corrected, always in the wrong direction.

It took three tries before he could override his own coordination. He snagged the patch and nearly dropped it. Carefully he brought it to his head. The floppy oval of wires fitted over the gaping hole at the back of his neck. He fiddled with it until it slid—snick—into place. The pain tapered off.

He sat up. Spasms shot through him. He gasped. Pain blossomed with every move. But he felt fully awake and deeply angry. He was in a deserted medical bay.

He studied the liquid-optical readouts on his medical monitor. The program profile was mostly numbers. He couldn’t tilt his head far enough over to read the upside-down numbers. He worked on reading them directly. After a moment it wasn’t so hard. The winking digital program profile told him that his shutdown was scheduled to take another fifty-seven minutes.

He got to his feet, shaky and light-headed. It was good to have his own chemistry back. He was tempted to rest for a moment and let the endless river of sensations wash over him. Even this sterile room of barren white light was lurid, packed with details, smells, sensations. He had never loved life so much.

But he wasn’t safe. Coffee breaks didn’t last forever. He would have to find his clothes, get out—

He started for a side door. The first few steps taught him to keep his head tilted down, toward his feet. He had to move his eyes the opposite way, though, to shift his vision. He bumped into the medmon and nearly fell over a desk. After a moment he could navigate around things. He went carefully, feeling each twinge of lancing pain as his left side protested. His right arm ached and trembled from spasm.

He reached the door, opened it slightly, peered through. The equipment beyond was hard to recognize upside down. Clothes on pegs jutted straight up. Chairs clung to the ceiling. He fought down a sense of vertigo. His eyes were telling his brain that he was standing on the ceiling, and somewhere inside him alarm systems clamored to be heard.

There were open drawers of surgical instruments, a wash up station, electronics gear. A prep room. He eased through.

He found his clothes hanging in a locker, defying gravity. It was easier to put them on if he closed his eyes, going by feel alone. Too bad he couldn’t walk that way.

Eight

Crisp, cycled air cut in his throat. Down the bright claustrocorridors he went, brushing by the few who passed in this narrow side passage, their faces flashing before him. He reached an obscure storage vault and slipped inside, feeling strangely exhilarated. He tapped his fingernail and tweaked a nodule by his ear. Ship-comm:

suggest that in light of the news Earthside I go through these minor items of collective business quickly

His thumbnail, knowing he had come on line late, flashed an outline of the shipwide congress Ted had called. A flashing red dot showed they were still among the first Items of Business.

matter of Nigel Walmsley the facts of which are given in your update. He has shown an attitude in the past which I can only characterize as noncommunal. He weasled by several regs during his ground duty at Isis. He has been nonconstructive in the analysis net. All these are disagreeable features of a man I know many of us revere for his early role in the discovery of the Marginis wreck. However it has come to my attention—the facts are laid out and witnessed in your summaries—that he has been systematically deceiving the medical teams about his declining health. He did this from a misguided sense

Nigel studied the summary, including a detailed analysis of his reaction to the analysis net, to Carlos, to suggestions that he give up his jobs. Quite factual. He returned to the corridor and began to walk, listening, watching the faces that passed.

steady buildup of sociopathic responses, well documented by the therapists

Men and women slid by. They were selected for their compatability, their ease with each other, for who else could endure the long compression between the stars? No sun hung here behind a veiled sky, no sudden rains or dark storms stirred the spirit. Only the slow steady strum of canned breezes, ripples of pressure, a programmed replication of distant Earth. They shared these mild rhythms, smooth faces free of madmen and Mozart, no leaping soaring flying dying. They turned away from the silent steady abyss outside, the long pressing silence that enclosed them, the emptiness that defined their place.

in the midst of studying this constellation of acommunal responses, many of them no doubt the product of his physical deterioration, the therapists also detected the medical deception

So Ted had conned him into the therapy, knowing it would help build a file on him, suspecting it would turn up a glitch in the medical profile. Quite clever.

and as many of you know he has held on in hopes of proving his personal and rather eccentric model of the situation humanity faces

Nigel walked as quickly as he could toward the big bowl auditorium where the bulk of Lancer’s crew would be assembled. He would confront Ted there, have it out.

but that hope has vanished and it would be a kindness for him to not let him wither out here, getting mean and withdrawing even more from the fellowship of his

Quite shrewd of Ted to slip it in before a big discussion of Earthside news, when everyone was champing at the bit to hear.

so though the medical situation is not really bad I still recommend

He hurried. Ahead two ship’s officers leaned against a bulkhead. Nigel slowed. They might not know anything, but then again—He veered down a roundabout route. And hurried.

he be put into the Sleepslots until we make Earthside. I’m sure it would be more poetic if he died out here but simple humanity

He was getting close. There would be discussion and that would give him time.

so I throw it open to discussion before we take up the Earthside

He was within sight of the auditorium doors when three women from the senior crew saw him.

his absence from this gathering of his fellows speaks volumes about his attitudes and, yes, I think his own shame at his childish deception he has

The women started toward him. He backed away and walked rapidly toward a drop tube.

well it appears no one wishes to counter my recommendation and therefore

Nikka! Why hadn’t she said anything argued—

pass on to the fresh news of a Swarmer offensive against all mainlands and indications of their concerted biological campaign

Whatever she thought of him, surely the thing with Carlos could not have made her go along with this. Nigel refused to think otherwise. He fell three decks at maximum speed in the drop tube. He came out next to a work gang carrying a thruster housing and fell in behind them unnoticed. When the women came out of the tube he was bent over, pretending to adjust the magnetic sled’s balance. He ducked into a prep-up room and waited. Then he doubled back on his trail. The women were gone.

as well as, we are told, continuing provocative allegations about cooperation—yes, I know this is hard to believe—between the Chinese and some elements of the Swarmers

He sent a query to their flat, but it answered that no one was home. He kept moving. If she was not at the meeting, then—Of course.

and since the newest information on this biological transformation of the enemy may tie into or provide a clue about their planetary origins, I think we should move immediately to review this data in the light of

He approached the medical complex quietly, carefully. He found Nikka arguing with an administrator. He waited until she looked around in exasperation, caught her eye, and signaled for silence. She said nothing until they were out of sight of the big med center archway.

“I came to get you! What took you so long? Ted has called a—”

“I know.” He explained in rapid, clipped sentences, feeling a sure anger come welling up. “And there’s no point in barging in there now. That lot won’t give me a hearing.”

“You’ve got to.”

“Ted hasn’t the power of a captain, but the consensus is clearly with him. And consensus, luv, is everything.”

“In a free discussion—”

“Right you are. But getting it free, there’s the rub. Ol’ Ted’s been quite pissed at me for some time, I gather. He’s a very smart man.”

“He is unprincipled, short—”

“Has it occurred to you that all I’m resisting is a soft ride home?”

“It’s more than that. This is, well, your life.”

“Was.”

“It still can be.”

“Hard to see how to beat him.” He took her head in his hands and kissed her on the forehead with a wan, distant affection. He felt strange energies building in him, a resolve he had thought lost.

“We can go home, refuse to let them in. Request time on the group net to discuss your case.”

“There’s plenty of evidence for Ted’s position.”

“Empty facts.”

He sagged against a bulkhead. Under pressure he had been dealing adequately with the inverted vision, but the strain was beginning to tell. Turning his head rapidly brought on nausea. Upside down, people’s expressions were alarming, grotesque, usually impossible to decipher.

“Y’know, I am rather a bastard. Surely it’s not escaped your notice.”

Nikka grinned and looked determined. “They don’t—”

“Wait,” Nigel held up a palm. “Listen. Shipcomm.”

—I’ve just been handed an emergency signal from Earthside. I’ll read it: “Nuclear weapons were used today in a military confrontation off the coast of China. The combatants are China, the USSR and USA, as well as smaller fleet forces of Japan and Brazil. Damage is unknown. Satellite recons shows the engagement is continuing and spreading, with apparently all major forces engaged. Cause is unknown. May have been triggered by attempt to inhibit Swarmer landings on sea coasts. Will advise shortly on possible implications for space communications net.” Well, I don’t know what to say—

Nigel smacked his fist against the bulkhead. “That’s it.”

“Wh-what?”

“They’ve bitten into the apple. Not much good our information’ll do ’em now.”

“This, this may be a mistake—”

“No mistake. All quite predictable, I expect. If any of us had been half swift …” He sighed.

“Well …” She blinked, confused. “Let’s, let’s go home. We can forget about our problems …”

He nodded grimly, putting his arms on her shoulders, peering into her lined, coppery face. “But don’t you see? That message is years old! We can’t influence events there. We’re on our own.”

“Well, yes, but …”

“Whatever happens, ol’ friend Ted will still carry out his precious policy. So we might as well do as we like, too. Earth’s another issue.”

“I, I don’t know … everything’s … so fast.”

“Look, it’ll be awhile before we learn more from Earth. The big satellite transmitters have got other things to do than beam to us.”

“Yes, I suppose …”

“So Ted’s going to go on with business. And so should we.”

“Let’s go home.”

“Right. For a bit. But there’s really only one place left for us now, luv.”

Nine

They crouched together in the freight elevator, hemmed in by crates.

“Are you all right? Your eyes?” Nikka asked.

“I think I’m integrating the change. Resting helped.”

“I’ve heard something about that medtech error. It’s a common one, easy to make.”

Nigel chuckled. “Gratifying to know.”

“I don’t think I can fix it.”

“Not without microsurgery tools, no.”

“I remember that the brain adjusts, though. Eventually you’ll see upright images.”

“How long?”

“A few days.”

“Um. I say, it seems that long since I went merrily off with smiling Ted. How long was I gone?”

“Half a day,” Nikka said. “They came and told me. I argued with Ted but he was busy. Carlos was there.”

“What was his reaction?”

“Sad. He went down to Pucks on the morning shuttle, just after you left. Reporting for his new job. A chance to put his training into action. I think he wants to—”

“Wash his hands of it all. Quite so. There’s still you, waiting here, after he’s done.”

“Nigel, that’s not fair.”

“Who said I was fair? Carlos is confused, but he’s not dumb.”

“Can’t we forget that? With all that’s happening—”

“No, we can’t. Might have to use it.” He slapped the portable medfilter resting between them. The elevator whine reverberated in the sheet-metal floor. It had taken over an hour for Nikka to strip Nigel’s jury-rigged device down to essentials, and then wedge it into a carrying case. Their apartment was no longer a candidate for House Beautiful.

He hoped the filter would still work. It was touch and go getting out of the apartment, too—Ted hadn’t put guards on their door, but Nigel was sure someone would lay hand on him if he showed his face in public.

“You’re going to have to keep the dockmen busy while I get this on,” he said.

She nodded. “Our chances aren’t good.”

“So what? Haven’t any choices left. Ted will nab us in hours if we stay.”

The elevator groaned to a stop in near-zero gravity. The door lurched open, revealing the aft ship’s lock. No one in view.

“I’ll nip across,” Nigel said. He slipped into the darkness of the shuttle’s hold. Nikka drew a deep breath and went in search of the crew.

Pocks was gunmetal gray. Long white filaments stretched across it, rays of debris from ancient meteors. Crusts of rock blotched the dirty purple ice fields.

Nigel could feel the chill through his servo’d suit. He moved carefully across the crumpled plain. Nikka pointed to the spherical submarine berthed at the edge of an orange-green lake. “That’s where the log says Carlos is on duty.”

Nigel picked up the pace. Between them they carried the portable medfilter.

They began to puff with the effort. Boots crunched on the purple ice. Nigel stepped up his opticals to see what the surface looked like unaugmented. It was barren, lit by an angry red dot. High up he caught the gliding gray smudge of the Watcher. The Lancer analysis net had stopped calling the moonlet by that name, but he refused to. Was there a shifting glimmer where the weak sun struck the ancient hull? He blinked. Perhaps a facet catching the light. Or more probably, he reminded himself, a trick of his eyes. He was catching, seeing better, but there were still illusions, distortions.

They were five hundred meters from the descent craft. As yet no one had tried to stop them. There had been questioning looks from the shuttle crew, but Nikka had made up some apparently plausible story. They had counted on the fact that aboard Lancer there were no security measures, any more than there were guards on an ordinary naval vessel. But once Landon and that lot worked out where they must have gone—

“Hey!” Nigel stopped dead still, startled by the shout. He turned. No one behind them. It came from a figure trotting toward them from the submersible. His helmet overlay winked a color-coded ID: Carlos.

“What’s this about you coming down? Nigel shouldn’t be out—”

“Explain inside,” Nikka said roughly, and pushed Carlos back toward the submersible. “Quick!”

Nigel panted hard beneath the black sky. It was difficult going and something about it satisfied him. He did not ask Carlos to help.

Bubbles bulged and popped on the lake and then it went glassy and smooth again beneath the ember glow of Ross 128. Near the lake a sulfurous yellow muck sucked at their boots. “Outflow,” Carlos said. “Like a tidal flat, only worse. The lake’s all liquid ammonia, but every few days it belches. Potassium salts, sulfur, have to wash it off at the lock—”

Nikka waved him to be silent. She glanced behind them; no one following. Nigel felt secure; she looked as though she could handle anyone.

It took over ten minutes to shuck their suits and get to the cranny where Carlos slept. He turned on them, blocking the doorway, and said, “Now let’s hear it. After I got your message I checked the shuttle manifest. You two weren’t on it.”

“Last-minute holiday,” Nigel said. “Simply caught the first thing out of town.”

Nikka smiled tolerantly. “You can tell when things are desperate,” she said. “He always makes a joke.”

“That’s what jokes are for,” Nigel said, stretching out on Carlos’ bunk. He rested while Nikka sketched in the jumble of events. He enjoyed hearing it all played back from another perspective. It was particularly pleasant to relax utterly and let someone else take charge, as Nikka had been doing ever since they nonchalantly walked aboard the shuttle. She had done marvelously well at persuading the pilot. However this might come out— and he had few delusions on that score—it was delicious to be moving and acting again. The worst part of age was the feeling of helplessness, of being disengaged from life. The middle-aged treated the old with the same serenely contemptuous condescension they used for children. That unthinking attitude was what lay behind Ted’s actions.

“You’re stupid,” Carlos said bluntly. “Stupid. Whatever you think Landon was doing, you’re building a great case for him by—”

“Shove off that, eh? If we’d stayed on Lancer we’d be swimming in a slot by now.” Nigel stretched lazily, though he did not feel tired.

“You, maybe. Not her.”

“We’re together,” Nikka said simply.

“Not necessarily,” Carlos said carefully.

“I would protest Nigel going into the Slots. If I failed to get him revived, I would follow. So that we will lose no time together.”

“I don’t think you mean that,” Carlos said. “You still have work to do here. And you and I, we need each other too, you have to—”

“We’ll get bugger-all done if we recycle our stale statements while the clock runs,” Nigel said forcefully. “I need shelter, Carlos. That’s the nub of it. Either you give it to me or you don’t.”

Nigel watched conflicting emotions in the man’s face. He’d done the classic male-challenge thing, of course—interrupt Carlos, and abruptly shift the subject, to boot. Not wise, generally. But Carlos was a deeply conflicted person, uncertain how to respond to those signals. This was precisely what Nigel had hoped: that the deeply embedded responses of each sex would get tangled, and in his confusion Carlos would yield. Nigel recalled Blake’s notion of the ideal human: Male and female somehow blended in the same body, anima and animus united, entwined. He wished the poet could be here to see the result. Dreams were best when not made concrete.

Carlos dodged. “I can’t do anything. In a few minutes somebody’ll—”

“I’ve filed a formal complaint. Put it into shipcomm from our apartment. That has to be heard—even Ted can’t block that.”

“By the rules,” Nikka added, “it must go on open net for twelve hours. He requested a mandatory vote, so people can’t ignore it.”

Carlos nodded. “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

“Don’t be thick. If Ted can pop me back in the soup before the vote’s resolved, nobody’ll take the small risk of reviving me unnecessarily. Possession’s nine-tenths of the game here.”

Nikka asked thoughtfully, “You truly think he would?”

“More’s the fool he, if he doesn’t. Ted sees me as a kernel for opposition forces. Why not eliminate me? This expedition’s turning out stale as old beer. He wants something dramatic to pin his name on, is my guess.”

Carlos frowned. “Like what?”

“It may’ve occurred to him that Lancer’s a damn ferocious weapon.”

“How?” Carlos seemed to be regaining his equilibrium. He stood up, clearly feeling his heft and strength in comparison with these other two. “Look, you’re sounding more and more—”

Carlos! They with you?

The voice came over general audio, filling the small cabin. “Well, it didn’t take them long,” Nikka said.

“He’s got you,” Carlos said.

“Depends,” Nigel said. “Everybody’s fretting about Earthside, granted—that gives him freedom of maneuver with us. No one’ll give a frap if we—”

Carlos! Then, fainter, Where in hell is he? I thought you saw him go in there with the two of them.

“I’ve got to answer him,” Carlos said.

Nigel nodded. He went to a spot mike and tuned it in. “We hear you.”

Nigel? Just what the hell you think you’re—

“Fairly obvious, I should think.”

Don’t give me that arched-eyebrow shit. You left medical without a release, you ignored the directive approved by shipwide congress, then you—

“Please, no boring list of sins.”

The council orders you to march over to HQ there and—

“Give it a rest,” Nigel said sourly.

You sneaky bastard! You slipped by once but damned if we’ll let you take up any more of our time now, when—

“Stop playing to the gallery, can’t you?”

Stop playing! Yeah, that’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got men all around that submersible. They’re coming in after you unless you pop that hatch and walk out. You’re just a sick old man, and we don’t want to be rough. But this is a crisis. You’ve got three minutes.

Nigel switched off his personal transmitter. “Sounds earnest.”

“Damn right he is,” Carlos said. “Let’s go. There’s no way out.”

Nigel said hurriedly, “Course there is. Take us down.”

“Into the vent?”

“Right. You’re set to do a bit of snagging soon anyway—the Task Schedule says so.”

“My, my copilot’s not on board.”

“We won’t be down long,” Nikka said reasonably. “Those ones outside will back off fast when you rev up.”

“But I …” Carlos looked from one to the other.

Nigel waited, knowing this was the crucial moment. The plan he’d worked out on the way down hung on what Carlos would do. Nigel was not above using the man’s devotion to Nikka, either. Carlotta had worked her way into this strange triangle and then changed the vectors abruptly. So be it; each coin had two faces.

“I need time to think. Nikka, do you really want this?” The man bent down, earnestly peering into her eyes.

“There isn’t time for that,” Nigel said rapidly.

“Look, this is a pretty serious violation of regs. You might—”

“Decide,” Nikka said. “We’ve had troubles, but we three are still together. Or are we?” Nigel’s heart swelled at the clear, even-tempered way she said it. Perhaps her perception of Carlos was coming around to his. A bit late, but …

Carlos straightened. “Okay. Look, I can say I had good personal reasons. And I do. We have things between us, things I haven’t been able to …” His words trickled away. Then he said grimly, “Damned if I’m going to let Ted muscle me around, either.”

Nikka embraced Carlos. Nigel put a hand on his shoulder. Carlos said gruffly, “Prob’ly get us killed, I bet”