The Annals of the Heechee

15 SCARED RATS RUNNING

When a stored personality in gigabit space has had a terrible shock, you don’t give him a stiff drink and a place to lie down, but sometimes it helps if you pretend you do.

“You should rest for a moment, Robin,” said Albert.

“Let me make comfortable, dove-heart,” murmured Essie, and a moment later I was comfortable indeed. Essie made it so. I was lying in a (metaphorical) hammock on the (unreal) lanai outside my (datastored) home overlooking the Tappan Sea, with dear Portable-Essie hovering over me and pressing a (nonexistent) drink in my hand. It was an icy margarita with just enough salt on the rim of the glass, and it tasted quite as good as if it had been real.

I was the center of attention.

Essie was sitting next to the hammock, stroking my hair lovingly and looking worried. Albert was seated on the edge of a chaise longue, scratching his ear meditatively with the stem of his pipe as he watched my face. That was all homely and familiar enough, but there were other people there. I wasn’t surprised to see Julio Cassata, who was pacing up and down on the grass just below the steps, but stopping at the end of each patrol to look searchingly in my direction. Even Alicia Lo, sitting quietly on a rocker at the edge of the lanai, was no surprise; but there was someone else there.

The someone was a Heechee.

I was not ready for surprises. I sat up and said, “What the hell?” I didn’t say it meanly. If anything, I think I said it beseechingly.

Essie took it in the right way. “I don’t know if you remember Double-Bond,” she said. She was right. I didn’t. “He was a Heechee representative to JAWS,” Essie added, and vaguely I did remember. There had been a Heechee or two there, and, yes, one of them had been an Ancient Ancestor, like this one, and had had the sparse head-fuzz and deep-set eyes of age, like this one.

“I’m pleased to see you again,” I said. I gulped the last of the tequila and looked around. And then I said again, “What the helP?” But this time it was in a quite different tone, because I had looked past the simulated, friendly Tappan Sea surround. I expected to find that we were in the True Love, and we were.

But the screen was showing only mottled gray. When I looked through the True Love’s skin sensors, I saw we were in faster-than-light travel. When I peered at the retrolog, I saw the JAWS satellites dwindling behind us. JAWS looked different to me in some way. I wasn’t sure what, and didn’t take the time to figure it out. What was more important was what True Love was doing. We were en route somewhere, and I had not expected that at all.

“Where are we going?” I cried.

Albert coughed. “There were some developments while you were working through your doppel,” he said.

“Didn’t dare disturb your concentration,” Essie said worriedly. “Sorry about that. But is all right, honest, dearest Robin, are safe and sound in True Love, as you see.”

“You didn’t answer my question!”

She laid the hand that had been stroking my hair alongside my cheek. It felt warm and caring. “We go to source,” she said soberly. “To kugelblitz. To home of Foe, fast as we can.”

I let myself return to the pleasant Tappan Sea surround, feeling very disoriented. Essie had another margarita ready, and I reached out for it automatically. I held it in my hand, trying to figure out what was happening. We had left JAWS.

Then I remembered what was different about the way the JAWS satellites had looked when we departed. “The fleet is gone!” I cried.

“Exactly,” said Albert. “We are following them.”

“Against orders,” added Julio Cassata.

“Cannot give orders to us!” snapped Essie.

“They can give orders to me,” said Cassata, “and we’re going against them. The fleet movement is a military operation, after all.”

“Military!” I stared at the man, wondering if it was at all possible that he meant what I thought he meant. He shrugged. I translated the shrug easily enough; it was, yes, that was indeed what he meant.

“This is crazy!” I shouted.

He shrugged again. “But—” I said. “But—But I wasn’t ready to go on a long trip just now!”

Essie leaned over and kissed me. “Dear Robin,” she said, “is no choice, after all. Is there? JAWS fleet is not to be trusted by itself. Who knows what idiocy they may try?”

“But—But back on Wrinkle Rock—”

She said lovingly, “Is nothing on Wrinkle Rock for you anymore, dear Robin. Farewells are said. After all, party is now over.”