The Spheres of Heaven

35: THE ONLY ANSWER

Chan had thought that the most difficult part of his return would be the first two minutes. He was wrong.

From the moment that Deb had appeared at the Hero’s Return to tell the others that she had been forced to leave the land, everyone had naturally been desperate to know what was happening ashore. They wanted to hear about Chan’s meeting with the Mallies. They wanted information , and compared with that his emotions or feelings were a very low priority.

He gave a lengthy but highly edited version of events after Deb had been forced to leave, concentrating on what he had seen of the Malacostracans and confirming their confidence that they could open the Link entry point at will and fly their ships through it. He described his meeting with The One, but said nothing of the deal that he had made.

“Actually, we spent most of the time just trying to communicate with each other,” he said. “The Angel is right about Friday Indigo, he’s been taken over totally by the Mallies. But talking to them, even with him helping, is hard work. I still don’t know if there’s any way that we can work with them to get ourselves through the Link and home. I have to go back there first thing in the morning, and try again.”

Chan was uncomfortably aware of Gressel. The Angel was sitting in a well-lit corner, fronds unmoving. It was said that an Angel could simulate human thought patterns so well that lying to one of them was impossible. But Gressel remained silent.

“What about Chrissie and Tarbush?” Danny Casement asked. “Deb said they escaped. Are they still free?”

“So far as I know.” Chan was glad to switch to something he could talk about freely. “I tried to call them just before I came back here, but they didn’t reply. The land surface is a lot more complex and jagged than it looks on the satellite images. They could be hidden away in a thousand places.”

“Out of radio contact, perhaps?” Deb said.

She was looking at Chan very strangely. Maybe it was his own feeling of guilt at what he was concealing from her and the others. But if he told anyone his idea, anyone at all, they would find a reason why he shouldn’t go through with it.

“More likely Chris and Tarb were away from their suits for a while,” he said. “They must know we’re looking for them, and they’re far too smart to put themselves permanently in a place where signals can’t reach. One good thing, they have plenty of supplies. I passed our first camp on the way to the sea, and they’d raided it long before I got there.”

He stared around at the little circle of weary faces. Not one had slept the night before, and it was doubtful if they had managed to rest while he was gone. “You all look as tired as I am. I’m also starving. If nobody objects, I’d like a meal and a nap. After that I’ll be happy to answer as many new questions as you can dream up.”

Tully O’Toole nodded and said, “Go, Chan man, you need to feed.” He looked like a human wreck who had not eaten for months, a gray skeleton in tattered clothes leaning over the back of Elke Siry’s chair; but he seemed cheerful. “Don’t take too long.”

“He’s right,” Dag Korin said. “Go and eat. I’m not so sure about the nap. We have to leave the poor old Hero’s Return as soon as possible. The place won’t be habitable much longer.”

The lights flickered, as though emphasizing his point. Chan nodded and left the control room, heading toward the bow of the ship. He had hoped to be left alone, but he should have known better. Deb followed him into the corridor.

“I haven’t had anything to eat, either,” she said. “If you’re going to have a meal, I thought that we might—”

“Actually, I’m not.” Chan halted. “Not going to eat, I mean. I’m too rushed. And I need some time alone.”

He saw the expression on her face, and went on, “I have to record exactly what the Malacostracans said to me, while it’s still fresh in my mind. It’s difficult to do that when other people are around.”

“I see.” She seemed ready to say more, but instead she turned abruptly and hurried back the way that they had come.

Chan resisted the urge to go after her. He did need time alone, even if it was not for the reason he had given Deb. He needed time to think, and then to create a crucial document. He ducked away into a side chamber, once used as a small-arms supply room but now empty and deserted. Water had seeped in from some unseen crack, leaving the floor slick and treacherous. Two of the three lights were no longer working, and the remaining one glowed faint and feeble.

Chan leaned against the wall, reviewed what he intended to do, and made a decision. He dared not tell Deb his plan, much as he would like to; and because of that he could not see her again before he left the Hero’s Return. Which meant that he would not see her again, ever.

The thought froze his soul. He left the little armory and moved along the length of the ship until he came to the forward observation chamber. In another life, the view from here had been of stars and glowing gas clouds and pinwheeling galaxies. It was from here that he and Elke Siry had watched Ceres fall behind, and he knew that their long journey had begun.

Now Chan saw nothing ahead but the murky waters of Limbo. He said loudly, “Is the computer working in here?”

The audio outlet replied, SERVICE IN THIS LOCATION IS GUARANTEED FOR THE NEXT TWENTY-ONE HOURS, BUT NOT BEYOND.

“That will be more than enough. I want you to record what I say, then make a single printed copy. After I review that document and make changes, I want a single final printed output, sealed in an envelope. No copies.”

THERE IS NO OUTPUT UNIT AT THIS LOCATION. THE NEAREST IS IN ROOM I-293, THIRTY-EIGHT METERS AFT ON THIS LEVEL.

“That will be fine. I’ll pick it up from there. Prepare to record.”

READY FOR INPUT.

Chan took a deep breath. “To General Dag Korin, from Chan Dalton. Some of my actions in the next twenty-four hours will be useless unless they are accompanied by very specific actions on your part. Let me first define my plan. I intend to proceed as follows …”

He spoke, calmly but with numerous pauses, for the next hour. The review and revisions took even longer. By the time that Chan finished he was feeling the hunger that he had pretended to earlier. He was light-headed from lack of food. He also had to solve one other problem: how was the document that he had created to be delivered to Dag Korin, after Chan left the ship and not before? The logical answer was Deb Bisson, but maybe that wasn’t logical at all. Maybe it only reflected his aching need to see her one last time.

When Chan left the observation chamber the interior of the Hero’s Return seemed like the dead ghost ship that it was soon to become. The corridors were empty, and Chan felt reluctant to disturb their silence. He was intending to spend most of the night in a suit, alone in the dark waters of Limbo, waiting for the time when he could again go ashore. He knew it would be unpleasant; but he could face that prospect, and what lay beyond, more easily than the next few hours on the dying ship.

He walked quietly back toward the control room, the sealed envelope held close to his chest. He was passing one of the unused passenger suites, in a location where none of the team had living quarters, when he heard someone talking.

“ … be working. When all the others are so busy …”

It was Bony Rombelle’s voice. Chan realized that the Bun and Liddy Morse had not been on board the Hero’s Return when everyone else chose living quarters. They must have settled here, farther forward.

Liddy — easier to hear then Bony — said, “They’re not all busy, they’re resting. Nothing is going to happen until tomorrow morning. We’ll be resting, too. Afterwards. Don’t you want to?”

“Of course I do! I have, ever since I first met you.”

“Well, then.”

“But to do it now — it seems such a bad time. The ship is disintegrating, and if we reach the shore the Mallies are more likely to kill us than help us. By tomorrow night we could be dead.”

“So this could be our last night. What would you rather be thinking when we go ashore tomorrow: We did what we both wanted to do, and it was absolutely wonderful, and now we can face whatever comes next? Or we passed up our chance last night, and we didn’t do anything, and now maybe we never will?”

“Oh, Liddy. You know what I’d rather …”

Chan moved on. He felt uncomfortable, an unwitting audience to private words that no one else was intended to hear. And yet, oddly enough, it solved his own problem.

He walked on, past the control room, past dark chambers that once contained monstrous weapons systems, past the engine room, past the supercooled nerve center of the failing computer, until at last he came to the quarters that he and Deb Bisson shared.

The final steps were the hardest. He went in, half hoping that Deb would not be there; but she was, lying facedown on the bed. He walked forward, leaned over, and placed his hand on the small of her back.

That was a dangerous thing to do with a weapons master like Deb, who relied for survival on instinctive reaction. It told Chan something when Deb did not move.

He said quietly, “I’m sorry for what I told you after the meeting. I really did need time to myself, but it was to write a letter. This letter. I want you to hold it for me and give it to Dag Korin after I leave the ship.”

Before Chan overheard Bony Rombelle and Liddy Morse’s private conversation, he had intended to stop at that. He would see Deb one last time, ask her to deliver his letter, and leave. Instead he went on, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but what I did was horrible and wrong. I want to say I’m sorry. And I’d like to explain why I did it, and what I must do next. And I want to tell you why.”

She sat up to face him. Looking into her sad brown eyes he found himself telling her everything, in a tide of words that he could not hold back.

As he spoke her face filled with comprehension, then misery, and finally despair. She shook her head.

Chan put his arms around her. “I know. But it is the only possible answer. And I’m the only one who can do it.”

He expected an argument, maybe a denial. Instead she pushed her long dark hair back from her face, lay down again, and said, “Chan, come and hold me.”

“I will.” He leaned forward and felt the room spin about him. How long was it since he had eaten? “I will lie down. But if I could just have something to eat — anything at all.” That would surely be the last straw, the final insult. “Deb, I’m sorry, but if I don’t have food—”

“You stay there and take it easy. I’ll make something for you. And for me, too. I’m famished. I was hungry when I followed you from the meeting, but after you sent me away I couldn’t eat a thing.”

Before Chan could reply she sat up and slipped off the bed in one graceful movement. As he watched her preparing food in the little galley, he was possessed by a sense of longing and loss and vanishing reality. The feeling persisted when Deb lifted loaded plates and glasses and came to sit cross-legged opposite him. The food tasted fine. The wine was as pleasant as ever. Was this how a condemned man savored his final meal, pretending that it was no different from a thousand others?

“Now we can lie down and talk,” Deb said, when they had finished eating. “Don’t bother with your dish, throw it on the floor. Washing-up is over for good on the Hero’s Return.”

Her manner perplexed Chan. He didn’t know how he expected her to react to the news that they would never see each other again, but it certainly wasn’t with this calm certainty. Didn’t she even care? Her earlier words said that she did, but now … He lay back on the bed, while she leaned over him and ran her forefinger along the line of his cheek and down onto his neck.

“You said you needed a nap.” Her voice came from a great distance. “You’ve earned one. So relax and take it easy. Close your eyes.”

Relax? Take it easy? When in a few hours you had to put on your suit and slip for the last time into the alien waters of Limbo, and then take an action for which the Mallies were likely to kill you? When you had found someone again after so long apart, and you were going to lose her forever? It was enough to make a man weep — smile — laugh aloud at the cruelty of fate. But that was too much work; better to drift away.

Chan lay still, very aware of the gentle fingers running along the side of his neck. He wanted to sit up and hold Deb, but his body carried on it the weight of the whole multiverse. Even his eyelids were too heavy. The last thing he saw was Deb’s dark hair, descending on him like the fall of night.

Drugs that produce insensibility rather than death must be calibrated as to dosage. Deb, working quickly and unobtrusively, had been given little chance for precision. She waited for five minutes, monitoring Chan’s pulse and respiration rate.

When she was sure that he was sleeping naturally and in no danger she picked up the sealed envelope. He had asked her to deliver it to Dag Korin. That was exactly what she proposed to do.

The General was in his own quarters, sitting upright in a chair, fully dressed and alert as though expecting visitors. He was sipping a glass of amber liquid.

“Medicinal purposes, my dear,” he said as she entered. “What can I do for you?”

“You said before Chan came back on board that he might write to you when he did, or maybe leave you a message. How did you know?”

“I’m old, Deb Bisson. I’ve seen lots of heroism, public and private. I knew some of the questions Dalton had been asking Dr. Siry, and I thought I knew where they might be leading. So he did write to me?”

“Yes. It’s here.” Deb held out the envelope. “He told me to give it to you after he left.”

“My God.” Korin sat up straighter. “He hasn’t gone, has he?”

“No. He’s asleep.”

“Good. He must have great nerves.”

“Great drugs. My drugs. He’ll be out for a few hours unless I give him a stimulant.” Deb was still holding the envelope out to Korin. “Do you want this, or do you already know what’s inside?”

“I may be old and treacherous, Deb Bisson, but I’m not psychic.” He took the envelope and eyed her shrewdly. “You know what’s in here, don’t you?”

“I do, but not because I looked. Chan told me.”

“And as a reward for that, you gave him a knock-out drop. Hell hath no fury like a woman informed. Well, let’s see what we have here.”

He opened the envelope and read in silence for a few minutes, now and then nodding. Once he glanced up at Deb. “Did he say good-bye to you?”

“He was working up to it. I made him fall asleep before he could.”

“You did the right thing. It’s annoying, you know, when someone who supposedly reports to me takes off with his own plan. In the old days he’d have been clapped in irons. But now I have to think.”

“Do you want me to go and wake Chan, and bring him here?”

“Oh, no. Let the man sleep, he’s earned it. Damn fine report, this, logical and complete and with things in it that I never would have thought of.” The General tapped Chan’s letter. “In fact, with just one or two crucial changes …”

He fell silent, staring at nothing and nodding his head. At last he said to Deb, “This drug that you gave Dalton. What condition will he be in when he wakes up? Groggy, or dopey, or good as new?”

“He’ll wonder where he is for a few minutes. Then he’ll be perfectly normal.”

“Excellent.” Korin gestured to the chair next to him. “Sit down, Deb Bisson, and listen closely. I’ll tell you exactly what we are going to do. And then I have to write a letter of my own.”