Time For The Stars

X RELATIONS

There have been a lot of changes around the Elsie. For one thing we are over the hump now and backing down the other side, decelerating as fast as we boosted; we'll be at Tau Ceti in about six months, ship's time.

But I am getting ahead of myself. It has been about a year, S-time, since I started this, and about twelve years, Earth time, since we left Earth. But forget E-time; it doesn't mean anything. We've been thirteen months in the ship by S-time and a lot has happened. Pat getting married-no, that didn't happen in the ship and it's the wrong place to start.

Maybe the place to start is with another marriage, when Chet Travers married Mei-Ling Jones. It met with wide approval, except on the part of one of the engineers who was sweet on her himself. It caused us freaks and the electron pushers to bury the hatchet to have one of us marry one of them, especially when Commander Frick came down the aisle in the mess room with the bride on his arm, looking as proud and solemn as if she had been his daughter. They were a good match; Chet was not yet thirty and I figure that Mei-Ling is at least twenty-two.

But it resulted in a change in the watch list and Rupe put me on with Prudence Mathews.

I had always liked Pru without paying much attention to her. You had to look twice to know that she was pretty. But she had a way of looking up at you that made you feel important. Up to the time I started standing watches with her I had more or less left the girls alone; I guess I was "being true to Maudie." But by then I was writing this confession story for Doe Devereaux; somehow writing things down gives them finality. I said to myself, "Why not? Tom, old boy, Maudie is as definitely out of your life as if one of you were dead. But life goes on, right here in this bucket of wind."

I didn't do anything drastic; I just enjoyed Pru's company as much as possible... which turned out to be a lot.

I've heard that when the animals came aboard the Ark two by two, Noah separated them port and starboard. The Elsie isn't run that way. Chet and Mei-Ling had found it possible to get well enough acquainted to want to make it permanent. A little less than half of the crew had come aboard as married couples; the rest of us didn't have any obstacles put in our way if we had such things on our minds.

But somehow without its ever showing we were better chaperoned than is usual back dirtside. It didn't seem organized... and yet it must have been. If somebody was saying good night a little too long in a passageway after the lights were dimmed, it would just happen that Uncle Alfred had to get up about then and shuffle down the passageway. Or maybe it would be Mama O'Toole, going to make herself a cup of chocolate "to help her get to sleep."

Or it might be the Captain. I think he had eyes in the hack of his head for everything that went on in the ship. I'm convinced that Mama O'Toole had. Or maybe Unc was actually one of those hypothetical wide-range telepaths but was too polite and too shrewd to let anybody know it.

Or maybe Doe Devereaux had us all so well analyzed those punched cards of his that he always knew which way the rabbit would jump and could send his dogs to head him off. I wouldn't put it past him.

But it was always just enough and not too much. Nobody objected to a kiss or two if somebody wanted to check on the taste; on the other hand we never had any of the scandals that pop up every now and then in almost any community. I'm sure we didn't; you can't keep such things quiet in a ship. But nobody seemed to see a little low-pressure lalligagging.

Certainly Pru and I never did anything that would arouse criticism.

Nevertheless we were taking up more and more of each other's time, both on and off watch. I wasn't serious, not in the sense of thinking about getting married; but I was serious in that it was becoming important. She began to look at me privately and a bit possessively, or maybe our hands would touch in passing over a stack of traffic and we could feel the sparks jump.

I felt fine and alive and I didn't have time to write in these memoirs. I gained four pounds and I certainly wasn't homesick.

Pru and I got in the habit of stopping off and raiding the pantry whenever we came off a night watch together. Mama O'Toole didn't mind; she left it unlocked so that anyone who wanted a snack could find one—she said this was our home, not a jail. Pru and I would make a sandwich, or concoct a creative mess, and eat and talk before we turned in. It didn't matter what we talked about; what mattered was the warm glow we shared.

We came off watch at midnight one night and the mess room was deserted; the poker players had broken up early and there wasn't even a late chess game. Pru and I went into the pantry and were just getting set to grill a yeast-cheese sandwich. The pantry is rather cramped; when Pru turned to switch on the small grill, she brushed against me:

I got a whiff of her nice, clean hair and something like fresh clover or violets. Then I put my arms around her.

She didn't make any fuss. She stopped dead for an instant, then she relaxed.

Girls are nice. They don't have any bones and I think they must be about five degrees warmer than we are, even if fever thermometers don't show it. I put my face down and she put her face up and closed her eyes and everything was wonderful

For maybe half a second she kissed me and I knew she was as much in favor of it as I was, which is as emphatic as I can put it.

Then she had broken out of my arms like a wrestler and was standing pressed against the counter across from me and looking terribly upset. Well, so was I. She wasn't looking at me; she was staring at nothing and seemed to be listening • .. so I knew; it was the expression she wore when she was linked—only she looked terribly unhappy too.

I said, "Pru! What's the matter?"

She did not answer; she simply started to leave. She had taken a couple of steps toward the door when I reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Hey, are you mad at me?"

She twisted away, then seemed to realize that I was still there. "I'm sorry, Tom," she said huskily. "My sister is angry."

I had never met Patience Mathews—and now I hardly wanted to. "Huh? Well, of all the silly ways to behave I—"

"My sister doesn't like you, Tom," she answered firmly, as if that explained everything. "Good night."

"But—"

"Good night, Tom."

Pru was as nice as ever at breakfast but when she passed me the rolls the sparks didn't jump, I wasn't surprised when Rupe reshuffled the watch list that day but I did not ask why. Pru didn't avoid me and she would even dance with me when there was dancing, but the fire was out and neither of us tried to light it again.

A long time later I told Van about it. I got no sympathy.

"Think you're the first one to get your finger mashed in the door? Pru is a sweet little trick, take it from Grandfather van Houten. But when Sir Galahad himself comes riding up on a white charger, he's going to have to check with Patience before he can speak to Pru... and I'll bet you the answer is 'No!' Pru is willing, in her sweet little half-witted way, but Patience won't okay anything more cozy than 'Pease Porridge Hot.'"

"I think it's a shame. Mind you, it doesn't matter to me now. But her sister is going to ruin her life."

"It's her business. Myself, I reached a compromise with my twin years ago—we beat each other's teeth in and after that we cooperated on a businesslike basis. Anyhow, how do you know that Pru isn't doing the same to Patience? Maybe Pru started it."

It didn't sour me on girls, not even on girls who had twin sisters who were mind readers, but after that I enjoyed the company of all of them. But for a while I saw more of Unc. He liked to play dominoes, then when we had finished all even up for the evening he liked to talk about Sugar Pie—and to her, of course. He would look at his big photograph of her and so would I and the three of us would talk, with Unc echoing for both of us. She really was a nice little girl and it was a lot of fun to get to know a little six-year-old girl—it's very quaint what they think about.

One night I was talking with them and looking at her picture, as always, when it occurred to me that time had passed and that Sugar Pie must have changed—they grow up fast at that age. I got a brilliant idea. "Unc, why don't you have Sugar Pie mail a new photograph to Rusty Rhodes? Then he could transmit it to Dusty and Dusty could draw you one as perfect as that one, only it would be up to date, show you what she looks like now, huh? How about it, Sugar Pie? Isn't that a good idea?"

"It isn't necessary."

I was looking at the picture and I nearly popped my fuses. For a moment it wasn't the same picture. Oh, it was the same merry little girl, but she was a little older, she was shy a front tooth, and her hair was different.

And she was alive. Not just a trukolor stereo, but alive. There's a difference. -

But when I blinked it was the same old picture.

I said hoarsely, "Unc, who said, 'It isn't necessary?' You? Or Sugar Pie?"

"Why, Sugar Pie did. I echoed,"

"Yes, Unc... but I didn't hear you; I heard her." Then I told him about the photograph.

He nodded. "Yes, that's the way she looks. She says to tell you that her tooth is coming in, however."

"Unc... there's no way to get around it. For a moment I crowded in on your private wave length." I was feeling shaky.

"I knew. So did Sugar Pie. But you didn't crowd in, son; a friend is always welcome."

I was still trying to soak it in. The implications were more mind-stretching, even, than when Pat and I found out we could do it. But I didn't know what they were yet. "Uh, Uric, do you suppose we could do it again? Sugar Pie?"

"We can try."

But it didn't work... unless I heard her voice as well as Unc's when she said, "Good night, Tommie." I wasn't sure.

After I got to bed I told Pat about it. He was interested after I convinced him that it really had happened. "This is worth digging into, old son. I'd better record it. Doc Mabel will want to kick it around."

("Uh, wait until I check with Uncle Alf.")

"Well, all right. I guess it is his baby... in more ways than one. Speaking of his baby, maybe I should go see her? With two of us at each end it might be easier to make it click again. Where does his niece live?"

("Uh, Johannesburg.")

"Mmm... that's a far stretch down the road, but I'm sure the LRF would send me there if Doc Mabel got interested."

("Probably. But let me talk to Unc.")

But Unc talked to Dr. Devereaux first. They called me in and Doc wanted to try it again at once. He was as near excited as I ever saw him get. I said, "I'm willing, but I doubt if we'll got anywhere; we didn't last night. I think that once was just a fluke."

"Fluke, spook. If it can be done once, it can be done again, We've got to be clever enough to set up the proper conditions." He looked at me. "Any objection to a light dose of hypnosis?"

"Me? Why, no, sir. But I don't hypnotize easily."

"So? According to your record, Dr. Arnault found it not impossible. Just pretend I'm she."

I almost laughed in his face. I look more like Cleopatra than he looks like pretty Dr. Arnault. But I agreed to go along with the gag.

"All either of you will need is a light trance to brush distractions aside and make you receptive."

I don't know what a "light trance" is supposed to feel like. I didn't feel anything and I wasn't asleep.

But I started hearing Sugar Pie again.

I think Dr. Devereaux's interest was purely scientific; any new fact about what makes people tick could rouse him out of his chronic torpor. Uncle Alf suggested that Doc was anxious also to set up a new telepathic circuit, just in case. There was a hint in what Unc said that he realized that he himself would not last forever.

But there was a hint of more than that. Uncle Alf let me know very delicately that, if it should come to it, it was good to know that somebody he trusted would be keeping an eye on his baby. He didn't quite say it, not that baldly, so I didn't have to answer, or I would have choked up. It was just understood—and it was the finest compliment I ever received. I wasn't sure I deserved it so I decided I would just have to manage to deserve it if I ever had to pay off.

I could "talk" to Uncle Alf now, of course, as well as to Sugar Pie. But I didn't, except when all three of us were talking together; telepathy is an imposition when it isn't necessary. I never called Sugar Pie by myself, either, save for a couple of test runs for Doc Devereaux's benefit to establish that I could reach her without Unc's help. That took drugs; Unc would wake up from an ordinary sleep if anyone shouted on that "wave length." But otherwise I left: her alone; I had no business crowding into a little girl's mind unless she was ready and expecting company.

It was shortly after that that Pat got married.