“Hush, honey,” I said, nuzzling into her hair. Her hair led to her ear, and her ear led to her lips, and step by step we were making love in a timeless, gentle, stoned way. It was very relaxed. Louise was competent, unanxious, and accepting. After a couple of months of Klara’s nervous paroxysms it was like coming home to Mom’s chicken soup. At the end she smiled, kissed me, and turned away. She was very still, and her breathing was even. She lay silent for a long time, and it wasn’t until I realized that my wrist was getting damp that I knew she was crying again.
“I’m sorry, Rob,” she said when I began to pat her. “It’s just that we’ve never had any luck. Some days I can live with that fact, and some days not. This is one of the bad ones.”
“You will.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t believe it anymore.”
“You got here, didn’t you? That’s pretty lucky.”
She twisted herself around to face me, her eyes scanning mine. I said, “I mean, think of how many billion people would give their left testicles to be here.”
Louise said slowly, “Rob—” She stopped. I started to speak but she put her hand over my lips. “Rob,” she said, “do you know how we managed to get here?”
“Sure. Sess sold his airbody.”
“We sold more than that. The airbody brought a little over a hundred thousand. That wasn’t enough for even one of us. We got the money from Hat.”
“Your son? The one that died?”
She said, “Hat had a brain tumor. They caught it in time, or anyway, almost in time. It was operable. He could have lived, oh, I don’t know, ten years at least. He would have been messed up some. His speech centers were affected, and so was his motor control. But he could have been alive right now. Only—” She her hand off my chest to rub it across her face, but she wasn’t crying. “He didn’t want us to spend the airbody money on Medical for him. It would have just about paid for the surgery and then we would have been broke again. So what he did, he sold himself, Rob. He sold off all his parts. More than just a left testicle. All of him. They were fine, first-quality Nordic male twentytwo-year-old parts, and they were worth a bundle. He signed himself over to the medics and they — how do you say it? — put him to sleep. There must be pieces of Hat in a dozen different people now. They sold off everything for transplants, and they gave us the money. Close to a million dollars. Got us here, with some to spare. So that’s where our luck came from, Rob.”
I said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what? We just don’t have the luck, Rob. Hat’s dead. Willa’s dead. God knows where my husband is, or our only surviving kid. And I’m here, and, Rob, half the time I wish with all my heart that I were dead too.”
I left her sleeping in my bed and wandered down to Central Park. I called Klara, found her out, left a message to say where I was, and spent the next hour or so on my back, looking up mulberries ripening on the tree. There was no one there except a couple of tourists taking a fast look through before their ship left. I didn’t pay attention to them, didn’t even hear them leave. I was feeling sorry for Louise and for all the Forehands, and sorrier for myself. They didn’t have the luck, but what I have hurt a lot more; I didn’t have the courage to see where luck would take me. Sick societies squeeze adventurers out like grape pips. The grape pips don’t have much to say about it. I suppose it was the same with Columbus’s seamen or the pioneers manhandling their covered wagons through Comanche territory — they must have been scared witless, like me, but they didn’t have much choice. Like me. But, God, how frightened I was. .
I heard voices, a child’s and a light, slower laugh that was Klara’s. I sat up.
“Hello, Rob,” she said, standing before me with her hand on the head of a tiny black girl in corn-row hair. “This is Watty.”
“Hello, Watty.”
My voice didn’t sound right, even to me. Klara took a closer look and demanded, “What’s the matter?”
I couldn’t answer that question in one sentence, so I chose one facet. “Willa Forehand’s been posted dead.”
Klara nodded without saying anything. Watty piped, “Please, Klara. Throw the ball.” Klara tossed it to her, caught it, tossed it again, all in the Gateway adagio.
I said, “Louise wants to go on a danger-bonus launch. I think what she wants is for me, for us, to go and take her with us.”
“Oh?”
“Well, what about it? Has Dane said anything to you about one of his specials?”
“No! I haven’t seen Dane for- I don’t know. Anyway, he shipped out this morning on a One.”
“He didn’t have a farewell party!” I protested, surprised. She pursed her lips.
The little girl called, “Hey, mister! Catch!” When she threw the ball it came floating up like a hot-air balloon to a mooring mast, but even so I almost missed it. My mind was on something else. I tossed it back with concentration.
After a minute Kiara said, “Rob? I’m sorry. I guess I was in a bad mood.”
“Yeah.” My mind was very busy.
She said placatingly, “We’ve been having some hard times, Rob. I don’t want to be raspy with you. I- I brought you something.”
I looked around, and she took my hand and slid something up over it, onto my arm.
It was a launch bracelet, Heechee metal, worth five hundred dollars anywhere. I hadn’t been able to afford to buy one. I stared at it, trying to think of what I wanted to say.
“Rob?”
“What?”
There was an edge to her voice. “It’s customary to say thank you.”
“It’s customary,” I said, “to give a truthful answer to a question. Like not saying you hadn’t seen Dane Metchnikov when you were with him just last night.”
She flared, “You’ve been spying on me!”
“You’ve been lying to me.”
“Rob! You don’t own me. Dane’s a human being, and a friend.”
Question. I saw a report that Heechee metal had been analyzed by the National Bureau of Standards—
Professor Hegramet. No, you didn’t, Tetsu. Question. But it was on the PV—
Professor Hegramet. No. You saw a report that the Bureau of Standards had issued a quantitative assessment of Heechee metal. Not an analysis. Just a description: tensile strength, fracture strength, melting point, all that stuff.
Question. I’m not sure I understand the difference.
Professor Hegramet. No, You didn’t, Tetsu. actly what it does. We don’t yet know what it is. What’s the most interesting thing about Heechee metal? You, Ten?
Question. It glows?
Professor Hegramet. It glows, yes. It emits light. Bright enough so that we don’t need anything else to light our rooms, we have to cover it over when we want dark. And it’s been glowing for half a million years at least like that. Where does the energy come from? The Bureau says there are some posturanic elements in it, and probably they drive the radiation; but we don’t know what they are. There’s also something in it that looks like an isotope of copper. Well, copper doesn’t have any stable isotopes. Up to now. So what the. Bureau says is what the exact frequency of the blue light is, and all the physical measurements to eight or nine decimals; but the report doesn’t tell you how to make any.
“Friend!” I barked. The last thing Metchnikov was to anyone was a friend. Just thinking about Klara with him made my groin crawl. I didn’t like the sensation, because I couldn’t identify it. It wasn’t just anger, wasn’t even just jealousy. There was a component that remained obstinately opaque. I said, knowing it was illogical, hearing myself seem almost to whine, “I introduced you to him!”