"Sometimes I wish I could die."
("Now, we both know that you don't mean that, and even if you were sincere, I wouldn't allow it.")
Go away, Pard!
("I'm gone.")
And he was. With Pard tucked away in some far corner of his brain—probably working on some obscure philosophical problem or remote mathematical abstraction—Dalt was finally alone.
Alone. That was the key to these periodic black depressions. He was all right once he had established an identity on a new world, made a few friends, and put himself to work on whatever it was he wanted to do at that particular time in his life. He could thus delude himself into a sense of belonging that lasted a few decades, and then it began to happen: the curious stares, the probing questions. Soon he'd find himself on an interstellar liner again, between worlds, between lives. The sense of rootlessness would begin to weigh heavily upon him.
Culturally, too, he was an outsider. There was no interstellar human culture as yet to speak of; each planet was developing its own traditions and becoming proud of them. No one could really feel at home on any world except one's own, and so the faux pas of an off-worlder was well tolerated in the hope of receiving the same consideration after a similar blunder on his homeworld. Dalt was thus unconcerned about any anachronisms in his behavior, and with the bits and pieces he was taking with him from every world he lived on, he was fast becoming the only representative of a true interstellar human culture.
Which meant that no world was actually home—only on interstellar liners did he feel even the slightest hint of belonging. Even Friendly, his birth world, had treated him as an off-worlder, and only with great difficulty did he manage to find a trace or two of the familiar in his own hometown during a recent and very discouraging sentimental journey.
Pard was right, of course. He was almost always right. Dalt couldn't have it both ways, couldn't be an immortal and retain a mortal's scope. He'd have to broaden his view of existence and learn to think on a grander scale. He was still a man and would have to live among other men, but he would have to develop an immortal's perspective in regard to time, something he had as yet been unable and/or unwilling to do. Time set him apart from other men and had to be reckoned with. Until now he had been living a lot of little lives, one after the other, separate, distinct. Yet they were all his, and he had to find a way to fuse them into a single entity. He'd work on it. No hurry ... there was plenty of time—
There was that word again. He wondered when he would end. Or if he would end. Would the moment ever come when he'd want to stop living? And would he be allowed to do so? Pard's earlier statement had made him uneasy. They shared a body and thus an existence, as the result of an accident. What if one partner decided he wanted out? It would never be Pard—his intellectual appetite was insatiable. No, if anyone would ever want to call it quits, it would be Dalt. And Pard would forbid it. Such a situation appeared ludicrous on the surface but might very well come to be, millennia hence. How would they resolve it? Would Pard find a way to grant Dalt's wish by somehow strangling his mind, thereby granting his death wish—for in Pard's philosophy, the mind is life and life is the mind—and leaving Pard as sole tenant of the body?
Dalt shuddered. Pard's ethics would, of course, prevent him from doing such a thing unless Dalt absolutely demanded it. But still it was hardly a comforting thought. Even in the dark fog of depression that enveloped him tonight, Dalt realized that he loved life and living very much. Planning to make the most of tomorrow and every subsequent tomorrow, he drifted off to sleep as the second of Tolive's three moons bobbed above the horizon.
VI
A somewhat harried Steven Dalt managed to arrive at the administrative offices of IMC in time for his 09.5 appointment with Dr. Webst. His back ached as he took a seat in the waiting room, and he realized he was hungry.
A bad morning so far—if this was any indication of how the rest of the day was going to be, he decided he'd be better off returning to the hotel, crawling into bed, and spending it in the fetal position. He'd awakened late and cramped in that corner by the window, with his baggage sitting inside the door. He'd had to rummage through it to find a presentable outfit and then rush down to the lobby and find a taxi to take him to the IMC administration building. He did not want to keep Dr. Webst waiting. Dalt seemed to be placing greater and greater importance on punctuality lately. Perhaps, he mused, the more aware he became of his own timelessness, the more conscious he became of the value of another man's time.
("Well, what'll it be?") Pard asked suddenly.
Welcome back.
("I should be saying that to you. Once again: What'll it be?")
What are you talking about?
("Us. Are we sticking with the microbes or do we go into gerontology or what?")
I'm not sure. Maybe we won't stay here at all. They hired us for antimicrobial research and may not want us for anything else. But I think I've had enough of microbes for now.
("I must agree. But what shall we try next?")
I haven't given it too much thought yet—
("Well, get thinking. We'll be seeing Dr. Webst in a moment and we'd better have something to tell him.")
Why don't we just improvise?
Pard seemed to hesitate, then, ("Okay, but let's be as honest as possible with him, 'cause we start getting paid as of this morning.")
So, a few credits won't break IMC.
("It would be unethical to accept payment for nothing.")
Your rigidity wears on me after a while, Pard. ("Value received for value given—don't forget it.") Okay, okay, okay.
The door to Dr. Webst's office dilated and a tall, fair young man with an aquiline profile stepped through. He glanced at Dalt, who was the room's only occupant, paused, then walked over and extended his hand. "Dr. Dalt?"
"The 'Dalt' part is correct, but I have no doctorate." Actually, this was untrue; he held two doctorates in separate fields but both had been granted a number of lives ago.
"Mister Dalt, then. I'm Dr. Webst." They performed the ancient human ritual known as the handshake and Dalt liked Webst's firm grip.
"I thought you'd be older, Doctor," Dalt said as they entered Webst's sparsely appointed office.
Webst smiled. "That's funny ... I was expecting an older man, too. That paper you published a year ago on Dasein II fever and the multiple pathogens-involved was a brilliant piece of work; there was an aura of age and experience about it."
"Are you in infectious diseases?" Dalt asked quickly, anxious to change the subject.
"No, psych is my field."
"Really? I made part of the trip from Derby in the company of Ellen Lettre. Know her?"
"Of course. Our department has high hopes for Dr. Lettre—an extremely intelligent woman." He paused at his desk and flashed a rapid series of memos across his viewer. "Before I forget, I got a note from personnel about your forms. Most of them are incomplete and they'd like to see you sometime today."
Dalt nodded. "Okay, I'll see if I can make it this afternoon." This was often a problem—personal history. He had changed his name a couple of times but preferred to be known as Steven Dalt. Usually he went from one field of endeavor to another totally unrelated to the first and thus obviated the need for references; he would start at the bottom as he had at the university on Derby, and with Pard as his partner, it wouldn't be long before the higher-ups realized they had a boy genius among them. Or, he'd go into a risky field such as chispen fishing on Gelc, where the only requirement for employment was the guts to go out on the nets ... and no questions asked.