Had all his life been leading to this crisis, this empty vigil with an unconscious girl? If she were gone, what was left?
Ivo held her, afraid to wake her, and remembered.
There had been the project breakup, thrusting them all abruptly into the massive, confused, tormented world — yet most had greeted it as a release and a challenge. They had exploded across the planet, three hundred and thirty eager youngsters seeking experience… and had been absorbed by it without a ripple. Brad had gone to college; Ivo had followed the melody of the flute, searching out the obscure monuments of the life of Sidney Lanier. Quite a number of the others had married nonproject people. All had sworn to keep in touch forever, but they were young then, and somehow had forgotten. There had been some almost-random encounters, however — enough to circulate news of most. From time to time Ivo had dreamed of a grand convening, a project reunion — recognizing the very desire as a reflection of his inadequacy, his poor adjustment to the world of the ’70’s.
Then Groton, on a hot Georgia street, and adventure had been thrust upon him. Brad needed Schön! Afra, vision of love, bait of trap — would he have stepped into it had he not wanted to? The proboscoids of Sung, overrunning their world heedlessly, and mankind doing the same. Human organs, black-market. Plump Beatryx, wife of an engineer. Image of a school crisis: boy in classroom, cigarette, smirk. Senator Borland, man of ambition, power. Destroyer image: one dead, one ruined, one untouched? Sprouts, a winning configuration, S D P S, Kovonov, who had meant to go himself…
Joseph the rocket, accommodations for five. Learning to use the macroscope, that instrument of galactic civilization. Astrology: “The complex of your life and the complex of the universe may run in a parallel course.” UN pursuit. Image of a living cell. The handling — identity confirmation or sexual experience? The melting — skull canting, gray-white fluid coursing out eye-socket. Reconstitution — from cell to self in four hours.
Mighty Neptune, sea-storm world of methane. Triton, where Tryx found a bug. Schön, moon of a moon. There he had come to appreciate real people, to know the meaning of friendship, its prerogatives and its miseries. Terraforming: a joint effort. Poetry, prejudice, a chess analogy. Starfish. Afra’s horoscope, the chart that defined her. The flip of a bus token. Triaclass="underline" another case of handling, really. Spacefold diagrams. Visual penetration of Neptune — dwarf with the breath of a giant, yet more ancient than Sol. Gravitational radius.
Tyre. Mattan, talking of superpowers. Baal Melqart, hungry for children. Swords and torches in the night. Aia: “We shall have joy in one another, while both being true to our memories.” Image of Astarte, milk spurting from her breasts. Stench of rotting shellfish, for purple robes. Gorolot, offered an imperious housemaid. Afra, volunteering in lieu of Aia, comfortable harbor for ships. All because Schön craved freedom.
Well, Schön had lost, whether Afra had mind or not.
Suddenly Ivo could stand the suspense no longer. He put his hands under Afra’s arms, drew her to her feet against him, and kissed her with all the passion he had suppressed for so long. Try that for handling!
She woke abruptly. She brought her arms up outside his, wedged her stiffened fingers against his cheeks, and shoved back his head. “Get away from me!” she exclaimed angrily.
Ivo released her with guilty haste. She had not chosen him!
Then he realized with shivering relief that she thought he was Schön. She had no way to know about the contest result and changeover. He opened his mouth to explain.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ivo,” she snapped. “I can tell you two apart easily. Aside from that, I knew Schön couldn’t get me out of there. It had to be you — or nothing.”
His feeling of stupidity was back in full force. He tried to speak again.
“You thought if only Schön were gone, everything would be just fine. Boy gets girl, curtain lowers on happy sunset. Sorry — when I want a lapdog, I’ll whistle.”
What had happened? Her dialogue with Schön had suggested that she was in love with Ivo, but now she was treating him with greater contempt than ever before.
“Schön was right about one thing,” she remarked, adjusting her clothing. “You certainly aren’t very bright — and I do dislike stupidity.”
Was she saying she wanted Schön back? That made no sense to him. But if she didn’t want Schön and didn’t want Ivo—
Afra faced about and began to walk away, back toward the chamber where the visions had started. Somehow he knew that if he let her go, he would never recover her — yet he could not act. He had lost her without ever speaking a word.
Jumps of thousands of light-years, until they stood outside the great disk of the galaxy itself, and returned — that he remembered clearly, yet he could not bridge the gap of a few paces between two people now. A history of the Solar System, billions of years strong — yet seconds were undoing him. Where had he gone wrong?
Approach to the destroyer complex: “It’s tracking us!” His foolish jealousy of Harold Groton, returning his concept of the man to the impersonal surname. Afra’s excitement at the element display. The final chamber. S′. Wheels on wheels, symbols meshing in “The Symphony.” Simultaneous yet chronological adventures of galactic history. Schön: “That means our daughters get dinked.” Beatryx: “You were not wrong, Dolora.” Harold: “I had thought it was an insult to serve under Drone command.” Where had he gone wrong?
Now Schön had been nullified, Beatryx was dead, Harold was seeking the Traveler, and Afra disliked stupidity. Yet he remained, and so did his responsibilities. Where had he heard that? Promises to keep, and miles to go before… He had to do something for the gallant Groton couple, sundered so unfairly; then—
But I love you! he cried subvocally at Afra. Imperious she might be, problems she might have — but underneath that surface beauty was an extraordinary woman. She had fought Schön…
She continued walking, culottes shaping a trim derriere, bright hair flouncing loose.
Afra, whose Capricorn history segment had slipped somehow, throwing her instead into a savage personal conflict. Yet that program error had saved her — and him — from a dream-state that might have endured until their bodies disintegrated. The normal person did not emerge from that slumber, as Harold and Beatryx had shown. That, apparently, was the final test: only a mind that could survive and finally break the stasis was fit to go free again. The human mind lacked that capability. Even Schön had been trapped.
Strange, fortunate coincidence, that Afra should have been evicted from that clinging mold. And that she alone, subsequently, should establish a momentary rapport with the supercreature, the Traveler. The Traveler: nerve impulse between galactic cells, whose capabilities spanned from macrocosmic to microcosmic with equal finesse.
Coincidence? Perhaps the Traveler had touched her intentionally! This was easily within its compass. To nudge her just enough to break the trance, and then again to win a vital point from Schön… and it could not touch Schön himself — or Ivo! — because of the mind-block against the destroyer-concept Schön had so carefully arranged. Afra had been the only one available with an open yet sharp enough mind…
Why? Why interfere at all, this creature with a galaxy to supervise? Could it have seen some hope in her, in humanity? Did it want them to return to Earth with their message of galactic and intergalactic culture? Yet Afra could not return to Earth by herself, and she had turned her back on him.