Cullinan nodded at Thetona. “He found one too.”
Warshow licked his lips. “Well, now we have the answer. What do we do about it?”
“We play the whole thing to him on tapes. His conscious intellectual mind sees his relationship with Thetona for what it is—the neurotic grasping of a grown man forced into an artificial womb and searching for a mother. Once we’ve gotten that out of his basement and into the attic, so to speak, I think he’ll be all right.”
“But the ship was his mother,” Warshow said. “That was where the incubation tank—the womb—was.”
“The ship cast him out. You were an uncle-image, not a mother-substitute. He said so himself. He went looking elsewhere, and found Thetona. Let’s give him the tapes.”
Much later, Matt Falk faced the four of them in the cabin. He had heard his own voice rambling back over his lifetime. He knew, now.
There was a long silence when the last tape had played out, when Falk’s voice had said, “All, all over. And I’m terribly alone.”
The words seemed to hang in the room. Finally Falk said, “Thanks,” in a cold, hard, tight, dead voice.
“Thanks?” Warshow repeated dully.
“Yes. Thanks for opening my eyes, for thoughtfully giving me a peek at what was behind my lid. Sure—thanks.” The boy’s face was sullen, bitter.
“You understand why it was necessary, of course,” Cullinan said. “Why we—”
“Yeah, I know why,” Falk said. “And now I can go back to Earth with you, and your consciences are cleared.” He glanced at Thetona, who was watching him with perturbed curiosity evident on her broad face. Falk shuddered lightly as his eyes met the alien girl’s. Warshow caught the reaction and nodded. The therapy had been a success.
“I was happy,” Falk said quietly. “Until you decided you had to take me back to Earth with you. So you ran me through a wringer and combed all the psychoses out of me, and—and—”
Thetona took two heavy steps towards him and put her arms on his shoulders. “No,” he murmured, and wriggled away. “Can’t you see it’s over?”
“Matt—” Warshow said.
“Don’t Matt me, cap’n! I’m out of my womb now, and back in your crew.” He turned sad eyes on Warshow. “Thetona and I had something good and warm and beautiful, and you busted it up. It can’t get put together again, either. Okay. I’m ready to go back to Earth, now.”
He stalked out of the room without another word. Grey-faced, Warshow stared at Cullinan and at Thetona, and lowered his eyes.
He had fought to keep Matt Falk, and he had won—or had he? In fact, yes. But in spirit? Falk would never forgive him for this.
Warshow shrugged, remembering the book that said, “The relation of commander to crewman is that of parent to child.”
Warshow would not allow Falk’s sullen eyes to upset him any longer; it was only to be expected that the boy would be bitter.
No child ever really forgives the parent who casts him from the womb.
“Come on, Thetona,” he said to the big, enigmatically frowning alien girl. “Come with me. I’ll take you back down to the city.”