She turned her head and looked up into his face. “The same old Bey. Saving the world. You ought to know better. You worked half your life for that stupid Office of Form Control, and what reward did you get at the end? They threw you out, with never even a thank you.”
“They had a good reason.”
“You haven’t changed at all, have you? Still honor and glory and once-more-unto-the-breach, dear friends.” She rubbed her hand across his chest. “Bey, if only you could stop living in the past and the future, and live in the present for a little bit, you’d have so much more fun.”
If anyone in the universe lived in the present, it was Mary. The signal was clear and tempting. Bey heard all his internal voices shouting at once to justify the action: ‘A few hours delay can’t make any difference’… ‘Mary will become your ally, and she can take you straight to Sylvia’… ‘Mary scorned now would be your bitterest enemy’… ‘You’ve been away from each other far too long’… ‘All the time you thought she had forgotten you, she was protecting you’… ‘Live in the present…’
Bey turned and leaned down toward Mary’s waiting face. Her eyes had closed.
’But where has Mary been all this time? And what has she been doing?’ Amid all the clamor of emotions, that single questioning whisper in Bey’s mind was drowned out completely. It did not stand a chance.
A few hours had stretched into a day, and then into two and three. It was a long time before Bey saw a possible approach to the problem.
Mary was immune to all forms of logic. He had known that for years. It was maddening, but it was also part of her charm, and it meant that she would be unmoved by any rational reason for taking Bey back with her to the Kernel Ring and, ultimately, to Black Ransome. Kernel demons and form-change anomalies and Systemwide hallucinations meant nothing to her. Another motive was needed, something that went deeper than logic; Bey had lain awake for hours trying to think of one and had returned again and again to a single question. Why had Mary come to meet him, secretly? She was apparently not trying to capture him, and she had made it clear that she did not intend him to stay with her permanently.
He thought he had the answer. Mary had come for personal reassurance. She knew he had traveled a vast distance in pursuit of Sylvia Fernald. Mary hated to give up any man. The idea that she had been superseded by Sylvia, so that she could no longer move Bey at her whim, was intolerable. She wanted to show that she still owned him and could still control him.
Bey looked at the sleeping form stretched out next to him. So far the demonstration must have been to her satisfaction. Now he had to make use of the same fact.
The most difficult thing was to be casual and convincing enough. Mary did not lie, but she had a sixth sense that told her when others were doing it to her. The best way was to make her feel that any decision was her idea.
Bey dropped the first word while Mary was showing him around the elaborate new gardens that the machines had built under her direction in a single day. It was in answer to Mary’s complaint that he was too bony to lie next to in comfort, and it took the form of a vague comment on his part that the standards of beauty for women were very different in the Inner and Outer Systems.
“For the Cloudlanders, curves are out,” he added. “And yet that doesn’t mean that a Cloudlander will be unattractive to somebody from the Inner System—or that a Sunhugger disgusts somebody from the Cloud.”
Mary had not reacted to the comment, but Bey knew she had registered it. He waited. It was hard to keep his own mental processes under control. Emotion and real affection for Mary were competing with his long-term logical plan, and Bey knew from experience that logic could lose.
Later in the day Mary was studying a recording of one of her own old performances, as Polly Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera. She remarked how good she had looked as a redhead.
Bey agreed enthusiastically. “My favorite hair color. As a matter of fact, naturally red hair—” He paused and went silent. Mary also said nothing. Sylvia had red hair.
They watched the performance together. When Macheath was looking at Polly and Lucy Lockit and singing, “How happy could I be with either, were t’other dear charmer away,” Bey knew that Mary was watching him from the corner of her eye.
She was preoccupied for the rest of the day. Late in the evening she suddenly asked him if he and Sylvia Fernald had been lovers.
“Of course not!” Bey sat up. “You’ve seen her, you know how tall and gawky and strange she is. And she has a longtime partner of her own, back in the Cloud, so she wouldn’t look at anyone else. And did you know when I arrived at the Opik Harvester, she said that I looked like a hairy little monkey? To her, I’m totally hideous…”
Bey went on with his protests just a little too long. He did not need to point out to Mary that his own appearance had changed considerably since the arrival at the harvester, to a form much more pleasing to Sylvia Fernald’s tastes. On matters like this, Mary’s instincts reached a conclusion ten times as fast as any logic.
The next morning Mary was very quiet. At midday she casually announced that she would be returning to the Kernel Ring. If Bey wanted to take the risk, he could accompany her. Did he want to go? If he did, he ought to get ready.
Bey, equally casual, accepted. However, he did not feel satisfied with the way the conversation had gone. He had achieved his objective, but his little inside voice would not keep quiet. Too easy, it said, much too easy. When a difficult goal is achieved with no effort, it’s time to be suspicious. You want to get to the Kernel Ring? Sure—and maybe someone else wants you there, too.
Chapter 25
Bey had been wrong. He might be the only person who would ever know it, but still he hated the idea.
Back on the Sagdeyev space farm he and Aybee Smith had agreed to differ. Aybee felt that a life without surprises was no fun. Bey agreed, but he pointed out that ninety-nine of any hundred conceivable surprises were unpleasant ones. That was why he tried to analyze all outcomes of a situation rather than just the one he liked best. Aybee agreed—in principle—but he pointed out in turn that complete prediction was impossible in anything but abstract theory; the cussedness of the real world promised that the actual outcome would be unanticipated. Bey agreed, but he suggested that any chance of successful prediction was better than no chance. Aybee nodded. Honor was satisfied, and they moved on to other subjects.
Bey truly believed what he had told Aybee. When he had set out to follow Sylvia Fernald into the depths of the Halo, he had foreseen and analyzed four scenarios. One, the search might reach a dead end, and he would return to the harvester. Two, he might find Sylvia, but she would have discovered nothing useful and would already be at her own point of frustration, so they would both go back. Three, Bey might be captured and detained before he found Sylvia or reached Ransome’s Hole. Fourth, he might be captured after he reached the Kernel Ring.
The idea that he would find Mary rather than Sylvia at that first location was so preposterous that it had not been in his thoughts at all.