“You’re out of your mind,” I yelled.
“You think so? And what if we brought the shuttle down again? No problem — it’s on remote control. We’ll bring it out of orbit, and…”
“Shut up!”
“That won’t do either? There’s another method, a very simple one. It doesn’t involve bringing the shuttle down, only establishing radio contact. If she’s alive, she’ll reply, and…”
“The oxygen would have run out days ago.”
“She may not need it. Shall we try?”
“Snow… Snow…”
He mimicked my intonation angrily:
“Kelvin… Kelvin… Think, just a little. Are you a man or not? Who are you trying to please? Who do you want to save? Yourself? Her? And which version of her? This one or that one? Haven’t you got the guts to face them both? Surely you realize that you haven’t thought it through. Let me tell you one last time, we are in a situation that is beyond morality.”
The rustling noise returned, and this time it sounded like nails scraping on a wall. All at once I was filled with a dull indifference. I saw myself, I saw both of us, from a long way off, as if through the wrong end of a telescope, and everything looked meaningless, trivial, and slightly ridiculous.
“So what do you suggest? Send up another shuttle? She would be back tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that. How long do you want it to go on? What’s the good of disposing of her if she keeps returning? How would it help me, or you, or Sartorius, or the Station?”
“No, here’s my suggestion: leave with her. You’ll witness the transformation. After a few minutes, you’ll see…”
“What? A monster, a demon?”
“No, you’ll see her die, that’s all. Don’t think that they are immortal — I promise you that they die. And then what will you do? Come back… for a fresh sample?” He stared at me with bantering condescension.
“That’s enough!” I burst out, clenching my fists.
“Oh, I’m the one who has to be quiet? Look, I didn’t start this conversation, and as far as I’m concerned it has gone on long enough. Let me just suggest some ways for you to amuse yourself. You could scourge the ocean with rods, for instance. You’ve got it into your head that you’re a traitor if you…” He waved his hand in farewell, and raised his head as if to watch an imaginary ship in flight. “… and a good man if you keep her. Smiling when you feel like screaming, and shamming cheerful when you want to beat your head against a wall, isn’t that being a traitor? What if it is not possible, here, to be anything but a traitor? What will you do? Take it out on that bastard Snow, who is the cause of it all? In that case, Kelvin, you just put the lid on the rest of your troubles by acting like a complete idiot!”
“You are talking from your own point of view. I love this girl.”
“Her memory, you mean?”
“No, herself. I told you what she tried to do. How many ‘real’ human beings could have that much courage?”
“So you admit…”
“Don’t quibble.”
“Right. So she loves you. And you want to love her. It isn’t the same thing.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m sorry, Kelvin, but it was your idea to spill all this. You don’t love her. You do love her. She is willing to give her life. So are you. It’s touching, it’s magnificent, anything you like, but it’s out of place here — it’s the wrong setting. Don’t you see? No, you don’t want to. You are going around in circles to satisfy the curiosity of a power we don’t understand and can’t control, and she is an aspect, a periodic manifestation of that power. If she was… if you were being pestered by some infatuated hag, you wouldn’t think twice about packing her off, right?”
“I suppose so.”
“Well then, that probably explains why she is not a hag! You feel as if your hands are tied? That’s just it, they are!”
“All you are doing is adding one more theory to the millions of theories in the library. Leave me alone Snow, she is… No, I won’t say any more.”
“It’s up to you. But remember that she is a mirror that reflects a part of your mind. If she is beautiful, it’s because your memories are. You provide the formula. You can only finish where you started, don’t forget that.”
“What do you expect me to do? Send her away? I’ve already asked you why, and you don’t answer.”
“I’ll give you an answer. It was you who wanted this conversation, not me. I haven’t meddled with your affairs, and I’m not telling you what to do or what not to do. Even if I had the right, I would not. You come here of your own free will, and you dump it all on me. You know why? To take the weight off your own back. Well I’ve experienced that weight — don’t try to shut me up — and I leave you free to find your own solution. But you want opposition. If I got in your way, you could fight me, something tangible, a man just like you, with the same flesh and blood. Fight me, and you could feel that you too were a man. When I don’t give you the excuse to fight, you quarrel with me, or rather with yourself. The one thing you’ve left out is telling me you’d die of grief if she suddenly disappeared… No, please, I’ve heard enough!”
I countered clumsily:
“I came to tell you, because I thought you ought to know, that I intend leaving the Station with her.”
“Still on the same tack,” Snow shrugged. “I only offered my opinion because I realized that you were losing touch with reality. And the further you go, the harder you fall. Can you come and see Sartorius around nine tomorrow morning?”
“Sartorius? I thought he wasn’t letting anybody in. You told me you couldn’t even phone him.”
“He seems to have reached some land of settlement. We never discuss our domestic troubles. With you, it’s another matter. Will you come tomorrow morning?”
“All right,” I grunted.
I noticed that Snow had slipped his left hand inside the cabinet. How long had the door been ajar? Probably for some time, but in the heat of the encounter I had not registered that the position of his hand was not natural. It was as if he was concealing something — or holding somebody’s hand.
I licked my lips:
“Snow, what have you…”
“You’d better leave now,” he said evenly.
I closed the door in the final glow of the red twilight. Rheya was huddled against the wall a few paces down the corridor. She sprang to her feet at once:
“You see? I did it, Kris. I feel so much better… Perhaps it will be easier and easier…”
“Yes, of course…” I answered absently.
We went back to my quarters. I was still speculating about that cabinet, and what had been hiding there, perhaps overhearing our entire conversation. My cheeks started to burn so hard that I involuntarily passed the back of my hand over them. What an idiotic meeting! And where did it get us? Nowhere. But there was tomorrow morning
An abrupt thrill of fear ran through me. My encephalogram, a complete record of the workings of my brain, was to be beamed into the ocean in the form of radiation. What was it Snow had said — would I suffer terribly if Rheya departed? An encephalogram records every mental process, conscious and unconscious. If I want her to disappear, will it happen? But if I wanted to get rid of her would I also be appalled at the thought of her imminent destruction? Am I responsible for my unconscious? No one else is, if not myself. How stupid to agree to let them do it. Obviously I can examine the recording before it is used, but I won’t be able to decode it. Nobody could. The experts can only identify general mental tendencies. For instance, they will say that the subject is thinking about some mathematical problem, but they are unable to specify its precise terms. They claim that they have to stick to generalizations because the encephalogram cannot discriminate among the stream of simultaneous impulses, only some of which have any psychological “counterpart,” and they refuse point-blank to hazard any comment on the unconscious processes. So how could they be expected to decipher memories which have been more or less repressed?