And suddenly the party began to seem as though it might be fun again. I’d seen the Heechee ship, all right, but it had never occurred to me that there might be Heechee on it.
I don’t think it was polite of me to duck out like that. By the look on her face Sheri didn’t think so either, but I was glad of the excuse. I don’t like to put too much of a strain on Essie’s wonderful absence of jealousy; and, although I said, “See you soon,” when I kissed Sheri good-bye, I didn’t mean it.
In gigabit space and alone again I hollered for Albert. He was there before I knew it. “Yes?”
I said with annoyance, “You didn’t tell me there were Heechee on the Rock. What are they doing here?”
He smiled placidly at me, scratching his ankle. “As to the second question, they have every right to be here, Robin. This party is a reunion for people who were on Gateway long ago, after all. All three of these Heechee have. Very long ago. As to the first part—” he let himself look put-upon “—I’ve been trying to tell you about some of the persons you would be interested in for quite some time, Robin. I didn’t think it would be tactful of me to interrupt. If I may now—”
“You may now tell me about these Heechee! I already know about Eskladar.”
“Oh?” For a moment Albert looked nonplussed. It is not an expression I often see on him. Then he said obediently, “The Heechee ship came direct from the core, and the three particular Heechee who I think would interest you are named Muon, Barrow, and Glare. It is especially Glare who is of interest, for she was a shipmate of Tangent on the expedition to the Sluggard planet.”
That woke me right up. “Tangent!”
“Exactly yes, Robin.” He beamed. “In addition—”
“I want to see them,” I said, waving him quiet. “Where are they?”
“They’re on Level Jane, Robin, in the old gymnasium; it’s a recreation room now. But mayn’t I also tell you about the others? Eskladar you know about, and I suppose you know about Dane Metchnikov, too, and—”
“First things first, Albert,” I commanded. “Rightnow I want to see somebody who actually knew Tangent!”
He looked stricken. “Please? At least the message from Mrs. Broadhead?”
He hadn’t mentioned a message before. “Well, sure,” I said. “What are you waiting for?”
He looked indignant, but what he said-in exactly Essie’s tone, with exactly Essie’s inflections-was: “Tell old gloopy Robin is okay see old sweetheart but only look, don’t touch.”
I think I may have started to flush. I don’t think Albert could have seen it, though, because I waved him away as he finished speaking, and I was on my way to Level Jane.
So conscience doth make cowards of us all . . . and make us deaf, too, even to things we really ought to hear.
I’ll put a girdle round the Earth in forty milliseconds whenever I want to, so to get from Level Babe down to Level Jane took, basically, no time at all. Especially since (as I keep on reminding) I wasn’t really on Level Babe in the first place, and wasn’t on Level Jane when I got there.
But what seems like no time at all to a meat person can be quite a stretch for somebody like me. I had time to wonder about a couple of things.
Had I heard right? Was my wife Essie actually with Harbin Eskladar? True, the time of terrorism was long over. All of those monstrous peo pie who burned and bombed and destroyed were long irretrievably dead, or in prison, or reformed, and the reformed ones like Harbin Esldadar were, after all, back in the population. They’d paid their debt to society.
The thing was, I couldn’t believe that Essie would have thought they had paid their debt to her. Never mind that their fooling around had very nearly killed her twice, and had had every intention of killing us both a third time but had missed. It wasn’t a personal matter with Essie. It was (I thought) exactly the same as with me: The terrorists that had blighted the already miserable Earth, back in the days when there wasn’t enough of anything to go around and thousands of twisted people tried to redress the situation by making sure there was less of everything for everybody, were not mere criminals. They were filth. It was true that Eskladar (I vaguely remembered) had finally come over to the side of the good guys in the white hats. Had even turned in some of the biggest and rottenest of th~ leaders, thus saving a lot more lives and property than he himself had ever damaged.
But still .
When I saw the three Heechee, I forgot about Eskladar. Fortunately they weren’t meat (if those skeletal Heechee could ever be called “meat”). They were Ancient Ancestors, and that was good, because it meant I could talk to them.
I would not have known the place they were in if Albert hadn’t mentioned that once it had been the Gateway gymnasium. It didn’t look like a gymnasium anymore. It was a sunny little room (sunlight cooked out of electronic tubes, of course), with tables and chairs, and there were people all over it. The human people had drinks in their hands. The Heechee don’t drink. They nibble things in the same manner, and for the same reasons; what they like are sort of mushroomy growths with a high intoxication index, and these Heechee had fiat bowls of the nibble-stuff in front of them. “Hello,” I said breezily, sliding up close. “I’m Robinette Broadhead.”
I do get a certain amount of deference. The people around made room for me ungrudgingly, and the female of them flexed her wrists in courteous greeting. “We had hoped to meet you, of course,” she said. “We know your name, for every Heechee does.”
They had learned the custom of shaking hands, and we did it. These Ancient Ancestors were fresh out of the core-had started nearly eleven years ago, by our clocks, but only a matter of weeks by theirs. Most of that time had been spent crossing deep space from the core to Earth. I intimated my surprise at seeing Heechee on what I had always considered private property of the human race, and one of the machine-stored humans said: “Oh, but they’ve got every right to be here, Mr. Broadhead. Every person who ever served on Gateway was included in the invitation to this party, and each one of them did serve here, once.”
Now, that was a creepy feeling. Because the last previous time a living (or even machine-stored) Heechee had been on Gateway was something like 400,000 years in the past.
“So you’re the ones who left us the ships,” I said, smiling as I lifted a glass to them. They responded by holding bits of mushrooms between fingertips, aimed generally in my direction, and the female said:
“Muon left what you call the Food Factory out in your what you call the Oort Cloud, yes. Barrow actually left the ship on your planet Venus that your Sylvester Macklen discovered. I left nothing; I only visited this system once.”
“But you were with Tangent,” I began, and felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned, and there was my dear Portable-Essie.
“Robin, dear?” she began.
“Tore yourself away from Harbin Eskladar, have you?” I said genially. “I’m glad you’re here. This is Glare—”
She was shaking her head in puzzlement. “Have not been with this Harbin Eskladar. Is no matter. Wish to make sure you are aware—”
“You didn’t understand,” I said, all excited. “This is Tangent we’re talking about. Could you tell us about that trip, Glare?”
“If you wish—”
And Essie said, “But please, Robin, is certain matters to be considered in this matter. Dane Metchnikov has requested lawyer.”
That halted me for a moment, because I had put Dane Metchnikov so far out of my mind that I hadn’t thought of the reasons why he might want to talk to a lawyer. About me. It was a downer, but I shrugged. “Later, my darling, please.”
Essie sighed, and I prepared myself for the story.