"No." He went to the cabinet, opened it, took out another bottle and opened it. The bottles were diminishing. He could foresee the day when there would be no more bottles at all. That panicked him. Set him to thinking of the forest, of green berries that might ferment, of the grasses—of fruits that might come at particular seasons. If he failed to poison himself.
He went back to his bed with the bottle, filled his glass and got in bed. "Lights out," he said. They went. He sat drinking in the dark until he felt his hand shaking, and set the glass aside and burrowed again into the tangled sheets.
This time there were nightmares, the lab, the deaths, and he was walking through the ship again, empty-handed, looking for Sax and his knife. Into dark corridors. He kept walking and the way got darker and darker, and something waited there. Something hovered over him. He heard sound—
The dream brought him up with a jerk, eyes wide and a yell in his ears that was his own, confronted with red lights in the dark, the touch of a hand on him.
The second shock was more than the first, and he lashed out at hard metal, struggled wildly with covers and the impediment of Anne's unyielding arm. Her stabilizers hummed. She put the hand on his chest and held and he recovered his sense, staring up at her with his heart pounding in fright.
"Assistance? Assistance? Is this malfunction?"
"A dream—a dream, Anne."
A delay while the lights blinked in the dark. "Dreams may have random motor movements. Dreams are random neural firings. Neural cells are brain structure. This process affects the brain. Please confirm your status."
"I'm fine, Anne."
"I detect internal disturbance."
"That's my heart, Anne. It's all right. I'm normal now. The dream's over." She took back the hand. He lay still for a moment, watching her lights.
"Time," he asked.
"0434."
He winced, moved, ran a hand through his hair. "Make breakfast. Call me when it's ready."
"Yes, Warren."
She left, a clicking in the dark that carried her own light with her. The door closed. He pulled the covers about himself and burrowed down and tried to sleep, but he was only conscious of a headache, and he had no real desire for the breakfast.
He kept very busy that day, despite the headache—cleaned up, limped about, carrying things to their proper places, throwing used clothing into the laundry. Everything in shape, everything in order. No more self pity. No more excuses of his lameness or the pain. No more liquor. He thought even of putting Annein charge of that cabinet. . . but he did not. He was. He could say no if he wanted to.
Outside, a rain blew up. Annereported the anomaly. Clouds hung darkly over the grasslands and the forest. He went down to the lock to see it, the first change he had seen in the world. . . stood there in the hatchway with the rain spattering his face and the thunder shaking his bones, watched the lightning tear holes in the sky.
The clouds shed their burden in a downpour, but they stayed. After the pounding rain, which left the grass battered and collapsed the canopy outside into a miniature lake, the clouds stayed, sending down a light drizzle that chilled to the bone, intermittent with harder rain—one day, and two, and three, four at last, in which the sun hardly shone.
He thought of the raft, of the things he had left behind—of the clearing finally, and Sax lying snugged there in the hollow of the old tree's roots.
And a living creature—one with it, with the scents of rain and earth and the elements. The sensor box. That, too, he had had to abandon. . . sitting on the ground on a now sodden blanket, perhaps half underwater like the ground outside.
" Anne," he said then, thinking about it. "Activate the sensor unit. Is it still functioning?"
"Yes."
He sat where he was, in the living quarters, studying the chessboard. Thought a moment. "Scan the area around the unit. Do you perceive anything?"
"Vegetation, Warren. It's raining."
"Have you—activated it since I left it there?"
"When the storm broke I activated it. I investigated with all sensors."
"Did you—perceive anything?"
"Vegetation, Warren."
He looked into her faceplate and made the next move, disquieted.
The seeds sprouted in the lab. It was all in one night, while the drizzle died away outside and the clouds broke to let the sun through. And as if they had known, the seeds came up. Warren looked out across the rows of trays in the first unadulterated pleasure he had felt in days. . . to see them live. All along the trays the earth was breaking, and in some places little arches and spears of pale green and white were thrusting upward.
Annefollowed him. She always did.
"You see," he told her, "now you can see the life. It was there, all along." She made closer examination where he indicated, a humanlike bending to put her sensors into range. She straightened, walked back to the place where she had planted her own seed. "Your seeds have grown. The seed I planted has no growth."
"It's too early yet. Give it all its twenty days. Maybe less. Maybe more. They vary."
"Explain. Explain life process. Cross-referencing is incomplete."
"The inside of the seed is alive, from the time it was part of the first organism. When water gets into it it activates, penetrates its hull and pushes away from gravity and toward the light." Annedigested the information a moment. "Life does not initiate with seed. Life initiates from the first organism. All organisms produce seed. Instruction: what is the first organism?" He looked at her, blinked, tried to think through the muddle. "I think you'd better assimilate some other area of data. You'll confuse yourself."
"Instruction: explain life process."
"I can't. It's not in my memory."
"I can instruct. I contain random information in this area."
"So do I, Annie, but it doesn't do any good. It won't work. You don't plant humans in seed trays. It takes two humans to make another one. And you aren't. Let it alone."
"Specify: aren't. It."
"You aren't human. And you're not going to be. Cancel, Anne, just cancel. I can't reason with you, not on this."
"I reason."
He looked into her changeless face with the impulse to hit her, which she could neither feel nor comprehend. "I don't choose to reason. Gather up a food kit for me, Annie. Get the gear into the lock."
"This program is preparatory to going to the river."
"Yes. It is."
"This is hazardous. This caused injury. Please reconsider this program."
"I'm going to pick up your sensor box. Retrieve valuable equipment, a part of you, Annie. You can't reach it. I'll be safe."
"This unit isn't in danger. You were damaged there. Please reconsider this instruction."
"I'd prefer to have you functioning and able to come to my assistance if you're needed. I don't want to quarrel with you, Anne. Accept the program. I won't be happy until you do."
"Yes, Warren."
He breathed a slow sigh, patted her shoulder. Her hand touched his, rested there. He walked from under it and she followed, a slow clicking at his heels.
10
The raft was still there. Nests of sodden grass lodged in tree branches and cast high up on the shores showed how high the flood had risen, but the rope had held it. The water still flowed higher than normal. The whole shoreline had changed, the bank eroded away. The raft sat higher still, partially filled with water and leaves.