"What do you mean, interstellar space?" I asked him.
"It was the only option," he said. "You said you had to get to Luna. You didn't say I had to."
"But... of course you have to," Poly said. "Tell him, Sparky. He can't just... just drift for a million years."
"It could be a lot longer than that," I said. "How about it, Hal? There's got to be a way you can slow down."
"Yes, of course," he said. "There is always a way." And he shut up.
I still don't know if he would have spoken up for himself. He seemed so human, most of the time. It was easy to forget he was a machine, and though he mimicked human emotions—and I believe actually felt some of them—he operated under different protocols than Poly and I.
"Well?" Poly asked. "What do you have to do?"
"I would need to rendezvous with a refueling drone," he said. "One could be launched from Titan in a few hours, and several months from now we could meet at around eleven billion miles from the sun. A few days to slow down, and head back system-ward... in a year's time I could be back in solar space."
"Then do that," I said.
"I'm not authorized to initiate such an expenditure," he said.
At last I got it. I marched to the freezer in the kitchen—well, marched isn't exactly the word, since I was moving poorly in the one-gee environment—and retrieved Izzy's tired old thumb. Gad, only a week ago I had toyed with the idea of feeding it to Hobbes. And Hal would be on a one-way trip to the Big Bang.
I pressed it to the credit plate and authorized the chartering of an expendable drone full of fuel. I looked at the price tag this time, and had to smile. Isambard's credit had been cut off everywhere in the solar system shortly after we left Oberon... but not here. Hal's credit-verification software had been shut down, on my order. It was possible this new, outrageous charge would cause him trouble. Perhaps he, his wife and children and parents and all the rest of his family would be clapped into debtor's prison when he returned home. I had no idea if Charonese had such a thing, but one can hope.
"Do you have everything?" Hal asked. "Spacesuits, extra oxygen?"
"Something to read?" I suggested. "Candy? Toys?" See what I mean? There was a list in his memory that we'd worked on for days, and he knew each item had been checked and double-checked. If we'd forgotten to put something on the list, we were unlikely to think of it now. He was a computer, dammit, he could not forget things. But here he was sounding like an anxious mom sending her kids off to summer camp. I took it to mean he was worried about us. And that he would miss us. I was pretty sure he could feel lonely.
"We'll be okay, Hal," Poly told him. You can't kiss a computer good-bye, so we waved at him and piled into the lifeboat.
That's right, lifeboat. There were two aboard, and we needed both of them. Hal had fixed them up as a two-stage vehicle, the one we would ride perched on the nose of the other. The bottom one would blast until it ran out of fuel, then be discarded, whereupon our own boat would blast. By then we'd be feeling major gees, but it wouldn't last as long as the boost from Oberon.
Don't look so shocked. It's the way humans first got to Luna, throwing away most of their rocket along the way. Insanely expensive, but hang the cost, say I. The Charonese could afford it.
We got into our acceleration couches and Poly briefly squeezed my hand. We'd be splitting up as soon as we landed, and I'd barely gotten to know her. Story of my life. And probably lucky for her. The few medium-term relationships I've had have ended badly. I've had even fewer long-term ones.
"Hasta la vista," Hal said, over the radio.
"Until we meet again," I said. And the lifeboat's engine fired.
John Valentine turned his back on the company, put his fists on his hips, and stood motionless for a full ten seconds. No one breathed. One lesson you learned early when being directed by Valentine was that when the great man wasn't saying anything, someone was in trouble.
"Everyone take the afternoon off," he said, at last. "Go on, get out. Be back here at eight sharp."
No one dallied. There were a few murmured conversations as cast members grabbed scripts and purses and bags and thermos bottles, and even that was stilled when Valentine, still facing the back wall, raised his voice.
"Except Kenneth," he said. People moved a little faster, and within a minute the stage was bare but for father and son. Kenneth stood silently, hands resting on the hilt of his wooden sword.
John Valentine walked slowly along the rear of the stage, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He glanced at his son, sighed, and strode into the wings. When he came back he had a pair of sabers. He tossed one to his son. Kenneth dropped his prop sword and caught the saber by the hilt. Valentine moved back a few steps and addressed the younger man.
"Do you want a mask?"
"Not if you're not wearing one."
"En garde," Valentine said, and assumed that position with easy grace. He tapped the blade of Kenneth's sword with his own, and attacked.
Clang, clang, clang, and the sharp tip of the saber rested solidly on Kenneth's sternum. Kenneth swallowed hard. His father lowered his weapon, turned, and walked back three steps.
"Again," he said quietly.
It went no better for Kenneth the second time, or the third. There didn't seem much point to a fourth engagement. John Valentine walked in slow circles for a while, massaging his temples.
"You expect problems," he said, at last. "You expect obstacles and setbacks. You are ready to deal with incompetence—it's always around somewhere. You expect these things, and you think you are prepared for anything. So when the disaster strikes, you think you are prepared for it." He looked up at last. "But from my own son? This... this I wasn't prepared for."
Kenneth could think of nothing to say. He knew where this cold, quiet calm could lead.
"My Romeo can't handle a saber." He looked into the wings, then back to his son. "Tell me it's because you're used to the foil."
Kenneth shrugged, and reluctantly shook his head.
"Then tell me how it was done. No, wait, let me guess. Your fencing instructor... needed a little extra cash."
"A lot of extra cash," Kenneth admitted.
"Well, thank god he didn't come cheaply. He was highly recommended, and his reports to me couldn't have been more glowing. I should have suspected; the man didn't have the imagination to write that well. You write well."
"My staff writes even better."
"Of course." Valentine laughed. "Honing their skills on Sparky. I should have detected the flavor of fantasy." He sighed. "I blame myself, son. I never should have absented myself so long." Then he pointed to Kenneth and raised his voice only slightly, but it made the accusing finger more deadly than his blade. "But I must blame you, too, Kenneth. Oh, yes, I think that you must share the blame for neglecting one of the basic skills of the thespian art. Did you think you would continue in your childhood forever? Did you think someone could 'morph' swordsmanship, as though this holy stage were no more than your television fantasy world? Did you think you would never grow up and shoulder a man's work?"
It seemed best not to answer. But as the silence stretched, Kenneth knew he would have to.
"I... I just didn't enjoy it, I guess," he said.
"Speak up, son!" Valentine thundered. He stamped his foot on the stage. "On top of everything else, I will not have you whimpering while you tread these honored boards. Take your puling and squeaking elsewhere, back into your boardroom, perhaps, as it seems that is where you have spent the period of my absence. Surely, your skills there have purchased this theater, I'll not take that away from you... but do you think I care about that? Do you not realize I'd sooner present Shakespeare on a barren patch of sand than to cast as Romeo a boy who cannot fight? A boy who, in the crucial scene—you might recall it; Act Three, scene one?—must slay the valiant Tybalt? The scene that is the very center of the play? The scene that seals Romeo's fate, that sets the lovers finally on the road to ruin?