by Joe Haldeman
She patted him on the shoulder. “Of course, you don’t have to go to these breeder planets. You can stay on one of my planets. I make no distinction between heterosexual play and homosexual.”
She went up on the stage to give a long spiel about where we were going to stay and eat and so forth while we were on Stargate. “Never been seduced by a computer before,” Charlie muttered.
~~~
The 1143-year-long war had been begun on false pretenses and only continued because the two races were unable to communicate.
Once they could talk, the first question was “Why did you start this thing?” and the answer was “Me?”
The Taurans hadn’t known war for millennia, and toward the beginning of the twenty-first century it looked as though mankind was ready to outgrow the institution as well. But the old soldiers were still around, and many of them were in positions of power. They virtually ran the United Nations Exploratory and Colonization Group, that was taking advantage of the newly-discovered collapsar jump to explore interstellar space.
Many of the early ships met with accidents and disappeared. The exmilitary men were suspicious. They armed the colonizing vessels, and the first time they met a Tauran ship, they blasted it.
They dusted off their medals and the rest was going to be history.
You couldn’t blame it all on the military, though. The evidence they presented for the Taurans’ having been responsible for the earlier casualties was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored.
The fact was, Earth’s economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it.
The Taurans relearned war, after a fashion. They never got really good at it, and would eventually have lost.
The Taurans, the book explained, couldn’t communicate with humans because they had no concept of the individual; they had been natural clones for millions of years. Eventually, Earth’s cruisers were manned by Man, Kahn-clones, and they were for the first time able to get through to each other.
The book stated this as a bald fact. I asked a Man to explain what it meant, what was special about clone-to-clone communication, and he said that I a priori couldn’t understand it. There were no words for it, and my brain wouldn’t be able to accommodate the concepts even if there were words.
All right. It sounded a little fishy, but I was willing to accept it. I’d accept that up was down if it meant the war was over.
~~~
Man was a pretty considerate entity. Just for us twenty-two, he went to the trouble of rejuvenating a little restaurant-tavern and staffing it at all hours (I never saw a Man eat or drink—guess they’d discovered a way around it). I was sitting in there one evening, drinking beer and reading their book, when Charlie came in and sat down next to me.
Without preamble, he said, “I’m going to give it a try.”
“Give what a try?”
“Women. Hetero.” He shuddered. “No offense…it’s not really very appealing.” He patted my hand, looking distracted. “But the alternative…have you tried it?”
“Well…no, I haven’t.” Female Man was a visual treat, but only in the same sense as a painting or a piece of sculpture. I just couldn’t see them as human beings.
“Don’t.” He didn’t elaborate. “Besides, they say—he says, she says, it says—that they can change me back just as easily. If I don’t like it.”
“You’ll like it, Charlie.”
“Sure; that’s what they say.” He ordered a stiff drink. “Just seems unnatural. Anyway, since, uh, I’m going to make the switch, do you mind if…why don’t we plan on going to the same planet?”
“Sure, Charlie, that’d be great.” I meant it. “You know where you’re going?”
“Hell, I don’t care. Just away from here.”
“I wonder if Heaven’s still as nice—”
“No.” Charlie jerked a thumb at the bartender. “He lives there.”
“I don’t know. I guess there’s a list.”
A man came into the tavern, pushing a cart piled high with folders. “Major Mandella? Captain Moore?”
“That’s us,” Charlie said.
“These are your military records. I hope you find them of interest. They were transferred to paper when your strike force was the only one outstanding, because it would have been impractical to keep the normal data retrieval networks running to preserve so few data.”
They always anticipated your questions, even when you didn’t have any.
My folder was easily five times as thick as Charlie’s. Probably thicker than any other, since I seemed to be the only trooper who’d made it through the whole duration. Poor Marygay. “Wonder what kind of report old Stott filed about me.” I flipped to the front of the folder.
Stapled to the front page was a small square of paper. All the other pages were pristine white, but this one was tan with age and crumbling around the edges.
The handwriting was familiar, too familiar even after so long. The date was over 250 years old.
I winced and was blinded by sudden tears. I’d had no reason to suspect that she might be alive. But I hadn’t really known she was dead, not until I saw that date.
“William? What’s—”
“Leave me be, Charlie. Just for a minute.” I wiped my eyes and closed the folder. I shouldn’t even read the damned note. Going to a new life, I should leave the old ghosts behind.
But even a message from the grave was contact of a sort. I opened the folder again.
11 Oct 2878
William—
All this is in your personnel file. But knowing you, you might just chuck it. So I made sure you’d get this note. Obviously, I lived. Maybe you will, too. Join me.
I know from the records that you’re out at Sade-138 and won’t be back for a couple of centuries. No problem.
I’m going to a planet they call Middle Finger, the fifth planet out from Mizar. It’s two collapsar jumps, ten months subjective. Middle Finger is a kind of Coventry for heterosexuals. They call it a “eugenic control baseline.”
No matter. It took all of my money, and all the money of five other old-timers, but we bought a cruiser from UNEF. And we’re using it as a time machine.
So I’m on a relativistic shuttle, waiting for you. All it does is go out five light-years and come back to Middle Finger, very fast. Every ten years I age about a month. So if you’re on schedule and still alive, I’ll only be twenty-eight when you get here. Hurry!
I never found anybody else and I don’t want anybody else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse.
—Marygay.
“Say, bartender.”
“Yes, Major?”
“Do you know of a place called Middle Finger? Is it still there?”
“Of course it is. Where else would it be?” Reasonable question. “A very nice place. Garden planet. Some people don’t think it’s exciting enough.”
“What’s this all about?” Charlie said.
I handed the bartender my empty glass. “I just found out where we’re going.”
Thirty-six
Epilogue
From The New Voice, Paxton, Middle Finger 24-6
14/2/3143
OLD-TIMER HAS FIRST BOY
Marygay Potter-Mandella (24 Post Road, Paxton) gave birth Friday last to a fine baby boy, 3.1 kilos.
Marygay lays claim to being the second-“oldest” resident of Middle Finger, having been born in 1977. She fought through most of the Forever War and then waited for her mate on the time shuttle, 261 years.
The baby, not yet named, was delivered at home with the help of a friend of the family, Dr. Diana Alsever-Moore.
About the Author
A multiple winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, Joe Haldeman is an ultimate household name in science fiction. A Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient, Joe has maintai
ned a continuous string of SF bestsellers since the original publication of The Forever War, and as a long-time tenured Professor of Creative Writing at MIT is widely acknowledged as a key mentor figure to many of the current generation’s top SF stars.
Works by Joe Haldeman
NOVELS
War Year (1972)
The Forever War (1974)
Attar's Revenge (1975)
War of Nerves (1975)
Mindbridge (1976)
All My Sins Remembered (1977)
Planet of Judgment (1977)
World without End (1979)
Worlds (1981)
There is No Darkness (w/Jack C. Haldeman II) (1983)
Worlds Apart (1983)
Tool of the Trade (1987)
Buying Time/The Long Habit of Living (1989)
The Hemingway Hoax (1990)
Worlds Enough and Time (1992)
1968 (1995)
Forever Peace (1997)
Forever Free (1999)
The Coming (2000)
Guardian (2002)
Camouflage (2004)
Old Twentieth (2005)
The Accidental Time Machine (2007)
Marsbound (2008)
Starbound (2010)
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Infinite Dreams (1979)
Dealing in Futures (1985)
Vietnam and other Alien Worlds (1993)
War Stories (1995)
None so Blind (1996)
Saul's Death and Other Stories (1997)
A Separate War and Other Stories (2006)
Peace and War: The Omnibus Edition (2006)
Awards by Joe Haldeman
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
2010 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement
2009 Robert A. Heinlein Award
2004 Southeastern Science Fiction Lifetime Achievement Award
1996 New England Science Fiction Association Skylark Award (along with Gay Haldeman)
1989 Interzone Poll All Time Best Science Fiction Author
LITERARY AWARDS
2005 Nebula: Best Novel (Camouflage)
2004 Southeastern SF Achievement Award: Novel (Camouflage)
2004 James Tiptree Award (Camouflage)
2002 Asimov's Reader Poll: Poem (January Fires)
2001 Rhysling Award: Long Poem (January Fires)
1999 Spanish Science Fiction Association Ignotus: Best Novel (Forever Peace)
1998 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Forever Peace)
1998 Hugo: Best Novel (Forever Peace)
1998 Nebula: Best Novel (Forever Peace)
1997 Locus: Collection (None so Blind)
1995 Hugo: Short Story (None So Blind)
1995 Homer: Short Story (None So Blind)
1995 Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Awards (None So Blind)
1994 Southeastern SF Achievement Award: Short Story (Faces)
1994 Nebula: Best Short Story (Graves)
1993 World Fantasy Award: Best Short Story (Graves)
1991 Hugo: Best Novella (The Hemingway Hoax)
1991 Rhysling Award: Short Poem (Eighteen Years Old, October Eleventh)
1991 Nebula: Best Novella (The Hemingway Hoax)
1984 Rhysling Award: Long Poem (Saul's Death)
1979 Analog Analytic Laboratory: Science Fact (This Space for Rent)
1977 Hugo: Short Story (Tricentennial)
1977 Locus: Short Story (Tricentennial)
1976 Hugo: Best Novel (The Forever War)
1976 Locus: Best Novel (The Forever War)
1976 Ditmar Award (The Forever War)
1976 Nebula: Best Novel (The Forever War)