by Jeffrey Lang
Clark pondered the image. “Ow.”
“Yes,” Maxwell agreed. “Fortunately, his teeth weren’t sharp enough to break the skin. Or maybe he was just being careful.”
“Soft mouth.”
“Huh? In any case, they got Horrible to let go at the station when they offered him food. They bandaged up my hand, and then I visited the infirmary this morning.” He flexed his fingers. “Good as new.” Maxwell waved his hands like a performer concluding his act. “End of story.”
“All right,” Clark said. “That explains last night. Now get to the part about why you’re back here in Auckland living what might generously be called ‘a vagabond existence.’ ”
“I told you,” Maxwell said. “I wanted a beer.”
“They have beer in other cities,” Clark said. “Indeed, in most cities. On most planets, I’ve been told.”
“Not Klingon planets. It makes them gassy, which is not something you want to be around.”
“Ben,” Clark said, “the last we spoke, you decided it was time to go back to work, back to space. My memory may be dim due to extreme exhaustion, but my recollection is that you greeted the idea enthusiastically.”
Maxwell crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “It didn’t work out.”
“I know. I did some checking. Though I may argue with your definition of ‘didn’t work out.’ You saved the lives of all of the people on that ship.”
“Yes,” Maxwell said, “but not the pirates.”
“Not the pirates?”
“Right.”
“Why did you think you should have saved the pirates?”
“Not save them. I don’t think I should have saved them. Just found a way to avoid killing them.”
Clark let the statement linger in the air for a long moment. Then he asked, “Do you think that was even possible?”
Maxwell shrugged. “Everything’s possible.”
“Probable, then?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. I couldn’t figure out a way.”
“And if you couldn’t, Ben Maxwell, former starship captain and ace pilot, if you couldn’t, then who could?”
Maxwell turned to look down at Horrible. “That’s not the point,” he muttered. “The point is that I decided I didn’t like being in a situation where there was the possibility I might have to make that kind of decision. I did what I had to do, but I don’t want to have to make that choice again.”
“You told me once,” Clark said, “that what you wanted more than anything was to serve again. I remember that phrase very distinctly: ‘to serve.’ What is service if not being in a position to save lives if you have the ability to do so?”
Maxwell did not reply. He was staring down at the dog, who was now lightly snoring.
“You still haven’t said why you came back to Auckland. And please don’t say it was to have a beer. I saw the tox screens from the police report. You haven’t had a drink in days. Probably more like weeks.”
“No,” Maxwell said. “I mean, not for a while. I had one and then I called you, like I had planned.”
“Yes, I recall. We had a pleasant chat. I take it you hadn’t originally called to have a pleasant chat.”
“No,” Maxwell admitted. He rubbed the new, pink flesh on his left hand with the fingers of his right. “I called planning to tell you that you’re a terrible therapist.”
Despite himself, Clark laughed. He had been prepared for a lot of different responses, but this had not been one of them. “Okay,” he said, noting that Maxwell was not at all amused, “please explain, why am I a terrible therapist?”
“Because you let me leave here. You let me leave after I built those stupid robotic legs, which were specifically engineered so that you’d think, Oh, he’s all better now. You released me back out into the world even though I’m still . . .” Maxwell couldn’t look Clark in the eye when he finished the sentence. Instead, he locked eyes on the dog. “. . . still broken,” he finished, practically spitting out the word. Having had his say, he laid his hands on his legs and turned his gaze on Clark. His posture said, “Prove me wrong.”
Clark sat still. He badly wanted to cross his legs or clear his throat or tap together the tips of his fingers, but he knew Maxwell might misinterpret any of those gestures as signs of weakness or surrender. Instead, he pointed out the window, which faced the ocean. “Broken,” he said. “Interesting choice of words. And speaking of those robot legs, they’re still out there. Still walking around. They tend to stay away from the beach, probably because you programmed them to be careful about stepping on people. Yes?”
Maxwell nodded.
“So, they tend to wander around a little way offshore. Tourists like to try to sail near enough to touch them.”
“They shouldn’t be able to do that,” Maxwell said, mildly alarmed. “I made sure—”
“No one does. Or no one has yet. As soon as a boat gets close, the legs either stride off or go too close to shore for the boat to follow. You should see it. I swear the legs look like they’re playing a game, like a dog with a ball it doesn’t want anyone to have. You know that about dogs, don’t you? How some of them don’t like to give the ball back after they get it?”
Maxwell nodded, one eyebrow arched.
“I never saw the giant robot legs,” Clark resumed, “as a sign that you were ‘cured.’ The effort required to project that illusion—that was significant and I thought it was a good sign. If nothing else, the legs were a sign that you were ready to go. Somewhere. Anywhere but here. You’d been here too long.” He allowed himself the relief of crossing his legs. “And I’m sorry, Ben, truly sorry if I let you leave thinking you had somehow been fixed—as in, no longer broken. Psychiatry, therapy, psychoanalytics—whatever you want to call it—doesn’t work that way. You’ll always be broken. Or have been broken. Some terrible things happened to you. And, perhaps as a result, you did a terrible thing.”
“Perhaps?” Maxwell asked.
“The mind,” Clark said, “or, more precisely, the psyche is not a series of pulleys and switches. It isn’t as simple as tug on this thread and here’s the apple cart getting upended. And snipping that thread doesn’t mean the apple cart will never be upended again. The best we can hope for is to make sure the individual has a modicum of self-awareness, enough so that they might think twice before putting themselves in a situation where there’s an exposed thread or an apple cart that can be tipped and if they do, give them the tools to deal with it.”
Maxwell said, “I had hoped for more.”
“You got more,” Clark said flatly. “You saved an entire ship full of people, and when you felt that something was wrong, you had the good sense to come back here—”
“To tell you that you’re a terrible therapist.”
“And give me the pleasure of proving you wrong.” Clark folded his hands in his lap.
Maxwell sat for a time and stared at Clark. Then he shifted his gaze and studied Horrible, who had opened his eyes and was blankly staring back. Horrible lost interest and performed some personal grooming. He fell back to sleep. Maxwell rose, walked to the window, and looked out toward the ocean for a time, probably waiting to see if the robot legs would wander into view, but, obstinately, they did not.
Maxwell turned back, saying, “I need to find something else to do.”
“Yes,” Clark said. “I’ve been thinking about that. Perhaps it’s your use of the word broken, but you’ve got me thinking about an old colleague of mine. Well, I should be honest: a better word to describe him would be patient. Or a little of both. He has some problems with grandiosity.”
“Lovely. Sounds like I’d hate him.”
“You would. Everyone does eventually. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need your help. Anatoly breaks things a lot, and I can’t help but think he could use help from someone li
ke you.”
“Like me?”
“Someone who likes to fix broken things.”
Maxwell considered for just a moment and then asked, “Where is he?”
“Far away. Very far away. Even by your standards.”
“Sounds nice,” Maxwell said. “Do you think they’ll let me bring my dog?”
“This dog?” Clark asked. “On an extended space voyage? I think that would be an extraordinarily bad idea.”
“Me too,” Maxwell admitted. He let the idea sink in for a minute and then said, “I think that means he’ll have to stay here.”
Clark saw where he had made his mistake, but couldn’t figure out a means to back out of it. He surrendered. “Yes, because you’ll want to come back and visit.”
“Naturally,” Maxwell said. “Do what you can to keep him alive.”
Chapter 12
January 9, 2386
Deck Two
Robert Hooke
Finch was annoyed. Nothing was going to plan.
There had been a plan. Once. Not too long ago. Everything had been moving along very smoothly. “Like it’s on rails,” Finch’s mother used to say. He had been five years old before he understood she meant, “Like it’s a maglev,” as in “smoothly and without interruption.” Before the insight, his only other understanding of the word rail was associated with railgun, so he thought she had meant, “Shot out abruptly at incredible velocity.”
He had been an unusual child.
Now, being dragged down a corridor of his research station by his janitor, all Finch could do, besides try to stay on his feet, was ponder how he had come to this deplorable state. Blame should have settled on Sabih, but hadn’t or, at least, not entirely.
They stopped outside laboratory two. The janitor mouthed some words at Finch, but it was impossible to understand the grunting, as Finch was distracted by the memories of his mother—his strange, lovely mother. Mother, he wondered, where are you? Finch stared at the janitor, a vain attempt at feigned courtesy. The janitor stared back, the corners of his mouth pulled down in an ugly snarl.
The janitor struck him. In the face!
Finch watched as beads of spittle arched through the air, beginning in a perfect parabola, but then, to his great surprise, swerved up, as if gravity had temporarily taken leave of its senses.
A moment later, Finch’s feet left the deck and his stomach lurched against its moorings. The food and drink he had consumed over the past several hours left his body and hung in the air like a cloud.
Briefly—all too briefly—despite the nausea, despite the fear and worry, Finch felt a sense of peace settle over him. Here it comes, he thought. End of the line. And then he was amused to recognize that this expression, too, was associated with maglevs. Everything, he decided, is about maglevs today.
Gravity returned, and the deck rose up to greet him.
As hard as the janitor—Maxwell, Finch recalled—had hit him, it was as nothing to the titanic fury of gravity reasserting its dominance. The cartilage in the bridge of his nose went crunch. Fluids leaked from his body. Will the indignities of this day never cease?
Sound returned. The world was screaming at him: voices, alarms, rending metal. Maxwell. Maxwell was shouting at him.
Finch realized that until that moment, the world had been silent. Or veiled. He felt his gut quiver and the tiny bones in his ear—the malleus, the incus, and the stapes—resonate and chime. In his head, Finch recalled the calculations that determined the arc of his present circumstances, the movement here and there, up and down, back and forth, with gravity and without it. Force and motion, he recalled, thinking about his remedial physics lessons from his boyhood. His mother’s hand, his mother’s smile. Force and motion.
“—and then we’re going to explode!” Maxwell was shouting. “Unless you help me.”
“Yes,” Finch replied.
Maxwell, losing the thread of his diatribe, subsided. He was on his knees. Both of them were on their knees. Finch’s nose was bleeding, but already beginning to clot. He had always been a good clotter. The terrible sounds of rending metal subsided briefly. In that pause, Finch heard Maxwell say, “What did you say?”
Finch replied, “I said, ‘Yes.’ ”
“ ‘Yes’ to what?”
“To whatever you want.”
“Whatever I want?” Maxwell looked incredulous, and then merely confused. “Whatever I want? What I want is to find a damned environmental suit! What have I been screaming about for the last two decks?!”
“I’m afraid I have no idea,” Finch explained. “I believe I was in a state of shock, a fugue state of some sort. Possibly from seeing poor Sabih die?” The deck rumbled under their feet as something—no doubt something large and expensive—exploded or broke free from its moorings and crashed to the deck. “Possibly the undoing of all my worldly affairs?” He waved his hand casually, beckoning to Maxwell to take in the carnage around them. “I’m sure you understand.”
“But you’re all right now?” Maxwell asked dubiously.
“I seem to be myself again,” Finch replied. “I suppose I should thank you for striking me.” He rubbed his jaw. “I expect this will be swelling soon.”
“Do you remember what we were doing?” Maxwell asked, ignoring Finch’s potential injury. “What we were looking for?”
“You’re seeking some kind of environmental suit, the sort of thing that would protect you from the vacuum in what’s left of my lab.”
“Right. Unless you’ve thought of some way to reseal the vents and get some atmo in there.”
“If the lab has not already sealed itself and pressurized, we’ll have to assume it cannot.”
“So I figured.” Maxwell turned away to examine the environmental indicators beside the door to lab two. “This doesn’t look promising. Was there any radioactive material in here?”
Finch scrolled though his mental inventory. He knew Maxwell considered him a lackluster landlord, but Finch had a good memory for the work his tenants were conducting in his laboratories. Zerkowski, he remembered. Chemist. Saponification. “No radioactive material. Unless he was incorporating it into his soap.”
“Soap?”
“Indeed,” Finch said. “Everyone has their dream, Mister Maxwell.”
“So the Mother probably hasn’t tried to make her break through the hull here.”
“What do the indicators say?”
Maxwell pointed at the display. “They say no. They say it’s stable in there. I’m just not feeling too trusting right this moment. Do you know if there’s an environmental suit in there?”
Again, Finch scanned his mental inventory. He hmmmed. “Possibly. Doctor Zerkowski liked to be prepared for all contingencies.” The gravity burped again, and their feet left the deck. Maxwell grabbed the cover of a power coupling in one hand and Finch in the other so that neither of them would drift away. Finch grasped Maxwell’s arm with both hands, trepidation rising in his gut (along with whatever remained of his lunch). Gravity returned abruptly, but this time Finch was able to land on his feet rather than his face.
“I think we need to take a look,” Maxwell groaned, crouching by the door. He wore a pained expression, as if he had landed poorly. “But if this doesn’t work out, I’m heading straight to the storage area outside the generator room. I have a suit stashed there.”
Finch nodded in reply. He didn’t sense that he would be invited along for the excursion, which would leave him free to do . . . what precisely? Return to ops? Attempt to send out a distress call? Curl up in a ball and wait for the station’s hull to crack open? No, he resolved. I will not surrender. There may still be a way to survive this. He stole a glance at his chronometer. Not long until he arrives.
“Go stand over there,” Maxwell said, indicating the doorway on the opposite side of the corridor. “Grab something stabl
e. If there’s no pressure behind this door, it probably won’t open anyway, but be ready in case it does.”
Finch did as he was instructed. Maxwell raised his thumb over the lock, but Finch held up his free hand, an indication to pause.
“What?” Maxwell asked.
“Before you do that,” Finch said, pitching his voice low so the words would carry across the hall. “I just want you to know, Ben, how very much I appreciate what you’ve done . . . and, hopefully, will do . . . for myself and my tenants. You’ve truly gone above and beyond the call of duty for an employee to his employer.”
Maxwell stared at him, eyes narrowed. Then his face relaxed and the janitor said, “Since we’re speaking our innermost thoughts, I’d like you to know that I sincerely believe you’ve been criminally negligent today and committed acts that may have resulted in the deaths of a dozen people.” He paused, considering, then added, “And arachnoforms.” He nodded, satisfied. “As long as we’re clear on that, Mister Finch.”
“Absolutely clear, Mister Maxwell.” Finch added, “One more thing?”
Maxwell sighed and sagged. “Sure,” he said. “Since there’s no real time pressure here.”
Finch grinned falsely. “A question: Am I correct in my guess that, once upon a time, there was a Captain Maxwell?”
The janitor cocked his head to the side and said, “There may have been, but he’s gone now. Why do you ask?”
“Simply a thought that came to me after listening to how Chief O’Brien spoke to you.” Finch shrugged. “It was a whim and a fancy. I thought I’d satisfy it since, in all likelihood, I may die in the next few minutes.” He paused and waited for Maxwell to take his stance again. “I’m sure,” he added, “that there’s a fascinating story behind the loss of rank.”
“I can assure you,” Maxwell said, turning his back to Finch and squaring his shoulders, “there isn’t.” He waved his hand so the door sensor would be aware of their presence.
The door opened soundlessly, and Maxwell peered through it.
Inside lab two, lights flickered on.