“I’ve only ever told one other person, and afterward I wished I hadn’t.”
She reached out and touched his hand. “I won’t give you reason to feel that way.”
“I guess I know that, too, or I wouldn’t have brought it up.” Somehow the memory seemed clearer, sharper, as he retold it this time—if he looked away from her and off into the dark corners of the cabin, he could almost place himself back in the Panorama, and recapture the rush of feeling as the shield rolled back to reveal the face of Jupiter.
“I know my experience doesn’t exactly parallel what Z’lin said. I didn’t see any D’shanna. No one spoke to me. But I had an overwhelming sense of Contact with alienness. I saw everything differently, more intensely, more emotionally. What happened to me was all out of proportion with anything that came before or after.”
“And that’s why you joined the Service?”
“Yes. It’s shaped every important choice I’ve made for ten years. Jupiter changed me, Amy—it pushed me sideways, and I’ve been out of balance ever since, without ever understanding how or why. Even Z’lin could see it, and knew I would understand. I don’t think he would have told me what he did, except for that.”
“You sound as though you’re carrying a grudge.”
“Don’t I have reason to, as much as the Sennifi do?” he demanded, pulling his hand away and retreating across the compartment from her. “My life was in perfect order, and they made it a disaster,” he continued, his back to her. “I’ve been miserable since I first set foot on a survey ship. I’d have gotten out at A-Cyg if there were any point to it. But there’s nothing to go back to. The chance I had is already long gone.” He turned back to her, and his features were contorted by his anger. “Who has a better reason to find them?”
“I’m sorry—”
Thackery blew a long breath through pursed lips. “You’ve got no reason to be.”
“I was going to say I was sorry I couldn’t help.”
“You did help. I would never have gone to the surface if you hadn’t noticed what you did.”
“I’m not sure I did you a favor. D’shanna is a Sennifi word—”
“From the haarit language.”
“Have you had time to analyze it?”
“No,” he said.
“I have,” she said. “It means, first order, life stealers—second order, implacable enemy—third order, totality of evil. These are the things you want to go hunting?”
His face reflected his childlike helplessness to control his own compulsions. “I have to, Amy. I have to.”
“But Thack—if you’re right, then the Sennifi may know the answers to all the puzzles we’ve been trying to decipher. They may have the solution to the colony problem.”
Thackery nodded vacantly. “The very highest class of scholars knows. Z’lin Ton Drull knows, I’m sure of it.”
“Then this is where we should be. We need to stay here and persuade them to help us. Hell, we should move the whole’ Data Analysis Office out here.”
A tolerant smile played across Thackery’s lips. “We could fill their skies with ships, and I don’t think they would ever tell us,” Thackery said, shaking his head. “I don’t think we have any leverage with them whatsoever. I don’t think we could bribe them, or threaten them, or punish them enough to get them to share what they know. They are an extremely moral people, and they would view it as an extremely immoral act. They simply would not do it.”
“What if we went in and seized their records? Took over their scholar complex and their libraries? We could dig it out of there on our own.”
“And thereby demonstrate what our moral stature is? No, Amy, you’ve missed something. The whole function of the scholar’s languages in their society is to insulate the knowledge from all but a few. The concept of the D’shanna, of a star-spanning civilization, of the beginning and end of the Universe, can’t even be expressed in their common language. Without their willing help, a hundred interpolators working a thousand years wouldn’t have a prayer of sorting through—”
“Damn it, Merritt, if they know what happened to the FC civilization, we have to try!”
Thackery shook his head slowly and emphatically. “It’s better that Neale and the others don’t believe Z’lin’s story, or they’d probably do exactly what you say. No, Amy. If the Sennifi know, then the D’shanna also know. I intend to hear it from them.”
For three days, Thackery remained in purgatory, hearing nothing from Neale about the specifics of his ultimate fate. He spent most of that time with a slate, searching the contact records from the other colonies in the faint and ultimately fruitless hope of finding some evidence to corroborate his story.
The remaining time he whiled away as pleasantly as possible with that portion of the Munin’s crew who were willing to be seen with him. The division was, with one exception, along operations-scientific lines. The science team insisted on regarding him as some sort of hero; the command crew, as some sort of pariah. The exception to the rule was Kellerman, the planetary ecologist, who saw the elevated status which came with being Neale’s new favorite as a license to sneer down at the less fortunate.
Throughout Thackery’s term in purgatory, there was a steady flow of Kleine traffic back and forth with A-Cyg. Unfortunately, Thackery was neither a party to it nor privy to its contents. Doubtless, most of the dispatches concerned the Sennifi; a large fraction of the rest, the imminent arrival of Descartes. But just as certainly, some of it had to do with Thackery himself.
Sentence had still not been pronounced when Descartes dropped out of the craze a few light-hours away. The rendezvous and the expected crew transfer to follow quickly became the primary topic of conversation, even among those not expecting to be affected.
It was Guerrieri who came looking for Thackery with the news. He found him curled up in a chair in the edrec room, all alone watching a recording of a pre-Restoration absurdist drama about a family facing a New Ice Age.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Descartes will be alongside in an hour.”
That interested Thackery enough to press the PAUSE button. “Have they posted crew assignments yet?”
“No. Do you mean they haven’t told you yet what they’re going to do with you?”
“They haven’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know. Neale’s going to continue on with Descartes, and I’m going to be sent back with Munin.”
“Well—at least you won’t have to deal with her anymore.”
“You will. You’ll be going over to Descartes.”
Guerrieri admitted sheepishly, “That’s kind of what I’m expecting. I haven’t had any problems with her, though. You’ve been kind of like a lightning rod—kept the rest of us safe.”
It was clearly meant as a joke, to relieve the astrophysicist’s embarrassment over what would in all likelihood be a very final separation. “Glad to have been of service,” Thackery said in similar spirit, but his mind was elsewhere. / don’t know how to say good-bye to you, Derrel. We’ve skirted around the fringes offriendship, and I don’t know what that calls for. But there’s someone else to whom I know just what / want to say—
“Where arc you going?” Guerrieri asked, making Thackery aware that he had risen from the chair. “To see Neale. To say all the things I bit my tongue over at the inquiry.”
“Aw, Thack, why bother?”
“Because this is my last chance. And because I’ve got nothing to lose.”
When Neale’s cabin door opened, Thackery was pleased to see by her tousled hair and reddened cheek that his page had roused her from sleep.
“Tell me, are you incapable of learning shipboard etiquette, or do you just think it’s all a bore?” she asked icily.
“I want to talk to you.”
“Well, whatever Merry wants, Merry gets. Come in, come in,” she said sarcastically, stepping aside and gesturing with a sweeping motion of one arm. “What can I do for you?”
“Y
ou can stop calling me Merry, for one thing,” he snapped. “My name is Merritt Thackery. I’m not your son, or your pet, so if you want to address me you’ll use my given name and not invent new ones for me.”
“Forgive me—I didn’t realize that you were above nicknames,” she said, closing the door behind him.
“My friends are welcome to call me Thack.”
“And of course, you don’t count me among them.”
“You’re damned right I don’t.”
“Trying to display all your social failings, Mr. Thackery? Your attitude’s a bit lacking in command respect. If I were a disciplinarian like Cormican, I might be tempted to—”
“You’ve given up the right to respect by your conduct here.”
Neale laughed. “My conduct here? Which one of us stole a lifepod and made an unauthorized contact landing?”
“I didn’t ask for this post, and I wouldn’t have picked myself for it. You chose to leave a better man back at A-Cyg. If you’re not happy with my performance, you have only yourself to blame. Not that you’re very good at accepting blame. You ducked responsibility for what happened at Gnivi.”
“As your beloved mentor Mark Sebright took pains to point out to me, when a survey ship is in-system the Contact Leader is in charge. The blame for those two perfectly preventable deaths fell exactly where it belonged.”
“Is that why you enlisted me to help pressure him into an early landing? You were thinking about your career then and nothing else.”
“You didn’t have to say yes. And what do you claim to have been thinking about? The greater good of mankind? You were being just as self-serving as you say I was.”
“True. And I’m honest enough to admit it, and have conscience enough to regret it.”
“Oh, I see! That’s where you acquire your moral superiority—by wringing your hands after the fact. Now all we have to decide is where you lost your judgment. I hear you’re still pushing your D’shanna fantasy downship. Tell me, how long have you known you’re the only one gifted with the wisdom to point out our errors and save us from ourselves?”
“Dammit, I only want a fair hearing—”
“You had it. And if you keep identifying yourself with this nonsense, you just may invite a psychological evaluation and a fitness review.”
“Is that how you’ve decided to get rid of me?”
“I have no interest in ‘getting rid of’ you. You haven’t proven yourself particularly useful, but that’s hardly the basis for a vendetta.”
“I’m no use to you because I’ve found out what kind of person you are—a selfish, amoral opportunist—” She smiled slightly. “You need to be getting more sleep—fatigue is making you testy.”
“—who doesn’t belong in command of a survey ship.”
“I agree,” she said, nodding gravely. “As does the Flight Office, you’ll be pleased to hear. You see, Merry, I’ve been appointed to fill a vacancy on the FC Committee.”
Thackery’s eyes widened in dismay. “What?!”
“I knew you’d be pleased. Of course, I can’t discharge that responsibility and hold down a full-time ship billet at the same time. So I’ll be returning to A-Cyg in Descartes.”
“But Descartes is continuing on—”
“Oh, no, that was before this news. Now it’s Munin that’s continuing on. Oh, and Merry—you’ll also be pleased to know I recommended you for Contact Leader, and the Flight Office found that agreeable. So you’re staying with Munin, along with Commander Cormican and Dr. Koi and the rest of the science team—now the survey team. Except Kellerman, of course. You do have one body to spare, and I’m going to need a new executive assistant.”
“No!”
“Oh, yes. Oh, you’ll want to know that the clock goes back to zero for you. It’ll be a three-year tour contract, with no allowance for your time on Descartes. It’s only fair. Most of the crew is new, and we can’t let one or two individuals dictate the timetable of an entire survey ship, can we? I hope you enjoy your new assignment, Merry. I know I’m going to enjoy mine.”
The encounter left Thackery shattered and emotionally empty. Eventually he found himself standing outside the closed door of the science lab, without quite knowing why and without the will to either leave or enter.
Then the door opened and he was nearly run down by Barbrice Mueller, the young technoanalyst. “Mr. Thackery,” she said in surprise, and sidled past, leaving the door open for him.
At the mention of his name, Koi glanced toward the door from her station. Seeing the look in Thackery’s eyes, she left her work without a word.
“She did it to me again,” he said helplessly as she joined him.
“Let’s go to my cabin,” she urged, and he followed her suggestion docilely. Once there, he sat round-backed on the edge of her bed, staring down at the floor.
“You went to see Neale?”
“It was like arguing with Andra—and I never won those, either. I never even reached her.” He craned his head and found Koi, still standing, by her desk. “I don’t think I inhabit the same world as people like that.”
“Unfortunately, you do.”
“No, I mean it. It’s like there are two realities. In one, I screwed up at Gnivi and broke all the rules at Sennifi. In the other, I distinguished myself at both places and earned promotions.”
“History belongs to she who writes it.”
“But she had me set up. With the stunt I pulled, she didn’t even have to work hard to do it. Now I’m going to be Contact Leader on Munin.”
Koi showed no surprise at the announcement. “Her priorities have changed.”
“But after tearing me to pieces in front of Cormican, to transfer me to his crew—”
“She probably managed to make it look like the Flight Office’s doing. Look, she’s not doing you a favor. From her point of view, this is a better way to get rid of you. She can go back to A-Cyg and enjoy the fruits of your success, while making sure that you’re not around to compete for the credit. And if she publishes a second-species proposal, it’ll be all hers.”
“I thought you said she couldn’t cope with that idea.”
“She adjusted quickly. I did some poking around in her netlink’s activity register. She’s been looking into the whole history of the idea, back to Von Daniken himself.”
“I don’t understand. When I talked to her about this once before, she laughed it down, called it wishful thinking. Are you saying she believes me?”
Koi’s voice was gentle, soothing. “Maybe she believes you despite herself. Maybe she’s finally decided that the colony problem won’t be solved in her lifetime—which means that she wouldn’t be proven wrong in her lifetime, either. There are no serious second-species theorists. If she could pull something sound out of that pseudoscientific mishmash, that’d establish her as someone of substance on the committee. Or maybe she plans to write the definitive refutation of the second-species hypothesis—which might accomplish the same thing. Whatever her plans are, she’s going to make sure that you’re not around to gum them up.”
He shook his head despairingly. “I understand what she’s doing to me. I expected it, or something like it. But she’s hitting at you, too—why? Because you weren’t smart enough to keep your distance from me? She’s got no right to put you where you’re going to have to go through the craze time after time.”
Koi took a step toward him and tentatively stretched out her hand. “Don’t be angry with her about that.”
“I can’t help it.”
“No—I mean it. I requested the assignment.”
Beyond surprise, Thackery mustered only a feeble “Why?”
“The drugs make the phobia manageable. I think I can cope with it.”
“But why even try?”
“I want to go where you do.”
“I don’t understand.” She came and sat beside him, and he let her take his hands in hers. “Thack—I don’t know how to be shy about either part of this. Professional
ly, I find the possibility that you’re right more interesting than the probability that you’re wrong. And personally, I like you. I think you need an ally, a friend—. maybe a lover. I think maybe I could be all three.”
He wanted to warn her off, to make her understand how twisted and pointless his relationships with women had been.
They all wanted something from me—Andra, Diana, Neale—always wanted something more and gave so little back. I don’t even know you enough to know what it is you want. How can 1 trust you? How can I trust any of you?
But he also wanted her to hold him, to let her pull his head down to her shoulder, to have the comfort of her arms around him and her warmth close by. And in the end, that urge was stronger. He reached out to her, and found her embrace a better refuge than solitude or bitterness.
Only after the anger and frustration had drained from him did the embrace turn sexual. It did so fitfully, each of them self-conscious, neither of them certain that they were ready to face that complexity so quickly. Not surprisingly, they were awkward with each other, tentative and unsure. But for all that, their lovemaking was also tender and affectionate, a combination Thackery found he preferred over the memory of other more practiced partners. By the time they lay snuggled against each other afterward, her head resting on his chest, the self-consciousness was gone.
“What do you really want?” she asked, almost in a whisper. “If you were making all the decisions, what would you give yourself?”
He did not hesitate. “Operational command of a ship—so I could follow the trail wherever it leads.”
“Then work on it,” she urged him. “Figure out what angle will get them to go for it.” His finger traced its way lazily down to the warm hollow at the base of her spine. “Ships are too scarce, and they’re always going to be scarce. They’ll never turn one over to me.”
“No, of course they won’t,” she said, rolling over and propping her chin on her hands to look at him. “But they might commit one to a new strategy, if they thought it had potential. They’re looking down the road to Phase Three, and I can tell you on good authority that they have serious doubts whether they’ll be able to muster the ships and crews it will require. If you can make them believe you can make the search more efficient, they’ll listen.”
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