by Ben Bova
No human is ever totally honest, Stoner realized. Not even with himself. He put the book down on his lap and stared out at the ocean. You knew that, he told himself. You’ve known that almost all your life.
Yet there was a part of him that found the understanding new and fresh and fascinating. A part of him that seemed to be perceiving the human drama for the first time.
When the portal opened it made no sound, but the glow of the wall’s transmutation caught Stoner’s eye. He turned to see Richards stepping through.
The psychiatrist stared at the book in Stoner’s lap. “You just started reading that this morning,” he said, his tone almost accusing.
“Yes,” answered Stoner, getting to his feet.
“You’re damned near finished!”
Stoner glanced at the book, still in his hand. He turned and put it down carefully on the windowsill next to the chair. “My reading speed is increasing, I guess.”
Richards bustled past him and picked up the book. “Seven hundred and thirty-two pages! You’ve read it? Without skimming?”
Stoner smiled. “Want to quiz me?”
“Should I?”
“Is it because psychiatry began among Middle European Jews that you tend to answer a question with a question?” Stoner asked.
Richards scowled.
“I’ll tell you what I’ve learned from Cervantes,” Stoner volunteered. “And from the other authors I’ve been reading. All of fiction is basically about one subject, and only one: women choosing their mates.”
“Women choosing…?”
With a nod, Stoner said, “Yep. That’s the common denominator of all fiction.”
“Not in Don Quixote,” Richards objected.
“The don’s adventures are just a frame to hold together a lot of little stories,” Stoner said. “All of those little stories concern women deciding whom they’re going to marry.”
“But not all fiction! A lot of it’s about men.”
Stoner’s grin widened. “Some of it seems to be about men and their adventures. But when you look closer, you see that what the men are really doing is trying to get certain women. And it’s always the woman who decides. The men are constant, always striving to get the woman. The women are never constant; they’re always trying to make up their minds about accepting this particular male or some other one.”
“Hamlet?” snapped Richards.
“His mother chose Claudius, and that’s what started all the trouble.”
“Hemingway!”
Laughing, Stoner said, “I just finished The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls last night. The women make all the decisions.”
Richards stood there, frowning and tugging at his mustache.
“Try Jane Austen,” Stoner suggested, “or Gone With the Wind.”
The psychiatrist shook his head. Returning the book to the windowsill, he said, “I don’t really have the time to discuss literature with you. Come on, you’re going to lunch with Mrs. Nillson.”
“I’m ready,” said Stoner.
Richards led him through corridors he had not seen before, out to a parking lot and a sleek, silver, two-seated automobile.
“Alfa Mercedes,” Richards muttered. “My sublimation machine.” Stoner folded himself into the front seat as Richards slid behind the wheel and flicked his fingers over the keypad on the dash. The roof glowed briefly and disappeared. Stoner grinned. The same trick that turned a solid wall into an open doorway also turned the hard-topped car into a convertible.
“One of the fringe benefits of being relatively high up on the ladder of Vanguard Industries.” Richards grinned back at him. “You get a lot of special features for your car, way ahead of the production models.”
The engine purred softly, and the car eased out of the parking lot.
“Electric motor?” Stoner asked.
Richards nodded, swinging the car past the uniformed guards on either side of the parking lot’s entrance and out onto the access road to the highway.
“Most vehicles are electrical now. One of the little gifts your dead friend gave us: fusion energy.”
The car accelerated smoothly and quietly up onto the broad four-lane highway. Other cars whizzed past, as fast and quiet as a charging cheetah. Trucks rumbled along in their own lanes, passing all but the speediest of the autos.
“The trucks still use internal combustion engines,” Richards explained. “Hydrogen fuel, though. No more kerosene.”
“Nobody does fifty-five, do they,” Stoner shouted over the rush of the wind that was tousling his hair.
Richards pecked out another combination on the dashboard keys, then took his hands off the wheel and leaned back in his chair.
“She’s on automatic now. I won’t have to pick up the steering again until we turn off the highway.”
Stoner lifted his face to the glorious Hawaiian sun. He felt free and fine, the wind whistling by, the sunshine warm, the lovely beach racing past.
“There’s no speed limit on the highways anymore,” Richards told him. “No need to conserve fuel, so we adapted the European system. Besides, with magnetic bumpers and miniradar warning systems tied automatically to the computer that runs the engine, it’s almost impossible to have a collision.”
“There’s no seat belt.”
“Another gift from your friend,” Richards shouted into the wind. “An energy shell absorbs any impact forces and keeps you safely in your seat. The car can be totaled, and you’ll just get up and walk away from it. This’ll go into the production cars next year, they tell me.”
“Ought to please the insurance companies!”
Richards nodded happily.
Stoner eyed him for a moment. He could see through the psychiatrist’s veneer of self-control. “How fast can this buggy really go?” he asked.
Richards smiled slightly, and his left hand unconsciously snaked toward the steering wheel. “Pretty damned fast.”
“A hundred?”
“Miles or kilometers?”
“Miles.”
“Easy.” He reached into the compartment under the dashboard and pulled out a pair of skin-soft gloves. Stoner saw that they were worn nearly through at the palms and knuckles. Richards wormed them onto his hands, fastened the wrist clasps, then punched a single key on the dashboard. He gripped the wheel and leaned slightly forward. The car surged ahead with barely a murmur from the engine. Stoner felt the acceleration pushing him into the molded seat. But he missed the roar of power that he remembered.
The highway became a blur as Richards, hunching over the steering wheel, swung onto the leftmost lane and leaned on the accelerator. It was eerily quiet: only the rushing wind and the hum of the tires on the road surface. And the sudden, startling whoosh as they zipped past other cars. Fifteen minutes later Richards’s silver convertible pulled into a parking area set off the highway, next to the beach.
The psychiatrist was grinning like a kid as he braked the car to a stop. “A hundred and seventy!” he exulted. “How’d you like that?”
“Fastest I’ve ever traveled on the ground,” Stoner said.
Richards nodded happily. “I never had her up to that speed. Wow, she just glides along without a rattle, doesn’t she?”
Pulling himself out of the bucket seat, Stoner admitted, “I never thought electric motors could produce such speed.”
“Times have changed,” Richards said, getting out of the car. “A lot of things have changed.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
They stood by the gleaming silver Alfa Mercedes in the bright noontime sun. Its warmth soaked into Stoner’s shoulders and back; it felt good.
“Are we going to have a picnic?” Stoner asked.
Richards made an exaggerated shrug. “Search me. I was told to bring you here.” Looking back at his car and grinning again, “We’re a little early, of course.”
Stoner nodded an acknowledgment and turned to look out at the ocean. It seemed to shimmer like a hea
t mirage. Concentrating every fiber of his attention on the waves rolling up to the beach, Stoner forced the shimmering to stop. No hallucinations, he told himself. Not while he’s watching me. Then he heard the crunching of wheels on the parking lot’s macadam. Turning back again, he saw a long black limousine gliding to a stop alongside Richards’s sleek silver sports car. The limo’s windows were smoky dark; it was impossible to see who was inside it.
He walked through the bright sunshine toward the limousine, Richards beside him. Its roof glittered in the sunlight. Solar cells, he realized. They make enough electricity to run the air conditioner and God knows what else, even when the engine’s off.
The chauffeur popped out of the limo as they approached, trotted around the length of it, and opened the rear door.
Jo Camerata stepped out.
She was as excitingly beautiful as Stoner had remembered her. Tall, with the long-legged curvaceous figure of a Hollywood star. Thickly lustrous black hair. Blazing dark eyes and rich full lips. And best of all, a mind, a spirit, as driving and demanding as Stoner’s own had been. An intelligence behind those midnight eyes that had made her more challenging than any woman he had ever known.
Eighteen years ago. She had been a child then, a student. Now she was a woman. She stood before Stoner, dressed in a simple sleeveless blouse of light blue and a darker wraparound skirt. Her throat was adorned with a choker of gleaming rubies and diamonds; a matching bracelet on her wrist.
“You’ve become a woman,” Stoner said to her. “You’re even more marvelous than I thought you’d be.”
For a moment she said nothing, then she turned to Richards. “Thanks for bringing him, Gene. I’ll see you back at the lab.”
The psychiatrist took her dismissal wordlessly, turned, and started back for his car.
“I thought we would picnic on the beach, Keith,” Jo said.
His memory wrenched back to Kwajalein, to the long hot frantic days and cool windswept nights on the beaches there when an eighteen-year-younger Jo Camerata drove the atoll’s male population wild in her cut-off jeans and skimpy halter tops, laughing as she splashed into the surf, knowing that every male eye was on her but wanting only the one man who was too busy to pay attention to her: Keith Stoner.
“A picnic would be fine,” he said.
The chauffeur was already pulling a wicker hamper from the limousine’s trunk. Stoner took it from him and followed Jo to the edge of the hard-topped parking area and out onto the clean white sand.
“Pretty empty for a public beach,” he said.
“It’s not a public beach. This is Vanguard Industries property,” Jo replied.
He looked at her, more carefully this time. In the flat leisure shoes she was wearing, she came just about up to his chin. “There’s something different about you, Jo.”
She glanced up at him. “Eighteen years. It’s a long time.”
“No, not that. If anything, you look better than you did then. More sophisticated. More adult.”
“You mean older.”
“It’s your hair,” he suddenly realized. “You used to wear it much longer.”
She almost grinned. “Long hair is not highly regarded among corporate executives. Keep it short and simple, like a memo.”
“You’re a corporate executive now.”
“I’m the president of Vanguard Industries.”
“The president! I’m impressed.”
She stopped and turned to face him. Stoner knelt slightly to let the hamper down onto the sand.
“You’ve changed, too, Keith,” she said.
Nodding, “I’m sure I have.”
“Your eyes…they’re different. The same color and everything, but…different.”
“In what way?”
She studied him for a long moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s there, but I can’t tell exactly what it is.”
They opened the hamper, took the blanket fastened inside its lid, spread it on the sand, and sat down.
“Chilled wine, caviar, sandwiches, brie…you pack quite a lunch,” Stoner said.
But Jo took a small black plastic oblong from the pocket of her skirt and ran it over the open hamper.
“You’re afraid of being bugged?”
“Goes with the job,” she said. “Industrial espionage, corporate politics—it can get pretty cutthroat.”
“And the government? The Russians?”
She tucked the electronic device back into her skirt and reached for the wine bottle. “The Cold War’s ancient history, Keith. It’s a very different world, thanks to you.”
“To me?”
“One of the bits of technology we found on the spacecraft transmutes matter into energy and back again quite easily.”
“I know. The door to my room…Richards’s convertible roof.”
She handed him the bottle and a corkscrew. “The same technology has made nuclear bombs obsolete.”
“How?”
“We’ve learned how to create a dome of energy large enough to cover a city. When it’s turned on, it protects the area inside from the blast and heat of a nuclear explosion.”
“And the radiation?”
Nodding, Jo said, “Radiation, too. All the energy from the nuclear explosion is absorbed by the screen.”
Stoner thought for a silent moment as he wormed the corkscrew into the cork, then pulled it out with a satisfactory pop!
“That means that nuclear weapons are useless against American cities….”
“And Russian cities, too,” Jo said. “We sold the information to the Russians.”
“The American government didn’t object?”
She held out a glass that sparkled like crystal in the hot sun. “Lots of people objected. The President who okayed the deal was almost impeached. He lost his bid for reelection—never even got his own party’s nomination.”
“Jesus,” Stoner muttered.
“But the world is safer now,” she said. “The U.S., Russia, all of Europe, even the major cities of China and India are protected by energy domes.”
Stoner poured the wine. They touched glasses with a pure crystal ring and sipped. The wine was cold and dry, with just a hint of muskiness.
“So we’re safe from nuclear war,” Stoner said.
“Vanguard’s making billions, setting up energy domes all over the world.”
“Have you seen Kirill lately?”
“Not for years.”
They sat on the blanket spread over the beach sand, facing each other, sipping wine. Thoughts raced through Stoner’s mind. Richards had been right: there was a lot he would have to adjust to. He watched in silence as Jo took out the tray of iced caviar and warmed brie, then set out a platter of thin crackers between them.
“If the Cold War is ancient history,” he asked, “and we’re safe from nuclear attack, what’s causing the tensions in the world?”
Jo glanced up sharply at him. “Tensions? What do you mean?”
“It’s not a peaceful world, Jo. I can feel it. The way your eyes moved away from me when I asked you about Kirill. The idea of meeting here on the beach. What are you afraid of, Jo? What’s wrong?”
She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated. For an instant she had been ready to tell him the truth. But something had stopped her, Stoner realized.
“It’s a better world than it was eighteen years ago, Keith,” she said. Her voice was low, barely strong enough to hear over the gentle murmur of the surf.
“You mean that in some ways it’s better,” he replied. “But in some ways it’s worse, isn’t it?”
“We’ve almost solved the drug problem.”
He felt a ripple of skepticism. “Don’t tell me the alien’s technology has turned people off drugs.”
“No.” She smiled slightly. “Our own technology. Although the new political alignments in the world have helped.”
“In what way?”
“We’re using sensors on satellites to spot the areas where the
raw product is grown. You know, poppies and marijuana and all.”
“You spot them from satellites.”
“Right. And we destroy them. Send in troops and wipe the fields clean.”
“You just invade a nation….”
“No, no. The Peace Enforcers do it. They’re an international entity.”
“And a nation like Turkey or Colombia just allows them to come in and rip up the poppy fields?”
Jo nodded and took another sip of wine. “They finally realized—oh, a half-dozen years ago or more—that the drug trade was destroying their governments. The drug dealers were taking over whole countries, Keith! I think it was to deal with the drug trade that the Peace Enforcers were really created, as much as to deal with stopping wars.”
“Peace Enforcers,” Stoner murmured. “My daughter’s married to somebody who’s a Peace Enforcer, according to what Richards told me. Tell me about them.”
“I will tell you about them,” she said. “But not now. It’s too soon.”
He smiled. “I’m not a child. I want to know about the world, Jo.”
And she smiled back, but it was tinged with sadness. “Keith, in many ways you are a child. A newborn. Don’t try to gobble down everything at once. Let us help you to learn about this new world that…”
She stopped herself.
“That I’ve helped to create,” he finished for her.
With a nod, she admitted, “Yes, that you’ve helped to create.”
He realized he had been leaning forward tensely. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed and stretched himself out on the blanket, squinting up at the brilliant sky.
“There must be a lot of people out there who want to thank me,” he said.
Jo leaned over into his view, blocking out the sun. “Yes, there are.”
“And there must be others who hate me.”
He heard her breath catch in her throat. But she managed to recover swiftly and say, “There are plenty of others who would like to get their hands on you. You are a very valuable piece of property.”
“Property?” He laughed.
She stared down at him. “God, Keith, you have changed.”