Harvest of Stars

by Poul Anderson

  No doubt he felt grateful to her, despite his complaints, and accorded her a measure of respect, and therefore found her worth talking with like this. Nonetheless Eiko was surprised when he added: “Then Juliana died. I soldiered on.”

  “Alone,” she said. Tears stung.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me!” he snapped. “I don’t, never did. Running Fireball was fun, taking it out to the ends of the Solar System and looking into how much farther we might go.”

  “I see. You did not wish to lose that.”

  “When I saw my own time coming?” She imagined a shrug of phantom shoulders. “Well, I’d have to. This isn’t the original Anson Guthrie here, you know. It’s a program in a box.”

  “I meant to say,” she fumbled, “you … cared about … space.” About humankind bound ever onward, discovering, triumphing, outliving the sun and the galaxies, and on the way attaining to enlightenment.

  His reply came blunt. “Not exactly. I never was any saint, to sacrifice myself for some grandiose Purpose. Nor was I ever such an egomaniac as to suppose Fireball would immediately go on the rocks once my hand was off the tiller.”

  He lay mute for a span. Gently, the Tree rocked him.

  “But we were at a crisis,” he said. “Several crises, some technical, some political. For instance, should Fireball continue research and development for interstellar missions? Was that the great, shining goal, or were we pouring our resources down a black hole when they could go to something real? Several governments were trying to get into space in earnest, run their own lines and undertakings. Should we forestall the camel sticking his nose in the tent? If so, how? And how to keep Fireball itself from degenerating into a government?”

  As he went on, his voice sank and steadied. “I was an old fart, my endurance gone and my wits growing dull. Best for Fireball, this thing Juliana built with me, best would be if I retired. Unless I could get myself a helper who thought like me, who also wanted to keep her dreams alive. The technology for downloading had become available. Quite a few friends, including descendants of ours, urged me to use it. They claimed they needed this. Maybe they were right. Anyhow, I let them talk me over. None too soon, from their standpoint, because as it happened, shortly after the job was done, I died.”

  31

  Database

  THE HOUSE STOOD near the western edge of its preserve on Vancouver Island. Behind it and on either side of the lawn reared ancient firs. Before it a path ran down to a dock at the cove. Beyond was ocean. On this late afternoon of summer, clouds stood tall in the east, their billows full of light and blue shadows. Otherwise the sky was clear. A low wind bore coolness from sea to sod; gulls skimmed creaking, amazingly white. Waves outside the cove ran gray and green save where they burned with sun or they foamed and fountained. At their distance the sound of them came as a wild lullaby, hush-hush-hush. Afar upon them winged a sailboat.

  Here abided a piece of Old Earth. It was expensive to maintain.

  The robot left his flitter on the landing strip and strode to the house. He was humanoid, suggestive of a knight in armor—accumulator-powered, not very efficient, but better suited for today than something on wheels or tracks or jets. The verandah drummed beneath his weight. Sheila Quentin heard and opened the door. He stepped into a walnut-paneled anteroom. Though windows were dimmed, a stained-glass panel was in full glow. It pictured Daedalus and Icarus aflight from their prison.

  “Welcome,” Quentin said. Her voice strove. “But did you have to come in person?”

  “He asked, didn’t he?” the robot replied. His own voice was a vigorous basso but rather flat in tone. He hadn’t had enough practice with it yet.

  “Yes, but—” She looked away. “I should think he—well, it’s different with … blood kin. You—excuse me, but why couldn’t you settle for a phone connection?” She looked back, mustering a sad defiance. “Less strain on him.”

  The robot regarded her. She had been a handsome woman. The years had not leached all of that from her.

  “He wants it this way,” the robot said. “Don’t you understand?”

  She sighed. “I know. In many ways he’s a primitive soul. I should have prevented it.”

  “Could you have?”

  “I tried. He insisted. But he’s so weak—” Her fingers twisted together. “Him that was so strong. I could’ve refused to give you his message or to let him call. But—”

  “He would have cursed you. I know.”

  “Of course you know.” She raised her eyes to confront his lenses. “I gave in. Do you despise me?”

  The robot shook his head. “No. Contrariwise. It wasn’t easy for you. Thanks.”

  Her glance went to the staircase. “Better go right on up. He’s had his medicine, but no telling any more how long a dose will work, and the cost gets higher to him each time.”

  “Afterward—”

  “If there is an afterward, yes, I’ll come say goodbye too.” She swallowed. “But now he wants to be alone.”

  “In a way, he does,” the robot agreed.

  “If he’d let me hold his hand while you—No!” she nearly shouted. “Go on up!”

  The robot mounted the stairs and went down a hall to a bedroom facing west. It was sparsely furnished, with just a few pictures on white walls, but much brighter than below. Windows were open to sky and sea breeze. Draperies fluttered gauzy. In a corner stood a grandfather clock, rebuilt museum piece. Its ticking marched slow beneath the wind.

  The robot approached the bed and leaned over. Anson Guthrie looked back at him. Eyes blinked. They were faded, bulwarked by a nose that had jutted like a crag since most flesh shriveled. Lips moved. The robot amplified sound until he could hear that whisper. “Hello.” This also brought in the sighing through the firs and the tumbling of waves as they rolled shoreward from across half the planet.

  The robot had decided on the way here how best to greet his other self. “Vaya con Dios,” he said.

  Guthrie grinned a little. “Maybe.” After a moment: “I wanted … to meet with you … once more.” He muttered word by word, with pauses for air. It rattled in his lungs.

  “Sheila doesn’t think that makes sense,” the robot said. He straightened. “I wonder if she’s right.”

  “I do too, but … no matter … I hope you spoke … kindly … to her.”

  “I tried. I’m not sure I succeeded.” Clumsily humanlike, the robot rubbed the back of his head, as if it grew hair. “This is all new to me.” His tone sharpened. The best defense is an attack. “How kind to her have you been?”

  Guthrie’s skull turned on the pillow, from him. “Less’n I should have, no doubt. But—”

  He fell silent, except for his breath that toiled against wind and sea and clock. Finally: “Vaya con Dios, you said.” Again he grinned. “Won’t Juliana give me hell! … Sheila, and the women before her—”

  “She, Juliana, she’ll understand,” said the robot stoutly.

  “I’m not so sure. … You lack certain feelings, I think. … Haven’t got … what it takes … to have them.”

  The robot was mute a while. “That hurt,” he said at last.

  “Sorry.” Guthrie’s gaze struggled back to the burnished form. “Yeah, sorry. I keep forgetting … you aren’t really me. … I always was … pretty rough … with myself, you know.” He snapped after breath.

  The robot nodded. “I expect I’ll be the same. I’m still learning how to be—what I am.”

  Guthrie tried to form a frown. “Let’s stop … pissing time down the toilet. Damn little … of it. … I’m bound where Juliana is, yeah, but … that’s into nothing. … Got some business to settle … first.”

  “Your ashes will certainly go to hers,” the robot promised: strewn across the Leibniz Range on Luna, the mountains of eternal light.

  “Trivia. We won’t care … or know. My epitaph—D’you recall?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  A warm night, a rumpled bed, crickets chirping outside, the scents o
f love’s aftermath. She snuggled against him. Her locks spilled over the arm he had brought around her shoulders. “I’ve thought of what I want on my tombstone,” he laughed.

  “Each man dies

  And ends his day.

  Here he lies

  Who used to lay.”

  “I won’t get that after all,” Guthrie said.

  “But I will remember it,” the robot said.

  “Right. That’s enough. Listen,” Guthrie hissed. “I want … to brief you … about Fireball. … You’re going to have … a hell of a ruckus … and you’re still … feeling your way … into existence—” He breathed for a span. Even amplified, his question was barely to be heard. “I wonder. How does it feel?”

  “Strange,” the robot confessed. “A kind of—lightness? I’m an abstraction, I think.” He sought for words. “But there is a, a drive yet, and I’m fond of my old friends, my old memories, yours. Not quite the same way as before—as you’ve been—but—No, you were not very kind to Sheila today.”

  “Take care … other. She’s earned it.”

  “I will. She has.” This also the robot shared. “Okay, what’ve you got to tell me about Fireball?”

  Guthrie gathered strength.

  “They’re swarming around you already, aren’t they?” he began. “Advice, requests, demands. … And you know … what I know … about them, but … have you got the—intuition—the sense of them?” He fought. “Listen.

  Mostly they mean well Watch out for … Delancey. … He’s after power. Too good … an administrator … to scrap, and … we mustn’t break faith, ever … but keep a curb on him.” He fought. “And Tanya … Tanya Eagle Tree. Good gal, besides being … my granddaughter… but she should stay with … engineering. Steer her off of … trying to steer people. And—”

  The seizure contorted him.

  The robot knelt and held him close, mummy against metal, while it ran its course. “Shall I ring for help?” the robot asked. Anyone else would have done so immediately.

  The expected “No” shivered to him. His vibrosensors felt the racking heartbeat, his chemosensors drank the smell of clam-cold sweat. “Hell with that. Never mind.”

  The spasm ended. The robot lowered the man to the pillow. Guthrie’s right hand trembled toward him. “Stars,” Guthrie pleaded. “Keep us aimed … at the stars … whatever your people … say.”

  “That night at the lake is in me too,” the robot assured him.

  The air was utterly still and unbelievably clear, especially since the altitude was not much. Above the woods, stars were beyond counting. Their reflections gleamed everywhere on the lake. Anson and Juliana had the campsite to themselves; in those days, you had to backpack to here. They stripped and went for a swim. The water caressed them, almost warm. At each stroke it ran back down into itself with a clear clinking like laughter. They swam among stars. “Someday we’ll do this for real,” Juliana said. “Promise?”

  “Good,” Guthrie whispered. “Grand. That’s what counts.” He rested until he could speak a bit louder. “I’ll drink to that. The Scotch … is over there.”

  “Better not,” the robot counseled.

  “I’m still in command.”

  The robot yielded. “You are.” He crossed the room, fetched the bottle from a drawer as directed, returned, and poured into a tumbler meant for water. Kneeling again, he lifted the knaggy head and brought rim to lips.

  “The stars,” Guthrie mumbled.

  Curtains rippled evening-lit in a gathering breeze. The grandfather clock reached another hour and boomed it away.

  32

  UPON COMMAND, INIA meshed radionics with those of Station Control and slipped into dock at L-5. Kyra need but sit back and watch. The colony loomed before her like a spinning cliff, the entrance a cave agape in the middle of it. Her craft entered a tunnel everywhere lighted, applied a sidewise vector, reached the assigned bay. Contact and electromagnetic securing made the hull quiver. A wave of dizziness passed through heads as weight came back. It was slight, this close to the axis of rotation, but Kyra was now looking up, not across, at a tender moored opposite. Just as well, she thought, that she’d vetoed Rinndalir’s idea of arriving in the Narwhal. That vessel would have had to take orbit while the shuttle yonder, or one like it, ferried his party here and back. A Dolphin was small enough to bring them in directly. Quicker getaway, should the need arise. Of course, a lessened strength might make that need more likely.

  She tautened. The way their plan had developed, it was pretty much dependent on her.

  She undid her harness and moved feather-softly aft. The Lunarians were releasing themselves from their acceleration couches. Arren, Isabu, and Cua were haggard after hours under twice their normal gravity. They would not be sluggards, though. Medication kept them at full power and alertness; they had joined in conference while they fared; whatever the physiological price was, they’d pay it after returning home. Rinndalir showed no sign of ordeal. Unlike his followers, who wore plain coveralls, he was in black and silver. More glamorous than anybody had a right to be, damn him.

  “Is all well?” he asked low-voiced. “Are the particulars clear in every mind?” He smiled. “Such as they are.” The smile found Kyra. “For you, yes, beyond doubt. Well do I know.” She felt the heat in her face and inwardly swore at herself. Yet how he raised heart and hope.

  Arren and Isabu fetched their large cases full of instruments and equipment. Grasping the handles, they bounded behind their chief to the portside personnel lock. Cua trailed them by a few meters. She was the reserve pilot, among the few Lunarians with deep-space training, not a consorte of Fireball but a vassal of Rinndalir.

  Kyra kept aside. When the valves opened, she could hear what went on after the men left the vessel, yet not see it nor be seen. Cua, who stayed inboard but in view, murmured to her: “Six Security Police—a full squad, I believe—as well as the usual technicians. Indeed they are wary of us.”

  Words reached her: “—orders, sir. No disrespect or anything. Policy. As long as the danger lasts, all new visitors must be attended or, uh, accounted for at all times. It’s for your own protection.”

  Rinndalir, sardonic: “Are we so precious as to require guarding by twice our number? I am honored.”

  “Bueno, sir, you did come unexpectedly, on a mission the L-5 governors hadn’t heard a thing about.”

  “I will be glad to explain the reasons for that, if I may have a telephone connection or if their representative cares to meet us in low-weight. Basically, this is a rapid and tentative survey. If we find nothing obviously wrong with the site we are thinking of, the Selenarchy will make a formal proposal and the possibility can be investigated in detail. Why do you not simply escort us there at once?” Laugh. “You will be the sooner rid of us.”

  “Uh, the message said five of you—”

  “Our pilot has no cause to accompany us. She is merely a Fireball employee. In view of the present emergency, Captain Pedraza, you will understand why we deem it prudent to leave one of our own with her, to help keep our vessel secure.”

  The Sepo officer made confused protestations. Rinndalir overbore them, or rather bore them away on a slickly rushing tide of words. Kyra wished she could watch. Did anybody else in the galaxy combine arrogance and blarney like him? Eventually footsteps receded.

  Cua and Kyra exchanged a look. “I will scout,” the Lunarian said low. “Listen closely.” She passed through the lock. Even in her baggy garment, she didn’t seem to move with low-g strides so much as to flow. MacCannon, but she was beautiful! Lunarians generally were, of course. As long as chromosomes were being remodeled—What attracted Rinndalir to Kyra, anyway? Not that he pretended love, which would have insulted her intelligence, but his gallantries were like verse, and as for the active part of that nightwatch, Nero Valencia had gone pallid. No, no, no, Kyra had her emotions under control, she wasn’t going to let a few hours in Elf Hill haunt her, but she couldn’t help wondering—

  Listen
, blinkie, listen!

  Voices anew, amidst background thumps and rumbles. Damn. Still, Kyra hadn’t really counted on Cua reporting nobody on watch. Either Pedraza had called for a guard before he accompanied Rinndalir’s group off, or he’d detached a man from his command.

  The next play was Cua’s: “Greeting. May I look about somewhat? Never before have I been here,” which was a purring lie.

  The male answer was well-nigh inevitable. “Oh, certainly, if you stay close by. It is an amazing place, isn’t it?”

  “You have explored it in your free time? Tell me, pray, what are yon men doing?”

  “I don’t know, I’m no spacer. Sorry.”

  “It appears interesting. …”

  The Sepo was probably no fool. He wouldn’t wander off with the newcomer or anything like that. However, she showed no menace, gave no sign of intending to dash off or otherwise make trouble. His group must have been instructed to handle the Lunarians gingerly. His duty was to keep an eye on their ship and on this bewitching woman. (Bewitching in truth. Her race had that reputation. Folklore on Earth sometimes spoke of pheromones. Anthropologists ridiculed it, but—)

  Kyra slipped into the lock chamber and risked a peek downward around the outer valve. The young uniformed man had his whole attention on Cua. A pair of technicians nearby were much aware of her too. Elsewhere, humans and machines worked as individuals or in small bands, around the vast curve and down the cavernous length of the harbor. Cua took the man’s arm, lightly, lightly, and pointed into the distance. He obeyed the impulse given him. For a minute or two, Inia’s exit would be outside his field of view.

  Kyra sprang, not on the ramp but directly, pushing with the full strength of her legs. Twisting around as she fell, she landed on her feet and bounded off, a ten-meter leap. She saw a technie whose gaze trailed her and laid finger to lips. Rinndalir had obtained a Fireball pilot’s uniform for her. This hombre was Fireball too. He nodded and got very busy. She continued at a leisurely mini-g pace, about fifteen klicks an hour.