Five months. Six. November. December. Macy saw himself waiting at the main building of the Rehab Center. Snow on the ground, the branches of the trees heavy with whiteness, the sky a wintry blue. And Lissa, renewed, repaired, coming toward him out of the inner wing. No longer a telepath. A brand-new Lissa, stripped of her gift and of her torment. Uncertain of herself as she goes forth to face the world. Hello, he’ll say. Hello, she’ll say. An awkward little kiss. Button up, he’ll tell her, it’s cold. I’ve got a car. She’ll look worried. Are we going into the city? she’ll ask. My first day out. I’m nervous. You know what it’s like, Paul, coming out. Sure, he’ll say, I know just what it’s like. But you’ll be all right. New people, new lives. The second trip. Paul and Lissa, Lissa and Paul Minus our old friend Nat. A great artist has gone from the world. How quiet it is inside my head. Five months. Six. November. December. Lissa?
She was giggling softly, and her hands were exploring her body, discovering this and that as a baby might. Lightly he touched her cheek. She wriggled in pleasure. You wait, he said. Gomez will fix you better than you were before. Macy peered into the hall again. The phone still busy. Come on, get off the line, get off, get off! He didn’t say it He stood in the doorway, waiting to make his call, half expecting Hamlin to rise from somewhere, but Hamlin did not arise. Gone. Gone. My other self, my dark twin. He has left the world, and I have his place. Macy almost felt guilty about it. The merest flicker of regret. Farewell to you, Nat, a long farewell to Mr. Hyde. And I will go on through life without you. Wearing your skin, wearing your face. I am you, Nat and you are nothing.
Macy looked back at Lissa. She was drooling. As I must have drooled, he thought. Four years ago when I was very new. He went to her and mopped her chin. It’s all right, he said to her without bothering to speak aloud. December isn’t so far away. And then hello, and then we start again. Two ordinary people. Trip two, yours, mine. The second trip. The good one, maybe. From the hall came the click of the receiver. The phone was free at last. He went out to call Gomez.
A Biography of Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) is an American author best known for his science fiction titles, including Nightwings (1969), Dying Inside (1972), and Lord Valentine’s Castle (1980). He has won five Nebula Awards and five Hugo Awards. In 2004, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America honored Silverberg with the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
Silverberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 15, 1935, the only child of Michael and Helen Silverberg. An avid reader and writer from an early age, Silverberg began his own fanzine, Spaceship, in 1949. In 1953, at age eighteen, he sold his first nonfiction piece to Science Fiction Adventures magazine. His first novel, Revolt on Alpha C, was published shortly after, in 1955. That same year, while living in New York City and studying at Columbia University, Silverberg met his neighbors and fellow writers Randall Garrett and Harlan Ellison, both of whom went on to collaborate with him on numerous projects. Silverberg and Randall published pieces under the name Robert Randall. In 1956, Silverberg graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor of arts degree in comparative literature, married Barbara Brown, and won the Hugo Award for Most Promising New Author.
Following the whirlwind of his college years, Silverberg continued to write consistently for most of his life. Writing under various pseudonyms, including David Osborne and Calvin M. Knox, Silverberg managed to publish eleven novels and more than two hundred short pieces between 1957 and 1959. Having established himself as a science fiction writer by this time, Silverberg went on to show dexterity in other genres, from historical nonfiction with Treasures Beneath the Sea (1960) to softcore pornography under the pseudonym Don Elliot.
Silverberg continued to write outside science fiction until Frederik Pohl, the editor of Galaxy Science Fiction, convinced him to rejoin the field. It was in this period, from the late 1960s to early 1970s, that Silverberg’s classics, including Tower of Glass (1970), The World Inside (1971), and The Book of Skulls (1972), came to life. After taking a break from writing, Silverberg returned with Lord Valentine’s Castle in 1980.
Though they had been separated for nearly a decade, Silverberg and Barbara officially ended their marriage in 1986. A year later, Silverberg married fellow writer Karen Haber. They went on to collaborate on writing The Mutant Season (1990) and editing several anthologies. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Silverberg published important titles including Star of Gypsies (1986), and continued his established Majipoor series with The Mountains of Majipoor (1995) and Sorcerers of Majipoor (1997). In 1999, Silverberg was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
With a career that spans half a century, multiple genres, and more than three hundred titles, Silverberg has made major contributions as a writer. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife.
Silverberg at six months old with his parents.
Silverberg at summer camp in August 1952, reading the September issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, which featured a story by Theodore Sturgeon.
The first page of Silverberg’s manuscript for his first novel, Revolt on Alpha C, published in 1955.
An early rejection letter dated July 18, 1949.
Silverberg conversing with a nymph at author Brian Aldiss’s home in Oxford, England, after the 1987 Brighton Worldcon. (Courtesy of Andrew Porter.)
Silverberg with his wife, Karen, at the 2004 Nebula Awards in Seattle, where he received his Grand Master Award.
(Unless otherwise noted, all images taken from Other Spaces, Other Times by Robert Silverberg, courtesy of Nonstop Press.)
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1969 by Robert Silverberg
Copyright © 1972 by Robert Silverberg
The Second Trip first appeared as a serial in Amazing, July and September, 1971.
Cover design by Kelly Parr
978-1-4804-1823-3
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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To Live Again And The Second Trip Page 44