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Foe were scary. I would have had nightmares if I had slept (I did have, when I
pretended to, but that's another subject) about the universe crashing down on
our ears, and I had a lot more fits of agitation and depression when I
thought of the gang of them, out there in their kugelblitz, ready at any time
to come out and do to us what they had done to the Sluggards and the starwisp
people and the ones buried under the ice.
But there's important and there's also important. I am still human enough to
think interpersonal relationships are important. Even when they're past tense,
and all that's left is the need to make absolutely sure there are
no longer any hard feelings.
After Albert had gone away to wherever Albert goes when I don't have a use for
him, I floated in gigabit space for a long time, doing nothing. A long time.
Long enough so that when I peeked once more at the scene in Central
Park, Klara had just got as far as, "Robin, I'd like you to meet my-"
It was funny. I didn't want to hear the word "husband." So I ran away.
What I just said isn't exactly true. I didn't run away. I ran to, and the
person I ran to was Essie. She was on the dance floor at the Blue Hell, wildly
polkaing with somebody with a beard, and when I cut in she caroled, "Oh, good
to see you, dear Robin! Have you heard news? Embargo is lifted!"
"That's nice," I said, stumbling over my own feet. She took a good look at my
face, sighed, and led me off the dance floor.
"Went badly with Gelle-Kiara Moynlin," she guessed.
I shrugged. "It's still going. I left my doppel there." I let her shove me
into a seat and sit herself across from me, elbows on table, chin propped on
elbows, looking me over with great care.
"Ah," she said, nodding as she completed her diagnosis. "Gloopy stuff again.
Angst. Anomie. All that good stuff, right? And most of all Gelle-Klara
Moynlin?"
I said judiciously, "Not most of all, no, because it would take forever to
tell you all the things that bother me, but, yes, that's one of them. She's
married, you know."
"Uh." She didn't add, So are you, so I had to do it myself.
"It's not just that she's married, because so am I, of course-and I
wouldn't want it to be any other way, honestly, Essie-"
She scowled at me. "Oh, Robin! Never thought it would be possible to find
hearing that a bore, but how often you do say it!"
"I only say it because it's true," I protested, my feelings having suffered a
minor flesh wound.
"Already know is true."
"Well, I guess you do, at that," I admitted. I didn't know what to say next. I
discovered a drink in my hand and took a pull at it.
Essie sighed. "Sure are one big party-pooper, Robin. Was feeling grand when
you were not nearby."
"I'm sorry, but, honest, Essie, I don't feel like partying."
"Comes more gloopy business," she said, martyred. "Okay. Spit out what is now
on poor, tortured mind. What is worst thing of all?"
I said promptly, "Everything." And when she didn't look as though that had
explained it clearly enough for her, I added: "It's just one damn thing after
another, isn't it?"
"Ah," she said, and thought for a while. Then she sighed. "What gloomy
creature you are, dear Robin. Should perhaps talk again with headshrinker
program, Sigfnd von Shrink?"
"No!"
"Ah," she said again, and thought some more. Then she said, "Tell you what,
dear old gloom person. How about we skip this party a while and look at some
home movies, okay?"
I had not expected that from her. "What kind of home movies?" I
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demanded, surprised. But she didn't answer. She didn't wait for me to agree,
either. She began showing them.
The sounds of the Spindle and the sights of the partying Gateway prospectors
faded away. We weren't there anymore. We were in a different place, and we
were looking at a bench with a child on it.
Now, they weren't real movies, of course, any more than anything else in
gigabit space is "real." They were simply computer simulations. Like
everything else either one of us chose to imagine, they were quite
compellingly "real" in all appearances-sight, sound, even smell, even the
chill of cold air and the congestion of sooty air to our (nonexistent)
breathing.
It was all very familiar. We were looking at me-the child me- many, many
decades ago.
I felt myself shivering, not relevant to the temperature of the air. The child
Robinette Broadhead was sitting hunched up against the cold air on a park
bench. It was called a park, anyway. Really, it was a pretty lousy excuse for
one. If things had been different, it could have been quite spectacular, for
the Wyoming hills were behind the child-me. Beautiful they were not. They were
smoggy gray lumps in the dingy air. You could actually see hydrocarbon
particulates floating in it, and the limbs of every scrawny tree were coated
with soot and smear. I-the child who had been me-was dressed for the climate, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]