r Hegrctinet. My personal opinion is | that they probably did, but I don't know how. | You'd think if they left them around they'd leave | the rest of the communications receivers and | transmitters, too, but if they did I don't know | where. He looked at me, smiling. It was a real smile, not a grin; and I pushed myself over to him, and sat in the warm and welcome circle of his arm. And nineteen days went like an hour, and then the clock told us it was almost time to arrive. We were all awake, crowded into the capsule, eager as kids at Christmas, waiting to open our toys. It had been the happiest trip I had ever made, and probably one of the happiest ever. "You know," said Danny R. thoughtfully, "I'm almost sorry to arrive." And Susie, just beginning to understand our English, said: "Sim, ja sei," and then, "I too!" She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed back; but what I was really thinking about was Klara. We had tried the radio a couple of times, but it didn't work in the Heechee wormholes through space. But when we came out I would be able to talk to her! I didn't mind that others would be listening, I knew what it was that I wanted to say. I even knew what she would answer. There was no question about it; there was surely as much euphoria in her ship as in ours, for the same reasons, and with all that love and joy the answer was not in doubt. "We're stopping!" Danny R. yelled. "Can you feel it?" "Yes!" crowed Metchnikov, bouncing with the tiny surges of the pseudo-gravity that marked our return to normal space. And there was another sign, too: the golden helix in the center of the cabin was beginning to glow, brighter every second. "I think we've made it," said Danny R., bursting with pleasure, and I was as pleased as he. "I'll start the spherical scan," I said, confident that I knew what to do. Susie took her cue from me and opened the door up to the lander; she and Danny A. were going to go out for the star sights. But Danny A. didn't join her. He was staring at the viewscreen. As I started the ship turning, I could see stars, which was normal enough; they did not seem special in any way, although they were rather blurry for some reason. I staggered and almost fell. The ship's rotation did not seem as smooth as it should be. "The radio," Danny said, and Metchnikov, frowning, looked up and saw the light. "Turn it on," I cried. The voice I heard might be Klara's. | NavlnstGdSup 104 | | Please supplement your Navigation Instruction | Guide as follows: | Course settings containing the lines and | colors as shown in the attached chart appear to | have a definite relation to the amount of fuel or | other propulsion necessity remaining for use by | the vessel. | All prospectors are cautioned that the three | bright lines in the orange (Chart 2) appear to | indicate extreme shortage. no vessel displaying | them in its course has ever returned, even from | check flights. Metchnikov, still frowning, reached for the switch, and then I noticed that the helix was a brighter gold than I had ever seen it: straw-colored, as though it were incandescently hot. no heat from it, but the golden color was shot through with streaks of white. "That's funny," I said, pointing. I don't know if anyone heard me; the radio was pouring static, and inside the capsule the sound was very loud. Metchnikov grabbed for the tuning and the gain. Over the static I heard a voice I didn't recognize at first. It was Danny A. 's. "Do you feel that?" he yelled. "It's gravity! We're in trouble. Stop the scan!" I stopped it reflexively. But by then the ship's screen had turned and something came into view that was not a star and not a galaxy. It was a dim mass of pale-blue light, mottled, immense, and terrifying at the first glimpse. I knew it was not a sun. no sun can be so big and so dim. It hurt the eyes to look at it, not because of brightness. It hurt inside the eyes, up far into the optic nerve. The pain was in the brain itself. Metchnikov switched off the radio, and in the silence that followed I heard Danny A. say prayerfully, "Dearest God, we've had it. That thing is a black hole." Chapter 29 "With your permission, Rob," says Sigfrid, "I'd like to explore something with you before you command me into my passive play mode." I tighten up; the son of a bitch has read my mind. "I observe," he says instantly, "that you are feeling some apprehension. That is what I would like to explore." Incredible, I feel myself trying to save his feelings. Sometimes I forget he's a machine. "I didn't know you were aware that I'd been doing that," I apologize. "Of course I'm aware, Rob. When you have given me the proper command I obey it, but you have not ever given me the command to refrain from recording and integrating data. I assume you do not possess that command." "You assume good, Sigfrid." "There is no reason that you should not have access to whatever information I possess. I have not attempted to interfere before now-" "Could you?" "I do have the capacity to signal the use of the command construction to higher authority, yes. I have not done that." "Why not?" The old bag of bolts keeps on surprising me; all this is new to me. "As I have said, there is no reason to. But clearly you are attempting to postpone some sort of confrontation, and I would like to tell you what I think that confrontation involves. Then you can make your own decision." "Oh, cripes." I throw off the straps and sit up. "Do you mind if I smoke?" I know what the answer is going to be, but he surprises me again. "Under the circumstances, no. If you feel the need of a tension reducer I agree. I had even considered offering you a mild tranquilizer if you wish it." "Jesus," I say admiringly, lighting up-and I actually have to stop myself from offering him one! "All right, let's have it." Sigfrid gets up, stretches his legs, and crosses to a more comfortable chair! I hadn't known he could do that, either. "I am trying to put you at your ease, Rob," he says, "as I am sure you observe. First let me tell you something about my capacities-and yours-which I do not think you know. I can provide information about any of my clients. That is, you are not limited to those who have had access to this particular terminal." "I don't think I understand that," I say, after he has paused for a moment. "I think you do. Or will. When you want to. However, the more important question is what memory you are attempting to keep suppressed. I feel it is necessary for you to unblock it. I had considered offering you light hypnosis, or a tranquilizer, or even a fully human analyst to come in for one session, and any or all of those are at your disposal if you wish them. But I have observed that you are relatively comfortable in discussions about what you perceive as objective reality, as distinguished from your internalization of reality. So I would like to explore a particular incident with you in those terms." I carefully tap some ash off the end of my cigarette. He's right about that; as long as we keep the conversation abstract and impersonal, I can talk about anybloodything. "What incident is that, Sigfrid?" "Your final prospecting voyage from Gateway, Rob. Let me refresh your memory-" "Jesus, Sigfrid!" "I know you think you recall it perfectly," he says, interpreting me exactly, "and in that sense I don't suppose your memory needs refreshing. But what is interesting about that particular episode is that all the main areas of your internal concern seem to concentrate there. Your terror. Your homosexual tendencies-" "Hey!" "-which are not, to be sure, a major part of your sexuality, Rob, but which give you more concern than is warranted. Your feelings about your mother. The immense burden of guilt you put on yourself. And, above all, the woman Gelle-Klara Moynlin. All these things recur over and over in your dreams, Rob, and you often do not make the identification. And they are all present in this one episode." I stub out a cigarette, and realize that I have had two going at once. "I don't see the part about my mother," I say at last. "You don't?" The hologram that I call Sigirid von Shrink moves toward a corner of the room. "Let me show you a picture." He raises his hand-that's pure theater, I know it is-and in the corner there appears a woman's figure. It is not very clear, but it is quite slim, and is in the act of covering a cough. "It's not a very good resemblance to my mother," I object. "Isn't it?" "Well," I say generously, "I suppose it's the best you can do. I mean, not having anything to go on except, I guess, my description of her." "The picture," says Sigfrid gently enough, "was assembled from your description of the girl Susie Hereira." I light another cigarette, with some difficulty, because my hand is shaking. "Wow," I say, with real admiration. "I take my hat off to you, Sigfrid. That's very interesting. Of course," I go on, suddenly feeling irritable, "Susie was, my God, only a child! And from that I realize-I realize now, I mean-that there are some resemblances. But the age is all wrong." "Rob," says Sigfrid, "how old was your mother when you were little?" "She was very young." I add after a moment, "As a matter of fact, she looked a lot younger than she was even." Sigfrid lets me hang there for a moment, and then he waves his hand again and the figure disappears, and instead we are suddenly looking at a picture of two Fives butted lander-to-lander in midspace, and beyond them is-is-"Oh, my God, Sigfrid," I say. He waits me out for a while. As far as I am concerned, he can wait forever; I simply do not know what to say. I am not hurting, but I am paralyzed. I cannot say anything, and I cannot move. "This," he begins, speaking very softly and gently, "is a reconstruction of the two ships in your expedition in the vicinity of the object SAG YY. It is a black hole or, more accurately, a singularity in a state of extremely rapid rotation." "I know what it is, Sigfrid." "Yes. You do. Because of its rotation, the translation velocity of what is called its event threshold or Schwarzschlld discontinuity exceeds the speed of light, and so it is not properly black; in fact it can be seen by virtue of what is called Cerenkov radiation. It was because of the instrument readings on this and other aspects of the singularity that your expedition was awarded a ten-million-dollar bonus, in addition to the agreed-upon sum which, along with certain other lesser amounts, is the foundation of your present fortune." "I know that, too, Sigfrid." Pause. "Would you care to tell me what else you know about it, Rob?" Pause. "I'm not sure I can, Sigfrid." Pause again. He isn't even urging me to try. He knows that he doesn't have to. I want to try, and I take my cue from his own manner. There is something in there that I can't talk about, that scares me even to think about; but wrapped around that central terror there is something I can talk about, and that is the objective reality. "I don't know how much you know about singularities, Sigfrid." "Perhaps you can just say what you think it is that I ought to know, Rob." I put out the current cigarette and light another one. "Well," I say, "you know and I know that if you really wanted to know about singularities it's all in the data-banks somewhere, and a lot more exactly and informatively than I can say it, but anyway.. The thing about black holes is they're traps. They bend light. They bend time. Once you're in you can't get out. Only... Only..." | A NOTE ON NUTRITION | | Question. What did the Heechee eat? | Professor Hegramet. About what we do, I would | say. Everything. I think they were omnivores, ate | anything they could catch. We really don't know a | thing about their diet, except that you can make | some deductions from the shell missions. | Question. Shell missions? | Professor Hegramet. There are at least four | recorded missions that didn't go as far as another | star, but went clear out of the solar system. Out | where the shell of comets hangs out, you know, | half a light-year or so away. The missions are | marked as failures, but I don't think they are. | I've been pushing the Board to give science | bonuses for them. Three seemed to wind up in | meteorite swarms. The other came out at a comet, | all hundreds of A. U. out. Meteorite swarms, of | course, are usually the debris of old, dead | comets. | Question. Are you saying the Heechee ate comets? | Professor Hegramet. Ate the things comets are | made out of. Do you know what they are? Carbon, | oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen-the same elements you | ate for breakfast. I think they used comets for | feedstocks to manufacture what they ate. I think | one of those missions to the cometary shell is | sooner or later going to turn up a Heechee food | factory, and then maybe we won't have anybody ever | starving anywhere anymore. After a moment Sigfrid says, "It's all right for you to cry if you want to, Rob," which is the way that I suddenly realize that that's what I'm doing. "Jesus," I say, and blow my nose into one of the tissues that he always keeps handy right next to the mat. He waits. "Only I did get out," I say. And Sigfrid does something else I had never expected from him; he permits himself a joke. "That," he says, "is pretty obvious, from the fact that you're here." "This is bloody exhausting, Sigfrid," I say. "I am sure it is for you, Rob." "I wish I had a drink." Click. "The cabinet behind you," says Sigfrid, "that has just opened contains some rather good sherry. It isn't made from grapes, I'm sorry to say; the health service doesn't go in for luxuries. But I don't think you'll be aware of its natural-gas origins. Oh, and it is laced with just a dollop of THC to soothe the nerves." "Holy Christ," I say, having run out of ways of expressing surprise. The sherry is all he says it is, and I can feel the warmth of it expanding inside me. "Okay," I say, setting the glass down. "Well. When I got back to Gateway they'd written the expedition off. We were almost a year overdue. Because we'd been almost inside the event horizon. Do you understand about time dilation?... Oh, never mind," I say, before he can answer, "that was a rhetorical question. What I mean is, what happened was the phenomenon they call time dilation. You get that close to a singularity and you come up against the twin paradox. What was maybe a quarter of an hour for us was almost a year by clock time-clock time on Gateway, or here, or anywhere else in the nonrelativistic universe, I mean. And-" I take another drink, then I go on bravely enough: "And if we'd gone any farther down we would have been going slower and slower. Slower, and slower, and slower. A little closer, and that fifteen minutes would have turned out to be a decade. A little closer still, and it would have been a century. It was that close, Sigfrid. We were almost trapped, all of us. "But I got out." And I think of something and look at my watch. "Speaking of time, my hour's been up for the last five minutes!" "I have no other appointments this afternoon, Rob." I stare. "What?" Gently: "I cleared my calendar before your appointment, Rob." I don't say "Holy Christ" again, but I surely think it. "This makes me feel right up against the wall, Sigfrid!" I say angrily. "I am not forcing you to stay past your hour, Rob. I am pointing out that you have that option if you choose." I mull that for a while. "You are one brassbound ringding of a computer, Sigfrid," I say. "All right. Well, you see, there was no way we could get out considered as a unit. Our ships were caught, well inside the of point of no return, and there just ain't no way home from there. But Danny A., he was a sharp article. And he knew all about the holes in the laws. Considered as a unit, we were stuck. "But we weren't a unit! We were two ships! And each of those came apart into two other ships! And if we could somehow transfer acceleration from one part of our system to the other and you know, kick part of us deeper into the well and at the same kick the other part up and out-then part of the unit could get free!" Long pause. "Why don't you have another drink, Rob?" says Sigfrid courteously. "After you finish crying, I mean." Chapter 30 Fear! There was so much terror jumping around inside my skin that I couldn't feel it anymore; my senses were saturated with it; I don't know if I screamed or babbled, I only did what Danny A. told me to do. We'd backed the two ships together and linked up, lander-to-lander, and we were trying to manhandle gear, instruments, clothes, everything that moved out of the first ship into whatever corners we could find of the second, to make room for ten people where five were a tight fit. Hand to hand, back and forth, we bucket-brigaded the stuff. Dane Metchnikov's kidneys must have been kicked black-and-blue; he was the one who was in the landers, changing the fuel-metering switches to blow every drop of hydrox at once. Would we survive that? We had no way of knowing. Both our Fives were armored, and we didn't expect to damage the Heechee-metal shells. But the contents of the shells would be us, all of us in the one of them that went free-or we hoped would go free-and there wasn't really any way to tell whether we could come free in the first place, or whether what would come free would be nothing but jelly, anyway. And all we had was minutes, and not very many of them. I guess I passed Klara twenty times in ten minutes, and I remember that once, the first time, we kissed. Or aimed at each other's lips, and came close enough. I remember the smell of her, and once lifting my head because the musk oil was so strong and not seeing her, and then forgetting it again. And all the time, out of one viewscreen or another, that immense broad, baleful blue ball hung flickering outside; the racing shadows across its surface that were phase effects made fearful pictures; the gripping grab of its gravity waves tugged at our guts. Danny A. was in the capsule of the first ship, watching the time and kicking bags and bundles down to the lander hatch to pass on, through the hatch, through the landers, up to the capsule of the second ship where I was pushing them out of the way, any which way, just to make room for more. "Five minutes," he'd yell, and "Four minutes!" and "Three minutes, get the goddamn lead out!" and then, "That's it! All of you! Drop what you're doing and come on up here." And we did. All of us. All but me. I could hear the others yelling, and then calling to me; but I'd fallen behind, our own lander was blocked, I couldn't get through the hatch! And I tugged somebody's duffelbag out of the way, just as Klara was screaming over the TBS radio, "Rob! Rob, for God's sake, get up here!" And I knew it was too late; and I slammed the hatch and dogged it down, just as I heard Danny A.'s voice shouting, "No! No! Wait...." | Dear Voice of Gateway: | | On Wednesday of last week I was crossing the | parking lot at the Safeway Supermarket (where I | had gone to deposit my food stamps) on the way to | the shuttle bus to my apartment, when I saw an | unearthly green light. A strange spacecraft landed | nearby. Four beautiful, but very tiny, young women | in filmy white robes emerged and subjected me | helpless by means of a paralyzing ray. They kept | me prisoner on their craft for nineteen hours. | During that time they subjected me to certain | indignities of a sexual nature which I am | honor-bound not to reveal. The leader of the four, | whose name was Moira Glow-Fawn, stated that, like | us, they have not succeeded in fully overcoming | their animal heritage. I accepted their apology | and agreed to deliver four messages to Earth. | Messages One and Four I may not announce until the | proper time. Message Two is a private one for the | manager of my apartment project. Message Three is | for you at Gateway, and it has three parts: 1, | there must be no more cigarette smoking; 2, there | must be no more mixed schooling of boys and girls | at least until the second year of college; 3, you | must stop all exploration of space at once. We are | being watched. | Harry Hellison Pittsburgh Wait... Wait for a very, very long time. | We sometimes get squashed, and we sometimes get burned, | And we sometimes get shredded to bits, | And we sometimes get fat on the Royalties Earned, | And we're always scared out of our wits. | We don't care which-Little lost Heechee, start making us rich! Chapter 31 After a while, I don't know how long, I raise my head and say, "Sorry, Sigfrid." "For what, Rob?" "For crying like this." I am physically exhausted. It is as if I had run ten miles through a gauntlet of mad Choctaws pounding me with clubs. "Are you feeling better now, Rob?" "Better?" I puzzle over that stupid question for a moment, and then I take inventory, and, curiously enough, I am. "Why, yeah. I guess so. Not what you'd call good. But better." "Take it easy for a minute, Rob." That strikes me as a dumb remark, and I tell him so. I have about the energy level of a small, arthritic jellyfish that's been dead for a week. I have no choice but to take it easy. But I do feel better. "I feel," I say, "as if I let myself feel my guilt at last." "And you survived it." I think that over. "I guess I did," I say. "Let's explore that question of guilt, Rob. Guilt why?" "Because I jettisoned nine people to save myself, asshole!" | NOTICE OF CREDIT To ROBINETTE BROADHEAD: | | 1. Acknowledgment is made that your course | setting for Gateway II permits round-trip flights | with a travel-time saving of approximately 100 | days over the previous standard course for this | object. | 2. By decision of the Board, you are granted a | discovery royalty of 1 percent on all earnings on | future flights using said course setting, and an | advance of $10,000 against said royalty. | 3. By decision of the Board, you are assessed | one-half of said royalty and advance as a penalty | for damage to the vessel employed. | Your account is therefore CREDITED with the | following amount: Royalty advance (Board Order | A-135-7), less deduction (Board Order A-135-8): | $5,000 Your present BALANCE is: | $6,192 "Has anyone ever accused you of that? Anyone but yourself, I mean?" "Accused?" I blow my nose again, thinking. "Well, no. Why should they? When I got back I was kind of a hero." I think about Shicky, so kind, so mothering; and Francy Hereira holding me in his arms, letting me bawl, even though I'd killed his cousin. "But they weren't there. They didn't see me blow the tanks to get free." "Did you blow the tanks?" "Oh, hell, Sigfrid," I say, "I don't know. I was going to. I was reaching for the button." "Does it make sense that the button in the ship you were planning to abandon would actually fire the combined tanks in the landers?" "Why not? I don't know. Anyway," I say, "you can't give me any alibis I haven't already thought of for myself. I know maybe Danny or Klara pushed the button before I did. But I was reaching for mine!" "And which ship did you think would go free?" "Theirs! Mine," I correct myself. "No, I don't know." Sigfrid says gravely, "Actually, that was a very resourceful thing you did. You knew you couldn't all have survived. There wasn't time. The only choice was whether some of you would die, or all of you would. You elected to see that somebody lived." "Crap! I'm a murderer!" Pause, while Sigfrid's circuits think that over. "Rob," he says carefully, "I think you're contradicting yourself. Didn't you say she's still alive in that discontinuity?" "They all are! Time has stopped for them!" "Then how could you have murdered anybody?" "What?" He says again, "How could you have murdered anybody?" "... I don't know," I say, "but, honestly, Sigfrid, I really don't want to think about it anymore today." "There's no reason you should, Rob. I wonder if you have any idea how much you've accomplished in the past two and a half hours. I'm proud of you!" And queerly, incongruously, I believe he is, chips, Heechee circuits, holograms and all, and it makes me feel good to believe it. "You can go any time you want to," he says, getting up and going back to his easy chair in the most lifelike way possible, even grinning at me! "But I think I would like to show you something first." My defenses are eroded down to nothing. I only say, "What's that, Sigfrid?" "That other capability of ours that I mentioned, Rob," he "the one that we've never used. I would like to display another patient, from some time back." "Another patient?" He says gently, "Look over in the corner, Rob." I look- -and there she is. "Klara!" And as soon as I see her I know where Sigfrid gets her from-the machine Klara was consulting back on Gateway. She is hanging there, one arm across a file rack, her feet lazily floating in the air, talking earnestly; her broad black eyebrows frown and sigh and her face grins, and grimaces, and then looks sweetly, invitingly relaxed. "You can hear what she's saying if you want to, Rob." "Do I want to?" "Not necessarily. But there's nothing in it to be afraid of. She loved you, Rob, the best way she knew how. The same as you loved her." I look for a long time, and then I say, "Turn her off, Sigfrid. Please." In the recovery room I almost fall asleep for a moment. I have never been so relaxed. I wash my face, and smoke another cigarette, and then I go out into the bright diffuse daylight under the Bubble, and it all is so good and so friendly. I think of Klara with love and tenderness and in my heart I say good-bye to her. And then I think of S. Ya. with whom I have a date for that evening-if I'm not already late for it! But she'll wait; she's a good scout, almost as good as Klara. Klara. I stop in the middle of the mall, and people bump up against me. A little old lady in short-shorts toddles over to me and asks, "Is something wrong?" I stare at her, and don't answer; and then I turn around and head back for Sigfrid's office. There is no one there, not even a hologram. I yell, "Sigfrid! Where the hell are you?" | NOTICE OF CREDIT To ROBINETTE BROADHEAD: | | Your account is CREDITED with the following | amounts: Guaranteed bonus for Mission 88-90A and | 88-90B (survivorship total): | $10,000,000 Science bonus awarded by Board: | 8,500,000 Total: | $18,500,000 Your present BALANCE is: | $18,506,036 No one. no answer. This is the first time I've ever been in this room when it wasn't set up. I can see what is real and what hologram now; and not much of it is real. Powder-metal studs for projectors. The mat (real); the cabinet with the light (real); a few other pieces of furniture that I might want to see or use. But no Sigirid. Not even the chair he usually sits in. "Sigfrid!" I keep on yelling, with my heart bubbling up in my throat, my brain spinning. "Sigfrid!" I scream, and at last there is a of a haze and a flash and there he is in his Sigmund Freud guise looking at me politely. "Yes, Rob?" "Sigfrid, I did murder her! She's gone!" "I see that you're upset, Rob," he says. "Can you tell me what it is that's bothering you?" "Upset! I'm worse than upset, Sigfrid, I'm a person who killed nine other people to save his life! Maybe not 'really'! Maybe not 'on purpose'! But in their eyes I killed them, as much as in mine." "But Rob," he says reasonably, "we've been all over this. They're still alive; they all are. Time has stopped for them-" "I know," I howl. "Don't you understand, Sigfrid? That's the point. I not only killed her, I'm still killing her!" Patiently: "Do you think what you just said is true, Rob?" "She thinks it is! Now, and forever, as long as I live. It's not years ago that it happened for her. It's only a few minutes, and it goes on for all of my life. I'm down here, getting older, trying to forget, and there's Klara up there in Sagittarius YY, floating around like a fly in amber!" I drop to the bare plastic mat, sobbing. Little by little, Sigfrid has been restoring the whole office, patching in this decoration and that. There are pinatas hanging over my head, and a holopic Lake Garda at Sirmione on the wall, hoverfloats, sailboats, bathers having fun. "Let the pain out, Rob," Sigfrid says gently. "Let it all out." "What do you think I'm doing?" I roll over on the foam staring at the ceiling. "I could get over the pain and the guilt, Sigfrid, if she could. But for her it isn't over. She's out there, stuck in time." "Go ahead, Rob," he encourages. "I am going ahead. Every second is still the newest second in her mind-the second when I threw her life away to save my own. I'll live and get old and die before she lives past that second, Sigfrid." "Keep going, Rob. Say it all." "She's thinking I betrayed her, and she's thinking it now! I can't live with that." There is a very, very long silence, and at last Sigfrid says: "You are, you know." "What?" My mind has gone a thousand light-years away. "You are living with it, Rob." "Do you call this living?" I sneer, sitting up and wiping my nose with another of his million tissues. "You respond very quickly to anything I say, Rob," says Sigfrid, "and therefore sometimes I think your response is a counterpunch. You parry what I say with words. Let me strike home for once, Rob. Let this sink in: you are living." Well, I suppose I am." It is true enough; it is just not very rewarding. Another long pause, and then Sigfrid says: "Rob. You know that I am a machine. You also know that my function is to deal with human feelings. I cannot feel feelings. But I can represent them with models, I can analyze them, I can evaluate them. I can do this for you. I can even do it for myself. I can construct a paradigm within which I can assess the value of emotions. Guilt? It is a painful thing; but because it is painful it is a behavior modifier. It can influence you to avoid guilt-inducing actions, and this is a valuable thing for you and for society. But you cannot use it if you do not feel it." "I do feel it! Jesus Christ, Sigfrid, you know I'm feeling it!" "I know," he says, "that now you are letting yourself feel it. It is out in the open, where you can let it work for you, not buried where it can only harm you. That is what I am for, Rob. To bring your feelings out where you can use them." "Even the bad feelings? Guilt, fear, pain, envy?" "Guilt. Fear. Pain. Envy. The motivators. The modifiers. The qualities that I, Rob, do not have, except in a hypothetical sense, when I make a paradigm and assign them to myself for study." There is another pause. I have a funny feeling about it. Sigfrid's pauses are usually either to give me time to let something sink in, or to permit him to compute some complex chain of argument about me. This time I think it is me but not about me. And at last he says, "You asked me, Rob." "Asked you? What was that?" "You asked me, 'Do you call this living?' And I answer: Yes. It is exactly what I call living. And in my best hypothetical sense, I envy it very much."