would emerge, and he alone would be able to
find the handle to wield it, like a weapon, like an axe, like a scythe, to
punish  or  reap  or  remake the world. Well, here it was! And what was he
doing  with  it? He was waiting. It had not been like that, in the boyhood
stories  by Juve and Gail and Dominik and the Frenchman, Verne. The people
in them did not waste themselves so spinelessly.
   But what, after all, was one to do?
   So  while  he waited for that question to answer itself, he kept up his
daily rounds. He ate four light meals a day, every other one of CHON-food,
methodically  dictating  to Vera his impressions of taste and consistency.
He ordered Vera to design a new mobile bio-assay out of what odds and ends
of  sensor  instrumentation  could be spared, and worked at building it as
she  found time to complete parts of the design. He worked out ten minutes
each  morning  with the weights, half an hour every afternoon with bending
and  stretching. He methodically walked every pathway in the Food Factory,
with  his  hand-held  camera  pointed  into every cranny. He composed long
letters of complaint to his masters on Earth, cagily arguing the merits of
aborting the mission and returning to Earth as soon as he could summon the
family  back, and actually transmitted one or two of them. He wrote fierce
and peremptory directives to his lawyer in Stuttgart, in code, arguing his
position,  demanding  a  revision  to  the  contract.  And most of all, he
schemed. And about the Traumeplatz most of all.
   It  was  seldom  out  of  his  thoughts,  this  dreaming place with its
startling  potential.  When  he  was depressed and fretful, he thought how
rightly  it would serve Earth if he were to repair it and call Wan back to
give  them  their  fevers  once  again. When he was charged with force and
determination  he  went  to  look  at  it,  lid hanging from an ornamental
projection  on  one  wall, the joints and fasteners always with him in his
coverall  pouch.  How easy it would be to bring in a cutting torch and lop
it free, cram the ship full of that, and the communications system for the
Dead  Men,  and whatever other goods and treasures he could find; and then
cast  loose  in the rocket for Earth, start the long, slow downward spiral
that would bring him-what would it bring him? God in heaven, what would it
not!  Fame!  Power!  Prosperity! All the things that were his due-yes, and
his rightful property, too, if he only got back in time to enjoy them.
   It  made him ill to think about it. All the time the clock was ticking,
ticking.  Every  minute  he  was one minute closer to the end of his life.
Every  second  spent  waiting  was  a second stolen from the happy time of
greatness and luxury that he had earned. He forced himself to eat, sitting
on  the  edge of his private and looking longingly at the ship's controls.
"The food has not improved, Vera!" he called accusingly.
   The confounded thing did not answer. "Vera! You must do something about
the food!" It still did not answer, not for several seconds.
   And  then  only,  "One  moment, please... Mr. Herter." It was enough to
make  one  sick. In fact, he did feel somewhat sick, he realized. He gazed
with  hostility at the dish he had been doggedly forcing down, supposed to
be  a  sort  of schnitzel, or as close to it as Vera's limited recombinant
capacities  would  allow,  but tasting of whisky or sauerkraut, or both at
once. He set it on the floor.
   "I do not feel well," he announced.
   Pause.  Then,  "One moment, please... Mr. Hester." Poor stupid Vera had
just  so much capacity. She was processing a burst of messages from Earth,
endeavoring  to  carry on a conversation with the Dead Men by means of the
faster-than-light   radio,  encoding  and  transmitting  all  of  her  own
telemetry-all  at  once.  She simply did not have time for his queasiness.
But  his  accelerating unease would not be denied: a sudden rush of saliva
under  the  tongue, a quick shuddering of the diaphragm. He barely made it
to  the sanitary, giving back, there, all he had taken. For the last time,
he  swore.  He  did  not want to live so long as to see those God-bedamned
organic  compounds  reworked for one more passage through his gut. When he
was sure he had stopped vomiting he marched over to the console and pushed
the  override buttons. "All functions in standby except this," he ordered.
"Monitor my bio-assay at once."
   "Very  well,"  she said at once,"... Mr. Hester." Silence for a moment,
while  the  unit in the sanitary made what it could of what Peter had just
deposited.  "You are suffering from food poisoning," she reported,"... Mr.
Hester."
   "So! This I already know. What is to be done about it?"
   Pause,  while  her  tiny  brain revolved the problem. "If you could add
water  to the system, the fermentation and recycling would be under better
control,"  she  said,  "... Mr. Hester. At least one hundred liters. There
has been considerable loss due to evaporation in the much larger volume of
space  now available, as well as the stocks withdrawn for the remainder of
your  party.  My  recommendation  is  that  you  replenish the system with
available water as soon as possible."
   "But that is not fit to drink for pigs even!"
   "The   solutes   present  problems,"  she  acknowledged.  "Therefore  I
recommend  that  at  least half of any added water be distilled first. The
system  should  be  able  to cope with the remainder of the solutes... Mr.
Hester."
   "God  in  Heaven!  Am  I  to build a still out of nothing, and become a
water-carrier  too?  And  what  of the bio-assay mobile unit, so that this
will not happen again?"
   Vera  sorted  through  the  questions  for a moment. "Yes, I think that
would   be  appropriate,"  she  agreed.  "If  you  wish,  I  will  provide
construction  plans.  Also... Mr. Hester, you may wish to consider relying
more  heavily  on CHON-food for your diet, since you do not appear to have
severe adverse reactions to it."
   "Apart  of  course  from  the fact that it tastes like dog-biscuit," he
sneered.  "Very  well. Complete the construction plans at once. Hard copy,
making use of available materials, do you understand?"
   "Yes...  Mr.  Hester." The computer was silent for a time, inventorying
redundant parts and materials, devising linkages that would do the job. It
was a formidable task for Vera's limited intelligence. Peter drew a cup of
water  and  rinsed  out  his mouth, then grimly unwrapped one of the least
unattractive  CHON  tablets  and  nibbled off a tentative corner. While he
waited  to see if he would throw up again he faced the possibility that he
might  in fact die here, and alone. He did not even have the option he had
thought  was  his,  of casting everything adrift and returning to Earth by
himself-not, at least, unless he first added water as ordered, and did his
best to insure that nothing else would go wrong.
   And yet it was every day so increasingly tempting..
   To  be  sure,  that would mean casting his daughters and his son-in-law
adrift.
   But would they ever return? Suppose they did not. Suppose that rude boy
turned  the  wrong  switch,  or  ran out of fuel. Or anything. Suppose, in
short,  they died. Must he then wither on the vine until he also was dead?
And  what  benefit would that be to humanity, if he perished here, and the
whole  thing  to  do  over  again with a new crew... and himself, Schwarze
Peter,  done  out  of reward, done out of fame and power, done out of life
itself?
   Or-an  idea  struck  him-was  there  another option? This bedamned Food
Factory itself, so set on continuing its course. What if he could find the
controls  that  directed  it  so?  What  if he could learn to change those
directions,  so  that  it could bring him back to Earth not in three years
and  more,  but  at once, in days? To be sure, that would doom his family,
would it not? But perhaps not! Perhaps they would return, if they returned
at  all,  to  the Food Factory itself, wherever it might be. Even in close
orbit  around  Earth!  And  how  marvelously  that  would solve everyone's
problems  at once. He threw the remainder of the packet into the sanitary,
to  add to the store of organics. "Du bist verruckt, Peter!" he snarled to
himself.  The  flaw in that dream could not be ignored: he had sought with
all his might, and the controls to the Food Factory were not to be found.
   The  frying-bacon  sound  of the hard-copy printer rescued him from his
thoughts.  He  pulled  the sheets out of the machine and frowned over them
for  a  moment. So much work! Twenty hours, at least! And not merely time,
but  so  much  of it was hard physical labor! He would have to go out into
space  to  reclaim  piping  from  the  struts  that were meant to hold the
auxiliary  transmitters  in  place, cut them loose, bring them inside; and
only  then begin to weld them together and form them into a spiral. Simply
for the condensation section of the still! He saw that he was beginning to
shake. He barely made it to the sanitary in time. "Vera!" he croaked.
   "I must have medication for this!"
   "At  once...  Mr. Hester. Yes. In the medical kit you will find tablets
marked..."
   "Dumbhead! The medical kit is gone to Cuckooland!"
   "Oh,  yes... Mr. Hester. One moment. Yes. I have programmed appropriate
pharmaceuticals  for you. It will take about twenty minutes for them to be
prepared."
   "In  twenty minutes I could be dead," be snarled. But there was no help
for  it,  and  so  he  sat  and  stewed  for twenty minutes, the pressures
mounting.  Illness, hunger, loneliness, overwork, resentment, fear. Anger!
That  was  what, in the end, they all fused into. Anger. Many vectors. One
vector  sum.  By  the  time Vera's dispensary popped out his pills, it had
submerged  all  the  others. He swallowed them greedily and retired to his
private to see what would happen.
   Actually  they  did  appear to work. He lay back while the fires in his
belly damped themselves, and fell imperceptibly asleep.
   When  he  woke  he  felt at least physically better. He washed himself,
brushed his teeth, brushed his thinning yellow hair, and only then noticed
the Christmas tree of attention-demanding lights around Vera's console. On
the screen in bright red letters were the words:

        GENTLY REQUEST PERMISSION TO RESUME NORMAL MODES.

   He  chuckled  to himself. He had forgotten to cancel the override. When
he  ordered  the  computer  to  get  back to business there was an instant
explosion  of  bells  and signal lights, a cascade of hard copy out of the
printer  and  a  voice.  His  elder  daughter's voice, out of Vera's taped
storage:  "Hello,  Pop. Sorry we couldn't reach you to tell you we arrived
safely. We're going to explore now. Talk to you later."

   Because  Peter  Hester  loved his family, the joy of their safe arrival
flooded  his  heart  and sustained him-for hours. For almost two days. But
joy does not flourish in an existence of irritations and worries. He spoke
to  Lurvy-twice;  for  no  more than thirty seconds each time. Vera simply
could  not  handle  more.  Vera  was  harder  pressed  than Peter himself,
stripped  and  rearranged  as  she  was,  handling two-way traffic between
Heechee  Heaven and the Earth, deferring top priority action commands when
even  higher  priorities  demanded  attention. The one voice link with the
Heechee  place could not handle the volume it was given to carry, and mere
chitchat between father and daughter could not be allowed.
   That  was  not  unjust, Peter conceded. Such marvels they were finding!
What  was  unjust  was  that he himself was out of it. What was unjust was
that  among  the urgent and meaningful traffic, Vera found time to pass on
to  him  a hodgepodge of commands meant for himself. None reasonable. Some
impossible  to  carry  out.  Redeploy  the thrusters. Inventory CHON-food.
Submit  by  return  message  complete  analysis  a  cm by 3 cm by 12. 5 cm
packets  in red and lavender wrappers. Do not submit unnecessary analyses!
Submit  metallurgical  analysis  "dreaming couch". Do not attempt physical
study "dreaming couch". Query Dead Men re Heechee Drive. Query Dead Men re
control  panels. Query Dead Men. How easy that was to command! How hard to
carry out, when they maundered and scolded and rambled and complained when
he  could  hear  them at all, and when most often he was forbidden to take
time  on  the  FTL  voice  circuit  anyway.  Some of the orders from Earth
contradicted  others,  and  most  of them came out of order, with obsolete
priority  designations.  And some did not come at all. Poor Vera's storage
circuits  were  soon approaching overload, and she tried to rid herself of
unnecessary  data  by hard-printing it for him to, somehow, attend to; but
that  made problems of its own,, because the recycling system that fed the
printer rolls was the same one that fed him, and the organics were already
depleted.  So  Peter  had to open and dump CHON-food into the sanitary and
then get busy on the still.
   Even  if  Vera  had  had  time  for him, he had not much time for Vera.
Struggle  into  EVA  equipment.  Cycle himself out on the hull of the Food
Factory.  Cut away tubing and bind it together. Sweat it back to the ship,
always  fighting the infuriating, dogged thrust of the Food Factory itself
as  it  plunged toward somewhere or other. He could spare time only for an
occasional  glance  at  the pictures coming back from Heechee Heaven. Vera
displayed them as they came in, one frame at a time; but then each one was
whisked  away to make storage space for the next one, and if Peter was not
there to see they would go unseen. Even so, good heavens! The Dead Men, so
featureless  to  look  at.  The  corridors  of  Heechee  Heaven.  The  Old
Ones-Peter's  heart almost stopped as he looked at the great broad face of
an  Old  One  on the screen. But he had time only for a look, and then the
still  was done and he must go on with the next task. Build himself a yoke
for  his  shoulders.  Seam together plastic sheeting (another drain on the
recycler!)    to    make   buckets.   Squat   impatiently   by   the   one
functioning-barely  functioning-water  source,  holding  the flexible disk
around  the  spout and catching the foulsmelling dribble in the bags. Tote
the  water  back,  half  into the still, the other half into the recycling
tanks. Sleep when he could. Eat when he could force himself. Attend to his
own personal priority messages when they trickled through, and when he was
too  exhausted for anything physical. Another message from Dortmund, three
hundred  municipal  workers  this time-stupid Vera, for letting such trash
through!  A  coded  communication from his lawyer, meaning half an hour to
translate  it.  And  then  all  it  said  was,  "Am attempting secure more
favorable terms. Can promise nothing. Meanwhile advise full compliance all
directives."  What a pig! Peter, swearing, sat before the console, slammed
down the override key and dictated his reply:
   "Full  compliance  with  all  stupid  directives will kill me, and then
what?"  And  he  sent  it in the clear; let Broadhead and the Gateway Corp
make what they would of it!
   And perhaps the message was no lie. In all his stress and bustle, Peter
had  no  time  for  aches  and  pains.  He ate the CHON-food and, when new
regular  rations  began  to come out of the recycler, them, too. Even when
they  tasted  foul-sometimes  turpentine,  sometimes mold-he was not sick.
This  was  not  ideal.  Peter  knew  that  he  was operating on stress and
adrenaline,  and  sometime there would be a price to pay. But he could see
no way to avoid paying it when due.
   And when at last he had the food processor working reasonably well once
more,  and  had managed to catch up with what appeared the most peremptory
of  his own orders, he sat before Vera's console half-dozing, and then saw
the  greatest  marvel  of all. He scowled uncomprehendingly. What was that
idiot  boy doing with a prayer fan? Why in the next frame was he poking it
into  those  foolish  things  that looked like flowerholders? And then the
next  frame  began  to  build on the screen, and Peter gave a great shout.
Suddenly a picture had appeared, some sort of book-Japanese or Chinese, by
the look of it.
   He  was  out  of  the  ship  and  halfway to the Traumeplatz before his
conscious  mind  quite articulated what some part of him had understood at
once.  The  prayer  fans!  They  contained information! He did not stop to
wonder why the information had been in a Terrestrial language, or at least
what looked like one. He had grasped the essential fact. He was determined
to see for himself. Panting, he thrust himself into the room and scrabbled
feverishly  among  the "fans". How was it done? Why in the name of God had
he not waited to see more, to be sure of what he was doing? But there were
the candleholders, or flowerpots, or whatever he had thought they were; he
jammed  the  first  prayer  fan  to  hand  into  the  nearest one. Nothing
happened.
   He  tried  six  of them, narrow end first, wide end first, every way he
could  think  of,  before  it  occurred to him that perhaps not all of the
reading  machines  were  still working. And the second one he tried pulled
the  fan out of his hand and immediately sprang into light. He was looking
at six dancers in black masks and bodystockings, and he was hearing a song
he had not heard for many years.
   It  was  a  taped  PV  show! No. Not even that. It was older than that.
Years older, not much more recent than the first years of the discovery of
the Gateway asteroid; his second wife was still alive, and Janine not born
yet, when that song was new. It had been simple old television, before the
Heechee  piezoelectric  circuits had been incorporated into communications
systems  for human beings. It had perhaps been part of the library of some
Gateway  prospector, no doubt One of the Dead Men, and somehow it had been
transcribed to a prayer fan.
   What a cheat!
   But  then  he  realized  that  there  were thousands of prayer fans, on
Earth,  in  the  tunnels  of  Venus, still on Gateway itself; wherever the
Heechee had been they had left them. Whatever the source of this one, most
of  the  others  must  have  been left by the Heechee themselves! And that
alone-dear  God, that alone was worth more even than the Food Factory, for
it was the key to all of the Heechee's knowledge! What a bonus there would
be!
   Exulting, Peter tried another fan (old movie), and another (slim volume
of poetry, this time in English, by someone named Eliot), and another. How
disgusting!  If  this  was what Wan had got his notions of love from, some
lascivious  Gateway  prospector  carrying pornography with him to pass the
time,  no  wonder  his behavior was so foul! But he could not remain angry
long,  for  he  had  too  much to be glad about. He snatched it out of the
reader,  and  then,  in  the quiet, heard the distant tiny sound of Vera's
urgent-attention bell.
   It  had  a frightening sound, even before he got back to the ship, even
before  he  demanded  the message and heard his son-in-law's voice, rasped
with fear:
   "Urgent  override  priority!  For  Peter  Hester and immediate relay to
Earth!  Lurvy,  Janine  and  Wan  have been captured by the Heechee, and I
think they are coming after me!"

   The advantage of his new situation, and the only one, was that now that
there  were  no  more  messages coming from Heechee Heaven Vera was better
able  to cope with her overload. Patiently Peter teased out of her all the
pictures  that  had been transmitted before Paul's message had been taped,
and  saw  the  knot  of  Heechee  at  the end of the corridor, the blurred
struggle,  half  a  dozen  quick  glimpses of the ceiling of the corridor,
something  that  might  have  been the back of Wan's head-then nothing. Or
nothing that meant anything. Peter could not know that the camera had been
jammed into the blouse of one of the Old Ones, but he could see that there
was nothing to be seen: obscure shadowy shapes, perhaps a hint of texture.
   Peter's mind was clear. But it was also empty. He did not allow himself
to  feel  how  empty  his life had at once become. He carefully programmed
Vera  to  go back over the voice messages and select the significant ones,
and listened to what all of them had said. There was no hope in any of it.
Not even when at last a new picture suddenly began to build on the screen,
then another, then another. For half a dozen frames there was nothing that
made  sense,  perhaps  a fist over the lens, maybe a shot of a bare floor.
Then,  in  one  corner of the last frame, something that looked like-what?
Like  a  Sturmkampfwagen  from his earliest boyhood? But then it was gone,
and the camera had once again been put where it showed nothing at all, and
stayed that way through fifty frames.
   What  it  noticeably  did  not  show  was  any  sign  of  either of his
daughters,  or  of  Wan.  And as to Paul, the old man did not have a clue;
after his last frantic message he was gone.
   In  some  unwanted corner of his mind he found the realization that now
he  might  be,  probably  was,  the  sole  survivor of the mission, and so
whatever bonus might come to all was now his alone.
   He held the thought where he could look at it. But it meant nothing. He
was  now  hopelessly  alone, more alone than ever, as alone as Trish Bover
frozen  into  her  eternal  ragged orbit that would go nowhere. Perhaps he
could  get  back  to Earth to claim his reward. Perhaps he could keep from
dying. But how was he to keep from going insane?

   It  took  Peter  a  long  time  to  fall  asleep.  He was not afraid of
sleeping. What he dreaded was waking up afterward, and when it came it was
as  bad  as he had feared. In the first moment it was a day like any other
day,  and  it  was only after a peaceable moment of stretching and yawning
that  he  remembered what had happened. "Peter Hester," he said to himself
out loud, "you are alone in this very damned place, and you will die here,
still alone." He noted that he was talking to himself. Already.
   Through  the  habits  of all those years he washed himself, cleaned his
mouth,  brushed  his  hair  and  then took time to snip off the loose ends
around  his  ears  and  at the nape of his neck. It did not matter what he
did,  in  any  case.  Having  left  his  private, he opened two packets of
CHON-food  and  ate them methodically before asking Vera if there were any
messages  from  Heechee Heaven. "No," she said, "... Mr. Hester, but there
are a number of downlink action relays."
   "Later," he said. They did not matter. They would tell him to do things
he  had  already done, perhaps. Or they would tell him to do things he had
no  intention  of  doing,  perhaps  to force himself outside, to rerig the
thrusters,  to  try  again.  But  the Food Factory would of course counter
every thrust with an equal and opposite thrust of its own and continue its
slow  acceleration  toward God, He knew what, for God, He knew why. In any
event,  nothing  that  came  from  Earth  for the next fifty days would be
relevant to the new realities.
   And  in  less than fifty days. In less than fifty days, what? "You talk
as though you had a choice of options, Peter Hester!" he scolded himself.
   Well,  perhaps  he had, he thought, if only he could perceive what they
were.  Meanwhile the best thing for him to do was to do what he had always
done.  To  keep  himself  fastidiously  neat.  To  do  such  tasks as were
reasonable  for him to do. To maintain his well established habits. He had
learned  through  all  those decades of life that the best time for him to
move his bowels was some forty-five minutes after eating breakfast; it was
now about that time; it was appropriate to do that. While he was squatting
on  the  sanitary he felt a tiny, almost imperceptible lurch once more and
scowled.  It  was  an annoyance to have things happen when he did not know
their  cause,  and  it  was an interruption in what he was doing, with his
customary  efficiency. Of course, one could not claim much personal credit
for  the  functioning  of sphincters that had been bought and transplanted
from some hapless (or hungry) donor, or for a stomach inserted intact from
another. Nevertheless, it pleased Peter that he functioned so well.
   You  are  morbidly interested in your bowel movements, he told himself,
but silently.
   Also  silently-it did not seem so bad to talk to oneself, as long as it
was  not aloud-he defended himself. It was not unjustified, he thought. It
was  only  because  the  example  of  the bio-assay unit in the toilet was
always before him. For three and a half years it had been monitoring every
waste  product  of  their  bodies. Of course, so it must! How else to keep
tabs  on  their  health?  And  if it was proper for a machine to weigh and
evaluate one's excrement, why not for the excrement's author?
   He said aloud, grinning, "Du bist verruckt, Peter Hester!"
   He  nodded in agreement with himself as he cleaned himself and fastened
his coverall, because he had summed it all up. Yes. He was crazy.
   By the standards of ordinary men.
   But  what  ordinary  man had ever been in the present position of Peter
Hester?
   So when one had said that he was crazy, after all, one had said nothing
that  was  relevant.  What did the standards of ordinary men signify as to
Schwarze  Peter?  It  was  only against extraordinary men that he could be
judged-and  what  a  motley  crew  they  were! Drug addicts and drunkards.
Adulterers  and  traitors. Tycho Brahe had a gutta-percha nose, and no one
thought  him  the  less.  The  Reichsfuhrer  ate  no meat. Great Frederick
himself spent many hours that could have been devoted to the management of
an empire in composing music for tinkle-tanide chamber groups. He strolled
across to the computer and called, "Vera, what was that little thump a few
minutes ago?"
   The  computer paused to match the description against her telemetry. "I
cannot be sure... Mr. Hester. But the moment of inertia is consistent with
either  the  launching or docking of one of the cargo ships that have been
observed."
   He stood for a moment gripping the edge of the console seat. "Fool!" he
shouted. "Why was I not told that that was possible?"
   "I'm  sorry...  Mr.  Hester,"  she apologized. "The analysis suggesting
this  possibility  has  been  read  out  for you as hard copy. Perhaps you
overlooked it."
   "Fool," he said again, but this time he was not sure who he was talking
to.  The  ships,  of  course!  It  had  been  implicit  all along that the
production  of  the Food Factory had to go somewhere. And it had also been
implicit  that  the  ships  had  to return empty to be reloaded. For what?
Where?
   That did not matter. What mattered was the perception that perhaps they
would not always come empty.
   And, following on that, the perception that one ship at least, known to
come  to  the  Food  Factory, was now in Heechee Heaven. If it should come
back, who or what might be in it?
   Peter  rubbed his arm, which had begun to ache. Pains or none, he could
perhaps  do something about that! He had some weeks before that ship could
possibly  return. He could-what? Yes! He could barricade that corridor. He
could somehow move machines, stores-anything that had mass-to block it, so
that when it did return, if it did, whoever was in it would be stopped, or
at least delayed. And the time to begin that was now.
   He delayed no further, but set off to find materials for a barricade.
   It  was  not hard to move even quite massive objects, in the low thrust
of  the  Food  Factory. But it was tiring. And his arms continued to ache.
And in a little while, as he was shoving a blue metal object like a short,
fat  canoe  down  toward  the dock, he became aware of a strange sensation
that seemed to come from the roots of his teeth, almost like the beginning
of a toothache; and saliva began to flow from under his tongue.
   Peter  stopped and breathed deeply, forcing himself to relax. It did no
good.  He  had known it would do no good. In a few moments the pain in the
chest  began, first tentative, as though someone were pressing against him
with  a  sled  runner along his breastbone, then painful, a hard, bruising
thrust,  as  though  the  runner were on top of him and a hundred-kilo man
standing on it.
   He was too far from Vera to get medicine. He would have to wait it out.
If  it was false angina, he would live. If it was cardiac arrest, he would
not.  He  sat  patient  and still, waiting to see which it would be, while
anger built up and built up inside him. How unfair it was!
   How  unfair it all was! Five thousand astronomical units away, serenely
and untroubled, the people of the world went about their business, neither
knowing  nor  caring  that  the  person  who  could bring them so much-who
already had! -might be dying, alone and in pain.
   Could  they  be  grateful?  Could they show respect, appreciation, even
common decency?
   Perhaps  he  would  give  them  a  chance. If they responded with these
things,  yes,  he would bring them such gifts as they had never known. But
if  they were wicked and disobedient. Then Schwarze Peter would bring them
such  terrible gifts that all the world would shudder and quake with fear!
In  either  case,  they would never forget him... if only he survived what
was happening to him now.


        9 Brasilia

   The  main  thing was Essie. I sat by her bed every time she came out of
surgery-fourteen  times in six weeks-and every time her voice was a little
weaker  and she looked a little more gaunt. Everybody was after me all the
time,  the  suit against me in Brasilia was going badly, reports poured in
from  the Food Factory, the fire in the food mines still would not go out.
But  Essie was up front. Harriet had her orders. Wherever I was, asleep or
awake,  if  Essie asked for me she was put through at once. "Oh, yes, Mrs.
Broadhead,  Robin will be with you right away. No, you won't be disturbing
him.  He  just  woke up from a nap." Or he's just between appointments, or
he's  just  coming up the lawn from the Tappan Sea, or anything that would
not  deter  Essie from speaking to me right away. And then I would go into
the  darkened  room, all sun-tanned and grinning and relaxed, and tell her
how  well  she  was  looking.  They had taken my billiard room and moved a
whole  operating theater into it, and cleared the books out of the library
next  door to make it a bedroom for her. She was pretty comfortable there.
Or said she was.
   And actually, she didn't look bad at all. They had done the splints and
the  bone  grafts,  and  plugged  in two or three kilos of spare parts and
tissues. They had even put the skin back, or I guess transplanted new skin
from  somebody  else.  Her face looked fine, except for a light bandage on
one  side,  and  she  brushed her streaky blonde hair down over that. "So,
stud," she would greet me. "How you hanging?"
   "Just  fine, just fine. A little horny," I would say, nuzzling her neck
with my nose. "And you?"
   "Just  fine."  So  we  reassured  each other; and we weren't lying, you
know.  She  was  getting better every day, the doctors told me that. And I
was  getting-I  don't know what I was getting. But I was all atremble with
eagerness  for every morning. Operating on five hours sleep a night. Never
tired. Never felt better in my life.
   But  still  she  kept  getting skinnier every time. The doctors told me
what I must do, and I told Harriet and Harriet reprogrammed the cook So we
stopped  having  salads  and  bare  broiled  steaks.  no  coffee and juice
breakfasts,  but tvoroznyikyi, cream-cheese pancakes, and mugs of steaming
cocoa.  Caucasian  lamb pilaff for lunch. Roast grouse in sour-cream sauce
for dinner. "You're spoiling me, dear Robin," she accused, and I said:
   "Only fattening you up. I can't stand skinny women."
   "Yes,  very  well.  But  there  is such a thing as being too ethnic. Is
there nothing fattening that is not Russian?"
   "Wait for dessert," I grinned. "Strawberry shortcake." And whipped with
double  Devonshire  cream.  As  a  matter  of  psychology,  the  nurse had
persuaded  me to start with small portions on large plates. Essie doggedly
ate  them  all  the way through, and as we gradually increased the size of
the  portions  she  gradually  ate  more  each day. She didn't stop losing
weight.  But  she  slowed  it  down a lot, and by the end of six weeks the
doctors  opined  that  her  condition,  cautiously,  might  be regarded as
stable. Nearly.
   When  I told her the good news she was actually standing up tethered to
the plumbing under her bed, but able to walk about the room. "About time,"
she  said,  reaching out to kiss me. "Now. You have been spending too much
time at home."
   "It's a pleasure," I said.
   "It is a kindness," she said soberly. "Is very dear to me that you have
always  been  here,  Robin.  But  now  that I am almost well you must have
affairs to attend to."
   "Not  really.  I  get  along fine with the comm facilities in the brain
room.  Of  course,  it  would be nice for the two of us to go somewhere. I
don't think you've ever seen Brasilia. Maybe in a few weeks..."
   "No.  Not  in few weeks. Not with me. If you have need to go, please do
it, Robin."
   I hesitated. "Well, Morton thinks it might be useful."
   She  nodded briskly and called, "Harriet? Mr. Broadhead will be leaving
for Brasilia tomorrow morning. Make reservations et cetera."
   "Certainly,  Mrs. Broadhead," Harriet said from the console at the head
of  Essie's  bed.  Her image sputtered into blackness as quickly as it had
appeared, and Essie put her arms around me.
   "I  will  see  that  you have complete communications in Brasilia," she
promised,  "and  Harriet  will  be  instructed  to  keep  you posted on my
condition  at all times. Square count, Robin. If I need you, you will know
at once."
   I said into her ear, "Well..."
   She  said  into  my  shoulder, "Is no 'well'. Is settled, and, Robin? I
love you very much."

   Albert  tells  me  that  every radio message I send is actually a long,
skinny  string of photons, like a spear thrown into space. A thirty-second
burst  communication is a column nine million kilometers long, each photon
zipping along at the speed of light, in perfect step all the way. But even
that  long,  fast,  skinny spear takes forever to go 5,000 A. U. The fever
that  had  wounded  my  wife  had  taken twenty-five days to get here. The
orders  to stop fooling with the couch had gone only a fraction of the way
before  they  passed the second fever, the one the girl Janine had laid on
us.  Lightly,  to  be sure. Our message congratulating the Herter-Halls on
arriving at the Food Factory, out somewhere past Pluto's orbit, had passed
the  one  to  tell us that most of them had gone skylarking off to Heechee
Heaven.  By  now  they were there; and our message telling them what to do
about  it was long since at the Food Factory for relay-for once two events
had occurred at times close enough to have some meaning for each other.
   But  by  the  time  we  knew what meaning they had had, the event would
again  be  twenty-five  days in the past. What an annoyance! I wanted many
things  on  the Food Factory, but what I wanted most of all at that moment
was that faster-than-light radio. Astonishing that such a thing should be!
But  when  I  charged  Albert  with being caught flat-footed by it, he had
smiled  that  gentle,  humble  smile and poked his pipestem at his ear and
said,  "Sure thing, Robin, if you mean the sort of surprise that one feels
when  an  unlikely  contingency  turns out to be real. But it was always a
contingency.  Remember.  The  Heechee  ships were able to navigate without
error to moving targets. That suggests the possibility of communication at
nearly   instantaneous   speeds   over   astronomical   distances-ergo,  a
faster-than-light radio."
   "Then why didn't you tell me about it?" I demanded.
   He  scratched  one sneakered foot against the other sockless ankle. "It
was  only  a  possibility,  Robin, estimated no more than point oh five. A
sufficient  condition,  but  not  a  necessary  one. We simply didn't have
enough evidence, until now."
   I could have been chatting with Albert on the way down to Brasilia. But
I  was  traveling  commercial-the  company aircraft aren't fast enough for
those distances-and I like having Albert where I can see him when we talk,
so  I  spent  my  time voice-only with company business and Morton. And of
course with Harriet, who was under orders to check in once an hour, except
when I was asleep, with a quick status report on Essie.
   Even  hypersonic,  a ten-thousand-kilometer flight takes a while, and I
had  time  for  a lot of business. Morton wanted as much of it as he could
get, mostly to try to talk me out of meeting with Bover. "You have to take
him  seriously,  Robin,"  be  whined  through the plug in my ear. "Bover's
represented  by  Anjelos,  Carpenter and Gutmann, and they're high-powered
people, with really good legal programs."
   "Better than you?"
   Hesitation. "Well-I hope not, Robin."
   "Tell  me  something,  Morton.  If  Bover didn't have much of a case to
begin with, why are these high-powered people bothering with him?"
   Although  I  couldn't see him, I knew that Morton would be assuming his
defensive  look, partly apologetic, partly you-laymen-wouldn't-understand.
"It's not all that weak, Robin. And it hasn't gone well for us so far. And
it's  takking on some larger dimension than we originally estimated. And I
assume that they thought their connections would patch up the weak spots-I
also  assume  that they're in for a son-of-a-bitching big contingency fee.
You'd be better advised to patch up some of our own weak spots than take a
chance  with  Bover,  Robin.  Your pal Senator Praggler is on this month's
oversight committee. Go see him first."
   "I'll  go see him, but not first," I told Morton, and cut him off as we
circled  in  for  a  landing.  I could see the big Gateway Authority tower
overshadowing the silly flat saucer over the House of Representatives, and
off  up  the  lake the bright reflections of tin roofs in the Free Town. I
had  cut  it pretty close. My date with Trish Bover's widower (or husband,
depending  on how you looked at it) was in less than an hour, and I didn't
really want to keep him waiting.
   I  didn't  have  to.  I was already sitting at a table in the courtyard
dining  room  of  the Brasilia Palace hotel when he came in. Skinny. Tall.
Balding.  He  sat  down  nervously, as if he were in a desperate hurry, or
desperately  eager  to  be somewhere else. But when I offered him lunch he
took  ten minutes to study the menu and wound up ordering all of it. Fresh
hearts of palm salad, little fresh-water shrimp from the lake, all the way
down  to  that  wonderful  raw  pineapple  flown  up from Rio. "This is my
favorite  hotel  in  Brasilia,"  I informed him genially, hostfully, as he
poured  dressing  on  the hearts of palm. "Old. But good. I suppose you've
seen all the sights?"
   "I've lived here for eight years, Mr. Broadhead."
   "Oh, I see." I hadn't known where the hell the son of a bitch lived, he
was  just  a  name  and  a  nuisance. So much for travelog. I tried common
interests.  "I  got a flash synoptic from the Food Factory on the way down
here.  The  Herter-Hall  party  is  doing well, finding out some marvelous
things.  Did you know that we've identified four of the Dead Men as actual
Gateway prospectors?"
   "I  saw  something about that on the PV, yes, Mr. Broadhead. It's quite
exciting."
   "More  than that, Bover. It can change this whole world around-and make
us  all  filthy rich, too." He nodded, his mouth full of salad. He kept on
keeping  his  mouth full, too; I wasn't doing much good trying to draw him
out.  "All  right," I said, "why don't we get down to business? I want you
to drop that injunction."
   He  chewed and swallowed. With the next forkful of shrimp poised at his
mouth he said, "I know you do, Mr. Broadhead," and refilled the mouth.
   I  took a long, slow sip of my wine and seltzer and said, with complete
control  of  my voice and manner, "Mr. Bover, I don't think you understand
what  the  issues  are. I don't mean to put you down. I just can't believe
you  have  all  the  facts.  We're  both  going  to  lose if you keep that
injunction  in  force."  I  went  over the whole case with him, with care,
exactly  as  Morton had spelled it out to me: Gateway Corp's intervention,
eminent  domain,  the  problem  of  complying with a court order when your
compliance  doesn't  get to the people it affe