He nodded noncommittally.
“But what every human colony needs as much or more than someone like me must be someone like
“I don’t follow.”
“Look at it this way,” she went on. “I’ve often thought of you as a modern-day Moses in the desert. Don’t laugh, I’m serious. Moses brought his people to the gates of the Promised Land, but he was barred from entering it himself. It’s the human condition, as I see it, the old belong to the old and may not cross over to the new. But we’re not entirely human anymore, Merrill, and the old laws don’t apply. Our new reality needs you. Come with us to our thousand new worlds and help us write our new commandments and put order to our new societies. We need your wisdom and judgment. Not to mention your
Moses? First he was a wild card, and now he was a mythological figure from the Christian Bible wandering in the desert? Meewee decided to test his powers. <
Eleanor made no comment, though she must have heard and understood. She merely gazed at him and nodded her head.
The Els came over and one of them said to him, “It’s time to choose which one of us is going. Will you help?”
The hidden meaning of the request was not lost on him. They were forcing the issue, forcing him to decide. It was now or never, all or nothing, the status quo or the Promised Land. Momoko came to stand by his side and entwined her arm in his. She was trembling. The room grew still as others began to watch their little group. In the end, he knew there was no choice because there could never be a status quo; it didn’t take the wisdom of Moses to see that. E-P and Andrea may be down for the count, but they or some other machine would try again and again until they succeeded.
“How can I help you choose?” he said.
“We want you to flip a coin.”
Meewee said, “But I don’t own a coin.”
“My sister has one,” said the El in blue.
“No, I don’t,” said the other. “I gave it to you.”
“I distinctly remember giving it to you.”
Eleanor quipped, “Well, so much for a shared mind.”
The girls checked their pockets and the one in blue found the coin. She held it out to Meewee. “Will you?” It was a small copper-zinc disk that, even in its heyday, was the least valuable coin of the realm. Meewee accepted it from her. How fitting to decide the fate of a species with a penny.
“Listen up!” the El in red announced to the room. “We’re choosing our first colonist.” The music stopped playing, and the Mem Lab faithful crowded around.
Meewee turned the coin over in his hand. Heads or tails, mole or freckle, red or blue. “Winner goes on the
A Ticket to Ride
Try not to think about it. Think about trying not to think about it. Try not to think about it. It was a short to- do list, but it was caught in a loop.
Fred sprawled on his couch not watching two holos running in his stateroom. One was of Mary’s last FUS, still catatonic, still seated in her floral print armchair staring serenely into space. The other was a short tape loop depicting a donald dockworker floating serenely in the starry space beyond the buoys that marked the Port Clarke boundary. He wore only his dock overalls and was quite dead. An anonymous person had sent the clip to Fred. Fred had no doubt that the space-blown donald was the dock-worker who had been clowning around during the hull breach emergency, and that Top Ape had both ordered his murder and sent the clip. It was an offering of appeasement. Top Ape probably thought that the insult to Fred was the reason he had not left his stateroom for the last few days, and the reason he hadn’t swiped the latest shipment of Raspberry Flush. How frustrating it must be for them, to have a flask of heaven in their grasp but no way to open it.
Someone began knocking loudly on his door, kicking it actually. This had happened several times during the last day or so. There had also been shouted insults and threats by russ voices. Fred had ignored all this, but this time, just to mix things up a little, he pushed himself to his feet. Before he reached the door, a phone call arrived from Earth Girl with a floating red glyph pulsing EXTREME URGENCY.
Decisions, decisions, what not to do? Fred returned to the couch and said, “Okay, Earth Girl, what do you want?”
“Hello, Specialist Londenstane,” the mentar’s voice said. “So nice of you to take my call. You are signed up to depart on the ISV
“Isn’t that fascinating?”
The banging on his door continued, and the mentar said, “Do you intend to board the ship?”
“That’s a good question. Anything else?”
The mentar paused, then added, “Yes, TECA authorities have asked me to inform you that if you intend to remain on emergency leave status but not return to Earth aboard the
“Amazing.”
The banging ceased and was replaced by scratching sounds.
“Is that all, Earth Girl?”
“Yes.”
Fred ended the call with a swipe and went to the door. He made a fist and cocked his arm, intending to punch whoever was there in the face. But when he swung the door open, there was no one there. Someone had scratched a crude hangman’s noose into the surface of the door, and Fred wondered idly how hanging would work in weightlessness as he shut the door and returned to the couch.
He was hungry, but the last time he’d gone to the commissary, even the dorises had shunned him.
THE THING ABOUT not thinking about things was that while you were busy not thinking about certain things, you were actually thinking about other things. So when the call from Marcus came, Fred took a break from not thinking and answered it.
“There’s still time for you to board the
“That’s very interesting.”
Marcus refused to be put off and continued. “There have been sporadic incidents between russes and donalds out in the spars.”
“Define incidents.”
“Fights.”
“What a shame.”
“You have no intention of leaving the station, do you?”
“I honestly don’t know, Marcus. I don’t see what I would gain one way or another. For the first time in my life I don’t know what to do.”
“Perhaps I can help.”
“Give it a shot.”
“The Original Flaw.”
“What about it? You going to tell me what it is?”
“Not I. In your present frame of mind, I doubt you would believe me anyway. The person responsible for
