The observation deck filled rapidly. The doors were constantly opening as more humans, octospiders, iguanas, and even a pair of avians came into the room. The crowd began to press against Nicole and Maria.
The flat-topped vehicle was extremely long, longer even than the transportation corridors connecting the spheres of the Node. Several dozen big transparent “bubbles” were scattered around its surface. The carrier stopped near one of the spherical vertices of the Node and extended a long transparent tube that fit neatly into the side of the sphere.
The deck was in turmoil. All kinds of creatures were pushing, pressing to move closer to the window. A pair of ‘ iguanas leaped upward against the window in the weightlessness and were quickly joined by ten to twenty humans. Nicole began to feel claustrophobic and tried to move out of the way. There was no room through the mob. Nicole was pushed in all directions. She lost contact with Maria. A strong wave caught Nicole from the side and smacked her against the wall. Nicole felt a sharp pain in her left hip upon impact. In the ensuing melee, she might have been trampled and injured even more except that Big Block and the blockheads swept into the mob and restored order.
Nicole was badly shaken when Big Block reached her. The pain in her hip was unbearable. She could not walk.
“It’s just part of being old,” the Eagle said. “You must be more careful.” He and Nicole were alone in her apartment. The others were eating breakfast.
“I do not like being fragile,” Nicole said. “Nor do I like not doing things because I’m afraid of injuring myself.”
“Your hip will heal,” the Eagle said. “But it will take a while. You’re lucky it’s only badly bruised and not broken. At your age a broken hip can make a human a permanent invalid.”
“Thanks for the words of reassurance,” Nicole said. She took a small sip of her coffee. She was lying on her mat with her head lifted up slightly by several pillows. “But enough about me. Let’s move on to more important things. What is that flat spacecraft all about?”
“The other humans have already started calling it the Carrier,” the Eagle said. “That’s a very appropriate name.”
There was a short silence. “Come on, come on,” Nicole said in a cranky voice, “don’t play coy with me. I’m lying here doped up and still in pain. It shouldn’t be necessary for me to drag the information out of you.”
“This phase of the operation will soon be over,” the alien said. “Some of you will be transferred to the Carrier, and the rest of you will move over to the Node.”
“And what happens then?” Nicole asked. “And how is it decided who goes where?”
“I can’t tell you that yet,” the Eagle said. “But I will tell you that you will be going to the Node-although if you tell anyone else what I have just shared with you, I will not in the future give you any more advance information. We want the transition to be orderly.”
“You always want things to be orderly… Ouch,” Nicole said as she changed positions slightly. “And I must say you have not given me very significant information.”
“You know more than anyone else.”
“Big deal,” Nicole grumped, taking another sip of coffee. “By the way, do you have any fancy doctors over there in the Node who can wave a magic wand over this bruise and make it go away?”
“No,” said the Eagle, “but we can give you a new hip if you like. Or a pseudo-hip, as I guess you would call it.”
Nicole shook her head. She winced as she jostled her hip while putting her coffee cup on the floor. “Being old is shit,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” the Eagle said. He started to leave. “I’ll look in on you whenever I can.”
“Before you go,” Nicole said, “I have one other item of business. Nai wanted me to ask you to intercede on Galileo’s behalf. She would like him returned to the family.”
“It’s irrelevant now,” the Eagle said as he was leaving. “You’ll all be out of here in four or five days. Good- bye, Nicole. Don’t try to walk-use the wheelchair I brought you. Your hip won’t heal unless you keep your weight off of it.”
5
It was early in the morning, before most of the humans had awakened. Nicole had been out in the long hallway for half an hour experimenting with the controls on the arm of her wheelchair. She had been surprised that the chair could move so swiftly and quietly. As she raced past the series of conference rooms halfway down the kilometer-long corridor, Nicole wondered what kind of advanced technology was contained inside the sealed metal box beneath her chair. Richard would have loved this wheelchair, she thought. He probably would have tried to take it apart.
She passed a few humans out in the hallway, most shuffling along in an attempt at a morning exercise walk. Nicole laughed to herself as a pair of shufflers moved quickly out of her way. I must look very strange, she thought, a gray-haired old woman zooming down the hall in a wheelchair.
She turned around just after she drove by the small tram, which was carrying a handful of passengers toward the common areas for an early breakfast. Nicole continued to press the acceleration button on her chair until she was going faster than the tram. The people in the tram stared at her with astonishment as she passed them. Nicole waved and grinned. A few moments later, however, when a door a hundred meters in front of her opened abruptly and,two women walked out into the corridor, Nicole realized that it was not safe for her to be driving so fast. She slowed down, still chuckling to herself at the thrill the speed had given her.
As she drew near to her own apartment, Nicole saw the Eagle standing at the end of the ray where it merged with the annulus encircling the starfish. She drove over beside him.
“You look like you’re having fun,” the Eagle said.
“I am,” Nicole said with a laugh. ‘This chair is a fantastic toy. It has almost made me forget about the pain in my hip.”
The Eagle waved toward a lounge on the other side of the annulus. “Let’s go over there, please,” the alien said. “I would like to talk to you in private.”
Nicole drove her chair across the main annulus until she reached the ramp leading to the lounge. The Eagle, who was walking behind her, motioned for her to continue. A dozen octospiders were sitting around the room. The Eagle and Nicole chose a spot off to the right, where they could be alone.
“The Carrier has almost finished its tasks over at the Node,” the Eagle said. “Twelve hours from now it will make a short stop near this vehicle to pick up some more passengers. I will announce after lunch who will be moving to the Carrier.”
The alien turned and looked directly at Nicole with his intense blue eyes. “Some of the humans may not be pleased with my announcement. After the decision was made to split your species into two separate groups, it was immediately apparent to me that it would be impossible to achieve a division that would not make some people unhappy. I would like some help from you in making this process as soon as possible.”
Nicole studied the remarkable face and eyes of her alien companion. She thought she remembered seeing, once before, a similar look from the Eagle. Back at the Node, she recalled, when I was asked to do the video.
“What is it that you want me to do?” Nicole asked.
“We have decided to allow a degree of flexibility in this process. Although all the individuals on the list for transfer to the Carrier must accept their assignments, we will permit some of those who are assigned to the Node to request reconsideration. Since there will be no interaction between the two vehicles, in the case of strong emotional attachments, for example, we would not want to force—”
“Are you telling me,” Nicole interrupted, “that this split may permanently break up families?”
“Yes, it may,” the Eagle replied. “In a few instances, a husband or a wife has been assigned to the Carrier, while the spouse is on the list for the Node. Similarly, there are some cases where parents and their children will be separated.”
“Jesus,” exclaimed Nicole. “How in the world can you, or anyone, arbitrarily decide to separate a husband and a wife who have chosen to live together, and expect them to be happy? You’ll be lucky if there is not a
