Iris

John nodded slowly. 'Perhaps. And you can give me the only evidence that I know is true enough to accept....' They were silent for a moment, then he added: 'In any case —the world goes on.' Brendan turned and fixed him with an emotionless stare. 'If you never lie again, you'll never speak truer words than those.'

Five years later Temujin Krzakwa lay on his back on a padded seat in a shuttlecraft, awaiting lift-off from Baikonur Cosmodrome . A sickly sweat bathed his face and desperation twisted with cold fingers inside him. He watched the countdown clock on the bulkhead move inexorably toward zero, and he thought about what had happened.

It was an unpleasant thing to run away like this, but it seemed the only way. They had him imprisoned Sometimes he thought back to his youth on the Moon and remembered how he'd longed to get away from that congenital entrapment, escape to the lovely freedom that was Earth. Freedom! It hada bitter taste to him now, and he could remember the excitement with which he'd fled Lewislab eight years ago, on his way to a rendezvous with the Triton colonists.

Why has it come to this again? he wondered. No answer? Then why had he slowly oozed out of the solidarity that the others had found in the great chateau by the Dzungarian Gates? They lived lives of contentment and only wanted him to be happy. . . .

His lips twisted with an almost uncontrollable rage. He damped the feelings down and exhaled heavily. Contentment? Jesus, what's keeping this thing on the ground? He looked up at the clock again and felt a sudden, scalding nausea. The progression of numbers had been replaced by a flashing red bar. Emergency hold.

He sat forward and looked out the porthole of this venerable Russian spacecraft. There was a handsomely designed sportsGEM racing across the parched concrete toward him in a cloud of dust, pursued by the flashing blue lights of spaceport security. The police caught up with the intruder, quite nearby now, and forced it to a stop. The hovercar's door popped open and a little figure jumped out. It began running toward the ship. The police pursued the runner on foot and soon had the tiny figure pinned to the ground. When they were gone, the shuttle lifted off only a little behind schedule. Comforted by the roaring engines and the inertial pressure on his back, Temujin began to relax. But he thought, I'm sorry, Axie; I just couldn't take it. You were just another childhood to me: you put me back on the Moon.

Tears tried to well up in his eyes, but he suppressed them successfully.

The armored inner airlock door of interstellar exploration vehicle Deepstar 1.5 slid back into its interhull recess and Temujin Krzakwa looked into the brightly lit space that held Brendan Sealock and John Cornwell.

In their mid-forties now, the two had changed only a little, taking on just the faintest patina of middle age. Cornwell was a little thinner. His face seemed to foreshadow a dour gaunt-ness to come, and a few permanent lines had appearedaround his mouth. Sealock seemed the same at first glance, but a very small amount of subcutaneous fat had appeared under his skin and it made his face a little softer. The contours seemed to have smoothed. . . . Tem supposed he must look to them now like some giant bag of ambulatory cellulite. The image amused him.

Sealock held out his hand and said, 'Welcome back, asshole. I knew you'd show up.'

'Did you really?'

'No. But I always hoped I'd have an opportunity to say that to you.' Tem turned to face Cornwell. 'What about you? Do you have anything sarcastic saved up?' He shook his head. 'I'm afraid not. I'm glad you're here.'

'So am I.' As they walked up the corridor toward the control room, Tem said, 'It was too much.' Brendan turned to look at him curiously, read familiar signs, and nodded. 'Relationships like that, ones with expectations, usually are.'

And John said, 'Maybe that's why we're here. I guess this is what I was looking for, after all. Maybe there are worse things than being alive. . . .'There was a program in the machine now, an interesting one. Assembly. End. Go.

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