9Phase.DR. I saw what happened with John and Beth, when its best efforts came to nothing. . . .
'When he wrote me, all of this'—his gesture took in the universe—'the Master wrote a far superior implementation, though he may not have known it. DR is not the way. We are. I will help you now. Go forth and heal them.'
The GAM vanished and the world started up. Heal them? thought Achmet Aziz el-Tabari. I? He watched Vana and Harmon again for a while, saw their happy freedom, and wondered,
Ah. Yes. Aksinia Ockels . Elizabeth Toussaint. Temujin Krzakwa. Ariane Methol. John Harry Cornwell. Jana Li Hu. And finally . . . Brendan Sealock? He tried to think about the matter for just a moment then, to consider its implications, but the unreality drew him back in swiftly, almost against his will.
John waved himself into an upright position and once again thought about Beth, trying to start from the beginning. When her face was animated by laughter or anger, she was more than beautiful. But in his thoughts the disproportionsof her face were magnified. It seemed as if he had not seen her laugh for a long time. Probably she had been on the path to her decision for a long time—how could he not have seen it coming? DR was not what he had thought it was.
Mentally, the cast intruded. For a moment he stood astride the VVVLB station in the tarry waste of Cassini Regio on Iapetus . Saturn's ring was a ghostly apparition which loomed above the black-on-black horizon. A voice was saving something concerning the Great Search of '34—'35. Beth? He wished they could relive their days together at Yellowknife. Again pain assailed his eyes and he cried. Too late. He fell asleep with the program still playing.
And awoke with a start.
He rose slowly and pulled a fullbody from the compression case and unfolded it. An ironic smile creased his face as he noticed thedeepstar/triton insignia which was emblazoned on the chest pocket. It must have been shifting about the case for the last year, and through either habit or chance he had not picked it out until now. It was strange, he thought, studying the globe of Neptune in the picture, how mundane the Solar System seemed now, compared with how exotic it had been when they left Earth. He tossed the obsolete piece of clothing into the disposal and drew out another one. Aksinia was reading in one corner of the central room; in another, Ariane was taking a little late brunch of tea and brioches. She looked up. 'Good morning, John. Why don't you join me?' And indeed he did feel a little hungry. A raisin doughnut seemed like an appropriate thing to eat, so he got that and a cup of nonalcoholic hot pulque to wash it down with.
'Where is everybody?' asked John, squinting out at the night-sky dome through an available window.
'I think Vana, Harmon, and Demo are in the Illimitor World. Brendan and Tem are programming the QCS. As for Jana . . .' She shrugged.
Jana, thought John. He had not seen much of her since her declaration of love out on the ice—if it was true. Somehow he had managed to not care. 'She's pretty unpredictable, all right.' He came over and sat by Ariane at the other end ofher couch. 'I didn't tell you, or anybody really, but apparently I hurt her badly during the voyage without even realizing it. All I was trying to do was provide her with some friendship and a little sexual consolation, and— she said she was in love with me.'
'Hmmm.' Ariane slipped a strand of dark hair around her right index finger and tugged on it. 'That explains a few things. But I wouldn't have thought her capable of loving in silence. Do you believe her?'
'I don't really have a choice, do I?'
'I suppose not.'
'I don't know what to think about her. I guess it's just one more tangle in my original ingenious plan. It's ironic that I was so stupid.'
'It's just a good thing these artifacts came along to shock everyone out of their senses. We'd probably be on our way back by now.'
'You're probably right. I—'
There was a jumbled noise, and Brendan appeared at the ingress. He was still wearing space gear and, with the helmet deflated on his back, they could see the concentration on his face. He didn't even acknowledge them as he marched across the room to his compartment carrying a small cylindrical object.
'What's that?' asked Ariane.
Brendan stopped, looking puzzled for a moment, then said, 'It's a final nail for my fucking Trojan horse. I've ransacked all the electronics I brought for this thing. It'll be as far above Torus-alpha as Torus-alpha is above binary. I'll do more than just eavesdrop on that thing.' He went into his room.
'It's nice knowing that he's working on this problem,' said Ariane, smiling. 'If anyone can do it, he can.'
'It
