Gulping down the crust, Yeager said, “You need the size to handle the pressures. Compression. The vehicle’s built like a series of nested shells, one within the other. Like those Russian dolls, you know.”
“Babushka dolls,” Corvus said.
“Matryoshka,” Deirdre corrected.
Yeager grinned at her. “You know, for an incredibly beautiful woman, you’re pretty smart.”
Dorn bristled visibly, but Deirdre simply gave the engineer an icy glare.
Yeager took it all without malice. “Freedom of speech,” he said, almost wistfully. “It can get you into a lot of trouble. Ah well. What’s for dessert?”
“Tell us more about this ship you’ve designed,” Corvus said. “I’m going to be one of your passengers.”
“You?” Yeager looked surprised.
“Me,” Andy said. For once, he looked totally serious.
PASSENGER QUARTERS
Dorn accompanied Deirdre to her stateroom once dinner was finished. As Dr. Pohan had told her, the map screens placed strategically along the passageway bulkheads showed where her quarters were and how to get there. All she had to do was ask.
Despite her assurances to her father, the higher
“Thank you,” she said as they walked slowly along the passageway. “I appreciate your protecting me from Dr. Yeager.”
“I learned courtesy from a very noble woman,” Dorn said, his voice low, heavy.
With a tired smile, Deirdre added, “I’ve fended off showoffs like Yeager most of my life, but I’m glad I didn’t have to do it alone, tonight.”
“You speak Spanish?”
“She did.”
“You must have loved her very much.”
Dorn shook his head slowly. “It’s not that simple.”
“Oh.”
Following the maps displayed upon the wall screens, they at last found Deirdre’s stateroom. Its door was like all the others that lined the passageway except that the oblong electronic screen on it bore her name. Another couple came up the passageway from the other side, deep in whispered conversation. They stared at Dorn as they squeezed by.
“I should be jealous of you,” Deirdre said, once they had passed.
“Jealous?”
“Usually I’m the one people stare at.”
Dorn said nothing.
“Since I was twelve,” she went on.
It was impossible to read the expression on the human side of his face. For long moments they simply stood there in the passageway, silent. For the first time in many years, Deirdre wasn’t sure what she should say, how she should handle this … cyborg.
“Thank you,” Dorn said at last.
She blinked at him. “For what?”
“For not asking about my past. For not probing into my life story.”
“It’s painful to you.”
“Painful. Yes.”
Very softly, she said, “Everybody has pain in their lives, Dorn.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, without much conviction.
Even more unsure of herself, Deirdre said, “Well, if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Good night, then.”
“Good night.”
This was the moment when guys made their move, Deirdre knew, but the cyborg merely bowed stiffly a few centimeters, then turned and started walking up the passageway.
But after a few steps he stopped and said over his shoulder, “My dossier is on file at Ceres. Look under the name ‘Dorik Harbin.’ ”
Then he proceeded up the passageway, the overhead lights glinting off the etched metal of his skullcap. Deirdre watched him for several moments, then touched the fingerprint-coded lock that opened her door.
Dorik Harbin, she thought. He
A priest?
It’s been a strange first night, Deirdre thought as she stepped into her stateroom. And we have two more weeks to go.
She closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She felt that it would be good to get into bed and stop fighting this heavy gravity that was pulling on her.
Then she looked around the spacious compartment for the first time. Deirdre’s stateroom was considerably more splendid than the quarters she was accustomed to at home. All this space for one person! she marveled. Of course, she realized, it’s designed for a couple. Eying the wide, low bed, she giggled at the thought that it was big enough for a team of acrobats.
Her one travel bag was sitting on a luggage rack at the foot of the bed. She unpacked, then undressed, did her ablutions in the handsomely appointed lavatory, and avoided the temptation to try out the deep tub of the spa. Pulling on a shapeless old pullover shirt that reached to her hips, Deirdre sat on the bed and tried not to look at the blank wall screen.
Go to sleep, she told herself. Don’t pry into the man’s past.
Yet it was Dorn himself who told her that the rock rats’ settlement at Ceres held a dossier on him, under the name Dorik Harbin. She wondered why he no longer called himself that.
Yeager seemed to know something about him, Deirdre thought. All through dinner the engineer behaved as if he knew all about Dorn’s past. But then Yeager acted as if he knew everything about everything, she told herself.
Forget about it, she told herself. Let sleeping cyborgs lie. She stretched out on the bed and pulled the thin sheet up to her chin. But in her mind’s eye she kept seeing Dorn, half human, half machine. Why? How?
She remembered a line she’d read at school about a famous financier who had faced an ethical problem of some importance. “Bernard Baruch sat on his favorite park bench, struggling with his conscience,” the author had written. Then he added, “He won.”
Smiling to herself, Deirdre decided that she would override her conscience, too.
She sat up and called, “Computer, what’s the time lag between here and Ceres?”
The wall screen glowed softly and the computer’s synthesized voice answered, “Four seconds, one way.”
I can get the information in less than eight seconds, Deirdre realized.
“Computer, query the
“Acknowledged.”
Deirdre lay back on the bed again and commanded the lights to switch off. I’ll read his file in the morning, she said to herself. After a good night’s sleep.
