them one at a time. So here's what Yamagishi-san and I propose: We change the schedule on the experiments in Hokkaido. We do full-up systems integration now, and if nothing works we'll do the component-by-component testing later. The money's all been allocated anyway.
“We think it'll be months—maybe years—before the American effort gets back on track. And we don't think the Russians can do it even in that time. Japan's the only possibility. We don't have to announce it right away. We don't have to make a decision about activating the Machine right away. We're just testing components.”
“Can you two make this kind of decision on your own?”
“Oh, it's well within what they call our designated responsibilities. We figure we can catch up to where the Wyoming Machine was in about six months. We'll have to be much more careful about sabotage, of course. But if the components are okay, I think the Machine will be okay: Hokkaido's kind of hard to get to. Then, when everything is checked and ready, we can ask the World Machine Consortium if they'd like to give it a try. If the crew is willing, I bet you the Consortium will go along. What do you think, Yamagishisan?”
Yamagishi had not heard the question. He was softly singing “Free-Fall” to himself; it was a current hit song full of vivid detail about succumbing to temptation in Earth orbit. He did not know all the words, he explained when the question was repeated.
Unperturbed, Hadden continued. “Now some of the components will have been spun or dropped or something. But in any case they'll have to pass the prescribed tests. I didn't think that would be enough to scare you off. Personally, I mean.”
“Personally? What makes you think I'm going? Nobody's asked me, for one thing, and there are a number of new factors.”
“The probability is very high that the Selection Committee will ask you, and the President will be for it Enthusiastically. C'mon,” he said, grinning, “you wanna spend your whole life in the sticks?”
It was cloudy over Scandinavia and the North Sea, and the English Channel was covered with a lacy, almost transparent, cobweb of fog.
“Yes, you go.” Yamagishi was on his feet, his hands stiffly at his sides. He gave her a deep bow.
“Speaking for the twenty-two million employees of the corporations I control, very nice to meet you.”
She dozed fitfully in the sleeping cubicle they had assigned her. It was tethered loosely to two walls so she would not, in the course of turning over in zero g, propel herself against some obstacle. She awoke while everyone else seemed to be still asleep and pulled herself along a series of handholds until she found herself before the grand window. They were over the night side. The Earth was in darkness except for a patchwork and sprinkle of light, the plucky attempt of humans to compensate for the opacity of the Earth when their hemisphere was averted from the Sun. Twenty minutes later, at sunrise, she decided that, if they asked her, she would say yes.
Hadden came up behind her, and she started just a little. “It looks great, I admit. I've been up here for years and it still looks great. But doesn't it bother you that there's a spaceship around you? See, there's an experience no one's ever had yet. You're in a space suit, there's no tether, no spacecraft. Maybe the Sun is behind you, and you're surrounded on all sides by stars. Maybe the Earth is below you. Or maybe some other planet. I kind of fancy Saturn myself. There you are, floating in space, like you really are one with the cosmos. Space suits nowadays have enough consumables to last you for hours. The spacecraft that dropped you off could be long gone. Maybe they'll rendezvous with you in an hour. Maybe not.
“The best would be if the ship wasn't coming back. Your last hours, surrounded by space and stars and worlds. If you had an incurable disease, or if you just wanted to give yourself a really nifty last indulgence, how could you top that?”
“You're serious? You want to market this… scheme?”
“Well, too soon to market. Maybe it's not exactly the right way to go about it. Let's just say I'm thinking of feasibility testing.”
She decided that she would not tell Hadden of her decision, and he did not ask. Later, as the Narnia was beginning its rendezvous and docking with Methuselah, Hadden took her aside.
“We were saying that Yamagishi is the oldest person up here. Well, if you talk about permanently up here— 1 don't mean staff and astronauts and dancing girls—I'm the young-est person up here. I've got a vested interest in the answer, I know, but it's a definite medical possibility that zero g'll keep me alive for centuries.
See, I'm engaged in an experiment on immortality.
“Now, I'm not bringing this up so I can boast. I'm bringing it up for a practical reason. If we're figuring out ways to extend our lifespans, think of what those creatures on Vega must have done. They probably are immortal, or close enough. I'm a practical person, and I've thought a lot now about immortality. I've probably thought longer and more seriously about it than anybody else. And I can tell you one thing for sure about immortals: They're very careful. They don't leave things to chance. They've invested too much effort in becoming immortal. I don't know what they look like, I don't know what they want from you, but if you ever get to see them, this is the only piece of practical advice I have for you: Something you think is dead cinch safe, they'll consider an unacceptable risk. If there's any negotiating you get to do up there, don't forget what I'm telling you.”
CHAPTER 17
The Dream of the Ants
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
Popular theology… is a massive inconsistency derived from ignorance…. The gods exist because nature herself has imprinted a conception of them on the minds of men.
ELLIE WAS in the midst of packing notes, magnetic tapes, and a palm frond for shipment to Japan when she received word that her mother had suffered a stroke. Immediately afterward, she was brought a letter by project courier. It was from John Staughton, and there were no polite preliminaries:
“Your mother and I would often discuss your deficiencies and shortcomings. It was always a difficult conversation. When I defended you (and, although you may not believe it, this happened often), she told me that I was putty in your hands. When I criticized you, she told me to mind my own business.”
“But I want you to know that your unwillingness to visit her in the last few years, since this Vega business, was a source of continuing pain to her. She would tell her cronies at that dreadful nursing home she insisted on going to that you'd be visiting her soon. For years she told them that. “Soon.” She planned how she would show her famous daughter around, in what order she'd introduce you to that decrepit bunch.”
“You probably won't want to hear this, and I tell it to you with sorrow. But it's for your own good. Your behavior was more painful to her than anything that ever happened to her, even your father's death. You may be a big shot now, your hologram available all over the world, hobnobbing with politicians and so on, but as a human being, you haven't learned anything since high school…”
Her eyes welling with tears, she began to crumple the letter and its envelope, but discovered some stiff piece of paper inside, a partial hologram made from an old two-dimensional photograph by a computer extrapolation technique. You had a faint but satisfactory sense of being able to see around edges and corners. It was a photo she had never seen before. Her mother as a young woman, quite lovely, smiled out of the picture, her aim casually draped over the shoulder of Ellie's father, who sported what seemed to be a day's growth of beard. They both seemed radiantly happy. With a surge of anguish, guilt, fury at Staughton, and a little self-pity, Ellie weighed the evident reality that she would never see either of the people in that picture again.
Her mother lay immobile in the bed. Her expression was oddly neutral, registering neither joy nor regret, merely… a kind of waiting. Her only motion was an occasional blink of her eyes. Whether she could hear or
