apparently, in some way, were the personalities he refers to as the ‘Dead Men,’ although it is still unclear just what those are.”
“Albert,” I said, “look up some old Gateway missions, at least ten years back. See if you can find one that had an American and a Hispanic woman on it-and didn’t come back.”
“Sure thing, Bob.” Some day I must tell him to change to a snappier vocabulary, but actually he works very well as he is. He said almost at once, “There is no such mission. However, there was a launch which contained a pregnant Hispanic woman, still unreported. Shall I display the specs?”
“Sure thing, Albert,” I said, but he is not programmed to pick up that sort of nuance. The specs didn’t tell much. I hadn’t known the woman; she was before my time. But she had taken a One out after surviving a mission in which her husband and the other three crew members had been killed in a Five. And had never been heard of again. The mission was a simple go-out-and-see-what-you-get. What she had got had been a baby, in some strange place.
“That doesn’t account for Wan’s father, does it?”
“No, Robin, but perhaps he was on another mission. If we assume that the Dead Men are in some way related to unreturned missions, there must have been several.”
I said, “Are you suggesting that the Dead Men are actual prospectors?”
“Sure thing, Robin.”
“But how? You mean their brains might have been preserved?”
“Doubt it, Robin,” he said, rekindling his pipe thoughtfully. “There’s insufficient data, but I’d say whole-brain storage is no more than a point-one probability.”
“Then what are the other points?”
“Perhaps a readout of the chemical storage of memory-not a high probability, perhaps put it at point-three. Which is still the highest probability we’ve got. Voluntary interface on the part of the subjects-for instance, if they talked all their memories onto tape somehow-really low. Point-zero zero one, tops. Direct mental link-what you might call telepathy of some sort-about the same. Means unknown, point-five plus. Of course, Robin,” he added hurriedly, “you realize that all of these estimates are based on insufficient data and on inadequate hypotheses.”
“I suppose you’d do better if you could talk to the Dead Men direct”
“Sure thing, Bob. and I am about to request such a hookup through the Herter-Hall shipboard computer, but it needs careful programming beforehand. It is not a very good computer, Robin.” He hesitated. “Uh, Robin? There is one other interesting thing.”
“What’s that?”
“As you know, several large ships were docked at the Food Factory when it was discovered. It has been under frequent observation since, and the number of ships remained the same-not counting the Herter-Hall ship and the one in which Wan arrived two days ago, of course. But it is not certain they are the same ships.”
“What?”
“It isn’t certain, Robin,” he emphasized. “One Heechee ship looks very much like another. But careful scan of the approach photos seems to show a different orientation on the part of at least one of the large ones. Possibly all three. As though the ships that were there had left, and new ones had docked.”
A cold feeling went up and down my spine. “Albert,” I said, finding it hard to get the words out, “do you know what that suggests to me?”
“Sure thing, Robin,” he said solemnly, “it suggests that the Food Factory is still in operation. That it is converting the cometary gases to CHON-food. And sending them somewhere.”
I swallowed hard, but Albert was still talking. “Also,” he said, “there is quite a lot of ionizing radiation in the environment I have to admit I don’t know where it comes from.”
“Is that dangerous to the Herter-Halls?”
“No, Robin, I would say not. No more than, say, piezovision broadcasts are to you. It is not the risk, it is that I am puzzled about the source.”
“Can’t you ask the Herter-Halls to check?”
“Sure thing, Robin. I already have. But it’ll take fifty days to get the answer.”
I dismissed him and leaned back in my chair to think about the Heechee and their queer ways. .
And then it hit.
My desk chairs are all built to maximum comfort and stability, but this time I almost tipped it over. In a split second, I was in pain. Not just in pain; I was dizzy, disoriented, even hallucinating. My head felt as though it were about to burst, and my lungs seared like flame. I had never felt so sick, in both mind and body, and at the same time I found myself fantasizing incredible feats of sexual athletics.
I tried to get up, and couldn’t. I flopped back in the chair, absolutely helpless. “Harriet!” I croaked. “Get a doctor!”
It took her a full three seconds to respond, and then her image wavered worse than Morton. “Mr. Broadhead,” she said, looking queerly worried, “I cannot account for it, but the circuits are all busy. I-I- I-“ It was not just her voice repeating, her head and body looked like a short loop of video tape, over and over shaping the same beginning of a word and snapping back to begin it again.
I fell off the chair onto the floor, and my last coherent thought was:
The fever.
It was back. Worse than I had ever felt it before. Worse, perhaps, than I could live through, and so bad, so painful, so terrifyingly, psychotically strange that I was not sure I wanted to.
