can’t wait?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Harriet said. “But Albert’s desperate to talk to you. He’s got some good stuff from the Food Factory.”
“I’ll take it in the other room,” I started, but Essie put her free hand on mine.
“No. Here, Robin. I’m interested, too.”
So I told Harriet to go ahead, and Albert’s voice came on. But not Albert’s face. “Take a look at this,” Albert said, and the screen filled with a sort of American Gothic family portrait A man and a woman-not really-a male and a female, standing side by side. They had faces and arms and legs, and the female had breasts. Both had skungy beards and long hair pulled into braids, and they were wearing wrap-around garments like saris, with dots of color brightening the drab cloth.
I caught my breath. The pictures had taken me by surprise.
Albert appeared in the lower corner of the plate. “These are not ‘real,’ Robin,” he said. “They are simply compositions generated by the shipboard computer from Wan’s, description. The boy says they are pretty accurate, though.”
I swallowed and glanced at Essie. I had to control my breathing before I could ask, “Are these-are these what the Heechee look like?”
He frowned and chewed on his pipe stem. The figures on the screen rotated solemnly, as though they were doing a slow folkdance, so that we could see all sides. “There are some anomalies, Robin. For example, there is the famous question of the Heechee ass. We have some Heechee furniture, e.g., the seats before the control panels in their ships. From these it was deduced that the Heechee bottom was not as the human bottom, because there seems to be room for a large pendulant structure, perhaps a divided body like a wasp’s, hanging below the pelvis and between the legs. There is nothing of this sort in the computer-generated image. But-Occam’s Razor, Robin.”
“If I just give you time, you’ll explain that,” I commented.
“Sure thing, Robin, but it’s a law of logic that I think you know. In the absence of evidence, it is best to take the simplest theory. We know of only two intelligent races in the history of the universe. These people do not seem to belong to ours-the shape of the skull, and particularly the jaw, is different; there is a triangular arcade, more like an ape’s than a human being’s, and the teeth are quite anomalous. Therefore it is probable that they belong to the other.”
“Is somewhat scary,” Essie offered softly. And it was. Especially to me, since you might say that it was my responsibility. I was the one who had ordered the Herter-Hall bunch to go out and look around, and if they found the Heechee in the process. .
I was not ready to think of what that might mean.
“What about the Dead Men? Do you have anything on them?”
“Sure thing, Robin,” he said, nodding his dustmop head. “Look at this.”
The pictures winked away, and text rolled up the screen:
MISSION REPORT
Vessel 5-2, Voyage 081D31. Crew A. Meacham, D. Filgren, H. Meacham.
Mission was science experiment, crew limited to allow instrumentation and computational equipment. Maximum lifesupport time estimated 800 days. Vessel still unreported day 1200, presumed lost.
“It was only a fifty thousand dollar bonus-not much, but it was one of the earliest from Gateway,” Albert said over the text. “The one called ‘H. Meacham’ appears to be the ‘Dead Man’ Wan calls Henrietta. She was a sort of A.B.D. astrophysicist-you know, Robin, ‘All But Dissertation’. She blew that. When she tried to defend it they said it was more psychology than physics, so she went to Gateway. The pilot’s first name was Doris, which checks, and the other person was Henrietta’s husband, Arnold.”
“So you’ve identified one of them? They were really real?”
“Sure thing, Robin-point nine nine sure, anyway. These Dead Men are sometimes nonrational,” he complained, reappearing on the plate. “And of course we have had no opportunity for direct interrogation. The shipboard computer is not really up to this kind of task. But, apart from the confirmation of names, the mission seems appropriate. It was an astrophysical investigation, and Henrietta’s conversation includes repeated references to astrophysical subjects. Once you subtract the sexual ones, I mean,” he twinkled, scratching his cheek with his pipestem. “For example. ‘Sagittarius A West’-a radio source at the center of the Galaxy. ‘NGC nag’. A giant elliptical galaxy, part of a large cluster. ‘Average radial velocity of globular clusters’-in our own galaxy, that comes to about 50 kilometers per second. ‘High-redshift OSOs’-“
“You don’t have to list them all,” I said hastily. “Do you know what they all mean? I mean, if you were talking about all those things, what would you be talking about?”
Pause-but a short one; he was not accessing all the literature on the subject, he had already done that “Cosmology,” he said. “Specifically, I think I would be talking about the classic HoyleOpik-Gamow controversy; that is, whether the universe is closed, or open ended, or cyclical. Whether it is in a steady state, or began with a big bang.”
He paused again, but this time it was to let me think. I did, but not to much effect “There doesn’t seem to be much nourishment in that,” I said.
“Perhaps not, Rabin. It does sort of tie in with your questions about black holes, though.”
Well, damn your calculating heart, I thought, but did not say. He looked innocent as a lamb, puffing away on his old pipe, calm and serious. “That’ll be all for now,” I ordered, and kept my eyes on the blank screen long after he had disappeared, in case Essie was going to ask me about why I had been inquiring about black holes.
Well, she didn’t. She just lay back, looking at the mirrors on the ceiling. After a while she said, “Dear Robin, know what I wish?”
I was ready for it. “What, Essie?”
