Closed System

there just as you said itwould

be.' Pat nodded. 'There's a little difficulty with the natives, Pat. After all, they've had their beliefs for a thousandyears.

They're going to be in for a severe dose ofculture shock.' 'Can't be helped,' Pat said. 'It can be eased,' she said. 'I'm sure you people can handleit,'Pat said. 'There's a young man named Gorben out therewho says he won't obey any order against the oldways

unless it comes directly from Fleet AdmiralTorga Bluntz.' She leaned forward. 'Pat, I can'tpretend that I know how you feel. Apparently I'venever loved anyone like that, but I can imaginethat you're still sore in your heart from having tolet those beautiful blond young men kill each other.'

'I am,' Pat said. 'There are a few of them left,' she said. 'Theyneed your help, Pat. Think of the things they'regoing to be

hit with. They're going to learn that athousand years of tradition have all been in vain, that Zede lost the war, that there's going to be noreturn to glory, no heaven in Zede.' 'Any decent planet will seem like heaven afterDorchlunt,' Pat said. 'Pat,' she said accusingly. 'All right, dammit, what can I do? Haven't Idone enough to them already?'

'You can go back, as Admiral Bluntz, and easethe blow a bit for them, help them make thetransition.'

'Alone?'

'No. X&A will have people swarming all overthe place. That's a pretty mean weapon out there,Pat. They'll want to be sure that the secret doesn'tget off Dorchlunt, and that there are no more work­ing

models in existence.'

'I won't be a part of the service,' Pat said. 'Iwon't go out there on an X&A ship.'

'I can sign a charter agreement for theSkim­mer,'she said. 'It won't be at your usual exorbi­tant rates.'

'I'll think it over,' Pat said.

'Pat, the service can't force you to go. But youmight find it a little rough to get clearances thenext time

you try to go into space. You might havea little trouble with your licenses.'

'Blackmail,' Pat said, but he was thinking ofGorben. The kid deserved better than he hadcoming.

'Call it what you will.'

'OK. Draw me a charter. I'll go out onSkimmerand talk to them.'

'Since this is an official mission, there'll have tobe an X&A officer with you.'

Pat shook his head, thinking of weeks in spacewith some brass-bound service egghead. 'No deal. The

deal is off. I will not have some hardass X&Ajoker onSkimmer.'

'That's odd,' Jeanny said. 'I thought my asswas pretty soft.'

'You?' he asked.

'That's my assignment.'

Well, that wouldn't be bad. Jeanny was a decentsort. He'd rather be alone, but if it had to be anyone,

better Jeanny than anyone else.

He put her in the mate's cabin. TheSkimmergleamed. The old man, the computer, was as sharpas new. Jeanny didn't push herself on him. Shealternated watches with him, although it wasn'treally necessary, and she spoke only when spoken to. He found himself comparing her with Corinne.Corinne was more beautiful, but Jeanny wasn'tbad, not bad at all, and she was an old friend andshe'd gone on the line for him a couple of times. No reason to take it out on her.

One night as they waited for the generator tocharge he found himself talking to her about Co­rinne. She made little sympathetic sounds.

She cleaned up the mate's cabin. It wasn't allthat bad having her aboard. She was neat, and shedidn't talk all the time. One day, halfway toDorchlunt, she made him laugh.

They blinked out near the planet Dorchlunt inwhat was, for Pat, an unfortunate position. Bren­den's flagship, dead in space, had been left in anorbit just slightly higher than that of the old col­ony ship, and as it happened both ships were insight whenSkimmer emerged. Pat felt a twist of his heart. It was night in the villages. Pat sug­gested they get a good sleep before going down at dawn. He dreamed of that last moment when herealized that Gorben had made his way to the disrupter and, thinking that he was defending hisgod, had turned the disrupter on the ship which contained Brenden and Corinne. He awoke, and there was a soft hand on his forehead, and a soft voice saying, 'Hey, take it easy, old buddy.'

'Corinne?'

'No, just me,' Jeanny said.

'Ah, God,' he said, his voice choking, and whenshe clasped her arms around his head and pulledhis cheek down to her bare, hot breasts, he did notprotest, but let the nightmare continue, and thenthere were tears in his eyes and then worse. He wept.

When he had expended himself Jeanny still held him. 'My boy,' she said, 'I don't know whether tobe glad or sorry that you never loved me thatmuch. It would be flattering, in a way, and a hugeburden in another, you know?'

He pulled away, kissed her on the cheek. 'Thanks,Jeanny,' he said.

'Want company the rest of the night?' she asked.

He didn't say anything. She crawled into thebed beside him, put her arms around him. Hedidn't move, but he didn't try to push her away.She was warm and soft against him, but he felt no desire for her. His desire had died with that sleek ship which orbited the planet above the old relic.Jeanny, concerned for him, said, 'Hey, if there'sanything at all that I can do—'

He was touched, but he said, 'I'm dead inside.'

'Want me to go back to my own bunk?' sheasked. 'I'm not especially trying to seduce you,Audrey, I just thought that, well, a little compan­ionship, a little something. Maybe just a holding, ahugging, a touching. It's a damned big galaxy outthere, Audrey, and it dwarfs hell out of us some­times, doesn't it? Sometimes I think we need tohave someone close, someone just to touch, or holdon to. What do you think?'

'I don't know,' Pat said in a dead voice.

She took her arms from around him, sat on the side of the bed. 'Audrey,' she whispered.

'Don't—' He didn't finish. That was three timesshe'd called him Audrey and he couldn't even makea comeback. He was, she knew, hurting like hell.

'Audrey,' she said, 'I'd like to know just onething. I know those new Zede-built cruisers. One man, unless he's very, very fast and has four arms, would have a difficult time flying a ship and man­ning the arms-control console at the same time.Am I right?'

The sound he made was not a word.

She couldn't decide, for a moment, whether itwas best to pursue that line of thinking or to leavehim to his pain. She decided on the radical incision,the thrust to his heart.

'Pat, who was sitting at arms control when you boarded the ship?' She held her breath, fearing aviolent reaction from him. He answered her ques­tion in an indirect way. His hand closed over her wrist and pulled, and his grip was strong, almostpainful. She let him pull her down beside him,and as his arms closed around her, as she adjustedher warmth to his body, she knew.

'I'm going to say it, Pat,' she whispered. 'Iknow it hurts, but it has to be said. It was Corinnewho was on fire control, wasn't it? Pat, her last living act was to try to kill you.'

He felt all twisted inside, felt as if somethingquite physical and terribly wrong was eating him.He clung to the soft warmth of another humanbeing, felt her breath in his face.

She knew that he was not deliberately trying to hurt her, but he held her so tightly that she had difficulty breathing. Then, after a long, long time, he relaxed his grip on her a bit, and she snuggledinto a more comfortable position. 'All right?' sheasked him.

'Thanks, friend,' he said.

He held her until she went to sleep, her breathsoft in his face, and he held her as if the woman'swarmth of her was all that kept him from slidingdown into a blackness deeper and more lonelythan the space around him.

EPILOGUE

As Jeanny had promised, X&A technicians andsocial scientists swarmed over the lonely Dorchlunt.A ship's tailor shop had outfitted Pat with severalcopies of the ancient Zede uniform which he'dtaken from the statue of