After one of those meetings I said good-bye to Susie and Francy and sat in an alcove near the lecture room, half hidden by the ivy, and despondently smoked a joint. Shicky found me there, and halted just in front of me, supporting himself on his wings. “I was looking for you, Rob,” he said, and stopped.

The grass was just beginning to hit me. “Interesting lecture,” I said absently, reaching for the good feeling that I wanted from the joint and not really very interested in whether Shicky was there or not.

“You missed the most interesting part,” said Shicky.

It occurred to me that he was looking both fearful and hopeful; there was something on his mind. I took another hit, and offered him the joint; he shook his head. “Rob,” he said, “I think there is something worth having coming up.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really, Rob! Something quite good. And soon.”

I was not ready for this. I wanted to go on smoking my joint until the temporary thrill of the lecture had worn off, so that I could go back to destroying the days. The last thing I wanted was to hear about some new mission that my guilt would make me want to sign on for, and my fear would abort.

Shicky caught the shelf of ivy and held himself up by it, looking at me curiously. “Rob-friend,” he said, “if I can find something out for you will you help me?”

“Help you how?”

“Take me with you!” he cried. “I can do everything but go in the lander. And this mission, I think, is one where it does not so much matter. There is a bonus for everyone, even for someone who must remain in orbit.”

“What are you talking about?” The grass was hitting me now; I could feel the warmth behind my knees and the gentle blur all around me.

“Metchnikov was talking to the lecturer,” Shicky said. “I think from what he said that he knows of a new mission. Only — they spoke in Russian, and I did not understand very well. But it is the one he has been waiting for.”

I said reasonably, “The last one he went out on wasn’t much, was it?”

“This is different!”

“I don’t think he would really cut me in on anything good—”

“Certainly not, if you don’t ask.”

“Oh, hell,” I grumbled. “All right. I’ll talk to him.”

Shicky beamed. “And then, Rob, please — take me with you?”

I stubbed out the joint, less than half smoked; I felt as though I wanted what was left of my wits about me. “I’ll do what I can,” I said, and headed back for the lecture room just as Metchnikov was coming out.

We had not spoken since he had returned. He looked as solid and broad as ever, and his fringe of chin whiskers was neatly trimmed. “Hello, Broadhead,” he said suspiciously.

I didn’t waste words. “I hear you’ve got something good coming up. Can I go along?”

He didn’t waste words, either. “No.” He looked at me with frank dislike. Partly that was what I had expected from him all along, but I was pretty sure part of it was because he had heard about me and Klara.

“You are going out,” I persisted. “What is it, a One?” He stroked his whiskers. “No,” he said reluctantly, “it isn’t a One. It’s two Fives.”

“Two Fives?”

He stared at me suspiciously for a moment, and then almost grinned; I did not like him when he smiled, it was always a question in my mind what he was smiling about.

“All right,” he said. “You want in, you can have it, for all of me. It’s not up to me, of course. You’ll have to ask Emma; she’s doing a briefing tomorrow morning. But she might let you go a science mission, with a minimum million-dollar bonus. You’re involved.”

“I’m involved?” That was something out of an unexpected rection! “Involved how?”

“Ask Emma,” he said, and brushed past me.

Chapter 26

There were about a dozen prospectors in the briefing room, most of whom I knew: Sess Forehand, Shicky, Metchnikov, a few others I’d drunk with or gone to bed with, one time or another. Emma wasn’t there yet, and I managed to intercept her as she was coming in.

“I want to go out on this mission,” I said.

She looked startled. “You do? I thought—” But she stopped there, without saying what it was she thought.

I followed up: “I have as much right to go as Metchnikov does!”

“You sure as hell don’t have as good a record as he does, Broadhead.” She looked me over carefully, and then she said, “Well, I’ll tell you, if you want to know how it is, Broadhead. It’s a special mission, and partly you’re responsible for it. That boner of yours turns out to be interesting. I don’t mean wrecking the ship; that was stupid, and if there any justice in the universe you’d pay for it. But dumb luck is almost as good as brains.”

“You got the report from Gateway Two,” I guessed.

She shook her head. “Not yet. But it doesn’t matter. We finely programmed your mission into the computer, and it gave some interesting correlations. The course pattern that took you to Gateway Two- Oh, hell,” she said, “come on inside. You can sit through the briefing, at least. It’ll explain everything, and then we’ll see.”

She took my elbow and pushed me ahead of her into the room which was the same one we had used for a classroom — how long before? It seemed like a million years. I sat down between Sess and Shicky, and waited to hear what it was she had to say.

“Most of you,” she started off, “are here by invitation — with one or two exceptions. One of the exceptions is our distinguished friend Mr. Broadhead. He managed to wreck a ship near Gateway Two, as most of you know. By rights we ought to throw the book at him, but before he did that he accidentally turned up some interesting facts. His course colors were not the regular ones for Gateway Two, and when the computer compared them it came up with a whole new concept of course setting. Apparently only about five settings are critical for destination — the five that were the same for the usual Gateway Two setting, and for Broadhead’s new one. What the other settings mean we don’t know. But we’re going to find out.”

She leaned back and folded her hands. “This is a multiple-purpose mission,” she said. “We’re going to do something new. For openers, we’re going to send two ships to the same destination.”

Sess Forehand raised his hand. “What’s the point of that?”

“Well, partly to make sure it is the same destination. We’re going to vary the noncritical settings slightly… the ones we think are noncritical. And we’re going to start the two ships thirty seconds apart. Now, if we know what we’re doing, that means you’ll come out about as far apart as Gateway travels in thirty seconds.”

Forehand wrinkled his brow. “Relative to what?”

“Good question,” she nodded. “Relative, we think, to the Sun. The stellar motion relative to the Galaxy — we think — can be neglected. At least, assuming that your destination turns out to be inside the Galaxy, and not so far away that the galactic motion has a markedly different vector. I mean, if you came out on the opposite side, it would be seventy kilometers a second, relative to the galactic center. We don’t think that’s involved. We only expect a relatively minor difference in velocity and direction, and — well, anyway, you should come out within somewhere between two and two hundred kilometers of each other.