Damn—look, this is Ted—I’m asking for a quick vote
Don’t give bugger all for a vote this is a scientific issue man not a
Alex here look I think he’s got you there Ted our mandate is to study not just survey and could be the thing did drop out of sight which makes it a damned funny configuration in its own right, never mind if it’s an artifact or not
Listen, we skip this radio blip, we can pick up months, not have to worry about the drive start-up routine
Yeah, who wants to be the one goes in there an’ scrapes the throat walls while rest you guys are playin’ astronomer
Quiet look this is Ted and I—well, the directives don’t leave me much choice
Damn
We’ve got to take a look at that site
Alex this turns out to be a screw-up I’m gonna
And I want a rendezvous orbit near that gas giant
Bang on that’s it
Yeah.
Three
Rain had brought out the scents of the gardens—loquats, crisp grains, roots, fresh-turned earth, blending and subduing them. Nigel paused in his creaking labors and looked toward the nose of the ship, where the life sphere tapered into a bare point. It was like peering into the underside of a silagree of stone, an inverted spire spun by some huge spider.
He stretched to ease his back muscles. Ah. He could barely manage an hour of this labor now. He told Nikka it was for the appearance of the thing, to defuse comments about his general incompetence at things physical, to derail a close inspection of his medical situation. But in fact he liked this turning of the soil, this 6CO2 + 6H2O, in turn giving forth starchy C6H12O6 + oxygen to burn anew, onboard as it is in heaven. With the drive off there was no ready ultraviolet for the engineers to step down into the optical region, so they had gone back to using phosphors strung along the zero-g axis. These luminous ropes gave off a harsh glare he found unpleasant, but the plants grew well; a leaf is indifferent to where it gets its photons.
Lancer was taking a long loop through the Ross 128 system, coming around to rendezvous with the gas giant and its interesting moon. He preferred to pass the time away from the clatter of the Operating Net.
He bent back to plucking tomatoes free of their vines. To his mind the prime virtue of artificial biospheres was the lack of weeds, for otherwise it’d be a sore job to—
“I could hear the grunting from a hundred meters away,” Ted Landon said.
Nigel straightened as quickly as he could without wincing, and smiled. “Like to work up a sweat.”
“The fellas missed you on the net this morning.”
“Figured you could do without my mumbling.”
“Latest scans on that moon came in.”
“Really?”
“Standard gas giant satellite. Funny purple coloring, some ice tectonics making ridges. Heavily cratered, too.”
“Like Ganymede.” He did not mention that he’d tapped into the map subroutines and gotten the drift direct, some hours before the net did.
“Yeah, looks that way. You were right about the asteroid orbiting it, though.”
Nigel kept harvesting tomatoes. Ted squatted and pulled a few ripe ones. “Big durosteel hull on one side of it,” he said casually.
“A Watcher, then.”
“Looks like it. Kind of gives the fork to Walmsley’s Rule.”
“Ummm. A Watcher, yet not a prayer that this moon was ever a life site?”
“Going to lower your stock on the net. First clear case we get to check your rule, it fails.”
“Glad I wasn’t on the net, then.”
“Yeah.”
“Rather like being at a posh reception and finding you’ve caught your cock in your zip.”
Ted laughed.
“It’s a case worth studying, though, eh?”
Ted straightened and studied a tomato reflectively. “That’s not what I came about.” He looked soberly at Nigel.
“Oh?” Nigel stood up, too, glad that they had at last gotten through the opening moves.
“Carlos tells me you’re taking this thing of his pretty hard.”
“Perhaps for Americans it’s easier. Priests of high tech, no matter where it leads, and all that.”
“Think you’re overdoing it, maybe?”
“Possibly.” It was always best to leave some area of uncertainty, for later compromise once the man had made his point.
“You’re not the first ever faced this, y’know.”
“True.”
“Think I’d like to see you try some of the therapy environments. We got some fresh ones on tightbeam from Earthside, just last year.”
“Well,” Nigel said brightly, “that seems quite possible.”
“Not just possible,” Ted said quietly, putting weight on each word. “You know I don’t like to do more than make suggestions, but the numerical sociometric people say this kind of thing can get out of hand.”
“I scarcely think—”
“I’ve cleared a spot for you.” Ted smiled broadly. “Can’t have our number one citizen waiting, huh?”
Nigel made himself smile, too. “Quite so.”
Ted clapped him on the back. “C’mon, have a drink.”
“I should finish up—”
“Forget it. You’ve already put in your hour.”
Nigel smiled wryly. So Ted kept track of that, too. “Quite so.”
Nigel allowed himself to be sealed into the sum-sense pod. He had tried to argue them out of the medical sensors and transducers, but the attendants cited his age as cause for taking precautions. Therapy sessions were confidential, he knew, so after thinking it over he decided the medical data would do him no harm. They merely wanted to ensure that he did not suffer over-stimulation.
He felt himself floating, free of sensation. This would take only a few hours, and then he could be back working. He felt the splice-ins activate, tapping directly into the sensory zones of his cerebrum. He fell—faster, faster, into something far below—
—Sitting. Sitting in a wicker chair. A sluggishness filled him. Added weight, a paunch at his middle, clothes tight. An itch on the right thigh. Gradually the room filled in, emerging from a fog.
Glazed glass walls, tiles, a ceramic clatter as waiters removed plates from nearby tables. Pale yellow light. Garlic butter taste in his mouth. A slick, imitation-elegant tablecloth under his left palm. Background murmur of conversation. Humidity adding weight to each breath he took. A woman across the table, attractive, talking (he suddenly realized) to him—
“We’re not doing anything,” Helen said.
“We’ve seen a lot,” her husband murmured defensively.
“The Berkeley ruins, the Monument of Bones, the arroyos,” she said. “Then we have dinner and go to bed. That’s all. And the bed part is no great attraction, is it?”
“Just last night we went to Casa Sigma—”
“If you weren’t with me you’d find some, you know, places.”
Robert had to admit this was true. He pretended to concentrate on draining the last of his drink and studied her expression through slitted eyes. She had made her hair blue and rather longer than usual today and the soft moonlight gave it a lush cast. He did not like it very much. She had tuned her skin to a fashionable pallor for the evening, but here in sun-baked California it was unconvincing because one knew it had to be artificial. On the other hand, perhaps that was largely immaterial these days. The thin lines of irritation around her mouth set the tone of her whole expression. There seemed to be little she could do about that. An hour after a facial tuning they returned, as deep as before.
“Before we came on this trip you said we would take a spice bath.”
“Not here, Helen. It’s illegal. Wait until Japan.”
“There must be, well, places here.”
“Filthy ones, yes. The Americans would stare at us. Especially at you. They don’t take women to them here. The Americans are rigid. It’s comic, I know, but—”