[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

mankind and maybe, maybe a smile recorded for me.
That smile must then travel here, first in a shipboard tape, then in a code beamed through the sky, the
censor, the global comweb to my house on Hoy. I shall never more see space. Three years ago the
directors required me to retire. I am not unhappy. Steep red and yellow cliffs, sea green in sunlight or
gray under clouds until it breaks in whiteness and thunder, gulls riding a cold loud wind, inland the heather
and a few gnarly trees across hills where sheep still gaze, a hamlet of rough and gentle Orkney folk an
hour's walk away, my cat, my books, my rememberings-these things are good. They are well worth
being often chilled, damp, a wee bit hungry. It may even be for the best that the weather seldom gives me
a clear look at the stars.
Also, eccentric though I was to spend my savings on this place, rather than enter a Church lodge for
senior spacemen, nobody will trouble to come here and examine my scribblings. Are they found after I
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
am dead, they should not hurt my sons in their own careers. For one thing, I have always been openly
kittle. The Protectorate must needs allow, yes, expect a measure of oddness among its top-rank technos.
Of course, my papers would be deemed subversive and whiffed. So I put them each night in a box under
a flagstone I have loosened, wondering if some archeologist someday may read them ... and smile?
In the main, though, you archeologist, I write for myself, to bring back years and loves: today, Daphne.
When she sought me out, I had lately been appointed head of the Uriel relief mission. To organize this, I
had taken an office in New Jerusalem, high up in Armstrong Center where my view swept across city
roofs and towers, on over the Cimarron to the wheat-bronze Kansas plain beyond. That day was hard,
hot, cloudless. The cross on the topmost spire of the Supreme Church blazed as if its gold had gone
incandescent, and flitfighters on guard above the armored bulk of the Capitol gleamed like dragonflies.
Though the room was air-conditioned, I could almost feel the weather beyond my window, a seethe or
crackle amongst steady murmurs of traffic.
My intercom announced, "Mrs. Asklund, sir." I muttered a heartfelt "Damn!" and laid down the manifest
I'd been working on. I'd forgotten that, somehow, the wife of Uriel's navigator had obtained a personal
appointment. Hadn't I overmuch to do, in ghastly short time, without soothing distraught females ?
Eidophone conversations with two other crewmen's wives had been difficult-when at least they were
accepting God's will in Christian fortitude, and wanted only to ask about sending messages or gifts to the
men they would never remeet in his life. "Aweel, remind her I've but a few minutes to spill, and let her in,"
I ordered.
Then Daphne came through the door, and everything was suddenly a bright surprise.
She was tall. A gown of standard dark modesty did not hide a fine figure. The skirt swished around her
ankles with the sea-wind vigor of her stride. Green-eyed, curve-nosed, full-mouthed, framed in coils of
mahogany hair, her face wasn't pretty, it was beautiful. I saw there not sorrow but determination. When
she stopped before my desk, folded her hands and bowed her head above them to me, the salutation had
scant meekness. Yet her voice was low and mild, the English bearing a slight accent: "Captain Sinclair, I
am Daphne Asklund. You are kind to receive me."
We both knew I did so because she had pulled wires. However, I could say no less than, "Please sit
down, sister. I'd call this a pleasure were the occasion not sad. How can I be of help to you?"
She settled herself and spent a few seconds studying my grizzle-topped lankiness, almost like a friendly
challenge, before she curved her lips upward a very little and answered, "You can hear me out, sir. What
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I'll propose isn't quite as fantastic as it will sound."
"The whole business is fantastic." I leaned back in my own chair and reached for my pipe. "Uh, I do
sympathize. I'm affected too. Matthew King was my classmate at the Academy, and we were always
close friends afterward."
"But you don't know Valdemar?"
"Your husband? Not really, I fear. The Astro-nautic Corps is small enough that we have occasionally
been at the same conference or the same refresher training session; but it's big enough that we didn't get
truly acquainted. He did ... does impress me well, Mrs. Asklund."
"Uriel's skipper is your friend. Its navigator is my husband. I hope you can imagine the difference," she
said: no hint of self-pity, simply remarking on a fact.
I am not sure why, already then, I let go my reserve and told her, "Yes. My wife died only last year."
Her look softened. "I'm sorry. My aplogies. Captain Sinclair. I've been too snarled in my personal
troubles to-Well." She straightened. "Val is not departed, though. He ... they all face years, decades of ...
endless trial." Exile, imprisoned in a metal shell ahurtle among the stars- perhaps at last madness, murder,
horror beyond guessing, till a lone man squatted among dead bones-she did not mention these things
either.
I gathered myself to speak bluntly. "We'll do what we can for them. That's the duty I'm on, and you will
forgive me if it leaves scant attention to spare for anybody Earthbound. I-I am told clergy are counseling
the wives to-Well, they expect the Pastorate will soon permit, aye, encourage dissolution of any unions
involved, and the ladies be free to remarry. Has not your minister spoken to you of this?"
She met my plainness with hers. "No. I am not a Christian. My maiden name was Greenbaum."
"What?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]