Robert Heinlein - Variable Star

I looked at his goofy kindly smile for a long moment. “Sold,” I said finally. “Thank you, Solomon.”

“Don’t forget to thank Pat for writing your speech. You delivered it eloquently. I might almost say movingly.”

“I won’t. Which one of you put the other up to this?”

He was gone like the Cheshire Cat, leaving behind only a ghost of his dopey grin.

My Healer said, “Will you excuse me for just one moment, Joel?

“Of course, Dr. Louis,” I said, and she put her full attention on her screen for a few moments, keying in an occasional input. To pass the time I examined her office, a fairly large cubic, soothingly furnished, gimmicked so that no matter which way you looked, the light was never directly in your eyes.

Suddenly I burst out laughing. A small outburst, easily suppressed, but audible. She looked up and met my eyes again and smiled faintly. “You got it, did you?”

“Just now,” I agreed.

Behind her, a midsize image hung framed on the wall, a rather striking photo of a large lizard, of a breed that had adapted better than anyone had expected to Martian conditions and was now considered a minor pest there. I had noticed it when I’d come in, but it had taken until now for my memory to yield up the odd name of that odd creature: Gila monster. It was a visual pun. She was the Healer monster.

“That’s about how long we’ve been around,” she said.

“Healers?”

“Meddlers. Busybodies. Pains in the ass. Healing is merely one of the few remaining socially acceptable excuses for poking one’s nose into another Citizen’s affairs. Excuse me again for just one moment.”

She went back to her screen, and this time I decided to pass my time by studying her more closely instead of the room.

She was perhaps twice my own age or a bit more, I guessed, of average height and weight, and looked healthy, fit, and content with her life. In another context I’d have called her attractive for her age. She wore her brown hair short, so nothing obscured any part of her face. In its various contours and configurings I found evidences suggesting decency, kindness, patience, considerable humor… and beneath all these a strength, or perhaps simply a determination, so awesome even in repose I had the crazy idea that if she were ever to go out the airlock, get a good grip on the frame, and plant her feet on the vacuum, the Sheffield would slowly come to a halt. Her clothing, however, was slightly more casual and comfortable than many would have deemed appropriate for our situation, indicating that the strength was not the kind rooted in iron stupid discipline.

I glanced around again. A pair of flat images on the side of a bookcase caught my attention, precisely because they seemed so pointless. Each photo had been cut out of a magazine or other hard copy and put there with pins. The one on top was of a donkey, or burro. Below it was a medium shot of a golfer lining up a putt. And just below them both was a line cut from some advertisement: “For those who know the difference!” If there was a point to the arrangement, it eluded me.

“Thanks for your patience.”

“No problem, Dr. Louis.”

“Call me Amy, please. Joel, I think there are four questions you urgently need to consider.”

“That many?” I said sourly.

“I don’t think you’ve thought through any of them yet.” Perhaps my least favorite criticism; I swallowed a comeback. “And you must. They’re all very important.”

“Somehow, Amy, I have an idea you’re going to tell me what they are soon.”

She shook her head. “Not if you’re going to get cranky right at the jump, just because I said you have some thinking to do. If you like, we can spend this whole session dicking around. But we’re going to get to it eventually. Suit yourself.”

I think if she had looked back down at her screen, I would have gotten up and left, then. But she didn’t. She just kept looking me in the eye, waiting, not offended by my antics, just waiting patiently until I decided to move on instead.

“Hell of a thing to say to a man, that he doesn’t think things through,” I grumbled. But it was clearly a backing-down grumble.

She nodded sympathetically. “It is an embarrassing thing to be caught at. But, Joel, face it: you’re caught . Your presence here is not voluntary, remember? Ergo, you have screwed up big-time . The embarrassment is one of the smallest things you’re going to have to deal with.”

She paused, visibly giving me a few seconds to see if I was going to jump salty again.

Well, God damn it, Joel, is she right or isn’t she? Can you face facts, or not?

“The majority of clients I deal with have been driven into this room by their own egos. You have not, for once, so I don’t want to waste as much time dealing with yours. Can we simply assume goodwill on both sides, and start with the basic agreement that you need help, and that I may have some?”

The stars themselves knew I needed help. And I knew she had some. I’d known that before I’d gotten from her door to the chair I sat in.

“I guess…” I began.

And a stuck switch somewhere in my brain went spung , and I burst out laughing—a hold-your-belly-and-fold-over guffaw.

She was not offended in the least, just surprised. And interested. I wanted to explain but was laughing too hard. But she was in no hurry. Finally I got enough air to hoot, “I do!… I do!… Honest!” which only further confused her until I was able to get one arm free and point to the clip art pictures on the side of her bookcase that had puzzled me earlier. “I do know!” At once she began to laugh, too.

I do know the difference. Between my ass, and a hole in the ground. “Sometimes, anyway—”

She had a great braying loon hoot of a laugh, and knew it, and was not at all self-conscious about it. So we had us a good one. By the time it was done, I was pretty sure I trusted her. It’s humorless people who frighten me, because I can’t begin to understand them.

At last I said, “I’m sorry, Amy. Please tell me the four questions you think I need to address first.”

She nodded. “Who. What. Where. Why.”

I blinked. “Not ‘when’?”

She shook her head. “The answer to that is always ‘now.’”

I took a deep breath. “In that case, let’s do it.”

“First, ‘who.’ That’s almost always a good place to start. Who are you? Not, who did you plan to be, or who are you expected to be, or even, what would you like to be. Who are you? Who the hell is this Joel Johnston, when he’s at home? I don’t think you know. And I’m certain I don’t. It would be a useful thing to know, don’t you think?”

I was past sarcasm or irony. “Yes, Amy, it would.” My voice was hoarse. From the laughing.

“Next, ‘what.’ What led you to this place? To this ship, this twenty-year voyage to the back of beyond? What led you to abandon literally every single thing you’ve ever known except the concept of associating with other humans? Why did you leave the world, leave the rest of the race, leave the Solar System, for good? This is probably the question you think you know the most about, and I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. Or only part right.”

It was a broken heart! Wasn’t it?

Wait. Had I expected heartbreak to be permanent ? Did I really intend to die a virgin? If my Jinny was not to be with me, nor I with her, how was it any better if she was eighty-five light-years farther away?

“The third question, ‘where,’ might actually be your best place to start. Where are you going? I mean that not rhetorically, but literally.”