Joe Haldeman - Worlds Enough and Time

“You have to wonder how he got so high up.”

“Personality.” We reached the other end and I kicked off. “Race!” Sam wasn’t much of a swimmer, but twelve fewer years and long arms and legs can make up for lack of skill. At midpool he churned by me like a badly designed kitchen implement.

We swam a few more laps and then sat drying, talking about Purcell and other absent colleagues. I guess I was half expecting, half hoping for, a sexual proposition, which I could gracefully decline or at least postpone. But he was just passing time. Maybe waiting for me to leave, it finally occurred to me, so he could go express his interest in someone else. I told him Dan was probably waiting up and went off to get dressed.

It would have been fastest to take the lift up to Level 4 and walk straight to Dan’s place, but I went back around the yeast farm to the dark anonymity of the ag-level pathway. It cheered me up for some reason.

I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away, and was acutely conscious of having gained a kilogram, more or less, for every year since we had been lovers, all of it settling below the center of gravity. He had probably gained as much, himself, but all upper-body muscle, which made him look prettier than ever. I had a momentary flash of loathing for men in general and young ones in particular.

Dan was lying in bed but still awake, watching a man and woman ice-skate in the cube. I couldn’t identify the music accompanying them, vaguely Germanic. Maybe a polka.

“Old one?”

He nodded. “Winter Olympics 2012, I think it said.”

“Random Walk?”

“Uh huh.” That was an entertainment program that would give you a five- or ten-second introduction to a show, then skip at random to another, out of an assortment of about a million programs whose only common denominator was that you didn’t need any special knowledge to appreciate them. It was kind of fun to let it run on and on, creating a slow mosaic of sports, arts, drama, sex, and gameshows. He clicked it to change. “Good swim?”

“Okay. I’ve got to lose some weight.”

“What, nobody propositioned you?”

“Nobody you’d want me to bring home.” I shook the wine box and was moderately surprised to find it still half full. I got my glass from the sink. “Actually, a guy I didn’t recognize gave me the thumb. Sort of a middle-aged Buddha. Shaved bald all over.”

“Yeah, that’s Radi-something, Radimacher… don’t remember. John knows him; he’s in Materials.”

“I could’ve kissed him. But he might have misinterpreted it.”

“What?” Dan was distracted by the current five seconds, an old-fashioned car bursting into flames.

“I mean, at least he showed some interest. Most of the men there didn’t. Boys.”

“Pool turns into a teenage meat market after about ten. You didn’t know that?”

“So that’s where you go at night. All this week I thought you were actually working.”

The cube switched to an oddly appropriate scene, young people playing volleyball on a beach. Dan turned down the volume. “You can’t talk about what Harry said? Or don’t want to.”

“Can’t. He… didn’t have time to finish, wanted me to hold off talking to anyone else until I had the whole picture.”

“That’s his prerogative, under the circumstances.” He poured me some wine and filled his own glass. “Damned shame. Surprise, too. Total.”

“You didn’t know he was sick?”

“Nobody but Tania Seven, I guess; some doctors. He didn’t even tell Eliot.” He took a healthy gulp and then swirled the wine around in the glass, staring into it. “A lot of secrets. Did he tell you enough so you can understand why I’ve never discussed… certain things with you? John and I?”

I was tempted to say no and watch his reaction. “I guess so.”

“Good. That’s what I was hoping.” He finished his glass and slid down under the covers. “Early one tomorrow.”

“New New?”

“Got to meet with Civil first.”

“Sybil? Who’s she?”

“Civil. Civil Engineering, I.C.E. Architects, too. You need the light?”

“No.” I turned it off. “Watch a little cube.” I left it on Random Walk with no sound while I sipped the wine. My night for solitary drinking. There were a few seconds each of guitar playing, gymnastics, copulation, a periodcostume fencing scene, more copulation, and then a dramatic shot of a swamp by moonlight. I remembered the question that had occurred to me on the ag level. “Dan? Do plants grow in the dark?”

“Some. I’ve seen phytoplankton glowing blue-green in a boat’s wake.”

“Grow , not glow. We really aren’t hearing each other tonight. Do plants grow in the dark?”

“Most plants, yeah. Darkstage photosynthesis. That’s when they turn carbon dioxide into carbohydrates.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.” After a minute, he slid over and pressed himself against me. “Lots of things grow in the dark.”

“God, Daniel.” I had asked for it, though. “At least let me get my clothes off.”

Most of O’Hara’s second meeting with Purcell, those parts that had to do with Berrigan’s revelations, O’Hara never mentioned to anyone, except cryptically—and although everything that went on in Room 4404 was automatically recorded, those records were closed to human inspection for two hundred years. That is not a problem for us.

Room 4404, the Cabinet Room, was the only “inside” room on the craft that had its own airlock. It was isolated from the rest of Newhome by four centimeters of vacuum, whenever occupied. It contained its own power source; fully half that power was drained by sophisticated watchdog devices.

30 September 2097 [16 Bobrovnikov 290]—Purcell is seated alone at the horseshoeshaped table that dominates the semicircular room. The table seats twenty-four; its open end points toward a lectern. Uniform cold white light glows down from the ceiling, a little too bright to be comfortable. Holo windows show a dim starscape.

Purcell is reading a small book, an old-fashioned one with paper pages and red leather binding. He looks up as O’Hara enters.

O’HARA: Good morning, Harry.

She looks over her shoulder, startled, as the door snaps shut and the airlock pump whines.

O’HARA: Something new every day.

PURCELL: Vacuum seal. Security. They just turned it on yesterday.

O’HARA: Oh. That’s why I had to leave my ring.

PURCELL: Not that metal detectors would stop some of the engineers. I understand they can make a recorder that only has a few micrograms of metal in it.

You left yours behind?

O’HARA: The recorder? Yes… and I erased our earlier conversation. After listening to it a couple of times.

PURCELL: Good. Then I take it you are willing to embrace our, shall we say, institutionalized tradition of duplicity?

O’HARA: Not embrace it. I will keep your secret, of course. Whether I can become part of it, I’m not sure.

PURCELL: How could you not? That’s like reaching puberty and deciding against it. You can’t go back.

O’HARA: I can go sideways.

PURCELL: Get out of politics?

O’HARA: There are a few other things I can do.

PURCELL: That would surprise me. Surprise the Evaluation Board, too.

O’HARA: The Board makes mistakes. The one in New New did, and they had ten times as many people to choose from.

PURCELL: Granted.

Is there anything I can clear up for you, then? Anything to put your mind at ease about this… unpleasant reality?

O’HARA: You could satisfy my curiosity about some things.

Purcell nods almost imperceptibly. O’Hara sits down across from him, stiff.