Charles Sheffield - The Spheres of Heaven

It was Bony Rombelle’s voice. Chan realized that the Bun and Liddy Morse had not been on board the Hero’s Return when everyone else chose living quarters. They must have settled here, farther forward.

Liddy — easier to hear then Bony — said, “They’re not all busy, they’re resting . Nothing is going to happen until tomorrow morning. We’ll be resting, too. Afterwards. Don’t you want to?”

“Of course I do! I have, ever since I first met you.”

“Well, then.”

“But to do it now — it seems such a bad time. The ship is disintegrating, and if we reach the shore the Mallies are more likely to kill us than help us. By tomorrow night we could be dead.”

“So this could be our last night. What would you rather be thinking when we go ashore tomorrow: We did what we both wanted to do, and it was absolutely wonderful, and now we can face whatever comes next? Or we passed up our chance last night, and we didn’t do anything, and now maybe we never will?”

“Oh, Liddy. You know what I’d rather …”

Chan moved on. He felt uncomfortable, an unwitting audience to private words that no one else was intended to hear. And yet, oddly enough, it solved his own problem.

He walked on, past the control room, past dark chambers that once contained monstrous weapons systems, past the engine room, past the supercooled nerve center of the failing computer, until at last he came to the quarters that he and Deb Bisson shared.

The final steps were the hardest. He went in, half hoping that Deb would not be there; but she was, lying facedown on the bed. He walked forward, leaned over, and placed his hand on the small of her back.

That was a dangerous thing to do with a weapons master like Deb, who relied for survival on instinctive reaction. It told Chan something when Deb did not move.

He said quietly, “I’m sorry for what I told you after the meeting. I really did need time to myself, but it was to write a letter. This letter. I want you to hold it for me and give it to Dag Korin after I leave the ship.”

Before Chan overheard Bony Rombelle and Liddy Morse’s private conversation, he had intended to stop at that. He would see Deb one last time, ask her to deliver his letter, and leave. Instead he went on, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but what I did was horrible and wrong. I want to say I’m sorry. And I’d like to explain why I did it, and what I must do next. And I want to tell you why.”

She sat up to face him. Looking into her sad brown eyes he found himself telling her everything, in a tide of words that he could not hold back.

As he spoke her face filled with comprehension, then misery, and finally despair. She shook her head.

Chan put his arms around her. “I know. But it is the only possible answer. And I’m the only one who can do it.”

He expected an argument, maybe a denial. Instead she pushed her long dark hair back from her face, lay down again, and said, “Chan, come and hold me.”

“I will.” He leaned forward and felt the room spin about him. How long was it since he had eaten? “I will lie down. But if I could just have something to eat — anything at all.” That would surely be the last straw, the final insult. “Deb, I’m sorry, but if I don’t have food—”

“You stay there and take it easy. I’ll make something for you. And for me, too. I’m famished. I was hungry when I followed you from the meeting, but after you sent me away I couldn’t eat a thing.”

Before Chan could reply she sat up and slipped off the bed in one graceful movement. As he watched her preparing food in the little galley, he was possessed by a sense of longing and loss and vanishing reality. The feeling persisted when Deb lifted loaded plates and glasses and came to sit cross-legged opposite him. The food tasted fine. The wine was as pleasant as ever. Was this how a condemned man savored his final meal, pretending that it was no different from a thousand others?

“Now we can lie down and talk,” Deb said, when they had finished eating. “Don’t bother with your dish, throw it on the floor. Washing-up is over for good on the Hero’s Return .”

Her manner perplexed Chan. He didn’t know how he expected her to react to the news that they would never see each other again, but it certainly wasn’t with this calm certainty. Didn’t she even care? Her earlier words said that she did, but now … He lay back on the bed, while she leaned over him and ran her forefinger along the line of his cheek and down onto his neck.

“You said you needed a nap.” Her voice came from a great distance. “You’ve earned one. So relax and take it easy. Close your eyes.”

Relax? Take it easy? When in a few hours you had to put on your suit and slip for the last time into the alien waters of Limbo, and then take an action for which the Mallies were likely to kill you? When you had found someone again after so long apart, and you were going to lose her forever? It was enough to make a man weep — smile — laugh aloud at the cruelty of fate. But that was too much work; better to drift away.

Chan lay still, very aware of the gentle fingers running along the side of his neck. He wanted to sit up and hold Deb, but his body carried on it the weight of the whole multiverse. Even his eyelids were too heavy. The last thing he saw was Deb’s dark hair, descending on him like the fall of night.

Drugs that produce insensibility rather than death must be calibrated as to dosage. Deb, working quickly and unobtrusively, had been given little chance for precision. She waited for five minutes, monitoring Chan’s pulse and respiration rate.

When she was sure that he was sleeping naturally and in no danger she picked up the sealed envelope. He had asked her to deliver it to Dag Korin. That was exactly what she proposed to do.

The General was in his own quarters, sitting upright in a chair, fully dressed and alert as though expecting visitors. He was sipping a glass of amber liquid.

“Medicinal purposes, my dear,” he said as she entered. “What can I do for you?”

“You said before Chan came back on board that he might write to you when he did, or maybe leave you a message. How did you know?”

“I’m old, Deb Bisson. I’ve seen lots of heroism, public and private. I knew some of the questions Dalton had been asking Dr. Siry, and I thought I knew where they might be leading. So he did write to me?”

“Yes. It’s here.” Deb held out the envelope. “He told me to give it to you after he left.”

“My God.” Korin sat up straighter. “He hasn’t gone, has he?”

“No. He’s asleep.”

“Good. He must have great nerves.”

“Great drugs. My drugs. He’ll be out for a few hours unless I give him a stimulant.” Deb was still holding the envelope out to Korin. “Do you want this, or do you already know what’s inside?”

“I may be old and treacherous, Deb Bisson, but I’m not psychic.” He took the envelope and eyed her shrewdly. “You know what’s in here, don’t you?”

“I do, but not because I looked. Chan told me.”

“And as a reward for that, you gave him a knock-out drop. Hell hath no fury like a woman informed. Well, let’s see what we have here.”

He opened the envelope and read in silence for a few minutes, now and then nodding. Once he glanced up at Deb. “Did he say good-bye to you?”

“He was working up to it. I made him fall asleep before he could.”

“You did the right thing. It’s annoying, you know, when someone who supposedly reports to me takes off with his own plan. In the old days he’d have been clapped in irons. But now I have to think.”

“Do you want me to go and wake Chan, and bring him here?”