Robert Charles Wilson - SPIN

"If we put you on the drug cocktail long-term, then yes, the obvious stimulant effect will go away." I carried a plate to the sofa for him.

"It's very speedy. Like one of those cramming-for-the-finals pills people take. But physically, it's calming. I feel like a neon sign on an empty building. All lit up but basically hollow. The eggs, the eggs are very good. Thank you." He put the plate aside. He had eaten maybe a spoonful.

I sat at his desk, glancing at the Spin chart on the opposite wall. Wondering what it was like to live with this stark depiction of human origins and human destiny, the human species rendered as a finite event in the life of an ordinary star. He had drawn it with a felt-tip pen on a scroll of ordinary brown wrapping paper.

Jason followed my look. "Obviously," he said, "they mean for us to do something …"

"Who does?"

"The Hypotheticals. If we must call them that. And I suppose we must. Everyone does. They expect something from us. I don't know what. A gift, a signal, an acceptable sacrifice."

"How do you know that?"

"It's hardly an original observation. Why is the Spin barrier permeable to human artifacts like satellites, but not to meteors or even Brownlee particles? Obviously it's not a barrier; that was never the right word." Under the influence of the stimulant Jase seemed particularly fond of the word obviously. "Obviously," he said, "it's a selective filter. We know it filters the energy reaching the surface of the Earth. So the Hypotheticals want to keep us, or at least the terrestrial ecology, intact and alive, but then why grant us access to space? Even after we attempted to nuke the only two Spin-related artifacts anyone has ever found? What are they waiting for, Ty? What's the prize?"

"Maybe it's not a prize. Maybe it's a ransom. Pay up and we'll leave you alone."

He shook his head. "It's too late for them to leave us alone. We need them now. And we still can't rule out the possibility that they're benevolent, or at least benign. I mean, suppose they hadn't arrived when they did. What were we looking forward to? A lot of people think we were facing our last century as a viable civilization, maybe even as a species. Global warming, overpopulation, the death of the seas, the loss of arable land, the proliferation of disease, the threat of nuclear or biological warfare…"

"We might have destroyed ourselves, but at least it would have been our own fault."

"Would it, though? Whose fault exactly? Yours? Mine? No, it would have been the result of several billion human beings making relatively innocuous choices: to have kids, drive a car to work, keep their job, solve the short-term problems first: When you reach the point at which even the most trivial acts are punishable by the death of the species, then obviously, obviously, you're at a critical juncture, a different kind of point of no return."

"Is it better, being consumed by the sun?"

"That hasn't happened yet. And we aren't the first star to burn out. The galaxy is littered with white dwarf stars that might once have hosted habitable planets. Do you ever wonder what happened to them?"

"Seldom," I said.

I walked across the bare parquet floor to the bookcase, to the family photos. Here was E.D., smiling into the camera— a man whose smiles were never entirely convincing. His physical resemblance to Jason was marked. (Was obvious, Jase might have said.) Similar machine, different ghost.

"How could life survive a stellar catastrophe? But obviously it depends on what 'life' is. Are we talking about organic life, or any kind of generalized autocatalytic feedback loop? Are the Hypothetical organic? Which is an interesting question in itself…"

"You really ought to try to get some sleep." It was past midnight. He was using words I didn't understand. I picked up the photo of Carol. Here the resemblance was more subtle. The photographer had caught Carol on a good day: her eyes were open, not stuck at half-mast, and although her smile was grudging, a barely perceptible lift of her thin lips, it was not altogether inauthentic.

"They may be mining the sun," Jason said, still talking about the Hypotheticals. "We have some suggestive data on solar flares. Obviously, what they've done to the Earth requires vast amounts of usable energy. It's the equivalent of refrigerating a planet-sized mass to a temperature close to absolute zero. So where's the power supply? Most likely, the sun. And we've observed a marked reduction in large solar flares since the Spin. Something, some force or agency, may be tapping high-energy particles before they crest in the heliosphere. Mining the sun, Tyler! That's an act of technological hubris almost as startling as the Spin itself."

I picked up the framed photo of Diane. The photograph predated her marriage to Simon Townsend. It had captured a certain characteristic disquiet, as if she had just narrowed her eyes at a puzzling thought. She was beautiful without trying but not quite at ease, all grace but at the same time just slightly off balance.

I had so many memories of her. But those memories were years old now, vanishing into the past with an almost Spinlike momentum. Jason saw me holding the picture frame and was silent for a few blessed moments. Then he said, "Really, Tyler, this fixation is unworthy of you."

"Hardly a fixation, Jase."

"Why? Because you're over her or because you're afraid of her? But I could ask her the same question. If she ever called. Simon keeps her on a tight leash. I suspect she misses the old NK days, when the movement was full of naked Unitarians and Evangelical hippies. The price of piety is steeper now." He added, "She talks to Carol every now and then."

"Is she at least happy?"

"Diane is among zealots. She may be one herself. Happiness isn't an option."

"Do you think she's in danger?"

He shrugged. "I think she's living the life she chose for herself. She could have made other choices. She could, for instance, have married you, Ty, if not for this ridiculous fantasy of hers—"

"What fantasy?"

"That E.D. is your father. That she's your biological sister."

I backed away from the bookcase too hastily and knocked the photographs to the floor.

"That's ridiculous."

"Patently ridiculous. But I don't think she entirely gave up on the idea until she was in college."

"How could she even think—"

"It was a fantasy, not a theory. Think about it. There was never much affection between Diane and E.D. She felt ignored by him. And in a sense, she was right. E.D. never wanted a daughter, he wanted an heir, a male heir. He had high expectations, and I happened to live up to them. Diane was a distraction as far as E.D. was concerned. He expected Carol to raise her, and Carol—" He shrugged. "Carol wasn't up to the task."

"So she made up this—story?"

"She thought of it as a deduction. It explained the way E.D. kept your mother and you living on the property. It explained Carol's constant unhappiness. And, basically, it made her feel good about herself. Your mother was kinder and more attentive to her than Carol ever was. She liked the idea of being blood kin to the Dupree family."

I looked at Jason. His face was pale, his pupils dilated, his gaze distant and aimed at the window. I reminded myself that he was my patient, that he was exhibiting a predictable psychological response to a powerful drug; that this was the same man who, only a few hours ago, had wept at his own incontinence. I said, "I really have to leave now, Jason."

"Why, this is all so shocking? You thought growing up was supposed to be painless?" Then, abruptly, before I could answer, he turned his head and met my eyes for the first time that evening. "Oh dear. I begin to suspect I've been behaving badly."

I said, "The medication—"

"Behaving monstrously. Tyler, I'm sorry."