Damon Knight: Orbit 14

“You’d better be kidding!”

“I am.” He followed her back across the palely opalescing floor, looking down, and down. “Like walking on water . . . why transparent?”

She smiled through him at the sky. “Because it’s so beautiful outside.”

They dropped down through floors, to come out in a new hall. Music came faintly to him.

“This is where my cabin—”

Abruptly the music became an impossible agony of sound torn with screaming.

“God!” And Brandy was gone from beside him, down the hallway and through a flickering wall.

He found her inside the door, rigid with awe. Across the room the wall vomited blinding waves of color, above a screeching growth of crystal organ pipes. Nilgiri crouched on the floor, hands pressed against her stomach, shrieking hysterically. “Stop it, Mactav! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

He touched Brandy’s shoulder, she looked up and caught his arm; together they pulled Nilgiri, wailing, back from bedlam to the door.

“Nilgiri! Nilgiri, what happened!” Brandy screamed against her ear.

“Mactav, Mactav!”

“Why?”

“She put a . . . charge through it, she’s crazy-mad . . . sh-she thinks . . . Oh, stop it, Mactav!” Nilgiri clung, sobbing.

Maris started into the room, hands over his ears. “How do you turn it off!”

“Maris, wait!”

“How, Brandy?”

“It’s electrified, don’t touch it!”

“How?”

“On the left, on the left, three switches—Maris, don’t— Stop it, Mactav, stop—”

He heard her screaming as he lowered his left hand, hesitated, battered with glaring sound; sparks crackled as he flicked switches on the organ panel, once, twice, again.

“—it-it-it-it!” Her voice echoed through silent halls. Nilgiri slid down the doorjamb and sat sobbing on the floor.

“Maris, are you all right?”

He heard her dimly through cotton. Dazed with relief, he backed away from the gleaming console, nodding, and started across the room.

“Man,” the soft hollow voice echoed echoed echoed. “What are you doing in here?”

“Mactav?” Brandy was gazing uneasily to his left.

He turned; across the room was another artificial eye, burning amber.

“Branduin, you brought him onto the ship; how could you do this thing, it is forbidden!”

“Oh, God.” Nilgiri began to wail again in horror. Brandy knelt and caught Nilgiri’s blistered hands; he saw anger harden over her face. “Mactav, how could you!”

“Brandy.” He shook his head; took a breath, frightened. “Mactav—I’m not a man. You’re mistaken.”

“Maris, no . . .”

He frowned. “I’m one hundred and forty-one years old . . . half my body is synthetic. I’m hardly human, any more than you are. Scan and see.” He held up his hands.

“The part of you that matters is still a man.”

A smile caught at his mouth. “Thanks.”

“Men are evil, men destroyed . . .”

“Her, Maris,” Brandy whispered. “They destroyed her.”

The smile wavered. “Something more we have in common.” His false arm pressed his side.

The golden eye regarded him. “Cyborg.”

He sighed, went to the door. Brandy stood to meet him, Nilgiri huddled silently at her feet, staring up.

“Nilgiri.” The voice was full of pain; they looked back. “How can I forgive myself for what I’ve done? I will never, never do such a thing again . . . never. Please, go to the infirmary; let me help you?”

Slowly, with Brandy’s help, Nilgiri got to her feet. “All right. It’s all right, Mactav. I’ll go on down now.”

“Giri, do you want us—?”

Nilgiri shook her head, hands curled in front of her. “No, Brandy, it’s okay. She’s all right now. Me too—I think.” Her smile quivered. “Ouch . . .” She started down the corridor toward the lift.

“Branduin, Maris, I apologize also to you. I’m—not usually like this, you know. . . .” Amber faded from her eye.

“Is she gone?”

Brandy nodded.

“That’s the first bigoted computer I ever met.”

And she remembered: “Your hand?”

Smiling, he held it out to her. “No harm; see? It’s a nonconductor.”

She shivered. Hands cradled the hand that ached to feel. “Mactav really isn’t like that, you know. But something’s been wrong lately, she gets into moods; we’ll have to have her looked at when we get to Sanalareta.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“I don’t think so—not really. It’s just that she has special problems; she’s in there because she didn’t have any choice, a strifebased culture killed her ship. She was very young, but that was all that was left of her.”

“A high technology.” A grimace; memory moved in his eyes.

“They were terribly apologetic, they did their best.”

“What happened to them?”

“We cut contact . . . that’s regulation number one. We have to protect ourselves.”

He nodded, looking away. “Will they ever go back?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, someday.” She leaned against the doorway. “But that’s why Mactav hates men; men, and war—and combined with the old taboo ... I guess her memory suppressors weren’t enough.”

Nilgiri reappeared beside them. “All better.” Her hands were bright pink. “Ready for anything!”

“How’s Mactav acting?”

“Super-solicitous. She’s still pretty upset about it, I guess.”

Light flickered at the curving junctures of the walls, ceiling, 'floor. Maris glanced up. “Hell, it’s getting dark outside. I expect I’d better be leaving; nearly time to open up. One last night on the town?” Nilgiri grinned and nodded; he saw Brandy hesitate.

“Maybe I’d better stay with Mactav tonight, if she’s still upset. She’s got to be ready to go up tomorrow.” Almost-guilt firmed resolution on her face.

“Well ... I could stay, if you think—” Nilgiri looked unhappy.

“No. It’s my fault she’s like this; I’ll do it. Besides, I’ve been out having a fantastic day, I’d be too tired to do it right tonight. You go on in. Thank you, Maris! I wish it wasn’t over so soon.” She turned back to him, beginning to put her hair into braids; quicksilver shone.

“The pleasure was all mine.” The tight sense of loss dissolved in warmth. “I can’t remember a better one either ... or more exciting—” He grimaced.

She smiled and took his hands; Nilgiri glanced back and forth between them. “I’ll see you to the lock.”

Nilgiri climbed down through the glow to the waiting flyer. Maris braced back from the top rung to watch Brandy’s face, bearing a strange expression, look down through whipping strands of loose hair. “Good-bye, Maris.”

“Good-bye, Brandy.”

“It was a short two weeks, you know?”

“I know.”

“I like New Piraeus better than anywhere; I don’t know why.”

“I hope it won’t be too different when you get back.”

“Me too. . . . See you in three years?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Oh, yeah. Time passes so quickly when you’re having fun—” Almost true, almost not. A smile flowered.

“Write while you’re away. Poems, that is.” He began to climb down, slowly.

“I will . . . Hey, my stuff is at—”

“I’ll send it back with Nilgiri.” He settled behind the controls, the flyer grew bright and began to rise. He waved; so did Nilgiri. He watched her wave back, watched her in his mirror until she became the vast and gleaming pearl that was the Who Got Her— 709. And felt the gap that widened between their lives, more than distance, more than time.

“Well, now that you’ve seen it, what do you think?”