Уолтер Тевис - The Steps of the Sun

“Well,” I said, “how did they like our uranium?”

At first nobody answered. Finally Charlie spoke up, a little grimly. “They didn’t, Captain.”

“Call me Ben,” I said. “What do you mean they didn’t like it?”

“It’s still on board.”

I stared at him.

“That’s right,” Charlie said. “They wouldn’t let us take it off.”

I permitted myself a quiet explosion. “Son of a bitch,” I said.

“The uranium was classified as a dangerous import,” Mimi said. “We were lucky to stay out of jail.”

I could see it. The energy lobbies, and Baynes in the Senate. I tossed off the rest of my champagne and held my glass out to Mimi. As she filled it I looked over her shoulder toward the field of Belson grass and gritted my teeth. Biting the umbilical cord. It had to be.

I drank off the second glass of champagne and then I said to Charlie, “Do you have a fresh cigar?”

“I sure do, Ben,” he said, and gave me a Sacre Fidel.

I nodded thanks to him and saw relief on his face and the faces of the others. It can be a cause of tension to find a naked madman greeting you right after planetfall. “Still on board,” I said. “Son of a bitch.”

“You’ll be arrested when you go back, Ben,” Charlie said. “The only reason we’re not in jail is we had to come get you. They couldn’t leave you out here to die.”

“Who’s they?”

“The U.S. District Court,” Mimi said. “In Miami. The hearing took a week.”

“Someone was on board the ship, with some experts,” Charlie said, “while we were in court. There was talk of unloading the Isabel into a government warehouse, but the Sons of Denver started picketing. We were in custody awhile.”

“What about my lawyers?” I said. “What about Mel and Met Luk…?”

“We couldn’t even see them,” Mimi said. “They were under an injunction.” She shook her head angrily and finished her champagne. “I got in touch with Howard’s lawyer and he told me there was nothing he could do. He said you were clearly in violation of the law. Then I got Whan and Summers on the phone…”

“What did they say?”

“They couldn’t touch it.”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking, Baynes got to them . He would have plugged the holes. I lit my cigar. Things were serious. I was warming to the fight.

“What about my other people?” I said. “I told you to call Earth the minute you got into the warp.”

“We did,” Charlie said. “We sent your message to Dolum and Flynn and this is what we got.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to me:

PUBLIC LAW 229BR764 of MARCH, 2064, FORBIDS BENJAMIN BELSON THE USE OF COUNSEL. FOREMENTIONED IS NO LONGER A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES. HE HAS BEEN DECLARED A DANGEROUS ALIEN UNDER THE INTERNATIONAL LAWS OF PIRACY…

“ Piracy! ” I said. I have to admit it was kind of a thrill. I had grown a beard just in time.

But my citizenship! What in hell had happened to all my friends?

…AND THE FIRM OF DOLUM AND FLYNN IS UNDER INJUNCTION TO SEVER ALL TIES WITH THE STATELESS PIRATE, BENJAMIN BELSON. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES A NOTICE OF THE SEVERANCE OF THIS FIRM’S TIES WITH ALL CORPORATE HOLDINGS AND ENTERPRISES ON BEHALF OF THE AFOREMENTIONED BELSON.

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” Charlie said.

“Let’s go inside,” I said. “I’ve got to pack.” I believed it. I had just underestimated Baynes and whoever was on his side.

“You know, Captain,” Charlie said, “driving over here from the ship was… wonderful. Bad as our news is, it’s great to be here again. Back on Earth I would think about the sky here, and the quiet…”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” I said.

“You could stay,” he said. “On Earth they’ll put you in prison. Belson is a whole lot better than that.”

“We could drop you off at Juno,” Mimi said. “That place is an Eden…”

“Crew,” I said, “I’m getting back to New York.” I chomped down on Charlie’s cigar and inhaled deeply. I was making plans. I felt totally human again. I puffed the cigar and stroked my beard. “Let’s get my stuff back on board. Let’s do it fast.”

Getting those Nautilus machines onto the jeep and back to the ship was a nuisance, but I wasn’t going to leave them behind. I wanted to be in top shape when we landed at Islamorada. For a moment I pictured myself wearing a tee-shirt in Washington when I started knocking on doors. I wanted them to see my muscles, those whey-faced charlatans. Make the bastards walk the plank.

We got the machines bolted back in place in the ship’s gym and I had Annie take charge of harvesting what she could of my corn and beans and the other stuff. It was sad to see a strange face as pilot, but Ruth was gone, along with her brother, Howard. The new pilot was a quiet little Japanese named Betty. She looked competent enough, but I missed Ruth.

After the ship was ready for takeoff, I told everyone else to stay on board and I went out of the ship one last time. I walked slowly over to my field of grass and stood by its edge. Then I squatted down and held the palms of both hands against the tips of the blades. I felt them touch me back.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for feeding me.”

The grass was silent.

“I have to leave you now, Love,” I said. “I may never come back.”

I got up and walked to the ship.

We were strapped down and lifting off in ten minutes. I had my endolin concentrate in the little gym bag that Mimi had brought the champagne in. My red computer was back on my stateroom desk, ready to continue with this memoir. My head was clear. I felt ready to move.

We orbited a couple of times and then I gave the order to slip into warp. I began formulating messages to Earth in my head as the universe outside the portholes began to wrinkle.

Warp travel is a weird business, and although the physics of it doesn’t defy comprehension it does transfix it. Trying to picture it can glaze your eyes as speedily as three martinis on an empty stomach. It’s a matter of pressuring your vehicle into a place where the effects of movement are grossly exaggerated. Seven-league boots. It’s called “analogy travel” by some. When you’re doing it there’s a side effect that makes message-sending fast and easy; there’s no speed-of-light limit because messages don’t travel from or into spacewarp; they are, in a sense, already there .

From Belson there were the regular Einstein limits to contend with. I didn’t even have a radio. It would take twenty-three years for an FM “I love you, Isabel” to have gotten to New York, and another twenty-three for a geriatric “Too late, Ben” to come back. Like impotence, only worse.

When we were settled into the warp and the sense of no-time and loose space began to come down on us like the lull at the end of a party, Charlie asked me if I wanted to log the trip in chemical sleep.

“No, Charlie,” I said. “Let’s make this flight on coffee.”

My first message was to Isabel’s old address:

HONEY, I’VE BEEN A SON OF A BITCH. I’M SORRY. I LOVE YOU. WILL YOU MARRY ME?

That felt good even though it had little hope of reaching her. Then I sent one to a friend in Chicago and told him to telephone Arnie my lawyer at his home:

TELL MEL DOLUM I WANT MY CITIZENSHIP BACK. I WANT HIM TO REPRESENT ME AND IF HE CAN’T I WANT HIM TO GET ME A LAWYER WHO CAN. TELL HIM TO CALL BELSON ENTERPRISES IN PEKING AND HAVE THEM SEND INFORMATION ABOUT THE LAWS OF PIRACY AND HOW I CAN GET TO BE A CITIZEN AGAIN.

The messages were sent scrambled. I had left decoders with the friend in Chicago, with Isabel, and with my brokers, to keep messages private in case I wanted to transmit buy-and-sell orders or do business in general.