Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

Ellen and I spent the day parked in front of a TV. Gloomy business, this. Oswald looks like a loony. Still no explanations. There are theories that he was working for the Cubans, or the CIA, or the Russians. You take a look at this guy, and it’s hard to believe any sensible organization would use him. He doesn’t look reliable. We’ll see. If we trace it to Moscow, what happens then?

Ellen is showering now. She’s a knockout, enough to get anyone’s juices running, but there’s a ceremonial quality to the preparations. The assassination has cast gloom on us all, I guess.

En route to Philadelphia, Sunday, November 24, 1963

Kennedy’s funeral tomorrow.

Never knew anyone as wild as Ellen was last night. Is this the way we hide from our mortality?

Philadelphia, Saturday, August 1, 1964

Call from Rob. He’s going to be in town next week, and we will get together. Funny about him: when we were in the Navy, he seemed a bit stand-offish. Difficult to get to know. Maybe it’s the Kennedy thing, but he seems warmer, friendlier than I remember. I wouldn’t have believed he’d ever have taken the time to look me up. He’s a curious mix, simultaneously idealistic and cynical, gregarious and distant. He’d be horrified to hear this, but the truth is, he’s a fascist. A goodhearted one, but a fascist all the same. He’s a great believer in order and is fond of quoting Plato on the dangers of giving freedom to the undisciplined. We talked for almost an hour (his nickel). We agreed that western civilization is on its last legs. I don’t really believe that, but he’s persuasive, and anyhow predicting doom always gives one such a warm feeling. Is that why there are so many Fundamentalists?

We were both elated by the lunar photographs taken by Ranger 7. First closeups ever. I told him we were taking the first steps into a vast sea. He laughed. A vast desert, maybe. He doesn’t think we will ever leave the Earth-moon system. Why not? Where else is there to go?

Philadelphia, Friday, August 7, 1964

Great day.

I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself more. We spent most of the evening arguing over Goldwater. Rob is worried that Johnson will win, and then give away Southeast Asia. I’m scared to death Barry would give Hanoi an atomic alternative shortly after the swearing-in ceremony. Get out or get fused.

I don’t think I’ve ever properly appreciated Rob. The world’s a more comic place when he’s around. Its absurdities are a bit more clearly defined. We share a sense of the ridiculous that seems to transcend language: a word, sometimes a glance, is enough to suggest some new buffoonery on the march. He ignites insight, in the way a good woman intensifies the emotional climate. We spent the evening raking over the Johnson administration, the Bible-thumpers who are citing chapter and verse against the Freedom Riders, and the latest academic notion that everyone’s opinion is equally valid. (Rob’s not exactly big on the Freedom Riders either. They’re another example of what happens when people start taking their rights seriously.) He thinks ballots should be weighted. Particularly his. Probably mine. A bonus for common sense. It’s in short supply these days.

We ate a late lunch at Bookbinder’s, and retired for the evening to the Officers’ Club at the Naval Base. We stayed until midnight. It strikes me that the art of conversation has almost disappeared from the world. Rob, in that sense, is something of an anachronism: a visitor from the nineteenth century, from an age in which there were more important things to do than to sit around and be entertained.

He’ll be leaving in the morning, ten o’clock flight.

Pity.

Philadelphia, Wednesday, January 9, 1974

School districts are burning Mark Twain. In California, two police officers have been sued for using unnecessary force to subdue a man who was in the act of stabbing a woman. And there’s a report that a group of volunteers trying to stop their TV habit went through withdrawal. Anyone who worries that the U.S. is headed for collapse can relax. It is raining on the rubble.

Terri Hauser has begun suggesting that Sammy needs a mother. Truth is, he probably does, but that seems to me to be a weak foundation for a marriage. I know she would move in if I suggested it. But where would that end?

Post Office returned Rob’s Christmas card today, stamped MOVED—FORWARDING PERIOD EXPIRED.

Philadelphia, Friday, November 2, 1979

Rob is back.

There’ve been a few changes in his life. He’s living in Seattle now. And he’s gotten married. They’ll be here on one of these Amtrak plans where you get to ride all over the country. Her name is Anne, and she is from Vermont. The plan is that she will go up to visit her folks for a few days, and Rob will stop off here. I wonder if he will be able to figure out a use for this home computer. I thought I might be able to get it to do my taxes, but they keep changing the laws every year.

Philadelphia, Sunday, November 4, 1979

The train was late getting in. I had to hang around 30th Street Station two hours. But it was good to see him again. Been a lot of years. We came back here, got settled, and then went to the Berlinhaus up on the Boulevard for sauerbraten. Lots of talk about a sex poll that was released yesterday, indicating that women are as adulterous as men. We tried to imagine how it might be possible to poll people about their sexual habits and come up with anything close to valid results. The Ayatollah also took his lumps. What do you suppose it would be like to sit down with him for coffee?

Later in the evening, we stopped by Janet’s place. She’d asked to meet Rob, and that went pretty well too. We probably drank a little too much. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen Janet enjoy herself so much.

Rob has gone completely gray since the last time I saw him. Otherwise, he doesn’t seem to have lost much ground.

Incidentally, toward the end of the evening at the Berlinhaus, someone at the next table overheard us talking about Khomeini and asked whether we’d heard that the Iranians had seized the embassy in Teheran?

It was true, of course. They’ve taken fifty or sixty hostages. State Department isn’t sure yet how many. It must be a first of some kind: nobody ever seized diplomatic people. Even Hitler didn’t do that. It’s what happens when you put an amateur in charge of a government.

Well, they’ll release everybody tomorrow. And apologize. If we behave according to past practice, we’ll lodge a stiff protest and go back to business as usual.

Philadelphia, Monday, November 5, 1979

Another delay with the train this morning, but Rob finally got away. This time, we’ve agreed to get together again soon.

The Iranian government claims it has no control over the students who’ve taken the embassy. Rob thinks we should give the Ayatollah a list of targets and start destroying them one by one until the government discovers it can do something to release our people. I’m not sure that isn’t the best way to handle it.

Question: what should our primary objective be? To get the hostages released? Or to act in such a way that future hostage-takers will think it over before trying the same thing?

Philadelphia, Tuesday, September 7, 1982

Rob’s marriage has collapsed. I had no idea it was in trouble. He doesn’t talk much about his personal life, and of course over a telephone you don’t really get to see anything. He’s obviously shaken. I get the impression he didn’t see it coming either. I suggested he might take some time and come here, but he says he’ll be fine. I’m sure he will.

I never got to meet her.