Zach Hughes: Closed System

She drew herself up proudly. "If that's the wayyou want it."

"We might wonder if Murphy had children, awife back in the UP somewhere," Pat said.

"Oh? And you'd be generous and honorable aridgive the diamond to them?"

"Would you?"

She rose and walked away, and when she spoke,her face turned away from him, her voice wasstrained. "You won't believe it, I'm sure, but that'sexactly what I would do. As it happens, however,he was alone, no close kin, an old man who wantedonly to spend his last years in comfort on somenice planet."

He wanted to go to her, put his arms aroundher, tell her that he was sorry. "Hey," he said."OK. I'm sorry. I believe you would do that. Ididn't know the old man well, but I'm sorry he's dead." She turned to face him. The computer waspurring and clicking as it built a nice, three-dimensional map on the screens, working withsmooth efficiency to find one, just one, point ofreference.

"Could the security police have been after thediamond?" he asked.

"I don't think so. I don't see how they couldhave known." "They had to have a reason. If not the diamond,you. Maybe Brenden wasn't ready for you to leave." "He wouldn't have tried to kill me," she said,her voice strong, sure. "All right. It's going to take the old man a while to get a fix. Are you hungry?" She nodded withalmost

childish eagerness. "Care to check the menu,or shall I just give you Skimmer's best?" "Please," she said, coming to sit on the paddedbench again. Skimmerwasn't a luxury liner. They ate on thebridge, and as they ate, she demonstrated that shehad

people skills, diverting his questions with charmingly asked questions of her own, drawingPat out of his shell of suspicion. He found himselftalking his head off, telling her about his youthfullove of words and languages, of his pride at beinggiven the chair at Xanthos University which hadbeen endowed by the man who had first translatedthe one alien language which man had encoun­tered. She was familiar with the sad, frighteningstory of the Artunee civilization, the story of Miaree.She had, in fact, played the part of Miaree in a Zedeian production of the tale.

"I want a copy of that," he said. "I think you'dlook great with Artunee wings and those cute littleantennae

coming out of your forehead." "And I'll bet you charmed all the coeds atXanthos U," she said, turning the conversationagain. "Audrey Patricia Howe." She was reading from the ship's license, mounted over the console.

Pat rolled his eyes. "You're asking?" "Shouldn't I?" "My mother was a certified nut." "Poor baby," she said, pursing her lips. "No, really, Audrey is an old family name. Moth­er's grandfather, Fleet Admiral Alexander P. Audrey."

He rose and programmed a course change.The ship was still moving along at a small fraction of the speed of light on flux thrusters. Somewhere back there were two well-armed light cruisers, andhe was making it as difficult as possible for themto track him. "Her name was Patricia, and she wanted a girl."

"Cruel," she said. "You had fights in first schoolbecause other boys teased you." "Had to learn to fight." "Do you also always fight with ladies?" She wasswamping him, foundering him, with those greeneyes. All

of her attention was focused on him, onhis face, his eyes. "The last thing I want to do with you is fight,"he said, smiling. "Good." When she smiled her mouth seemed to double in size, a true east-west smile, a glory of asmile

which changed every aspect of her lovelyface, made her look quite young. "How long doyou estimate before the computer locates us?"

He shrugged. "The old man has already gonethrough a few hundred possibilities, using a grad­ually increasing data base."

"Sorry, I'm just an actress. I don't understandthat technical talk."

"Well, he builds a model of the visible star fields,then rotates the model, trying to match the stars with a known point of reference. For example, ifyou looked up at the night sky and saw the Bellconstellation, you'd know that you were lookinginto space from the area of Zede II. If you were afew parsecs away from Zede II, at right anglesfrom the plane of the Bell as seen from the planet,the Bell would be unrecognizable. Build a holomodel and rotate it and soon you'd see the Bell, andfrom that known position, in the area of Zede II,you could figure out where you were."

"It's as clear as a Taratwo ashfall," she said,laughing.

"The computer starts with a few stars in themodel, and then begins to add in more and morewhen rotation fails to produce any known patterns.With millions of stars to work with, he might haveto

construct quite a few models before he hits paydirt."

"So we could be here for afew days?"

"Or weeks."

"We'll just have to find a way to entertain ourselves, won't we?" she asked, then she flushed hotlyas he

grinned.

"I won't make the obvious suggestion," he said.

"Please don't."

Not yet, he was thinking. Not yet.

For the next meal she tried her hand at makingup a menu, learning the operation of the nutritionservo

quickly. She went through the Skimmer's film library, picked out a few of her old favorites,and with her

comments, her inside knowledge offilmmaking, the often-seen pictures took on newinterest for Pat.

On the third ship's day, he kissed her. Her mouth tasted of lipstick and cherries. It was just after the evening meal, and he kissed her without prelimi­nary, rising and lifting her from the padded bench into his arms. Her mouth went soft and pliant andher arms tightened around him, and when he lookedinto her face she was weeping quietly, the tearswelling up in those huge, blazing green eyes to wether lashes and slip silently down onto her cheeks.

"That bad?" he asked, his voice husky with de­sire, which had been building, building, building.

"Please don't," she whispered.

He drew her to him again and lost himself in theglory of the feel of her, the warmth of her.

"Please don't," she repeated.

What the hell? Even though she was a Zedeian,that business of saying yes yes with the lips and nono

with the tongue was passe. A woman did, orshe didn't, and it was her choice, and, althoughthe old morality was strong, the family unit thebasic building block of civilization, women hadlong since been free, as men were, to do as theypleased."You're confusing me," he said, leaning toward her lips again.

"You're a nice man—" "Just nice.?" "Please, Pat." He released her with a sigh. "All right," he said. "Oh," she said, in a small, hurt way. The old man was chuckling, enjoying the de­manding work, building ever more complex andcomplete

models. Pat glanced at the screen andsaw a solid glow, a mass of millions of stars, in themodel now, so

closely packed as to be indistin­guishable from the overall mass of brightness. "I could get very serious about you," he whis­pered, and felt a small shock, realizing that eventhough he'd made a statement which, on the sur­face, was not binding, he'd made a commitment.

Pat, my boy, he told himself, you've gone and done it. You're in love with this one. "Pat, listen to me," she said. "I'm not sure I want to. I don't think I want to hear what you're going to say." "I can't. I just can't. I can't have that complica­tion in my life right now. Please understand." "Give me something to understand." "I want to go to bed with you," she said, notlooking at him. "That's what I want." "But not like this. Not so casually, just as if we have to because we're alone, lost in space, time onour

hands." "What better time?" "When you're sure. When we're back home onZede II." "I'm sure." "Pat, there's time." "I have a preliminary three-point identification,"the old man said, in his slightly mechanical voice. "Great timing," Pat said.

Corinne looked at him inquiringly.