Paint was peeling from the door. I knocked.
No answer. I knocked again. “Bryan?” I called softly, not wishing to attract attention from neighbors.
Still no answer. There was glass in the door, and I couldn’t lean out far enough from the steep stairs to see in the window. But there was definitely light in there, flickering and changing color.
I knocked still again and began trying to think up a story to get the landlord to let me in. Hell, how would I even find out who the landlord was?
Did I have time to waste trying? I had no concrete reason to believe Bryan was in danger, but the way he’d been acting, who could tell what was going on? And I felt vaguely responsible. It was clear that, if it was possible to bring suit against science fiction writers for malpractice, he would have come after me.
I fell back on the obvious and got lucky. The door was unlocked.
Carelessness? Or did he want me—or somebody—to find it that way?
The room tasted weird. I know how that sounds, but I stood in the dark and felt the hair on my scalp rise. The flickering I’d seen came from a computer in one corner, its screen filled with a screen saver like none I’d ever seen. It made me think of those pictures of the star nursery that the Hubble sent back a couple of years ago, but animated, suggesting the way those colorful gas clouds might look if you were traveling through them. I felt oddly light, as if I’d lost weight. It might have been a hypnotic effect induced by the screen saver. At least, that’s what I thought. What I told myself.
I switched on the room light, a bare bulb in the ceiling, but the giddy sensation that I could have bounded around the room didn’t go away.
It looked abandoned. A narrow bed stood unmade in one corner. I saw no other furniture except a rickety chair in front of the computer, which, with the lights on, was a perfectly ordinary Macintosh desktop. I wondered why it had been left on.
The room whispered clearly that its occupant had left in a hurry and wasn’t coming back. Like most young bachelors, he hadn’t dusted all that often, and he hadn’t cleaned up after he removed the few things he’d taken with him. A couple of clean rectangles on the floor, with rows of dust bunnies along the baseboard behind them, indicated there had been other furnishings.
One other item caught my eye: a picture on the far wall. Except it wasn’t a picture but a full-fledged three-dimensional landscape. It was hardly surprising that a Baranovian would decorate with science fiction art, but even from here, this was the most spectacular portrait of an unearthly landscape I had ever seen. To begin with, I didn’t understand the technology that allowed me literally to look into it.
Three crystal towers of varying heights and slightly different aspect rose against a background of pink and blue mountains. The towers gleamed in double sunlight. In the foreground, a broad river rolled through purple forest. Something I couldn’t quite make out soared above the water on giant butterfly wings.
When I tried to reach into it, I discovered the holograph effect was an illusion. It had a flat surface.
I shivered. Who are you, Bryan?
A photo and a computer.
Not a photo, I reminded myself.
I sat down at the computer, clicked the mouse, and the screen saver dissolved to several rows of unfamiliar symbols. It was no script I knew, and I can recognize a lot of scripts even if I can’t read them.
I tried changing it to every font in the menu, but all I got was gibberish. I went through the other menus, and among the desk accessories I found two unfamiliar icons with labels that used the same characters. I tried one of them and got nothing. But the other—.
The chair was on rollers and I pushed back and almost fell off.
YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT YOU CONFUSE GOOD WILL WITH ANALYSIS, EMOTION WITH VIRTUE. IT IS BOTH YOUR STRENGTH AND YOUR WEAKNESS.
What the hell was he talking about? Did he mean me?
I could see into the kitchen, where two pots had been left atop a battered range. Somewhere outside, a garage door banged down.
GOOD INTENTIONS DON’T COUNT FOR MUCH, JAKE. SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT.
I’D HOPED FOR A SOLUTION. INSTEAD, I SUSPECT YOU’VE INHERITED A PROBLEM.
I stared at it, trying to understand. What problem had I inherited? What were we talking about?
SORRY.
It ended there.
I saved the document, printed a copy, and exited from word processing. When the menu appeared onscreen, I turned off the room lights and went to stand by the window, looking out. The sky had cleared behind the storms.
My first thought was: It was a hoax. In fact, that’s the answer I’d prefer. It’s the answer I can sleep with. But I know it’s not so. I knew it wasn’t so the moment I shut down the computer, and felt my weight flow back. Forty pounds or so.
It didn’t take me long to figure out what kind of problem he’d handed me. I guess he’d intended it as a gift. Or maybe it was just to prove he had a sense of humor. I disconnected the computer, carried it outside, and put it in my trunk.
Poor Bryan.
I wish him well, wherever he is and whatever he might choose to do. I know so little about just what kind of fix he was in or what kind of pressure he was under. I don’t know how directly the Seminar applied to it. But I do know that, for him, it wasn’t a game—and that he was looking to us for help we couldn’t quite give.
I’m more conscious of the presence of Mars in the night sky than I used to be. While I’m writing this, it’s visible through my window, over Kegan’s tool shed.
We’ve got an easier way to get there now. It’s out in my garage, covered by a tarp. But I wonder what a truly three-dimensional society, utterly released from the demands of gravity and friction, might be like.
Bryan’s right. I can’t analyze what changes it might bring. But I can sure feel them.
MOLLY’S KIDS
“I’m sorry, George, but I’m not going to do it.”
George rolled his eyes. He took a moment to look down from Skylane at the distant Earth, and then glared at Al Amberson, who’d led the team that designed the Coreolis III. Amberson kept his eyes averted, kept them on one of the display panels. The one that showed the Traveler, secure in its specially improvised launch bay. Ready to go. Except that it wasn’t.
Its hull gleamed, and a few ready lamps blinked on and off. She was attached to a dozen feeder cables. Masts protruded from top and bottom and from port and starboard. Once in flight, these would extend and release the sails. If they got that far. “Cory.” George kept his voice level. “You have to go. You can’t back out now.”
“What do you mean I can’t back out now? I’ve been telling you for a week that I don’t want to do this. You installed me up here anyhow.”
Across the control room, Amberson wiped the back of one hand against his mouth. Andy Restov, the mission coordinator, scratched his forehead. And Molly Prescott, who did everything else, had closed her eyes. Mounted on the wall behind Molly, the launch clock showed three hours, seventeen minutes.
“I was hoping you’d see reason.”
“I am seeing reason.”
“Cory, please. You were designed specifically for this flight.” Amberson finally gave up trying to be preoccupied. He looked George’s way and shrugged. Sometimes things go wrong.
“I know that.”
“Eight thousand years isn’t that long. You’ll be in sleep mode for most of it.”