He was furious at himself. Furious for putting the wrong card on the wrong card. Furious at Pinback and his idiotic rubber fowl. Furious at the universe that mocked him, and worse—ignored him.
A badly confused Pinback let the rubber chicken hang loosely at his side and looked dazedly over at Boiler.
“Now what do you suppose is the matter with him?”
He had to calm down, Doolittle told himself. Had to. The others were depending on him. He couldn’t continue to fly off the handle at poor Pinback like that. Of course, the sergeant only invited it with his infantile attempts at humor, but Doolittle ought to be able to cope with that by now. Pinback wasn’t responsible for his childish activities.
In fact, it seemed for a moment to Doolittle that Pinback wasn’t even responsible for being on this mission. But that was a ridiculous thought!
Got to relax, got to take it easy, he instructed himself.
The music room. That was it, he’d go to the music room. He walked faster. It wasn’t far.
3
HE SLID BACK to the door. The music room was a subdivided section of the common recreation chamber, walled off for his own use. Closing the door behind him, he turned and gazed reverently at the organ.
Using up almost all of their preformed wood scraps and everything he could generate out of the glass-making set, he’d made the instrument entirely by hand in the ship’s crafts-and-manual-hobby shop.
Out of what he could create from that, and from material cannibalized from several musical instruments (provided by the thoughtful psychometricians), he had produced something that resembled a cross between a weaver’s loom, an upright piano, and a spice vendor’s pushcart.
Dozens of bottles and bells and pieces of wood were suspended from a high wooden rack-and-shelf arrangement. All were connected by a mad spiderweb of strings and wires to a central keyboard.
Sitting gently in the chair, he took a mallet and tried several bottles for sound. The first few were fine, but eventually he struck one that gave back an inconsistent hollow bong. That same damned half-liter jug. It would never stay tuned.
A pitcher of water was standing to one side. Half of it had evaporated since he had last played here. Had it been that long? Ah well, nothing was lost. The water was recycled constantly by the ship, from normal breathing, excretion, and standing jugs.
Taking up the mallet, he tapped the half-liter again, poured some water into it, tapped it. More water, another tap, and a last dram of liquid should make it just right.
Someday he would finish the organ and get it properly tuned. Someday. Tuning an organ was, after all, a considerable job. But now it was as ready as he could get it. He raised his hands dramatically over the keyboard, brought them down,
Here, in the isolated corner of the Dark Star, was the one place where he could create; the one place where he desired to produce and not destroy; the one place that reminded him even a little of home. This was his temple, his equivalent of Talby’s dome, Boiler’s picture-wall, Pinback’s comic books.
Probably it was all the water. The blue rushing water—under him, over him, behind him. The friendly, familiar water lifting him up, up, and then sliding down the glassy green front. Always the blue-blue-green water.
His hands moved freely over the keys, loosening the final, flowing toccata from Widor’s “Sixth Organ Concerto"—a piece of music at once as light and powerful as the deepest ocean swells. It rose up around him, engulfed the tiny room in sound and then in slick sliding wetness.
He played harder, faster now, riding the fugal structure to its foaming coda—the music building to a crescendo, one trill piling atop another as he kept treading the bass pedals. His toes dug into and became one with the smooth, well-waxed pedals as he slid down the front of the taut, smooth, vinyl-suited tossed crescendo which died slowly behind him…
He blinked.
The music was done. The ride was over. He was reborn, refreshed, cleansed, and whole again. One with the universe.
He hesitated, struck one awkwardly placed key. Somewhere within the flimsy maze a mallet or screw driver moved to strike a jar partly filled with water. It made a dull, only vaguely musical sound.
He smiled to himself. Before the others he never smiled, but he could smile at himself here. It didn’t matter that the organ played notes other from those he heard. He’d played the right board all along—the carefully waxed, hand-rubbed, delicately manipulated board, and the sounds had been real to him. He stood, surveyed the organ with pleasure.
A little of the water had evaporated. That was all. Just a little of the water.
He left the room.
Why couldn’t the others understand? Pinback and Boiler, and even Powell. Even Powell had never understood what he saw in that “collection of splinters and junk” he persisted in calling an organ.
So the knowledge was Doolittle’s and Doolittle’s alone. That made him feel a little better, a little wiser than the others. But what about Talby? He frowned. No, Talby didn’t understand the lieutenant’s organ, either. His secret was safe.
Where was Talby’s head right now, in fact? Doolittle checked his watch. Probably up in the dome, as usual. Doolittle turned on his heel, heading abruptly toward the food-preparation room instead of returning to their converted living quarters.
Once there, he dialed a major breakfast. Not for himself. For Talby. He would take it up to the astronomer, up to Talby in his serene contemplation of the heavens, and try to share his organ-ideas with him. Of all the crew, the astronomer might be able to understand.
There was a short pause, then nothing. The meals computer seemed reluctant to discharge a single breakfast at this hour. Doolittle pushed the activate-request switch repeatedly, until the machine finally coughed up the meal he had ordered. Then he headed for the observation dome access corridor.
He hesitated on his way up. Talby might not like being disturbed. Doolittle thought about aborting this little expedition, but firmed himself. Talby might not like company, but even he had to eat.
Putting his head through the open hatch, be called softly, “Talby?”
There was a buzzing sound, and the chair spun around fast. Then Talby was staring down at him, his expression neutral.
“Here’s some breakfast.” He handed the slim metal package up to the astronomer. Talby took it, said nothing, but there was another buzz and the astronomer’s cocoonlike chair slid back, making room for Doolittle in the confined space of the dome. It was Talby’s way of welcoming him.
There was a little raised wedge on the far side of the hatch and Doolittle squeezed himself onto it, his feet framing either side of the opening. Like an upside-down well, light poured into the dome from the corridor below, lighting both faces from beneath. It gave Doolittle an uncharacteristically saturnine cast, while Talby, seated farther away, appeared wreathed in bloody shadows.
The lieutenant looked cautiously out through the dome. The universe wheeled around them. No, no, that was a phrase from a book. And it didn’t apply. The universe was motionless, still, with a solemnity far more impressive than any slow motion.
They were moving, but even at their supreme speed the galaxy was too vast for any movement to be seen by the naked eye. Hyperspace was different, a comforting blur. You couldn’t fear what you couldn’t delineate.
But up here, with everything laid out sharp and uncompromising… Doolittle did not like coming up into the dome for too long. For a little while it was impressive, but after too long it began to weigh a man down with his own insignificance. Pinback and Boiler couldn’t stand it for even a little while.
Even a little while was too long, and too long was—