“Okay. In that case, let’s try—”
“Just a second,” said Jag, apparently catching sight of a part of the hologram over Keith’s shoulder. He walked toward the director, then continued on, past the seating gallery behind his station. “Just a second,” he said again. “Rhombus, how much real-time hologram is left?”
“I abase myself to admit we exhausted the real-time playback two minutes ago,” said the Ib at the ExOps console. “I’ve been looping the playback since then.”
Jag walked over to the bridge wall—which was something like taking a few steps toward a distant mountain in hopes that doing so would improve one’s view of it. He peered into the darkness. “That area there,” he said, circling his upper left arm to indicate a large portion of the starfield. “There is something unusual… Rhombus, speed up the playback. Ten times normal rate, and loop it continuously.”
“Done without rancor,” said Rhombus, ropes snapping.
“That can’t be,” said Thor, who had turned around to look as well. He half rose from his chair at the helm console.
“But it is,” said Jag.
“What is it?” asked Keith.
“You see it,” said Jag. “Look.”
“All I see is a bunch of stars twinkling.”
Jag lifted his upper shoulders, the Waldahud equivalent of a nod of assent. “Exactly. Just like a clear winter’s night back on your wondrous Earth, no doubt. Except,” he said, “that stars do not twinkle when seen from space.”
GAMMA DRACONIS
You hold, the glass man had said, not only the key to the future, but also to the past. The glass man’s words echoed in Keith’s mind. He looked around at trees, the lake, the blue sky. All right, all right—Glass had said it was not a cage, not a zoo, that he could leave at any time. Still, his head was reeling. Maybe it was because all this was too much to take in at once, despite Glass attempt to provide familiar surroundings. Or maybe the sensation was an aftereffect of Glass’s mind-probe—Keith still suspected something like that was at work here. Either way, he found himself feeling dizzy, and decided to lower his body down to the grass. At first he knelt, but then he moved into a more comfortable position, with his legs sticking out to one side. He was astonished to see he’d gotten a grass stain on the knee of his pants.
The glass man flowed into a lotus position about two meters away from Keith. “You introduced yourself as G. K. Lansing.”
Keith nodded.
“What does the G stand for?”
“Gilbert.”
“Gilbert,” said Glass, nodding his head as if this was significant.
Keith was perplexed. “Actually, I go by my middle name, Keith.” A self-deprecating chuckle. “You would, too, if your first name was Gilbert.”
“How old are you?” asked Glass.
“Forty-six.”
“Forty-six? Just forty-six?” The being’s tone was strange—wistful or perplexed.
“Um, yes. Forty-six Earth years, that is.”
“So young,” Glass said.
Keith lifted his eyebrows, thought about his bald spot.
“Tell me about your mate,” asked Glass.
Keith’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you possibly be interested in that?”
Wind-chime laughter. “I am interested in everything.”
“But questions about my mate—surely there are more important things to explore?”
“Are there more important things to you?”
Keith thought for a second. “Well—no. No, I suppose there aren’t.”
“Then tell me about—about her, I presume.”
“Yes, her.”
“Tell me.”
Keith shrugged. “Well, her name is Rissa. That’s short for Clarissa. Clarissa Maria Cervantes.” Keith smiled. “Her last name always makes me think of Don Quixote.”
“Who?”
“Don Quixote. The Man of La Mancha. Hero of a novel by a writer named Cervantes.” Keith paused. “You’d like Cervantes—he once wrote a book about a glass man. Anyway, Quixote was a knight-errant, caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unattainable goals. But…”
“But what?”
“Well, the funny thing is that was Rissa who used to call me quixotic.”
Glass tipped his head in puzzlement, and Keith realized that he couldn’t discern the connection between the unknown and apparently unrelated words kwik-sah-tik and kee-hoe-te. “ ‘Quixotic’ means similar to Don Quixote,” said Keith. “Visionary, romantic, impractical—an idealist bent on righting wrongs.” He laughed. “Of course, I wasn’t content to love Rissa pure and chaste from afar, but I suppose I do have a tendency to take on battles other people let pass, or aren’t even aware of, and, well…”
The egg-shaped transparent head tilted slightly. “Yes?”
“Well,” said Keith, spreading his arms, encompassing not just the forest simulation but everything beyond, “we did reach the unreachable stars, didn’t we?” He grew silent, feeling a little embarrassed. “Anyway, you were asking about Rissa. We have been married—permanently pair-bonded—for almost twenty years now. She’s a biologist—an exobiologist, to be precise; her specialty is life that is not indigenous to Earth.”
“And you love her?”
“Very much indeed.”
“You have children.” Keith assumed it was a question, but Glass’s voice did not rise at the end of the sentence.
“One. His name is Saul.”
“Sol? After your home star?”
“No, Saul. S-A-U-L. After the man who had been my best friend before he died, Saul Ben-Abraham.”
“So your son’s name was—what? Not Saul Lansing-Cervantes?”
Keith was surprised that Glass grasped human naming conventions. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Saul Lansing-Cervantes,” repeated Glass, his head tilted as if lost in thought. He looked up. “Sorry. It’s, ah, quite a musical name.”
“Which you’d say is funny, if you knew him,” said Keith. “I love my son, but I’ve never met anyone with less musical talent. He’s nineteen now, and is away at university. He’s studying physics, that’s something he does have an aptitude for, and I suspect someday he’ll make quite a name for himself in that field.”
“Saul Lansing-Cervantes… your son,” said Glass. “Fascinating. Anyway, we keep getting off the topic of Rissa.”
Keith looked at him for a moment, puzzled. But then he shrugged. “She’s a wonderful woman. Intelligent. Warm, funny. Beautiful.”
“And you say you are pair-bonded with her?”
“That’s right.”
“And that means… monogamy, correct? You couple with no one else?”
“Yes.”
“Without exception?”
“Without exception, that’s right. “A pause. “So far.”
“So far? You are contemplating a change in this relationship?”
Keith looked away. Christ, this is crazy. What could this alien possibly know about human marriage? “Move along,” said Keith.
“Pardon?” asked Glass.
“Move along, move along. Another topic.”
“Do you feel guilty, Keith ?”
“What are you—my bloody conscience?”
“I am just someone who is interested, that’s all.”
“Become interested in something else.”
“I’m sorry,” said Glass. “Where did you and Rissa first meet?”
“La Belle Aurore. The Germans wore gray; she wore blue.”
“Pardon ?”
“Sorry. Another knight-errant hero of mine said that. We met at a party on New Beijing—that’s the Earth colony on Tau Ceti IV. She was working in the same lab there as someone I had gone to school with.”
“Was it—what is the saying? Was it love at first sight?”