«Are they sure they did it the first time?»
«Is one ever sure of anything, my friend? There is always the possibility that one is hallucinating or otherwise mistaken. Are you sure that I am here, talking to you now?»
«But you believe they really teleported?»
«I do. For instance, the guru with whom I spent time, under whom I studied, this summer in Tibet, tells me he is certain that he has teleported twice. He is an honest man.»
«Let’s grant that. Tell me why you think he isn’t a mistaken one.»
«Because he is a wise man, wise enough to have taken precautions against self-delusion. He told me the precautions he had taken and I believe them sufficient.»
«Do you take precautions when you experiment, M’bassi?»
«Of course. Otherwise how would I know that I succeed, if I do succeed? If I am experimenting in the room you call my monk’s cell, I lock the door on the inside; that lock can be worked only from the inside. Suppose I succeed—find myself elsewhere. In this room for example. I return and see if that door is still locked from the inside. If it is, then I could not possibly have let myself out, somnambulistically, walked into this room and awakened here.»
«You’d have to break the door down to get back in the cell.»
«It would be worth it, would it not?»
I said, «I guess it would. But listen, what’s fasting got to do with teleportation?»
«The body, Max, affects the mind in various ways. Food or the lack of it, overweariness, stimulants and depressants, all these things and many others affect our ability to think and our manner of thinking. For many centuries wise men—and some stupid men as well—have known that fasting can bring clarity of thought, sometimes vision.»
«And sometimes visions, otherwise hallucinations. So can alcohol. I’ve seen—well, never mind things I’ve seen a time or two. But I’m sure they weren’t there.»
«True. Yet, Max, at just a certain stage of intoxication have you never had the feeling that you were just on the verge of understanding something of vast importance, of—You know what I mean.»
«Damn right I know what you mean,» I said. «But it’s always the verge; you never cross the verge.»
«Is it not possible that under special conditions one might? Although I believe there is more hope in drugs than in alcohol. I intend to experiment with drugs soon.»
«You’ve already experimented with alcohol?»
«Yes. And with smoking opium. I believe I came closer with opium.»
«That’s dangerous experimenting, M’bassi.»
«Rockets are safe?» He smiled as I involuntarily looked down at my prosthetic leg. He said, «Max, I know you’d take any chance to get somewhere you want to go. Why shouldn’t I?»
That night I went home with an armful of books from M’bassi’s library, ones he said were elementary ones.
They weren’t elementary to me. They were gibberish as far as I was concerned. At three o’clock in the morning I gave up and went to sleep. M’bassi could try his methods; I’d have to stick to mine. I was too old a dog to learn such new tricks.
Besides, although I hoped M’bassi had something and I respected him for trying, I couldn’t quite believe it.
Project Jupiter, Project Saturn, Project Pluto, Project Proxima Centauri—that was for me. The one-fold path, not the eight-fold path.
In October Project Jupiter was in the news again. It had leased the old G-station rocket construction and launching site from the State of New Mexico.
It was in the news just briefly on the Wednesday when it was announced but the Sunday papers and roundup-casts gave it a big play, reviving in some detail the story of the G-station’s fall from space before it had risen there. There were photographs with some of the stories and I recognized two of them as ones I’d taken from the hellie. I got a credit line on them, «Foto: Max Andrews,» but no mention in the story. On the other hand Whitlow was mentioned only incidentally as director of the project; he hadn’t given me credit for the idea of using the G-station, but he hadn’t claimed it for himself either. That was all right for publicity. The main thing was that Whitlow hadn’t muffed the ball.
Project Jupiter had a home.
It wouldn’t be long now, and once the project got started I’d be working on it about twenty-four hours a day and that would be good for me, very good for me.
Not that things were too bad now, except for my impatience. I was coming to accept my loss of Ellen and in that acceptance finding that, in a sense, it brought her back to me. Because I could now think about her and remember her with less pain, she was more constantly with me than before, while bitterness and pain had clouded my thoughts and warped my thinking. Now, sometimes, I even talked to her; imaginary conversations, not aloud. I could go to her now, in my mind, for help and comfort when I needed them. And at times I could even think of her as though we were merely temporarily apart, as when she’d been in Washington and I in Los Angeles; think of her as though she was still alive and waiting for me somewhere. And in a sense she was; she lived in my memory and would live there as long as I myself lived.
Even her death, I was learning, could not take her away from me completely. And with that knowledge came peace.
November, getting near December. I began to get impatient to get going on that project. I thought, surely by now things in Washington are shaping up to the point where there are discussions going on, plans being made, that I ought to be in on. So I wouldn’t be on the pay roll until the first of the year, but to hell with that if I could be helping get things started.
I asked Klocky if I’d be leaving him in a jam if I left sooner than the notice I’d given.
He laughed at me. «What the hell makes you think you’re indispensable? I’ve known you were leaving the first of the year anyway; I’ve been getting Bannerman ready to take over your job. Damn it, Max, you’ve been disappointing me the last month or so, up to now. I thought you’d be heading there even sooner. What’s been holding you down?»
«Damned if I know,» I said. «Maybe the thought that I’d get there and find nothing to do. That’d be worse than sitting it out here.»
«If there’s nothing you can do, come back. How’s about doing it this way? I’ll give you a leave of absence—let’s see, today’s Wednesday—for the rest of this week. Fly to Washington and beard Whitlow in his den, find out if there’s anything you can start doing. If there is, call me up and quit. If there isn’t, come back and start in again next Monday, work another month, or however long it’s going to be.»
«Klocky, you’re a swell guy.»
He snorted. «You’re just finding that out? What are you going to do about your apartment, though? And your books and your tapes and stuff?»
I hadn’t thought of it. I groaned a little, suddenly realizing how much junk I’d accumulated in the last two years. «Damn if I know,» I said, «about the books and stuff. There’s no problem about the apartment; I’ve already given notice for the end of the year and paid up till then.»
«Give me a key, Max. I’ll take care of it, have the stuff sent to you at Washington. Or Albuquerque, if you want to wait for it until you’re working at the site.»
I breathed a sigh of relief. «Swell,» I said. «Listen, I won’t want it in Washington; I know that. And if I’m not going to be in Albuquerque until after the rent runs out, just send a moving company around to crate the stuff and hold it in storage.»