«And we’ve sent it, Max. Don’t ever forget, that’s our rocket, and it’s going out, it’s going whether you help build it or whether you ride it. A rocket farther out, Max, a rocket to Jupiter, and it would not be going there—not for another decade anyway—if it had not been for you. Isn’t that enough for one man, one lifetime?»
«No,» I said. «The rocket’s going, but I’m not.»
«Max, put your arms around me, find comfort in me.»
I sought her in the grayness and she wasn’t there, she was dead and she wasn’t there, she wouldn’t be there ever again and I could never find comfort in her again. Ellen, beloved, you are dead and your voice is in my mind and only in my mind.
Other rooms, a room with hideous big purple flowers in the wallpaper. And in it I had the dream that always led into the nightmare, the dream and the nightmare that I hadn’t had for years now. The nightmare the same, as always; the dream that led to it varied a little each time.
This time, of course, Ellen was in it. We were both young, about the same age, and it was back in the early sixties; I’d graduated from space school and I was a spaceman ready for my first trip out; we were to be married after my return from that first trip.
I was kissing Ellen good-by and then she wasn’t there any more and I was helping ready the big beast—we called rockets beasts in those days—and with a rag in my pocket I was climbing the outside rungs because from inside I had noticed that the forward observation port had a dead gnat stuck on it. Our rise through the atmosphere would probably get it off but there’d be a smear left, and I didn’t want to have to look at a smear all the way to Venus. I was going to wipe it off and polish that port.
And then the sudden roaring sound and agonizing pain, and without transition the nightmare. I was in a white room, a hospital room. A doctor had the covers folded back from the foot of the bed, doing something down there, changing a dressing.
I raised my head and looked down.
And went into the frozen moment that lasted an eternity, as it always did.
I woke up trembling, soaking wet with sweat.
I got out of there, out of that room with the purple flowers in the wallpaper. Because there’d be no more sleep for me that night, little sleep for nights to come. Once the nightmare had started, it would be there waiting for me, just past the edge of unconsciousness. That frozen instant that lasted till the end of time, waiting for me. Only complete and utter exhaustion could carry me safely past it.
Streets and joints. A bar and a jukebox that was playing the Cuban quarter tone stuff Ellen and I had loved in Havana.
And the Voice. Over the music the Voice. «Cannot understand, Mr. Andrews, in view of your other qualifications, why you made such ridiculous claims in the face of fact, because they would have been unnecessary. Your degree in rocket engineering, your responsible position …»
Every word I remembered, every word ran through my head in quarter tones to Cuban rhythms.
«Afraid I can’t sell you any more, pal. Might cost me my license, pal. You’re pretty drunk.»
Not drunk enough, pal, not drunk enough.
Over street noises, the Voice. Over other voices, over the whirring whirling of the Earth in space, the Earth my spaceship carrying me even now through the void but to nowhere, until some day it would be my revolving coffin.
Snow and gay decorations and somebody saying Merry Christmas to you, my buying someone a drink, his buying back, his face coming suddenly into focus. Guy about fifty, with a beautiful-ugly face, broken nose, wide clear eyes, eyes that had seen the naked stars, the stars from space, steady and untwinkling. A spaceman.
He said, «You’d better straighten out, matey, before it gets you down for keeps. Anything I can do?»
«I’m not your matey. I’m not a spaceman.»
«Don’t gimme. You’re Max Andrews.»
«I’m Max No Difference,» I said. «I’m a fake. I’m not anybody.»
«Matey, I know you. You’re the best mech in the game, and you’re a spaceman.» He leaned forward and his eyes, those wide clear eyes, got bright. «Listen, matey, things have looked lousy for a while, but they’re looking up again. We’re sending one farther out. To Jupiter.»
«The hell we are,» I said. «Listen, you got me mixed with somebody else. I never heard of a Max Andrews.»
He said, «If you want it that way.»
«It is that way.»
I woke from the nightmare of the frozen instant again and sat up, struggling, into awakeness to dispel the spell.
A hotel room again, but no purple flowers. A bigger room, a nicer room, with two beds. And my friend of last night, the spaceman whose name I didn’t know, sleeping in the other bed. He’d brought me here to pull me out of it.
But not yet, not yet.
Necessity gave me the steadiness to dress very quietly, making not a single sound, so as not to waken him.
I didn’t want to argue with him, because he was right. He was a good guy, this spaceman who knew me but whom I didn’t know or didn’t remember, and he’d brought me here to help me. He was right by his standards and his standards were right for him, but they weren’t right for me because I was wrong. I was wrong and I wouldn’t be right until this ran its course, if it ever did.
But how could I explain to him? How can you show someone else your nightmares?
I checked money in my wallet. Plenty of it. I must have wired back for some, got some somehow. I took out enough to pay for the room and left it on the dresser, and I got out of there quickly and quietly.
I needed a drink worse than I needed anything else, except maybe to die and get it over with, and my friend probably had a bottle there somewhere, knowing I’d need at least a pickup shot in the morning. But it was hidden and I didn’t dare search for it. Spacemen, even ex-spacemen, are always light sleepers.
Eight o’clock in the morning, but I found a liquor store open.
Other bottles, other rooms. Day and night and crowds and solitude. Bars and drinks and a fight, blood on my face and on my knuckles.
Devils and a cold wind, and phantoms of the living and dead. Arguing with my father, with Bill, pleading with Ellen.
«Darling, darling,-you understand, don’t you? I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to let it run its course, I can’t stop now. Even if this is the big one, the last one, I’ve got to ride it through.»
Ellen didn’t argue about the drinking; she understood.
Sometimes in semi-sober moments I wondered whether she would have, really.
But the dead must understand everything if they understand anything at all.
And one night, one unexpected night, street noises again and cheerful voices, happy voices.
People laughing, people blowing horns, people celebrating.
Suddenly more noises, crescendo.
Sirens and whistles, bells ringing. Bells tolling.
Somebody yelling at me, and the words came through, Happy New Year.
The bells and the sirens and the whistles and the yelling and the crowds and a big clock beginning to toll bong, bong, bong.
Suddenly it came to me what this was. Not just another damn new year after another Christmas; it was more than that. It came to me through the noise, through the gently falling snow, this is the turn of the century and the turn of the millennium, Jesus God, this isn’t just another year, this is the year two thousand, the year two
2000
thousand! Something to celebrate, something really to celebrate! Yell Happy New Year, Happy New Millennium. A bar with people crowding up to it three and four deep. I tried to push my way in, couldn’t. Drinks being passed back. Somebody had an extra one in his hand, looking around for someone he’d been with. He shrugged, handed me the drink. «Luck, Old-timer!»