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around with a kind of an idea that I'd like to talk over with Albert
Einstein."
She nodded. "Very well, why not?" She sat up on the edge of the bed.. "Hand me
my slippers, please. Let us do this now."
"Now? But it's late. You shouldn't be-"
"Robin," she said kindly, "I too have talked with Sigfrid von Shrink. Is good
program,
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederi...0-%20Beyond%20The%20Blue%20Ev
ent%20Horizon.txt (93 of 121) [1/15/03 6:32:56 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederik%20-%20Heechee%202%20-%20Beyond
%20The%20Blue%20Event%20Horizon.txt even if not written by me. Says you are
good man, Robin, well adjusted, generous, and to all of this I also can
testify, not to add excellent lover and much fun to be with. Come into study."
She took my hand as we walked into the big room looking over the Tappan Sea
and sat before my console in the comfortable loveseat. "However," she went on,
"Sigfrid says you have great talent for inventing reasons not to do things. So
I will help you get off dime. Daite gorod Polymat." She was not talking to me,
but to the console, which sprang at once into light "Display both Albert and
Sigfrid programs," she ordered. "Access both files in interactive mode. Now,
Robin! Let us pursue questions you have raised. After all, I am quite
interested too."
This wife of so many years, this S. Ya. Lavorovna I married, she surprises me
most when I
least expect it. She sat quite comfortably beside me, holding my hand, while I
talked quite openly about doing the things that I had most wanted not to want.
It was not just a matter of going to
Heechee Heaven and the Food Factory and stopping old Peter Herter from messing
up the world. It was where I might go after that
But at first It did not look as though I were going anywhere. "Albert," I
said, "you told me that you had worked out a course setting for Heechee Heaven
from Gateway records. Can you do that for the Food Factory too?"
The two of them were sitting side by side in the PV tank, Albert puffing on
his pipe, Sigfrid, hands clasped and silent, attentively listening. He would
not speak until I spoke to him, and I was not doing that. "`Fraid not," Albert
said apologetically. "We have only one known setting for the Food Factory,
Trish Bover's, and that's not enough to be sure. Maybe point-six probable that
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it would get a ship there. But then what, Robin? It couldn't come back. Or at
least
Trish Bover's didn't." He settled himself comfortably, and went on, "There
are, of course, certain alternatives." He glanced at Sigfrid von Shrink beside
him. "One might so manipulate Herter's mind by suggestion that he would change
his plans."
"Would that work?" I was still talking to Albert Einstein. He shrugged, and
Sigfrid stirred but did not speak.
"Oh, do not be such a baby," Essie scolded. "Answer, Sigfrid."
"Gospozha Lavorovna," he said, glancing at me, "I think not. I believe my
colleague has raised this possibility only so that I might dismiss it. I have
studied the records of Peter
Herter's transmissions. The symbolism is quite obvious. The angelic women with
the raptor beaks-
what is a `hooked nose', gospozha? Think of Payter's childhood, and what he
heard of the
`cleansing' of the world of the evil Jews. There is also the violence, the
punitive emotions. He is quite ill, has in fact already suffered one coronary
attack, and is no longer rational; he has, in fact, regressed to quite a
childish state. Neither suggestion nor appeals to reason will work, gospozha.
The only possibility would be perhaps long-term analysis. He would not likely
agree, the shipboard computer could not well handle it and, in any case, there
is not time. I cannot help you, gospozha, not with any real chance of
success."
Long and long ago I spent a couple of hundred mostly very unpleasant hours
listening to
Sigfrid's reasonable, maddening voice, and I had not wanted ever to hear it
again. But, you know, it wasn't all that bad.
Beside me, Essie stirred, "Polymath," she called, "have fresh coffee
prepared." To me she said, "I think will be here for some time."
"I don't know for what," I objected. "I seem to be stymied." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]