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"That's the way I feel."
"I take it that the flitters are all down?"
"Right. You know that. They've been down for days."
Senior Lieutenant Dalgati did not immediately reply, but pursed his lips as an
entry scripted itself upon his screen.
Gerswin resumed his dirgelike whistling.
"Greg."
Gerswin stopped the whistling.
"You and your whistling can depress anyone. I'd suggest another theme, but
whatever it was, it would probably get on my nerves. I take it you want to talk."
"No."
"Oh . . . you want to fly, to feel productive."
Gerswin shrugged.
"You can't. Not unless you can figure out how to repair the flitters better and
faster than the techs. So why don't you put that overtrained, but undereducated
and underused mind of yours to work instead of haunting the poor techs?"
Gerswin did not resume his whistling, but kept tapping his fingers on the edge
of the console.
"Now you're feeling sorry for yourself, that you're just a poor barbarian from
Old Earth, that no one understands you."
"Mahmood. ..."
The ecologist laughed, gently. "Please don't bother with your dangerous voice.
I'm well aware that, as a relatively untrained Service officer, your reflexes make
you about twice as deadly as the average Corpus Corps officer."
"You exaggerate, Mahmood." Gerswin returned the laugh, his initial bark
subsiding to a chuckle, although he did not sound amused. "Are you suggesting
something?"
"I suggest nothing, my underactive friend. All things come to those who wait,
particularly if they understand what they're waiting for."
"Ridiculous." "No. Realistic. One's expectations color the surrounding world,
and yours more than most. You have yet to leam what to expect, or what you want
to expect.
"Have you ever studied the tapes of the Old Earth master painters? Or read the
old Anglish poets in the original? Studied the old and outdated terrain maps?
Tried to understand the ecology before it collapsed?
"Do you want your planet restored? Or do you want to
badger the teens?"
Gerswin straightened up in the swivel. "So I have to know what I want, is that
it? What difference
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does it make?"
"I wouldn't put it quite that way. Permit me to digress
momentarily, my friend."
"You always do." Gerswin leaned forward in the swivel,
then tilted himself farther backward.
Mahmood pursed his lips and looked down at his screen. He touched the
keyboard in several places until he was satisfied. Finally, he stood. Circling to his
left, he looked at Gerswin, halting behind his console. The effect was undeniably
that of a
professor behind his podium.
"Right now, Greg, you're little more than a step above those
barbarians you call shambletowners."
Another short bark issued from the pilot. "That's probably more than some
would grant me."
"You are marvelously trained in techniques, and better trained than that in
some weapons, but your mind has never considered the reasons for such
training."
"Mahmood, spare me the rationalizations and the philosophy. If a flitter is up,
it's up. If it's down, it's down. If it can be fixed, then you fix it."
"And if it can't be fixed, you give up?"
"You don't fly."
"Do you need to fly? Isn't there more than one route to a destination? Do you
always have to rely on the biggest or the fastest or the latest piece of machinery?"
"Don't ask such stupid questions. You're humoring me, and I'm not in the
mood for being humored." Gerswin was out of his seat, circling the other side of
the office. "I'm flying through trash because no one else seems to be able to get
even one damned data run. Because no one can program the dozers without
terrain data. Because we're going to run out of time ..."
The blond man with the eyes of a hawk turned on the professor and jabbed a
finger. "You can sit and lecture. Or stand and lecture. Puzzle the riddles of the
universe. Take forever to find the perfect solution. Right now, good old Terra is a
curiosity. Oh, yes, the wonderful Empire will fix her up good. Now. What about
tomorrow? Is it going to last? How long? How many flitters? How many dozers?
How many young techs and pilots will they let good old Mother Earth murder
before the great, grand, and glorious Empire gives up?
"There's nothing of worth left. No cheap metals. No radioactives. Nothing
grows."
Gerswin picked up a swivel one-handed, holding it at arm's length.
"Look, Mahmood! Look! Now, how long can I hold this thing? Twice, three
times as long as you can? Ten times? Some time I have to put it down. So ... old
Terra has an emotional hold on the Empire. For now. But what happens when the
next Emperor has to let go? What happens if they put us down before the ecology
is fixed?"
His voice softened to a whisper as he replaced the swivel on the tiles. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]