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of the piano. "The elimination of air pollution did not start with the
Greens. It started with the Big Power Companies back in the fifties-
 as a by-product of their program of clean, centralized electrical
power generation. But it accelerated with the environmentalist
movement. Soon, we were not allowed to burn the leaves we raked
off our yards. We had to bag them, in plastic bags, of course! And
have them hauled away by trucks to landfills hundreds of miles
away. The Green Laws became more and more stringent at the
same time that interest in and support for science was waning-
not a coincidence, I might add. Even today, with the Great Ice and
the Sahara both sliding south, we are not allowed to throw another
log on the fire!"
"Damned good thing!" Jenny Trout shouted.
Everyone looked at her.
"It's got to fall," she said. "All the way. We don't like this world
we made! Bring it down! Bring it down!"
Harry had taken out his guitar. He struck a chord.
"Black powder and alcohol, when your states and cities fall,
when your back's against the wall- "
Alex shuddered.
CHAPTER EIGHT
". . . Someone's Daydream"
The Phantom of the Paradise leaped out of the TV screen, as the
audience, as always, made helpful comments. Sherrine pretended to
watch as her thoughts leaped more wildly than the masked
phantom.
Sending the Angels home wouldn't be simple even if they had
a ship. Some of it she could do. With Bob to analyze the ballistics
she ought to be able to write the code. Some would be tougher.
Fuel. They'd have to steal that.
First things first. Without a ship, everything else was moot.
Bob came into the lounge. Had he followed her? When he
waved at her and headed in her direction, she sighed.
He was wearing his Rotsler badge. A cartoon face studied the
SS ROBERT K. NEEDLETON and thought, "Pretentious." The sharp
nose partly covered the letters. Bob dropped beside her on the
sofa, just close enough to be within her personal space, and put an
arm on the back of the sofa behind her. He leaned close to her ear.
"Any ideas yet?"
He certainly had ideas. A couple of fen sitting nearby grinned
at her. Oh, Ghu! she thought. After tonight, everyone will think
we're back together.
To some men, "no" meant "maybe" and "maybe" meant "yes."
She hadn't seen Bob in two months; now she couldn't get rid of
him. He was cheerfully impervious to her rebuffs; as if he were not
programmed to accept the data. Like Halley's Comet, no matter
how shaken up he was at each encounter, he kept coming back.
Only he didn't wait seventy-six years.
Not that he was unattractive. He had been among her better
lovers, back in the days when she hung out with the spa set. And
maybe she only needed to get used to him again. He had known
how to do things in a hot tub that . . . For that matter, he knew
how to talk with a woman, not simply at her. He had been as
interested in hearing about her computer work- about LISP and
LAN's and baud rates- as he was in telling her about his physics.
There was only one thing he seemed incapable of understanding.
And that was endings.
Bob was a romantic. Most men were. They thought that a
relationship had a beginning and a middle, but no end. Danny, the
time traveler in The Man Who Folded Himself, had made that
mistake. He kept going back and going back, trying to rekindle the
romance with Donna; until finally he had kindled disgust and
revulsion in her. The secret was to quit while you were at the top
go out like a champion and not fade into an object of pity like a
has-been fighter who couldn't quit the ring.
She didn't want that to happen between her and Bob. She
liked him too much. So keep it neutral. Keep it professional.
"You know, that Gordon is kind of cute," she said. And how
was that for a neutral, professional remark?
His arm made an aborted move toward her shoulder. "Oh?"
"Yes." She spoke in a whisper. "Not just his background- a
space pilot, by Ghu!- but the way he looks. His facial bones and
his little potbelly. And his puppy-dog eyes. He always seems so sad
and withdrawn, it makes me want to cuddle him and cheer him up."
"Umm. I'm feeling a little sad and withdrawn myself," Bob said
hopefully.
She slapped him backfingered on the arm. "Oh, you know what
I mean. He seems so lonely, cut off forever from his home and his
friends."
"It was his fault they were marooned, you know."
"What?" She had raised her voice slightly and someone sitting
in a nearby chair shushed her. She lowered her voice and leaned
closer to Bob. Bob helped her do that. "What do you mean?"
"He told me so himself." Bob whispered into her ear as if they
were necking; and she flashed back to three nights ago, when he
had woken her from the sleep of the innocent to recruit her into the
Rescue Party. A good cover, he had said, in case anyone was
listening. Yeah, a damned good cover. He probably thought of it
himself. "This morning, when I brought them breakfast . . . Doc had
taken 'Gabe' into the washroom to, uh, well, help him . . . you
know."
"Yeah. Go on."
"Well, once we were alone, the kid let it all spill out. It seems
that during the missile attack, he shouted out a warning in Russian
and Alex didn't understand until too late; and that's why they were
hit."
"Oh, no! It must be terrible to have to live with that."
Bob shrugged. "He's young. He'll get over it. That's the
wonderful thing about being young. The point is, the kid- "
She never learned what Bob's point was. Chuck Umber burst
into the room waving a folded-up newspaper in the air. "Angels
down!" he announced and flipped the lights on. "A scoopship went
down on the Ice yesterday!" He shut off the VCR player.
"Hey!" someone shouted. "Turn the Phantom back on."
"No, wait! Look at this." Chuck opened the paper to the front
page and held it up. AIR THIEVES CRASH ON ICE, screamed the
headline. He had a bundle of newspapers under his arm and began
passing them out.
A storm of voices greeted him. "What? Where?" "How'd it
happen?" "Are the Angels okay?" "How come we're just hearing
about it?" "Turn the Phantom back on."
Bob leaned into her ear. "That tears it," he whispered. "How
long before someone figures things out?" Sherrine grabbed a copy
of the paper from Chuck as he went by and flipped it open. She and
Bob huddled over it. She scanned the story quickly, as much to
learn what hadn't been said as to learn what had. It wouldn't do to
show too much familiarity with the story.
The newspaper report was reasonably straightforward, a bit
long on loaded adjectives and short on detail, but not much worse
than the usual news. There was no mention of what had happened
to the Angels. A sidebar, entitled DEATH RAYS FROM OUTER
SPACE, told of "beams of deadly microwaves aimed at the search [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]