"Whew!" Brodersen finished. "What a lecture! I could use another beer. Anybody else?" He rose to go to the fridge.
"Hold," Joelle said.
"What?" He checked his stride.
Seldom-when a problem was unusually arousing, or when things got really good in bed-had he seen a light such as kindled her countenance. "Dan," she told him, her voice ashiver, "we can go straight from Sol to Centrum."
"What?" he yelped.
"Yes." She sat forward. "The Betans, they've been exploring the gates for a thousand years. They've gone beyond trial and error. They don't have a complete theory; nothing compared to what the Others know-"
"The Others," Rueda murmured.
"-but they have achieved some comprehension," belle went on. "Take three places, three stars if you want, A, B, C, with known gates-T machine guidepaths-from A to B and from B to C. Then the Betans can compute a direct route between A and C."
It was like a nova burst in Brodersen.
"Not with absolute certainty," Joelle was saying. "They haven't measured the local curvatures of the continuum that well. But the probability of success is high. Surely higher than for the schemes you've described."
"And-and-" Brodersen groped through splendors. "We can go to the Sol machine - . - make like starting for Phoebus . then lie, bluff, threaten, or whatever, till we're so far into the transport field that we're nearly an impossible target. . . . We'll come out at Centrum. Go to Beta. Come back leading a Betan armada."
"Whose only offensive weapon need be the truth," Rueda said. Whether or not he had heard about the physics earlier, the idea was new to him also. He too stood transfixed by revelation.
Brodersen snatched the beer glass which had stood by his chair and swung it in circles over his head. "By the honor of the house!" he roared out of his youth. "We'll do it! We will!"
"The computation is difficult," Joelle warned. "Fidelio and I will need to conduct research, and I'll need to apply holothetics. You do have holothetic capabilities aboard, don't you?"
The flame in her now was like nothing he had ever seen. I shall return to what I am, radiated forth. Heat and cold fled across her cheeks. I shall again be One with the All.
Rueda rested an intent look upon her. It was as if Brodersen could read the Peruvian's mind. Will you become, for us, what the Others refuse to be?
They would give Sergei Nikolayevitch Zarubayev a spaceman's funeral, launching his flag-shrouded body from an airlock, on a bier driven by a signal rocket, while his shipmates stood by and heard their captain read the service.
First Caitlin took the obligation as medical officer of washing him and laying him out in his cabin. From four bowls which she filled with oil, and wicks of string afloat upon bits of wine-bottle cork, she made lights to burn at his head and feet. The fluoros she turned off; and she called for a wake for him.
She met a little surprise, a little objection-barbarous custom; the civilized thing was to gather afterward, with coffee-but Brodersen, Dozsa, Granville, and von Moltke understood, though it was in none of their own traditions, and made the rest agree. (The skipper felt that he and his people needed to get drunk, in this pause between battles, and Sergei would have appreciated being the occasion of it.) They held the party in the common room. Su and Stefan had decorated it somewhat, making paper flowers and the like. Hard liquor and pot appeared, besides the usual refreshments; viewscreens brought in the universe for a larger ornament; music Sergei had favored and ballet he had loved rollicked in playback. Folk stood around and remembered him.
After several hours, Martti Leino left. By then, a kind of liveliness had entered. Arms around shoulders, Brodersen, Weisenberg, and Dozsa were tunelessly belting out "Ford of Kabul River." Von Moltke and Rueda snuggled in a corner. Granville and Ky held a serious conversation. Fidelio observed the exotic race.
Leino walked down the circular hall to Zarubayev's quarters.
The door stood open. He heard a few notes, hesitated, frowned, and went on in.
As bare as the rest, this room was draped in shadow and yellow lamplight. Zarubayev lay on his bed, attired in his uniform. Hair and beard glowed through dimness; otherwise his face had gone empty. The flames around him threw off a clean odor and the tiniest warmth. Caitlin sat beside him. She wore a blue kaftan, the best gown she had along. Her locks streamed unbound. In her left arms she cradled her sonador while her right fingers drew from it sounds like a muted woodwind.
She stopped when Leino entered, "Oh," she breathed.
"What-" He tightened. "Never mind. I am sorry I interrupted."
"No. Wait. Don't go." Caitlin made to rise, saw him embraced him a bit, and sank back down. "You came to say farewell. I'd not stand in the way of that."
He bunched his fists and hastily released them. "You don't, Miz Muiryan."
"You've no kindness for me."
"Hoy, this is nil time for hakkerie."
"I meant no more than this, Mr. Leino: if it's alone you'd be with your friend I can well come back later." She did get up.
Startled, he exclaimed, "Stop. Please. I knew you kenned him before, but not that you. . - cared."
She smiled most gently. "Aye, he was the quiet lad, was he not?" Stillness; then, low: "Even when showing me, this voyage, how to handle firearms in combat, he took none of his many opportunities to grow familiar, though he well knew I'd have liked it. For he saw me now as Daniel's woman, not his captain's but his friend's, which gives away much about him, doesn't it?"
He flushed. "When did you first meet him?"
"Before I met Daniel. He came to the hospital, injured, as you may recall. We bantered amidst his pain. The world thought him humorless, but that was not true. Oh, he spun me the wildest yarn about the trouble he was having, him a Russian who did not enjoy chess. . . - After he got well, we met when we could, until I started spending my whiles in Eopolis with Daniel. We were never deep in love, Sergei and I, but he meant an oceanful to me."
"And to me," Leino said slowly, staring at where she stood in front of the dead man. "We were on jobs together in space, the kind where you trust your life to your partner. On Demeter we'd go backpacking, sailing, partying-" His talk trailed off.
She nodded. "What happens between man and man, no woman will ever truly understand; but precious it is."
Half drunk, he threw at her: "What about man and woman?" She turned to brush fingertips across the countenance which had been Zarubayev's. "That's worse to find words for, however long and hard the poets have tried." Her glance went back to Leino." Indeed Sergei and I shared more than simple pleasure." Again it sought him who did not move. "They never realized," she said, nigh under breath. "They took him for dour when he was only shy; but oh, the fun in him when once he felt at his ease! They took him for being practical as a machine; but I recall a night hie brought a telescope outdoors, and after we'd lost ourselves in the forever, he began to speak of the Others. He believed they cannot be ignoring of us as they seem to, but most have a care and compassion we are too small to feel-"
She broke off. "Well," she said, "you don't want me to maunder, you want to give him his sending from you. Goodnight, Martti Leino."
"No!" He lifted a palm as if to block her. Please stay. I didn't know anyone else was so near to him." He rubbed a wrist across his eyes. "Forgive me. May I ask what you were doing in here?"
"Nothing to mention."
He insisted: "You were singing."
She squared her shoulders. "Well, yes, I was that, a song, as we do in the Irish countryside. But it would be wrong to put on a show when such is not the way of my fellows aboard. Goodnight."
He stretched an arm in her path. "Please, Miz Muiryan -Caitlin- please don't go."
Her green gaze met his blue. "Why?"
"Because, oh, I told you, we share a heavy loss and. . - they're singing Kipling songs in the common room- -What is yours?"
She dropped her lashes. "Merely an ochone. A dirge, you'd say."
"Would you do it over?"
She regarded him for a moment before she decided. "Aye, since it is you who wish. He would have himself."
They sat down on either side of the bed. The lamps flickered, sounds which drifted in from the wake did not seem out of place. Caitlin's fingers evoked the "Londonderry Air."
