At the Grand Canyon of the Colorado you may see strata going back a billion years, and across the view of them a gnarly juniper, and know something of Earth. Thus did Eric learn something of the depths and the order in space-time. The primordial fireball became more real to him than the violence of his own birth, the question of what had brought it about became as terrifying. With it, he bought the spirals of the galaxies and the DNA molecule with energy which would never come back to him, and saw how it aged as it matured, even as you and I; the Law is One. He lived the lives of stars: how manifold were the waves that formed them, how strong the binding afterward to an entire existence! Amidst the massiveness of blue giants and black holes, he found room to forge planets whereon crystals and flowers could grow. He beheld what was still unknown-the overwhelming most of it, now and forever-and how Joelle longed to go questing.
Yet throughout, the observer part of him sensed that beside hers, his perception was misted and his understanding chained. When she drew him back to the flesh, he screamed.
They sat in the office. Her desk separated them. She had raised the blind on the window at her back and opened it. Shadows hastened across grass, sunlight that followed was bright but somehow as if the air through which it fell had chilled it, the gusts sounded hollow that harried smells of damp soil into the room, odors of oncoming autumn.
She spoke with all her gentleness. "We couldn't have talked meaningfully before you'd been there yourself, could we have, Eric?"
His glance went to the empty couch. "How meaningful was anything between us, even at first?"
She sighed. "I wanted it to be." A smile touched her. "I did enjoy."
"No more than that, enjoy, eh?"
"I don't know. I do care for you, and for everything you taught me about. But I've gone on to, to where I tried to lead you."
"How far did I get?"
She stared down at her hands, folded on the desk in helplessness, and murmured, "Still less than I feared. It was like showing a blind man a painting. He might get a tiny idea through his fingertips, texture, the dark areas faintly warmer than the light-but oh, how tiny!"
"Whereas you respond to the lot, from quanta to quasars," he rasped.
She raised her head, challenging their shared unhappiness. "No, I've barely begun, and of course I'll never finish. But don't you see, that's half of the wonder. Always more to find. Direct experience, as direct as vision or touch or hunger or sex, experience of the real reality. The whole world humans know is just a passing, accidental consequence of it. Each time I go to it, I know it better and it makes me more its own. How could I stop?"
"I don't suppose I could learn?"
She knew he cherished no hope. "No. A holothete has to start like me, early, and do hardly anything else, especially in those formative young years." Her eyes stung. "I'm sorry, darling. You're good and kind and.. . how I wish you could follow along. How you deserve it."
"You don't wish you could go back, though, to what you were when we met?"
"Would you?"
He could never truly summon up what had happened this day. However- "No," he said. "In fact, I dare not try again. That could be addictive. For me, nothing but an addiction, and to lunacy. For you -" He shrugged. "Do you know the Rubiyalt?"
"I've heard of it," she said, "but I've had no chance to become cultured."
He recited:
Why, lithe Soul can fling the dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Were't not a Shane -were't not a Shane for him in this clay carcase crippled to abide?
She nodded. "The old man told truth, didn't he? I did read once that Omar was a mathematician and astronomer. He must have been lonely."
"Like you, Joelle?"
"I have a few colleagues, remember. I'm teaching them-" She broke off, leaned across the desk, and said in a renewed concern:
"What about us two? We'll be collaborating. You're strong enough to carry on, discharge your duty, I'm certain you are. But our personal lives- What's best for you?"
"Or for you? Let's take that up first."
"Anything you want, Eric. I'll gladly be your wife, mistress, anything."
He was quiet a while, seeking words-she supposed-that might not hurt her. None came.
"You're telling me that you don't care which," he said. "You're willing to treat me as well as you're able, because it doesn't greatly matter to you." He raised a palm to check her response. "Oh, no doubt you'd get a limited pleasure from living with me, even from my conversation. If nothing else, I'd help fill in the hours when you can't be linked. . . until you and those fellows of yours go so far that you'll have no time for childish things."
"I love you," she protested. A pair of tears broke loose.
He sighed. "I believe you. It's simply that love isn't important any more, beside that grandeur. I've felt affection for dogs I've kept. But-call it pride, prejudice, stubbornness, what you will-I can't play a dog's part."
He rose. "We'll doubtless have an efficient partnership till I go home," he ended. "Today, though, while something remains of her, I'll tell my girl goodbye."
She sought him. He held her while she wept. But when at length she kissed him, her lips were quite steady.
"Go back to your link for a bit," he counselled her.
"I will," she answered. "Thank you for saying it."
He walked out into a wind gone cold at evening. She stood in the doorway and waved. He didn't turn around to see. Maybe he didn't want to know how soon the door closed on her.
XXIV
The newcomers were naturally much in demand aboard Chinook. It was thus a small surprise to Weisenberg when Rueda Suarez invited him to stop by for a drink before dinner. Entering at the agreed time, the engineer heard a folk song from the Andean altiplano throbbing at low volume and saw that the reader was screening a page of verse.
Rueda followed his glance. "Garcia Lorca," the Peruvian said. "I am pleased to find the data bank here is well stocked: my favorites, him, Neruda, Cervantes, everyone, not to speak of music."
"Well, we planned against possible years of being away, the same as you did," Weisenberg answered. "Moreover, like you we hoped we'd be showing some of the human culture to nonhumans."
"Years. . . in your case, sir? Are you not married?"
"Yes, with five good kids. But the youngest is starting in the university, the rest are entirely on their own. Sarah was slated to come along on the expedition, quartermaster. Of course, when we had to scramble as we did, I wouldn't let her." Weisenberg chuckled, though pain stirred beneath. "More accurately, I didn't tell her-I skipped out, leaving a message-because a person needs a nice safe black hole to shelter in when Sarah gets her Jewish up."
"I see. Won't you sit down? What would you like? I drew a ration of each type of liquor in the stores."
"Scotch, then, thank you. Neat; water chaser." Weisenberg folded his leanness into a chair. Rueda poured the same I or both and settled opposite.
"I thought we should get a little acquainted," the host said. "In forty hours we will be at the T machine, and God alone knows what will happen. If Daniel's scheme succeeds and we reach Beta, we still have a long, hard effort before us. If it does not, we may well be in instant danger of our lives. We had better know the ways in which we can depend on one another. And. . . perhaps you can find duty for me. I feel useless, I worry, I drink too much." His smile was rather sour. "Frieda might keep me occupied, but she's exploring the new men around her."
