15

Oddly enough, Crile Fisher found it necessary to become accustomed to Earth - or reaccustomed to it. He had not thought that Rotor had become so much a part of him in a matter of not quite four years. It had been the longest period during which he had been away from Earth, but surely it had not been long enough to make Earth seem strange to him.

There was now the sheer size of Earth, the distant horizon ending sharp against the sky instead of turning up mistily. There were the crowds, the unchanging gravity, the sense of wild and willful atmosphere, of temperature soaring and diving, of nature out of all control.

It was not that he had to experience any of this to feel it. Even when he was in his own quarters, he knew it was all out there and the ferality of it all pervaded his spirit, somehow invaded it. Or it might be that the room was too small, too full, that the drift of sound was too unmistakable, as though he were being pressed in on by a crowded and decaying world.

Strange that he had missed Earth so intensely in those years on Rotor; and that, now that he was back on Earth, he missed Rotor so intensely. Was he to spend his life wanting to be where he was not?

The signal light flashed and he heard the buzz. It flickered - things on Earth tended to flicker, while on Rotor everything was constant with an almost aggressive efficiency. 'Enter,' he said in a low voice, but it was loud enough to activate the de-locking mechanism.

Garand Wyler entered (Fisher knew it would be he) and looked at the other with an amused expression. 'Have you budged since I left, Crile?'

'Here and there. I've eaten. Spent some time in the bathroom.'

'Good. You're alive, then, even if you don't look it.' He was grinning broadly, his skin smooth and brown, his eyes dark, his teeth white, his hair thick and crisp. 'Brooding about Rotor?'

'I think of it now and then.'

'I kept meaning to ask, but never got around to it. It was Snow White without the Seven Dwarfs, wasn't it?'

'Snow White,' said Fisher. 'I never saw one black person there.'

'In that case, good riddance to them. Did you know that they're gone?'

Fisher's muscles tightened and he nearly got to his feet, but he resisted the impulse. He said, nodding, 'They said they would be.'

'They meant it. They drifted away. We watched as far as we could; eavesdropped their radiation. They pumped up speed with this hyper-assistance of theirs and, in a split second, while we could still make them out loud and clear, they were gone. Everything cut off.'

'Did you pick them up when they got back into space?'

'Several times. Each time weaker. They were traveling at the speed of light after they had really flexed their muscles, and after three blips, into hyperspace and back into space, they were too far to be picked up.'

Fisher said bitterly, 'Their choice. They kicked out the nays - like me.'

'I'm sorry you weren't there. You should have been. It was interesting to watch. You know there were some hard-liners who insisted to the very end that hyper-assistance was a fraud, that it was all faked up, for some reason.'

'Rotor had the Far Probe. They couldn't have it sent as far away as they did without hyper-assistance.'

'Faked! That's what the hard-liners said.'

'It was genuine.'

'Yes, now they know it was. All of them. When Rotor just vanished off the instruments, there was no other explanation. Every Settlement was watching. No mistake. It vanished on every set of instruments at the same second. The irritating thing is, we can't tell where it's going.'

'Alpha Centauri, I suppose. Where else?'

'The Office keeps thinking that it might not be Alpha Centauri and that you might know that.'

Fisher looked annoyed. 'I've been debriefed all the way to the Moon and back. I haven't held back anything.'

'Sure. We know that. It's nothing you know about. They want me to talk to you, friend to friend, and see what you may know that you don't know about. Something may turn up that you haven't thought of. You were there four years, married, had a kid. You couldn't have missed everything.'

'How could I? If there were the slightest notion that I was after anything, I'd have been kicked off. Just being from Earth made me completely suspect. If I hadn't married - given that kind of proof that I planned to stay Rotorian - I would have been kicked off anyway. And as it was, they kept me far away from anything critical or sensitive.'

Fisher looked away. 'And it worked. My wife was just an astronomer. I didn't have my pick, you know. I couldn't put an ad on holovision announcing that I was in the market for a young lady who was a hyperspatialist. If I had met one, I would have done my best to hook on to her even if she looked like a hyena, but I never met one in all my time there. The technology was so sensitive, I think they kept the key people in complete isolation. I think they must all have worn masks in the laboratories and used code names. Four years - and I never got a hint, never found out a thing. And I knew it would mean I was through with the Office.'

He turned to Garand and said with sudden passion, 'Things got so bad that I turned into some kind of lout. The sense of failure was just overpowering.'

Wyler was sitting across the table from Fisher in the cluttered room, teetering back on the rear legs of his chair, but carefully holding the table lest he teeter too far.

He said, 'Crile, the Office can't afford to be delicate, but it isn't totally unfeeling. They regret having to approach you like this, but they must. And I regret being given the job, but I must. We are concerned that you've failed and brought us nothing. If Rotor hadn't left, we might have felt there was nothing to bring. But they did leave. They did have hyper-assistance, and yet you've brought us nothing.'

'I know that.'

'But that doesn't mean we want to throw you out or - get rid of you. We hope we can still use you. So I have to make sure that your failure was an honest one.'

'What does that mean?'

'I have to be able to tell them that you didn't fail because of any personal weakness. After all, you married a Rotorian woman. Was she pretty? Were you fond of her?'

Fisher snarled, 'What you're really asking is whether, out of love for a Rotorian woman, I deliberately protected Rotor and helped them keep their secret.'

'Well,' said Wyler, unmoved. 'Did you?'

'How can you ask that? If I had decided to be a Rotorian, I would have left with them. By now I would be lost in space and you might never find me. But I didn't do that. I got off Rotor and returned to Earth, even though I knew my failure would probably destroy my career.'

'We appreciate your loyalty.'

'There's more loyalty in this than you think.'

'We recognize that you probably loved your wife and that, as a matter of duty, you had to leave her. That would count in your favor, if we could be sure-'

'Not so much my wife. It was my daughter.'

Wyler viewed Fisher thoughtfully. 'We know you have a one-year-old daughter, Crile. Under the circumstances, perhaps you shouldn't have given that particular hostage to fortune.'

'I agree. But I can treat myself as though I were a well-oiled robot. Things happen against one's will sometimes. And once the child was born and I had had her for a year-'

'That is understandable, but it was only a year. Scarcely time, really, to build a relationship-'

Fisher grimaced. 'You may think it understandable, but you don't understand.'

'Explain, then. I'll try.'

'It was my sister, you see. My younger sister.'

Wyler nodded. 'There's mention of that in your compufile. Rose, I think.'

'Roseanne. She died in the San Francisco riots eight years ago. She was only seventeen.'

'I'm sorry.'

'She wasn't a participant on either side. She was one of those innocent bystanders who is so more apt to get hurt than the ringleaders or the officers. At least we found her body and I had something to cremate.'

Wyler maintained a half-embarrassed silence.

Fisher said finally, 'She was only seventeen. Our parents died' - he brushed his hand to one side, as though indicating it was not something he wished to discuss - 'when she was four and I was fourteen. I worked after school and I saw to it that she was fed, and clothed, and comfortable, even when I was not. I taught myself programming - not that I ever made a decent living out of that either - and then, when she was seventeen, when she had never hurt a soul, when she didn't even know what all the fighting and shouting was about, she was simply trapped-'

Wyler said, 'I can see why you volunteered for Rotor.'

'Oh yes. For a couple of years I was just numb. I joined the Office partly to keep my mind occupied and partly because I thought there would be danger in it. I rather looked forward to death for a while - if I could manage to do something useful en route. When the problem of placing an agent on Rotor was discussed, I volunteered for it. I wanted to get off Earth.'

'And now you're back. Do you regret that?'

'A little bit, yes, but Rotor choked me. With all its faults, Earth has room. If only you could have seen Roseanne, Garand. You have no idea. She wasn't pretty, but she had such eyes.' Fisher's own eyes were focused on the past, a slight pucker between his brows as though he were peering hard to clearly focus. 'Beautiful eyes, but frightening ones. It seemed to me that I could never meet them without feeling nervous. She could look right into you - if you know what I mean.'

'Actually, I don't,' said Wyler.

Fisher paid no attention. 'She always knew when you were lying or hiding the truth. You couldn't be silent without her guessing what the trouble was.'

'You're not going to tell me she was a telepath.'

'What? Oh no. She used to say she read expressions and listened to intonations. She said no-one could hide what they were thinking. No matter how you laughed, you could not hide the tragic undercurrent; no smile sufficed to hide bitterness. She tried to explain, but I could never grasp what it was she did. She was something special, Garand. I was in awe of her. And then my child was born. Marlene.'

'Yes?'

'She had the same eyes.'

'The baby had your sister's eyes?'

'Not immediately, but I watched them develop. When she was six months old, those eyes made me flinch.'

'Your wife flinched, too?'

'I never noticed her being affected, but then, she never had a sister Roseanne. Marlene hardly cried at all; she was peaceful. I remember Roseanne was like that as a baby. And Marlene didn't show any signs that she was going to be particularly pretty either. It was as though Roseanne had come back to me. So you see how hard it turned out to be.'

'Coming back to Earth, you mean.'

'Doing that and leaving them behind. It was like losing Roseanne a second time. I'll never see her now. Never!'

'But you came back anyway.'

'Loyalty! Duty! But if you want the truth, I almost didn't. I was standing there, torn. Torn apart, I was desperately wanting not to leave Roseanne - Marlene. You see, I confuse the names. And Eugenia - my wife - said to me in a heartbroken way, "If you knew where we were going, you wouldn't be so ready to turn back." And at that moment I didn't want to leave. I asked her to come to Earth with me. She refused. I asked her to let me take Ro - Marlene, at least. She refused. And then, when I might have given in and stayed, she went wild and ordered me out. And I went.'

Wyler stared at Fisher reflectively. ' "If you knew where we were going, you wouldn't be so ready to turn back." Is that what she said?'

'Yes, that's what she said. And when I said, "Why? Where is Rotor going?", she said, "To the stars." '

'That can't be right, Crile. You knew they were planning to go to the stars, but she said, "If you knew where we were going-" There was something you didn't know. What was it you didn't know?'

'What are you talking about? How can anyone know what he doesn't know?'

Wyler shrugged it off. 'Did you tell this to the Office during the debriefing?'

Fisher considered. 'I guess not. I didn't even think of it till I started telling you the story about how I nearly stayed.' He closed his eyes, then said slowly, 'No, this is the first time I've talked about that. It's the first time I've let myself think about it.'

'Very well, then. Now that you think about it - where was Rotor going? Did you hear any speculations on Rotor about that? Any rumors? Any guesses?'

'The assumption was that it would be to Alpha Centauri. Where else? It's the nearest star.'

'Your wife was an astronomer. What did she say about it?'

'Nothing. She never discussed it.'

'Rotor sent out the Far Probe.'

'I know.'

'And your wife was involved - as an astronomer.'

'She was, but she never discussed it either, and I was careful not to do so. My mission would have been aborted, and perhaps I might have been imprisoned - or executed, for all I know - if I displayed an unhealthy curiosity too openly.'

'But as an astronomer, she would know the destination. She as much as said so. "If you knew-" You see? She knew and if you knew, too-'

Fisher didn't seem interested. 'Since she didn't tell me what she knew, I can't tell you.'

'Are you sure? No casual remarks whose significance you didn't note at the time? After all, you're not an astronomer and she might have said something you didn't quite get. Do you remember anything at all she said that set you to puzzling?'

'I can't think of anything.'

'Think! Is it possible that the Far Probe located a planetary system around one or both of the Sun-like stars of Alpha Centauri?'

'I can't say.'

'Or planets about any star?'

Fisher shrugged.

'Think!' said Wyler urgently. 'Is there any reason for you to think that she meant, "You think we're going to Alpha Centauri, but there are planets circling it and we're heading for those." Or could she have meant, "You think we're going to Alpha Centauri, but we're going to another star where we're sure there will be a useful planet." Something like that?'

'I couldn't possibly guess.'

Garand Wyler's generous lips compressed themselves tightly for a moment. Then he said, 'I'll tell you what, Crile, my old friend. There are three things that are going to happen now. First, you're going to have to undergo another debriefing. Second, I suspect we're going to have to persuade the Ceres Settlement to allow us the use of their asteroid telescope, and use it to inspect, very closely, every star within a hundred light-years of the Solar System. And, third, we'll have to whip our hyperspatialists into jumping a little higher and farther. You watch and see if that's not what happens.'