C H A P T E R
7
JIM DID GO BACK TO HIS QUARTERS. AND HE DID SLEEP‑FOR
about seven hours. At the end of which time he woke up feeling terrible generally, but very happy for reasons he could not, in the first minute or two, remember. Then he recalled the long wait in Mollen's office and what had happened after the general had showed up; and his sensations of feeling terrible settled down to the recognition that he was merely very hungry, ready to eat anything digestible‑in large quantities.
He checked his wrist‑com. It was midafternoon. He got up, showered, dressed and went to the Officers' Club, where he found the menu available at that hour to consist only of sandwiches. He proceeded to eat perhaps a dozen of these and wash them down with several bottles of ginger ale‑no great amount, but the food and drink together in his stomach acted on him like knockout pills. He made his way heavily back to his quarters, undressed and fell asleep again . . . and this time
he slept until after five‑thirty the following morning.
His body had become used to running. It wanted to get out and move, but he was once again as hungry as a bear in spring. He had breakfast, put aside the desire to run and went directly to Mary's lab.
"Credentials, sir?„
73
74 / Gordon R.
It was a different face beyond the transparency, but the uniform and the routine were as usual. Except that this time, for the first time in months, there were no lab workers waiting to take him off for their eternal tests. He showed his credentials.
"You'll have to wait for the Head of Lab, sir. If you'll take a seat, she ought to be here in the next ten or fifteen minutes," said the guard.
He found a hard seat on a bench built into the wall across from the transparency. He grinned. From cooling his heels in Mollen's outer office to cooling his heels in Mary's surveillance entrance. That was progress.
It was, however, nearly three‑quarters of an hour before
Mary showed up. Jim did not care. He was this far and he did
not intend to move unless they carried him out. When at last
Mary did come in from the street, she had Mollen with her.
"Told you he'd be here at the crack of dawn!" said Mollen. If Jim had not been feeling so happy, he might have allowed himself a small sense of injury. Dawn had been a good three hours earlier.
"I'm sorry I haven't had more time to talk to you myself all these past months," Mary said directly to Jim. She looked at him, he thought, sympathetically. "You've lost weight."
"Nonsense!" said Mollen. "He's in top shape. Aren't you, Jim?"
"Yes sir. Top shape," said Jim. He grinned at Mary. Today he even loved her.
"Come along." Mary and Mollen showed their credentials to the guard in movements that betrayed an infinity of repetitions.
"Please go on in, ma'am, sirs."
Mary led them through the inner door, and for the second time Jim stepped into the enormous room that he had looked down into only from galleries for nearly twelve months. It was the same as it had been, the last time he had seen it. The plastic tent was still in place. But Mary led them to it, pulled back a flap of the plastic and let them into the enclosed interior which was lit by its own lamps hanging just under the fabric of its roof.
By that light, the two ships Jim had seen on his first trip
here still lay, side by side. La Chasse Gallerie was still a
THE FOREVER MAN / 75
slashed and broken wreck. AndFriend was also exactly as she had been when he had last seen her. Or was she? She looked the same but there was an air about her as if she had just been washed or, at least, dusted.
All Jim's emotions called on him to head for her closed entry port at a run. But he was almost superstitiously afraid of something going wrong with his new right of access to her if he even showed his eagerness to be back inside her.
"She looks good," he commented, stopping because Mary and Mollen had both stopped, a good ten paces from either ship.
"She's been updated," said Mollen. "You're going to have to learn a lot of new things about her. And no, you can't go aboard her now."
Jim had half‑expected it, but the disappointment nonetheless was like a fist, hard, in the face.
"Oh?" he said, "When can 1, then, sir?"
He looked at Mollen and then at Mary.
"You'll need some retraining first. We've got a special job for you to do," Mary answered. "That's one of the reasons AndFriend's been improved the way she has. I'm afraid it could be a few weeks or more yet=
"A few weeks!" In spite of his good intentions, the words, in just the tone he had told himself he would avoid, popped out of Jim's mouth.
"I'm afraid so." Mary turned. "Come along to my office, where we can talk."
They went out through a flap in another side of the tent and crossed the open floor to the bottom level of offices in the tower. Mary entered one of these, which had a trim, whitehaired lady behind a desk, and chairs set up plainly for visitors, chairs which were presently empty.
"There've been a number of phone calls," said the lady.
"No calls for a little while yet," said Mary. "Tell anyone with urgencies it'll be an hour or so before I can start making calls back. Come on, Jim, General."
She led them to an inner office which was spacious, with a desk even larger than Mollen's and padded chairs even more comfortable and spacious than those in the general's office But every available surface in the office except the floor itself was stacked with papers, and the chairs did not face the desk
76 I Gordon R. Dickson
as they had in Mollen's private office, but were in a rough circle facing each other.
Mary took one of these, the general slipped into the one next to her, and Jim took one across from the two of them.
"Do you want to talk to him first, Louis?" said Mary to the general. "Or shall I?"
"I'll say a few words first," Mollen answered. He looked hard at Jim. "Jim, we've got plans to send you into space farther, faster, and for a longer time than anyone human‑except Raoul‑ever went. But it's not going to be easy."
"I didn't sign up for the Frontier thinking any part of it'd be easy, sir," said Jim. "Where's this you want me to go?"
"That, you won't be told until just before you're ready to leave," said Mollen. "But I'll tell you this much. You're going out around Laagi territory, and your ship's been adapted accordingly. For one thing we've gone back to fusion engines for her."
"Fusion?" said Jim.
Fusion engines had been discarded newly forty years before when an improved fission engine design made them no longer necessary. The drawback to fusion engines was that there was no possible way to shield them completely in something as small as a fighter ship; they had caused some bad physical effects in the pilots that flew ships with them, the least of which had been guaranteed sterility after a relatively few number of missions.
"You're going to make a‑Raoul Penard out of me, then, are
you, sir?" said Jim, grinning. ‑
"I wish we could," answered Mollen somberly. "Believe me, if it was possible for me to snap my fingers and turn you into something like Raoul, I'd do it. But we still don't know how his mind got into the actual nonliving body of that ship of his, and maybe we'll never know."
Jim himself sobered. He had automatically assumed that they would not be sending him out in a fusion ship unless they could do so safely, without the harmful effects the older ships of that type had had on their pilots. For the first time it oc‑ to him that the mission might be important enough so that they would expect him to put up with the effects. He thought of the paper he had signed in Mollen's office.
"It's not as bad as you may be thinking, Jim," said Mary.
THE FOREVER MAN / 77
"We haven't found out how Raoul Penard became part of a
Ship, and I don't know when we will. I'm sure some people
will someday‑that is, provided Raoul stays around long
enough. But while we haven't answered that question, we've
found out a number of valuable things we didn't know before.
Things that'll make your mission possible."
"What things?"
"I'm sorry," Mary answered. "1'm going to have to answer you pretty much the way Louis just did, when you asked where you'd be going. You'll get answers to most questions like that only when you've reached the point of needing to know. Everything about this is as secret as it's possible to make it. Specifically, in answer to what you just asked, you'll be finding out about these things as we work with you to get you ready for the mission."
"I can tell you a little more," said Mollen. "Most of the
past year's been spent trying to find out what happened to
Raoul from the last time the other pilots in his Wing saw him
to the time we picked up his signals coming back through
Laagi territory. But we know now he found something, in that
time. Wherever he went, he ended up by finding something
very interesting there; and our guesses about what it is are
secret as hell. But we're pretty sure it's beyond the far side of
Laagi space territory‑in the other direction. Down‑galaxy."
"And I'm to go see what it was and come back to tell you?" Jim said.
"That's about the size of it," said Mollen. "Something else. We can't be sure, but we think he was‑that is, La Chasse Gallerie, with him being part of it, was‑actually in Laagi hands for a while."
"They had him?" Jim stared. "What makes you think that?"
Mollen looked at Mary, who nodded. A procedure that jarred on Jim, slightly, since it seemed to him it should be the other way around.
"We've found a route of communication, so to speak, with him, with Raoul," Mollen said. "Or rather, with what there is of him, which is mainly memories. The problem's been that he suppressed the bad memories and remembered only the good ones. But Mary's people did finally find a way to stimulate him to remember some of the things he'd rather forget
78 I Gordon R. Dickson
and one of those was of being on the surface of a planet, and examined by Laagi."
Mollen stopped, and looked at Mary again. She took over the conversation, briskly. "Possibly they had him on show there, in a sense. At any rate, we finally got him to reminisce about it, but what we could learn was limited. The trouble is, as you know, the part of his mind that came back isn't capable of direct communication. The best we can do is stimulate him to talk out loud to himself. So the most we achieved that way was to prod his memory about this, and listen while he relived it, in his own mind."
"But that could be quite a bit," said Jim.
"It was. But with parts missing. Tantalizing parts," Mary said.
The arch of her eyebrows straightened out as the inner ends of them came together in a small frown when she concentrated. Jim had had a third grade teacher who had done the same thing.
"He was talking to himself, so he only referred to things that happened. He didn't describe them or spell them out in any way. We can be fairly sure that for a while at least, he was essentially a Laagi prisoner. They'd be as fascinated as we are with the question of how a ship could absorb the mind of its pilot. They're probably the ones who removed his dead body for examination. Which means that now, if they didn't before, they're one up on us by knowing what we're like physically; and, since Laagi ships always destroy themselves if it looks like they're going to be captured, we still don't have any idea of their physical make‑up."
"But you said he got away from them," prodded Jim, more interested in what Raoul had done than in what the Laagi might have found out about him.
"Well, probably," said Mary, "they didn't realize he could move the ship with his mind alone‑and that's something else we also haven't yet found out; how he could do that. But his engines had almost certainly been destroyed before the Laagi got him; and so it undoubtedly took them by surprise when he suddenly simply decided to go home, lifted off from wherever he was, and headed back."
Jim shook his head.
THE FOREVER MAN / 79
`This. . ." he began and ran out of words. "How does this all tie in with me?"
"As I say," said Mary, "we've found a way to stimulate his memory . . . ."
She touched one of the keys on her desk top console and they heard sounds of bird songs, leaves rustling in the wind, branches creaking against each other and, under all, the chuckling of running water.
"What we did was record noises from up around the part of Canada where he grew up as a boy," she said. "It was a sort of sonic, or if you like the word better, electronic way of medicating him, so he'd tell us what he remembered. From what we heard, we isolated more and more sound‑cues until at last we were able to trigger off memories like the one that we think refers to his being in Laagi hands."
Jim nodded, still unsure about what this might have to do with him.
"We'll be using a developed version of the same techniques to put your mind as much in touch with his as possible," Mary went on.
"We want you to be able to think like Penard‑think as if you were him," said Mollen.
"At the same time," said Mary, "we're going to use a variant of the same techniques to put your mind and mine as much in touch as possible. Now, with living human bodies like the two of us have, we can be given chemical medication by already established means=
She broke off, pressed a button of her desk console and spoke into the communications grill beside the console.
"Ola," she said, "has Dr. Neiss come in yet?"
The voice of the white‑haired lady said something unintelligible from the grille.
"Dr. Neiss?" said Mary sharply. "He's not there yet?"
More unintelligible response from the grille.
"Well, call me when Dr. Neiss gets here." Once more the emphasis on the title of "doctor" could be heard in Mary's voice. `"Thanks, Ola. Yes. No, that's all right. Just remember to announce him as I said."
She looked from the grille back at Jim and Mollen.
"Dr. Neiss is someone you'll meet in a moment, Jim. He'll be taking care of you from now on. You go to him for any
80 / Gordon R. Dickson
thing medical‑even if it's just a finger you cut on a piece of paper opening an envelope."
"You hear that, Jim?" said Mollen. "That's an order. Come to think of it, you'd better remember that anything Mary tells you to do from now on has the effect of a military order from me."
"Yes sir," said Jim. "But‑"
He broke off, went back and tried again.
"Forgive me," he said to Mary, "but I don't understand why you and I need to have our minds put together, or however you say it?"
"Simply so I can monitor your contact with Penard as fully as possible‑" She broke off as the speaker grille on her console made noises again.
"Yes?" Mary said. "Well, send him in, then."
The door from the outer office opened and a short, thin man in his late twenties or early thirties, with straight black hair and a sharp face, walked into the office. He leaned a little forward with his upper body as he walked, as if he would pugnaciously make the most of his height.
"This is Dr. Amos Neiss," said Mary. Jim got to his feet, uncertain as to how he should greet the newcomer. Neiss came up to him and they shook hands. Neiss's grip was firm and energetic to the point of nervousness, like the rest of his appearance.
"So you're Jim Wander," Neiss said. His voice had a slight upper East Coast edge to it.
"That's right," said Jim.
They sat down, Neiss in the chair at Jim's right.
"I take it we're ready to go, then?" Neiss asked Mary.
"Ready, yes," said Mary. "That doesn't mean we can start
in the next five minutes‑"
The speaker grille interrupted her again
"Oh yes," said Mary to it. "I forgot to tell you I'd asked
him to come in this morning, too. Send him in."
The door opened once more. This time the man that came in was large‑framed and a little overweight, even for his size. His face was square and blunt‑nosed, under graying brown hair.
"Colin, take a seat, will you?" Mary said, with more warmth in her voice than when she had introduced Neiss.
THE FOREVER MAN / 81
"This is Jim Wander. Jim, this is Colin Eastoi. He'll be sitting
at my desk here while I'm spending time working with you
and the doctor."
Colin walked heavily over to shake hands with Jim and
take the chair on Jim's other side.
"So," he said. He had an unexpected bass voice that
seemed at odds with his easy‑going face. "We're all ready to
start?.,
"That's what Amos was just asking," answered Mary. "So
I'm glad you're here. How soon can you pick up the reins for
"Right this moment, if you want," said Colin. "My depart
ment's been running itself for the past few weeks. Oh, you'll
have to bring me up‑to‑date on the last twenty‑four hours or
so, I suppose, if there's things there I've got a need to know."
"We can do that the rest of today," said Mary. "Tomor
row‑"
She switched her gaze to Amos Neiss.
"‑we'll begin the lab work, Jim and I, with you," she
said.
"I could make some preliminary tests on Colonel Wander
today," said Neiss. "That way‑"
"No, I don't think so," said Mary. "He's a human being
and he needs a little time, just like the rest of us, to make the
transition. What you can do is have lunch with him and lay
out our work schedule for him, so if he has any suggestions,
he can make them. Jim‑you've got to give this work your
wholehearted efforts. So if there's something about what
Amos has in mind you don't like, ...
Januszek66