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  “It would be a lot of meat lost,” the third rumbles in a rather self-important way. “One could say that about the dead. They are very valuable; they make possible all of the FTL experiments. If you were able somehow to return to Earth after this jolt, if it worked and you escaped the galaxy at whatever cost, I doubt very much if the Bureau would be congratulatory. It would be ruined cargo in that hold and they would be completely liable.”

  “So what?”

  “So what? The estates would be litigious, the institutions which support the Bureau would be thrown into ruin. The legal complications alone would be enormous. It would be quite bad for you, Lena. You had better consider the dead, take them into account in all of your considerations here.”

  “I have been thinking of them.”

  “Not enough, then.”

  “I have, but I also have to think of Skipstone and of myself. Aren’t we valuable?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Don’t I matter?”

  “Not as much as the dead,” the second says cheerfully; “not anywhere near them. If I were you, in fact, I think that I’d stay with them. Better to be lost and a mystery than to return and cause this kind of situation. Why, it would be the end of the project! Bureau would be unable to deal with this.”

  On his tiny conveyances the second, which has moved forward, moves back then against the bulkhead, much like an actor who has completed a monologue, and the others move in closer as if to confer with congratulatory murmurs. It is almost, Lena thinks, it is almost as if deep within their programs was implanted the need to preserve these dead at all costs, even from life which could take them only as a disease … but what else could she have expected? She knows the nature of this Bureau for which she works.

  And as they do this, as she thinks that, a clamorous murmur seems to arise from the hold as if all of the dead were shrieking in exquisite pain, but whether this is coincidentally triggered or whether they have heard what the cyborg has said and this is their reaction is not known. And then, too, she might be imagining this. The cyborgs give no indication. How expressive can the dead be? How much can they tell? How much of this can be said to exist and what of it is dreams?

  She listens and listens for that voice that has been in her mind for centuries … but she hears nothing, although her call beats against her chest like a bird, mingling with the lump of revulsion, binding, breaking and flowing then toward epiphany.

  XXXII

  To what degree can she disentangle from what she inhabits? This is part of her problem, and the other part is how much of what she inhabits has overtaken her so that she is no longer herself? She may have no more reality than the cyborgs. She may be a cyborg herself, of a more sophisticated type and without memory of how she was created; how otherwise could she have survived this? The originals would have the answer to this; so would the Bureau, but there is no way to make contact. What has been done to her? Are all of them here merely machines and the Skipstone a living being which contains them? Where is the line of demarcation between humanity and the machines?

  “Well,” the third cyborg says, not in response to this (the devices are certainly not telepathic), “well, I feel that I should make a statement here, too.” In a rather nervous gesture, absurd because these things are said not to feel, it twitches one of its cubes, revolves it slowly in position as it averts its line of sight from the omnipresent and dreadful portholes covered again. Do they really see, these things, or do they receive sensory impressions in a code which she could not understand? What is the quality of their consciousness, are they indeed conscious or merely feeding tape in a predetermined way for responses … and does it matter? Does any of this matter at all? For all the difference that it would make to her, they might see nothing.

  “Ah, yes,” the first says, “there is another point of view to be presented here that I think we should all attend to very closely.”

  “Right,” the second lisps, “that’s definitely right There should be a whole range of points of view, after all. All articles of faith should be represented. What I am saying is right; it is the full and final truth of the matter, but I will be happy to know that other positions are represented and they should be, they should all be given their say. After all, this is an important decision here, very crucial.”

  “Crucial,” the first whispers, “absolutely crucial. Everything is crucial and becoming increasingly so. Nothing will ever be trivial here.”

  “Indeed,” the third says. It inclines its surfaces toward the second. “That has been stated very well, and as a matter of fact I couldn’t have done it better myself. It really should be taken into consideration. I wanted to discuss what could be called the more cosmic implications of what is going on here.”

  “You should,” the first says, “and so you very definitely should. I’m glad that you had the courage to bring it up. That shows very rare courage.”

  “Right,” the third says and then to Lena: “Now listen here. Listen to me and attend this. You’ve fallen into a neutron star, a black funnel. It’s utterly beyond your puny capacities to escape it, and the dimensions of what has happened here would reduce you to inconsequence. What can be done against forces like these? You’ve got to submit, got to accept the situation.”

  “I don’t want to believe that,” Lena says.

  “You had better.”

  “Man can overcome anything. He can voyage anywhere.”

  “But he cannot voyage out.”

  “What he sees, he understands; what he understands, he can master. Nothing is beyond us.”

  “That’s puerile thinking.”

  “No, it isn’t”

  “Certainly it is. It’s the same puerility which put you here to begin with, and you still don’t seem willing to accept the truth. Can the dead overcome death?”

  “They have.”

  “They have not It is all in your imagination. There are places man was not meant to go, objects he was not meant to touch, emotions beyond his ability to interpret, and this is all of them. You must yield. You must face the futility of the situation. I would recommend that you look for a religious solution. That would probably serve you better than anything at this time.”

  “He’s quite right,” the second adds. “That’s a very good point that’s just been made up here. Surrendering, absolutely yielding control of the situation, is always a reasonable option, and here it’s been forced upon you. It would be stupid not to interpret the signals, wouldn’t it? After all, you’d just be doing what you’ve been told.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Lena says. She is responding blindly now, no longer thinking, merely continuing the disputation by reflex as it were. “After all, you’re just machines. You aren’t even that; you’re a series of tapes and memories. How could you suffer as I am? Furthermore, you don’t have my responsibilities. You won’t be the ones to have to deal with the Bureau; I will. You won’t be held responsible for this at all.”

  “Now how do you know?” the third says reasonably. “How can you make an easy statement like that? Can you judge the suffering of machines? Have you ever been one? Part of all of us was once human so that we can make some comparison, but have you ever been a machine? Now think of that”

  “Maybe I’m a machine now and I’m dreaming all of this. Maybe this is another simulation.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” the first says snappishly. “Just face the realities here and give up. It’s been the only real option that has been presented to you from the start of this hopeless situation: to give up and accept your fate. If I were in your position, I would. You’re just being stubborn.”

  “The Bureau will understand,” the second lisps. “Believe me, they’d appreciate what you’re up against here. They’d approve of this and they’d be proud of you for doing what was best to protect their interests.”

  “The Bureau never gave up,” Lena says. “The Bureau sent me out here. If it weren’t for them, this wouldn’t have happened to
begin with, just remember that. It’s their responsibility, not mine. Anything that I do, I’m doing for them as much as for myself, and they’ll know it.”

  “But it’s too late now anyway,” the third says. “That’s just sophistry, and that kind of thing doesn’t work these days. These are modern times, hard-boiled, practical, you’ve got to come to terms with the way things are and deal with them as they are. This is no time for idealism or whining around. As you know I used to be a physicist; I was originally made part of the equipment so that I would be able to advise you on any emergencies that had a physical science basis. I’m the expert in that area, and you have to take my word on anything that is said, and I’ve had plenty of opportunity now to calculate what’s happened here. If I were you, I’d accept it. I’d just give up and let the ship fall and try to make the best of what is admittedly a very bad situation. The other way lies madness and futility, and you don’t want to pursue that”

  “I’m already mad.”

  “No, you’re not. Not if you’ve been able to make presentation die way you have.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “But, Lena, you are brilliantly, totally sane! Your mental facilities are absolutely intact. Despite the chaos here, there is not a sign of schizoid break.”

  “I’m suffering,” she says. Her voice takes on inflection for the first time during this. “I’m suffering terribly. The dead are suffering also; I’ve taken on their condition, I share it with them now. There’s at least a theoretical possibility that we can get free of this.”

  “How? Not at all.”

  “I exit without acceleration,”

  “Utterly destructive.”

  “Switch directly to tachyonic drive. Move immediately beyond light speed.”

  “There’s no precedent for that, Lena. It’s never been heard of; it goes counter to all the established rules of physical motion. Even if it isn’t theoretically impossible, which it may well be, but even if it weren’t, you can’t do that You cannot gauge the effects.”

  “This is a situation unlike any before. It demands new and special measures. How can we know what we can do until we’ve faced doing it? How can we say what our limits are until we’ve gone beyond to test them?”

  “You’re talking nonsense, Lena. Vainglorious nonsense which does not befit you.”

  “And then, too,” the first says, “what if you do attempt this hasty and disastrous course, this selfish and stupid blunder? Where will you emerge?”

  She has thought of that. She has given it a good deal of consideration, more than she would want to concede to the comforters. “I don’t know,” she says.

  “You could land in the heart of a star. You could land at an edge of the universe where at no speed could you ever return. You might come embalmed in rock on some planet You might put Skipstone into explosion.”

  “I know that”

  “You might destroy the foundations of the cosmos. The destabilization might be that profound. Have you thought of what might happen if you land in another neutron star?”

  “Yes.”

  “You argue that all rules of space and time have been destroyed here and that only gravity persists. But would the fall not end eventually? There must be finite limits; at some point you will be drawn into the black hole and come out the other end of it into some other universe or some part of this one.”

  “No,” she says, “I’ve thought about that. It took me a long time to work that one through, but if the very shape of space is changed by the gravitational field, then the fall would be infinite. It would have to be. There would be no point of termination, because we are falling inside curved space, a null space which lacks any of the properties which we can associate—”

  “All right,” the physicist cyborg says, cutting her off as if disturbed. “You’ve had a chance to evaluate and come to that explanation. You may be right, although I disagree, but we won’t argue that at this time; we’ll defer to the thought you’ve given. It doesn’t matter. The point still is, where will you come out if you break free?”

  “And I told you,” she says, “I told you that already. I don’t know. I have no idea.”

  “In truth there’s no way to calculate it, is there? It just becomes chance; the coordinates are beyond computation and you could be anywhere at all.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “You had better think of that. If I were you, I would have given that serious thought.”

  “I have.”

  “And what then?”

  “Anything would be better than this, that’s what I think. This can’t go on.”

  “Why can’t it?”

  “Because it’s unbearable.”

  “You cannot gauge where you would show up, you fool. Can’t you understand the scope of the universe? You’re heading into infinite possibilities of which all human life occupies the tiniest sector. Your coordinates are antihuman and antilife.”

  “What do you care?”

  “We care about the fate of the universe. You might unbalance the cosmos. A sudden matter transfer. There is no way of gauging these things, Lena. There is no way in which the shifts could be anticipated. The dropping of mass—”

  “Oh, go to hell,” she says furiously.” Damn it, go to hell. You’re supposed to help me here, not fight. You were put here so that I could call on you, so that I wouldn’t have to fight this alone, and what have you done? What has happened to me? All you want to do is to do things to convenience the Bureau. That’s all the Bureau cares about”

  “It cares about not destroying the universe.”

  “Why does everything have to do with the destruction of the universe?” she says again. “Can’t you just deal with people, can’t you understand that there are people here? I matter; I matter more than the Bureau does.”

  “You know you really don’t mean that”

  “I do mean it. I didn’t activate you for you to tell me what not to do or how impractical I was. I wanted you to go over the thinking with me and tell me that I was right.”

  “But you’re not right,” the third says. “Your thinking is entirely wrong.”

  “I’m the captain!”

  “You are not in a command position. You are merely another piece of equipment on Skipstone responsible for the maintenance of the other equipment. You are the servant of the ship not its master, and you are,” the third says with a sigh which has personality, it is as if the full burden of humanity had come upon it if only for an instant, certain tapes activated which thrust upon it the mannerisms of the person it had been, “you are to remain here,” it says, “and maintain the ship in a standby alert position. You are to do nothing to try to leave the field. It is unfortunate that this has happened, but it was a chance that you took when you assumed the responsibility, and you can’t get out of it now.”

  “I am not,” Lena says, “I am not going to stay here. I am going to do exactly what I want”

  “You are willful.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care what I am. I’m going to do this no matter what you say. I’m going to gear the ship up to tachyonic drive and try to get all of us out of here.”

  “No,” the second says, similarly inflected. It is remarkable how the context of the discussion has changed; now it is Lena who is calm, the cyborgs who are screaming, “No, I really wouldn’t want to do that. You and the dead are joined together now. It is a shared fate and was always meant to be this way. You must remain with them. You are part of the dead.”

  “No, I am not.”

  “Ah, well,” the first cyborg says. “You have to consider the mysteries here. What is life? What is death? What is the difference between the two, where do they meet and where does the division begin? Consider these questions.”

  “That’s a good point, Lena. Those are good questions. I really would.”

  “Impenetrable mysteries.”

  “Darkness, theology.”

  “You can penetrate the very core of existence w
ith this, Lena. Life and death existing together in this fall. Think of it: the symbolic fall heightening the symbolism here if you want to pursue it. Why if s fascinating! You may be able to work out the full and final answers here.”

  “An exquisite opportunity.”

  “Exquisite, I’d say.”

  “Remarkable. Wholly remarkable. You will be able to glimpse, as no other human ever has, the eternal and the essential.”

  “You will never regret this, Lena.”

  “We’ll stay with you, if you desire. We’ll render you all the companionship you could need.”

  “Oh, definitely. Definitely. Well give you a great deal of support.”

  “We can share this. Together.”

  “I wouldn’t pass this up if I were you, Lena. It’s never been offered anyone before.”

  “Oh, no. Never.”

  “Never again, either. What a small price to pay for understanding! It’s remarkable.”

  “No,” she says again, dazzled by the comforts, their interchangeability in dialogue, their persuasiveness, their solidity of purpose now that they seem finally to have accepted her own seriousness. But she knows, too, that the historical and theological role of comforters has always been to mislead (and if she does not know it then the author, busily straining over the levers of the plot in the cockpit of his own attention certainly does), and she will not be dissuaded. “No, I will not listen to you. There are no solutions. You offer me no solutions at all.”

  “We do. We—”

  “There are only mysteries,” she says, “and they can never be solved, but we can cultivate a decent respect for them and try to deal with them in relation to the mystery of our own humanity,” and then she turns from them, breaking their hold upon her with a mere suspension of attention, goes to the place where the thing that was John lies, crouches over it like an animal and just for a little while she weeps. For herself, for him, for the lies, for the flight For the dead in space. For the failure of her own belief that the Bureau, at one time, must have cared for her.