He said patiently: “If you recall, Robin, some years ago the Dead Man the woman, that is-from what is now the S. Ya. Broadhead led us to believe that this phenomenon had something to do with an act of the Heechee. We discounted this at the time, since there seemed to be no reason for it.”
“I remember,” I said, only partly untruthfully. I did remember that Albert had had the wild idea that for some reason, not specified, the Heechee were collapsing the universe back to its primordial atom, so as to bring about a new Big Bang and thus a new universe with somewhat different physical laws. Then he had changed his mind. He had surely explained all the reasoning to me at the time, but I had surely not remined it. “Mach?” I said. “Something about this fellow Mach? And somebody named Davies?”
“Exactly right, Robin!” he applauded, beaming on me with delight. “Mach’s Hypothesis suggested a reason for doing it, but Davies’s Paradox made it unlikely that the reason would work. Now Beckfurt has shown analytically that Davies’s Paradox need not apply, only assuming that the number of expansions and contractions of the universe is finite!” He got up and roamed around the room, too pleased with himself to sit still. I could not see what he was rejoicing over.
“Albert,” I said unsteadily, “are you telling me that it may be so that the universe is coming crashing around our ears, and we’ll all be squeezed into-what do you call it?-phloem?”
“Exactly, my dear boy!”
“And this makes you happy?”
“Precisely! Oh,” he said, coining to a halt at the doorway and gazing at me, “I see your problem. It will not happen soon. A matter of at least some billions of years, to be sure.”
I sat back, staring at him. This new Albert was going to take some getting used to. He did not seem to notice anything amiss; he was babbling on happily about all the half-baked notions that had been pouring
Robin did not quite understand Davies’s Paradox, but then he didn’t even understand the more famous Olbers’s Paradox, which bothered astronomers way back in the nineteenth century. Olbers said: If the universe is infinite, there should be an infinite number of start That means that we should see not individual stars in a black sky, but a solid dome of starlight, blinding white. And he proved it mathematically. (What he didn’t know was that the stars were grouped into galaxies, which changed the mathematics.) So a century later Paul Davies said:
If it’s true that the universe is cyclical, expanding and contracting over and over, then if it is possible for a little bit of matter or energy to stay out of the crunch and cross over to the next universe, then in infinite time that leftover light would increase infinitely and we’d have an Olbers sky again. What he didn’t know was that the number of oscillations in which a little bit of the energy was left out was not infinite. We happened to be in the very first of them.
in on him ever since the awards were announced, and what interesting notions he had thought of because of them.
Thought of?
“Wait a minute,” I said, frowning, because there was something I didn’t quite understand. “When?”
“When what, Robin?”
“When were you doing this thinking? You’ve been turned off, except when we’ve been talking-“
“Exactly, Robin. When I was ‘turned off,’ as you put it.” He twinkled. “Now that Mrs. Broadhead has provided me with a hardwired, built-in database, I do not cease to exist when you dismiss me, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“And it is such a great pleasure to me, you have no idea! Simply to think! All of my life it is what I have most wanted. As a young man I would weep for the chance to sit and only think-to do such things, for example, as reconstructing proofs of well-known mathematical and physical theorems. Now I can do it very often, and so much more quickly than when I was alive! I am deeply grateful to your wife for this.” He cocked an ear. “And here she is coming again, Robin,” he said. “Mrs. Broadhead? I have just remembered to express to you my gratitude for this new programming.”
She looked at him in a puzzled way, then shook her head. “Dear Robin,” she said, “I have something I must tell you. One moment.” She turned to Albert and shot three or four fast Russian sentences at him. He nodded, looking grave.
It takes me a long time to see what is before me sometimes, but by now it was evident. Something was going on that I should know about. “Come on, Essie,” I said, alarmed, and even more alarmed because I didn’t know what I was alarmed about. “What’s happening? Has Wan done something?”
She said soberly, “Wan has left Gateway, and not a moment too soon, to be sure, since is in trouble with Gateway Corp and with many others as well. But is not of Wan I wish to speak. Is of woman I observed in my shop. She did closely resemble, dear Robin, woman whom you loved before me named Gelle-Klara Moynlin. So close that I thought perhaps a daughter.”
I stared at her. “What-How do you know what Klara looked like, anyway?”
“Oh, Robin,” she said impatiently. “Twenty-five years and I a specialist in data retrieval. You think I would not arrange to know? Know her exactly, Robin. Every datum on record.”
“Yes, but-she never had a daughter, you know.” I stopped, suddenly wondering if indeed I would know. I had loved Klara very much, but not for very long. It was quite possible there were things in her history she had not got around to telling me.
“Actually,” said Essie apologetically, “first guess was maybe she was your own daughter. Only theory, you know. But was possible. Could have knocked lady up, you know. But now-“ She turned to Albert questioningly. “Albert? Have completed search?”
“I have, Mrs. Broadhead.” He nodded, looking grave. “There is nothing in Gelle-Klara Moynlin’s record to suggest she ever bore a child.”
“And?”
He reached for his pipe and fumbled with it. “There is no question about the identity, Mrs. Broadhead. She checked in two days ago, with Wan.”
Essie sighed. “Then,” she said bravely, “is no doubt at all. Woman in shop was Klara herself, no impostor.”
At that moment, trying to take in what I had been told, what I wished for most in the world, or at that moment most urgently at any rate, was the soothing, healing presence of my old analysis program, Sigfrid von Shrink. I needed help.
Klara? Alive? Here? And if this impossibility was true, what should I do about it?
It was easy enough for me to tell myself I owed Klara nothing I had not already paid. The coin I paid in was a long time of mourning, a deep and abiding love, a sense of loss that even three decades had not entirely cured. She had been taken away from me, across a gulf I could not span, and the only thing that made that bearable to me was that I had finally come to believe that it was Not My Fault.
But the gulf had somehow spanned itself. Here she was! And here was I, with a well-established wife and a well-ordered life, and no room in it for the woman I had promised to love exclusively and always.
“Is more,” said Essie, watching my face.
I was not keeping up with the conversation very well. “Yes?”
“Is more. Wan arrived with two women, not one. Second woman was Dolly Walthers, unfaithful wife of person we saw in Rotterdam, you know? Young person. Weeping, eye makeup smeared-pretty young woman, but not in pretty frame of mind. U.S. military police arrested her when Wan left without clearance, so I went to talk to her.”
“Dolly Walthers?”
“Oh, Robin, listen to me, please! Yes, Dolly Walthers. Could tell me very little, though, because MPs had other plans for her. Americans wanted to take her to High Pentagon. Brazilian MPs tried to stop them. Big argument, but Americans finally won.”
I nodded to show I was comprehending. “I see. The Americans have arrested Dolly Walthers.”
Essie studied me sharply. “Are you all right, Robin?”
“Certainly I’m all right. I’m only a little worried, because if there’s friction between the Americans and the Brazilians I hope it doesn’t keep them from putting their data together.”
“Au,” said Essie, nodding, “now is clear. Could tell you were worried about something, was not sure what it was.” And then she bit her lip. “Excuse me please, dear Robin. I am a little upset, too, I think.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, twitching irritably as the anisokinetic mattress poked at her. “Practical matters first,” she said, frowning. “What do we do now? These are alternatives. One, go off to investigate object Walthers detected, as planned. Two, attempt to discover more information about Gelle-Klara Moynlin. Three, eat something and get good night’s sleep before doing anything else-for,” she added reprovingly, “must not forget, Robin, you are still somewhat convalescent from major abdominal surgery. I personally lean toward third alternative, what do you think?”