MINDBRIDGE by Joe Haldeman
MINDBRIDGE by Joe Haldeman
Contents
1 – Blessed Are the Peacemakers
2 – Autobiography 2062
3 – Personnel Report
4 – Roster
5 – CHAPTER ONE
6 – Biospheres: Classroom 2041
7 – CHAPTER TWO
8 – Geoformy 1
9 – The Levant-Meyer Translation
10 – CHAPTER THREE
11 – Bridge 1
12 – CHAPTER FOUR
13 – Insurance Manual
14 – The Slingshot Effect
15 – CHAPTER FIVE
16 – Autopsy
17 – Schedule
18 – CHAPTER SIX: PRELUDE
19 – Fugue
20 – Coda
21- To the Marriage of True Minds Admit Impediments
22 – Sing Nonnie
23 – CHAPTER SEVEN
24 – Geoformy II: Access to Tools
25 – Carry the Seed
26 – Autobiography 2051
27 – Touch Me Not
28 – CHAPTER EIGHT
29 – They Also Serve
30 – Nine Lives
31 – Crystal Ball I
32 – Help Wanted
33 – CHAPTER NINE
34 – Numbers and Dollars
35 – Autobiography 2053
36 – Things That Go Bump in the Night
37 – CHAPTER TEN
38 – Second Contact
39 – CHAPTER ELEVEN
40 – Autobiography 2053 (continued)
41 – All I Know Is What I Read in the Papers
42 – CHAPTER TWELVE
43 – Job Description
44 – CHAPTER THIRTEEN
45 – Messenger
46 – Autobiography 2034
47 – CHAPTER FOURTEEN
48 – Psychiatrist’s Report
49 – CHAPTER FIFTEEN
50 – Mindbridge
51 – Crystal Ball II
52 – Autobiography 2149
53 – For They Shall Be Called the Children of God
1 – Blessed Are the Peacemakers
Denver pissed him off.
Jacque Lefavre had managed a long weekend pass from the Academy, and at the last minute decided to go to Denver instead of Aspen. It looked like rain.
Indeed it rained in Denver, bucket after cold bucket, time off at midnight for sleet. In Aspen, he learned later, it had been eight inches of good powder snow.
He went to the Denver Mint and it was closed. So was the museum; government holiday. He went to a bad movie.
He was walking along with his overcoat open and a cab splashed him from collar to cuff. Traveling light, he’d brought no other outer clothes.
The hotel’s one-hour dry cleaning service took twenty hours. They wouldn’t admit they’d lost the trousers.
He drank too much room-service booze, sitting in his room watching daytime TV in his underwear.
When he got his uniform back, they had neglected to roll the cuffs. He would have to re-iron them when he got back to Colorado Springs.
The desk clerk would allow him neither student discount nor military discount. He had to shout his way all the way to the assistant manager, and then they only gave him the reduced rate to get rid of him.
The train broke down and was six hours late. He stomped his way through the sleeping dormitory, in mild trouble for coming in after curfew, and smelled fresh paint when the elevator stopped at his floor.
His roommate had painted their room flat black. Walls, ceiling, even the windows. Jacque had painted the room at the beginning of the semester, to cover up the government green. Now he discovered a curious thing.
There was a limit to rage.
“Uh, Clark,” he said mildly. “What, you didn’t like beige?”
Clark Franklin, his roommate, was stretched out on the bed, chewing a toothpick and studying the ceiling. “Nope.”
“Personally, I thought it was rather soothing.” He felt deadly calm but abstractly realized that his fingernails were hurting his palms. He stood at the foot of Franklin’s bed.
Franklin shifted, crossing his ankles. He hadn’t looked at Jacque yet. “Chacun à son goot.”
“’Goût.’ I don’t like the black very much.”
“Well.”
“You should have asked me first. We could have arrived at a compromise. I would’ve helped you paint it.”
“You weren’t here. I had to paint it while I had the time free.” He looked at Jacque, lids half closed. “The beige was distracting, I couldn’t study.”
“You lazy son of a bitch, I’ve never seen you crack a book!” A neighbor thumped the wall and shouted for them to keep it down in there.