“I thought you got kicked out of the astronaut corps,” Dannerman objected.
Jimmy scowled at him. “Well, I did. But I know what I saw, so I guess they reinstated me. Anyway, I wasn’t alone in the car, and I don’t know for sure where the two of us were going, but I think we were planning on having a pretty good time. Oh, and the language we were talking in was Chinese”
“What were you talking about?” Dannerman demanded.
Jimmy gave him the ghost of a smile. “What do you think we were talking about? It was a date, man!”
“Old reliable Lin,” Martin groaned. “Always right there with his gonads blazing.”
“Don’t be so envious,” Jimmy said, enjoying himself. “Let’s see, what else? It was maybe late afternoon, I think. Probably we were just coming from a shift at the base. I was kind of hungry, but I was also-well, Martin, yeah, I have to admit that I was feeling kind of horny, too.”
Rosaleen had been listening intently, but now she frowned. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is-assuming it’s true that they’ve planted bugs in our copies-how come we’re receiving anything from them? Dopey said they’d lost their communications.”
“Maybe only with the Beloved Leaders at their headquarters, wherever that is?” Patrice put in.
Dannerman nodded. “That could be it. Remember, Dopey also said something about using the Starlab equipment to track down the Omega Point man? He may not have contact with his Beloved Leaders, but apparently he still does with Starlab.”
Rosaleen considered that. “It sounds plausible,” she said, and hesitated. Then she reached for the helmet. “I think I would like to try another turn for myself.”
That made everyone quiet down. Jimmy handed her the helmet without a word. Rosaleen carefully settled it around her head and fumbled with the opaque goggles until they locked in position.
She was silent for a moment, while everyone waited. Then she removed the helmet again. “Yes,” she said in a colorless, conversational tone, “there is nothing there but blackness for me.” She handed the helmet to the person standing beside her, who happened to be Martin, and added, “I can think of only one explanation. There is no copy of me on Earth.”
“But we saw you being sent there in the Horch message!” Pat said worriedly.
Rosaleen did not respond to that, except to say, “I think I would like to rest for a while.”
Then a most surprising thing happened. Martin took the helmet from Rosaleen’s hand, but he didn’t put it back on. He laid it on the floor and, instead, took Rosaleen Artzybachova’s arm and helped her over to a position by one wall. He settled blankets around her until he was sure she was comfortable.
Patsy stared. Could this be Martin? For a moment she almost toyed with the thought that when they weren’t looking Dopey had somehow slipped a doppelganger general in among them in Delasquez’s place. Well, that was fantasy, sure; but to find General Delasquez caring for somebody else was almost as fantastic.
By the time he came back the others were gathered around the cooker-all but Jimmy Lin, who had seized the chance to get back in the helmet. Martin didn’t speak. He stood over the pile of rations, staring down at it, but making no move to take anything for himself.
Impulsively, Patsy spoke to him, keeping her voice low so that the others might not hear. “That was nice of you, Martin.”
For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. He reached down and selected a ration packet at random. Then he said, “My mother was like that. Quite old, but active, alert, in fact a very brilliant woman . . . until her sister died.”
“Her sister died?” Patsy repeated. The man was being even more difficult than usual.
He studied the packet for a moment, then slit it open with a thumbnail. “They were quite close,” he said. “Then afterward it was quite different for my mother. Her condition deteriorated very fast.”
He looked up at Patsy for the first time. “I see you don’t understand,” he commented.
“No. You’re right. I don’t.”
“But this must be very similar for Rosaleen. You see, there is no copy of Rosaleen on Earth, although we saw her being sent there. How can that be? Because, of course, the Rosaleen who returned to Earth has died.”
Died.
Patsy stole a look at Rosaleen, lying with her eyes closed and only a part of her face visible among the blankets. What could that feel like, losing one of yourself? Patsy tried to imagine how she would feel if Pat died, or Patrice, but she didn’t try for long. The thought hurt, with kinds of pain Patsy had never felt before.
Something else was troubling her, too. It felt like guilt. Rosaleen’s exposed face was gray. Although she had stood as erect as ever while they were talking, Patsy remembered that Rosaleen had been biting her lip, and when she turned away she had limped worse than ever.
That was where the guilt lived. It was her fault, after all-that is, it was Dr. Patrice Adcock’s fault-that the old woman was here in this place, a place that certainly was not a good environment for an ailing woman in her-what were they?-at least her nineties. Maybe more. Rosaleen had been comfortably retired to the leisure of her Ukrainian dacha, as at her age she had every right to be, until Pat called her in for this mad venture, with its even madder consequences. If she died as a result of all this-
Patsy finished her meal and lay down to sleep, hoping to blot out some of the things that were on her mind. She did not want to think of Rosaleen’s dying, and she was glad when at last she seemed to be drifting off to sleep.
The sleep didn’t last long; what woke her was another ground-shake-not big, but enough to rouse her. She opened her eyes in time to see the wall doing its magic trick. The bright mirror was streaked with glowing pink and red, the colors shimmering over the surface like oil on a pool of water. The display lasted for a dozen seconds; then the swirls of color disappeared. It didn’t turn transparent this time, and a moment later the wall was a bright and unflawed mirror again, and nothing had changed.
The others were all awake, Martin and Rosaleen standing by the cooker; Patsy covertly studied Rosaleen’s face, but it showed nothing but fatigue. Jimmy Lin was holding the helmet in his hand, his expression thunderous. “What a time to lose contact!” he cried; and, as soon as things had settled down again, hastily jammed the thing back on his head.
Patrice gave him an unfriendly look, then turned to Patsy. “I think the son of a bitch is getting laid in China,” she muttered. “Did you get enough sleep? I took another turn while you were out and I was-we were-still in that jail, and nothing was happening. Except that I was dressed and sitting in the chair. Just sitting there, with, I guess, nothing to do. Martin did a little better, though.”
“I will tell her,” Martin said. He fished a ration packet out of the cooker, juggled it a moment in his hands before passing it on to Rosaleen and made sure that the old lady was able to handle it before he told Patsy what he had observed. He had been standing at a lectern at the front of a briefing room, while some other astronaut at another lectern was going over a 3-D virtual of the interior of Starlab. “It didn’t look the way we saw it when we were there. It was, I imagine, the way it had been before Dopey’s people rearranged it. And every once in a while someone would ask me if that was how I remembered it, and I said yes.” He hesitated. “That isn’t the truth, of course. I must have been lying to them. But I didn’t^/like I was lying. And that guard with the gun was sitting right behind me.”
That was interesting, but Patsy had nearer concerns. She drew some water from the tank and rubbed it over her face, then used the space they had set aside as the latrine, leaving the others to argue with Martin as to how he could tell whether or not his copy was lying. She didn’t listen. She was thinking about Rosaleen-and thinking, too, at the same time, that splashing a few drops of water on her face was all well enough, but, God, what she would give for a real bath. Not to mention some clean clothes. Not to mention-well, everything that made civilization worth having.
By the time she was as presentable as she had any way of getting Jimmy Lin was out of the helmet and his face wore a broad grin. “That,” he announced, “was great. Listen, I’m not one to kiss and tell, but-“