"The critical thing now," Snyder was saying as Ruskin walked into the satellite control area, "is to frame to within a few seconds the time we want to hit the thing. We can still do some throttling at the end, but—" He paused and glanced up at Ruskin. "Willard! Man, we thought you weren't going to make it! What happened? Have you brought yourself up-to-date yet?"
Ruskin smiled automatically; it was practically a habit now. Snyder, yes—he remembered—part of the group he'd once worked with. Astroengineering type. A builder. Now a gateway builder. "Um—only partially," he answered. Then he added, in an attempt to sound more reassuring, "But I'm covering ground fast."
"Good. Sorry to yank you away from your review. But time is short, short, short." Snyder was a straw-haired man, lanky and pale, with blue eyes. His mouth twisted in thought. "I don't know why in hell that data didn't get to you weeks ago. But anyway, the string's approaching faster than we'd predicted, so we had to speed up the core crunch a bit. We're going through the oxy burn pretty fast and—"
"Ah-hah. I need to go over that data, then," Ruskin said, stalling.
"What the hell have you been doing? Look, for some of these projections, we might have to juice the Beetle in about forty hours," Snyder said worriedly. "Sure, we want accuracy—why else bring you here to diddle the equations for us? But we've got to have a number soon. Real soon." He nudged his display controls for a moment, then looked up. "Accuracy won't count for much if we blow the window, right?"
"Righto." Ruskin tried not to let his thoughts show as something new became clear to him. The equations, yes: they were imprecise and difficult to work with. And that had been his special gift: understanding the dynamics of an oscillating hyperstring joined to a black hole. He'd been correlating the probable path of the gateway through various star populations between here and the center of the galaxy. The present path of the hyperstring could be tracked well enough, but how its motion and elasticity would change under an abrupt new stress was a matter of conjecture; and it was a critical question. Even with the most rigorous analytic techniques available, it was a little like tossing dice to chart the course of a new highway across the greatest wilderness in history. Better to have some idea of how the dice were loaded than to shoot blind. And he, Willard Ruskin, was the one who knew the most about how the dice were loaded.
But did he still know?
((I think you do, Willard.))
New images formed in his mind, released from their captivity somewhere in the lost realms where Dax and the terrakells wandered. And there it was: laid out like a chessboard, the equations and the metrical representations of n-space over which he had pored for months. Years, maybe. Before the NAGs, these computations must have been a part of his daily consciousness. How had they gotten buried so deeply? Dax and the terrakells knew.
But did he know the equations well enough to make a statement now?
Memories were sliding into place even as the question hung poised in his mind. "There are several possibilities," he murmured. He pointed at the display. "Are these the tracking figures?" Snyder nodded. Ruskin closed his eyes, calculating mentally—astounded to find that he could do so. Numbers dissolved, coalesced, danced, crystallized. "The earliest would require core-collapse in . . . roughly forty-one hours. That's the earliest, not necessarily the best." His heart pounded. That soon? He had indeed nearly missed it then; much later and he would have arrived in the heart of the thing. Did he know what he was talking about? He was breathing quickly now . . .
Snyder sat back, ran his fingers through his hair. "That's nice, at least we're in agreement on that. But we've got to get it tighter than that. We've got the last batch of sats ready for deployment, and they'll be controlling all the rest for the final squeeze."
"So—"
"So their programming has to be laid in within—I'd say, twenty hours from now, at the latest."
Thalia stepped over from another console. "What's your outside time, Willard?"
Head thrumming, he closed his eyes. Would the answer come? Numbers danced, gleaming; and images of changing shapes and stresses. "The last window closes in about sixty-four hours, I think. That would be the tail end of the acceptable cusp." He opened his eyes. "Subject to string measurements. That one has a larger margin of uncertainty."
Thalia's dark eyes bored into him. She seemed unsatisfied. "How far along are you in your review?"
He shrugged; the movement made him dizzy.
"It seems to be taking you quite a while," she said.
"I was a bit unsettled—but it's coming together." His throat was constricted; he spoke thickly, urgently. "I could do it faster if I had Ali'Maksam helping. There are differences in the system—"
Thalia frowned, turned away. "I'll see what I can do," she said abruptly. "If it's what you need."
His breath released a little. "It would help. Also, since a lot of my analysis was run on my own thinktank, I'd like to pass these updates through my shipboard system, to check for inconsistencies."
"All right. And . . . your other friend?" Thalia wasn't looking at him. She seemed to be finding something intensely interesting on the console.
"Tamika."
"Right. Tamika." Thalia pressed something on the console. Snyder had pushed back to give her room; he was listening, head cocked. "Does she need to see this material?"
"I guess not."
Thalia nodded. "Okay. Did you want separate accommodations, by the way?" She looked up. Her eyes were unexpressive, but he heard the unspoken inner question.
He drew a soft breath. "Together will be fine. We could stay right on the ship, actually."
Her pupils seemed to contract, but otherwise her face didn't change. "That won't be necessary. We'll give you quarters." Her attention returned, businesslike, to the console. After a few seconds, she added, "You can go finish up your review if you want. Can you find your way back to your work station?"
Ruskin nodded thoughtfully. Yes, he murmured. He could find his way back.
* * *
It took him hours longer to complete the review. By the time he was finished, he felt as though he'd been operating on automatic forever: the data flowing in from the station's cogitative system mingled in a kind of chemical synthesis with the aquifers of memory emerging from his mind, and the resultant understandings produced a turbulent flow in his brain, here completing a circuit of comprehension and there enclosing cells of confusion that rose like bubbles in a carbonated stream. It all seemed distant to him; there was a buzz in the back of his head that kept him from quite connecting with the sensations entering his mind, whether from the outside or from his memory. It was a stream of knowledge flowing past, devoid of emotional content.
Concluding, finally, that he had studied as much as was useful, he removed from the console a data-storage sliver which he'd filled for transfer to his shipboard system. He took several deep breaths, then turned off the privacy-screen. Around him in the control room, people were working intently, monitoring sun, satellites, and approaching hyperstring. He left the control room and walked with some uncertainty through the corridors until he found his way back to the docking wing. A security officer told him that Max and Tamika had moved into the visitors' residences. Asking the officer to inform his friends of where he was, Ruskin boarded Enigma in its docking pocket and began loading the new data into the shipboard console.
An hour later he was seated on the bridge, flanked by Ali'Maksam, questioning the console. "First, can you tell me if the analytical systems that I gave you originally are consistent with the ones I've just loaded?" He glanced at Max, who was watching impassively. Max had just been granted a "special observer" clearance that allowed him to witness this. Tamika, on the other hand, had been barred from boarding the ship until the console was again secured.
"Indeed I can, sir," the console said. "They are compatible—at least in part."
"What do you mean, in part?" Ruskin asked.
"Portions of the two systems are identical; but there are gaps in the original files. Without specific knowledge, I would judge that the original files were damaged—that is, that selected parts of them may have been erased."
"Any other differences?"
The console was silent for a moment. "Yes, there are several areas where, I would say, certain inconsistencies suggest that refinements have been made in the analytical technique."
Ruskin was puzzled. "Oh? Which version was refined?"
"The version that you loaded in flight, sir. Shall I show you the comparison?"
"Please do."
As the screen flickered with columns of coding, Max stirred. "The refinements look like your handiwork," he whispered.
Ruskin shot him a glance. "Do you understand all of this?"
"The equations? No. But I do recognize the style of your work, Willard. Your signature is in the form of the changes."
Ruskin watched the screen for a moment longer, before saying, "Please hold there."
"As you wish." The image froze.
Ruskin turned to the Logothian. "Max. Have you been observing me?"
Max's eyes gleamed behind their visor. "In what sense?"
"Empathically. My behavior, my demeanor. The flow of my thought."
"Superficially, of course. But Willard—you know that I would not deep-probe you unless you asked me to." He tilted his head, so that his eyes seemed to slant toward Ruskin.
"Max—I want you to keep a close watch on me from here on out." And as he said it, he wondered, do I really mean that? Do I really want anyone to know what's going on inside me? But how else to know? "If you can, would you tell me now—take a look and tell me how I seem to you? Do I seem to be thinking . . . like myself?"
"Very well." Max gestured toward the lights.
Ruskin extinguished the bridge lights and reduced the screen intensity to a bare minimum. Then, as Max opened his visor, he asked the console to continue displaying the information. As he watched, he tried to forget the Logothian motionless in the gloom, and concentrated solely on the analytic structures being displayed. Again he found himself absorbing—and to a surprising degree, understanding—the flow of information. But again he was emotionally disconnected from the understanding that was building in his mind. He could see that he had, in previous months, taken an analytic method used by the Breakstar group and improved upon it. And then, perhaps during his blackouts, he had sabotaged his own work. But even now he had no real sense of why, of how he felt about it.
After the thinktank had completed its comparison, he ordered it to construct a new analytic tool, using as many of his refinements as could be combined with the Breakstar group's version. He wanted to perform a new timing analysis to see whether his refinements would produce a meaningfully different solution, a different shape for the gateway.
"As you wish, sir," the system replied.
Ruskin stared at the dark console. Something was puzzling about that voice, something familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. Probably imagining things. He sat in silence until Max spoke, startling him.
"You seem more confident. You seem to have regained a considerable fraction of your memory and intellectual faculties, and also your sense of having your memory back. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of all of your recall—however, I am surprised, and joyful for you, Willard." Max regarded him thoughtfully in the dark.
Ruskin blinked back at him. "And do you find that the person you sense, that the personality that you sense, is the same as the Willard Ruskin you knew before?"
Max hesitated. "Willard, none of us is the same person today as yesterday."
"You know what I mean, damn it."
Max let out a slow, hissing breath. "The answer is yes. And no."
Ruskin tilted his head jerkily. The feeling of uncertainty . . .
"It is difficult to describe. You are calmer, I believe, than you have been. And you are more intact, in the sense that parts of your memory that were missing are back. And yet . . ."
He waited. The pause was unbearable. "What, Max?"
"You are still at war with yourself," Max whispered. "You are struggling to gain and hold understanding. But you are on shifting sands. Your certainty appears and slips away. You fight to retain what you recapture—and some part of you struggles to let it go again."
Yes.
"You are trying hard, Willard."
"Am—" he fought for breath—"am I winning?"
Max eased his head back. "I do not know. I can only hope."
Ruskin blinked again, found his eyes welling with tears. Am I ever going to know who I am? "Max," he murmured, "I must know this: Can I trust my analytical faculties? Can I do my job here?"
The Logothian did not move. "I am not expert in that area, Willard."
"But you're an expert on me. You know my consciousness." His voice was becoming strained. "Do I have the capabilities I had before?"
Max was motionless, except for his breathing. At last, as Ruskin was about to speak again, he said, "I believe so, Willard. I believe I would trust your scientific judgment as much now as ever. Does that help?"
Ruskin gulped a breath; his eyes and lungs were burning. "Yes. Yes, Max. Thank you."
The Logothian gazed at him silently. He snapped his visor closed.
But Ruskin was looking inward, for his other confidant. (Dax, is he right? Should I believe him? Am I all still here?)
((About your scientific abilities? You seem to have become functional, yes.))
(And the rest? My personality? Am I still struggling to put myself together?)
((You know the answer.))
(But am I all here, blast you?)
((Yes, Willard, you're all still here. And so are we. We're all still here.))
All. Of course. The NAGs. Still here. Unfriendlies and all.
* * *
"Are they ever going to let me out into the station?" Tamika had her fists knotted; she was struggling to contain her frustration.
It seemed as though they had been apart for weeks, rather than hours. Ruskin touched her cheek, wishing he could smile. "They're working on your clearance, Twig. But I'm afraid . . . they don't consider a companion as vital as a scientific collaborator. Pretty stupid, huh?"
"Who's 'they'? That hostile bitch you introduced me to? What was her name?"
He nodded, turning absently to inspect the tiny quarters they had given Tamika. They'd assigned him a different cabin; it seemed the order to put them together hadn't come down. Still, the room was pleasant enough, if utilitarian. "Thalia," he murmured. "Her name's Thalia."
"Oh yeah. Thal—" Tamika's voice cut off in the middle of the name. Astonishment, then bitter understanding, came over her face. "Thalia Sharaane?"
"Right." Ruskin turned back to her, surprised by her tone. "Thalia Sharaane. She's the Director of Astrophysics here."
"Is that Thalia Sharaane, your ex-lover?" Tamika's tone was modulated, carefully controlled.
Ruskin swallowed. He didn't remember having told Tamika about Thalia. But, of course, there was no reason why he wouldn't have, back in the still half-forgotten days when he and Tamika had come to know each other, had grown close. "That's right," he said huskily, and felt a sudden urge to laugh. They were such opposites, Thalia and Tamika. For all of her competence, all of her intellectual achievements, Thalia was in many ways a perennially frightened girl, jealous and possessive. Tamika, who had never quite learned to believe in her own worth, carried more warmth in her vulnerability and puzzlement than Thalia ever had. And he? He had fallen for both of them.
"Jesus." Tamika turned half away from him, her mouth twisted in a scowl. "Did she know about me?" Her eyes flashed back to him. "Or is she always like that with other women?"
Conflicting impulses caught him halfway through a shrug, a smile. "I suppose she felt jealous—even after all this time. She has a streak of that in her, I'm afraid."
"I guess she does."
Half nod; he finally managed to swallow. "Hey—Twig?"
Troubled, frightened, angry golden eyes met his, narrow slits that drove from his thoughts whatever it was he had meant to say. Her eyebrows quivered. "My name . . . is Tamika," she growled.
His lips trembled. "Twig—you're the one I love now." He said it so softly, he wasn't sure whether or not she'd heard him.
Her pupils widened slowly; she placed her hands on his shoulders, touching lightly. "Yeah?" she whispered. "You say all the right things. But can you prove it?"
He drew her close, felt himself rising. "I think so," he murmured into her hair.
Her arms went around his neck, hugging tentatively. "Do you know my name?"
"Uh-huh. Twig."
"Tamika."
"I want you, Twig." And he remembered now, though it seemed so long ago, how much he did love her, had loved her.
Her arms tightened their embrace, her lips whispered, "I want you, Rus'lem."
Stumbling to the bunk, they made love with urgency and haste, not knowing who might interrupt them at any moment. He thought he had never felt closer, more desirous of her, more certain that he would be torn from her before the consummation of his desire. He was not; but when he climaxed, moments before she did, his mind was suddenly filled by an image of a great red exploding star seeding the universe, and a premonition, almost an ecstatic vision, of new life being reborn out of cataclysmic death. And in the afterglow, lying together with this woman who now seemed almost nameless to him, not needing a name, his thoughts turned to icy clarity and filled with answers to questions he had ceased asking. The equations of n-space shifted and hardened in his inner vision, and shifted again; and focused in their perfection and framed by their imperfection, he saw clearly the mapping that must be. He saw precisely the moment that the supernova must begin.
As the coverlet rose and fell slowly over Tamika's breast, he gently stroked her hair until he was certain she was asleep. Then he slipped silently out of bed and dressed. He needed to talk to Thalia at once.
If only they would answer
There had been that flurry, the breath of new voices; and yet it could not touch them, could not find them again
Can you hear ?
Do you know ?
Are you me ?
It had to know. They were different, those voices, each different. Never had Bright felt so uncertain, so needy; Bright had to know
Bright's fires rang
Bright's fires echoed
But nowhere came an answer
I will wait
I must wait
Can you speak ?
answer
please