Heechee Rendezvous Part 7

And something like a wasp snarled past my left ear.

There are no wasps in Rotterdam. Then I saw Essie falling backward, and the door closing on her. It was not a wasp. It was a gunshot. One of those twirled weapons had held a live charge, and it had gone off.

I nearly lost Essie once before. It was a long time ago, but I hadn't forgotten. All that old woe welled up as fresh as yesterday as I pulled the stupid door out of the way and bent over her. She was lying on her back, with the sheaf of tied datafans over her face, and as I lifted it away I saw that although her face was b.l.o.o.d.y her eyes were wide open and looking at me.

"Hey, Rob!" she said, her voice puzzled. "You punch me?"

"h.e.l.l, no! What would I punch you for?" One of the counter girls came rus.h.i.+ng with a wad of paper napkins. I grabbed them away from her and pointed to the red-and-white striped electrovan with the words Poliklinische centrum stenciled on its side, idling at an intersection because of the parade. "You! Get that ambulance over here! And get the cops, too, while you're at it!"

Essie sat up, pus.h.i.+ng my arm away as cops and counter attendants swarmed around us. "Why ambulance, Robin?" she asked reasonably. "Is only a b.l.o.o.d.y nose, look!" And indeed that was all there was. It had been a bullet, all right, but it had hit the sheaf of fans and stayed there. "My programs!" Essie wailed, tugging against the policeman who wanted them to extract the bullet for evidence. But they were ruined anyway. And so was my day.

While Essie and I were having our little brush with destiny, Audee Walthers was taking his friend sightseeing around the town of Rotterdam. He had been sweating as he left me; the presence of a lot of money does that to people. The absence of money took most of the joy out of Rotterdam for Walthers and Yee-xing. Still, to Walthers, the hayseeds of Peggy's Planet still in his hair, and to Yee-xing, rarely away from the S. Ya. and the immediate vicinity of the launch loops, Rotterdam was a metropolis. They couldn't afford to buy anything, but at least they could look in the windows. At least Broadhead had agreed to see them, Walthers kept telling himself; but when he allowed himself to think it with some satisfaction, the darker side of Walthers responded with savage contempt: Broadhead had said he would see them. But he sure-h.e.l.l hadn't seemed very anxious about it .

"Why am I sweating?" he asked out loud.

Yee-xing slipped her arm through his for moral support. "It will be all right," she replied indirectly, "one way or another." Audee Walthers looked down at her gratefully. Walthers was not particularly tall, but Janie Yee-xing was tiny; all of her was tiny except for her eyes, l.u.s.trous and black, and that was surgery, a silliness from a time when she had been in love with a Swedish merchant banker and thought it was only the epicanthic fold that kept him from loving her back. "Well? Shall we go in?"

Walthers had no idea what she was talking about, and must have shown it by his frown; Yee-xing b.u.t.ted his shoulder with her small, close-cropped head and looked up toward a storefront sign. In pale letters hanging in what looked like empty ebon s.p.a.ce it said: Here After Walthers examined it and then looked at the woman again. "It's an undertakers'," he guessed, and laughed as he thought he saw the point of her joke. "But we're not that bad off yet, Janie."

"It's not," she said, "or not exactly. Don't you recognize the name?" And then, of course, he did: It was one of the many Robinette Broadhead holdings on the list.

The more you learned about Broadhead, the more likely you could figure out what things would make him agree to a deal; that was sense. "Why not?" said Walthers, approving, and led her through the air curtain into the cool, dark recesses of the shop. if it was not a funeral establishment, it had at least bought from the same decorators. There was soft, unidentifiable music in the background, and a fragrance of wildflowers, although the only floral display in sight was a single sheaf of bright roses in a crystal vase. A tall, handsome, elderly man rose before them; Walthers could not say whether he had got up from one of the chairs or materialized as a hologram. The figure smiled warmly at them, tried to guess their nationalities. He got it wrong. "Guten tag "he said to Walthers, and "Gor ho oy-ney," to Yee-xing.

"We both speak English," Walthers said. "Do you?"

Urbane eyebrows lifted. "Of course. Welcome to Here After. Is there someone near to you who is about to die?"

"Not that I know of," said Walthers.

"I see. Of course, we can still accomplish a great deal even if the person has already reached metabolic death, although the sooner we begin transfer the better-Or are you wisely making plans for your own future?"

"Neither one," said Yee-xing, "we just want to know what it is you offer."

"Of course." The man smiled, gesturing them to a comfortable couch. He did not appear to do anything to bring it about, but the lights became a touch brighter and the music dwindled a few decibels. "My card," he said, producing a pasteboard for Walthers and answering the question that had been bothering him: The card was tangible, and so were the fingers that handed it to him. "Let me run through the basics for you; it will save time in the long run. To begin with, Here After is not a religious organization and does not claim to provide salvation. What we do offer is a form of survival. Whether you-the 'you' that is here in this room at this moment-will be 'aware' of it or not"-he smiled-"is a matter that the metaphysicians are still arguing. But the storage of your personalities, should you elect to provide for it, is guaranteed to pa.s.s Turing's Test, provided we are able to begin transfer while the brain is still in good condition, and the surroundings that the surviving client perceives will be those which he chooses from our available list. We have more than two hundred environments to offer, ranging-"

Yee-xing snapped her fingers. "The Dead Men," she said, suddenly comprehending.

The salesperson nodded, although his expression tightened a bit. "That is what the originals were called, yes. I see that you are familiar with the artifact called Heechee Heaven, now being used as a transport for colonists-"

"I'm the transport's Third Officer," Yee-xing said, quite truthfully except for tenses, "and my friend here is her Seventh."

"I envy you," the salesman said, and the expression on his face suggested that he really meant it. Envy did not keep him from delivering his sales pitch and Walthers listened attentively, Janie Yee-xing's hand holding his. He appreciated the hand; it kept him from thinking about the Dead Men and their protege, Wan-or, at least, about what Wan was likely to be doing at that moment.

The original Dead Men, the salesperson declared, were unfortunately rather botched; the transfer of their memories and personalities from the wet, gray storage receptacle in their skulls to the crystalline datastores that preserved them after death had been accomplished by unskilled

When the programs and databases for the so-called Dead Men became available for study, my creator, S. Ya. Broadhead, was naturally greatly interested. She set herself the task of duplicating their work. The most complex task was, of course, the transcription of the database of a human brain and nervous system, which is stored chemically and redundantly, onto the Heechee datafans. She did very well. Not only well enough to franchise the Here After chain, but well enough-well-to create me. The Here After storage was based on her earliest research. Later on she got better-better even than the Heechee for she was able to combine not only their techniques but independent human technology. The Dead Men could never pa.s.s a Turing Test. Essie Broadhead's works, after a while, could. And did.

labor, using equipment that had been designed for quite a different species in the first place. So the storage was imperfect. The easiest way to think of it, the salesman explained, was to think the Dead Men had been so stressed by their unskilled transfer that they had gone mad. But that happened no longer. Now the storage procedures had been so refined that any deceased could carry on a conversation with his survivors so deftly that it was just like talking to the real person. More! The "patient" had an active life in the datastores. He could experience the Moslem, Christian, or Scientological Heaven, complete with, respectively, beautiful boys scattered like pearls on the gra.s.s, choirs of angels, or the presence of L. Ron Hubbard himself. if his bent was not religious, he could experience adventure (mountain-climbing, skin-diving, skiing, hang-gliding, and free-fall T'ai chi were popular selections), listening to music of any kind, in any company he chose... and, of course (the salesman, failing to estimate reliably the relations.h.i.+p between Walthers and Yee-xing, delivered the information without color), s.e.x. All varieties of the s.e.xual experience. Over and over.

"How boring," said Walthers, thinking about it.

"For you and me," the salesman granted, "but not for them. You see, they don't remember the programmatic experiences very clearly. There's an accelerated decay bias applied to those datastores. Not to the others. If you talk to a dear one today and come back a year from now and pick up the conversation, he'll remember it exactly. But the Programmed experiences dwindle fast in their memories-just as recollection of pleasure, you see, so that they want to experience them again and again."

"How horrible," said Yee-xing. "Audee, I think it's time we went to the hotel."

"Not yet, Janie. What was that about talking to them?"

The salesman's eyes gleamed. "Certainly. Some of them really enjoy talking, even to strangers. You have a moment? It's very simple, really." As he was talking he led them to a PV console, consulted a silk-bound directory, and punched out a series of code numbers. "I've actually be-come friendly with some of them," he said bashfully. "When things are slow at the store, a lot of the time I call one of them up and we have a nice chat-Ah, Rex! How are you?"

"Why, I'm just fine," said the handsome, bronzed senior citizen who appeared in the PV. "How nice to see you! I don't think I know your friends?" he added, peering in a friendly way at Walthers and Yee-xing. If there was an ideal way for a man to appear when he pa.s.sed a certain age, this was it; he had all his hair and seemed to have all his teeth; his face showed laugh wrinkles at the corners of his eyes but was otherwise Unlined, and his eyes were bright and warm. He acknowledged the introductions politely. Questioned about what he was doing he shrugged modestly. "I'm about to sing the Catulli Carmina with the Wien Staatsoper, you know." He winked. "The lead soprano is very beautiful, and I think those s.e.xy lyrics have been getting to her in rehearsal."

"Amazing," murmured Walthers, gazing at him. But Janie Yee-xing was less enchanted.

"We really don't want to keep you from your music," she said politely, "and I'm afraid we'd better get along."

"They'll wait," Rex declared fondly. "They always do."

Walthers was fascinated. "Tell me," he said, "when you talk about, ah, companions.h.i.+p in this, ah, state-can you have your choice of any companions you want? Even if they're still alive?"

The question was aimed at the salesman, but Rex spoke first. He was gazing shrewdly and sympathetically at Walthers. "Anyone at all," he said, nodding as though they shared a confidence. "Anyone living or dead or imaginary. And, Mr. Walthers, they'll do anything you want them to!" The figure chuckled. "What I always say," he added, "is that what you call 'life' is really only a sort of entr'acte to the real existence you get here. I just can't understand why people put it off for so long!"

The Here Afters were, as a matter of fact, one of the little spinoff enterprises that I was fondest of, not because they earned much money. When we discovered that the Heechee had been able to store dead minds in machines a light clicked. Well, says I to my good wife, if they can do it, why can't we? Well, says my good wife to me, no reason at all, Robin, to be sure, just give me a little time to work out the encoding. I had not made any decision about whether I wanted it done to me, when and if. I was quite sure, though, that I didn't want it done to Essie, at least not right then, and so I was glad that the bullet had done no more than puff her nose.

Well, somewhat more. It involved us with the Rotterdam police. The uniformed sergeant introduced us to the brigadier, who took us in his big fast car with the lights going to the bureau and offered us coffee. Then Brigadier Zuitz showed us into the office of Inspector Van Der Waal, a great huge woman with old-fas.h.i.+oned contact lenses making her eyes bulge out with sympathy. It was How unpleasant for you, Mijnheer, and I hope your wound is not painful, Mevrouw, as she was leading us up the stairs-stair&-to the office of Commissaris Lutzlek, who was a different kettle of fish altogether. Short. Slim. Fair, with a sweet boy's face, though he had to be at least fifty to have become a Princ.i.p.al Commissaire. You could imagine him putting his thumb in the d.y.k.e and hanging in there forever, if he had to, or until he drowned. But you could not imagine him giving up. "Thank you for coming in about this business in the Stationsplein," he said, making sure we had seats.

"The accident," I said.

"No. Regretfully, not an accident. If it had been an accident, it would have been a matter for the munic.i.p.al police rather than for me. So therefore this inquiry, for which we ask your cooperation."

I said, to put him in his place, "Our time is pretty valuable to be spent in this sort of thing."

He was not puttable. "Your life is even more valuable."

"Oh, come on! One of the soldiers in the parade was doing his twirling act, and he had a round in his gun and it went off."

"Mijnheer Broadhead," he said, "first, no soldier had a round in his gun; the guns are without firing pins in any case. Second, the soldiers are not even soldiers; they are college students hired to dress up for parades, just like the guards at Buckingham Palace. Third, the shot did not come from the parade."

"How do you know?"

"Because the gun has been found." He looked very angry. "In a police locker! This is quite embarra.s.sing to me, Mijnheer, as you can imagine. There were many extra policemen for the parade, and they used a portable dressing-room van. The 'policeman' who fired the weapon was a stranger to others in the unit, but then they were drawn from many detachments. Come to clean up after the parade, he dressed quickly and left, with his locker open. There was nothing in it but the uniform- stolen, I suppose-and the gun, and a picture of you. Not of Mevrouw. Of you."

He sat back and waited. The sweet boy's face was peaceful.

I was not. It takes a minute to sink in, the announcement that somebody has the fixed intention of killing you. It was scary. Not just being killed; that's scary by definition, and I can testify to how scared I can get when it looks like death is near, out of unforgotten and even repeated experience. But murder is worse than ordinary death. I said, "You know how that makes me feel? Guilty! I mean, I must have done something that really made somebody hate me."

"Exactly so, Mijnheer Broadhead. What do you suppose it could have been?"

"I have no idea. If you find the man, I suppose you can find the reason. That shouldn't be too hard-there must be fingerprints or something? I saw news cameras, perhaps there's even a picture of him on somebody's film-"

He sighed. "Mijnheer, please do not tell me how to conduct police routine. All those things are of course being followed up, plus depth interviews with everyone who might have seen the man, plus sweat a.n.a.lysis of the clothes, plus all other means of identification. I am a.s.suming this man was a professional, and therefore those means will not succeed. So we approach it from the other direction. Who are your enemies, and what are you doing in Rotterdam?"

"I don't think I have any enemies. Business rivals, maybe, but they don't a.s.sa.s.sinate people."

He waited patiently, so I added, "As to what I'm doing in Rotterdam, I think that's quite well known. My business interests include some share in the exploitation of some Heechee artifacts."

"This is known," he said, not quite so patient.

I shrugged. "So I am a party in a suit at the International Palace of Justice."

The commissaris opened one of his desk drawers, peered inside, and slammed it again moodily. "Mijnheer Broadhead," he said, "you have had many meetings here in Rotterdam not connected with this suit, but instead with the question of terrorism. You wish it stopped."

"We all want that," I said, but the feeling in my belly was not just my degenerating pipes. I had thought I was being very secretive.

"We all want it, but you are doing something about it, Mijnheer. Therefore I believe you now do have enemies. The enemies of us all. The terrorists." He stood up and offered us the door. "So while you are in my jurisdiction I will see that you have police protection. After that, I can only urge caution, for I believe you are in danger from them."

"Everybody is," I said.

"Everybody is at random, yes. But you are now a particular case."

Our hotel had been built in the palmy days, for big-spending tourists and the jet-set rich. The best suites were decorated for their tastes. Not always for ours. Neither Essie nor I was into straw mats and wood-block pillows, but the management moved all that out and moved in the right kind of bed. Round and huge. I was looking forward to getting a lot of use out of it. Not so much use out of the lobby, which was a kind of architecture I hated: cantilevered walkways, more fountains than Versailles, so many mirrors that when you looked up you thought you were in outer s.p.a.ce. Through the good offices of the commissaris, or anyway of the young cop he sent to escort us home, we were spared that. We were whisked through a service entrance, up a padded elevator that smelled of room-service food, to our own landing, where there had been a change in the decoration. Just across from our suite door there was a marble Winged Venus in the stairwell. Now it had a companion in a blue suit, a perfectly ordinary-looking man, studiously not meeting my eye. I looked at the cop escorting us. She grinned in embarra.s.sment, nodded to her colleague in the stairwell, and closed the door behind us.

We were a particular case, all right.

I sat down and regarded Essie. Her nose was still somewhat swollen, but it did not seem to trouble her. Still, "Maybe you ought to go to bed," I suggested.

She looked at me with tolerant affection. "For a bloodied nose, Robin? How very foolish you are. Or do you have some more interesting project in mind?"

It is a true tribute to my dear wife that as soon as she brought the subject up, my damaged day and my damaged colon to the contrary notwithstanding, I did indeed have something in mind. After twenty-five years you would think that even s.e.x would begin to get boring. My data-retrieval friend Albert had told me about studies of laboratory animals that proved that that was inevitable. Male rats were left with their mates and their frequency of intercourse measured. There was a steady decline over time. Boredom. Then they took away the old mates and introduced new ones. The rats perked up and went to it with a will. So this was established scientific fact-for rats-but I guess that I am not, at least in that sense, a rat. In fact, I was enjoying myself quite a lot when, without warning, someone shoved a dagger right into my belly.

I couldn't help it. I yelled.

Essie pushed me away. She sat up swiftly, calling for Albert in Russian. Obediently his hologram sprang into life. He squinted toward me and nodded. "Yes," he said, "please, Mrs. Broadhead, place Robin's wrist against the dispenser on the bedside table."

I was bent double, hugging myself against the pain. For a moment I thought I was going to vomit, but what was in my gut was too bad to be expelled so easily. "Do something!" cried Essie, frantically pulling me to her bare breast as she pressed my arm against the table.

"I am already doing it, Mrs. Broadhead," said Albert, and as a matter of fact I could appreciate the sudden sense of numbness as the injection needle force-sprayed something into my arm. The pain receded and became bearable. "You are not to be unduly alarmed, Robin," Albert said kindly, "nor you, Mrs. Broadhead. I have been antic.i.p.ating this sudden ischemic pain for some hours. It is only a symptom."

"d.a.m.n arrogant program," cried Essie, who had written him, "symptom of what?"

"Of the beginning of the final rejection process, Mrs. Broadhead. It is not yet critical, especially as I am already administering medication along with the a.n.a.lgesia. Still, I propose surgery tomorrow."

I was feeling better enough already to sit up on the edge of the bed. I traced with my toe the design of arrows pointing toward Mecca that had been worked into the rug for long-gone big-spending oil magnates and said, "What about tissue match?"

"That has been arranged, Robin."

I let go of my stomach experimentally. It didn't explode. "I have a lot of appointments tomorrow," I pointed out.

Essie, who had been rocking me gently, let go and sighed. "Obstinate maul Why put oft? Could have had transplant weeks ago and all this nonsense not necessary."

"I didn't want to," I explained, "and anyway, Albert said there was time."

"Was time! Oh, of course, was time. Is that reason to use time all up with fiddling and faddling until, oh, sorry, suddenly unexpected event takes place and time is all gone and you die? Like you warm and alive, Robin, not Here After program!"

I nuzzled her with my nose and chin. "Sick man! Get away from me!" she snarled, but did not draw away. "Huh! You feel better now."

"Quite a lot better."

"Good enough to talk sensibly and make appointment with hospital?" I blew in her ear. "Essie," I said, "I positively will, but not right this minute, because, if I remember correctly, you and I have some unfinished business. Not Albert, though. So you will please turn yourself off, old friend."

"Certainly, Robin." He grinned and disappeared. But Essie held me off, staring into my face for a long time before she shook her head.

"You Robin," she said. "You want me to write you as Here After program?"

"Not a bit," I said, "and actually, right now that's not what I want to discuss."

"Discuss!" she scoffed. "Ha, I know how you discuss... . All I wanted to say is, if I do write you, Robin, you bet in some ways I write you much different!"

It had been quite a day. It was not surprising that I didn't remember certain unimportant details. My secretary program remembered, of course, and so I got a hint when the service door to the butler's pantry opened and a procession of room-service waiters came in with dinner. Not for two. For four.

"Oh, my G.o.d," said Essie, striking her forehead with the back of her hand. "Your poor friend with face like frog, Robin, you have invited for dinner! And look at you! Bare feet! Sitting in underwear! Nekulturny indeed, Robin. Go and dress at once!"

I stood up, because there was no use arguing, but I argued anyway. "If I'm in my underwear, what about you?"

She gave me a scathing look. Actually, she wasn't in her underwear; she was wearing one of those Chinese things slit up the side. It looked as much like a dress as it did a nightgown, and she used it interchangeably for both.

"In case of n.o.bel laureate," she said reprovingly, "what one wears is defining what is proper. Also have showered and you have not, so do so, for you smell of s.e.xual activity-and, oh, my G.o.d," she added, c.o.c.king an ear to sounds at the door, "I think are here already!"

I headed for the bathroom as she went for the door, and lingered long enough to hear sounds of argument. The least expert of the room-service waiters was listening, too, a frown on his face and his hand reaching unconsciously toward the bulge under his armpit. I sighed, and left it to them, and headed for the bathroom.

Actually, it wasn't a bathroom. All by itself it was a bath suite. The tub was big enough for two persons. Maybe for three or four, but I hadn't been thinking in any numbers higher than two-though it did make me wonder just what those Arab tourists had liked doing in their baths~ There was concealed lighting in the tub itself, statuary surrounding it that poured out hot water or cold, a deep pile rug throughout. All the vulgar little things like toilets were in decorous little cubicles of their own. It was fancy, but it was nice. "Albert," I called, pulling a blouse over my head, and he answered: "Yes, Robin?"

There was no video in the bath, just his voice. I said, "I kind of like this. See if you can get me plans for putting one like this into the place at Tappan Sea."

"Certainly, Robin," he said, "but meanwhile, may I remind you that your guests are waiting?"

"You may, because you just did."

"And also, Robin, you are not to overexert yourself. The medication I gave you will be of purely temporary value, unless-"

"Turn yourself off," I ordered, and entered the main reception salon to greet my guests. A table had been set with crystal and china, candles were burning, wine was in a cooler, and the waiters were standing politely at attention. Even the one with the bulge under his arm. "Sorry I kept you waiting, Audee," I said, beaming at them, "but it's been a hard day."

"Have told them," said Essie, pa.s.sing a plate to the young Oriental girl. "Was necessary, as stupid policeman at door considered them likely terrorists, too."

"I tried to explain," grumbled Walthers, "but he didn't speak any English. Mrs. Broadhead had to sort him out. It's a good thing you speak Dutch."