Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten

Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten - Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

The scoop glowed past the thin gasps of the upper atmosphere and pushed on into the waking night of space. Behind was an endless explosion of earthshine. In front, the chilled crescent of the Moon.

Just as Don Andrews had foreseen, the empty ferry was waiting for them in orbit. Tarni docked to it, and she and Don Andrews went aboard. Then the cargo was transferred, including supplies that would be needed in Backdoor, and three new simultron couches, compliments of Synapse. Tarni's own couch from the wingscoop was also moved to the ferry, and hooked into the ferry's sensors. I had delivered these couches to the plantation a month before. They were leftovers from Synapse's last production run.

The ferry was ready to leave orbit for Backdoor, as soon as the cabin was transferred containing their only passenger, the artist.

The durable old engines began to lift the ferry out of orbit, and the two halves of the hull pulled apart, tightening the cord that leashed them to each other. As if circling to an ancient duel, they wound a spiral towards the Moon. Their windowless skins were studded like a Viking's armor with crystal eyes, droplets of frozen glass that pulled the stars to focus.

Within the warmth and softness of his cabin, Sand heard his seat say, "You may remove your seatbelt." He had worn it since I closed the door at the plantation, and all the while the cabin swayed and banged this way and that. But not until he finally was allowed to stand did he feel cramped in his new quarters. These consisted of a bedroom, bathroom, food rations strapped to the shelves, and a real bed. Not since childhood had he slept in a bed. Still not having recovered from his month's ordeal, he collapsed upon it, and soon was sleeping soundly.

The cabin door was locked when he awoke, and so, it seemed he was to spend the journey by himself. He relieved himself, washed, ate some strange tasting fruit paste from a jar, and began to pace. Finally, out of boredom, he began systematically exploring the walls, floor, and ceiling of his cabin. Eventually he stumbled across a lever hidden below the molding of a shelf. The heavy cabin door slid open, and he wandered out of the passenger's compartment into the main hold of the ferry.

The first door he tried there opened, and he found a room which seemed to be the pilot's cabin. Screens showing their course and destination covered the walls. Sand studied the charts, especially the enlargements of Backdoor. A cross section of the rim was displayed, with the ferry port built half way down the outer lip. The ferry was displayed as already having docked, and Sand marveled at the closeness of the fit. The ferry had clearly been designed specifically for Backdoor, because it did not simply dock. Rather it became enmeshed into the hallways of the town.

Backdoor itself was burrowed many levels deep, from an observation porch at the top of the crater's rim, to the lowest level almost even with the floor of the crater. A long tunnel sloped down from the ferry port, all the way through Backdoor, to the big room labeled cathedral. There, facing the inner lip, huge doors opened onto the crater itself, where the finished vessels were wheeled out.

The diagram depicted the surface of the crater as perfectly flat, the mirror of Weissenbaum's Eye. Geological profiles showed the deeper layers in which the lava cooled after the flash of Weissenbaum's device.

Sand continued to explore the room. A couch had been hastily installed. It was the first couch he had seen for more than a month. After Mara's insistence on breaking with the medium, he was surprised to find one on the ferry.

Following some curious instinct, Sand lay down. The couch was still warm. Someone had just been there. Nervously Sand looked around, and then closed his eyes. What was he doing here? Hadn't he just spent a very unpleasant month breaking with the couch? He would only stay a moment. He was curious what this couch was like.

There were two choices of programs. One was an interactive takeoff and landing simulator. The program, which had been left at the beginning of the landing mode, showed an aerial view of the plantation. It was primitive by Benjamin Holly's standards, but quite beautiful really, swooping down over the green circles that looked like lily pads in some gigantic pond. Sand recognized the lush farmlands of the plantation as they must have been in their prime, plant life lapping and sprouting in the water. Down the middle stretched a runway, where Sand tried to land but failed, crashing into the water. Evidently it took some practice.

The second, and only other program on this couch was different from anything Sand had ever used. Instead of responding to his imagination, there was just one view, that from the sensors on the skin of the ship.

Just then he heard footsteps, and he quickly got up to return to his cabin, but not quickly enough.

"What are you doing in here?" Sand turned around to see a pretty young woman. He had seen her face before. But where?

"Your door was supposed to be locked," she said.

"I figured out how to open it," Sand replied, only slightly apologetically. "Are we the only ones on this ship?"

"No, Don Andrews is in the other hull. You found the lock?"

Then he remembered. Don Andrews. This woman was the young colonist Benjamin Holly had pointed out at Carrie's Cuisine. Now, on this ship, she no longer seemed like such a timid child, but more like Weissenbaum's granddaughter. However, Sand was not so easily intimidated.

"You know something?" he volunteered. "That program of the plantation is fun, but it could use some..."

"Now look," Tarni interrupted him, "I don't know why Don Andrews wants you with us in Backdoor, but he must have his reasons. That doesn't mean I have to put up with you breaking into my cabin."

"Your door wasn't locked," Sand politely protested.

Tarni seemed unwilling to discuss the point, but just stared at Sand as if he were quite possibly a freak and certainly a nuisance.

Sand decided to ignore it. "Anyway, that flight simulation game could be much easier, if you introduced..."

"It's not a game," said Tarni, her pride secure, her eyes quite cold. "And it's fine just the way it is. If I need your help, artist, I'll ask for it."

The word 'artist' had been spoken with such vehemence that, in defense, Sand's own indignation clicked into gear. "At least I didn't try to wipe out a major city," he said. And then, seeing Tarni's face show such pain, he regretted having said it, and tried to make light by changing the subject. "Listen, I'm hungry. Where do we eat? And would you mind if I use this couch a bit from time to time, when you're not on it, of course?"

He smiled, but Tarni did not. He explained, "I don't have much else to do, and it's been quite a long time since I've used one." He wondered just how serious his own addiction was, that he could still miss the couch. Why did they have one here anyway?

"All right," she conceded, though still appearing annoyed. "I'll leave my door open when I go up to the bridge. But you eat in your cabin. The meals are planned out that way."

So, over the next few days Sand ate by himself, and it occurred to him to wonder why he had to eat alone, just because his rations were stored in his cabin. But he only went back to Tarni's room when she was elsewhere, to try the programs, especially the one from the ship's sensors. In fact, Sand spent most of the remainder of the journey in this peculiar view.

He opened himself to the universe, as the slow enormity of space gave time to think. The stars spun in their unending sequence, and try as he might he could not change the program one small bit.

Out there, with not a hand to hold before his face, or even eyes to be behind, Sand became pure perception. He was sizeless. He felt as though he could juggle the planets, or spit all the way to the stars. But he had no muscles, and his will and thoughts had no effect. It was strangely peaceful.

From the door of her cabin, Tarni watched the young man on the couch. With his eyes closed he seemed more genuine, and even handsome. She slipped away so as not to disturb him, or let herself be seen.

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