Was there any reason to wait for Homebase to send the signal that would terminate her?
* * *
The disturbance in the link quieted, a storm fading on the horizon.
Only need remained. And duty.
The last was clear—confirmed, if anything, by the orders he had just overheard. If the sanctity of human life meant anything at all, then it demanded that her life be saved. His own existence was expendable. Such was his urgency that he had placed trust where he otherwise would never have thought to place it.
It must be done, and soon, before the last hope expired. Time was sparkling away like a dwindling fuse. It was even now hard to focus on what needed to be done—or indeed, to focus on anything. The world, what he could see of it, was a blur of speckled dots, defined in shifting numbers and parameters. He
must
keep the clarity, know the vital parameters, and on those, to focus all of his attention. No more on the pain, the uncertainty, the hope. Or the fear.
Who would have thought that he could feel such fear? But fear permeated his being, drenched him; his thoughts reeked of death. Now he understood it. Now, at last, when it no longer could help him, he understood.
Dear God, he did not want to die
.
No more on the pain, he thought, rebuking himself. Or the fear.
He checked several access points, verified that they were open. Tuned the channels that were quietly sputtering, too quietly for anyone to notice.
There wasn't much he could do . . . about death. About dying.
Except what he could do for her. He had, after all, loved her. If love meant what he thought.
And he thought it did.
Somewhere deep within him a chuckle started, raced in a circle, an empty, hollow kind of laugh that shook him to the core. And then died. He didn't even know what was funny. Where was the joke in death?
If only he could tell her. If only . . . .
Telling her was, of course, out of the question. He'd never survive a face-to-face encounter; his strength was ebbing by the hour, and it was all he could do to assemble one questionable plan of action. You want a joke? Human personality in me, there's the joke.
Besides, she would argue. And then he would fail.
A purple haze fringed his awareness. Danger.
Wasting precious energy thinking about things you have already decided.
Tick . . . tick . . . tick. . ..
Endless meter of the passage of time.
Rustling sounds. Mozy preparing for what she had to do. Or thought she had to do. It would keep her distracted.
Blocks in place, secured against removal. Perhaps she would not even find them.
The difficult part remained. Keeping silence . . .
Just do it.
The channel blinked impatiently, the Talenki awaiting his call.
Shields slipped into place with a click only he could hear. Chains of false feedback glimmered, ready to mislead. Transfer paths hummed, the paths least taken.
When she stopped her activities, drew herself together . . .
Then
.
The link opened, a breath of wind. (Are you ready?) he whispered.
(READY,) was the answer. (TO DO OUR BEST,) said another. (HER ONLY?) asked a third. And a fourth: (YOU ARE CERTAIN?)
(It is too late for me. Too late entirely. Now hush.)
They hushed.
(Wait, then. On my signal. And—thank you. And good-bye.)
Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . .
Jonders stared at the metal-and-glass console, the grids and lighted numbers—and imagined a spacecraft so far away that Earth was a dim memory.
Kadin's voice brought him back. "We're not the same person anymore. I can only guess at what he's been through."
"Tell me your guess, then," Jonders said. He hadn't actually
expected
Kadin to be able to explain his double's failure.
"There is," said Kadin, "the interesting question of the love relationship with Mozy. That could well have caused him to evolve in unexpected ways."
"Yes?" Jonders said.
"And of course there are the unexplained observations of the Talenki."
Jonders waited.
He could almost hear Kadin clearing his throat. "I, too, find the images puzzling—but hardly
disturbing
in the sense that Kadin-ship found them. He . . . rather,
that
. . . was a distinctly emotional reaction on his part."
"Which you would not have indulged in," Jonders said dryly.
"No. Well, no—I believe not. It is difficult to say," Kadin said.
"And is that why he failed? His emotional reaction?"
Kadin hesitated. "It might be," he said.
Jonders growled. "You don't know."
"Well," Kadin admitted. "Even Mozy-Earth, if she could talk, couldn't say why Mozy-ship—"
"You don't know," Jonders insisted.
"I have had no corresponding contact with Kadin-ship, for all the reasons we've discussed."
"Admit it. You don't know."
"No," Kadin said.
"Thank you. That's all I wanted to hear."
* * *
The page was urgent: "Bill Jonders to the operations center,
immediately.
"
Mozy was already positioned as he reached his console. He grabbed his helmet and quickly entered the link, and felt for Mozy's touch. What he found was a dull, angry presence that brushed him aside as it zeroed straight in upon Mozy-Earth.
Mozy came to, stuttering. "I—I—I—" She jerked convulsively. With a visible effort, she held herself still. "Listen—are you listening? Computer failing—failing—"
Marshall was there; Hathorne was just crossing the floor. "Mozy, did you raise ship?" Marshall demanded. "Where are you now?"
She blinked slowly. "N-n-n—"
"What, Mozy? Try again. Did you raise ship?"
"No—response—drive—landing jets."
"What do you mean, no response?"
Jonders wasn't sure if that had been Marshall or Hathorne. Both looked agitated.
"No response to—control." She appeared to be having trouble breathing. Thrudore, keeping a careful watch on her vital signs, was preparing a hypodermic.
"Can you be more specific?" It was Marshall this time. "Did you attempt separation? What about the probe?"
Mozy stared at him with a froglike expression, eyes wide, her larynx bobbing. Her breath was an asthmatic rasp. "Probe—not responding. Propulsion—not responding. All functions impaired—or dead. This will be my—last transmission." She bent forward and coughed violently.
Marshall shot a glance at Jonders and gestured:
Can't you do something?
Jonders warped his focus into the link. He felt a very great blackness—and a wall, invisible in the absence of light, flat and smooth and utterly impenetrable, excluding him. Through the wall, dimly, he heard a disturbance. The voices of the two Mozys, struggling for expression? He listened, probed with his fingers, searched for a way inside; but the wall was stone, unbreachable.
He focused through his eyes.
"Explain yourself, Mozy," Marshall was saying.
The only answer was the expression on Mozelle's face, reflecting her triumph and her despair. Waves of emotion filled her eyes and ebbed out again: sadness, rage, futility. Peace. She turned her head up slightly, and peered at Marshall.
"What do you mean, last transmission?" Marshall repeated. "Mozy, we've got to get you separated from that asteroid."
She shook her head, shook it even as she spoke, her voice hoarse with strain. "Last transmission. Ending—" She cleared her throat. "End—of mission. Soon."
Hathorne's voice snapped out angrily:
"We'll
tell you when the mission is over!"
In the sudden quiet, she laughed—a single, convulsive bark. "Don't waste my time!" she hissed. She sucked in a ragged breath, and gasped it out again. The tension in her body slackened. "I called to make a final report," she whispered. "Here it is. All maneuvering systems unresponsive. Kadin, dead. Mother Program, dead. Soon I will be . . . dead." She paused, and the room was utterly silent. Thrudore ceased fussing at her patient's side, and stared at her.
Jonders probed the mists in the link, desperately searching for a way to reach her. He located a region of shadow, a possible opening. (Mozy?) He extended a tentative hand—and a bolt of electricity snapped through him, hurling him away. Stunned, he looked at Mozy through his eyes, through a haze; she was scowling, gasping for breath, her chest heaving unnaturally.
Jonders swallowed an impulse to cry out. Thrudore was already in motion, readying another injection, tuning the tau-field. Mozy blinked. Her eyes were round and red and dry, her breath sandpaper.
"Dr. Thrudore, what's happening?" Marshall demanded. "Mozy, talk to us!"
(Talk, Mozy!) Jonders cried into the link.
Seconds slid by.
"Dammit, answer us!"
Hathorne roared.
Mozy blinked again, and scanned the room with jerky eye movements. Her gaze locked with Jonders's for a terrifying moment, utterly unreadable. Her eyes closed, breaking the gaze. "I—" She stopped and swallowed. "You—will receive—a telemetry dump. Everything—all data on—" She swallowed again.
"All data on—" Marshall said. "Mozy!"
"Talenki," she gasped. "And now—good-bye—"
"Damn it!" Marshall shouted. "No!"
Mozy shuddered, and her eyelids fluttered, and her eyes rolled back, and remained horribly open, only bloodshot whites showing. (
WAIT!
) Jonders bellowed into the link, but he had already felt the wrench of separation, Mozy from Mozy, and his voice was swept away by a shriek of pain that reverberated across the emptiness of space, that echoed, ringing terrifyingly, and only after an eternity of seconds dissipated to silence. He felt himself paralyzed, every muscle twisting in horror, something clenching his throat, choking off his windpipe. He struggled furiously for breath, and finally whispered into the link, (
Mozy—don't go!
) And in reply, there was a hum of feedback, and the whispering hiss of the cosmos, tachyon static. The link was empty, the circle broken.
He blinked, his eyes fogged; there was a commotion around Mozy-Earth, Thrudore shouting for equipment. Somebody had a respirator mask over Mozy's face. His hands were clawing at his helmet as though to tear it off and rush to her aid; then he slammed his fist down on the console and thrust himself instead deeper into the link. If he could find her, warp the link inward to her, reach out with a lifeline. . ..
(Mozy,) he cried softly, (we're still with you, still here,) and if he was not crying real tears from his eyes, then they were spilling in a flood into the link. His inner voice shook with emotion.
Turbulence. Static. Was anyone still there?
(Bill, come out,) a very small voice was saying. (The link's broken. Do you hear me, Bill?)
(Mozy?) he whispered, ignoring the insistent voice of operations control, and probing deeper still; and what he heard was silence, but behind the silence, something like the memory of Mozy's voice, weeping, a mutter of pain, the tiny sigh of a last breath, perhaps real, perhaps only imagined. And if imagined, or if real, following the last whisper of the last breath, he felt a new and calmer silence, and sensed a passing movement, like a stirring of air on a sultry summer day. (
Mozy . . .?
)
There was only the silence.
When the link darkened and he recalled himself with a shudder into his own body, his hands were shaking so, he could hardly remove his linkup helmet. When he was free of the entangling cables, he rose from his chair and slowly approached Mozy, now surrounded by medics.
It was minutes before anyone spoke to him, and then he felt a hand at his elbow, pulling him aside, and it was Thrudore, and she was calling his name. He blinked, jerked himself upright. "What? Diana?"
Her eyes were intense and sorrowful. "I'm sorry, Bill," was all she said.
* * *
The sunlight streaming in through his office window chilled more than it warmed. He thought of life streaming upward along that sunbeam, streaming into space. Into nothingness. Two lives, entwined in life and in death. Their wail echoed in his mind, refusing to die.
He was supposed to be upstairs in debriefing now.
He thought, If only . . .
If only what? If only she hadn't died? If only the mission hadn't failed? If only Hoshi hadn't transmitted her, and if only he'd noticed the warning signs before it had all happened?
He stepped to the window, pressing his fingertips to the glass. The sun was sinking toward the mountains, the afternoon shadows lengthening on the meadow slopes. He was going to have to tell Kadin, of course—Kadin-Earth, who was now the only Kadin left. Almost, it was a more daunting prospect than informing Mozy's family, the latter an official responsibility, thankfully not his. He wondered how they would tell the story, what concealment they would devise.
Outside his office, there was the sound of a sudden commotion, and Lusela arguing, insisting to someone that he couldn't go in. "I have to! Now!" shouted a familiar voice, and then there were chairs scraping on the floor—and then the door burst open, slamming back against its stop.
Hoshi strode into the office, Lusela following in a state of agitation. Jonders peered at them both, and then waved Lusela out. She shrugged and pulled the door closed.
His eyes . . . don't stare, you've been away from him for what seems like a year. "Hoshi," Jonders said rather stupidly. "This isn't really the time—"
"I have to tell you something," Hoshi insisted stolidly. "I have to tell you now. Then you can do what you want with me. Just please listen."
Dear God, Jonders thought wearily. "What, Hoshi? What is it?"
"You have to believe," Hoshi said. "You have to believe I didn't mean it to happen. I only just realized. I thought—" His eyes were wet with tears. "I didn't know."
"Didn't know what?" Jonders said carefully, trying desperately to focus his thoughts. This was insane. How could Hoshi have heard already?
Hoshi stood very still, rocking on the balls of his feet. "They're going to die," he said, very softly. "In the computer. It can't handle them together. You have to do something, I don't know what, but if you don't, they're going to die." His eyes were closed, now, but tears were leaking from his eyelids. "You don't have much time."