Exceptions to Reality by Alan Dean Foster Read Free Book Online Page A

no one aboard the
Seraphim
wanted to sacrifice two years’ accumulated pay in order to make a point.
    No one challenged Surat as she made her way through the ship toward the Old Man’s quarters. The
Seraphim
was a sizable vessel, with a crew of several hundred. Everyone was too busy or too apathetic to confront her. They knew they had arrived at yet another system. There was no sense of excitement, no joy of discovery. Next week, the procedure would be repeated. As it had been now for nearly twenty-four months. As it might be for another twenty-four. No one wanted to think about it.
    Well, Anna Surat was thinking about it, and she intended to give full voice to her thoughts.
    There were guards posted outside Bastrop’s quarters. They had been there since Tyrone had mobilized them four months ago, when the first serious rumblings of discontent had begun to make themselves known among the crew. Everyone was aware that if Gibeon Bastrop died, his crazed quest across the cosmos would die with him, and they could all go home. No one had tried to hurry the process along—yet. Surat knew that they were hoping time and accumulating infirmities would do for them what none of them could do for themselves.
    She was admitted without having to wait. Depending on his mood and health, Gibeon Bastrop liked company. Long journeys in Void were lonely matters at best.
    She found him seated before his dog. At the moment, the obedient sphere was taking dictation. Bastrop pivoted his motile to greet her. As he did so he essayed the shadow of a smile. Once, that expression had charmed millions. Now it was all the Old Man could do to induce the muscles in his face to comply with the simple physical demand.
    “You’re looking well today, sir.” The polite mantra fooled neither of them.
    Bastrop waved the dog away. It drifted off to sulk in a corner, powering down as it did so. “I’m always up for a visit from an attractive woman, Anna Surat. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
    When was the last time he had a woman? she found herself wondering perversely. Does he even remember what it was like? So old—he was so old! If not for the dozens of doctors and billions of credits at his beck and call, he would have been dead thirty or forty years ago. Instead, he had bought himself an extra lifetime. And for what? So he could spend it like this, visibly decomposing in an expensive hospice motile that every month had to take over more and more of his own failing bodily functions? She resolved never to allow herself to be placed in such a situation. Not that she really needed to worry about it. She was about a hundred billion short of qualifying for that level of care.
    “Mr. Bastrop, I know that Shipmaster Tyrone has been to see you…”
    At her opening words his expression fell. His voice dropped to a raspy whisper. “Oh. That again. I was hoping…” His words trailed away.
    Hoping what? she wondered. That I was coming for the pleasure of your selfish, semi-senile company? She forced herself to smile engagingly, wondering even as she did so if he was capable of responding to such gestures.
    “You can’t subject us to this any longer, Mr. Bastrop. It isn’t reasonable. It isn’t fair.”
    From the depths of memory the parchment-like substance that formed his face twisted into a semblance of a grin. “The search for beauty is never reasonable or fair, my dear. Being beautiful yourself, you should know that.”
    Damn him, she cursed silently. She had been determined that nothing the aged industrialist did was going to affect her. But even the shadow of that smile was capable of lighting something within her. It was no comfort to know that it had done likewise to thousands who had been subjected to it before her.
    “You can’t distract me with words, sir.”
    “Pity.” He turned slightly away from her. “There was a time when I could have done so with a simple phrase. Long ago, that was.”
    Feeling sympathy in spite of