Worlds Enough and Time by Joe Haldeman Read Free Book Online Page A

of the Privy Council and Coordinators: we wanted to be remembered as saviors, not as aggressors. They could have nuclear weapons again in a generation or two. The next time they might do a more thorough job.
A second example is
Newhome
itself. Only thirty-nine percent were in favor of building it; a solid majority felt the money would be better spent in rebuilding the Worlds.
The executive decision was that
Newhome
was necessary for several reasons. One was spiritual, or I suppose you would rather say “emotional”: we had to direct people’s aspirations outward. If we spent twenty years just licking our wounds and glaring resentfully down at the Earth, we might never regain anything like normal relations with them again. Even now, there’s a strong isolationist sentiment, as you surely know.
O’H ARA :
Especially the Devonites.
I MAGE :
Another reason, as we discussed openly, is simple insurance for the human race. If there’s another war it will probably be the last one.
Whether we would then deserve to survive is still open to debate.
I’m afraid we can’t risk discussing this even on a private, scrambled beam. By the time Harry gives this to you, we’ll be several light-months apart, anyhow. Hard to hold a conversation.
You may have suspected something like this was going on. I did, long before I was elected and Marcus enlightened me. A lot of people grouse about the government pulling strings behind everyone’s collective back. They don’t know half of it.
It feels funny to be saying good-bye when I’ll be seeing you in the office tomorrow. This is July eighteenth, ’97. You won’t be leaving for a couple of months. I miss you already.
I didn’t try too hard to talk you out of this. Someday you’ll … well, you already … you know I feel closer to you than to either of my sons.
Good-bye.
     
    The image flickers and blinks out.
     
O’H ARA :
(voice quavering) Can you still hear me?
     
    There is no response. She wipes away tears and stares at the corner for more than a minute, finishing the rest of the glass. Then she ejects the slide and bends it back and forth until it breaks, and puts the pieces in the recycle tray.
    She takes the box of wine out of the cabinet, along with a bath towel, picks up her purse, and leaves.

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT
     
    I was tired but knew I wouldn’t sleep unless I had some exercise. It had been a long day of sitting around and listening to people tell me things I didn’t especially want to hear.
    I took a long way to the pool so as to walk through the near-dark quietness of the ag level. The darkness intensified the smell of things growing. (Do plants actually grow in the dark, or do they rest?) Once away from the lifts, the only light is the dim glow of the pathway tiles; when other people pass by, they’re only shadowy blurs from the knees up. You murmur good evening and drift away, feeling mysterious. As always, sounds of lovemaking from a couple of the unlit crosspaths. And as always, I wondered whether they could be strangers who brushed in passing and felt something suddenly happen, stopped, and moved into the darkness to appease that something. And perhaps then part in silence, and wonder for a while about every man you met who was the right size and shape. Were you my succubus?
    They’re probably all garden-variety, so to speak, adulterers. “Meet me between the cabbage and potatoes at 2330 tonight.”
    Out of some obscure impulse I turned down a crosspath myself, and stood for several minutes a few meters into the darkness, watching the disembodied feet. Remembered the wine and took a quiet sip. The taste didn’t go well with the damp foliage smell. It occurred to me that if I stood there long enough, sooner or later a giggling couple would come charging into the darkness and in their reckless passion knock me into the broccoli tank. So I continued on to the pool, rather than stand in the path of true love.
    I had to go up to Level 5 to detour