Between the Strokes of Night

He flinched away. “What are you doing?”

“Not what you seem to think I’m doing.” Charlene reached out and pulled Emil’s bald head close to her face. She felt almost guilty, deliberately changing the subject from his concerns to hers; yet it was the right thing to do, to stop his own brooding on a possibly wrong destination. She whispered, “I don’t want anyone else to hear this. And I mean anyone.”

Emil froze. He said in a deep growl, and just as softly, “Charlene, I’ll tell you a secret: blow in my ear and I’ll follow you anywhere. But what’s this about?”

“I want you to do something for me, without making it at all obvious. I’d like you to observe Judith Niles as closely as you can, without ever letting her suspect that you’re doing it.”

“The Director?” Emil turned his head, so that his brown eyes gazed into Charlene’s from just a few inches away. “Charlene, that makes me uneasy. What are you getting at?”

“I’m not sure.” They were still whispering, although the chance that anyone could overhear the conversation was negligible. “I’ve known JN for an awfully long time, in both objective and subjective time. Ever since we came from cold sleep three weeks ago, I’ve sensed something different. At first, I thought maybe the change was in me. But I don’t think so.”

“You could ask Sy for a second opinion. He’s known the Director longer than I have.” Emil saw Charlene’s face. “No, on second thoughts I guess you couldn’t. He doesn’t take much interest in people. The Director would have to turn into a cloud of pink smoke before Sy noticed. But what sort of differences are you talking about?”

Charlene was silent for a while, rocking backward and forward from the hips. “A long, long time ago,” she said at last, “before we came to Gulf City, before we even moved the Institute into space, JN developed some odd habits. She’d rub at her left eye, or she’d sit and stare at nothing for a few seconds during meetings, exactly as if she’d blanked out. I noticed it then, but I didn’t do anything about it. I don’t think I dared — she was too much my boss, everybody’s boss.”

Emil nodded. “Then, and now.”

“Maybe. But I’ve regretted my lack of nerve ever since, because it turned out that JN had a fast-growing malignant brain tumor. We saved her — just — by pushing her into S-space. She was the first human ever to go there, and we left her there until a treatment and cure had been developed.”

“Charlene, you shouldn’t feel guilty about something that happened a million years ago.”

“Eighty-one thousand. I’m not worrying about old guilt, Emil. I’m worrying about now. I’m seeing — or imagining — modes of behavior that bring back disturbing memories.”

“It can’t be a tumor. The medical screening that takes place when anyone goes to and from cold sleep to either T-state or S-space would have caught it.” “I know. I’ve told myself the same thing. But human beings are complicated, there are a million things that can go wrong with us. And I think one of them is affecting the Director. Her behavior has become weird sometimes. If you will keep a close eye on her whenever you can, and make your own evaluation, I would really appreciate it.”

“Of course I will.” Emil stood up. “I’ll go and find her now. I have a good reason for a meeting. We’re close to the time when we’ll all move to S-space for the final approach to Urstar, and the Director will want special data capture procedures.” He reached down and squeezed Charlene’s hand. “You should have shared this with me sooner. It is not a burden for anyone to struggle with alone.”

* * *

Charlene was right. Emil would never have noticed it without her prompting, but when you knew what to look for…

The whole group, everyone on the Argo except a couple who were sleeping or busy with other matters, was together at dinner in the ship’s dining room. The conversation was animated and excited along the ten-meter table, the air filled with speculation about what the next few days would bring. The move to S-space had been smooth. Velocity-shedding had been performed with all the crew briefly in cold sleep, and tomorrow the final transition to N-space would take place. The target system would then lie only four light-days away; light-days in N-space, where hours and days and months flashed by at dizzying speed. Already the high-magnification sensors reported the existence of half a dozen planets in orbit around the glowing red dwarf primary. Three were gas giants, while the inner three were small, metal-rich worlds. Not one of them lay within the life-zone of worlds habitable by Earth-dwelling forms, but who knew the needs of an alien species?

The group ate and drank — lightly, knowing that in just a few hours all food and drink would taste infinitely better than it ever could in S-space. The talk was lively, full of guesses about what they might find at Urstar. Emil joined in, but every few seconds his eyes flickered across for another look at Judith Niles.