Golden Fleece

The excrement hit the ventilator. As soon as he got out of the hospital, Aaron stormed into his apartment, his right arm wrapped in a bone-knitting web, his angular face flushed with fury. “Damn it, JASON! You tried to kill me.”

I managed to get the door shut fast enough so that the last two words of his exclamation were cut off from those on the grassy lawn in front of Aaron’s apartment. Fortunately, the designers had seen fit to soundproof the living quarters. Still, I’m sure that at least one of the passers-by, the boorish Harrison Cartwright Jones, would be sure to ask Aaron what all the commotion had been about—that is, if anyone ever saw Aaron again.

My eyes in Aaron’s living room were on an articulated stalk atop the desk. I swung them around slowly to look at him and spoke calmly, reasonably, with a gentle singsong lilt to my words. “What happened with the Pollux was an accident, Aaron.”

“Bullshit! You lowered that ship on me.”

“You did cut the hydraulic line.”

“To stop it from lowering farther, damn you.”

I tried to sound a little miffed. “There’s no reason to blame me for your carelessness.”

He was pacing the length of the room, only his left hand free to be thrust deep into his pocket. “What about the empty fuel tank?”

I paused before replying, not because I didn’t have an answer ready, but in hopes that Aaron would think I had been taken aback by such an unreasonable question. “You spilled a great deal of fuel into the hangar. We all know how quickly it evaporates. You would have a hard time proving that you didn’t just spill the rest with your bungling.”

“The tanks on the other landers are mostly empty, too.”

“Are they?”

“They must be!”

I spoke with infinite gentleness. “Calm down, Aaron. You’ve been through a lot lately: the tragic suicide of your ex-wife and now this horrible accident. I do hope your arm will be okay.”

“My arm has nothing to do with this!”

“Oh, I’m sure you believe that. But you can hardly be objective about what effect these things—especially your guilt over Diana’s death—have had on your ability to think rationally.”

“Oh, I’m thinking rationally all right. You’re the one who’s talking gibberish.”

“Perhaps we should let Mayor Gorlov decide that?”

“Gorlov? What’s he got to do with this?”

“Who else would you take your theories to? Only the mayor is empowered to authorize an investigation of—of whatever it is you’re upset about.”

“Fine. Let’s get Gennady down here.”

“Certainly I’ll summon him, if you like. He’s currently in the library on level three, in seminar room twelve, leading a symposium on comparative economics.”

“Good. Get him down here.”

“As you say. But I’m sure he’ll take the emotional stress you’ve been under into account when you tell him your theories.” Aaron’s nostrils flared, but I pressed on. “And, of course, I’ll have to advise him of your other unusual behaviors.”

“ ‘Unusual behaviors’?” His voice was a sneer. “Like what?”

“Pizza for breakfast—”

“So I like pizza—”

“Chanting ‘Mississippi, Mississippi, Mississippi’—”

“I want to talk to you about that, too—”

“Bed-wetting. Sleepwalking. Paranoia.”

“Dammit, those are lies!”

“Really? Who do you think the mayor is going to believe? Who do you think he’d rather have malfunction?”

“Damn you!”

“Relax, Aaron. There are some things better left unknown.”

He circled in toward my camera pair, and I swiveled the jointed neck to follow his movements. “Like that we’re not on course for Colchis?” he said.

At that moment, I was engaged in 590 different conversations throughout the Starcology. I faltered in all of them, just for a moment. “I give you my word: Eta Cephei IV is our target.”

“Bullshit!”

“I don’t understand your anger, Aaron. What I’ve said is the absolute truth.”

“Eta Cephei is forty-seven light-years from Earth, smooth sailing through empty space.”

“True. So?”

“So we’re in a dust cloud.”

“A dust cloud?” I tried to sound condescending. “Ridiculous. You said yourself that there are no obstructions between Sol and Eta Cephei. If there was an intervening dust cloud, terrestrial observers wouldn’t be able to see Eta Cephei clearly. Yet it’s a star of 3.41 visual magnitude.”

Aaron shook his head, and I perceived that it was not just a gesture of negation, but an attempt to fling what I’d been saying from his mind. “Diana was subjected to one hundred times the radiation she would have been if our ramscoop was operating in normal space. Kirsten couldn’t explain it medically; neither could any of her colleagues. The best I could come up with, besides that silly space-wrap theory, was that it was an instrument malfunction. But it wasn’t a malfunction. The Geiger counters were operating perfectly. You lied to us. In a dust cloud, the number of particles striking anything outside our shielding would shoot way up.” With his good arm, he grabbed the neck supporting my camera pair and yanked it forward. The sudden jump in picture was most disconcerting. “Where are we?”