The Siege of Eternity

And, as a matter of fact, when she absentmindedly took some for herself she discovered that it was an impressive meal, a tribute to the deputy director's airborne kitchen. There was a huge salad, the lettuce crisp enough to crackle, the cucumber slices neatly trimmed of skin, a few curls of a red onion and five different kinds of dressing in silver boats. It didn't go to waste. Before the steaks came-half-kilo steaks, beautifully marbled, still sizzling as the stew set them down-the three Pats and the recently arrived Dannerman (the other one had taken off for the deputy director's private office as soon as they were in the air) had finished the salad, every scrap, as well as the quarter-liter glasses of milk she kept refilling for them. The debriefing paused briefly for eating, and Pat took advantage of the chance. "Dan?" she asked. "I don't remember any of that!"

"No, of course not," he said kindly. "Dopey blanked out your memories."

"Who did what?"

Dannerman started to grin, but the Pat next to him tugged at his arm. He suppressed the smile. "It isn't your fault, Pat. They have all kinds of tricks-oh, what's this?"

What the stews were offering was fruit salad, and all four of the returnees cried a unanimous, "No!"

"Surprise us," one of them added. "Something that can't be freeze-dried or canned or irradiated, okay?" And then, looking at Pat, "We've been living on old stores from Starlab for months, so this is pure heaven-or would be, anyway, if this plane had a spare bathtub."

The Pat next to the real, or beardless, Dannerman apologized. "We've been a little short of that kind of thing for a long time, too. Especially poor Pat Five over there. At least Patrice and I managed to get a swim in a few days ago-oh, you want to know about the names? They were Rosaleen's idea. I'm Pat One. This is Patrice. Our pregnant one is Pat Five. What shall we call you?"

"Call me?" It was a problem Pat had not expected to face. What she was called was Pat or Dr. Adcock; that was an immutable given in her life, and there had never been a reason to think about it at all. Until now, when there were three others entitled to the same name.

"Anything but Patsy, please," said Patrice. "We had a Patsy, but-she died."

The Pat bit her lip; some interior struggle was going on. "Oh, hell," she said unhappily, "we'll talk about that later. Anyway, maybe I'll be big about this. You stay with Pat. I'll be Pat One."

"Well, thanks," Pat said, a little bit grateful, still a lot puzzled, just as a pair of stews made their entrance, carrying plates of hot apple pie with ice cream.

"Sorry we took so long," one of them apologized, "but those weirdos are in the galley, trying to find something they can eat. Christ but they take up a lot of room!"

"And they stink," said the other one, just as the real Dannerman came in from the front of the plane.

He seemed cheerful. "Hey, I'll take a piece of that, too. And some coffee. And then maybe a beer."

"A beer!" the other Dannerman said reverently.

The real one was grinning. "We're missing all the fun," he said.

"The whole world's arriving in Calgary now. The Ukrainians are after Dr. Artzybachova, the Chinese are taking Jimmy Lin off in a hell of a hurry. Even the Floridians are complaining that you didn't bring their General Delasquez back."

Backgrounder

NBI contacts file

LIN, James Peng-tsu, Cdr, PRC Spaceforce

Commander Lin has a somewhat shadowy background. A full commander in the People's Republic Spaceforce, he was dismissed from the service for reasons variously given as "political unreliability" and "sexual misconduct"; research has not definitively established which. If the misconduct was sexual, one account has it that Lin is given to reenacting the exploits of his remote ancestor, an ancient Chinese sage named Peng-tsu, who wrote a book extolling the necessity and varieties of frequent sexual experience. An alternative report, however, suggests that Lin is homosexual and the alleged heterosexual activity is a. cover for what, in PRC eyes, is a serious crime.

Lin was hired as pilot by Dr. Patrice Adcock (see backgrounder file) in her mission to Starlab. There are now two of him, one who came back with the first batch of returnees from Starlab (this one bugged); the other with Agent J.D. Dannerman and the extraterrestrials. The second one is said to be the artificial-insemination father of the unborn child of the Dr. Adcock known as "Pat Five" (see backgrounder file.)

"Martin's dead," Dannerman-with-a-beard said between bites. "We think he is, anyway."

"Yeah, well, I hate to second-guess the boss, but maybe moving the landing site to Canada wasn't the best idea he ever had."

Pat shushed him and turned to Pat One. "What do you mean, Martin's dead?"

It was a short question, but it had a long