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发信人: by (春天的小懒虫), 信区: SFworld
标  题: 2010 (28)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Wed Oct  6 14:52:37 1999), 转信

                          28
                     Frustration

'... You've seen all the technical reports, Dimitri, so you'll
understand  our  frustration.  We've  learned  nothing new from
all  our  tests  and  measurements.  Zagadka  just sits there,
filling half the sky, ignoring us completely.
  `Yet it can't be inert - an abandoned space derelict. Vasili
has  pointed  out that it must be taking some positive action,
to  remain  here at the unstable libration point. Otherwise it
would  have  drifted away ages ago, just as Discovery did, and
crashed into Io.
  `So   what   do   we  do  next?  We  wouldn't  have  nuclear
explosives   on  board,  would  we,  in  contravention  of  UN
'O8, para 3? I'm only joking.
  `Now   that  we're  under  less  pressure,  and  the  launch
window  for  the  homeward trip is still weeks away, there's a
distinct  feeling  of  boredom,  as  well  as frustration. Don't
laugh  -  I  can  imagine  how  that  sounds  to  you, back in
Moscow.  How  could  any  intelligent  person  get  bored  out
here,  surrounded  by  the  greatest  marvels  human eyes have
ever seen?
  `Yet  there's no doubt of it. Morale isn't what it was. Until
now,   we've   all   been  disgustingly  healthy.  Now  almost
everyone  has  a minor cold, or an upset stomach, or a scratch
that  won't  heal despite all of Katerina's pills and powders.
She's given up now, and just swears at us.
  `Sasha  has  helped  to  keep  us  amused  with  a series of
bulletins  on  the  ship's  bulletin  board.  Their  theme is:
STAMP   OUT   RUSSLISH!   and  he  lists  horrid  mixtures  of
both  languages  he  claims  to  have overheard, wrong uses of
words, and so forth. We'll all need linguistic decontamina-
tion when we get home; several times I've come across your
countrymen chatting in English without even being aware of
it, lapsing into their native tongue only for difficult words.
The other day I caught myself talking Russian to Walter
Curnow - and neither of us noticed for several minutes.
  `There was one bit of unscheduled activity the other day
that will tell you something about our state of mind. The
fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, triggered by
one of the smoke detectors.
  `Well, it turned out that Chandra had smuggled some of
his lethal cigars aboard, and couldn't resist temptation any-
more. He was smoking one in the toilet, like a guilty
schoolboy.
  `Of course, he was horribly embarrassed; everyone else
thought it hysterically funny, after the initial panic. You
know the way some perfectly trivial joke, which doesn't
mean a thing to outsiders, can sweep through a group of
otherwise intelligent people and reduce them to helpless
laughter. One had only to pretend to light a cigar for the
next few days, and everybody would go to pieces.
  `What makes it even more ridiculous is that no one would
have minded in the least if Chandra had just gone into an
airlock, or switched off the smoke detector. But he was too
shy to admit that he had such a human weakness; so now he
spends even more of his time communing with Hal.'
  Floyd pressed the PAUSE button and stopped the re-
cording. Perhaps it was not fair to make fun of Chandra,
tempting though it often was. All sorts of little quirks of
personality had surfaced during the last few weeks; there
had even been some bad quarrels, for no obvious reason.
And for that matter, what of his own behaviour? Had that
always been above criticism?
  He was still not sure if he had handled Curnow properly.
Though he did not suppose that he would ever really like
the big engineer, or enjoy the sound of his slightly too-loud
voice, Floyd's attitude toward him had changed from mere
tolerance to respectful admiration. The Russians adored
him, not least because his rendering of such favourites as
`Polyushko Polye' often reduced them to tears. And in one
case, Floyd felt that the adoration had gone a little too far.
  `Walter,' he had begun cautiously, `I'm not sure if it's my
business, but there's a personal matter I'd like to raise with
you.'
  `When someone says it's not his business, he's usually
right. What's the problem?'
  `To be blunt, your behaviour with Max.'
  There was a frigid silence, which Floyd occupied with a
careful inspection of the poor paintjob on the opposite wall.
Then Curnow replied, in a soft yet implacable voice: `I was
under the distinct impression that he was more than
eighteen.'
  'Don't confuse the issue. And Frankly, it's not Max I'm
concerned about. It's Zenia.'
  Curnow's lips parted in unconcealed surprise. `Zenia?
What's she got to do with it?'
  `For an intelligent man, you're often singularly unobser-
vant - even obtuse. Surely you realize that she's in love with
Max. Haven't you noticed the way she looks, when you put
your arm around him?'
  Floyd had never imagined that he would see Curnow
looking abashed, but the blow seemed to have struck home.
  `Zenia? I thought everyone was joking - she's such a quiet
little mouse. And everyone's in love with Max, after their
fashion - even Catherine the Great. Still... um, I guess I
should be more careful. At least while Zenia's around.'
  There was a prolonged silence while the social tempera-
ture rose back to normal. Then, obviously to show that
there was no ill feeling, Curnow added in a conversational
tone: `You know, I've often wondered about Zenia. Some-
body did a marvellous job of plastic surgery on her face, but
they couldn't repair all the damage. The skin's too tight, and
I don't think I've ever seen her laugh properly. Maybe that's
why I've avoided looking at her - would you credit me with
so much aesthetic sensitivity, Heywood?'
  The deliberately formal `Heywood' signalled good-
natured needling rather than hostility, and Floyd allowed
himself to relax.
  `I can satisfy some of your curiosity - Washington finally
got hold of the facts. It seems she was in a bad air crash and
was lucky to recover from her burns. There's no mystery,
as far as we can tell, but Aeroflot isn't supposed to have
accidents.'
  `Poor girl. I'm surprised they let her go into space, but I
suppose she was the only qualified person available when
Irina eliminated herself. I'm sorry for her; apart from the
injuries, the psychological shock must have been terrible.'
  `I'm sure it was; but she's obviously made a full recovery.'
  You're not telling the whole truth, said Floyd to himself,
and you never will. After their encounter on the approach to
Jupiter, there would always be a secret bond between them
- not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more endur-
ing.
  He found himself suddenly and unexpectedly grateful to
Curnow; the other was obviously surprised at his concern
for Zenia, but had not attempted to exploit it in his own
defence.
  And if he had, would it have been unfair? Now, days
later, Floyd was beginning to wonder if his own motives
were altogether admirable. For his part, Curnow had cer-
tainly kept his promise; indeed, if one did not know better,
one might have imagined that he was deliberately ignoring
Max - at least while Zenia was around. And he treated her
with much greater kindness; indeed, there were occasions
when he had even succeeded in making her laugh out loud.
  So the intervention had been worthwhile, whatever the
impulse behind it. Even if , as Floyd sometimes ruefully
suspected, it was no more than the secret envy that normal
homo- or heterosexuals feel, if completely honest with
themselves, toward cheerfully well-adjusted polymorphs.
  His finger crept back toward the recorder, but the train of
thought had been broken. Inevitably, images of his own
home and family came crowding into his mind. He closed
his eyes, and memory recalled the climax of Christopher's
birthday party - the child blowing out the three candles on
the cake, less than twenty-four hours ago but almost a
billion kilometres away. He had played the video back so
often that now he knew the scene by heart.
  And how often had Caroline played his messages to
Chris, so that the boy would not forget his father - or view
him as a stranger when he returned after missing yet another
birthday? He was almost afraid to ask.
  Yet he could not blame Caroline. To him, only a few
weeks would have passed before they met again. But she
would have aged more than two years while he was in his
dreamless sleep between the worlds. That was a long time
to be a young widow, even a temporary one.
  I wonder if I'm coming down with one of the shipboard
maladies, Floyd thought; he had seldom felt such a sense of
frustration, even of failure. I may have lost my family,
across the gulfs of time and space, all to no purpose. For I
have achieved nothing; even though I have reached my
goal, it remains a blank, impenetrable wall of total darkness.
  And yet - David Bowman had once cried: 'My God! It's
full of stars!'

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