The Infinity Link Page 3

  Mardi groped almost visibly. "Is it the money? Is that it? Have you thought about going part time, and still working?"

  Mozy shook her head. "It's not the money. It's the job." She closed her eyes, trying to sort it all out in her mind. She wanted to explain it, but she scarcely understood the reasons herself. She suddenly realized that she was fingering her scar again, and she dropped her hand. "Here it is," she said. "I want to work full time at the project, if I can. It's not definite"—which was the world's biggest understatement, since she had yet to even ask—"but I want to keep my time available for it." She sat back uncomfortably.

  "You've never said anything about that before," Mardi said, puzzled.

  Mozy grasped for words. "I—feel more involved there now. More involved than I ever felt at school. Besides, I can always go back to school. But how often do you have a chance to be in a project like this?" With a vast sense of relief, she realized that she had, in fact, gotten it right. It was that feeling of involvement that she wanted. It seemed so obvious now.

  Mardi nodded slowly. "Well—I guess I can understand that." Her voice suggested that she did not. She looked at the table. "It's just that you never said anything about it before. From what you said a few weeks ago, I thought you didn't like the project that much."

  Mozy took a breath to answer, then sighed. She didn't know what else to say.

  Mardi looked up suspiciously. "Say—you haven't fallen in love or something, have you? You'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

  "No, nothing like that," Mozy assured her. She swallowed with difficulty. "I hardly even know anyone out there. I see this guy Hoshi now and then, but it's nothing romantic."

  Mardi looked unconvinced. "Okay, but who's this David person you're always meeting with, in your sessions?"

  Mozy scoffed. "I could hardly be in love with him. I've never even met him in real life." She wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup. "He's not even on Earth. It's just a long-distance linkup." She looked up. "That's all I'm allowed to say about it."

  "Okay," said Mardi. "You're not in love. And I can't change your mind." Her voice sounded more distant than it had a moment ago. "Well, I'd better get going, or I'll be in line all day."

  "Mardi, it's the project itself," Mozy insisted, suddenly wanting to make it clear before her friend went away hurt. She felt foolish, and was probably blushing from her attempt to deny that ridiculous notion about being in love. She gestured agitatedly. "It's these feelings I have about what I'm doing there. It means something—" She ran out of words. She couldn't articulate it any better than that. Damn it, why did friends always have to make life so complicated?

  "Well, it's your decision," Mardi said, rising. "Look—stay in touch, at least, okay? I've got to get going."

  Mozy wanted to blurt a last plea for understanding, but instead she just nodded. It was no good; it would be better to call Mardi later. Nevertheless, her face was still stinging when she walked back out into the morning sun.

  Chapter 3

  Hoshi called that evening. Mozy was glad for the diversion. She had been leafing through books, flipping channels on the tube, trying one role-game after another—and nothing had kept her occupied for more than a few minutes. "You got home before midnight," she said. "That's a switch."

  As usual, Hoshi had the visual off. "Yeah, they let the rats out of the cage early tonight. Want to have a drink at the Chance?"

  "Rats? I thought we were the rats, and you were the keepers."

  "All a matter of perspective, I guess. What do you say?"

  "Sure," Mozy said. It would be a perfect opportunity to grill him. "Twenty minutes?"

  "See you there."

  Leaving books and computer cubes scattered on the table, she dumped her dinner dishes into the sonic bath, grabbed her coat and wallet, and headed for the door.

  The Golden Chance Cafe was a five-block walk from her apartment, on the southwestern edge of the campus. She slipped through the entrance and stood in the shadows, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. The cafe was narrow, with a partition down the middle. She peered down both sides, and finally located Hoshi in the rear. "Have room for another rat?" she said, sliding into the booth.

  Hoshi looked up, his eyes sweeping briefly. "Ah!" he said. "An escapee! Do you want to join our conspiracy?"

  "Only if it involves drinking. How are you?"

  "Starved. They didn't even give us Purina at work."

  He flashed a disconcerting smile. Actually, it wasn't the smile that was disconcerting; it was the eyes. She often wondered just how much of the world Hoshi really knew by sight, and how much by inference. Blinded in a radiation accident as a boy, his vision was partially restored now with the assistance of implanted retinal scanners and microprocessors. According to his own description, the world he saw was a montage of lights and shadows. His depth perception was poor—hence the medallion he wore on a neck-chain, a transducer for a sonar ranger. Apparently his condition did not interfere with his work, most of which he performed in direct linkup with the computer. He was considered one of the top program analysts at the Center.

  She realized she was staring at him. "I'm glad I don't have to work late like all of you," she said, lying. She grinned with one side of her mouth, trying to conceal her envy.

  Hoshi studied her silently, his eyes flicking and shifting. He gave her a quirky smile. "We're either supermen or maniacs. I'm not sure which. But what about you? Have you decided if you're going back to school?"

  She shook her head. "I'm not." Her stomach began to flutter. "Not while I'm working at the Center. I wouldn't have time for both."

  Hoshi angled his head to one side, frowning. His eyes glinted, catching the light of a globed lamp on the wall. "Haven't they told you? The project is ending soon—at least, the part you're in."

  The stomach flutter tightened to a knot. "They hadn't mentioned a date. I thought—maybe they'd keep me on. Maybe working more hours—or helping—" Hoshi was scowling now. "They told me once that there was a chance that—"

  She cut herself off as a waitress appeared. Hoshi ordered a turkey club and a Bohemia draft; she just ordered a beer. When the waitress was gone, she raised her eyes again.

  "It's just like them not to bother telling you," he said. "Talk about people wrapped up in their own little worlds." He shook his head. "It'd be nice if you could stay on, but—I don't know. I suppose you could ask Bill."

  Mozy shrugged, smarting inwardly. How stupid of her to think . . . they'd never actually offered her more work, and the last time they'd even hinted was a month or two ago. How could she have assumed . . .?

  She avoided Hoshi's eyes. Images whirled in her mind: of the computer link, and of Kadin; of those rare and cherished moments when she was somebody and her real personality emerged, and she could laugh and cry with a man who didn't care what she looked like, and who was always there. All of that would be gone. No more link, no more Kadin. And what the hell would she do then?

  When their orders arrived, Mozy stared at her beer for a time, fingering the glass. "So—what now?" she said finally. "Why are they ending the project?"

  Hoshi lifted his sandwich, then paused. "I can't tell you that, you know. I don't even know all the details myself."

  She stared at him as he took a bite.

  He put the sandwich down and cleared his throat, tapping his fork against his plate. "Well—" His eyes moved from side to side. "I can tell you something, I guess. Don't talk about this with Bill or Lusela, though—not that it's a breach, exactly, but they're kind of touchy about it."

  Her head buzzed as she nodded.

  "They're going to do a transmission. I can't tell you who, or where, or why—but they're going to send someone through a long-distance link."

  "But I knew that all along."

  "Well, there's a big time factor involved, now. I can't tell you—I don't even know exactly why—though I have some idea. Word has come from above that we have to be ready for transmission in a few weeks. That's why
we've been working like madmen."

  "But if it's just a test," she said carefully, "won't they have to keep working until all the bugs are out of the system?"

  Hoshi chuckled. "There had better not be any bugs in the system," he said. "We've been smoothing out the last kinks for a couple of months, now. I'm sure there'll be more work eventually, but right now there's one transmission they're worried about, and that one has to go right." He resumed eating.

  Mozy sipped her beer. She hardly tasted it. "So—what is it?" she asked, with poorly feigned nonchalance.

  "Can't tell you."

  "Well, who's being transmitted?"

  "Can't tell you." Hoshi swallowed, then downed a third of his beer. His eyes probed hers; it was an eerie feeling, being watched by those half-seeing eyes. "You can guess, maybe," he said softly.

  "Now, what's that supposed to mean?" she protested. "It could be anybody—Jonders, you, David. Some big shot." She shrugged.

  "I mean," he said teasingly, "it's someone you know." He became mockingly serious. "That's all I can tell you."

  Mozy scowled. She didn't like what she thought was the answer. "It's David, isn't it? It's Kadin, right?"

  Hoshi blinked with reptilean deliberation. "Can't say," he murmured. But his expression did not contradict her statement.

  "Shit," Mozy said. "Shit!" She shook her head, surprised by the intensity of the emotion. The knot in her gut was painful now; she was having trouble breathing. "It is David, isn't it? Where are they sending him? Why him? What if it doesn't work?"

  "What do you care?" Hoshi said. "You don't even know him, really. And I never said it was him, anyway."

  Mozy snorted at the last comment. That was just Hoshi covering his ass, after spilling. Still, he was right. Why such a strong reaction? She had never met Kadin and never would; he lived in the space settlement, and she lived on Earth, and that was it. She shrugged. "I like him, that's all. I wouldn't want to see anything happen to him."

  "Uh-huh." Hoshi placed his fingertips on the table, as though playing a piano, or a computer keyboard. He smiled. "Have you considered that maybe they're transmitting him to Earth?"

  "Are they?" she cried. Hoshi turned up his palms, grinning. "Tell me," she pleaded. "Is he coming here?"

  At last Hoshi shook his head. "No." When Mozy glared at him, he sighed. "Sorry. Bad joke."

  "He's not coming to Earth?"

  He shook his head again. "Why is it so important to you?"

  Angry at having been baited so easily, she sank back into the booth seat. When she spoke, her voice was harsh. "He's the only one who lets me feel involved there. The only one. It's damn frustrating, you know, just going in there twice a week, and not even seeing the results of it."

  "Sometimes you do see results," Hoshi said. "You just don't know it."

  She ignored him. "We're friends, in a way. Even though sometimes I'm scared half to death in the scenarios, and it's hard to leave them, to come back to reality—I still don't want it to end. I wish I could meet him." Stopping for breath, she gulped half of her beer. A mild alcoholic glow was spreading through her body.

  Hoshi studied her. "What is it you like so much about him? Just out of curiosity."

  She looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged. "He's friendly. He goes out of his way to make me feel comfortable. He treats me like a real person." Hoshi's face clouded, and she added, "Well, you do, too. But hardly anyone else does. They're always in too much of a hurry. Well, David's not that way. Even when things get crazy, in the scenarios, he never forgets that I'm involved, too, and that I might need help getting through it."

  "That's part of his job," Hoshi pointed out.

  "It's part of his character, too," Mozy insisted. "I just wish I knew what his part was in all this—"

  "Can't tell you that."

  "I know. I'd ask him myself, but the hypnotic blocks work so well, I always forget. Now you tell me he's going to be put through the transmitter, and maybe scattered halfway to hell. Well, I just wish I could meet him, once—in person—before then." A wave of sadness crested in her, then slowly subsided, leaving a gritty feeling in her throat. "I have all these images of him, different ones each time I meet him. I'd like to know what he really looks like." She toyed with her glass.

  "If I didn't know better," Hoshi said, "I'd say you're kind of sweet on this—guy." Hoshi looked poised and controlled, his fingers drumming lightly on the table's edge. His eyes seemed to focus and unfocus as he peered at her—seeing heaven-knew-what pattern of shadows, what image of her face. Those grey irises, with their slightly dilated pupils, seemed to stare right through her.

  She cleared her throat uneasily. "I wouldn't exactly say I was sweet on him," she said.

  Hoshi drummed. "Oh, no?"

  She flushed. "Well, maybe a little. But how could I be really 'sweet' on someone I've never even met?"

  Hoshi's smile became lopsided. "Easy. The way anybody gets hung up on anybody else. It just happens."

  She thought, yeah, it just happens. "I suppose it's possible," she said, "but I don't think so. Not this time." She glanced at her watch. "Hey, it's getting late."

  They pooled their money to pay the tab, then made their way to the exit. Outside, Mozy stuck her hands in her coat pocket. "See you later. Thanks for the drink," she said. Then she turned away and walked quickly home.

  The apartment was still. She stood in the center of the living room, her mind still spinning from the conversation. She cast her coat aside and went into the bathroom and rummaged around for her hairbrush. She perched her purse on the edge of the sink and, pawing through it, found the hairbrush; she also found, unopened, the letter from Kink. She turned it over. When had she last heard from her sister? A year, anyway. She still used the same awful perfumed stationery.

  Mozy carefully tore the envelope and extracted two thin, folded pages. The green-ink handwriting was the same—hurried-looking, and sloppy.

  "Dear Mozy—I know I haven't written in ages, and I guess Mom hasn't, either . . ."

  What else is new?

  "Now I have to tell you that we should forget whatever squabbles we had . . . ."

  Mozy brushed at her hair, scowling as she read.

  Chapter 4

  Bill Jonders glanced at the monitor showing the subject sitting quietly in the gloom. He keyed an inner circuit. (We're go to start in thirty seconds, Ben. Are you ready?)

  (Ready . . . and . . . waiting,) came the answer, a silent whisper.

  (Hoshi?)

  (On line.) Hoshi's voice was soft and vibrant in Jonders's head.

  After a last check of the board, Jonders opened his own link to the computer. His external awareness dissolved to internal signals: quasi-visual cues, light patterns indicating the activity of various program elements. A tone warned him of Kadin's presence, and the pale outline of a face appeared. (David? Prepare for transition. Ben Horton's waiting.) Kadin's face vanished again and Jonders said, (Initiating hypnotic blocks.) The abstract patterns flashed momentarily, then blinked out. An odd, phantom landscape appeared around him, etched out of the darkness by purely geometric, intersecting strands of light. Moving with ease across the field, he rose to the top of a steep pyramid form outlined in threads of amber. From this perch, he looked out across the "jumpoff field"—a midnight plain, crosshatched with violet tracers. There were two tiny figures out on the plain, moving slowly toward one another.

  Jonders waited for the memory-blocking and memory-implant programs to run their course with the subjects. Two tones sang in opposite corners of his mind, indicating readiness. (Sequence start,) he murmured, nudging the lower pitch higher, and the higher pitch lower. As he brought them slowly into tune, the two glittering figures converged across the field.

  He tripped one more cue, and the two figures accelerated down the plain—and vanished at the edge of the violet grid.

  Jonders opened an observer's portal to their new world, a planet with an emerald sky and a ripe orange moon, and
with two groups of aliens greeting the landing party.

  * * *

  He scanned the telltales flowing in the form of color-coded digits across the gridded field. In a window floating above the plain, images flickered of the scenario world, as seen by the two subjects. A difficult negotiation was being concluded, with uncertain results.

  Not for the first time, Jonders wished that it were possible to gain a clearer perception of the subjects' thoughts and feelings. As always, he was faced with the dilemma of seeking to observe a process without interfering with its results. It was a fundamental conflict in all of the sciences, and no less so here; for that reason, they depended heavily on post-session debriefing and analysis to augment their evaluations.