2-Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Author:Frederik Pohl [Pohl, Frederik]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St.Martin's Press
Published: 2014-12-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

It feels as if Sigfrid's air conditioning isn't working again, but I don't mention it to him. He will only report that the temperature is exactly 22.50 Celsius, as it always has been, and ask why I express mental pain as being too hot physically. Of that crap I am very tired.

"In fact," I say out loud, "I am altogether tired of you, Siggy."

"I'm sorry, Rob. But I would appreciate it if you would tell me a little more about your dream."

"Oh, shit." I loosen the restraining straps because they are uncomfortable. This also disconnects some of Sigfrid's monitoring devices, but for once he doesn't point that out to me. "It's a pretty boring dream. We're in the ship. We come to a planet that stares at me, like it had a human face. I can't see the eyes very well because of the eyebrows, but somehow or other I know that it's crying, and it's my fault."

"Do you recognize that face, Rob?"

"No idea. Just a face. Female, I think."

"Do you know what she is crying about?"

"Not really, but I'm responsible for it, whatever it is. I'm sure of that."

Pause. Then: "Would you mind putting the straps back on, Rob?"

My guard is suddenly up. "What's the matter," I sneer bitterly, "do you think I'm going to leap off the pad and assault you?"

"No, Robbie, of course I don't think that. But I'd be grateful if you would do it."

I begin to do it, slowly and unwillingly. "What, I wonder, is the gratitude of a computer program worth?"

He does not answer that, just outwaits me. I let him win that and say: "All right, I'm back in the straitjacket, now what are you going to say that's going to make me need restraint?"

"Why," he says, "probably nothing like that, Robbie. I just am wondering why you feel responsible for the girl in the planet crying?"

"I wish I knew," I say, and that's the truth as I see it.

"I know some reality things you do blame yourself for, Robbie," he says. "One of them is your mother's death."

I agreed. "I suppose so, in some silly way."

"And I think you feel quite guilty about your lover, Gelle-Klara Moynlin."

I thrash about a little. "It is fucking hot in here," I complain.

"Do you feel that either of them actively blamed you?"

"How the fuck would I know?"

"Perhaps you can remember something they said?"

"No, I can't!" He is getting very personal, and I want to keep this on an objective level, so I say: "I grant that I have a definite tendency toward loading responsibility on myself. It's a pretty classic pattern, after all, isn't it? You can find me on page two hundred and seventy-seven of any of the texts."

He humors me by letting me get impersonal for a moment. "But on the same page, Rob," he says, "it probably points out that the responsibility is self-inflicted. You do it to yourself, Robbie."

"No doubt."

"You don't have to accept any responsibility you don't want to."

"Certainly not. I want to.

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