Kate Wilhelm in Orbit - Volume Two Read Free

appeared with a birthday cake, and they all sang to Eliot and toasted him with champagne. At eleven thirty Beatrice signaled that they should wrap it up. Eliot stood up and made his way to Pitcock.
    “Thanks for the party,” he said. He was very unsteady.
    “Wait a second, will you. I have something for you, didn’t want to bring it out before.” The old man said good-bye to his guests and then left Eliot for a moment.
    If he brings me a check, I’ll rip it to shreds before his eyes. He thought longingly of another drink, but he didn’t want to delay to mix it and drink it. The old man returned carrying a bulky package. He watched Eliot’s face as he tore off the wrappings.
    “I know how much you’ve admired my Escher works; thought you might like one.” It was a large, complicated drawing of builders who were destroying what they built, all in one process. Eliot stared at it: the figures seemed to be moving, toiling up stairs, stairs that flattened out and went down again somehow even as he watched. He blinked and the movement stopped. “Thanks,” he said. “Just thanks.”
    Pitcock nodded. He turned to the window to look out at the beach. “It’s a strange night, isn’t it? Don’t you feel the strangeness? If it were August I’d say a hurricane was on its way, but not so soon. Just strange, I guess.”
    Eliot waited a moment, wanting to force the talk to the futile project, the open-ended task that Pitcock had hired them to do, but he clamped his lips hard and remained silent.
    “You accept the job then?” the old man asked, in the plush office on the thirtieth floor of the glass and plastic building in New York. “Without questioning its merits? Promise to see it through?”
    “I’ll sign the three-year contract,” Eliot said. “Seems fair enough to give it that much of a try.”
    “Good. And at the end of the three years, we’ll talk again, and between now and then, no matter how many doubts you raise, you’ll carry on.”
    Eliot shrugged. I will do my best to uphold the honor of the project. He said, “I don’t pretend to think that we’ll be able to accomplish anything, except to add to the data, and to bring some order to a field that’s in chaos. Maybe that’s enough for now. I don’t know.”
    The old man turned toward him, away from the window. “It’s working out. I know you don’t agree, but I can feel that it’s taking shape. And now this feeling of strangeness. That’s part of it. Undercurrents. Someone’s projecting strong undercurrents, strong enough to affect others. You’ll see. You’ll see.”
    The others were loitering near the sunken garden, all except Beatrice, who had gone ahead to relieve Bonner of his baby­sitting chores. Eliot fell into step beside Mary.
    Soon she’ll say, you’ve been awfully quiet, something to that effect. And I’ll say, thinking. Been here two years and two months, for what? Doing what? Indulging a crazy old man in his obsession.
    “Eliot, are you going to stay?”
    “What?” He looked at the small woman, but could see only the pale top of her head.
    “You’ve been acting like a man trying to come to a decision. We wondered if you are considering leaving here.”
    “I’ve been considering that for two years and two months,” he said. “I’m no nearer a decision than I was when I first took it up.” He indicated the house behind them. “He’s crazy, you know.”
    “I don’t know if he is or not. This whole project seems crazy to me, but then, it always did.”
    “Is Lee getting restless?”
    “Isn’t everyone?
    “Yeah, there is that.”
    The trouble was that there were only ten people on the island and they all spent nine-tenths of their time on it. They were all tired of each other, tired of the island paradise, tired of Mrs. Bonner’s turkeys and champagne parties, tired of the endless sta­tistics and endless data that went nowhere.
    We go through the motions of having fun at the parties, and each of us is there