Free Forever Free by Joe Haldeman Page A

spikes of a deep winter blizzard. We'd have neither aboard ship, of course, but the lack of one seemed a more than fair trade for the other.
    Bill got a fresh scone and some hot cider, and sat down with us. "Knocked out in the first round," he said. "They got me on a technical scratch." I nodded in sympathy, though I wouldn't know a technical scratch from a technical itch. The game they played was not exactly eight ball.
    He frowned at the chart, trying to read it upside-down. "They really snaffed your pretty chart, sister."
    "It was meant to be snaffed with," she said. "We're making up a new one."
    "Call it out to everyone tonight or in the morning," I said. "Give them something to do other than shovel snow."
    "Your mind's made up?" he said to Sara. "You're going to take the big jump? And when you come back, I won't even be dust anymore."
    "Your choice," she said, "as well as mine."
    He nodded amiably. "I mean, I can see why Mom and Dad—"
    "We've had this conversation before."
    I could hear the house creak. Settling under the weight of snow. Marygay was sitting silent in the kitchen, listening.
    "Run it by again," I said. "Things have changed since I last heard it."
    "What, that you're taking one of Man along? And a Tauran?"
    "You'll be Man by then."
    He looked at me for a long moment. "No."
    "It shouldn't make any difference which individual goes. Group mind and all."
    "Bill doesn't have the right genes," Sara said. "They'll want to send a real Man." That was a pun that saw daily use.
    "I wouldn't go anyhow. It stinks of suicide."
    "There's not much danger," I said. "More danger staying here, actually."
    "That's true. You're less likely to die in the next ten years than I am in the next forty thousand."
    I smiled. "Ten versus ten."
    "It's still running away. You're bored with this life and you're deathly afraid of growing old. I'm not either of those things."
    "What you are is twenty-one and all-knowing."
    "Yeah, bullshit."
    "And what you don't know is what life used to be like, without Man or Tauran to complicate things. Or make things easier, by brainwashing you."
    "Brainwashing. You haven't brought that up in weeks."
    "It's as obvious as a wart on your nose. But like a wart, you don't see it because you're used to it."
    Bill exploded. "What I am used to is this constant nagging!" He stood up. "Sara, you can supply the answers. Keep talking, Dad. I'm gonna go take a nap."
    "So who's running away now?"
    "Just tired. Really tired."
    Marygay was at the kitchen door. "Don't you want some soup?"
    "Not hungry, Mom. I'll zap some later." He took the stairs two at a time.
    "I do know the answers by heart," Sara said, smiling, "if you want to run through the logic again."
    "You're not the one I'm losing," I said. "Even though you plan to go over to the enemy someday." She looked down at her chart and growled something in Tauran. "What does that mean?"
    "It's part of their catechism. It sort of means 'Own nothing, lose nothing.' " She looked up and her eyes were bright. "It also means 'Love nothing, lose nothing.' They use the words interchangeably."
    She stood up slowly. "I want to talk to him." When I went up to bed, an hour and a half later, they were still arguing in whispers.
     
    It was Bill's turn to fix breakfast the next morning, and he was silent as he worked over the corn cakes and eggs. I started to compliment him when he served them, but he cut me short: "I'm going. I'm going with you."
    "What?"
    "I've changed my mind." He looked at Sara. "Or had it changed. Sister says there's room for another guy in aqua-culture."
    "And you have a natural love for that," I said.
    "The head-chopping part, anyhow." He sat down. "It is the chance of a lifetime, of many lifetimes. And I won't be that old, when we get back."
    "Thank you," Marygay said, her voice wavering. Bill nodded. Sara smiled.

Chapter eleven
    The next few months were tiring but interesting. We spent ten or twelve hours a week in the library's ALSC—Accelerated Life