Enigma (2 page)

Over the next twelve hours, Thackery entered the Panorama four times, which was as often as the radiation medtech would allow. Each time, he felt anticipation as he neared the threshold. Inside, he was caught up in the complexities of the seething technicolor clouds. The one occasion
Amalthea
’s attitude allowed, he marveled at the fractured surface of Europa, the sulfur-splattered textures of Io. He reveled in the illusion that he was the center of the universe. All those discoveries denoted new additions to his sensibilities. Like a newborn butterfly which had just unfolded its crinkled wings, he felt as though his horizons had been immeasurably broadened.

These are things / could not feel before
, he thought happily.

But no more than a hint of his earlier rapture returned, a memory only, an echo. Thackery accepted his lot with equanimity.
How could I ever forget enough to be surprised that way again? How could / ever wipe that impression from my mind? And why would I want to?

That night, the Panorama staff closed the chamber’s clamshell shield for the last time on that voyage, as
Amalthea
said good-bye to Jupiter and began the two-week fall inbound to the Charan Space Operations Center and Earth.

Now things can return to normal
, Thackery told himself. To speed that process, he absented himself from the grand ballroom with its continuous music, intoxicants on tap, and seductive star projection. He steered clear of the self-proclaimed beautiful people with their gemstone nosepins and patterned skin sculptures, who hugged too readily and laughed too loudly as though determined to Have Fun during every waking moment. He refused the companionship of the young naturalists, who thought themselves his peers when they were in fact his inferiors.

Thackery stayed within himself, recapturing the discipline and determination of the student, the dignity and distance of the GS professional. By the time the Charan shuttle pierced the atmosphere of Earth, all was as it had been—except for one moment, one memory, the flame of which would not die. And because of that flame, nothing was as it had been.

For the most part, the changes were visible only to Thackery himself. Where he had once prided himself on never pressing the deadline on assignments, now he found himself working late nights to complete work which had gone neglected. Where he had previously preferred to direct group projects he was part of, now he allowed others to take the lead and the responsibilities that went with it.

On more than one occasion, he tapped into the GS databases with the intent of researching one assignment or another only to find his attention turning elsewhere. He read the history of space exploration with a curiosity he had not previously known. He called up hundreds of historic photographs and video clips, including some of the crude bit-mapped images of Jupiter returned by the earliest Pioneer and Voyager probes. And he studied carefully the organization and recruitment practices of the three-headed Unified Space Service.

In all but the most demanding seminars, Thackery’s attention wandered. He found the professors pedantic and their observations obvious. In one jarring moment, he realized he had always felt that way, except that he had been too busy trying to garner approval to care. GS Georgetown had always been a greater challenge to his endurance than to his intellect, a gateway to something better.

But in an equally disturbing revelation, Thackery realized that living in the Council’s world would mean being surrounded by more of the same boring sameness. And since all Council decisions were collective, the product of committees and studies and consensus, he could not even count on a heady sense of power to enliven his life.

That night he had a vivid dream which found him alone in the Panorama when the synglas itself crawled back. Drawn through the opening, he began to move toward Jupiter, more floating than falling. As it grew nearer he felt its compelling presence and the eager foretaste of union with its substance. He never achieved that union: Whether he awoke first or the insistent alarm woke him, he was snatched back when on the brink of rapture.

For several minutes, he lay drained and shaken on the sweat-dampened sheets. When he finally rose, he was well behind schedule for making his Political Psychology seminar on time. But that did not matter, because he had already decided to skip the session. He went instead to the Evaluation and Counseling Center.

“I want to take the career orientation assessment,” he told the clerk, flashing his identity card.

Within fifteen minutes the psychometrician had him wired up in a testing cubicle. “Would you rather dig a ditch or fix a broken toy?” asked the silicon-brained proctor, and the assessment was underway.

As in the past, none of the questions seemed to relate to what people actually did for a living, nor did his own answers seem to have any pattern or to point authoritatively to any particular career. And yet the assessment had high marks for reliability, especially when presented one-on-one by the proctor with the subject wearing a biosensor band on one wrist.

Processing the results took less time than Thackery needed to walk from the testing cubicle to his counselor’s anteroom, and Thackery was waved in without waiting.

“What prompted you to ask for a re-exam?” the counselor asked, absentmindedly rolling a touchscreen stylus between his fingertips.

“I find I’m not as interested as I once was. I wanted to find out whether it was fatigue, second-tier syndrome, or something real.” It was at least a partially true answer.

The counselor tilted his data display toward himself and glanced at it. “In terms of ideals and skills, you continue to come out as a very strong candidate for GS.”

“Oh,” Thackery said, both disappointed and relieved.

“But there is one curious finding, which you’ve already anticipated. Your emotional commitment to those ideals and skills is much weaker than it was on your last assessment.”

“What does that mean?”

“Lip service,” the counselor said bluntly. “You’re just going through the motions.” He leaned forward. “What do you really want to be doing, Mr. Thackery?”

“Doesn’t that tell you, sir?”

“Of course not. You gave the ‘right’ answers for Georgetown, not the right answers for yourself.”

“Does it matter where I want to be?” Thackery asked. “I’m twenty-three. It’s a little late to be changing my mind. This is the only thing open to me.”

The counselor smiled slightly. “You underestimate yourself, Mr. Thackery. You are one of the very best training for a field which, rightly or wrongly, is considered to be the most demanding on this planet. You have options. Whether or not you wish to take them is another question.”

Thackery was slow in responding. “Do you mean that other training centers might accept me?”

“I think there are very few that would turn your application down.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Thackery asked suspiciously. “Isn’t it your job to shepherd us through, to keep us happy here?”

“I
am
trying to keep you happy,” the counselor said gently. “If that requires you to take a year off, or even leave here completely, both you and the GS will be better for it. Now—shall we talk about those options?”

It was remarkable how little there was to pack. The materials he had studied, the music he had played, the art that had decorated the apartment walls—all had been on-line from the GS Depository, and yet they had made the apartment uniquely his. All he really owned was his clothing and a few boxes of what might best be called memorabilia: photos of friends, award certificates from past schools, knickknacks bought on trips with Andra.

Andra. How are you going to take this?
he asked his mother in absentia.
How hard are you going to make it?
Thackery did not dwell on the questions; because he knew the answers lay just a few hours away.

He was nearly finished packing when he was interrupted by the paging tone from the apartment’s front door. He opened it to find, not entirely unexpectedly, Director Stowell, a somber man whose face and dignity were flawed by a bulbous nose seemingly designed to keep eyeglasses from slipping off. Since Stowell wore contacts, the consensus was that he was afraid of corrective surgery. A minority held that he was a closet naturalist.

“Good morning, Mr. Thackery.” Stowell’s glance took in the disarray behind Thackery. “I’m glad I turned down a second helping at breakfast. I might not have found you.”

“Won’t you come in. Director Stowell?”

Stowell threaded his way to the center of the room before answering. “It’s not uncommon for second-tier students to withdraw. We expect it. In some cases we welcome it. Occasionally we even request it. But we both know that you are in absolutely no academic difficulty. On the contrary, your work has been uniformly excellent. When you filed your notice of withdrawal with the registrar, you elected not to give your reasons. Would you do me the courtesy of sharing them with me privately?”

Thackery’s face wrinkled with discomfort. “I don’t think I could properly express why,” he said finally.

“Ah.” Stowell frowned. “I don’t mean to pry, Mr. Thackery. It’s only that I would regret to see the Council lose the services of someone with your potential due to some”—he paused to search for the right word—“irrelevancy. I would like to help you, if you’ll allow me.”

Thackery folded his arms across his chest in a subconscious gesture of resistance. “I’ve just decided not to continue in GS.”

Stowell nodded. “You wouldn’t object if I chose to list you as on hiatus rather than withdrawn?”

Guarding his thoughts because he did not trust himself to guard his words, Thackery shook his head. “I don’t see any point to it.”

“The point is that your reasons for withdrawal may be temporary.”

How can I tell you that everything you care about seems shallow to me now? How can I explain about Jupiter?
“I plan to enroll in TSI-Tsiolkovsky.”

Stowell nodded gravely. “I know.”

“I received word yesterday that they would accept me.”

“As did I.” Stowell settled on the arm of a chair as though he meant to stay a while. “I’m hardly surprised they accepted you. The Technical Service needs people with your qualities even more than we do. But you should be thinking about your needs, not theirs. Speaking frankly, I don’t see you being happy in an essentially subservient posture. No matter how skilled a TS graduate is, everything they do is subordinate to decisions from GS—”

Not everything
, Thackery thought.
The Council doesn’t rule everywhere
.

“—and I’ve always seen you on the decision-making side of that relationship,” Stowell concluded.

“I understand that, sir.”

“There is something else to consider. You know that you can be successful here. Your success elsewhere is less certain. Your competition at Tsiolkovsky has been specializing for years, just as you have. You will be a long time catching up—if you ever do. Raw ability is not everything.”

“I’ve considered that, Director,” said Thackery, though he had not.

“You’ve considered that,” the director echoed without conviction, chewing at his lower lip. “You should also think of your individual development. The TS institutes offer far greater freedom to set your own pace than we do. Do you understand why? They’re only teaching cold science, not providing a total acculturation as we do. There is a dynamism in Government Service that you will not find there, because it is a crucible for human interaction, not chemical reaction.”

“I’ve taken the differences between the branches into account, Director Stowell.”

“Then consider one thing further: whether you want to commit yourself to an enterprise which in the scheme of things has no future.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That our investment in space is temporary, ephemeral. Our population is very nearly stabilized, and the infrastructure needed to support it is well on its way to being completed. Once those two conditions are in place, we will have very little need for off-planet resources. The long-term plan calls for stability, not growth. There will be a time, not all that much farther down the road, when we will call the ships home. Oh, we will still be busy in earth orbit, but that’s practically an eighth continent. It’s the System and Survey ships we’ll have no use for. Is that part of your calculation, too?”

“No, sir. I dispute your précis,” Thackery said with quiet confidence. “The Council might well call the ships home. But I doubt very much if they would come.”

Sighing resignedly, Stowell stood and moved to the door. “A romantic notion. Have it as you wish. I think you’re making a mistake. You won’t be the first to let Georgetown intimidate you, or the first to bolt. I like you, Merritt, so I hope I’m wrong. But if I’m right, I just hope you’re smart enough not to let the door lock behind you.”

The use of his first name was an unexpected and jarring familiarity. Thackery drew a deep breath and blew it out his mouth. “All right. I’ll concede there’s at least some uncertainty. So please put me on hiatus.”

Content with that small victory, Stowell opened the door and was gone.

Thackery shook his head wearily and resumed his packing. There was no ready way to prove it to another’s satisfaction. But he knew in his own heart that he was running
toward
, not running away.

Nevertheless, turning back Stowell’s challenges had exhausted his tolerance for confrontation. He had arranged his schedule so that the turbocopter from Dulles would drop him at Philadelphia’s central transport node four hours before his flight to London was scheduled to leave from the outlying PHX airport—enough time to seek out Andra. But when he arrived, he sought out a public netlink instead.

He sat and stared into the nearly blank screen for a long time, composing his side of the conversation in advance. The results were unsatisfying. Then, on impulse, he selected Message mode rather than Call mode. He felt a pang of guilt over ducking a confrontation that way, then washed it away with a wave of comforting rationalizations:
It won’t help us to yell at each other. A fight won’t change anything—