A Hole In Space

"Did he buy it?"

"I hope so. He was so goddam calm and reassuring, I wanted to scream at him. God, Frazer, what if we can't build the laser? What if we try and fail?"

I gave him a very old and classic answer. "Stupidity is always a capital crime."

He screamed in my face. "Damn you and your supercilious attitude and your murdering monsters too!" The next second he was ice-water calm. "Never mind, Frazer. You're thinking like a starship captain."

"I'm what?"

"A starship captain has to be able to make a sun go nova to save the ship. You can't help it. It was in the pill."

Damn, he was right. I could feel that he was right. The pill had warped my way of thinking. Blowing up the sun that warms another race had to be immoral. Didn't it?

I couldn't trust my own sense of right and wrong! Four men tame in and took one of the bigger tables. Morris's men? No. Real estate men, here to do business.

"Something's been bothering me," said Morris. He grimaced. "Among all the things that have been ruining my composure, such as the impending end of the world, there was one thing that kept nagging at me."

I set his gin-and-tonic in front of him. He tasted it and said, "Fine. And I finally realized what it was, waiting there in the phone booth for a chain of human snails to put the President on. Frazer, are you a college man?"

"No. Webster High."

"See, you don't really talk like a bartender. You use big words."

"I do?"

"Sometimes. And you talked about ‘suns exploding,' but you knew what I meant when I said ‘nova.' You talked about ‘H-bomb power,' but' you knew what fusion was."

"Sure."

"I got the possibly silly impression that you were learning the words the instant I said them. Parlez-vous français?"

"No. I don't speak any foreign languages."

"None at all?"

"Nope. What do you think they teach at Webster High?"

"Je parle la langue un peu, Frazer. Et tu?"

"Merde de cochon! Morris, je vous dit—oops."

He didn't give me a chance to think it over. He said, "What's fanac?"

My head had that clogged feeling again. I said, "Might be anything. Putting out a sine, writing to the lettercol, helping put on a Con—Morris, what is this?"

"That language course was more extensive than we thought."

"Sure as hell, it was. I just remembered. Those women on the cleaning team were speaking spanish, but I understood them."

"Spanish, French, Monkish, technical languages, even Fa

"Reading minds? Maybe." Several times today, it had felt like I was guessing with too much certainty at somebody's private thoughts.

"Can you read my mind?"

"That's not quite it. I get the feel of how you think, not what you're thinking. Morris, I don't like the idea of being a political prisoner."

‘Well, we can talk that over later." When my bargaining position is better, Morris meant. When I don't need the bartender's good will to con the Monk. "What's important is that you might be able to read a Monk's mind. That could be crucial."

"And maybe he can read mine. And yours."

I let Morris sweat over that one while I set drinks on Louise's tray. Already there were customers at four tables. The Long Spoon was filling rapidly and only two of them were Secret Service.

Morris said, "Any ideas on what Louise Schu ate last night? We've got your professions pretty well pegged down. Finally."

"I've got an idea. It's kind of vague." I looked around. Louise was taking more orders. "Sheer guesswork, in fact. Will you keep it to yourself for awhile?"

"Don't tell Louise? Sure—for awhile."

I made four drinks, and Louise took them away. I told Morris, "I have a profession in mind. It doesn't have a simple one or two word name, like teleport or starship captain or translator. There's no reason why it should, is there? We're dealing with aliens."

Morris sipped at his drink. Waiting.

"Being a woman," I said, "can be a profession, in a way that being a man can never be. The word is housewife, but it doesn't cover all of it. Not nearly."

"Housewife. You're putting me on."

"No. You wouldn't notice the change. You never saw her before last night."

"Just what kind of change have you got in mind? Aside from the fact that she's beautiful, which I did notice."

"Yes, she is, Morris. But last night she was twenty pounds overweight. Do you think she lost it all this morning?"

"She was too heavy. Pretty, but also pretty well padded." Morris turned to look over his shoulder, casually turned back. "Damn. She's still well padded. Why didn't I notice before?"

"There's another thing.—By the way. Have some pizza."

"Thanks." He bit into a slice. "Cood, it's still hot. Well?"

"She's been staring at that pizza for half an hour. She bought it. But she hasn't tasted it. She couldn't possibly have done that yesterday."

"She may have had a big breakfast."

"Yah." I knew she hadn't. She'd eaten diet food. For years she'd kept a growing collection of diet food, but she'd never actively tried to survive on it before. But how could I make such a claim to Morris? I'd never even been in Louise's apartment.

"Anything else?"

"She's gotten good at nonverbal communication. It's a very womanly skill. She can say things just by the tone of her voice or the way she leans on an elbow or—"

"But if mind reading is one of your new skills..."

"Damn. Well... it used to make Louise nervous if someone touched her. And she never touched anyone else." I felt myself flushing. I don't talk easily of personal things.

Morris radiated skepticism. "It all sounds very subjective. In fact, it sounds like you're making yourself believe it. Frazer, why would Louise Schu want such a capsule course? Because you haven't described a housewife at all. You've described a woman looking to persuade a man to many her."

He saw my face change. "What's wrong?"

"Ten minutes ago we decided to get married."

"Congratulations," Morris said, and waited.

"All right, you win. Until ten minutes ago we'd never even kissed. I'd never made a pass, or vice versa. No, damn it, I don't believe it! I know she loves me; I ought to!"

"I don't deny it," Morris said quietly. "That would be why she took the pill. it must have been strong stuff; too, Frazer. We looked up some of your history. You're marriage-shy."

It was true enough. I said, "If she loved me before, I never knew it. I wonder how a Monk could know."

"How would he know about such a skill at all? Why would he have the pill on him? Come on, Frazer, you're the Monk expert!"

"He'd have to learn from human beings. Maybe by interviews, maybe by—well, the Monks can map an alien memory into a computer space, then interview that. They may have done that with some of your diplomats."

"Oh, great."

Louise appeared with an order. I made the drinks and set them op her tray. She winked and walked away, swaying deliciously, followed by many eyes.

"Morris. Most of your diplomats, the ones who, deal with the Monks; they're men, aren't they?"

"Most of them. Why?"

"Just a thought." It was a difficult thought, hard to grasp. It was only that the changes in Louise had been all to the good from a man's point of view. The Monks must have interviewed many men. Well, why not? It would make her more valuable to the man she caught—or to the lucky man who caught her— "Got it."

Morris looked up quickly. "Well?"

"Falling in love with me was part of her pill learning. A set. They made a guinea pig of her."

"I wondered what she saw in you." Morris's grin faded. "You're serious. Frazer, that still doesn't answer—"