10

Lissa flew to meet her parents in New York City for the Christmas holidays, which came during the same week as the Institute’s endterm break. The suborbital ascent and glide path took her over the Pacific and the southern United States. She spent the seventy minutes thinking about Alek.

He had grown quieter as the time for her departure had drawn closer.

“It’s as if someone were dying,” he had said, “and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

She had felt the same, especially when the copter had come to pick her up, but she had tried not to let Alek see it.

“You have to go,” he had said. “A part of you is happy, at least.” “Try to be happy with me, Alek, please!” she had shouted over the sound of the blades.

They had kissed, but the tension tore them apart. “I’m so sorry,” she had whispered, and he had hugged her tighter. This can’t be happening, she had thought as she was lifted and carried away from the old monastery, out over the early morning mists of the valley. She had not looked back, because she didn’t want to see Alek waving good-bye.

She closed her eyes now, and it seemed that he was about to kiss her, to hold her, and that they would swim gently in each other’s arms . . .

She opened her eyes. The New York International runway was rushing past her window. The steward, she noticed, had locked her seat belt for her. The city stood with its glittering towers, many of them more than a century old, defying the night. Two levels stood above the old street level of the twentieth century, and twenty more levels were cut in the bedrock of Manhattan Island.

The plane slowed and taxied in the brightly lit evening, and finally slipped into the terminal.

As she came out into the waiting area, saw her parents standing together. A nice couple, she thought as they spotted her and waved. She hurried toward them, adjusting her shoulder bag and trying to took cheerful.

“Lissa!” her father exclaimed as he hugged her to him.

Her mother kissed her on the cheek.

“We’ve got a cab outside,” Morey said, leading the way.

“Glad to be here, dear?” Sharon asked.

Lissa smiled at her and nodded.

“We thought we might not get to see you for the holidays,” her father said.

They came out of the terminal and got into an automatic cab. It started slowly, then shot away, its hydrogen-powered engine grumbling softly.

“We’ve got theater tickets,” her father said, “dinner tickets, and fireworks in Central Park.” He sounded very excited. “I haven’t been back here in nearly a decade.” He became silent, staring out at the lights. Lissa could almost hear him thinking about how he had grown up here, gone to high school, and made friends with Joe Sorby, and how the two of them had gone out to Bernal One to attend college.

“I wonder how Joe and Rosalie are doing,” he said, looking up at the hazy, star-filled sky through the cab’s sunroof. The starship on which they had shipped out was not due back for still another decade. Most of the communications from the vessel were old by the time they reached Earth. Lissa felt that Morey missed his old friend more than he cared to admit. Twenty years or more would separate them by the time Earth’s first starship came home, but in that time the people on board would have aged more slowly than those at home, since bioclocks ran slower as they approached light speed. “Well, Merry Christmas to them,” Morey said, “wherever they are.”

The cab bulleted toward the million lights of the city, penetrated to the street level at 53rd Street, and pulled into the Hilton receiving area. Morey put his thumb to the fare credit plate and the doors opened.

“Here we are,” he said, “and we’re going to have a great time!”

* * *

A letter was waiting for Lissa when she came into her room just across the hall from where her parents were staying. She sat down at the screen and touched her palm to the code-credit plate, wondering why Alek had not simply called as his note came up on the display:

DEAR LISSA,

I WANTED YOU TO HAVE THIS NOTE BY THE TIME YOU GOT TO THE HOTEL, SO YOU WOULDN’T WORRY. IF THIS IS ALL WE’RE EVER GOING TO HAVE, I WOULDN’T HAVE MISSED IT FOR THE WORLD. BUT IF WE KEEP IN TOUCH AFTER SOME TIME, AND STILL WANT EACH OTHER, THEN THERE WILL JUST HAVE TO BE A WAY. IN ANY CASE, WE’LL HAVE TIME TO THINK (AN ACTIVITY I KNOW IS VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU!). WHENEVER I THINK ABOUT YOU, IT ALWAYS COMES UP I LOVE YOU.

—ALEK

The screen flashed some authorization numbers and the time when the letter had gone out and from where, then winked off.

Lissa smiled, feeling a warm glow, as if some distant song were playing deep inside her. She would do what Alek wanted her to do—study and grow into her work. He knew what she had always wanted, and that made him special, no matter how far away he would be from her.

* * *

The giant 3-D figure of Julius Caesar stood above Central Park, waiting for the knives of the Roman senators to pierce him. Lissa closed her eyes as the holo of the titanic figure was struck down. Caesar cried out, reproached Brutus, then finally accepted his fate.

“A bit bloody,” Lissa’s mother said next to her.

Lissa opened her eyes. Caesar lay like a white whale among the trees. Behind him, New York towered into the sky, slender pyramids and 200-story columns thrusting up beyond the horizontal levels. Stars twinkled, but she had to look directly upward to see them. Soon, she thought, I’ll be out there, on my way to Mars.

She watched the rest of the play in a kind of dream. Shakespeare often had that effect on her. The fireworks came on at the end, but she was too preoccupied to ooh and aah with the crowd. She wanted to run her life in fast forward, to find out how it would all turn out.

* * *

Late that night, as Lissa was preparing for sleep, there was a soft knock at her door. She opened it.

“Can I come in?” her mother asked.

“Sure.”

Sharon came in and sat down in one of the two arm chairs. “I know you miss him,” she said. “I see all the usual signs. No, I won’t discuss it with Morey if you don’t want me to, but I thought it might help to talk to me.”

Lissa smiled as she got over her surprise. “I guess I’m pretty obvious about it.”

Sharon smiled. “Not to everyone, just to me. How much do you care about—”

“His name’s Alek Calder, Mom. This isn’t like Henry Baum, believe me.” She heard her voice tremble, and a panicky jolt entered her stomach.

“Maybe it’ll wear off. Give yourself some time.”

The jolt came again. “No! I could never forget Alek.”

Her mother nodded. “You’d be surprised what you can forget.”

“Could you forget Dad?”

Sharon smiled wistfully. “No, but he was a special case. I had to chase him. He didn’t even guess that I was interested until . . . well, he had his doctorate by the time he fell in love for the first time.”

“Really? That long?”

“He was very dedicated to his work. Still is.”

“So am I,” Lissa said defensively. “I’m going, no matter what.” She knew that Alek would want her to say that.

“It’ll work out in the long run,” her mother replied, “if there’s anything there. I know it sounds stupid to say general things like that.”

Lissa smiled, feeling very tender toward her. “Life is like that, huh?”

They both laughed, but Lissa felt a great sense of danger as she tried to get to sleep that night. She didn’t know what she feared more—that she might never see Alek again, or that she would forget him.