“Isn’t Dr. Earn using a lot of that stuff?” I asked.
“He’s in a lot of pain,” Hvarlgen said. “I just hope he lasts until this communication, whatever it is. At the same time—”
“It’s for you,” said one of the lunies. “It’s the Diana. They just completed TLI and they’re on their way.”
I went back to my wedgie for a nap, and dreamed again of flying. I hadn’t dreamed so much since Katie died. I didn’t have wings, or even a body—I was the flight itself. The movement was my substance in a way that I understood perfectly, except that the understanding evaporated as soon as I sat up.
The wedgie was cold. I had never felt so alone.
I got dressed and went to Grand Central and found two lunies watching Bonnie and Clyde, and Hvarlgen curled up with Sidrath on the phone. I had forgotten how lonely the farside could be. It is the only place in the Universe from which you never see the Earth. Outside was nothing but stars and stones and dust.
I went to the infirmary. Dr. Kim was awake. “Where’s Sunda?” he asked.
“On the phone with Sidrath and Here’s Johnny. They made Trans Lunar Injection right after lunch. You were asleep.”
“So be it,” said Dr. Kim. “Did you say hello to our friend?”
I saw the Shadow in the corner, under the magnolia, near the foot of the bed. I felt a shiver. It was the first time he had ever appeared without our—summoning him. The bowl on the table was empty.
“Hello, I guess,” I said. “Have you talked to him?”
“He’s not talking.”
“Shouldn’t I get Hvarlgen?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Dr. Kim. “It doesn’t mean anything. I think he just likes to exist, you know?”
“I’m here anyway,” Hvarlgen said, from the door. “What’s going on?”
“I think he just likes to exist,” said Dr. Kim, again. “Did you ever get the feeling when you were running a program, that it enjoyed running? Existing? It’s all in the connections, the dance of the particles. I think our friend the Shadow senses that he won’t exist very long, and—”
Even as he spoke the Shadow began to fade. At the same time the dark substance twisted into being in the bowl. I looked down into it. It was dark yet clear yet infinitely deep, like infinity itself. I could see stars beyond stars in it.
Hvarlgen seemed relieved that the Shadow was gone. “I’ll be glad when the Diana gets here,” she said. “I don’t know which way to turn; which way to proceed.”
I sat on the foot of the bed. Dr. Kim took another shot of PeaceAble and passed the pipe to me.
“Dr. Kim!”
“Relax. He’s no longer the test bunny, Sunda,” he said. “His bowel is no longer the pathway between the stars.”
“Still. You know that’s only for people who are terminal,” Hvarlgen said.
“We’re all terminal, Sunda. We just get off at different stops.”
That night after supper, we played Monopoly. The Shadow appeared again, and again he had nothing to say. “He doesn’t speak unless we call him up,” said Hvalgren.
“Maybe the ceremony, the chair, the lunies watching, are part of the protocol,” said Dr. Kim. “Like the questions.”
“What about the Others? Do you think we’ll see them?” I asked.
“My guess is that there’s no them to see,” said Dr. Kim.
“What do you mean?”
“Imagine a being larger than star systems, that manipulates on the subatomic level, where the Newtonian universe is an illogical dream that cannot be conceptualized. A being that reproduces itself as waves, in order to exist, that is one and yet many. A being that is not a where-when string—as the Shadow calls it—but a series of one-time events…”
“Dr. Kim,” said Hvarlgen. She played a conservative but deadly game.