He threw the main-drive switch. Acceleration jammed him back as the gig
leaped free.
Staring out the ports, he saw fire blossom in space as the great guns
of Vwyrdda opened up.
[Illustration: _He saw fire blossom in space as the great guns of
Vwyrdda opened up._]
* * * * *
My glass was empty. I signalled for a refill and sat wondering just how
much of the yarn one could believe.
"I've read the histories," I said slowly. "I do know that some
mysterious catastrophe annihilated the massed fleet of Janya and turned
the balance of the war. Sol speared in and won inside of a year. And
you mean that you did it?"
"In a way. Or Daryesh did. We were acting as one personality, you know.
He was a thorough-going realist, and the moment he saw his defeat he
switched whole-heartedly to the other side."
"But--Lord, man! Why've we never heard anything about this? You mean
you never told anyone, never rebuilt any of those machines, never did
anything?"
Laird's dark, worn face twisted in a bleak smile. "Certainly. This
civilization isn't ready for such things. Even Vwyrdda wasn't, and
it'll take us millions of years to reach their stage. Besides, it was
part of the bargain."
"Bargain?"
"Just as certainly. Daryesh and I still had to live together, you know.
Life under suspicion of mutual trickery, never trusting your own brain,
would have been intolerable. We reached an agreement during that long
voyage back to Sol, and used Vwyrddan methods of autohypnosis to assure
that it could not be broken."
He looked somberly out at the lunar night. "That's why I said the
genie in the bottle killed me. Inevitably, the two personalities
merged, became one. And that one was, of course, mostly Daryesh, with
overtones of Laird.
"Oh, it isn't so horrible. We retain the memories of our separate
existences, and the continuity which is the most basic attribute of
the ego. In fact, Laird's life was so limited, so blind to all the
possibilities and wonder of the universe, that I don't regret him very
often. Once in a while I still get nostalgic moments and have to talk
to a human. But I always pick one who won't know whether or not to
believe me, and won't be able to do much of anything about it if he
should."
"And why did you go into Survey?" I asked, very softly.
"I want to get a good look at the universe before the change. Daryesh
wants to orient himself, gather enough data for a sound basis of
decision. When we--I--switch over to the new immortal body, there'll
be work to do, a galaxy to remake in a newer and better pattern by
Vwyrddan standards! It'll take millennia, but we've got all time
before us. Or I do--what do I mean, anyway?" He ran a hand through his
gray-streaked hair.
"But Laird's part of the bargain was that there should be as nearly
normal a human life as possible until this body gets inconveniently
old. So--" He shrugged. "So that's how it worked out."
We sat for a while longer, saying little, and then he got up. "Excuse
me," he said. "There's my wife. Thanks for the talk."
I saw him walk over to greet a tall, handsome red-haired woman. His
voice drifted back: "Hello, Joana--"
They walked out of the room together in perfectly ordinary and human
fashion.