"Fine," he answered.
She returned and handed him a glass.
"Ad astra," he said, as they touched glasses.
"Amen."
Elaine walked slowly away from him, swishing the liquor in her glass.
"Let's go topside and see the stars," she said, suddenly.
"H'mm?"
"Up to the bubble. Come on."
* * * * *
So they left her one-room quarters and took the lift tube up to the
bubble. It was deserted. Overhead, Saturn was low on the horizon,
silhouetting the alien buildings. They turned to the other side of
the sky, where it was clear and dark. Thousands of stars twinkled in
the darkness; they made out Sirius and Vega, then Mars, and finally
Earth--a bright blue jewel that outshone all the others.
"I guess Jupiter's on the other side of the Sun," Lee said.
Elaine nodded. "It looks so far away," she said, staring at Earth, "and
so lonely, out there in all that emptiness."
"A psychotech would call that 'projection.'"
"I know. We're the lonely ones, aren't we?"
She was perfectly serious now.
"You know that Ruth and I have split up," he said.
"I heard ... that she left you."
He shrugged. "That's a matter of viewpoint. She got tired sitting
Earthside while I batted around the Solar System. When I told her I was
going to Vega, she called it quits."
"Couldn't she have gone with you?"
"If she had wanted to...."
"Do you still love her?" Elaine asked.
"I don't know. I don't think I know what love really is, anymore. All I
know is ... on that long trip out to Vega, when I had nothing to do but
sit and think, it wasn't Ruth I was thinking about. It was you."
"Oh...."
They talked a bit more, and finally he took her in his arms and kissed
her and she was his, at least for a little while.
* * * * *
Weeks lapsed into months, and the work on Titan inched steadily along.
If he stopped to think about it, Lee knew that all they were doing was
scratching around the base of the problem, and making precious little
headway. _The blind men and the elephant_, he told himself. But then
he asked himself what else they could possibly do, and the answer was
always, nothing. But the machine was still there, doing whatever it
was designed to do, and he could sense the scornful laughter of its
creators as he vainly tried to understand their work. Only the thought
of Elaine, the sight of her, the touch of her, allowed him to keep his
sense of balance.
People left Titan, baffled and confused; new people arrived--eager,
full of energy, excited at the chance to tackle the unknown,
undimmed--at first--by the day-to-day frustrations of trying to unlock
a door that has no key.
* * * * *
Lee dialed his selection at the robocafeteria and waited a few moments
for the tray of food to appear at the pickup table. He had spent the
morning shut away in his office, searching months worth of reports for
some glimmer of encouragement. There was progress, of course; there was
always progress. But it was never in a direction that would take them
closer to the final answer.
And, carefully tucked into the top drawer of his desk was a nasty
yellow sheet that bore a querulous message from Earth: What is the
status of the project? Why are expenditures constantly climbing? Is a
ninety-three-man staff really needed? When can some solid results be
expected?
Lee picked an unoccupied table and sat down. As he started to eat, a
quartet of young engineers, headed by Dr. Kurtzman, came in and sat at
the next table.
"I still don't see why they keep digging," one of them was saying.
"They'll never find anything outside the buildings."
Another countered, "Look, they've got to follow every possible angle.
The only way we're ever going to understand this thing is to put
together every scrap of evidence we can find until there's enough to
form an understandable picture."
Kurtzman shook his head. "Not at all. This isn't going to be solved
by putting pieces together, like a puzzle. There's more evidence in
those buildings than we can ever hope to digest. It's not a matter
of adding up clues ... this is going to be a _gestalt_. One of these
days, somebody's going to get a few thousand million of his brain cells
turned the right way, and he'll say, "Ah-HAH!" Then we'll have
it. Until then, it's our job to keep poking around, hoping to find the
right piece of information to trigger the _gestalt_."