I do hate his guts.
He is trying to help me, and I hate him for it very much. I think about sweet, sexy S. Ya. and how willing she is to do anything I ask her, pretty nearly. I want, a lot, to make Sigfrid hurt.
12
I came back to my room one morning and found the P-phone whining faintly, like a distant, angry mosquito. I punched the message code and found that the assistant personnel director required my presence in her office at ten hundred hours that morning. Well, it was later than that already. I had formed the habit of spending a lot of time, and most nights, with Klara. Her pad was a lot more comfortable than mine. So I didn't get the message until nearly eleven, and my tardiness in getting to the Corporation personnel offices didn't help the assistant director's mood.
She was a very fat woman named Emma Fother. She brushed off my excuses and accused, "You graduated your courses seventeen days ago. You haven't done a thing since."
"I'm waiting for the right mission," I said.
"How long are you going to wait? Your per capita's paid up for three more days, then what?"
"Well," I said, almost truthfully, "I was going to come in to see you about that today anyway. I'd like a job here on Gateway."
"Pshaw." (I'd never heard anyone say that before, but that's how it sounded.) "Is that why you came to Gateway, to clean sewers?"
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MISSION REPORT
Vessel 3-31, Voyage 08D27. Crew C. Pitrin, N. Ginza, J. Krabbe.
Transit time out 19 days 4 hours. Position uncertain, vicinity (21.y.) Zeta Tauri.
Summary: "Emerged in transpolar orbit planet .88 Earth radius at .4 A.U. Planet possessed 3 detected small satellites. Six other planets inferred by computer logic. Primary K7.
"Landing made. This planet has evidently gone through a warming period. There are no ice caps, and the present shorelines do not appear very old. No detected signs of habitation. No intelligent life.
"Finescreen scanning located what appeared to be a Heechee rendezvous station in our orbit. We approached it. It was intact. In forcing an entrance it exploded and N. Ginza was killed. Our vessel was damaged and we returned, J. Krabbe dying en route. No artifacts were secured. Biotic samples from planet destroyed in damage to vessel."
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I was pretty sure that was a bluff, because there weren't that many sewers; there wasn't enough gravity flow to support them. "The right mission could come along any day."
"Oh, sure, Rob. You know, people like you worry me. Do you have any idea how important our work here is?"
"Well, I think so--"
"There's a whole universe out there for us to find and bring home! Gateway's the only way we can reach it. A person like you, who grew up on the plankton farms--"
"Actually it was the Wyoming food mines."
"Whatever! You know how desperately the human race needs what we can give them. New technology. New power sources. Food! New worlds to live in." She shook her head and punched through the sorter on her desk, looking both angry and worried. I supposed that she was check-rated on how many of us idlers and parasites she managed to get to go out, the way we were supposed to, which accounted for her hostility -- assuming you could account for her desire to stay on Gateway in the first place. She abandoned the sorter and got up to open a file against the wall. "Suppose I do find you a job," she said over her shoulder. "The only skill you have that's any use here is prospecting, and you're not using that."