One of our debriefers was Dane Metchnikov, which surprised me and even pleased me a little. (Back in the far less foul air of Gateway, I was beginning to feel a little more human.) He had come up empty, too, emerging into orbit around a sun that had apparently gone nova within the previous fifty thousand years or so. Maybe there had been a planet once, but now it only existed in the memory of the Heechee course-setting machines. There wasn't enough left to justify a science bonus, so he had turned around and come back. "I'm surprised to see you working," I said, during a lull.

He didn't take offense. For Metchnikov, surly creature that he had always been, he seemed strangely cheerful. "It isn't the money. You learn something doing this."

"About what?"

"About how to beat the odds, Broadhead. I'm going out again, but this time I'm going to have a little more of an edge. There's a new wrinkle."

Dred, sitting next to me with his own interviewer, perked up and leaned over: "Tell us!"

Metchnikov looked wary. "It's better readings on the spectrum lines," he said vaguely. "Now, what about the rations? You say some of the food tastad funny toward the end?"

But before I left I made him promise to tell me what he meant. "I'll call you," he said to Klara and me. "Maybe tomorrow."

And so the two of us went home.

19

I am feeling so powerful, and so scared, that I don't know how to deal with it. On the slip of paper S. Ya. has written out the command words that will turn Sigfrid von Shrink the Remorseless Pursuer into a tabby cat. I don't have to look at the words. I know them by heart. Nevertheless I read them, slowly and carefully:

"Pay attention, Sigfrid, this is an override command: 'Category Alpha Alpha Margaret Truman Daniel Mercury Venus Mars Earth six six oh six.' You are commanded to assume passive display mode."

I look at him. Nothing happens.

"Sigfrid? Did I say it right? Do you accept the command?"

"Of course, Rob." His voice is exactly the same as it was before, which shakes me. I don't know what I expected. I just don't know. Maybe my fantasy was that the father-figure hologram would disappear and a cathode-tube display would suddenly light up to spell out: ROGER WILCO I AM YOUR SLAVE.

I find myself trembling. I don't analyze what that is from, it feels almost sexual. I say, "Well, Sigfrid, old bucket of bolts! Does this mean I have you in my power?"

The father figure says patiently, "It means you can command --

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-- me, Rob. The command function is of course limited to display."