Gateway - Frederik Pohl Page 0,1

at the head of the mat. Sometimes he uses a very lifelike dummy, sitting in an armchair, tapping a pencil and smiling quirkily at me from time to time. But I've told him that that makes me nervous. "Why don't you just tell me what you're thinking?"

"I'm not thinking about anything, particularly."

"Let your mind roam. Say whatever comes into it, Rob."

"I'm remembering—" I say, and stop.

"Remembering what, Rob?"

"Gateway?"

"That sounds more like a question than a statement."

"Maybe it is. I can't help that. That's what I'm remembering: Gateway."

I have every reason to remember Gateway. That's how I got the money and the bangles, and other things. I think back to the day I left Gateway. That was, let's see, Day 31 of Orbit 22, which means, counting back, just about sixteen years and a couple of months since I left there. I was thirty minutes out of the hospital and couldn't wait to collect my pay, catch my ship, and blow.

Sigfrid says politely, "Please say what you're thinking out loud, Robbie."

"I'm thinking about Shikitei Bakin," I say.

"Yes, you've mentioned him. I remember. What about him?" I don't answer. Old, legless Shicky Bakin had the room next to mine, but I don't want to discuss it with Sigfrid. I wriggle around on my circular mat, thinking about Shicky and trying to cry.

"You seem upset, Rob."

I don't answer to that, either. Shicky was almost the only person I said good-bye to on Gateway. That was funny. There was a big difference in our status. I was a prospector, and Shicky was a garbageman. They paid him enough money to cover his life-support tax because he did odd jobs, and even on Gateway they have to have somebody to clean up the garbage. But sooner or later he would be too old and too sick to be any more use at all. Then, if he was lucky, they would push him out into space and he would die. If he wasn't lucky, they'd probably send him back to a planet. He would die there, too, before very long; but first he would have the experience of living for a few weeks or so as a helpless cripple.

Anyway, he was my neighbor. Every morning he would get up and painstakingly vacuum every square inch around his cell. It would be dirty, because there was so much trash floating around Gateway all the time, despite the attempts to clean it up. When he had it perfectly clean, even around the roots of the little shrublets he planted and shaped, he would take a handful of pebbles, bottle caps, bits of torn paper — the same trash he'd just vacuumed up, half the time — and painstakingly arrange it on the place he had just cleaned. Funny! I never could see the difference, but Klara said … Klara said she could.

"Rob, what were you thinking about just then?" Sigfrid asks.

I roll up into a fetal ball and mumble something.

"I couldn't understand what you just said, Robbie."

I don't say anything. I wonder what became of Shicky. I suppose he died. Suddenly I feel very sad about Shicky dying, such a very long way from Nagoya, and I wish again that I could cry. But I can't. I squirm and wriggle. I flail against the foam mat until the restraining straps squeak. Nothing helps. The pain and shame won't come out. I feel rather pleased with myself that I am trying so hard to let the feelings out, but I have to admit I am not being successful, and the dreary interview goes on.

Sigfrid says, "Rob, you're taking a long time to answer. Do you think you're holding something back?"

I say virtuously, "What kind of a question is that? If I am, how would I know?" I pause to survey the inside of my brain, looking in all the corners for padlocks that I can open for Sigfrid. I don't see any. I say judiciously, "I don't think that's it, exactly. I don't feel as if I were blocking. It's more as if there were so many things I wanted to say that I couldn't decide which."

"Take any one, Rob. Say the first thing that comes into your mind."

Now, that's dumb, it seems to me. How do I know which is the first thing, when they're all boiling around in there together? My father? My mother? Sylvia? Klara? Poor Shicky, trying to balance himself in flight without any legs, flapping around like a barn swallow chasing bugs as he