Frederik Pohl - Gateway

My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male. My analyst (whom I call Sigfrid von Shrink, although that isnt his name; he hasnt got a name, being a machine) has a lot of electronic fun with this fact:

Why do you care if some people think its a girls name, Rob?

I dont.

Then why do you keep bringing it up?

He annoys me when he keeps bringing up what I keep bringing up. I look at the ceiling with its hanging mobiles and pinatas, then I look out the window. It isnt really a window. Its a moving holopic of surf coming in on Kaena Point; Sigfrids programming is pretty eclectic. After a while I say, I cant help what my parents called me. I tried spelling it R-O-B-I-N-E-T, but then everybody pronounces it wrong.

You could change it to something else, you know.

If I changed it, I say, and I am sure I am right in this, you would just tell me I was going to obsessive lengths to defend my inner dichotomies.

What I would tell you, Sigfrid says, in his heavy mechanical attempt at humor, is that, please, you shouldnt use technical psychoanalytic terms. Id appreciate it if you would just say what you feel.

What I feel, I say, for the thousandth time, is happy. I got no problems. Why wouldnt I feel happy?

We play these word games a lot, and I dont like them. I think theres something wrong with his program. He says, You tell me, Robbie. Why dont you feel happy?

I dont say anything to that. He persists. I think youre worried.

Shit, Sigfrid, I say, feeling a little disgust, you always say that. Im not worried about anything.

He tries wheedling. Theres nothing wrong with saying how you feel.

I look out the window again, angry because I can feel myself trembling and I dont know why. Youre a pain in the ass, Sigfrid, you know that?

He says something or other, but I am not listening. I am wondering why I waste my time coming here. If there was anybody ever who had every reason to be happy, I have to be him. Im rich. Im pretty good-looking. I am not too old, and anyway, I have Full Medical so I can be just about any age I want to be for the next fifty years or so. I live in New York City under the Big Bubble, where you cant afford to live unless youre really well fixed, and maybe some kind of celebrity besides. I have a summer apartment that overlooks the Tappan Sea and the Palisades Dam. And the girls go crazy over my three Out bangles. You dont see too many prospectors anywhere on Earth, not even in New York. Theyre all wild to have me tell them what its really like out around the Orion Nebula or the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. (Ive never been to either place, of course. The one really interesting place Ive been to I dont like to talk about.)

Or, says Sigirid, having waited the appropriate number of microseconds for a response to whatever it was he said last, if you really are happy, why do you come here for help?

I hate it when he asks me the same questions I ask myself. I dont answer. I squirm around until I get comfortable again on the plastic foam mat, because I can tell that its going to be a long, lousy session. If I knew why I needed help, why would I need help?

Youre a pain in the ass, Sigfrid, you know that?

Rob, you arent very responsive today, Sigfrid says through the little loudspeaker 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 Ive told him that that makes me nervous. Why dont you just tell me what youre thinking?

Im not thinking about anything, particularly.

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

Im remembering I say, and stop.

Remembering what, Rob?

Gateway?

That sounds more like a question than a statement.

Maybe it is. I cant help that. Thats what Im remembering: Gateway.

I have every reason to remember Gateway. Thats how I got the money and the bangles, and other things. I think back to the day I left Gateway. That was, lets 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 couldnt wait to collect my pay, catch my ship, and blow.

Sigfrid says politely, Please say what youre thinking out loud, Robbie.

Im thinking about Shikitei Bakin, I say.

Yes, youve mentioned him. I remember. What about him? I dont answer. Old, legless Shicky Bakin had the room next to mine, but I dont 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 dont 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 wasnt lucky, theyd 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 hed 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 couldnt understand what you just said, Robbie.

I dont 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 cant. I squirm and wriggle. I flail against the foam mat until the restraining straps squeak. Nothing helps. The pain and shame wont 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, youre taking a long time to answer. Do you think youre 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 dont see any. I say judiciously, I dont think thats it, exactly. I dont feel as if I were blocking. Its more as if there were so many things I wanted to say that I couldnt decide which.

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

Now, thats dumb, it seems to me. How do I know which is the first thing, when theyre 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 scoops the cobwebby scraps out of Gateways air?

I reach down into my mind for places where I know it hurts, because it has hurt there before. The way I felt when I was seven years old, parading up and down the Rock Park walk in front of the other kids, begging for someone to pay attention to me? The way it was when we were out of realspace and knew that we were trapped, with the ghost star coming up out of nothingness below us like the smile of a Cheshire cat? Oh, I have a hundred memories like those, and they all hurt. That is, they can. They are pain. They are clearly labeled PAINFUL in the index to my memory. I know where to find them, and I know what it feels like to let them surface.