Read Online A Separate War and Other Stories by Joe Haldeman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joe Haldeman
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option of staying on Heaven.
I could chase her to Heaven, but then she would be thirty-five years older than me. If we didnât pass one another in transit.
But I did have one chance. One way to outwit relativity.
Among the options available to veterans was Middle Finger, a planet circling Mizar. It was a nominally heterosexual planetâhet or home was now completely a matter of choice; Man could switch you one way or the other in an hour.
I toyed with the idea of âgoing home,â becoming lesbian by inclination as well as definition. But men still appealed to meâmen not Manâand Middle Finger offered me an outside chance at the one man I still truly loved.
Five veterans had just bought an old cruiser and were using it as a time machineâa âtime shuttle,â they called it, zipping back and forth between Mizar and Alcor at relativistic speed, more than two objective years passing every week. I could buy my way onto it by using my back pay to purchase antimatter fuel. I could get there in one collapsar jump, having left word for William, and if he lived, could rejoin him in a matter of months or years.
The decision was so easy it was not a decision; it was as automatic as being born. I left him a note:
11 Oct 2878
Williamâ
All this is in your personnel file. But knowing you, you might just chuck it. So I made sure youâd get this note.
Obviously, I lived. Maybe you will, too. Join me.
I know from the records that youâre out at Sade-138 and wonât be back for a couple of centuries. No problem.
Iâm going to a planet they call Middle Finger, the fifth planet out from Mizar. Itâs two collapsar jumps, ten months subjective. Middle Finger is a kind of Coventry for heterosexuals. They call it a âeugenic control baseline.â
No matter. It took all of my money, and all the money of five other old-timers, but we bought a cruiser from UNEF. And weâre using it as a time machine.
So Iâm on a relativistic shuttle, waiting for you. All it does is go out five light-years and come back to Middle Finger, very fast. Every ten years I age about a month. So if youâre on schedule and still alive, Iâll only be twenty-eight when you get here. Hurry!
I never found anybody else, and I donât want anybody else. I donât care whether youâre ninety years old or thirty. If I canât be your lover, Iâll be your nurse.
âMarygay
9
From The New Voice , Paxton, Middle Finger 24â6
14/2/3143
OLD-TIMER HAS FIRST BOY
Marygay Potter-Mandella (24 Post Road, Paxton) gave birth Friday last to a fine baby boy, 3.1 kilos.
Marygay lays claim to being the second-âoldestâ resident of Middle Finger, having been born in 1977. She fought through most of the Forever War and then waited for her mate on the time shuttle, 261 years.
The baby, not yet named, was delivered at home with the help of a friend of the family, Dr. Diana Alsever-Moore.
(1998)
Diminished Chord
When I was married I played in a pretty good band and made pretty good money, but when the marriage went south so did I. Wound up being a sideman in a college town in Florida. Jazz and swing and rock, whateverâneed a banjo, I can frail along; pluck a mandolin.
Or a lute. How I got the lute, and the lute got me, is a story.
A sidemanâs a musical hired gun, and a chameleon. You learn to pick up the leadâs style really fast and get under it. You make them happy and you get more work; word gets around.
I was a noodler as a kid, with a no-name classical guitar my father left sitting around. Always had a good ear. When a song came up on the radio Iâd pick up that soft-string and just start playing along somewhere in the middle of the fingerboard. I learned how to read music with piano lessons, but the main thing was always ear to fingers without too much brain in between. That turned out to serve me well.
I also did a little teaching at a local music
I could chase her to Heaven, but then she would be thirty-five years older than me. If we didnât pass one another in transit.
But I did have one chance. One way to outwit relativity.
Among the options available to veterans was Middle Finger, a planet circling Mizar. It was a nominally heterosexual planetâhet or home was now completely a matter of choice; Man could switch you one way or the other in an hour.
I toyed with the idea of âgoing home,â becoming lesbian by inclination as well as definition. But men still appealed to meâmen not Manâand Middle Finger offered me an outside chance at the one man I still truly loved.
Five veterans had just bought an old cruiser and were using it as a time machineâa âtime shuttle,â they called it, zipping back and forth between Mizar and Alcor at relativistic speed, more than two objective years passing every week. I could buy my way onto it by using my back pay to purchase antimatter fuel. I could get there in one collapsar jump, having left word for William, and if he lived, could rejoin him in a matter of months or years.
The decision was so easy it was not a decision; it was as automatic as being born. I left him a note:
11 Oct 2878
Williamâ
All this is in your personnel file. But knowing you, you might just chuck it. So I made sure youâd get this note.
Obviously, I lived. Maybe you will, too. Join me.
I know from the records that youâre out at Sade-138 and wonât be back for a couple of centuries. No problem.
Iâm going to a planet they call Middle Finger, the fifth planet out from Mizar. Itâs two collapsar jumps, ten months subjective. Middle Finger is a kind of Coventry for heterosexuals. They call it a âeugenic control baseline.â
No matter. It took all of my money, and all the money of five other old-timers, but we bought a cruiser from UNEF. And weâre using it as a time machine.
So Iâm on a relativistic shuttle, waiting for you. All it does is go out five light-years and come back to Middle Finger, very fast. Every ten years I age about a month. So if youâre on schedule and still alive, Iâll only be twenty-eight when you get here. Hurry!
I never found anybody else, and I donât want anybody else. I donât care whether youâre ninety years old or thirty. If I canât be your lover, Iâll be your nurse.
âMarygay
9
From The New Voice , Paxton, Middle Finger 24â6
14/2/3143
OLD-TIMER HAS FIRST BOY
Marygay Potter-Mandella (24 Post Road, Paxton) gave birth Friday last to a fine baby boy, 3.1 kilos.
Marygay lays claim to being the second-âoldestâ resident of Middle Finger, having been born in 1977. She fought through most of the Forever War and then waited for her mate on the time shuttle, 261 years.
The baby, not yet named, was delivered at home with the help of a friend of the family, Dr. Diana Alsever-Moore.
(1998)
Diminished Chord
When I was married I played in a pretty good band and made pretty good money, but when the marriage went south so did I. Wound up being a sideman in a college town in Florida. Jazz and swing and rock, whateverâneed a banjo, I can frail along; pluck a mandolin.
Or a lute. How I got the lute, and the lute got me, is a story.
A sidemanâs a musical hired gun, and a chameleon. You learn to pick up the leadâs style really fast and get under it. You make them happy and you get more work; word gets around.
I was a noodler as a kid, with a no-name classical guitar my father left sitting around. Always had a good ear. When a song came up on the radio Iâd pick up that soft-string and just start playing along somewhere in the middle of the fingerboard. I learned how to read music with piano lessons, but the main thing was always ear to fingers without too much brain in between. That turned out to serve me well.
I also did a little teaching at a local music
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