Read Online Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joe Haldeman
Tags: Fiction, General, Fiction - General, Science-Fiction, science, adventure, Juvenile Nonfiction, Space Opera, Short Stories, Evolution, Body, Mind & Spirit, Technology, Parapsychology, Life Sciences, Telepathy, Precognition, ESP (Clairvoyance, Aeronautics, Astronautics & Space Science
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has any significant history of dysfunction. Carol’s testimony reveals a relatively high frequency of sexual contacts; Jacque’s, relatively low.
4. The subjects were interviewed separately for two to three hours, two days after the experiment. Carol allowed part of the interview to be conducted under hypnosis; Jacque did not.
5. Carol reported a relatively normal, if unusually intense and accelerated, pattern of sexual response. Jacque suffered acute ejaculatory incompetence.
6. Jacque recalled two previous episodes of ejaculatory incompetence, both with well-defined etiology: unusual fatigue, overindulgence in alcohol, lack of emotional rapport with his partner (a prostitute, when be was sixteen). He claims that none of these factors was present to any significant degree in this case, and attributes the episode entirely to the influence of the bridge.
7. Carol, on the other hand, would like to have a bridge of her own.
8. Directly following the experiment, the couple twice shared mutually enjoyable coitus, which of course reinforces Jacque’s claim.
9. Transcription of the interviews, and medical histories, are here appended.
22 - Sing Nonnie
(From A Critical History of American Popular Music, Volume 6 [2040-2060], by Eliot Green. Copyright © Quadrangle TFX, 2072.)
. . . briefly dominated by a bastard creation baptised the “NeoElizabethan Movement.”
The instruments were Elizabethan-as well as copies could be made with 21 St Century craftsmachineship- and the melodies and many of the words were stolen from that period. But the spirit behind it was pure profit, merchants and musicians alike cashing in on the blunted sensibilities of a novelty-hungry public.
A typically bad example is “Sweet Lovers Love the Spring,” popular in the fall of that year:
It was a lov-er and his lass with-> hey
and-a ho and-a hey no-ni-no, that’s with a Broom-
bridge bridge did pass the springtime, the only etc.
Not a complete stanza, but could anyone care. Musically it’s unimaginative-and the words have an immediate emetic effect on any lover of Shakespeare.
Rumor has it that the song was written by a computer in the Public Relations department of the Agency for Extraterrestrial Development.
23 – CHAPTER SEVEN
Jacque closed the briefing room door behind him and nodded hello to everyone. He took a seat beside Carol. The soft leather creaking was the only sound in the room.
“Okay,” Tania said, looking up from her clipboard. “We’re all here. Jacque, this is our new teammate, Gustav Hasenfel, from Bremehauven. Jacque Lefavre.”
Jacque leaned over the seminar table to shake hands. “Guten Tag.” Pale blond hair, handsome strong features, tall, ineffable sadness in clear blue eyes. Handshake warm, dry, firm. Jacque did not like him.
“Tag. Sind Schweizer?”
“Ia naturlich. Mein Akzent?”
“Jawohi.”
“Hey,” Carol said. “Speak French or something.”
“Gus is a Tamer Two,” Tania said. “He’s had four missions.” Which meant, Jacque knew, that after his last mission retirement and/or death had reduced his team to two or three. Otherwise they wouldn’t have broken up his team; the AED liked to keep people together.
“Now,” Tania said, tapping the clipboard. “Two things; three things. Jacque and Gus, they’re tapping you for a breeding mission. Day after tomorrow, September second, 0536.”
“My poor overworked boy,” Carol whispered, humorlessly.
“Where will it be?” Gus asked.
“Sixty-one Cygni B. Fascinating place.”
“Indeed. We spent two months there, geoforming.”
She smiled. “I had a baby there last year.”
“I missed you by three years, then.”
Short silence while they nodded at each other. “The rest of us won’t be going out until next month. They did manage to fund another Groombridge expedition, a longer one. We’ll be there forty-seven days, starting October eleventh. With the mass spectrograph.”
“Starting
4. The subjects were interviewed separately for two to three hours, two days after the experiment. Carol allowed part of the interview to be conducted under hypnosis; Jacque did not.
5. Carol reported a relatively normal, if unusually intense and accelerated, pattern of sexual response. Jacque suffered acute ejaculatory incompetence.
6. Jacque recalled two previous episodes of ejaculatory incompetence, both with well-defined etiology: unusual fatigue, overindulgence in alcohol, lack of emotional rapport with his partner (a prostitute, when be was sixteen). He claims that none of these factors was present to any significant degree in this case, and attributes the episode entirely to the influence of the bridge.
7. Carol, on the other hand, would like to have a bridge of her own.
8. Directly following the experiment, the couple twice shared mutually enjoyable coitus, which of course reinforces Jacque’s claim.
9. Transcription of the interviews, and medical histories, are here appended.
22 - Sing Nonnie
(From A Critical History of American Popular Music, Volume 6 [2040-2060], by Eliot Green. Copyright © Quadrangle TFX, 2072.)
. . . briefly dominated by a bastard creation baptised the “NeoElizabethan Movement.”
The instruments were Elizabethan-as well as copies could be made with 21 St Century craftsmachineship- and the melodies and many of the words were stolen from that period. But the spirit behind it was pure profit, merchants and musicians alike cashing in on the blunted sensibilities of a novelty-hungry public.
A typically bad example is “Sweet Lovers Love the Spring,” popular in the fall of that year:
It was a lov-er and his lass with-> hey
and-a ho and-a hey no-ni-no, that’s with a Broom-
bridge bridge did pass the springtime, the only etc.
Not a complete stanza, but could anyone care. Musically it’s unimaginative-and the words have an immediate emetic effect on any lover of Shakespeare.
Rumor has it that the song was written by a computer in the Public Relations department of the Agency for Extraterrestrial Development.
23 – CHAPTER SEVEN
Jacque closed the briefing room door behind him and nodded hello to everyone. He took a seat beside Carol. The soft leather creaking was the only sound in the room.
“Okay,” Tania said, looking up from her clipboard. “We’re all here. Jacque, this is our new teammate, Gustav Hasenfel, from Bremehauven. Jacque Lefavre.”
Jacque leaned over the seminar table to shake hands. “Guten Tag.” Pale blond hair, handsome strong features, tall, ineffable sadness in clear blue eyes. Handshake warm, dry, firm. Jacque did not like him.
“Tag. Sind Schweizer?”
“Ia naturlich. Mein Akzent?”
“Jawohi.”
“Hey,” Carol said. “Speak French or something.”
“Gus is a Tamer Two,” Tania said. “He’s had four missions.” Which meant, Jacque knew, that after his last mission retirement and/or death had reduced his team to two or three. Otherwise they wouldn’t have broken up his team; the AED liked to keep people together.
“Now,” Tania said, tapping the clipboard. “Two things; three things. Jacque and Gus, they’re tapping you for a breeding mission. Day after tomorrow, September second, 0536.”
“My poor overworked boy,” Carol whispered, humorlessly.
“Where will it be?” Gus asked.
“Sixty-one Cygni B. Fascinating place.”
“Indeed. We spent two months there, geoforming.”
She smiled. “I had a baby there last year.”
“I missed you by three years, then.”
Short silence while they nodded at each other. “The rest of us won’t be going out until next month. They did manage to fund another Groombridge expedition, a longer one. We’ll be there forty-seven days, starting October eleventh. With the mass spectrograph.”
“Starting