The Voices of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

arms. Or, actually, his bed. I could see very clearly the gears revolving in Rannulf s head. I wished that Alma could.
    "I think," I said judiciously, "that Rannulf's the only person with the right to decide what he does with his life."
    "Thank you, Barry," he said. The words were friendly, but the look he gave me wasn't. "I knew you'd understand that it's what I have to do. Excuse me for a minute?"
    He got up and left us, another nice thing from an unlikely source. I explained it to Alma. "He doesn't like seeing me kiss you," I said, watching him thread his way between the noisy tables.
    Alma frowned at me. "Don't be silly, Barry. He just has to go to the bathroom, and don't change the subject."
    "Well, what he does isn't up to me, is it?"
    "Don't you think you have a responsibility to keep a friend from doing something stupid?"
    "Rannulf isn't my friend."
    "He's my friend, Barry."
    I didn't answer that. I caught sight of a waitress in the distance and stood up to wave at her. When she gave me the kind of look that meant she'd get to me sooner or later, so relax, I did. I sat down again.
    "You're looking beautiful as always," I told Alma. "What do you want to do about dinner?"
    "Well, nothing. Rannulf ordered a sandwich he decided he didn't want, so I ate it. I was hungry. Barry? Don't you think he's making a mistake?"
    I thought for a moment. I wasn't really thinking about whether Rannulf Enderman was making a mistake, I was thinking about Alma.
    I had been thinking seriously about Alma for some time, in fact. She wasn't the first woman I'd dated in all those years on the Moon, but she was the first one in connection with whom the word "marriage" had begun to come up in my thoughts. I had not forgotten what life with Gina had been like, before everything went sour. I'd liked being married, and, now that I'd got out of the habit of waking up every morning and wondering if I were going to be crazy that day, I was beginning to think about trying it again. I had had enough of short-term lovers. I wanted something, well, permanent. I was even pretty sure that the one I wanted that permanent arrangement with was Alma Vendette—always assuming that Rannulf was really history.
    But then there was the problem of children.
    Matthew had not inherited the bad genes that had made me a loop; we'd checked that out as soon as the doctors diagnosed me. But that was just good luck. The genes were still there; and if Alma decided she wanted a husband who could give her a child, which I was pretty sure she might, I didn't think I qualified.
    "Well?" said Alma, reminding me that she had asked me a question; but luck was with me, the waitress came up at that moment and I didn't have to answer it.
    "Take a drink order for me, will you?" I said to the waitress.
    She gave me an annoyed look. "I've already got your drink," she said, and put down something lime-colored with a parasol in it.
    I shook my head. "Wrong. That's for the other guy," I told her; the drink looked like something Rannulf would have ordered. "What I want is whiskey and water, two centimeters of each."
    I wasn't really surprised at the mistake. I had long ago discovered that strangers thought Rannulf looked a little like me; Alma seemed to go for the tall, skinny kind with rat-colored hair. When I had the waitress straightened out I thought of a subject that didn't concern Rannulf Enderman, so I told Alma about my call to Matthew.
    "You're changing the subject," she said accusingly.
    She let me change it, though. I had known she would, because one of the subjects Alma was always willing to talk about was my son Matthew.
    You don't have to say anything, I know I'm telling you more than you really want to know.
    I can't help it. I don't know any other way to try to get it all clear and I have to get it all clear. For both our sakes. I have to make you understand what we're like—all of us, me and Captain Tscharka and all the rest of us who were involved.
    There's another thing,