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Commissar.
    With heart and hand I pledge you,
    While I load my gun again,
    You will never be forgotten,
    Nor the enemy forgiven,
    Hans Beimler, our Commissar,
    Hans Beimler, our Commissar.
     

  4  
    A s Herb Asher descended the slope the meter in his hand showed the homing signal growing in strength. She ascended this hill to get to my dome, he realized. I made her walk uphill, since I wouldn't go to her. I made a sick girl toil her way up step by step, carrying an armload of supplies. I will fry in hell.
    But, he realized, it's not too late.
    He made me take her seriously, Asher realized. I simply was not taking her seriously. It was as if I imagined that she was making up her illness. Telling a tale to get attention. What does that say about me? he asked himself. Because in point of fact I really knew she was sick, truly sick, not faking it. I have been asleep, he said to himself. And, while I slept, a girl has been dying.
    And then he thought about Yah, and he trembled. I can get my rig repaired, he thought. The gear that Yah burned down. That won't be hard; all I have to do is notify the mother ship and inform them that I suffered a meltdown. And Yah promised to restore to me my Fox tapes—which undoubtedly he can do. But I've got to go back to that dome and live there. How can I live there? I can't live there. It's impossible.
    Yah has plans for me, he thought. And he felt fear, realizing this. He can make me do anything.
    Rybys greeted him impassively. She did have on a blue robe and she did hold a wadded-up handkerchief, and, he saw, her eyes were red from crying. "Come in," she said, although he was already in the dome; she seemed a little dazed. "I was thinking about you," she said. "Sitting and thinking."
    On the kitchen table stood a medicine bottle. Full.
    "Oh, that," she said. "I was having trouble sleeping and I was thinking about taking a sleeping pill."
    "Put it away," he said.
    Obediently, she returned the bottle to her bathroom cabinet.
    "I owe you an apology," he said.
    "No you don't. Want something to drink? What time is it?" She turned to look at her wall clock. "I was up anyhow; you didn't wake me. Some telemetric data was coming in." She pointed to her gear; lights showed, indicating activity.
    He said, "I mean I had air. Portable air."
    "I know that. Everyone has portable air. Sit down; I'll fix you tea." She rooted in an overflowing drawer beside her stove. "Somewhere I have teabags."
    Now, for the first time, he became aware of the condition of her dome. It was shocking. Dirty dishes, pots and pans and even glasses of spoiled food, soiled clothing strewn everywhere, litter and debris… Troubled, he gazed around, wondering if he should offer to clean up the place. And she moved so slowly, with such evident fatigue. He had an intuition, suddenly, that she was far sicker than she had originally led him to believe.
    "It's a sty," she said.
    He said, "You are very tired."
    "Well, it wears me out to heave up my guts every day of the week. Here's a teabag. Shit; it's been used once. I use them and then dry them out. It's OK once, but sometimes I find I'm reusing the same bag again and again. I'll try to find a fresh one." She continued to rummage.
    The TV screen showed a picture. It was an animated horror: a vast hemorrhoid that swelled and pulsed angrily. "What are you watching?" Asher asked. He averted his gaze from the animation.
    "There's a new soap opera on. It just began the other day. 'The Splendor of—' I forget. Somebody or something. It's really interesting. They've been running it a lot."
    "You like the soaps?" he said.
    "They keep me company. Turn up the sound."
    He turned up the sound. The soap opera had now resumed, replacing the animated hemorrhoid. An elderly bearded man, an exceedingly hairy old man, struggled with two popeyed arachnids who sought, apparently, to decapitate him. "Get your fucking mandibles off me!" the elderly man shouted, flailing about. The flash of laser beams