“We’ll go—if we go someplace where we can do just as well,” Angela said, and there was a hardness back in her voice. “That’s not the major point though. There’s something you are going to have to settle in your own mind before you will be happy. This stupid importance you attach to death. Don’t you realize how completely trivial it is? Two hundred years from now you, I and every person now living in the galaxy will be dead. What does it matter if a few of them are helped along and reach their destination a bit quicker? They’d do the same to you if they had the chance.”
“You’re wrong,” I insisted, knowing that there is more to living and dying than just this pessimistic philosophy, but unable in this moment of stress to clarify and speak my ideas. Angela was a powerful drug and my tiny remaining shard of compassionate reserve didn’t stand a chance, washed under by the flood of stronger emotions. I pulled her to me, kissing her, knowing that this solved most of the problems although it made the final solution that much more difficult.
A thin and irritating buzz scratched at my ears, and Angela heard it too. Separating was difficult for both of us. I sat and watched unseeingly while she went to the vidiphone. She blanked the video circuits and snapped a query into it. I couldn’t hear the answer because she had the speaker off and listened through the earpiece. Once or twice she said yes , and looked up suddenly at me. There was no indication of whom she was talking to, and I hadn’t the slightest interest. There were problems enough around.
After hanging up she just stood quietly for a moment and I waited for her to speak. Instead she walked to her dressing table and opened the drawer. There were a lot of things that could have been concealed there, but she took out the one thing I was least suspecting.
A gun. Big barreled and deadly, pointing at me.