I looked at our starship: at its stainless-steel hull which shown cool and blue in the building’s dim shadow. “No. No, I don’t think so,” I said. “We’ve ... transcended all that, to some extent. I mean, look at it, Mark. Look at what we’ve accomplished.”
He followed my gaze, holding his glass loosely, tenuously, his eyes blurry and red. “It—it looks like a giant hard-on,” he said, and tittered. He began looking for the bottle. “Or maybe a middle finger. Like a big ‘f**k You’ to God.”
I watched as he stumbled through the sliding glass doors into the kitchen. “You should lay off that,” I said. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
But by then he was retching into the sink and I was alone, just looking at my empty glass, wondering, a little amused: Did he see himself as Abel? Or did he see himse
