April 6: And What Goes Around (37 page)

* * *

Mr. and Mrs.
Oswald were delivered by corridor cart to the Fox and Hare. That wasn't their
real name but they had dropped 'Doe' that they had declared on entry as
unusable. They were newly installed in their apartment, which they found
abominable, on the half G level of Home. Their doctor was being pushy for them
to come every other day for physical therapy and Mr. Oswald would, when it
suited him. Mrs. Morrison needed it much less than her husband, but said she
needed it and looked forward to it, more for the purpose of encouraging her
husband to go. She saw how diminished he was compared to her husband of a year
ago and wanted him to improve. He was a very stubborn man.

They had a Polish
and much less Anglo-Saxon surname on Earth, and were staying incognito with the
goal of being able to return to North America without being prosecuted for
gene-mod criminality if conditions improved. They had a very comfortable life,
significant assets, and a position in society worth returning to if they could.

He walked in with
a cane, a new thing he detested, his wife taking his elbow on the other side,
but it was she who was steadying him. The lesser weight on the half G level helped
a lot both at their new apartment and here at the club in this stage of his
recovery. He looked young from the LET they'd had, but thin and ill still from
the ravages of the flu.

They'd called and
made reservations assured by reviews that this was a nice club. Of course there
was only one other club offered on the habitat. It sounded as if this one had
the livelier sort of atmosphere they preferred. It had been their custom to
attend New Year's in a club for the last forty some years and they didn't
intend to change habits now. The place seemed at least clean if not of dazzling
decor. There was little in the way of special themed decorations for the
holiday. The furnishings fell short of luxurious. The chairs looked more like
lawn furniture to his eye and there wasn't a fresh flower or candle to be seen
on the tables. The area of M3 through which the cart brought them to reach the
club had a disturbingly industrial flavor to it.

There were only three
tables occupied at this early hour. They were shown to a small table for two
with quite a good view of the stage but out in the open under the gaze of
everyone.

"We'd prefer
one of the tables set back in an alcove with a little privacy," Oswald
informed the host, Phillip, before he could seat his wife.

"I'm sorry
sir, those were all reserved, and they are all for four people."

"Then
un
reserve
one if you care to keep our custom," he suggested, sharply. He was leaning
on his cane eager to sit down, but not here.

There were four
people at one of the better tables a bit above and behind them from the stage.
The one man overheard them in the quiet room and called out to him.

"Our table is
plenty big for six if you want to join us," the man offered. "Those
web chairs can be hard to lever yourself out of, especially with a cane. You
can sit on the pull down seat at the wall and my wife and I will be happy to
take the sling chairs on the outside."

"No, thank
you." Oddly the woman looked familiar. The women were dressed nicely, but
neither of the men had a tie. The one speaking to him didn't even have a
jacket. He had on a sweater. A gorgeous expensive sweater certainly, but more
suitable to a ski lodge than a night club. It put him off. "My wife and I
are newly arrived. I have no idea what sort of society you have here, if any at
all. I will find out when we are properly introduced to it, but I doubt we will
be socializing with people who meet others at," he looked around,
"bars," he concluded, downgrading his opinion of the club. "I'm
not sure I want to be here at all," he told his wife.

"As you will.
I meant no offense," Ben Patsitsas added kindly.

"Oh please
dear, it is too late to go elsewhere, and our place is so empty still and
dreary. Let's do stay if only this once," Mrs. 'Osgood' pleaded.

"Very well.
I've give them one chance to impress me," her husband allowed. "I'd
appreciate being on the other side though," he said to Phillip, nodding
across the center of the room.

The host switched
them, which put them out of earshot of the fellow who had been so familiar.
That was exactly what he intended.

Jesse Duval was
their waiter and arrived to take their drink order.

"It's New
Year's Eve," Oswald said, "What is there to drink but Champagne
tonight? We'll take a bottle of Krug with appetizers now, and reserve another
chilled for later, please."

When Jesse knew
how to decant and present a bottle of champagne smoothly Oswald was somewhat
mollified. When Jesse came back and gave them menus he apologized. "I'm
afraid commerce with Earth is so disrupted we have a much reduced selection. We
normally have fresh oysters and live lobster, but that and some of our fresh
produce is missing. What we do have I can assure you is first quality or we
wouldn't offer it."

"I can see why
that would be," Oswald agreed graciously. "Things were a mess when we
left Earth and you couldn't get half the usual things from the deli or your dry
cleaning picked up. I never was one much for seafood. Do you have a decent
steak that I can have blood red and hot through the middle with Potatoes
Lorraine?"

"Yes sir, I'm
sure we'll please you," Jesse said, then he took Mrs. Oswald's order out
of turn.

Oswald asked
before Jesse could leave. "The people over there, who spoke with us. The one
woman looks familiar. Do you happen to know who they are?"

"Yes sir,
they usually reserve that table. The man who spoke to you is Ben Patsitsas,
he's a well know novelist." Oswald said with his dour face how little that
impressed him.

"The lady
next to him is now his wife. She is President Wiggen previously of the
USNA."

Oswald looked
surprised. Jesse decided to reveal a small secret because he felt Oswald needed
his attitude adjusted. "The other couple are the King and Queen of Spain
who recently retired and left the burden of the throne to the younger
generation."

"Thank you.
How nice you know your customers," Mrs. Oswald said. She spoke up because
her husband didn't look like he could say anything.

"I'm pleased to be of service," Jesse said with a nod, and
retreated.

* * *

"We have a
candidate," Chen informed Jeff.

"Do tell?
Already? I didn't expect anything so soon."

"We
interviewed quite a few news people, but we lucked out with a lady anchor in
Rome. It seems her brother was feeding her information on gene mod people and
the supposed church position about it, but she caught him out contradicting
others public Church statements. She had a little falling out with him about it.
She'd relied on some of his false statements in her reporting. You can imagine
why she'd find that upsetting.

"Then she
made the mistake of saying she might want LET someday herself. That immediately
led to a huge heated argument. In fact she never saw him again. He used to help
her get things in short supply and then that ended just as the local economy
collapsed and you couldn't buy anything for EuroMarks. He stopped arranging
things for her right when she needed it most and her job vanished. Pretty harsh
treatment for your only other living relative."

"What does he
do for the Church?" Jeff asked.''

"He was high
up in
The Institute for the Works of Religion," Chen said. "What
you'd call the Vatican Bank. But he is a Jesuit connected on many levels to
scholarly societies who are not unfamiliar with the sciences and medicine. He's
had access to impressive resources."

"And
she said what that led you to suspect him?" Jeff asked.

"She
said that when he went ballistic because she expressed a desire for LET, he
used almost all the same language in condemning her as was in the documents he
was leaking to her. This lady is no dummy. She heard him drop naturally into
using the same words and phrases he was handing off to her as somebody else's thoughts
when he got upset with her. She said at that moment she was sure he was the
author, not just the conduit of the manifesto condemning LET and us."

"How
interesting," Jeff said. "How is it she has survived the pandemic if
she is gene-mod?"

"She
never had opportunity to have it done. Things fell apart just then to where she
needed to use her resources just to survive, not buy life extension. But he'd
already disowned her and said she was committing the sin of suicide. As far as
she knew he never came out of the Vatican again. Certainly not to see her.
There's some hard feelings there so she didn't hold back telling us about him.
Rather she vilified him," Chen said.

"That
is promising but it is hardly sufficient. In fact it's barely more than
gossip," Jeff said.

"Don't
worry. We won't do anything without
much
more proof. His sister is wrong.
He does leave the Vatican, even now with the conditions much deteriorated outside.
We'll
interview
him," Chen promised.

"That's good.  I leave it in your hands then."
Jeff agreed.

* * *

"Let me
adjust this for your smaller hand," Dr. Ames, AKA Jelly, said. It was a
grip in a frame with an adjustable spacing and a meter that retained the
maximum grip reading until released. "Squeeze smoothly as much as you can
comfortably without hurting yourself. Don't jerk it violently because that will
give us a false reading."

April's right
hand, her dominant one, was good for a hair over thirty five kilograms of
pressure. The left was thirty two. Quite close compared to many.

"That's quite
good for someone your apparent age and size," Ames assured her.
"Especially given the fact you don't do repetitious work or exercises
specific to your grip. We'll use that as a baseline to check every couple weeks
to see how your strength improves. You can still benefit from conditioning, but
your base strength will improve too. I expect you should  increase to fifty
five kilograms in the right hand. I'm going to administer it as an IV. It will
only take about fifteen minutes at a slow drip."

"Do I have to
worry about infecting someone?" April asked.

"No this is a
completely different process," Ames assured her. "It uses modified
but undifferentiated stem cells and certain agents to direct how those cells
are received by your body."

"What are you
going to work on first with the fungus I brought you?" April wondered.

"I'm going to
try to make the tougher stuff taste like beef," Jelly said, numbing her
arm with a spray.

April watched the
needle go in. Most of Jelly's patients looked away.

"I forgot to
ask you if this is going to make me bulkier?" April remembered to ask.

"It's rather
late
to be asking with the needle in you, but no, as a matter of fact there is a
slight slimming effect. But apparently not enough you noticed it on me,"
Jelly said, indicating his own frame with a sweep of his hand down his torso.
"I mentioned that effect on my test subject when we spoke some time
ago,"

"If you are
plateaued out on it now how much can you squeeze?" April asked.

Ames picked up the
instrument and squeezed it slowly as he'd instructed. When he turned the dial
to her it was a hundred and seven kilograms. "Don't think you are going to
do that. I have a much heavier frame and muscle mass. I'm being cautious not to
injure my joints. I stop squeezing at any feeling of strain. I've also been
carrying around a ball of exercise putty and squeezing it while I walk everywhere.
Even so, a bricklayer or a farrier would put me to shame."

"I'll fill
out more eventually," April reminded him.

"Yes, and
that will help, but from what I see in other early LET patients it won't be
until you are thirty or thirty five."

"That's
OK," April assure him. "I'm in no hurry. I'm learning to take the
long view more every day. We'll get it all done in good time."

"Since LET technology
has given us the luxury of time, I think that's a good attitude for everything,"
Ames said. "I predict there will be a cultural shift towards taking the
long view of things."

"Yes," April said, "like Papa-san would say to his pilot
on his boat, 'Steady as she goes.'"

* * *

The fellow was
predictable in his habits. He patronized one establishment outside the walls twice
a week, but never, of course, on Sunday. He wore secular clothing, carried a
virus scanner and wore the sheer gloves so common to Earthies fearful of disease.
The mask he wore was becoming very common on Earth and although a protection,
it unfortunately limited his vision. When the driver of the car he called held
the rear door for him to enter he felt a prick on his neck, and the seat rose
up and smacked him in his face. He vaguely remembered hands pushing his legs in
after him.

When he woke up in
a cheap hotel he was bound at wrists and ankles laying on his back, but not
with metal or tightly. Neither was he gagged against calling out. He didn't
even hurt anywhere so they hadn't treated him roughly. There were two men in
the cheap hotel chairs on either side of the bed, waiting patiently for him to
awaken. They were dressed nicely but not expensively. They didn't bother to
hide their faces, which did worry him.

"You have the
money in my wallet. I assure you my order never pays ransoms. Neither will I
help you perform any crime against the Bank," the churchman told the two
men.

One spoke up,
demonstrating who was in charge. "Your wallet is on the night stand. We examined
it, but don't want the EuroMark toilet paper nor the three small gold coins you
have. We simply want information. Which you can't deny us."