Now Wait for Last Year (26 page)

'I think it's my place to tell you that,' Eric said, 'not because I lack respect for reeg life or because I believe Terrans ought to tell a reeg when to die and when not to but simply because I know the situation and you do not. You'll just have to accept my word that it's that important.' He waited for the box to light up but it did not. 'No comment?' he asked, disappointed in a vague way. There had been so little real contact between him and the reeg; it seemed a bad omen, somehow.

At last the box, reluctantly, lit.

'You have nothing else to say?' Eric said, incredulous.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

'It's on the forms I gave you,' Eric said, and left the hotel room, shutting the door loudly after him.

Outdoors on the sidewalk he hailed an old-fashioned surface cab and told its human driver to take him to TF&D.

Fifteen minutes later he once more entered the attractive apteryx-shaped, gray-lit building and made his way down the familiar corridor to his own office. Or what had until recently been his office.

Miss Perth, his secretary, blinked in amazement. 'Why, Dr Sweetscent – I thought you were in Cheyenne!'

'Is Jack Blair around?' He glanced toward the parts bins but he did not see his departmental assistant. Bruce Himmel, however, lurked in the dim last row, an inventory chart and clipboard in one hand. 'How'd you make out with the San Diego Public Library?' Eric asked him.

Startled, Himmel rose to a standing position. 'I'm appealing, doctor. I'll never give up. How come you're back here in

Tijuana?'

Til Perth said, 'Jack is upstairs conferring with Mr Virgil Ackerman, doctor. You look tired. It's a lot of work there in Cheyenne, isn't it? Such a big responsibility.' Her long-lashed blue eyes showed sympathy and her large breasts seemed to swell a trifle in a motherly, mobile, nourishing way. 'Can I fix you a cup of coffee?'

'Sure. Thanks.' He seated himself at his desk and rested for a moment, thinking back over the day. Strange that all these things had happened in a sequence which had returned him to this spot, to his own chair at last. Was this in some sense the end? Had he played out his little – or not so little – part in a brawl involving three races of the galaxy? Four, if the rotten-pear-shaped creatures from Betelgeuse were included ... and out of sentiment he did. Perhaps the load was off him. A vidcall to Cheyenne, to Molinari; that would do it and once more he would be Virgil Ackerman's physician, replacing organ after organ as they gave out. But there was still Kathy. Was she here at TF&D's infirmary? Or in a San Diego hospital? Perhaps she was trying to resume her life, despite the addiction, doing her job for Virgil. She was not a coward; she would keep pushing until the end.

'Is Kathy here in the building?' he asked Til Perth.

'I'll check for you, doctor.' She jiggled the button of her desk-corn. There's your coffee, beside your elbow.'

'Thanks.' He sipped the coffee with gratitude. It was almost like old times; his office had always been for him an oasis where things were rational, safe from the fury of his botched-up domestic life. Here he could pretend that people were nice to one another, that relationships between people could be merely friendly, merely casual. And yet – that was not enough. There had to be intimacy, too. Even with its threat of becoming a destroying force.

Taking paper and pen, he wrote out from memory the formula for the antidote to JJ-180.

'She's in the infirmary on the fourth floor,' Miss Perth rinformed him. 'I didn't know she was sick; is it serious?'

Eric handed her the paper, folded. Take this to Jonas. He'll know what it is and what to do with it.' He wondered if he should go up to Kathy, tell her that the antidote would soon be • in existence. Beyond the shadow of a doubt he was obliged to, by the most fundamental structure of decency. 'Okay,' he said, rising. 'I'll go see her.'

'Give her my best,' Til Perth called after him as he plodded out of the office into the hall.

'Sure,' he murmured.

When he reached the fourth floor infirmary he found Kathy, wearing a white cotton gown, seated in a reclining chair, her legs crossed, feet bare. She was reading a magazine. She looked old and shrunken, and obviously under heavy sedation.

'Best wishes,' he said to her, 'from Til.'

Slowly, with conspicuous difficulty, Kathy glanced up, focused her gaze on him. 'Any – news for me?'

'The antidote's in town. Or soon will be. All Hazeltine Corp. has to do is whip up a batch and express it here. Another six hours.' He made an attempt to smile encouragingly; it failed. 'How do you feel?'

'Fine now. Since you brought me the news.' She was surprisingly matter-of-fact, even for her with her schizoid ways. The sedation no doubt accounted for it. 'You did it, didn't you? Found it for me.' Then, at last remembering, she added, 'Oh yes, and for yourself, too. But you could have kept it, not told me. Thanks, dear.'

'"Dear."' It hurt to hear her use such a word to him.

'I can see,' Kathy said carefully, 'that underneath you really are fond of me still, despite what I've done to you. Otherwise you wouldn't—'

'Sure I would; you think I'm a moral monster? The cure should be a matter of public record, available for anyone who's on the damn stuff. Even 'Starmen. As far as I'm concerned deliberately addictive toxic drugs are an abomination, a crime against life.' He was silent then, thinking to himself, And someone who addicts another is a criminal and ought to be hanged or shot. 'I'm leaving,' he said. 'Going back to Cheyenne. I'll see you. Good luck on your therapy.' He added, trying not to make it sound deliberately unkind, 'You know, it won't restore the physical damage already done; you understand that, Kathy.'

'How old,' she asked,'do I look?'

'You look what you are, about thirty-five.'

'No.' She shook her head. 'I've seen in the mirror.'

Eric said, 'See to it, will you, that everyone who took the drug that night with you, that first time, gets some of the antidote; I'll trust you to do that. Okay?'

'Of course. They're my friends.' She toyed with a corner of her magazine. 'Eric, I can't expect you to stay with me now, with the way I am physically. All withered and—' She broke off and became silent.

Was this his chance? He said, 'You want a divorce, Kathy? If you do I'll give it to you. But personally—' He hesitated. How far could hypocrisy go? What was really required of him now? His future self, his compatriot from 2056, had pleaded with him to break loose from her. Didn't all aspects of reason dictate that he do so and if possible right now?

In a low voice Kathy said, 'I still love you. I don't want to separate. I'll try to treat you better; honesty I will. I promise.'

'Shall I be honest?'

'Yes,' she said. 'You should always be honest.'

'Let me go.'

She looked up at him. Some of the old spirit, the venom that had etched away the fiber of their relationship, glowed in her eyes. But it was vitiated now. Her addiction, plus the sedation had weakened her; the power which she had formerly exerted over him, trapping him and hugging him to her, had gone. Shrugging, she murmured, 'Well I asked you to be honest and I got just that. I guess I should be glad.'

'Will you agree, then? You'll commence litigation?'

Kathy said carefully, 'On one condition. If there's no other woman.'

'There isn't.' He thought of Phyllis Ackerman; that surely didn't count. Even in Kathy's suspicion-haunted world.

'If I find out there is,' she stated, 'I'll fight a divorce; I won't co-operate. You'll never get free from me: that's a promise, too.'

'Then it's agreed.' He felt a great weight slide into the abyss of infinity, leaving him with a merely earthly load, one which I an ordinary human being could bear. Thanks,' he said.

Kathy said. Thank you, Eric, for the antidote. So look what my drug addiction, my years of using drugs, has meant, finally. It's made it possible for you to escape. It did accomplish some good after all.'

For the life of him he could not determine if she meant that sardonically. He decided to inquire about something else. 'When you feel better are you going to resume your job here at TF&D?'

'Eric, I may have something stirring for me. When I was under the drug's influence, back in the past—' she halted, then painfully continued; talking was difficult for her now. 'I mailed an electronic part to Virgil. Back in the mid 1930s. With a note telling him what to do about it and also who I was. So he'd remember me later on. About now, in fact.'

Eric said, 'But—' He broke off.

'Yes?' She managed to fix her attention on him, what he was saying. 'Did I do something wrong? Alter the past and disturb things?'

It was almost impossible, he discovered, to tell her. But she would find out anyhow, as soon as she made inquiries. Virgil would have received no part, because as soon as she left the past the part left, too; Virgil, as a child, had received an empty envelope or nothing at all. He found this mournfully sad.

'What is it?' she was asking laboriously. 'I can tell by your expression – I know you so well – that I did something bad.'

Eric said, 'I'm just surprised. By your ingenuity. Listen.' He crouched down beside her, put his hand on her shoulder. 'Don't count on it making much difference; your job here with Virgil can't basically be improved on and anyhow Virgil is hardly the grateful type.'

'But it was worth a try, don't you think?'

'Yes,' he said, straightening up. He was glad at that point to let it drop.

He said good-by to her, patted her – futilely – once more, and then he made his way to the elevator and from it to Virgil Ackerman's office.

Virgil, glancing up as he entered, cackled, 'I heard you were back, Eric. Sit down and tell me how it is; Kathy looks bad, doesn't she? Hazeltine wasn't—'

'Listen,' Eric said, shutting the door. The two of them were alone. 'Virgil, can you get Molinari here to TF&D?'

'Why?' Birdlike, Virgil regarded him alertly.

Eric told him.

When he had heard, Virgil said, 'I'll call Gino. I can hint and because we know each other he'll understand on an intuitive level. He'll come. Probably right away; when he acts he goes fast.'

'I'll stay here, then,' Eric decided. 'I won't return to Cheyenne. In fact maybe I'd better go back to the Caesar Hotel and stay with Deg.'

'And take a gun with you,' Virgil said. He picked up the vidphone receiver and said, 'Get me the White House in Cheyenne.' To Eric he said, 'If they've got this line tapped it won't help them; they won't be able to tell what we're talking about.' Into the receiver he said, 'I want to talk to secretary Molinari; this is Virgil Ackerman calling personally.'

Eric sat back and listened. It was going well now, finally. He could take this moment to rest. Become simply a spectator.

From the vidphone a voice, that of the White House switchboard operator, squalled in frantic hysteria, 'Mr Ackerman, is Dr Sweetscent there? We can't locate him and Molinari, Mr Molinari, I mean, is dead, and can't be revived.'

Virgil raised his eyes and confronted Eric.

'I'm on my way,' Eric said. He felt only numb. Nothing more.

'Too late,' Virgil said. 'I'll bet you.'

The operator shrilled, 'Mr Ackerman, he's been dead two hours how; Dr Teagarden can't do anything with him, and—'

'Ask what organ gave out,' Eric said.

The operator heard him. 'His heart. Is that you, Dr Sweet-scent? Dr Teagarden said the aortic artery ruptured—'

'I'll take an artiforg heart with me,' Eric said to Virgil. To the operator at the White House he said, Tell Teagarden to keep his body temp as low as he can; I'm sure he's doing that anyhow.'

There's one good high-speed ship on the roof field,' Virgil said. 'It's the ship we flew to Wash-35 in; it's undoubtedly the best anywhere near here.'

'I'll pick out the heart myself,' Eric decided. 'So I'll go back to my office; why don't you get the ship readied for me?' He was calm at this point. It was either too late or it wasn't. He got there in time or he didn't. Haste, right now, had remote value.

Virgil, as he tapped the vidphone switch for TF&D's switchboard, said, The 2056 you were in is not the one connected to our world.'

'Evidently not,' Eric agreed. And started on the run for the elevator.

At the White House roof field Don Festenburg met him, pale and stammering with tension. 'W-where were you, doctor? You didn't notify anybody you were leaving Cheyenne; we thought you were somewhere nearby.' He strode ahead of Eric, toward the field's nearest in-track.

Carrying the boxed artiforg, Eric followed.

At the door of the Secretary's bedroom Teagarden appeared, his face constricted with fatigue. 'Just for the hell of it, where were you, doctor?'

I was trying to end the war, Eric thought. He said merely, 'How cool is he?'

'No appreciable metabolism; don't you think I know how to conduct that aspect of restoration? I've got written instructions here which automatically become operative the moment he's unconscious or dead and can't be revived.' He handed Eric the sheets.

At a glance Eric saw the vital paragraph. No artiforg. Under any circumstances. Even if it were the only chance for Moli-nari's survival.

'Is this binding?' Eric asked.

'We've consulted the Attorney General,' Dr Teagarden said. 'It is. You ought to know; any artiforg in anybody, can only be inserted with written permission in advance.'

'Why does he want it this way?' Eric asked.

'I don't know,' Teagarden said. 'Will you make an attempt to revive him without use of the artiforg heart which I see you brought? That's all we're left with.' His tone dropped with bitterness and defeat. 'With nothing. He complained about his heart before you left; he told you – I heard him – that he thought an artery had ruptured. And you walked out of here.' He stared at Eric.