Now Wait for Last Year (6 page)

'It's the same,' Kathy informed him. 'Everything's the same, when you break through to absolute reality; it's all one vast blur.' She then swallowed, coughed. The capsule was gone.

Reaching, Himmel took his. The others followed.

'If the Mole's police caught us,' Simon said, to no one in particular, 'we'd all be in the Army, serving out at the front.'

'Or working in vol-labe camps at Lilistar,' Himmel added. They were all tense, waiting for the drug to take effect; it always ran this way, these short seconds before the jink got to them. 'For good old Freneksy, as it's translated into English. Bottom, thou art translated as Freneksy.' He giggled shakily. Katherine Sweetscent glared at him.

'Miss,' Marm Hastings said to her in an unperturbed voice, 'I wonder if I haven't met you before; you do seem familiar. Do you spend much time in the Bay area? I have a studio and architect-designed home in the hills of West Marin, near the ocean ... we hold seminars there often; people come and go freely. But I would remember you. Oh yes.'

Katherine Sweetscent said, 'My damn husband – he wouldn't ever let me. I'm self-supporting – I'm more than economically independent – and yet I have to put up with the rasping little noises and squeaks he makes whenever I try to do something original on my own.' She added, 'I'm an antique buyer, but old things become boring; I'd love to—'

Marm Hastings interrupted, speaking to Chris Plout, 'Where does this JJ-180 originate, Plout? You said Germany, I think. But you see, I have a number of contacts in pharmaceutical institutes, both public and private, in Germany, and none of them has so much as mentioned anything called JJ-180.' He smiled, but it was a sharply formed astute smile, demanding an answer.

Chris shrugged. That's the poog as I get it, Hastings. Take it or leave it.' He was not bothered; he knew, as they all did, that under these circumstances no brief of warranty was incumbent on him.

Then it's not actually German,' Hastings said, with a faint nod. 'I see. Could this JJ-180, or Frohedadrine as it's also called ....ould it possibly originate entirely off Terra?'

After a pause Chris said, 'I dunno, Hastings. I dunno.'

To all of them Hastings said in his educated, severe voice, There have been cases of illegal non-terrestrial drugs before. None of them of any importance. Derived from Martian flora, mostly, and occasionally from Ganymedean lichens. I suppose you've heard; you all seem informed on this topic, as you should be. Or at least—' His smile grew, but his eyes, behind his rimless glasses, were codlike. 'At the very least you seem satisfied as to the pedigree of this JJ-180 for which you've paid this man fifty US dollars.'

'I'm satisfied,' Simon Ild said in his stupid way. 'Anyhow it's too late; we paid Chris and we've all taken the caps.'

'True,' Hastings agreed reasonably. He seated himself in one of Chris's tottering easy chairs. 'Does anyone feel any change yet? Please speak up as soon as you do.' He glanced at Katherine Sweetscent. 'Your nipples seem to be watching me, or is that just my imagination? In any case it makes me decidedly uncomfortable.'

'As a matter of fact,' Chris Plout said in a strained voice, 'I feel something, Hastings.' He licked his lips, trying to wet them. 'Excuse me. I – to be frank, I'm here alone. None of you are with me.'

Marm Hastings studied him.

'Yes,' Chris went on. 'I'm all alone in my conapt. None of you even exist. But the books and chairs, everything else exists. Then who'm I talking to? Have you answered?' He peered about, and it was obvious that he could not see any of them; his gaze passed by them all.

'My nipples are not watching you or anybody else,' Kathy Sweetscent said to Hastings.

'I can't hear you,' Chris said in panic. 'Answer!'

'We're here,' Simon Ild said, and sniggered.

'Please,' Chris said, and now his voice was pleading. 'Say something: it's just shadows. It's – lifeless. Nothing but dead things. And it's only starting – I'm scared of how it's going on; it's still happening.'

Marm Hastings laid his hand on Chris Plout's shoulder.

The hand passed through Plout.

'Well, we've gotten our fifty dollars' worth,' Kathy Sweet-scent said in a low voice, void of amusement. She walked toward Chris, closer and closer.

'Don't try it,' Hastings said to her in a gentle tone.

'I will,' she said. And walked through Chris Plout. But she did not reappear on the other side. She had vanished; only Plout remained, still bleating for someone to answer him, still flailing the air in search of companions he could no longer perceive.

Isolation, Bruce Himmel thought to himself. Each of us cut off from all the others. Dreadful. But – it'll wear off. Won't it?

As yet he did not know. And for him it had not even started.

'These pains,' UN Secretary General Gino Molinari rasped, lying back on the large, red, hand-wrought couch in the living room of Virgil Ackerman's Wash-35 apartment, 'generally become most difficult for me at night.' He had shut his eyes; his great fleshy face sagged forlornly, the grimy jowls wobbling as he spoke. 'I've been examined; Dr Teagarden is my chief GP. They've made infinite tests, with particular attention directed toward malignancy.'

Eric thought. The man's speaking by rote; it's not his natural speech pattern. This has become that ingrained in his mind, this preoccupation; he's gone through this ritual a thousand times, with as many physicians. And – he still suffers.

There's no malignancy,' Molinari added. 'That seems to have been authoritatively verified.' His words constituted a satire of pompous medical diction, Eric realized suddenly. The Mole had immense hostility toward doctors, since they had failed to help him. 'Generally the diagnosis is acute gastritis. Or spasms of the phyloric valve. Or even an hysterical re-enactment of my wife's labor pains, which she experienced three years ago.' He finished, half to himself, 'Shortly before her death.'

'What about your diet?' Eric asked.

The Mole opened his eyes wearily. 'My diet. I don't eat, doctor. Nothing at all. The air sustains me; didn't you read that in the homeopapes? I don't need food, like you simple schulps do. I'm different.' His tone was urgently, acutely embittered.

'And it interferes with your duties?' Eric asked.

The Mole scrutinized him. 'You think it's psychosomatic, that outmoded pseudo science that tried to make people morally responsible for their ailments?' He spat in anger; his face writhed and now the flesh was no longer hanging and loose – it was stretched taut, as if ballooned out from within. 'So I can escape my responsibilities? Listen, doctor; I still have my responsibilities – and the pain. Can that be called secondary neurotic psychological gain?'

'No,' Eric admitted. 'But anyhow I'm not qualified to deal with psychosomatic medicine; you'd have to go to—'

'I've seen them,' the Mole said. All at once he dragged himself to his feet, stood swaying, facing Eric. 'Get Virgil back here; there's no point in your wasting your time interrogating me. And anyhow I don't choose to be interrogated. I don't care for it.' He strode unsteadily toward the door, hitching up his sagging khaki trousers as he went.

Eric said, 'Secretary, you could have your stomach removed, you realize. At any time. And an artiforg planted in replacement. The operation is simple and almost always successful. Without examining your case records I shouldn't say this, but you may have to have your stomach replaced one of these days. Risk or no risk.' He was certain that Molinari would survive; the man's fear was palpably phobic.

'No,' Molinari said quietly. 'I don't have to; it's my choice. I can die instead.'

Eric stared at him.

'Sure,' Molinari said. 'Even though I'm the UN Secretary General. Hasn't it occurred to you that I want to die, that these pains, this developing physical – or psychosomatic – illness is a way out for me? I don't want to go on. Maybe. Who knows? What difference does it make, to anybody? But the hell with it.' He tore open the hall door. 'Virgil,' he boomed in a surprisingly virile voice. 'For chrissake, let's pour and get this party started.' Over his shoulder he said to Eric, 'Did you know this was a party? I bet the old man told you it was a serious conference for solving Terra's military, political, and economic problems. In one half hour.' He grinned, showing his big, white teeth.

'Frankly,' Eric said, 'I'm glad to hear it's a party.' The session with Molinari had been as difficult for him as it had been for the Secretary. And yet – he had an intuition that Virgil Ackerman would not let it end there. Virgil wanted something done for the Mole; he desired to see the man's distress eased, and for a good, practical reason.

The collapse of Gino Molinari would signify an end to Virgil's possession of TF&D. Management of Terra's economic syndromes no doubt held priority for Freneksy's officials; their agenda had probably been drawn up in detail.

Virgil Ackerman was a shrewd businessman.

'How much,' Molinari asked suddenly, 'does the old fruit Pay you?'

'V-very well,' Eric said, taken by surprise.

Molinari, eyeing him, said, 'He's talked to me about you. Before this get-together. Sold me on you, how good you are. Because of you he's still alive long after he ought to be dead, all that crap.' They both smiled. 'What's your choice in liquor, doctor? I like anything. And I like fried chops and Mexican food and spare ribs and fried prawns dipped in horse-radish and mustard ... I treat my stomach kind.'

'Bourbon,' Eric said.

A man entered the room, glanced at Eric. He had a gray, grim expression and Eric realized that this was one of the Mole's Secret Service men.

'This is Tom Johannson,' the Mole explained to Eric. 'He keeps me alive; he's my Dr Eric Sweetscent. But he does it with his pistol. Show doc your pistol, Tom; show him how you can nam anybody, any time you want, at any distance. Plug Virgil as he comes across the hall, right in the fnigging heart; then doc can paste a new heart in its place. How long does it take, doc? Ten, fifteen minutes?' The Mole laughed loudly. And then he motioned to Johannson. 'Shut the door.'

His bodyguard did so; the Mole stood facing Eric Sweetscent.

'Listen, doctor. Here's what I want to ask you. Suppose you began to perform an org-trans operation on me, taking out my old stomach and putting in a new one, and something went wrong. It wouldn't hurt, would it? Because I'd be out. Could you do that?' He watched Eric's face. 'You understand me, don't you? I see you do.' Behind them, at the closed door, the bodyguard stood impassively, keeping everyone else out, preventing them from hearing. This was for Eric alone. In utmost confidence.

'Why?' Eric said, after a time. Why not simply use Johannson's loger-magnum pistol? If this is what you want...

'I don't know why, actually,' the Mole said. 'No one particular reason. The death of my wife, perhaps. Call it the responsibility I have to bear....nd which I'm not managing to discharge properly, at least according to many people. I don't agree; I think I'm succeeding. But they don't understand all the factors in the situation.' He admitted, then, 'And I'm tired.'

'It – could be done,' Eric said truthfully.

'And you could do it?' The man's eyes blazed, keen and fixed on him. Sizing him up as each second ticked away.

'Yes, I could do it.' He held, personally, an odd view regarding suicide. Despite his code, the ethical under-structure of medicine, he believed – and it was based on certain very real experiences in his own life – that if a man wanted to die he had the right to die. He did not possess an elaborated rationalization to justify this belief; he had not even tried to construct one. The proposition, to him, seemed self-evident. There was no body of evidence which proved that life in the first place was a boon. Perhaps it was for some persons; obviously it was not for others. For Gino Molinari it was a nightmare. The man was sick, guilt-ridden, saddled with an enormous, really hopeless task: he did not have the confidence of his own people, the Terran population, and he did not enjoy the respect or trust or admiration of the people of Lilistar. And then, above and beyond all that, lay the personal consideration, the events in his own private life, starting with the sudden, unexpected death of his wife and ending up with the pains in his belly. And then, too, Eric realized with acute comprehension, there was probably more. Factors known only to the Mole. Deciding factors which he did not intend to tell.

'Would you do such a thing?' Molinari asked.

After a long, long pause Eric said, 'Yes I would. It would be an agreement between the two of us. You'd ask for it and I'd give it to you and it would end there. It would be no one's business but our own.'

'Yes.' The Mole nodded and on his face relief showed; he seemed now to relax a little, to experience some peace. 'I can see why Virgil recommended you.'

'I was going to do it to myself, once,' Eric said. 'Not so long ago.'

The Mole's head jerked, he stared at Eric Sweetscent with a look so keen that it cut through his physical self and into that which lay at the deepest, most silent part of him. 'Really?' the Mole said then.

'Yes.' He nodded. So I can understand, he thought to himself, can empathize with you even without having to know the exact reasons.

'But I,' the Mole said, 'want to know the reasons.' It was so close to a telepathic reading of his mind that Eric felt stunned; he found himself unable to look away from the penetrating eyes and he realized, then, that it had been no parapsycho-logical talent on the Mole's part: it had been swifter and stronger than that.

The Mole extended his hand; reflexively, Eric accepted it. And, once he had done so, he found the grip remaining; the Mole did not release his hand but tightened his grip so that pain flew up Eric's arm. The Mole was trying to see him better, trying, as Phyllis Ackerman had done not so long ago, to discover everything that could be discovered about him. But out of the Mole's mind came no glib, flip theories; the Mole insisted on the truth, and articulated by Eric Sweetscent himself. He had to tell the Mole what it had been; he had no choice.