Terraplane (16 page)

"You were an officer, your army card says?"

"I was."

"Told me you were in over twenty years. What was your rank
when you left?"

Of course; the hologram meant nothing to him. I returned my
army ID to their hands. "Slant it lightways," I said. "Viz the
doublestar? That demonstrates major general's rank. As of retirement, certainly."

Ile shook his head as Wanda stared calmly on. "How'd you get to
be a general?"

"Promotions," I said. "One automatic upon retirement. Earlier,
a lack of applicables-"

"You can't rise above master sergeant in the army," said Doc.

"I enlisted as a second lieutenant."

Again, he vizzed my ID. "What is this thing, anyway?"

"A hologram," I said. "Sort of a photograph."

"You're full of this Buck Rogers shit," he said. "How'd you get
here?"

"We flew Oktobriana understands the principles. I don't know
how we got here, otherwise. I warned that belief may come hard."

"Damn hard," said Wanda.

"How can you fly into the past?" Doc asked. "That is, seeing
how you're from the future you must do this all the time." I
wondered if he was serious.

"Certainly not," I said. "I've no idea what proof testifies-"

"You all do seem kind of confused about pretty simple things."

"So's Herman Brown down the street," said Wanda. "He don't
tell people he's from the future."

"She knows how to get you back?" Doc asked, ignoring his wife,
his vast back turned towards her. "You are going back, aren't you?"

"Back to Germany," said Wanda.

"Hush!" he shouted. "Let the man speak."

"Variables interfere," I said. "If a fellow of ours isn't uncovered
we may be limboed here till-" Till when? Till we were born
again? I wished not to wonder just then. "Whenever."

"Say we give you a hand, wherever you're from," Doc said. "We
get anything out of it?"

I shook my head. "We've nothing offerable."

"The future, huh?" said Doc. "What kinda help you figure on
needing?"

"We need to bed it first," I said. "We need guidance here. We
wish to leave before you wish us gone, undoubted-"

"Don't bet on it," said Wanda.

"We don't need none of your lip," said Doc, his forehead's
central vein rising as if tourniqueted. "All right. One step out of
line and you get the boot. You can stay with us awhile-"

"Oh, Norman-" He lifted his hand as if to slap; didn't.

"Stay awhile and if you need a little help gettin' on your feet, I'll
do something."

"Appreciated. "

"Main thing you're going to need if you're going to be sticking
around, though, is papers. First thing in the morning I'll call a
friend of mine, he's good with that sort of hooey. He owes me a
favor anyway."

"Should Jake and Oktobriana be papered as well?"

He seemed surprised. "That's not necessary."

"This ain't no mission house," said Wanda. `Anybody wants to
eat they going to give me a hand, no matter how bad you're feeling
when you wake up in the morning. You're going to help me keep
the joint picked up and you're not moving in permanent."

"Don't be so hard-nosed this time of night, Wanda," he said.
"I'm beat to the bricks." The rhythm below began again, shook the
room's floor. The horns sprayed uncountable notes through the
muffling underfoot. The sound attracted; it was so human. "There
many Negro generals in your army?" he asked, laughing.

"Sixteen, at present," I said. "Natural selection. Nothing other."

"Maybe where you're from," he said, that head vein of his close
to explosion. "Probably even have a Negro President-"

"For two years," I said. "He was shot in Kansas City-"

"Like they're always saying, Wanda," Doc said softly; happiness
of unknown origin nearly aureolaed his face. "Better times ahead.
See?"

"Shit," she said. "We'll never see 'em. I'm going back to bed."
She turned, left the room. Perhaps only my perception of their
conversations made so much seem as riddle.

"You just got to laugh it off," Doc said. "She's moody, this late.
And she wasn't expecting company. Come on. I'll spread out some
sheets on the front room floor so you two can make up pallets.
Peewee can sleep on the davenport. I'm guessing you all know each
other fairly well." I shrugged. "Good thing tomorrow's Saturday,"
he continued, replacing his medical tools within a worn leather
bag. "Let's cross the hall. Good music playing to go to sleep by,
ain't it? The Prez-"

So, perhaps we could trust; perhaps not. Choice wasn't inher ent. Onearmed, Jake cradled Oktobriana during transit, his face
free of either pain or concern. Into his glassed eyes she directed her
glance. Even at my distance her fire flamed full, her unfathomable
devotion keen to burn, if not both, then one; if not one, then the
other. I lugged the bags, doubtful now as to the essentiality of all
that we'd brought.

"You got nightclothes in your bags?" Doc asked.

"Her bags," I said. "We weren't expecting an overnight."

"Some spies. Don't even bring pajamas-"

"I have no frivolous sleepwear," Oktobriana muttered.

"Just keep bundled up good, then," he said. Their apartment
resembled old ones I'd seen, though theirs was of purer form:
woodwork's edges weren't rounded by the usual palimpsest of pain
layer; all original fixtures were properly placed; the walls ran
smooth beneath mauve-flowered paper. A large front room,
kitchen and hall evidenced; downhall, I estimated, was the bath,
their bedroom and possibly more. The three-meter ceiling enlarged the roomspace by inference and impression, lessened the
massive furniture's bulk. All windows along Eighth Avenue's wall
were open; this room's ceiling fan almost succeeded in cooling air.

"I'll get what you need. Make yourself at home," said Doc. For a
moment we stood in crystal stillness; a grinding shatter from without tore away all calm. The elevated ran along Eighth, I recalled,
just outside, five floors above.

"We'll adapt," I said, fingering loose optimism's crumbs.

"If need be," said Jake, settling slow into an overstuffed chair,
favoring his injured arm, resting his head upon an embroidery
draped across chairtop. Oktobriana unbundled, sitting upon the
rowboat-sized couch; in silence stripped her shirt and trousers,
stretched and yawned, showed underarm puffs, pink nubs of nipple, stomach's flat board, an untrimmed tuft of dark at belly's base.
I shifted my look away; saw, looking again, then she looked at none
but Jake. Jake tried not to see her; did, did again, and eyeshot, as if
to gaze overlong would make him as stone, or worse. Rewrapping
within the sheet tucked round her earlier, she lay down, coughing
as if she smoked; she didn't.

"How're you feeling?" I asked again, my voice cracking as if with
rebirthed glands.

"Tired," she said. "New York is always so hot?"

"Usually," I said, realized that I referred to a different climate.
"Often." Finding another chair, one with arms so wide that it
could have seated four, I sat alone.

"What's behinding?" Jake asked. "A mainframe?" Turning, I saw
only a wooden box, its leering face made of two knobbed eyes, a
clear yellow dial of a nose, a broad fabric smirk.

"A radio," I said, studying the dial. "Stromberg-Carlson."

"So oversize?" he said. "Why?"

"Vacuum tubes," said Oktobriana, her eyes closed as she lay
down. "Communication media here operates only with use of
many vacuum tubes wasting much valuable space in inefficient
manner. Is most unavoidable hindrance if need to employ progressive technology is seen."

I thought of our own tech; how to recover it. "Where's the tracker
show him, Jake?"

"It's set still to Moscow grid," he said, looking. "The light
flickers, the green shows. He's viabled, wherever he is."

Doc returned, bearing a load of bedware; threw sheets upon the
carpet, placed covers and pillows on an empty chair.

"I'll let you all do the setting up," he said. "I got to get some shuteye, myself. Get you some towels in the morning." He spotted the
tracker. "What's that?"

"We're following our friend with it," I said.

"I've never seen anything like that," he said.

"Of course. Jake, we'll reset it in the morning. At this hour I'm
barely thinking, much less thinking straight."

"Maybe in the morning," Doc said, "you can tell me what the
future's going to be like." Morning, yes; it wasn't something you
wanted to hear before sleep. "Good night," he said, leaving the
room for hall's darkness. In several minutes we'd made our beds.
Oktobriana sneezed, groaned and stirred again.

"Is extra pillow there?" she asked. "Such hard springs in these
cushions. "

We'd no extras. "I'll try to snare one," I said, rising and moving
downhall to where light showed underdoor; the sound of waterrush
within comforted me that it was bath and not bed.

"Doc?" I asked, tapping the wood. There came the sound of
closure's click, and of medicine chest's slain.

"What, Luther?" he asked, whispering as he opened the door; a
pinprick at elbow joint yet bled, a round dark dot rising from his
skin. "Need something else?"

"Oktobriana needs another pillow if you're spared."

"Right in the closet here. I'll get it." When he tugged a long
chain, switching on hall light, I saw he retained his sleeveless
under, though his shirt was long removed. When he grasped a
pillow topshelved I saw something right-shoulder centered, half
hidden by shirt strap.

"You get that under fire, Doc?" I asked. `A warscar?"

"What?"

"On your back."

"Never saw one of these?" he asked, so quietly I barely heard; he
turned to show. Upon facing me again, he switched off the light
before I might see his eyes, passed me the pillow. "See you in the
morning. "

"Good night," I said. "Thank you." He slipped behind the
bedroom door, shutting it close, leaving me feeling as if accidentally I'd cut into his soul. Returning to the front I saw Jake's suit
piled next to where he lay between his covers. Oktobriana, already
asleep, had pulled her thin white sheet tight round her; she sweated
so that she seemed even more nude then than when she had been.
Shy in strange women's presence, anxious to conceal inadvertent
reaction, I retained my pants as I turned off the room's lamps and
lay down. The floor felt almost soft.

"What's to be done, Luther?" Jake asked.

"Sleep," I said. "We'll earplay. I don't gather all that's up."

"I gather none," he said; fell silent after. The elevated's grumble
seemed barely heard after the first two hours, and came almost to
comfort. Towards dawn I awoke, finding the room lit with sun's
amber glow, summerlight full of haze and wet, banded by the elevated as if by an arbor's ribs. Flies tickled my skin as they
reconnoitered.

"Jake-" I heard; gave no sign of my listening. Earlier-how
much earlier, I couldn't say-she'd awakened and crept floorways,
sliding next to Jake, between his sheets. From across the room I
watched, giving ear to inaudible murmurs. When she pressed close,
he pulled away; when she wrapped round, he unbound. She slipped
and rolled, dove undersheet, rubbed and nuzzled; clung to his
shoulders as if her hold on him were all that kept her from sinking.
Her energy astonished; still, she drew no reaction. Throughout all
Jake remained still, as if to move would be his end. She must have
felt to be loving the dead.

"I can't," he said at last. With voyeur's view I saw her cry,
doelike, with no sound other than the hush of tears rushing down
her cheeks.

"Jake," she said. "Brazhny."

She returned to the couch, leaving her bastard behind, his
perfect control undisturbed. Before sleep took me again into more
bearable state, I recalled inescapably clear what I'd seen; remembered the impression in Doc's back, the mark which reawared me
with Alekhine's warning, that all that seemed familiar would show
as other as time passed. The notion buckled my mind, the memory
terrorized it. Scars etched Doc's back, but this was no scar; a
message passed without tattoo's signal. He carried a brand name: an
elongated oval keloid-raised from his shoulder blade. The
oval's upper curve read NO DEPOSIT; the lower, NO RETURN. Centered within that ring, in the oldstyle script used to the day we
absorbed them, their mark: PROPERTY OF THE COCA-COLA CO.,
.ATLANTA, GA.

"HUNGRY?" Doc ASKED SHORTLY AFTER WAKING US AT NINE,
while we dragged ourselves free from sleep's grave. Jake and I
hadn't chowed since Skuratov's treat the night previous plus one, so
many years gone by.

"Is a scrubber close?" Jake asked, unfolding his blackened
whites. Hearing no reply, he remarked: "Supply detergent and I'll
tub it."

Oktobriana rose, her sheet sticking to her as if with glue. "Detergent is not yet invented, Jake," she said.

"We got laundry soap," Doc said, grasping the drift. "Won't you
ruin that suit if you soak it? Won't it shrink?"